on it.
I recognized Robert’s handwriting immediately, but I couldn’t open it yet.
He handed it to me.
Instead, I asked, “Why do you have this?”
Arthur leaned back.
“Because Robert asked me to keep it.”
“Indefinitely?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Arthur gave me a sad smile.
“Why do you have this?”
“Because he hoped you’d visit Australia and go to that secondhand bookstore he told you about. I went there every day after I got Robert’s last letter, hoping to bump into you.”
I stared at him, mouth agape.
Then he told me what Robert had written in his final letters.
“I went there every day.”
He’d worried about me. Not because I couldn’t manage money or I couldn’t live alone.
But because I never seemed to believe I was allowed to choose myself.
“He said you gave everything away,” Arthur told me. “Time. Money. Energy.”
I looked down.
He’d worried
