His own name.
Only his first name in reality, but in the story he did not need one.
Then below it, smaller:
Only when he finally stops pretending he can do everything alone.
The father closed his eyes.
His wife.
Of course.
Even dead, she had found a way to insult him accurately.
The woman almost smiled.
He saw.
“Don’t.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“No.”
That surprised him enough to pull a breath through his nose that was almost laughter.
Almost.
He opened the envelope.
Inside were three pages.
He recognized the paper from his wife’s old nursing-school stationery.
The first line destroyed him.
If you are reading this, then I was right about two things I hoped I would be wrong about.
He stopped.
The Apache woman looked away.
The foreman walked farther toward the barn.
Privacy.
The father continued.
The first is that I am not there.
His vision blurred.
He forced himself onward.
The second is that you tried to do everything yourself until somebody had to drag help to the front gate.
A broken laugh escaped him.
Exactly her voice.
Exactly.
The letter had been written during the final month of his wife’s pregnancy.
Her pregnancy had been high risk because of a congenital heart condition that had been manageable most of her adult life but became dangerous under the strain of pregnancy.
Doctors had warned them.
They had discussed risk.
He had been terrified.
She had been practical.
They prepared legal documents.
Insurance.
Medical directives.
But he had never known about this.
The letter explained.
She had survived delivery.
For a while, everyone believed the danger had passed.
Then postpartum cardiac complications appeared.
Hospital.
Medication.
Improvement.
Another decline.
Four weeks later, she died.
The father had been too shattered to ask whether she had expected it.
Now he had an answer.
Not certainty.
Fear.
Preparation.
The letter continued.
You will hate that I planned for this.
Correct.
You will probably feel betrayed that I told someone else things I did not tell you. You are allowed to be angry. But I was trying to make a plan without making you spend the final months of my pregnancy living inside my worst-case scenario. Maybe that was unfair. I’m sorry if it was.
The father stopped again.
He looked toward the Apache woman.
“You knew she thought she might die.”
The woman answered softly:
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“She asked me not to.”
“You chose her over me.”