Not long before Anthony’s death, she invited me to celebrate their lifelong celebrations at their home. Despite this, I stood outside their house that night and grabbed it with shame. Who did I think I was? I do not belong to his true and respected relatives! I imagined their disgust when adultery suffered severe damage in his overly short life. Then, my breathing was steady and I knocked.
Anthony’s wife embraced me and brought me into the shadows to take me in his family and friends.
When I saw Anthony’s framed photos on the wedding day – how crisp his body was in the hospice bed, but how steady his eyes remained, his wife was by his side – I burst into tears and stumbled in the bathroom. But I was intercepted by an Anthony’s friend, holding a box of tissues.
“You must be Kim,” he said. “Anthony tells me everything about you.”
Later, everyone gathered in the living room to watch Anthony’s home video. He is still alive. Happy. He fell in love with the woman who made him sick, and if only one day he would ask to be a wife. I couldn’t stop my throat from sobbing away from my body. I curled into a ball, trying to kill the sound, trying to disappear on the floor. My arms were wrapped around me, and more friends, holding me until my cry subsided. Tears also flowed down their faces as I looked up. “Thank you,” I whispered.
At midnight, we rode our bikes to Anthony’s favorite place on the beach. I handed his wife the flowers I brought were placed in the ocean. She held my hand and shook her head softly. “That was given to him.”
A few months passed before I heard from her again.
“I’ve thought about it a hundred times since I rode a bike in July,” she wrote. “I wish I could share more stories with you, but my emotions were not enough. But I hope that one day the two of us could sit down, giggle like girls and really share the stories we love.”
Three years later, that’s what we did. On the cocktail, she told me how Anthony had two folders in his email: one with her name and one with mine. Among them, we are all letters.
She told me about the memoirs she was writing. She said, “You’re there.” Then she deliberately looked at the tattoo on my forearm.
“What does this mean?”
In my send box, I found an email that deleted the delete buttons from those years ago. In it, Anthony writes, “My God sees the God within you.”
I got the ink to commemorate his life’s celebration night, not only to make his impact on my life, but also to remember the influence of his wife, and the way she selflessly pulled me out of my shameful isolation, to my community, and to teach me.
I suddenly felt shy. She squeezed my arm and blinked. “This could be another story.”
