If you care about my daughter, let her build a life that belongs to her before she builds one around you.
Please don’t make her choose.
Walter Carter.
I read the letter twice.
When I looked up, Russell was watching me.
“My father sent this?”
“Yes.”
“How did he know about the ring?”
Russell swallowed.
“Because I showed it to him.”
I stared at him.
“Before I left for college, I went to your father because I wanted his blessing. I told him I loved you, and I showed him the ring.”
My throat tightened.
“And he told you not to ask me.”
“He told me you would say yes.”
That hurt more than I expected.
“So the two of you decided what I would do without asking me.”
Russell lowered his eyes.
“I was 19, Sylvie. Your father was a man I respected. He told me you had worked too hard to give everything up because I asked you to come with me.”
“I might not have given anything up.”
“I know that now.”
“You never even gave me the choice.”
“I know.”
There was no defense in his voice.
Only regret.
I looked back at the letter.
“So that was it? You just decided he was right and walked away?”
“No.”
Russell told me that was why he had continued writing after college.
He couldn’t completely let me go.
For a while, he hoped that maybe my father had been wrong and somehow we would find our way back to each other.
Then my letters began coming less often.
“I thought you were moving on,” he said.
I stared at him.
“My letters slowed down because yours did.”
His face tightened.
“I know that now.”
I almost laughed, but there was too much sadness in it.
“So we both sat there waiting for the other person to care enough.”
Russell nodded.
“We were very good at misunderstanding each other.”
Then he looked toward the wooden box.
“But that wasn’t the end of it.”
My father had gone to see Russell before the wedding.
By then, Dad was ill.
