Then Thomas asked me to marry him.
His final wish.
Three days later, with two nurses, a doctor and a hospital chaplain standing around us, I became Mrs. Thomas Bennett.
For the first time in more than half a century, Thomas kissed my forehead.
He whispered,
“I finally got you back.”
I thought those were the sweetest words anyone had ever said to me.
A month later, Thomas died while I was holding his hand.
I was devastated.
At his funeral, I kept staring at his photograph and thinking about how cruel life had been to give him back to me only to take him away again.
The next morning, someone knocked on my door.
A gray-haired man in a dark suit stood outside.
“Mrs. Bennett?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Richard Cole. I was Thomas’s attorney.”
My stomach tightened immediately.
He was carrying a wooden box.
Not large.
Old.
There was a small brass lock on the front.
Richard stepped inside, placed it on my dining-room table and remained standing.
He looked strangely uncomfortable.
“What is this?” I asked.
Richard didn’t answer.
Instead, he asked me something that made the room suddenly feel colder.
“Did Thomas ever tell you why he never married?”
I frowned.
“He said he never stopped loving me.”
Richard slowly nodded.
“That was true.”
Then he pulled out a chair.
“But it wasn’t the whole truth.”
My heart began beating faster.
Richard placed one hand on the box.
“Thomas told me that after his funeral, I was to bring this directly to you.”
Then he looked me straight in the eyes.
“And he told me exactly what I should say when I delivered it.”
“What?”
Richard hesitated.
Then he repeated Thomas’s words.
“Tell her she finally walked into my trap.”
I actually laughed because I thought it had to be one of Thomas’s strange jokes.
Richard didn’t laugh.
Instead, he reached into his briefcase and removed a thick envelope.
My name was written across it.
But underneath my name was something else.
A date.
August 22, 1971.
The year I had left Thomas.
