Chapter 69 - The Letter to the Past
A week after the maritime parade, a registered letter arrived at my Sullivan’s Island home from the United States Penitentiary in Pollock, Louisiana.
It was from Drew Halston.
I took the envelope out onto the widow’s walk atop our home, where the sea breeze rustled the sweet jasmine climbing the railings. Owen walked up behind me, carrying two glasses of iced tea, sitting quietly beside me on the wooden bench.
"Do you want me to read it?" Owen asked gently.
"I can read it," I replied, opening the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of lined paper, written in Drew’s neat, faded handwriting:
Maren,
I saw the newspaper clipping of the maritime parade in our prison recreation room. Seeing your name on that flagship, seeing Lucy and Thomas standing proudly beside Owen, and seeing the dockworkers salute your father’s monument... it did something to me that ten years of prison couldn't do.
For fifteen years, I told myself that you were the problem. I told myself that you were too cold, too ambitious, and that leaving you was my smartest decision. I told everyone that lie so many times that I actually believed it. But sitting in this cell, watching you from a distance of two decades, I finally see the naked truth.
Leaving you was the most catastrophic, foolish mistake of my life. You were the only real thing I ever had. You were pure gold, Maren, and I was just a frightened, hollow boy playing with fools' gold.
I am not writing to ask for forgiveness. I have no right to it. I will serve out my time here in Pollock, working the laundry line, paying for every lie I ever told. But I needed you to know that the monster who tried to tear you down finally understands who you are: a woman of extraordinary grace, brilliant beyond measure, and deserving of every ounce of happiness Owen Bennett gave you.
May God bless your family. Andrew.
I read the letter slowly, letting out a long, peaceful breath that carried away the very last lingering echo of the past.
There was no anger left in me. No bitter memories. Drew Halston was no longer an enemy, no longer a ghost; he was simply a tragic, cautionary lesson about what happens when a man chooses pride over honor.
I folded the letter carefully, walked over to our study hearth, and placed it inside a locked family archive box. It was a closed chapter in a book whose ending had already been written in triumph.
May you like
Owen walked over to me, cupping my face in his warm, steady hands, his gray eyes shining with an eternity of devotion. "Ready to let it all go, sweetheart?"
"I let it go a long time ago, Owen," I smiled, looking up into the eyes of the man who had healed my world. "Now, there is only us."
