“Because the original ceremony couldn’t become legally valid later on its own,” he said. “Once she was free, the two of you would have needed to marry again.”
“So for forty-six years, we were free to marry.”
“Yes.”
“And she knew that?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
That answer hurt more than everything else.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Mr. Geller shook his head.
“She told me that explanation belonged to you.”
After he left, I finished Irene’s letter.
She wrote about how much being her husband had always meant to me.
How I had insisted we marry before Vietnam because I needed to leave knowing we belonged to each other.
She knew exactly what the word wife meant to me.
And that was why she became afraid.
Every year I waited made telling you harder.
Then I found one unfinished page.
Robert,
I can marry you now. That should be the happiest sentence I’ve ever written, but first I have to tell you why I couldn’t before.
