Letters I Never Sent

I found the box the day after the funeral.

It was tucked away in the back of the wardrobe, beneath his old sweaters, wrapped in a silk scarf I had given him on our last Christmas together. The lid creaked when I opened it—perhaps in protest, or maybe in warning.

Inside were letters. Dozens of them. All addressed to me.

None of them ever sent.

I sat on the floor of his bedroom—our bedroom once—and held the first envelope like it might burn me. My name was written in the familiar curve of his handwriting: Eleanor.

I hadn’t spoken his name aloud since they lowered him into the ground. I didn’t need to. It lived in every breath I took.

Thomas.

I opened the first letter. It was dated June 17, 1974—three days after I left.

Dear Eleanor,

I should have stopped you. I should have run after you in the rain, like they do in the movies. But all I did was watch. I thought I was being noble. I thought letting you go would hurt less than holding on to someone who didn’t want to stay.

I was wrong.

My hands trembled as I read. The words bled through the years like fresh ink. I remembered that day—how I stood at the train station, unsure if I was leaving to find myself or to escape him. I told myself I needed space, a new city, a new life. He never argued.

I always thought that meant he didn’t care enough to fight for me.

I was wrong too.

Each letter I opened unraveled another year of silence. He had written about his days—the small joys and quiet regrets. He told me about the bookstore he opened downtown, how he named the poetry section Ellie’s Corner. He wrote about the dog he adopted, Jasper, and how the mutt took up my side of the bed like it was his birthright.

He wrote when his father died. When his sister married. When he saw a woman on the subway wearing my perfume and almost broke down.

There are ghosts in everything now, one letter read.

In the music I play, in the food I cook, in the wind on a Wednesday afternoon. I don’t even know what I’d say to you if you walked through the door. Maybe I’d say nothing at all. Maybe I’d just hold you.

I closed my eyes and let the silence speak for both of us.

After I left, I thought about writing. So many times, I put pen to paper. But every word felt small, every apology too late. So I convinced myself he’d moved on, that I was a memory he had folded away.

But he hadn't. And I hadn’t either.

Years passed. I married. Moved abroad. Divorced. Life spun its web around me, tight and unyielding. And Thomas remained untouched, like a pressed flower between pages—frozen in time, preserved in guilt and longing.

The last letter was dated only six months ago. Just before he fell ill.

Dear Eleanor,

This might be my final letter, though I hope it’s not. There’s something comforting about pretending you’re still out there reading these. I wonder if you ever knew how much I loved you. Not just then, but always. In every version of my life, you were the chapter I never stopped writing.

If you ever find these… please don’t cry for what we lost. Smile for what we had. And know I never stopped waiting for you to write back.

Love always,

Thomas

The pages blurred. My tears fell onto the paper, smudging his name, but not the meaning.

In the weeks that followed, I returned to that box every morning like a ritual—coffee in one hand, his words in the other. It was the only thing that made the house feel warm again. Like he hadn’t entirely left.

One morning, I found a blank envelope in the box. No letter inside. Just a folded piece of paper and a pen.

It was his handwriting again:

One day, maybe you’ll have something to say back. When you're ready, write to me.

So I did.

I wrote of my regrets. Of the moments I wanted to call and didn’t. I told him about Paris, the bookstore near my apartment, the man I married but never fully gave my heart to. I wrote about the dreams I had where he waited for me on the porch, still young, still whole.

I filled one letter. Then two. Then five.

I didn’t know if anyone would ever read them. But it didn’t matter.

In that silence, Thomas had loved me with words I never heard. And now, through memory and ink, I was finally loving him back.