“Not immediately. I gave away most of her clothes, but I kept the suitcase. I discovered the box last year.”
“What else was inside?”
“Letters.”
“How many?”
“More than forty.”
The courtyard seemed to tilt beneath me.
Clara quietly walked back into the restaurant, leaving David and me alone.
I stared at the envelope.
“Michael wrote to your wife?”
“For years.”
“How many years?”
David’s eyes filled.
“Almost eleven.”
I pushed the envelope away.
“No.”
“I wish I were wrong.”
“No. Michael did not secretly maintain another relationship for eleven years.”
David did not argue.
For a brief moment, I hated him for that.
I wanted him to defend Michael.
I wanted him to tell me the letters had been misunderstood.
That Ruth and Michael had been old friends.
That whatever happened between them had never crossed an important boundary.
Instead, David said quietly, “They met during a conference in Valletta.”
I remembered the trip.
Michael worked for a shipping company then and traveled constantly. I stayed home with Rebecca, who had just begun school.
He called every evening.
At least I believed he did.
“Ruth was visiting her sister,” David continued. “She met Michael in this restaurant.”
I looked around.
At the stone walls.
The flowering vines.
The harbor visible through the archway.
This was where my husband had met another man’s wife.
“Did they meet again?”
