The letter contained no grand proposal.
No promise.
Only honesty.
“I don’t want you to stay because of me,” Thomas wrote. “And I don’t want to return because of you. If someday we find our way back to the same place, I want it to be because both our roads genuinely led there.”
Owen read the line twice.
“That’s the letter he took?”
Mrs. Parker nodded.
“Why did he bring it back?”
“Because he wanted to explain.”
“And did he?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Parker smiled.
“Because when he saw me that night, I was surrounded by students. I was laughing. I was happy.”
She paused.
“He told Marianne he had received his answer.”
Owen looked confused.
“What answer?”
“Whether my road had been worth taking.”
She touched the old photograph.
“He decided it had.”
Owen sat quietly.
Then asked, “Did you love him?”
Mrs. Parker looked out the window.
“Yes.”
