She stood in the closet, feeling like a lost child, as the sleeves hung down, and she wrapped her arms around herself. She could feel something rustle in one of the pockets as she did, and without thinking she reached inside. It was a letter, and for an insane moment, she wanted it to be a letter from him to her, but it wasn't. It was a single typed sheet someone had written on a computer, with an initial at the bottom of the page. She felt uncomfortable reading it since it hadn't been written to her, but it was something, some piece of him, something that he had once touched and read. And her eyes traveled slowly down the page. For a moment, she almost wondered if she'd written it herself, but she knew she hadn't, and she felt her heart begin to pound as she read what it said.

“Darling Ted,” it began, and it did not get better, but worse. “I know this has come as a shock to both of us, but sometimes the greatest blows turn out to be life's greatest gifts. This isn't what I intended either. But I believe it's what is meant to be. I'm not as young as I used to be, and to be honest, I'm afraid I won't get another chance, with you or anyone else. This baby means everything to me, more than anything in this world, because it's yours.

“I know this isn't what you planned, nor I. This started out as a little fun, a harmless thing between the two of us. We've always had so much in common, and I know how hard these last few years have been at home for you. No one knows better than I. I think she's mishandled things, for you, and for Chad, and more importantly between the two of you. I'm not even convinced he would have attempted suicide, if in fact he did, if she hadn't alienated you from him. I know only too well how hard this has been for you. And like you, I'm not all that convinced he really has problems. I have never truly believed the diagnosis, and I think it's possible that the so-called suicide attempts were only bids for your attention, maybe even asking you to save him from her. I think she has misjudged this whole thing since the beginning. And maybe the answer, if we wind up together as I hope we will and you say we might, is for her to keep Pip, and you and I to have Chad with us. He might be a lot happier than he is now, with her buzzing around him like a hornet, in a constant panic about him. That can't be good for him either. And he is a lot more like us, you and me, than he is like her. It's obvious to both of us that she doesn't understand him. Maybe because he's smarter than she is, maybe even smarter than we are. In any case, if it's what you want, I'd be willing to try it, and have him live with us, if that's what you decide.

“As for us, I firmly believe that this is only the beginning. Your life with her is over. It has been for years. She doesn't see it, or want to. She can't. She is completely dependent on you and the children. She has no life. She doesn't want one. She feeds off of you, and them, in order to give her life meaning. It doesn't have one. She'll have to find a life of her own, sooner or later. Maybe in the long run, this is what she needs, to jolt her into realizing how pointless her life is, how empty, and how little she has come to mean to you. She drains you. She sucks all the life from you, and has for years.

“This baby, whoever he or she will be, is our bond to each other, our link to the future. I know that you have made no firm decision yet, but I think I know what you want, as you do. All you have to do is reach out and claim it, as you claimed me. As you reached out nearly a year ago now. This baby would never have happened if it wasn't meant to be, if you didn't want us as badly as I do.

“We have six months to figure it out, to make the right moves, until the baby comes. Six months to end the old life, and start a new one. I can't think of anything more important, or better, or that I want more. You have my faith in you, my loyalty, my love for you, my admiration and respect for all that you are, and have been to me.

“The future is ours. Our baby is coming. Our life will begin soon, just as his will, or hers, although I feel sure it is a boy, just like you. God is offering us a new life, a fresh start, the life we have always wanted, between two people who understand and respect each other, two people who are in fact one now in this child.

“I love you with all my heart, and I promise you that if you come to me, when you come to me, because I believe you will, you will be happy as you've never been. The future, my darling, is ours. As I am yours, with all my love. A.”

The date on it was a week before his death, and Ophélie felt as though she were going to have a heart attack, and she fell to her knees as she read, and reread it yet again. She couldn't believe what she was reading, and she couldn't imagine who it could be. It was unthinkable. This couldn't have happened. It was a lie. A cruel trick someone had played on them. She wondered if it was a blackmail letter, as the coat slipped off her shoulders and fell to the floor as she held the letter in her trembling hand.

She clung to the wall to help herself up, and stared blindly ahead, still holding the letter. And then as she knew, as she thought of it, as it came to her, she wanted to die. The baby spoken of in the letter had been born, if it had been, six months after he died. William Theodore. She hadn't dared name him Ted, but she had come close enough. And it was not the honor she had claimed it was for her dead friend. The baby had been named for his father. Ted's middle name was William. All she had done was reverse the names. The baby was his, not from a sperm bank. And the letter could only be Andrea's. The single signed letter “A” was her initial, and she had even manipulated him about Chad, played into his desperate need for denial, and criticized her. The letter had been written by the woman who had claimed for eighteen years to be her best friend. It was beyond belief, beyond thinking, beyond bearing. Andrea had betrayed her. And so had he. All it could mean was that when he died, he hadn't loved her. He had been in love with Andrea, and had fathered her baby. Ophélie was still holding the letter when she went into the bathroom and got violently ill. She was standing over the sink, looking deathly pale when Pip found her. And she could see that her mother was shaking violently.

“Mom, are you okay?” Pip looked panicked. “What's wrong?” Her mother looked frighteningly ill, and so pale she looked green.

“Nothing,” she croaked, rinsing her mouth out. All she had thrown up was bile and a little bit of turkey. She had eaten almost nothing. But she felt as though she had retched up all her insides along with her heart and her soul and her marriage.

“Do you want to lie down?” Pip offered. It had been a horrible day for all of them, and now she was desperately worried about her mother. She looked like she was going to die, and wished she would.

“I will in a minute. I'll be fine.” Even she knew it was a lie. She would never be fine again. And what if he had left her? What if he had done that and not died? And taken Chad with him. It would have killed her, and maybe Chad, if they both had denial. But he was dead anyway. They both were. It no longer mattered. And now he had killed her, as surely as if he had shot her. The letter made a travesty of their marriage, not to mention her friendship with Andrea. She couldn't understand how anyone could do that to her, how she could be so insidious and so treacherous, so dishonest and so cruel.

“Mommy, go lie down, please …” Pip was nearly crying. She hadn't called her mother Mommy since she was a baby. And she was very frightened.

“I need to go out for a minute.” Ophélie turned to look at her daughter, and this time the robot had not returned, she looked like a vampire, with icy white face and red-ringed watering eyes. Pip almost didn't recognize her, and didn't want to. She wanted her mother back, wherever she had gone to in the last hour. Whoever this was didn't even look like her mother. “Can you stay here alone?”

“Where are you going? Do you want me to come with you?” Pip was shaking now too.

“No. I'll only be gone for a few minutes. Just keep the doors locked, and keep Moussy with you.” She sounded like her mother, but she didn't look it. And suddenly Ophélie had a singleness of purpose, and a power she never knew she had. She could understand suddenly how people committed crimes of passion. But she didn't want to kill her. She just wanted to see her, to take one last look at her, the woman who had destroyed their marriage, who had turned her memories of Ted and what they had shared to ashes. She couldn't even allow herself to hate him. Everything she felt, all the agony and horror of the last year was now focused on Andrea in a single moment of time, like a bullet. But the bullet had struck Ophélie and run straight through her. And there was nothing she could do to them to equal what they had done to her.

Pip stood at the top of the stairs looking frightened as her mother left. She didn't know what to do, or who to call, or what to say. She just sat on the steps, and pulled Mousse close to her. He licked her face, and her tears, as they sat there and waited for Ophélie to come back.

She drove the ten blocks to Andrea's house without stopping. She drove through crosswalks and stop signs, and one stoplight, and left her car parked on the sidewalk. She had made no call of warning, and she ran up the stairs and rang the doorbell. She had worn no coat over her thin shirt, not even a sweater, and she felt nothing. It took Andrea only a moment to answer the doorbell. She was holding the baby in his pajamas, and they both smiled the minute they saw her.

“Hi …” Andrea started to greet her warmly, and saw instantly that she was shaking. She had put the letter in her pocket. “Are you okay? Did something happen? Where's Pip?”