I stayed in Melbourne longer than I had planned.
Three weeks became four.
Four became six.
My children noticed.
At first, nobody said anything.
Then Karen called.
I almost didn't answer.
When I did, there was a long silence.
“Mom?”
“Yes.”
“You're still in Australia?”
“Yes.”
She sighed.
“I thought you'd be home by now.”
“So did I.”
“Are you all right?”
I looked across the café at Arthur.
He was pretending not to listen.
“I am.”
Another silence.
Then Karen asked, “Are you coming back?”
The question sounded simple.
It wasn't.
“I don't know.”
She exhaled sharply.
“That's what I mean.”
“What?”
“You don't think about us anymore.”
I stared at the table.
“Karen, I thought about you every day before I left.”
“And now?”
“Now I'm trying to think about myself too.”
She didn't respond.
Then she said something that surprised me.
“I don't know how to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Not need you.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
The truth beneath all the anger.
I had spent years teaching my children that I would always be available.
They had believed me.
Maybe I had been the one who trained them to expect my absence from my own life.
“I didn't leave because I stopped loving you,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then why are you angry?”
“Because you made a decision without asking us.”
I almost smiled.
“That was the point.”
She went quiet.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
We ended the call without resolving anything.
It was enough.
That evening, I told Arthur.
He was sitting on his porch, trying to repair a radio.
“Your daughter called?”
“Yes.”
“How did it go?”
“Badly.”
“That sounds promising.”
I laughed.
“You always find the strange side of things.”
“It's a survival technique.”
I sat beside him.
“She says she doesn't know how to stop needing me.”
Arthur put the screwdriver down.
“What do you want her to do?”
“I want her to be independent.”
“Then let her.”
I looked at him.
“That sounds easy.”
“It isn't.”
He leaned back.
“People often confuse being needed with being loved.”
I thought about that.
“Did Anne ever do that?”
“All the time.”
“And you?”
“Constantly.”
We both laughed.
Then he became quiet.
“That's one reason losing her was so complicated.”
“Because you had to learn who you were without her?”
“Yes.”
I looked toward the street.
“I'm doing that now.”
“I know.”
A week later, Arthur took me to the lake.
We drove for several hours.
The road became narrower.
The city disappeared.
Eventually, we arrived at a quiet stretch of water bordered by trees.
I recognized it immediately.
Not because I had been there.
Because Robert had painted it.
I got out of the car.
Arthur stood beside me.
“This is where it happened.”
“The painting?”
“The first one.”
I walked toward the shore.
The water moved gently against the bank.
There was no cottage anymore.
No dock.
Just trees and water.
I imagined Robert standing there as a young man.
Before marriage.
Before children.
Before mortgages.
Before illness.
Before all the responsibilities that eventually became his life.
I wondered whether he had known, even then, that those moments would matter.
“Arthur?”
“Yes?”
“Was Robert happy here?”
Arthur thought for a moment.
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“He was broke.”
I smiled.
“He was terrible at cooking.”
“I know.”
“He complained constantly.”
“That sounds like him.”
Arthur looked at the water.
“But yes.”
He paused.
“He was happy.”
I sat on a fallen log.
For some reason, that mattered more than I expected.
I had spent twelve years remembering Robert as the sick man in the hospital bed.
Arthur had given me back the young man.
The ridiculous one.
The stubborn one.
The one who got lost.
The one who painted.
The one who believed the future would always be there.
We stayed by the lake until evening.
On the drive back, Arthur asked me something.
“Do you ever wish you hadn't sold the house?”
I looked through the window.
“Yes.”
He glanced at me.
“Really?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Because it was ours.”
He nodded.
“But I don't regret leaving it.”
“Those aren't the same thing.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“I think I finally understand that.”
When we returned to Melbourne, Arthur gave me a small envelope.
“What is this?”
“Something I found in the box.”
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Robert was standing beside Arthur.
They were young.
Too young.
Robert had one arm around Arthur's shoulders.
Both were laughing.
I stared at the photograph for a long time.
“Why didn't you show me this before?”
“Because I didn't want to overwhelm you.”
“You probably should have.”
Arthur smiled.
“You're difficult.”
“So I have been told.”
I turned the photograph over.
There was writing on the back.
Robert's handwriting.
Two idiots by the lake.
I laughed.
Then I cried.
Arthur watched me.
“I wish I had known this version of him.”
“You did.”
“Not like this.”
Arthur shook his head.
“You knew the version who chose you.”
That stopped me.
I looked at him.
“He didn't stop being that man.”
I looked down at the photograph.
For years, I had treated Robert's life as something that ended with his illness.
But Arthur was showing me that his life had been much larger.
And perhaps mine could be too.
A few days later, I received an email from Melissa.
She apologized.
Not completely.
She still believed I had abandoned my responsibilities.
But she admitted something.
“I didn't realize how much I depended on you until you weren't here.”
I replied honestly.
“I didn't realize how much I had encouraged it until I left.”
That was the first real conversation we had had since I sold the house.
It wasn't a reconciliation.
Not yet.
But it was a beginning.
David took longer.
Eric longer still.
Eric eventually called one evening.
“You really aren't coming back to live in the house?”
“The house is sold.”
“I know.”
“So?”
“I just thought…”
He stopped.
“What?”
“That you would change your mind.”
“I almost did.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone was angry.”
He was quiet.
“Are you angry?”
“No.”
“Then why did you leave?”
I looked at the painting hanging in Arthur's living room.
“Because I realized I was waiting for my life to start.”
Eric didn't answer.
Then he said, “I thought you were supposed to stay.”
“I thought so too.”
He gave a short laugh.
“That's messed up.”
“Yes.”
There was another silence.
Then he said, “I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
That was all.
It was enough.
One afternoon, Arthur and I were sitting in his living room when I noticed the painting again.
“I have a question.”
“About the painting?”
“Yes.”
He looked at it.
“What?”
“Why did Robert paint the third version?”
Arthur's expression changed.
“I don't know.”
“You said he painted it from memory.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Arthur thought.
“About two years before he died.”
I stared at the painting.
“Did he know you still had it?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ask you to keep it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Arthur was silent.
“I don't know.”
That answer bothered me.
The letter had explained why Robert wanted me to come to Australia.
But it hadn't explained why this particular painting mattered so much.
I stood.
“Where did he paint the third one?”
“His studio.”
“Did you ever see him paint it?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you what it meant?”
Arthur shook his head.
“He only said it was important.”
“To me?”
Arthur hesitated.
“I assumed so.”
I looked again at the bottom corner.
R.M.
I remembered Robert's habit of adding something tiny to every painting.
A date.
A word.
A hidden mark.
Sometimes an inside joke.
I moved closer.
“Arthur.”
“Yes?”
“Can you take the painting down?”
He looked surprised.
“Why?”
“I want to see the back.”
He helped me remove it from the wall.
We placed it carefully on the floor.
I ran my fingers along the frame.
Nothing.
Arthur turned it around.
The backing paper was old.
One corner had been repaired.
I saw something beneath it.
A small folded piece of paper.
My heart began pounding.
“What is that?”
Arthur stared.
“I've never seen it.”
He carefully loosened the backing.
The paper slid free.
It was folded twice.
My name was written across the front.
Not Abigail.
A different name.
The nickname Robert had used for me when we were young.
I hadn't seen it written in years.
My hands shook.
I opened it.
There were only three lines.
I read them once.
Then again.
Arthur watched my face.
“What does it say?”
I couldn't answer.
The note wasn't a farewell.
It wasn't a message about travel.
It wasn't even about Robert.
It was an instruction.
A location.
And beneath it, a date.
A date from twenty-five years earlier.
I looked at Arthur.
“Where is this?”
He took the paper.
His face changed.
“That address…”
“What?”
“I know it.”
“Where?”
He pointed toward the paper.
“It isn't far from here.”
I stared at him.
“What was there?”
Arthur looked at me.
“The old hotel where Robert and I first met.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: The Hidden Note Sent Us Back to the Place Where Robert First Met Arthur, and What We Found There Changed Everything
I Had Spent Sixty-Nine Years Believing My Life Could Wait, Until One Morning I Realized Everyone Else Had Already Claimed My Time
Part 3 of 12
