Page 112 of The Wrong Game

Sofia was grappling, and she paused to take a long breath, like what she wanted to say didn’t really matter.

“Well, I think he wanted you to have that letter, and I think maybe it’s been enough time now.” Her eyes shot open. “I didn’t read anything. I’ve just had it sitting around, I was waiting for the right time and I just… I don’t know, I feel like now is right.”

She was still holding that box toward me, but nowIwas the one looking at it like it was a bomb.

I don’t want it. Please, just take it. Throw it away. I don’t want it.

“Thank you,” I said instead, taking the box from her hands. It was like a shoe box, but all white, no labels or indication of what might lie inside. All I knewnow, thanks to Sofia, was that there was a letter inside.

A letter for me.

I didn’t want to read a letter from my late husband.

But, it didn’t matter. I could throw the whole box away without even looking inside it if I wanted to. Right now, I just needed to take what my ex-mother-in-law was offering, and give her whatever peace she needed in delivering it.

Sofia nodded, smiling a little now that the box had changed hands. “If there’s anything you want to talk about after you open it… just call me. Okay?”

I nodded. “Okay. I hope…” I swallowed, the words dying in my throat. I hadn’t been good at keeping up with her — with anyone related to Carlo. When he died, I wanted to erase him — all of him.

“It’s okay,” Sofia said, reaching out to squeeze my forearm. “We’re all okay. And you’re okay. It’s all good. We love you.”

Tears sprung in my eyes, but I swallowed, holding them at bay. “I love you, too.”

With that, Sofia squeezed my arm once more before turning and making her way toward the elevators. I closed the door, pressing my back to it and staring at the box in my hands.

“Holy shit,” Belle said, and in seconds, she was already on her feet, standing next to me and staring at the box, too. “What are you going to do?”

I swallowed. “Open it.”

Belle nodded, a strange silence falling between us, like Carlo himself was inside that box and now we had no idea what to say with him around. “Do you want me to stay?”

I shook my head. “No,” I whispered. “I think this is something I should do alone.”

I still stood there with my hands locked on that box as Belle hugged me as best she could, telling me she was just a call away and she could be right back down here. She told me she loved me, that I was strong, that whatever was in that box did not define me.

She said all the right words a best friend should say.

And then, she left, and I was alone with a ghost I thought I’d shaken.

Even with the television still on, my condo felt eerily quiet in that moment. I walked numbly to my kitchen island, sliding the box on top of the granite and staring at it for what felt like an entire hour. I didn’t open it at first. Instead, I poured a glass of wine and sipped on it while I stared at the white cardboard.

When the last drop of wine was gone from my glass, I sighed, and I said it out loud even though I was the only one in the room.

“Just get it over with, Gemma.”

With that final push, I popped the lid off the box, tossing it to the side as I stared at the newly unveiled contents.

The first thing I noticed was his wedding ring.

I picked it up out of the pile of things, pushing aside the watch and wallet that surrounded it. I held that gold band in my palm, rolling it over and touching the metal with my fingertips.

I hadn’t even realized he’d taken it off.

I’d always assumed that the nurses or the mortician had removed it before the funeral. I knew about grave robbers, knew he wouldn’t be buried with it. But I hadn’t even asked about it.

I hadn’t cared.

I wondered now when he had taken it off, or if the nurses had done it. He’d gotten so small toward the end. Maybe it fell off.