Burke, I am writing this letter because I’m too upset to call you on the phone again. Any conversation we might have at this point would only escalate into an ugly fight.
Yesterday was our anniversary. You forgot, but that’s not why I’m writing. Last night, around midnight, I heard Brianna struggling to breathe. I bundled her up and rushed her to the emergency room. The doctor said she had pneumonia. If I hadn’t gotten her right in, she could’ve died. I stayed, scared half to death, while they gave our little girl oxygen and pumped her full of antibiotics. Toward morning her fever broke and she started feeling better, but they kept her for the rest of the day and, of course, I stayed with her. They released her tonight and I brought her home. She’s sleeping now, but I’m afraid to close my eyes for fear she’ll be sick again.
I don’t know how many times I tried calling your room. I phoned the front desk as well, and left messages, but I never heard back. I know your work involves going to clubs and parties at night to check out the talent, but blast it, you have a family. You could have called. Better yet, you should have been here.
Sometimes, like now, I remember how happy we were in that little two-bedroom bungalow in Hollister. I loved waking up with you every morning and snuggling Brianna between us. And I never minded living on a budget. But that wasn’t enough for you. You had to buy this big, expensive house—a “surprise,” you said. After that, it was the boat and a couple of fancy cars. And to pay for everything, you had to build up the agency with more talent and take on the theater, which meant spending more time on the road than at home.
I never asked for this, Burke—not the house, not the cars, not any of it. All I ever wanted was you and me and Brianna together.
I know you take pride in the fact that your family lives in a showplace with a view of the lake, and that you work hard to provide the best of everything for us. But in all this time, you never once asked me what I wanted. If you had, I would have answered with one word—you.
The letter ended abruptly, without a closing or a signature, as if Kate had exhausted her supply of words. Or maybe she’d heard Brianna stirring and gone to check on her.
Allison folded the pages and slipped them back into the envelope. What had she learned from this letter? That Burke’s workaholic nature hadn’t changed and probably never would? She already knew that. But Kate’s frustration had come as a surprise. The woman hadn’t been a paragon of patience and unconditional love after all. She’d struggled against loneliness and anger, and she hadn’t been afraid to express herself—not in the letter at least.
The letter had offered some insights into the marriage and how Kate had coped with her work-obsessed husband. But it wasn’t enough. Evidently Burke hadn’t changed much over the years. But how had Kate made the journey from frustrated young wife to the loving, accepting woman who’d written about her cancer?
Allison slipped the letter back into the manila envelope with the others. By now, she knew that she wouldn’t be satisfied until she’d read all the letters in order—not in a single sitting, but one by one, giving herself time to study, ponder, and hopefully learn from each of them.
Upending the envelope, she dumped the letters onto the desk and began sorting them. Going by what she’d seen, Kate hadn’t dated her letters. Only the blurred and faded postmarks, some barely readable, told her when they’d been mailed.
Burke hadn’t talked much about his road trips. But he must have stayed in the same places long enough for Kate’s letters to reach him. The envelopes were addressed to various hotels, motels, and lodges, most of them in neighboring states, where he scouted the local talent and signed up the most promising with his agency—the family acts for Branson and other conservative settings, the adult fare for places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. In return for a percentage, he would find the talent new gigs all over the country. He was good at his job, making money for himself and his clients, some of whom were still with the agency after more than twenty years.
It took Allison about fifteen minutes to arrange the letters in order, including the one thick envelope that bore only Burke’s name and the request to open it after Kate’s death. Surprisingly, the letter with the earliest postmark was the one she’d just finished reading.
She ignored the temptation to read the next letter in the stack. She’d done enough for tonight. It was time to put the letters away and go upstairs to bed. Tomorrow was bound to be a trying day. It would be even worse if she was ragged from lack of sleep.
After replacing the letters and closing the drawer, she switched off the desk lamp and made her way back to the stairs, where the light in the hallway lit her way to the second floor. She could feel her fatigue in every step she took. Still, as she passed the door to Brianna’s room, an unexpected urge compelled her to step inside and turn on the wall switch.
The family photograph stood on Brianna’s bookshelf. Holding it by the edges of the frame, Allison studied the three faces—the proud, handsome man she loved, the young girl just emerging from childhood, and the woman whose mischievous smile hid a world of secrets.
Kate.
A woman who was no longer a stranger.
* * *
Burke woke to a raw pain that made him feel as if he were being sawed in two from behind. Straining to reach, he punched the call button on his bed. When the light came on, he fell back on the pillow to wait for the nurse.
He’d been dreaming again—another of the vivid, lifelike dreams that had come to him in the hospital, probably an effect of the pain meds. This time he’d been lying with Allison on a secluded beach, her body molding to his, her sun-bleached hair spread on the sand. Both of them were naked. He could feel the sun on his skin, hear the lapping of the surf and her whispers of love as her long, tanned legs wrapped his hips. It was heaven . . .
And hell was the shock of waking up, understanding where he was and why he was here, and knowing that, whatever happened, his warm, passionate relationship with Allison would never be the same again.
Earlier he’d had a different kind of dream. This time he’d been sitting next to Kate’s hospital bed, holding her hand as she slipped from life—swimming in morphine, her hair gone, her weight down to less than a hundred pounds. Her passing had come as a blessed relief, followed by a sense of loss that was like having his heart ripped out. Only the need to be there for Brianna had kept him connected to life.
Until Allison.
“Here you go. Down the hatch.” His new nurse had shown up sometime in the night and was still here for morning rounds. Pushing sixty and looking tough enough to wrestle a grizzly bear, she had not once called him “honey.”
She handed him a paper cup. By now Burke knew the drill. He took the cup and swallowed the pills inside with a sip from the water bottle she gave him. “How’s the pain?” she asked, pointing to a chart on the wall that rated pain levels from one to ten. “Can you give me a number?”
“What number would you give the devil stabbing you in the back with his pitchfork?” He glanced out the window at the pewter sky. “What time is it?”
“Almost seven. Your wife called a few minutes ago. She said she’d be here soon.”
“I don’t suppose you told her not to come.”
“That’s not in my job description. How’s the pain in your head?”