An Unopened Letter

He had not been expecting a letter. Grant held the cream colored envelope in his hands. His left pinky finger twitched in time to the rhythm of his racing heart. He couldn't open it just yet. He wanted to imagine her first, Lilly Windle, sitting at her desk writing this letter to him. What did she look like? Grant wondered. Was she short or tall? Did she have a gap between her teeth or were they perfectly straight and white? Did she like tea with lemon like he did? Or was she a coffee drinker? It was silly to think about these things, these inconsequential musings about Lilly, when life would change the moment his fingers ripped through the fragile cream envelope.

Grant stared at her round cursive handwriting which sloped upward. He hoped it would give him some clue about this mysterious twenty year old. He wasn't a handwriting expert but he liked the way she boldly looped her letters. Grant was sure Lilly was vivacious and beautiful by her impeccable script.

Exhaling slowly, Grant lowered his gym back onto the floor and placed the letter on the entry way table. He caught a glimpse of himself in the hallway mirror and winced. Patches of gray hair grew like weeds near his temples and new wrinkles formed around the corners of his eyes and mouth. All the working out and marathon running he had become addicted to didn't stop the progression of time like he had expected. He was still forty nine. Yet he felt more like sixty five after looking in mirror. He hoped Lilly wouldn't mind what he looked like. Combing his fingers through his graying sandy brown hair, Grant carefully inspected a thin patch on the top of his head. He was becoming his father. There was nothing he could do to stop it. Lilly Windle offered the seductive illusion of time's fast ticking clock stuck on pause still. She returned to him those lost years when he was a young business exec at the top of his game. Women, beautiful women, wanted him then and he blissfully obliged.

The sound of keys in the door startled him.

"Hey honey," his wife Meagan kissed his cheek, her lips warm and soft against his skin. The scent of Megan's lavender perfume comforted him. Everything about her comforted him-her perceptive green eyes that widened when she listened intently, the way she rubbed her thumb over his knuckles when they held hands and her delicate chuckling laughter that made him forget every evil in the world. These were his top three, but there were a thousand more Meganisms on the list. Grant knew he would never grow tired of anything Megan. And he silently questioned if she felt the same way about him.

"Are you memorizing my face?" She asked, a mischievous smile curving her lips upward.

"No. Just thinking," Grant said solemnly.
"Is something wrong?" Megan inquired, her smile beginning to dissipate.
"Nothing's wrong." Grant said, swallowing hard over the tennis ball in his throat. "Everything is fine."
"Okay," she replied with a moderate level of conviction. Shrugging her shoulders, she turned her back to him and grabbed a hanger from the closet. Grant seized the opportunity to quickly pick up the letter from the table and shove it into his sweatpants pocket; but it fell right beside Megan's stacked heel instead. She bent down to pick it up. "Who's Laura Windle?" She asked innocently.

He could lose her right now. Tonight. The trust between him and his Megan would vanish forever like everything else he tried to tightly hold on to.

"I have a daughter, Meg." He announced calmly, his voice almost a whisper.

"We don't have any children." Her hand shook as she held the letter in her right hand. "Stop joking, Grant. It's not funny."

"Her name is Laura. She's twenty years old. She lives in Phoenix." Grant surprised himself with the cold android like tone in his voice. He watched Megan's shoulders slowly slump and he felt his limbs go numb. He hated what he had done to her and the way her eyes suddenly filled with tears of sadness and hatred all at once.

Megan let the unopened letter slip out of her hand and onto the floor. And just like that, Grant knew he had ruined his marriage and his life forever.