Dearest Ward,
How the years have passed by and changed us both. How the time has made us into who we are today. We have lived lives unimaginable and now we are within sight of the finish line. What a race it’s been! How strange to have more miles behind us than in front.
But, I’m babbling on and you I’m sure are wondering why I’m taking the time to write after all these years. After so much water under the bridge. Or maybe you’re not wondering. Maybe you have also seen the checkered flag awaiting you and have looked back at and analyzed every turn. And maybe you have seen the places where it all went wrong.
You are my turn that went wrong and as I sit in a house built on other people’s secrets, a life built on other people’s pain, I am alone. There is no husband, no children, not even a cat to feed and take care of. There is only the empty regret that I spent a life immersed in the work of tearing down lives. Some deserved, some maybe not.
Maybe that’s why you left. We all have secrets and you wanted yours kept. But I have the unholy compulsion of digging under it all and surfacing what people would rather keep hidden. I’m sure you sensed that there were times I was mining your past as well. Digging through your thoughts and actions. It’s what detectives do. But, I never seemed to learn when to leave that at the office.
Not that there ever was an office or an official title. No place to hang out a sign. People just seemed to find me when they needed me. To seek me out when the solution escaped them. And I put everything together in a nice manilla folder for them. Tied up the loose ends and, even when the end wasn’t what they wanted, I always hoped it had brought them closure and peace. Maybe I would should have left well enough alone in some of these cases.
But, I do know I helped people find peace and helped find people who shouldn’t have been walking free. So, now, when my eyes and ears are failing me and I’m no longer able to suss out the truth, I have had the time to sit and suss out mine.
And my truth is that, even as I gathered clues and pieced together facts, even as I prided myself on being a woman “Sherlock” and seemed to see connections no one else could make, even as I was able to coax secrets from people, I could never access my own secrets. I could never piece together myself. There wasn’t time! One case would end and another would come. My mind was forever engaged in a world beyond my own! But, I don’t have to tell you that, do I Ward? It’s why you finally left. I was always the case I was on and never a whole person.
I have time now. Hours and hours of time. I’ve sorted through old cases and locked them away. I’ve cleaned the layer of dust from my home. I’ve read the books that I bought over the years and never had time for. I’ve worked through the distractions in an effort to keep me from having to examine myself. Maybe that’s what all of the years were. A distraction to keep me from myself.
But, I’ve had a look now. The woman I see is old! When did she get old? I barely remember being young! She’s alone. She has a lifetime of memories that belong to other people. Most of all, she regrets never knowing what a lifetime of memories made with you would have been.
I’m sure you have a lifetime of memories of your own. You and Maria. I was so sad to hear of her passing, Ward. I was never the jealous type and she was an amazing woman. Maybe there will be a time, after you read this letter, when we can sit down and you can tell me about your wonderful life. You’ll have to do all of the talking, because my stories are only the stories of others.
I don’t know what I’m asking for here. Just a chance. A chance to get right what I got so wrong! I don’t know if you’ll see me as worthy of that chance, but I need to reach out and try.
I don’t want to die without my own memories. I don’t want to die with regret. So even if we just sit down over a glass of wine and talk about the old days, it will be at least one memory of my own to sustain me.
I hope to hear from you soon, Ward.
Yours,
Stancile