Dear Louise,
I never sent this letter, but I’m writing it now, forty years too late.
I borrowed your gray wool coat the night I left for the train station. Said I’d mail it back in a week.
The train took me to the high plains. I got a job at the bank, a room above the hardware store. The coat hung on the back of the door every winter.
There was a fold-out map on my wall for years, one route highlighted in yellow. The route that left you behind.
A new hire started last week. First day, she shivered at the teller window. I handed her the coat without thinking. She wore it home.
I thought about all the things I never returned. The coat, the promise, the explanation.
You probably forgot me years ago. But that coat still smells like the station, like the choice I made and never looked back from.
I never sent this letter because I knew you deserved more than reasons. You deserved the coat.