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When my husband passed suddenly last winter, I felt as though someone had taken a giant eraser to my life. At just 41, he was active, healthy—or so the doctors thought. He collapsed one morning, coffee still hot on the counter, his wallet on the nightstand where he always left it. I drifted through the year after like a ghost, barely touching any of his things. His coats still hung by the door.
Last week, with the chill finally giving way to spring, I decided it was time. I was ready to pack away his things. I reached for his gray wool coat—the one he wore on our last date night—and felt something crinkle in the inner pocket. I pulled out a small, folded note. His handwriting.
It read: “If something happens to me, tell Anna I’m sorry. It was never just the one time.”
The paper trembled in my hands. I read it again. And again. Anna? My best friend since college, the one who sat beside me at the funeral, holding my hand so tightly I thought it might bruise.
My lungs forgot how to expand as my past rewrote itself in front of me. The late nights at the office, the canceled trips when she happened to be in town — all those small things I’d dismissed. My grief twisted into something darker. Betrayal doesn’t wait for timing.
I haven’t called her. Haven’t said a word. But three nights ago, she texted me out of the blue: “Can we talk soon?”
I stared at the screen for a long time. Then I typed one sentence back: “Did you love him?”
Her response came after three hours of silence.
“Yes.”
And that’s where the story really begins.
