She never mailed a single one. The letters were all in that shoebox, still sealed, addressed to me in his crooked hand. I recognized every tilted capital D. Bobby found them in 1994, after his mother died, along with a carbon copy of the letter she had sent me. She had been certain no eighteen-year-old girl would marry a boy with a ruined face, so she decided to spare him the rejection and spare me the choice.

Bobby had believed for twenty-four years that I simply stopped writing. By the time he learned the truth, I had been married to Roy for over two decades, with children and a life. He looked me up once, saw our family photo in an insurance ad, and decided it would be cruel to tear that open. He married a kind nurse named Elaine and raised Marisa.