June 25, 1977
Encino, California David, I’m going to call the inn and take care of the rooms. You can get us some sparklers and maybe some tiny flags or something. We will be as festive as possible this coming weekend. And we can both try our damnedest to not think too much about what awaits us.
Sound good?
All my love, Carrie
June 29, 1977
Carlsbad, California
Carrie,
Sparklers secured. I will see you Saturday. Here’s to making the best of things.
All yours,
David
July 5, 1977
San Clemente, California Carrie, I am currently at a gas station in San Clemente on my way home, and I saw this postcard with a sandbar on it and had to send it to you. I left you just a moment ago, and yet I still miss the sound of your voice, the way you smell like coconuts. I can’t believe you didn’t know you smell like coconuts!
It breaks my heart that no one had been smelling your hair.
You are a revelation. And beside you, I could feel nothing but peace.
Anyway, about the sandbar. It reminded me of you because you are my sandbar. I was lost at sea, and then you showed up. My dry land.
Love, David
July 7, 1977
Encino, California David, Your postcard made me smile. I still blush at the thought of your hands in my hair.
I had no idea when we made the plans for the Fourth that I would be sad to see the weekend end. I thought for sure the two of us would be holed up there trying to cheer each other up and finding it impossible.
But that wasn’t it at all, was it? Somehow, as absurd as it is, we found ways to be truly joyful, didn’t we? There were moments, I swear, you made me forget why we were even there.
Thank you for helping me remember how to be happy.
Love, Carrie
July 12, 1977
Carlsbad, California Carrie, It is I who should be thanking you. You have reminded me that no matter what happens with my marriage, all is not lost. There is still beauty out there, still unexpected wonders.
The only silver lining, should all this end in disaster, is that there is you.
Love, David
July 19, 1977
Encino, California David, You are the biggest surprise of my adult life. I had absolutely no idea when I wrote to you that first time that I was reaching out to a kindred spirit. And as complicated and unforeseen as this all has been, I don’t regret a single second of it.
How are things there? I have to ask: Since coming home, have you found any other letters from Ken? Heard anything else from Janet?
Ken has been oddly attentive as of late. He has come home directly after work. He has bought me flowers. Tonight he is taking me out to dinner at the Chateau Marmont (a fancy hotel for movie stars and rock bands).
I do not know what it all means.
Love, Carrie
July 25, 1977
Carlsbad, California Carrie, I have found no letters lately, and Janet has stopped excusing herself after dinner to go for a walk, which I’ve always assumed she spent at the pay phone. I do not know what it means.
How are you? I hope your cold is better. I’m thinking of you and sending you thoughts of matzo ball soup with extra noodles.
Love, David
July 29, 1977
Encino, California David, I miss you. I hope that is all right to say. I wish, so often, you were here in person.
Yesterday, Ken told me that he is going to Palm Springs for a consult on a former colleague’s case. He says he’ll be there from August 8 through 13. I am assuming that this is a lie, but I have found no more letters from Janet, so I cannot be sure.
Has Janet mentioned anything to you? Has she planned time away?
If they are going away together again, shall we meet?
Love, Carrie
August 3, 1977
Carlsbad, California Carrie, I’ve heard nothing from Janet about this. I have no idea.
I’ll check to see if there are any letters in the cookbooks or glove compartments or buried in the closet when I get home.
If she does go, I’ll call you and set a time for us to meet.
Love, David
August 6, 1977
Encino, California David,
Ken leaves Monday for Palm Springs. Still no word from Janet?
Last night, Ken made me dinner. He went to the store after work and bought groceries. He grilled us steaks and made a salad, including homemade dressing that was from a recipe from a nurse at work.
He lit candles and opened a bottle of wine. I was confused and skeptical. But I was also surprised at just how pleasant it was to have his attention again. It had been gone so long, I had forgotten how it felt.
He started talking about when we met. He said he spoke to his father after our first date and told him he would marry me. He told me his father told him to choose a woman he could love for fifty years. And then Ken said to me, “And that’s what you are.”
I said, “Are you sure you won’t ever want someone else?”
And Ken said, “I will never love anyone the way I love you. Never.”
Obviously, a large part of me felt like he was lying, but there was another part of me that felt like, What if he has decided once again that I’m “the One”?
But I asked him if he really needed to go to Palm Springs on Monday, and he insisted he had to. So Janet must be meeting him there, right?
Love,
Carrie
August 9, 1977
Carlsbad, California Carrie, It’s now Tuesday, August 9, and Janet is still here. She seems to have no plans to leave. If Ken has left, I can say definitively he is not with Janet.
Do you think their relationship is over? I can’t make heads or tails of all this.
Love, David
August 15, 1977
Encino, California David,
On Monday morning, just as Ken was getting ready to get in the car for the drive to Palm Springs, he looked at me and said, “Why don’t you come with me?”
I said, “With you?”
And he said, “Yes, come with me.”
And I found myself packing up a couple of things and getting into the car with him.
It turns out there truly was a consult. It wasn’t a lie.
How odd to feel confused that your husband is telling the truth. And yet, I have to admit, there was real comfort in that. It was as if the Ken I fell in love with reappeared: trustworthy, dependable.
I spent my days walking around the town and shopping, and then during the evenings Ken and I would go out to restaurants and have drinks at bars and order room service for dessert. I swear, when he looked into my eyes, it truly seemed like he loved me. It felt like a new beginning, I suppose. It was as if the past had never transpired.
He said he wants to take me on a vacation to Italy next year. He called it a “second honeymoon.” I’m not quite sure how I feel about it all right now. I’m a bit stunned, to be frank.
Is it possible that after all we have both been through, it has ended with them coming back to us?
All my best,
Carrie
August 20, 1977
Carlsbad, California
Carrie,
Last night, Janet and I put the kids to sleep and then decided to watch some TV in the living room. I was sitting in my recliner, Janet on the sofa, when she walked up to the TV and turned it off.
She said, “I’ve been sleeping with someone else.”
And she confessed everything.
She started at the very beginning—how they met years ago and she thought nothing of it but then ran into him for the second time last August. I didn’t realize it, but the night they met again was a night in which she and I had gotten into an argument about how I was always grading papers on evenings we were supposed to spend together. She’d decided, rather angrily, to go out with her friend Sharon.
Apparently, she didn’t come home until the next morning, and she said I barely even noticed. It strikes me as almost unbelievable how little attention I paid to her back then. Not that I’m blaming myself. After knowing the full details, my anger at Janet has somehow become stronger but also more tolerable. That doesn’t make much sense, I guess.