Page 137 of Chosen Road

“The other one.”

“Cunt?” My eyes bugged out of my head.

“That’s the one.” She laughed softly. “She was magnificent.” She quieted. “She knows.”

I rubbed my hand over my jaw. Do I tell her? I had to. There would be no secrets between us. “I know. She came to see me a few weeks after you left. She wouldn’t let me tell her, but she said you needed me and not to give up. She only came the one time. She promised if there was an emergency, she’d call me. That’s all.” I realized I was speaking quickly, worried she would be angry.

“She loves you. She says you’re good.”

“I try to be.” Shame hit me at my failure to support Amber when she most needed it, never mind the depth to which I momentarily sunk.

“You are. You deserve better.”

“I have the best,” I murmured.

“I found the papers, Gus.” There was no smile in her pained whisper.

“What papers?” I asked, but I knew, the sickness rolling in my gut assured me that I knew.

“In your desk. The divorce papers. You were going to divorce me.”

“I don’t think I would have gone through with it,” I replied carefully but honestly. “But a few weeks before the heart attack, I had them drawn up. I didn’t want to leave you, but I wasn’t sure I could continue the way we were going.”

I heard her sob through the phone. “What’s changed, Gus? What’s to say you won’t want to leave again?”

I pulled in a breath. “I didn’t want to have a sexless marriage. I didn’t want to be your last priority. Most importantly, I didn’t believe you loved me anymore.” I lay it all on the line wishing I’d burned those damn papers. “After the heart attack, I figured a few things out. You do love me. You always did. You have issues that lead you to self-sabotage. I understand that, now. Also, Amber, I’ve lived without you. One hundred times over, if it came down to it, I would rather live a sexless existence with you, than a loveless existence without you.”

As if I hadn’t spoken, she went on. This was her way, deflect, move on, circle back later after having a chance to process. "Why did you keep the papers?” She asked brokenly.

“To remind me of how far I’d fallen, to make sure I didn’t slip again. So that I never forgot how close I came to losing my happiness. To remember to make different choices, especially if that choice means I have to wait on you. To know that while I do have choices, there is only one choice that will ever satisfy me and that is you.” She didn’t speak. “I didn’t keep them for any other reason. We’ll burn them when I get home.” I waited, but she remained silent. Processing. I wanted to give her something better to process. “Can you do something for me?”

“Okay,” she answered, her voice small.

“Go back to my office and open the bottom drawer.”

I heard the rustle of the blankets as she got off the bed, the shuffle of her feet as she walked down the hall, the creak of my office door as it opened, and the sound of the drawer’s wheels sliding along the track.

“At the back, there is a stack of letters. Do you see them?”

“Yes.”

“Those are yours. Those are your papers, sweet baby. Go read those because those explain my choice. The only choice that matters. The other papers only show that I faltered.”

Amber

After Gus finally allowed me to hang up, I took the letters back to my bed. All had my name in Gus’s bold script scrawled across the front. There were thirteen in total, one for every month we were apart?

An hour later they lay open and strewn across my bed.

Dear Amber,

I am yours. I’ve always been yours. I’ll always be yours...

Dear Amber,

For the first time in forever, I have hope that we can find our way back to each other. Not back to what we were, but a better, stronger, wiser version of us, one that has withstood the hell of separation...

Dear Amber,

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