A sweater.
A coffee mug.
A paperback.
One photograph from a Christmas dinner where she stood between Michael and me.
I almost threw it away.
Instead, I put everything into a box.
I was not ready to decide what deserved destruction.
Susan did not call.
That surprised me.
For three weeks, nothing.
Then a letter arrived.
No demand.
No request to meet.
She wrote down every date she could remember.
When Michael learned about Emily.
When the affair began.
When it stopped for periods.
When it resumed.
Which vacations she had joined while they were involved.
Which dinners were innocent.
Which were not.
I hated reading it.
I needed it.
The list gave my memories edges again.
Not clean ones.
But edges.
One entry stopped me.
The night my mother died.
Susan had spent the entire night with me at the hospital.
Michael was home.
There had been no affair meeting.
