The Longest Ride (39 page)

Ruth was no exception. She knew me. She knew how much I would miss her; she knew how much I needed to hear from her. She also knew that I, not she, would be the one left alone. It’s the only explanation, and over the years, I have never questioned it. If she made one mistake, it was that I did not discover what she had done until my cheeks had hollowed and my arms looked like twigs. I do not remember much about the day I made my discovery. The events have been lost to me, but this is not surprising. By that point, my days had become interchangeable, without meaning, and it wasn’t until darkness set in that I found myself staring at the box of letters that sat upon Ruth’s chest of drawers.

I had seen them every night since her passing, but they were hers, not mine, and to my misguided way of thinking, I simply assumed they would make me feel worse. They would remind me of how much I missed her; they would remind me of all that I had lost. And the idea was unbearable. I just could not face it. And yet, on that night, perhaps because I’d become numb to my feelings, I forced myself from the bed and retrieved the box. I wanted to remember again, if only for a single night, even if it hurt me.

The box was strangely light, and when I lifted the lid, I caught a whiff of the hand lotion Ruth had always used. It was faint, but it was there, and all at once, my hands began to shake. But I was a man possessed, and I reached for the first of the anniversary letters I’d written to her.

The envelope was crisp and yellowing. I’d inscribed her name with a steadiness that had long since vanished, and once again, I was reminded of my age. But I did not stop. Instead, I slid the brittle letter out of its sleeve as I maneuvered it into the light.

At first, the words were foreign to me, a stranger’s words, and I did not recognize them. I paused and tried again, concentrating on bringing the words into focus. And as I did, I felt Ruth’s presence gradually take shape beside me. She is here, I thought to myself; this is what she’d intended. My pulse began to race as I continued to read, the bedroom dissolving around me. Instead, I was back at the lake in the thin mountain air of late summer. The college, shuttered and forlorn, stood in the background as Ruth read the letter, her downcast eyes flickering across the page.

When I finished the letter, I slipped it back into the envelope and set it aside. I read the second letter, then the next, then the one after that. The words flowed easily from one year to the next, and with them came memories of summers that in my depression I had been unable to recall. I paused when I read a passage that I’d written on our sixteenth anniversary.

Later, I came across a letter I’d written in the midst of the dark years, after we’d learned that Daniel had moved away.

It went on, this lifetime in a box, one letter after another. Outside the window, the moon ascended and drifted and eventually climbed out of sight as I continued to read. Each letter echoed and reaffirmed my love for Ruth, burnished by our long years together. And Ruth, I learned, had loved me, too, for she left me a gift at the bottom of the stack.

I will admit: I didn’t expect this. That Ruth could still surprise me, even from beyond, caught me off guard. I stared at the letter lying at the bottom of the box, trying to imagine when she’d written it and why she’d never told me.

I have read this letter often in the years since I first found it, so many times that I can recite it from memory. I know now that she’d kept it secret in the certainty that I would find it in the hour of my greatest need. She knew I would eventually read my letters to her; she predicted that a time would come when I could no longer resist the pull. And in the end, it worked out just as she’d planned.

On that night, however, I did not think of this. I simply reached for the letter with trembling hands and slowly began to read.

 

“You are thinking about the letter I wrote to you,” Ruth says to me. My eyes flutter open, and I squint with weary effort, determined to bring her into focus.

She is in her sixties, wisdom now deepening her beauty. There are small diamond studs in her ears, a gift I’d bought her when she retired. I try and fail to wet my lips. “How do you know?” I rasp.

“It is not so difficult.” She shrugs. “Your expression gives you away. You have always been easy to read. It is a good thing you never played poker.”

“I played poker in the war.”

“Perhaps,” she says. “But I do not think you won much money.”

I acknowledge the truth of this with a weak grin. “Thank you for the letter,” I croak. “I don’t know that I would have survived without it.”

“You would have starved,” she agrees. “You have always been a stubborn man.”

A wave of dizziness washes over me, causing her image to flicker. It’s getting harder to hold on to her. “I had a piece of toast that night.”

“Yes, I know. You and your toast. Breakfast for dinner. This I never understood. And toast was not enough.”

“But it was something. And by then, it was closer to breakfast anyway.”

“You should have had pancakes. And eggs. That way, you would have had the strength to walk the house again. You could have looked at the paintings and remembered, just like you used to.”

“I wasn’t ready for that yet. It would have hurt too much. Besides, one of them was missing.”

“It was not missing,” she says. She turns toward the window, her face in profile. “It had not arrived yet. It would not come for another week.” For a moment, she is silent, and I know she isn’t thinking about the letter. Nor is she thinking of me. Instead, she is thinking about the knock at the door. The knock came a little more than a week later, revealing a stranger on the doorstep. Ruth’s shoulders sag, and her voice is laced with regret. “I wish I could have been there,” she murmurs, almost to herself. “I would have loved to talk to her. I have so many questions.”

These final words are drawn from a deep, hidden well of sadness, and despite my plight, I feel an unexpected ache.

 

 

The visitor was tall and attractive, the creases around her eyes suggesting too many hours spent in the sun. Her blond hair was tucked into a messy ponytail, and she was dressed in faded jeans and a simple short-sleeved blouse. But the ring on her finger and the BMW parked at the curb spoke of a well-heeled existence far different from mine. Under her arm she carried a package wrapped in simple brown paper, of a familiar size and shape.

“Mr. Levinson?” she asked. When I nodded, she smiled. “My name is Andrea Lockerby. You don’t know me, but your wife, Ruth, was once my husband’s teacher. It was a long time ago and you probably don’t remember, but his name was Daniel McCallum. I was wondering if you have a few minutes.”

For a moment, I was too surprised to speak, the name repeating in an endless loop. Only half-aware of what I was doing, I dumbly stepped aside to allow her to enter and guided her to the living room. When I sat in the easy chair, she took a seat on the couch kitty-corner to me.

Even then, I could think of nothing to say. Hearing Daniel’s name after almost forty years, in the aftermath of Ruth’s passing, still remains the greatest shock of my life.

She cleared her throat. “I wanted to come by to express my condolences. I know that your wife recently passed away and I’m sorry for your loss.”

I blinked, trying to find words for the flood of emotion and memories that threatened to drown me.
Where is he?
I wanted to ask.
Why did he vanish? And why did he never contact Ruth?
But I could say none of those things. Instead, I could only croak out, “Daniel McCallum?”

She set the wrapped package off to the side as she nodded. “He mentioned a few times that he used to come to your house. Your wife tutored him here.”

“And… he’s your husband?”

Her eyes flashed away for an instant before coming back to me. “He was my husband. I’m remarried now. Daniel passed away sixteen years ago.”

At her words, I felt something go numb inside. I tried to do the math, to understand how old he’d been, but I couldn’t. The only thing I knew for sure was that he’d been far too young and that it didn’t make any sense. She must have known what I was thinking, for she went on.

“He had an aneurysm,” she said. “It occurred spontaneously – no prior symptoms at all. But it was massive and there was nothing the doctors could do.”