Free The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart Page B

Gollum with his ring. I didn’t want Ruth to see. I sat on the floor beside the table, hoping the bed would hide me from her view.
    The package was rectangular in shape, big enough to hold a hardback book, but too light for that to be its contents. Oliver had cut up a brown-paper bag to wrap it, and had not done a terribly good job of either the cutting or the wrapping. The paper puffed out in some places, stuck out in jagged triangles in others, and I could see where he’d struggled with the tape, jammed it on in sticky little bunches and started again with new pieces. He’d tied a piece of red yarn around the package, a loose knot where perhaps he’d wanted a bow. I turned the package around in my hands, imagining what, out of all his things, he might have chosen especially for me—a necklace that matched his aunt’s opal ring, one of the chickens from the collection on the kitchen windowsill? Maybe he’d secretly tape-recorded his memoirs and was leaving them for me to edit—a plan for my future he’d finished making after all. I knew exactly which picture of Oliver I’d choose for the cover—a studio shot of him as a young man, his thick hair combed back, his eyes bright, his sly smile suggesting a wealth of clever thoughts. He looked in that picture like a man on the verge of an adventurous life.
    My excitement made me hesitant, hoping that whatever was inside the package would equal my joy at discovering it. I opened the letter first, tearing the envelope as carefully as I could.
     
My dear Cameron,
    I suppose you think yourself now relieved of duty—alas, I have one final task to charge you with before I release you from my employ. Deliver this wedding present to your onetime friend, the charming Miss Sonia Gray. Do not mail it—it must be delivered in person, by you. You will, of course, be compensated, at twice your normal rate, for however long it takes you to complete this task. Please show this letter to Ruth (unless of course I have outlived her) as a sort of invoice.
    Your Miss Gray thinks perhaps you never replied to her letter because you are genuinely indifferent to her. She imagines you have at last become as detached as you always wanted people to think you were. I differ from her in this opinion. Still, I can well imagine your indignation at being sent to her. Right now you are thinking that the package is empty and its delivery just another scheme I have devised to torment you. I assure you this is not so. Remember that you have a long life yet to live, as I do not. I know you will not refuse me the time it will take to do this one last thing.

Yours, as ever,
    Oliver Doucet

    P.S. Don’t open the package. I invoke your overdeveloped sense of honor. And if there’s life after death, I’m watching you.
     
    There were many things in the letter to upset me, but at first all I felt, like a punch in the throat, was disappointment that the package was not for me. Three years together, and Oliver’s parting words were instructions to deliver something to another, instructions not even signed with love. He’d never even met Sonia, but he’d chosen her over me.
    I read the letter again. What did he mean when he said Sonia thought I was indifferent? How did he know what Sonia thought about anything? It took longer than it should have for me to realize that he was telling me he’d corresponded with her. He must have taken it upon himself to answer her letter when I wouldn’t, the way I answered the letters that he ignored. And what had they said to each other, these two people who had nothing but me in common? What other opinions on my psychology had they shared as they formed their secret bond? What had they told each other that I wouldn’t have wanted them to know?
    I stood and paced away from the bed, then back. “Son of a bitch,” I said. My voice came out funny, like I was about to cry.
    “What?” Ruth said.
    I looked up to find her watching me from the foot of the bed.
    “What do