Chapter 3 — Kathy Stabler

Kathleen held the last of the small pile of letters her mother had written with shaky hands a week earlier — letters she'd promised to keep sealed and deliver before her father left New York again. But her mother was gone now, and Kathleen couldn't bear to let go of the wrinkled envelope without opening it, without knowing every one of her beloved mom's last words. With guilt panging in her chest, she slowly peeled the sticker from the envelope and opened it. Two torn-out pages of a notebook lay folded inside, with Kathy's shaky, delicate cursive covering both sides of each. She promised once more, to only herself this time, that she'd deliver the pages, after she'd read them over and over, soaking in the last new thing from her mother that she'd ever hold, ever learn.

Dear Olivia,

There was a time when I really believed my marriage was in my past. I had moved on, and I was waiting to hear that you two were finally together. I know he was waiting for that too. It seemed inevitable then, but we weren't the only ones waiting. You were so loyal to him that you were even loyal to his marriage, and then somehow things changed again before the divorce was final. Eli was on the way, and I had to take my husband back from you... but I've always known that you let me. For three years after Eli was born, I was afraid of the day that you and Elliot would be honest with each other, and I'd have to start my life over with someone new. But you never told him, and Eli was getting older, and I just didn't want to be afraid for another 15 years. That's why I needed him to retire, and why I silenced your calls on his phone. I had fallen back in love with him, and I knew if he left you, I could get him to fall back in love with me too.

I know that it wasn't really fair the way things worked out. Honestly, it was never fair for us from the start. We didn't mean to get pregnant the first time or the last time, and even though my kids are the loves of my life, I know what it cost us all. After Maureen, it killed me to see Elliot change all of his dreams, and it still breaks my heart when I see Eli drawing like his dad did and writing about his own dream to go to space. He's his father's son, maybe even his favorite, but he too came at the cost of hopes that Elliot had to give up on to be his dad. I was never unaware of that, and I probably should've said this many years ago, but thank you, Olivia, for being so faithful to him that he was faithful to me. I know enough about both of you to be sure you never meant to feel the way you did — life just happens, and he happened to meet the love of his after he'd already made a family with me. I'm sure you know that Elliot doesn't really believe in soul mates, but there have been so many times in the last ten years that he has needed you in a way that no one else could fix. I used to watch you two have full conversations without even speaking, and I was so jealous. Communication has always been a lot of work in our marriage, and having you around made it harder for him to want to try as much as we needed to.

After we moved to Rome and after he was okay again, I finally got to really know him, for the first time. He's shared so many things with me over the years about who he is that I hadn't understood before, but there's still this whole part of him that I can't access — because I wasn't meant to be by his side like you were. When you first became his partner, it was so glaring to me how easy it was for him to be with you. I wonder if you ever realized that he's not that way with anyone else, that he needs to be alone to feel like himself — alone or with you. I saw it from the beginning, but I kept telling myself you were just meant to be partners, because I didn't want to believe that I had made a family with the wrong person, with a man who needed to be with someone else. I could tell he felt that too. Despite all the tension in our relationship during those years in New York, and despite what he felt for you, neither of us could imagine life taking any other path than the one that brought us our children.

Now that you have Noah, I'm sure you wouldn't change anything that's happened because it all led to being his mom. I know how that is. But I also know that everything could've easily turned out differently for all of us after you and Elliot became partners. There could've been a different child you'd have loved as much as Noah, as much as I love Eli. I remember thinking about that when I got pregnant with Kathleen a couple months after a miscarriage. If I had never never lost that baby, I would've loved them too much to imagine choosing Kathleen instead. I'm sure you can't imagine having chosen Elliot instead, but I can. I worried all the time that you would. I'd watch Elliot grow more and more distant, and I'd prepare myself for it, picture it: you two together, my kids holding your kids, us being friends even. I decided so many times that I would be okay with it when it happened, but you just kept being his partner, and he kept being my husband.

If you're still wondering why I'm writing this letter, it's because I wanted you to understand that not everything that happened was a choice or what was meant to be or was what we deserved. It's just how things turned out. And I need you to make sure Elliot knows that too, because if you're reading this, he's blaming himself for my death, and he needs you even more than he needed you ten years ago.

Give him stability.

Sincerely,

Kathy