I rolled up the door of unit 31, my hands shaking with dread, and the light fell on a desk, a lamp, a comfortable chair, and stacks and stacks of paper, and an old typewriter, and I stepped closer to see what my Walter had been doing out here for seventeen years.
The top page read: Our Life, by a lucky man.
Real particular that no one be added but him, the man had said, and now I understood, my Walter was writing something in secret, a surprise, and a man who could not keep a Christmas gift quiet had to lock it away where his own mouth could not reach.
My Walter, who could not keep a secret to save his life, who I thought had not a literary bone in him, had been secretly writing a book, the story of our whole life together, four hundred pages of it.
I sat down in his chair and began to read, and there was our whole life on the page, in his plain honest voice. The day we met at the church social. How terrified he was to ask me out. Our wedding. The night our first was born. The lean years and the good ones. Every chapter a piece of us.
He had written a chapter about my mothers passing, and how he held me. A chapter about our daughters wedding. A chapter, I could barely read it, simply titled Why I Love Her, forty-four years of reasons.
His letter was clipped to the manuscript. He wrote: Old girl, I am no writer, but somebody had to set our life down before it slipped away. I hid it here and told the folks to add nobody but me, because you know if you caught me I would have read you the whole thing on the spot, I cannot keep a surprise. I was making a book for each of the children and grandchildren, so they would know us. I did not quite finish. Write the ending for me. You always knew it better than I did. Love, Walter.
I wept over that manuscript for a week. Then I did what he asked. I finished it. I wrote the last chapter myself, about losing him, and finding this unit, and learning how deeply I was loved.
Particular that no one be added, so the surprise would keep, because he could not keep it himself.
I had the book printed, copies for our children and grandchildren. Our Life, by a lucky man, finished by a lucky woman. They treasure it. They read our whole story to their own children now.
My daughter did not know why I drove out to Route 11. Now she knows her daddy wrote us a book so we would never be forgotten. Particular that no one be added, so the surprise would keep. He set our whole life down in his own words. It will never be forgotten now. My dear, secret, loving Walter.