The Letters We Keep

On the first anniversary of Ruth’s death, Daniel Webb found her handwriting on the mat.

He stood there with the milk in one hand and the letter in the other, not breathing properly. Ruth would have told him not to be so dramatic. She had always hated men making a performance of basic functions.

The pain in his chest made the effort of living feel unbearable. He had loved Ruth completely, although Ruth would have told him not to say that because it made him sound like a man in a greetings card.

The only thing keeping him going was Ruth’s voice in his head telling him to get up and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

She loved him deeply, but not always in ways she said out loud. Ruth expressed love by doing things for him. Nothing was too much trouble. Every trip out resulted in a treat: a bottle of vintage cider, an almond croissant, or his favourite salted caramel yoghurt. Miriam next door accused her of killing him with kindness as he slowly took on the shape of most “loved men”.

In the later days of her illness, Miriam did the things that needed doing, but for which Daniel was uniquely unsuited. She changed sheets, remembered tablets, sat through the long afternoons when Ruth slept with the television on. A few days before she passed, Ruth asked Miriam to keep an eye out for Daniel, at a suitable distance. He was, she said, a proud man.

So Miriam did. She watered the plants when he forgot, took in parcels, paid the window cleaner, and generally stayed around and useful.

Daniel was not surprised, exactly, when he opened the letter.

The first line said: Daniel, if you’re crying already, stop it. You’ll dehydrate, and you never drink enough water.

He could plainly hear her voice.

So it continued. Every year, on the anniversary of her death, another letter arrived.

It became the highlight of Daniel’s year. The letters gave him the strength to do the living thing: get dressed before nine and meet his friends at The Feathers, where they had the same conversations they had been having for years. Whether a bear would win in a fight with a lion. Whether angels were real. Whether Arsenal would ever win the European Cup.

It was on the eighth anniversary of Ruth’s death that Daniel noticed something was not quite right.

Not quite Ruth.

The letter mentioned carnations. Worse, it called them cheerful. Ruth had once said carnations looked like cheap tissues trying to become flowers. She had refused them at their wedding, two funerals and, memorably, in a petrol station near Maidstone.

He could not reconcile the voice he heard as he read with the phrase on the page. While a sharper man might have cottoned on sooner, Daniel started to wonder whether the letters were genuine.

But this was not work for a Sunday.

He folded the letter, placed it back in its envelope, and walked to The Feathers.

The next morning, Daniel left the house at nine and walked down to the high street. The solicitor’s office was austere and always reminded him of his headmaster’s study at boarding school, which was a good reason to go there only when necessity struck.

Mr Bartholomew welcomed him into his office.

Daniel sat, straight-backed and ready for business.

“Can you tell me about the annual letters from Ruth?”

Mr Bartholomew frowned.

“Letters, Mr Webb?”

“The letters. Every year. On the anniversary.”

“There was one letter,” Mr Bartholomew said. “We sent it as instructed on the first anniversary of your wife’s passing. Seven years ago. That was it.”

Daniel left confused and phoned his sister.

“The game’s up, Ab. Those letters you’ve been sending. Very good. Very supportive.”

“Daniel Webb,” Abbey said, “I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The letters. They arrive each anniversary of Ruth’s death and say… nice things.”

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but it definitely wasn’t me.”

Daniel’s head was spinning, but there was only one conclusion to be drawn.

He banged on Miriam’s door, shouting her name until she opened it.

“You had better come in,” she said.

“Did you write them?”

Miriam did not answer straight away.

“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Did you write them?”

Her hand rested on the back of the kitchen chair.

“Yes.”

The word landed badly. Not loudly. Badly.

Daniel sat briefly, but as the anger and betrayal soaked through, he stood again.

“How could you?”

Miriam looked at him, tired already.

“Because the first one got you through the day,” she said. “And the next year, you were waiting for another.”

Daniel stared at her.

“She wrote one,” Miriam said. “Only one. She wanted you to have it after a year. She wanted you to know she loved you, and that you had permission to live.”

“Permission?”

“That was her word.”

Daniel’s face hardened.

“So you pretended to be my dead wife.”

“I tried to be kind.”

“You lied.”

“Yes,” Miriam said. “I did.”

He moved towards the door.

“I loved her, Daniel,” Miriam said.

He stopped.

“Not instead of you. Not against you. Just quietly.”

Daniel did not turn round.

“And I loved the two of you together,” she said. “That was the bit I had.”

He stormed out before she could say more.

Miriam had known the storm would come eventually. She was only surprised it had taken eight years. As Daniel’s front door clicked shut, the silence of the house came back in.

Miriam had never found her own person, and she took great comfort from the lives of Ruth and Daniel: the kettle through the wall, Daniel’s laugh when Ruth got the last word, the back door opening every Saturday morning when they argued over what counted as gardening.

In those last few weeks, Ruth told Miriam everything: how worried she was, the plan for the letter, and what she wanted Daniel to have permission to do.

Miriam noticed this was not what happened.

Daniel lived in Ruth’s shadow. One day, while having tea with Miriam, he explained how much he was looking forward to Ruth’s next letter. He marvelled at how only Ruth could do such a thing.

Miriam loved Ruth.

There.

Not in a way that asked for anything. Not in a way that made trouble. She loved Ruth carefully and quietly. She loved Daniel too, in a different way, because Ruth had loved him and because he was part of the life Miriam had been close enough to hear but never quite enter.

So she pulled a small decorative cake box off the shelf and untied the red ribbon. Inside were cards and notes in Ruth’s beautiful looped writing. Miriam had kept every word and read them more often than she admitted, but now was the time for action.

She set out to copy the writing style convincingly enough for Daniel to believe.

She spent three hours getting something half-decent on paper. Ruth had told her what the first letter said, so it was simply a case of picking up from there. What she did not master was the closure from the first letter, but to be fair, Daniel had not noticed it either.

So it became more of a continuation.

Daniel, if you’ve stopped shaving properly, start again. Be kind to yourself. Go to The Feathers. Say yes to something, even if it’s only pudding. And stop waiting for me to tell you what to do.

After Daniel confronted her, he refused to speak to her. He ignored her when she called across the garden. He would not open the door if she knocked. The pattern continued for the rest of the year.

As the anniversary of Ruth’s death came around again, Miriam decided to write one more letter, this time in her own hand.

The letter began: Dear Daniel, I know you may not read this. I deserve that. But I need to write it in my own hand, at least once. I am tired of borrowing Ruth’s voice when the apology ought to be mine.

She wanted him to know Ruth had loved him properly, stubbornly, right up to the end, even when the morphine made her mix up the television remote and the thermometer.

Still, Daniel blanked her.

Still, he would not talk.

In the winter of that year, Miriam caught a serious case of pneumonia and was taken to hospital. Daniel was there as the paramedics wheeled her out. Her skin was grey, and she looked so tired and alone. Like Ruth just before she died.

He remembered those dark times. He had not had the strength to see Ruth suffer. He loved her too much, or that was what he had told himself. He had called it love because cowardice was a harder word to sit beside. But Miriam had been there. Always attentive. Doing what he did not have the courage to do. She made sure Ruth was never alone.

Now Miriam lay there afraid, and very much alone.

As the paramedic swung the ambulance door shut, Daniel shouted, “Wait!”

He ran to his front door, pulled it shut, then climbed into the back of the ambulance.

“Relatives only,” the paramedic said.

Daniel looked at Miriam.

“I’m all she has.”

He rode with her to the hospital. He sat by her bed through the night. In the morning, he went back to her house, packed a bag for her, and returned.

He stayed by the bed, sleeping fitfully when it was quiet, holding her hand and talking to her when she woke.

At one point, Miriam opened her eyes.

“You don’t have to stay,” she said.

“I know.”

“You’re still angry.”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’d be disappointed if you’d become saintly.”

That made him smile, despite himself.

“Please let me stay and help,” he said.

Miriam closed her eyes again.

Daniel came through for her. He was kind, soft-spoken and patient. It took him a while, and she knew he was building up to it. Then it came out all at once.

“Thank you, Miriam. Thank you for being Ruth’s friend. We both owe you so much.”

Miriam recovered and went home. Daniel was always on hand after that, helping with shopping, fixing the stiff back gate, and staying for cups of tea. They spoke of many things: Ruth, their lives, the weather, The Feathers, whether angels were real, and whether Arsenal would ever win anything worth mentioning.

They rarely spoke of the future.

On the tenth anniversary of Ruth’s passing, Daniel knocked on Miriam’s door with a coffee and walnut cake. It was Miriam’s favourite.

They talked and reminisced.

After a while, Daniel said, “It’s time to read the letter.”

Miriam looked down at her hands.

“I’m so sorry, Daniel. I didn’t write one this year.”

“Possibly not,” he said. “But I did.”

He took it out of his pocket and carefully unfolded it. He settled his reading glasses on his nose and coughed before reading.

“Dear Miriam,

I rewrote this six times. Ruth would have done it in half the time, with half the ink, and made a better job of it, which is irritating.

You were such a good friend to her. You were a great neighbour to me, but I didn’t see half of it. I see far more now.

I was hurt because you lied to me.

I’m grateful because you stayed around.

Both are true. She approved of anything that made me look foolish.

Your letters helped me. You helped me.

So, Miriam, dear friend, we should stop waiting.

Let’s stroll to The Feathers, buy bad cake, argue about football, and water the plants badly.

Whatever life throws our way, let’s not spend it waiting for permission.”

Daniel put the letter on the table.

Miriam wiped her eye with a tissue.

“That is a lot of words to say something simple,” she said.

“Absolutely. Ruth would have cut it by a third or more.”

“Half, and added a rude joke.”

Miriam smiled.

Through the window, in Daniel’s garden, the tomato plants needed watering. Ruth would have called that a start.