“You wrote it.”
“No.”
“You told me you were marrying a woman named Elaine. You said she was pregnant. You said you wanted a clean break.”
Douglas looked up sharply.
“Elaine was pregnant.”
I felt the room tilt.
“You married her.”
“Yes.”
“Then you did write it.”
“I married her,” he said, “but not because I sent you that letter.”
He read the page again, his fingers tightening around the paper.
“I met Elaine after I came home from college. My mother had gotten worse. My father had suffered a stroke. I left school and took a job at the mill. Elaine worked in the accounting office. She was kind to my mother. She helped us when we couldn’t afford a nurse.”
He paused.
“When she became pregnant, I did what I thought was expected of me. I married her.”
I stared at him.
“And you never loved her?”
