Chapter 25

25

E LIZABETH

The opportunities to read Anna’s letters have been slim so far.

The flight was enjoyable and uneventful.

I read and slept for a few hours while he chatted with his people.

Last night, we slept embraced, and this morning, we left the hotel together.

I’m so stressed out he might stumble over that information that it’s essential to sort this out.

At least find out what’s in it.

And then, the opportunity arises when I expect it the least.

He goes to a meeting after lunch while I return to our hotel suite.

My hands tremble as I push the door open and walk in. The rooms are in perfect order, with a basket of goodies on the table. I pick up a cookie and take a bite before rushing to shed my clothes, shower, throw on a robe, and return.

I dig the ziplock bag out while finishing my cookie.

“Finally…” I murmur, running my fingers over my mouth to brush off a few crumbs.

Damnit.

Why did it take me so long?

I flip the ziplock bag upside down and let the contents fall to the bed.

My eyes move over the scraps of paper.

I find all kinds of things written down.

Some are important. Some are not.

One piece of paper catches my eye.

It’s a list of dates, and I quickly learn it’s a summary of all the times they’ve seen each other.

It starts with the day they have met. A few words are scribbled under each date.

It’s like a minimalist diary.

The words are poetic and nostalgic, and it dawns on me that they were recorded in retrospect, not when they happened.

She uses the past tense, and the tone of her writings expresses regret more than anything else.

The list is neat, organized, and written with the dedication of someone who doesn’t want to miss a bit of a timeline they consider a treasure.

My findings are at odds with what he said.

Without necessarily misleading me, he painted a picture of someone who had been impulsive and unreliable. Maybe she was. Maybe there was a hidden side to her. A side she didn’t want to reveal to him.

Whatever way she was, emotions swirl now in my chest.

I feel for this woman.

She put down every little significant detail.

The radiography of a story with an abrupt ending.

The big gaps when they were away from each other.

The pain she struggled with and found a few new names for. Fever and misery. Torment and abandonment.

She felt abandoned by him, an irrational take on it, as she had noted in her writings.

I lean back against the pillow, intrigued by Anna more than ever.

The soul sickness, as she herself also appropriately calls it, is interrupted by elation, love, and fulfillment.

She doesn’t sound like someone who had fallen out of love.

Every signal she’d gotten from him.

Every message, call, video call, or written letter had meant the world to her.

None of them could replace him.

She says that.

I flip the paper over, and the inventory of her feelings ends abruptly with a thick dark line she construes as a shifting point.

I don’t know what the meaning of that line is in their timeline, but underneath, in tiny flowery letters, she tries to explain herself with some clipped commentary.

The letter ’N’ from Ned, I supposed, starts popping up more often.

Ned came home. They caught up on things. They ate at a dinner.

This portion of her list doesn’t read like a confession. More like admitting that she’s moving on. Or trying something different.

There is no sorrowful contemplative commentary of any kind. It’s only the recording of the events in a pragmatic fashion.

I let out a sigh.

Her list seems unfinished, although I’m sure it made perfect sense to her.

Frustrated, I reach inside and find the letters he wrote to her. I can’t read those. As much as I want to learn more about him, I don’t want to put myself through it.

Besides, this is their sanctuary. The sacred story that belongs to them.

He was different then, and so was she.

He sent her those letters without the expectation that one day, a woman from the future, someone other than Anna, would read them as well.

These letters are off-limits. But something else falls from the bunch, and that looks like a different kind of letter.

The paper is different.

This was written on a sheet of vintage looking paper, something you’d find at the stationery store.

The paper is thicker and has a nice warm yellow tinge to it. I unfold it and start to read.

‘Dear David,

You will never read this letter.

It will never find its way to you.

It was never meant for you.

I’m writing it for myself.

I’m writing it to make peace with myself.

I’m writing it to admit in front of the universe what I should’ve told you in person that night.

You are and will always be the only man I’ve ever loved.

How do I know that?

I just know.

The same way I knew about Julie.

You don’t know Julie, but she is the biggest wonder of all.

She is the immense gift the universe has given me.

I love her with all my heart. And Ned loves her, too, but he doesn’t know the whole story.

He doesn’t know what we both know about that night when he was waiting outside while I was supposed to break up with you, and you were supposed to hate me.

You hated me.

You hated me so much.

And hate never tasted that good.

Your hate left bruises on my lips, my neck, my arms.

Your hate made me think about that night like the best night we ever had.

Your hate gave me Julie, David. And I am so grateful for her.

Things had to stay the way they were.

We couldn’t make this work if you had known the truth.

The truth is mine and only mine, and it might be selfish to say that, and you might crucify me for this. And you would be well within your right to do that, but I had to keep this to myself and not mess with her head.

I didn’t hook up with Ned because he was better than you.

He wasn’t.

I didn’t accept his proposal because I wanted his money and a stable life.

Although it mattered.

I know you could’ve given me all that at some point.

But with you away, I was miserable all the time.

I couldn’t sleep, eat, work, and see about my life.

A part of me was always someplace else.

My nights were full of fear and tears as I was thinking something bad might happen to you. I couldn’t even consider that.

Life without you made no sense to me.

Life with you gone would’ve meant the end of me.

Maybe you were right when you said that Ned spotted an opportunity and exploited it.

Yes, maybe you were right.

But he was peace where you were war. And I couldn’t even blame you for it.

That’s how you were, my beautiful war.

That’s why I fell in love with you.

It hurt so deeply when you broke away and ended up with that woman. I got your message. Just so you know. I knew exactly why you did it. It also spoke of how much pain I’d put in you. And for that, there are no words to express my sorrow.

Money is money, David.

It’s all the same in the end.

Sometimes, it buys us peace and calmness.

Something, it buys us hell.

I wanted some peace.

I got it with a side of hell.

You wanted to punish me.

You did.

You also got a slice of hell.

We all had to pay in some way.

The truth remains the truth.

You are what you are to me, and I will take this to my grave.’

And that she did.

The letter is not signed or dated.

It falls from my hand while I lie against the sheets like a wax figure before a thought spears through my head, and I frantically look at her list again and the contents of the bag.

“Oh, come on. You must’ve written it down somewhere,” I murmur.

A few tiny pieces of paper litter the bag. They are not exactly trash. One of them has a date on it. The word doomsday is written next to it.

I go through the rest of the contents and find a few copies of official documents. One of them is Julie’s birth certificate.

I check the date on her birth certificate and then the doomsday date––the day they’d broken up.

My eyes widen.

My mouth falls open.

Nine months.

Nine perfect months.

How could he not see that his blood running through her veins?

DAVID

“Yeah, man. I will. I’m sure we’ll make it,” I say, holding the phone against my ear and smiling.

I stop in front of the door and wrap up my conversation with James before sliding my phone into my pocket.

I linger a little longer, my fingers brushing the small jewelry box tucked inside my jacket.

My eyes tip to my watch.

We can go to dinner, or I can order food.

Nah.

We should go out.

Make this day special.

It is special.

I unlock the door and walk in, silence greeting me.

Everything is in order as if the housekeeper had just left. I notice the basket of goodies on the table. Tension grabs me by the throat.

There’s no sign of her.

“Elizabeth?” I call out, my hand already on my phone.

A noise comes from the other room.

I barely take a step in that direction when she walks through the door, wearing the same clothes she had on the entire day, her hair in perfect order, and her coat draped over her arm.

She looks like she’s going out.

We’re in Singapore, for fuck’s sake.

Where is she going?

She hasn’t stepped outside of the hotel since we arrived.

A bad feeling rams through me.

Her eyes are stern and fearful.

“What’s going on?” I ask as if I’m about to step into a blade. “Is everything all right?”

Obviously, it isn’t.

And I wish I could take this with all the calmness I'm capable of, but it’s like walking into the same setup.

Things building up to this pivotal moment.

Buying a dress for that woman in the past, ready to propose to her.

And now doing almost the same thing.

She’s worn the first woman’s dress.

And I have her ring in my pocket.

This can’t happen again.

Whether it does or it doesn’t, it’s irrelevant.

From the pits of hell, rivers of anguish come falling through me.

If I were to fall into that blade, it would break. I’m that tense.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she says, and my hands turn to dust.

It’s like I have sand in my mouth, and my lips are made of hay.

“Okay,” I say sternly, ready to take it as a man.

Ready for anything, to be honest.

Moments ago. James Sexton invited me and her to their party. He was seconds ago from asking me to confirm that she is my woman now.

But he didn’t do it.

And I didn’t want to do it either.

Because I wanted to propose to her first and walk her into that world as my significant other.

But life has a way of sneaking behind your back and throwing poisonous snakes into your face.

So, now I’m listening.

I can’t wait to see which way this thing will go.

She sets her coat on the bed with so much dedication I’m inclined to think it’s the most important thing in her life right now.

She must be nervous like me, which only makes things more dire.

From inside her coat, she removes something.

I don’t know what it is. It looks like a rolled ziplock bag.

She sits on the bed while I lean against the table.

I’m so nervous I can't sit next to her.

She has an expression of concern and despondency on her face, and that’s my clue.

She’s about to deliver a blow.

“Please don’t get mad…” she starts.

We’re probably past that point.

“I’m not mad,” I lie.

“If you’re not, you’ll surely be when I tell you what I have done.”

What the hell has she done?

Slept with another man?

Found someone else?

Has she lied to me?

Probably.

No?

What has she done?

Her eyes are clear, but she looks like she could be crying at any moment now.

And she is so beautiful with her red hair tied back with a big bow. Her eyebrows are arched, her lips pink.

Her skin smooth like peaches.

“I wanted to know more about you,” she says.

Something crumbles inside me.

That’s never a good start to a conversation.

There are things I’m not proud of, and while a lot of them had gone into Rain Sexton’s book, there are things Rain knew nothing about.

“It’s not what you think.”

I like the tone of her voice now.

She doesn’t seem angry, caught amidst an emotional storm. She sounds like an investigator presenting her clues.

That could be bad, but it could also be good.

A smidgen of hope blossoms in my chest.

What can be so bad about her wanting to learn more about me?

“What do I think?”

“It’s not about sex and all that stuff,” she says like a queen, and I become humble in her presence.

Someone’s opinion of me has never mattered more, and the fact that she shows me clemency for my tormented past is suddenly the best news today.

It’s like I just found out she commuted my sentence.

“What is it about?” I ask, a bit more relaxed.

I grab a chair, turn it around, and straddle it before resting my elbows on its back.

My gaze is locked with hers. I see the fear in her. She’s done something. I don’t know what, but she has surely done something.

“Tell me,” I say.

“I found out some information about your past.”

The blood drains out of my body.

If it’s not that past. The sex and partying and all that.

Then, it must be the other past.

She studies my expression closely.

“Please don’t get mad. I wanted to tell you about this so many times, but every time I considered doing it, we had such a good time. I didn’t want to ruin it for us. Besides, things have happened fast for us. You have to agree.”

“What did you do, Elizabeth?” I ask sternly.

“Nothing bad. I mean… It’s not nice. And the fact that I didn’t tell you it’s reprovable but––”

“What did you do?”

“I knew about Anna before you told me her story.”

I tip my chin up and look at her down my nose.

“How?”

She shrugs.

“Elizabeth?”

“Okay. All right.”

Tears thread through her voice.

“I got some information online, and then I went to an address and looked for Eleanor Winston.”

My hackles rise.

“And then I spoke to her neighbor. Because apparently she’s dead. Eleanor. Not the neighbor. And then I got this.”

She tosses the ziplock bag on the bed before looking at me, terrified.

“And you need to do a paternity test. Because I think and have proof to confirm that Julie is your daughter.”

The sky falls on me so fast that I lose my breath.

“What??”

She’s white like chalk.

“What did you just say?”

“Julie, your assistant, is your daughter, David.”

A nervous laugh finds its way to my lips.

“What are you talking about. She can’t be my daughter. There's no way.”

“Oh, but I think there is.”

She looks down, and faster than her, I leap to my feet and grab the ziplock bag from the bed before crushing back into my seat.

“What is this?”

I stare blankly at the contents of the ziplock bag, unable to calm down or focus on the papers tucked inside.

“It’s what Anna gave Eleanor. And Eleanor gave Sylvia.”

“Why?”

“Why what, David?”

“Why would she do that?”

I take them out. And spread them on the bed.

“Who are we talking about now?”

“Why would Anna do that? Leave these… What are these? Notes?”

A nervous hand leafs through the sheets of paper.

I pick one up.

“That’s not the one. Look,” she says, picking up a couple.

One looks like a lined sheet of notebook paper. The second one is more fancy. They both have Anna’s handwriting on them. And then I spot the letters we had exchanged.

“I didn’t read those. Just so you know,” Elizabeth says with tension in her voice. “And you need to see this.”

She hands me a copy of Julie’s birth certificate.

And right there, under the father’s name, I spot Ned’s name.

“What are you talking about?” I bark.

Her eyes trail to the spot in question.

“That’s not the truth. She says it in her letter.”

And just like that, she pushes to her feet and slides her coat on.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“You need to read that letter without me in the room. I’ll be downstairs. I’m getting some tea and a sandwich or something. You need privacy to process that thing.”

“You’ve already read it, I suppose.”

“Yes, I have. But only because… Well, it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t my intention to stumble into this. It’s just that since we spent time at Julie’s house, I couldn’t stop thinking that something was amiss. Something didn’t make sense to me. I watched you both when you sat next to each other at the table. She even looks like you.”

“She has blue eyes. That doesn’t mean she looks like me.”

“Please read Anna’s letter. And the list she had created. The timeline of your story.”

She’s ready to walk out.

“Julie can’t be my daughter.”

She spins around, her lips puckered, a frown on her face.

It’s the first time I've seen this stern Elizabeth.

“Not that it’s my business, but you two had sex the night you broke up. One of those hate fuck sessions. Whatever. It’s not my business.”

The memory of that night comes to me, galloping with torches in the background.

Yes, we did.

After she told me that she didn’t want to see me again. And I had to prove to her how much she actually wanted to see me.

She couldn’t dismiss the facts. She trembled in my arms, moaned out my name, and came under my frame with him outside.

That was proof enough.

Not enough to make her change her mind.

But still.

“Julie is not my kid.”

What the fuck? I’d know if I were a father.

“Anna and Ned were engaged. They were together,” I argue.

“And yet she slept with you.”

“Yes, she did. In my head, she was still mine.”

“Apparently, in her head, she was still yours.”

I toss the papers on the bed.

“Julie was a premature baby. But she was conceived a couple of months later,” I say.

She looks at me intently.

“Who told you that?”

“She told Eleanor, who is…”

I gesture at her.

“You probably already know who she is,” I say, a bit disappointed that she had to find out about my past from the neighbors.

“I know who she is. And what your connection to her was. I know everything. And everything makes sense to me. But you must also understand that Anna had left this information with Eleanor. So you figure it out,” she drops on me before turning around and walking away.

Fuck.

I didn’t see this coming.

I look at the sheets of paper on the bed and pick out the two pieces she pointed to, and not long after, I get to the vintage looking letter, and tears prick my eyes.