I was planning on holding to this a little longer, but I decided it would be worth posting again today. Incidentally, I have tried to do a little at this point to harmonize the film and the book at this point, and I also decided I should let Tiffany be herself a little. There will be more tomorrow, and a little extra for later...

Tiffany,

I am very sorry you were upset by my previous letter. This one will be the last. Yes, there are rules for a reason, and those who break them often regret it. If that is the only thing you learn, it will be enough to make our correspondence worthwhile.

I am very sad that you felt that my death would justify murder. But you must not dwell on regret. Just by talking about it with your therapist and now with me, you have freed yourself. Remember that, even in your darkest hours, you gave up that path, simply because you knew it was wrong. Do you think you cannot do the same, when you are so much better and have so much more to lose- and not just you, but your new family, too?

I cannot say much more, though there is so much I would like to. I always loved you, Tiffany. I still do, and always will. And remember why you loved me: Because I was the kind of husband who would go off work early just to get a gift for my wife. Because I was the kind of cop who would stand beside a car to keep a stranded old lady company, even after the brass threatened to reprimand me if I kept putting myself in the way of traffic. If, on that day, I had simply did my time and made the straight shot home, it would have been worse than anything that happened to me, because I would have known I chose not to be the man you fell in love with, your boy who would rent Casablanca without a date just to talk to the cute girl at the counter, and I would have known you knew it too.

Now, I am afraid I must tell you to do something that will be hard, even if it seems easy now. You must give these letters to Pat, and tell him to return them. He will know what to do. The words we have exchanged were not meant to be said in this world, and this is the only way to balance things out.

However, there is one thing you may keep, if you accept a mission. There will be a second piece of paper in this envelope, only a scrap, with an address. You may keep it, and when you are ready, go to where it tells you. Do not try to learn what is there, or find some reason why you are being sent. Only go, knock on the door, and say that a friend of Tommy Wheeler sent you.

Always and forever, your Bogie,

Tommy

PS. I beg you, please, buy a new dinner table. Ours is too big for your place, and we put it through enough.

Tiffany stared at the letter. Then she went tearing through the closets. Finally she found what she wanted, in a paperback mystery at the bottom of a box in the furthest corner of the dustiest storeroom. It was a receipt for a video rental, covered by protective lamination that was itself worn and peeling. On it was written in pen the name her maiden name and her parents' phone number. She looked more closely at the badly faded thermal printing. There was a date circled in pen, and just legible.

It was ten years to the day from the day Tommy died.

Tiffany's scream rang through the house.

She crouched at the table, clutching at the familiar reality of the wood while she stared alternately at the letter and the receipt. "It was our anniversary," she said aloud. "Not our wedding anniversary, but the anniversary of the day we met. Of course, Tommy always remembered, and he always had to remind me. He would bring me these nice gifts, and I would say, What's this for, Tommy? And then he would tell me, and even show me this receipt… He planned to go to the mall all along. It was our tenth anniversary… Oh my god… Did he think I started the talk that morning because I finally remembered?" She threw back her head and screamed again, this time in a cry to the heavens: "WHAT THE FUCK?! WHO THE FUCK IS DOING THIS AND WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO DO TO ME?"

She wanted to collapse in sobs. She wanted to go downstairs and make love to Pat, or kill him, or preferably both. She wanted to go to the medicine cabinet and take all the pills.

Instead, she fished in the envelope and pulled out a scrap of paper.