Park Avenue Player(102)

He lifted the glass and finished off the last of the water. “I’m going to get out of your hair. We don’t need to slice open the fresh wounds that are only starting to heal. We’ll do that at the lake house in a few months. I think we should get together on Bree’s birthday in November, talk about all the good times. It’ll be easier then.”

I smiled. “I’d like that a lot.”

He got up and walked to the door. As he opened it, he turned and looked me in the eyes. “Don’t be mad at her. She meant well.”

I had no idea what he meant. Why would I be mad at Bree?

Richard drew me into a bear hug and held me for a long time. Then he kissed the top of my head. “Love finds us all in different ways. It’s not important how it happens. It only matters that it’s real. Take care of yourself, sweetheart.”

***

My hands shook. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. The worst thing that could happen had already happened. But I knew in the pit of my stomach this was about Hollis and me. We were on such shaky ground already; I needed to brace for more impact. I picked the envelope up and put it back down three times.

Preparing myself, I decided to text Hollis so he would know what he was coming home to. There was a good chance I was going to be a wreck after reading this.

I picked up my phone and texted.



Elodie: Richard just came by. He dropped off a letter Bree wrote me.



I watched my phone, anxious as the message went from Sent to Delivered to Read. A return text came seconds later.



Hollis: He came by here today. I got one, too.



Richard had said he’d been to Hollis’s work to drop off something. Of course, he had a letter, too.





Chapter 46




* * *





Hollis




I poured two fingers of the scotch I kept in the office for special occasions, sat down on the couch, and opened the envelope. Just seeing her handwriting knocked the wind out of me, and I had to take a few deep, calming breaths. When that didn’t do shit to steady me, I gulped back the contents of the glass in one giant swallow.

Let’s get this over with.



Dear Hollis,

In eleventh grade, you said something that has stayed with me to this day. Your mom was back in the hospital. She was dehydrated from how sick the medicines had made her, and she’d gotten a horrible infection from the chemo port. She was in a lot of pain, and it killed you to see her like that. It killed me, too. I had to go home, and we stood in front of the hospital for a long time holding each other. You were crying, and you said,



“I wish I had the strength to make her believe I don’t need her—so she could let go.”



You knew the constant fighting to hang on was difficult and painful for her, but she’d never stop because of you. Sometimes in life, people need help letting go.

Since you’re reading this letter, I’m gone now. But you let me go before today, and that’s what I wanted. What you deserved. You took care of your mother for so many years, selflessly sacrificing your life to be by her side. I couldn’t let you do that for me, too. You deserved so much more—to be free.

So I lied, Hollis. There was never any other man. Three days before you proposed, I was diagnosed with my illness. I’d been trying to find a way to tell you, and in that moment, when I looked at you down on one knee, I realized what telling you would mean.

I knew I had a long battle ahead of me, one that would inevitably end before I was thirty. So I made a rash decision. I told you I’d met someone else so you’d move on.

But over the years, I kept tabs on you, and I realized you weren’t really doing that. So when I found out Hailey had moved in with you, and then I miraculously stumbled upon an ad for a nanny—an ad with the mailing address of your firm—it was fate.

Elodie is an amazing woman, and somehow I just knew you two would hit it off, if I could get her to apply. Everything else happened on its own—the car accident where you met, you hiring her, the beautiful way you two fell in love.

I’m sure you’re both confused right about now. I can’t even imagine the moment when you figured out your Anna was Elodie’s Bree. So I feel I owe you both an explanation, along with an apology.

I’m sorry I lied to you.

I’m sorry I lied to Elodie.

I’m sorry I made you think I didn’t love you enough to be faithful.

I’m sorry I made you doubt your trust in women.

True love means wanting the best for someone, and for you, that didn’t include me.

Take good care of yourself, Hollis. And take good care of my girl. You deserve each other.



Always,

Anna

***

It took me a full hour before I could even get up from the office couch. I read the letter over and over, fearing I’d missed something of importance. But the entire thing was important—every single word. It was the most important message I’d ever received in my life, so precious and sacred, never to be repeated, never to be clarified. This was it. Her final words.

The first read-through was certainly shocking. But the more I read it, the more everything clicked. For the first time since Anna walked out of my life, it all made sense.