Then he left for college, and by the time I knew I loved him, he was marrying someone else, and his last letter asked me never to contact him again. I never married. I’d met the right man at seventeen.
Last Tuesday I turned sixty, and the landline rang. “I’m Peter, Jeffrey’s son. My father doesn’t have much time.” Then his voice: “Ruthie. I was in love with you when we made that promise. I’d already bought the ring. Come to the hospital. You’ll understand why I walked away.”
On the chair beside his bed was a wooden box: a velvet ring case, forty-one letters tied with string — one for every year, all addressed to me — and a framed drawing of me at nineteen, under the bleachers.
“I wrote you every birthday for forty-one years. I never sent them. Not after what I did to protect you. Sit down, Ruthie.”
