PART 2
“Are you not going to answer that?” I asked curiously.
“No, it is fine,” he dismissed quickly.
“Who was calling you at this late hour?” I asked.
“Just someone calling from my old life up north,” Connor replied smoothly.
Something subtle and strange in his tone made me pause for a moment.
Then he smiled warmly and reached across the table to take my hand.
“That old life does not matter to me anymore, Abby. This new life with you is the only thing that matters.”
I wanted desperately to believe his sweet words, so I pushed my lingering doubts aside.
A few nights later, Connor held both my hands as we sat together on the back porch.
“Why are we merely dating like teenagers at seventy-five years old?”
I laughed softly at his dramatic question.
“What else should two senior citizens be doing?”
“We should be getting married without wasting another moment,” Connor stated plainly.
I stared at him in complete shock.
“Connor, we are practically already old…”
“You are already my true wife in my heart,” Connor interrupted tenderly.
For the first time in fifty-five long years, I stopped obsessing over everything I had lost in my youth and began concentrating on the precious time I might still have left.
We quickly organized a small, intimate backyard wedding for our close family. Connor insisted that we marry as soon as possible, wanting the ceremony to take place within the week. He also began asking increasingly practical questions about my personal finances.
“Is this house fully paid off, Abby?”
“Yes, I paid off the mortgage twenty years ago,” I answered honestly.
“Do you happen to have an updated legal will drawn up?” Connor asked casually over morning coffee.
“Why are you asking me about legal documents all of a sudden?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“We are certainly not twenty years old anymore, sweetheart,” Connor explained calmly. “We ought to know exactly how to take care of each other financially if something happens.”
“You have obviously thought about this financial matter a lot,” I observed, noting how composed he remained.
“About our long-term security together? Of course I have,” Connor answered smooth as silk.
“I specifically meant the property and money side of things,” I clarified.
He responded with a charming smile.
“They are essentially the same exact thing at our advanced age, Abby.”
His explanation seemed perfectly reasonable when he put it that way. At least, I desperately wanted to believe it was reasonable at the time.
The day before our scheduled backyard wedding, I invited my immediate family to my home and announced our wonderful surprise.
“Connor and I are getting married right here tomorrow afternoon,” I declared to everyone gathered in the living room.
The entire room erupted into overlapping conversations filled with excitement and disbelief.
Suddenly, the front door opened, and Bridget walked straight inside. She stepped into the sunlit backyard, spotted Connor standing beside me, and froze in place.
Connor leaned toward my ear and whispered, “That right there is the exact face of a guilty woman who never expected her wicked lie to walk through the door.”
Bridget stared directly at me, horror written across her face.
“Abby, you absolutely cannot marry that man!”
I gave a bitter, icy laugh.
“Oh, so now you suddenly care about my happiness?”
“Please listen to me, Abby,” Bridget pleaded, moving closer.
“You knew he was alive this whole time!” I shouted, my voice trembling with rage.
Her face instantly drained of color as she turned away.
“Who on earth told you such a ridiculous story?”
“Connor told me everything,” I declared proudly.
Bridget held Connor’s gaze for a long moment before turning back toward me.
“You really need to sit down and listen to me right now.”
“I listened to your toxic advice fifty-five years ago, and look where it got me!” I shot back immediately.
“Let us discuss this privately inside the house,” Bridget requested anxiously.
“Why should we go inside?” I scoffed loudly. “Because there are actual witnesses out here to hear the truth?”
She seized my right forearm with surprising strength.
“I wanted you to pack up and leave our hometown back then, yes I did.”
My chest tightened painfully as her confession hung between us. Connor had been right about her manipulation all along.
“You purposely convinced me to move away to Tampa,” I said, tears gathering in my eyes.
“Yes, I did,” Bridget admitted quietly.
“And then you married his best friend,” I continued, my accusations coming faster.
“Yes, I did,” she whispered.
“You knew critical details about Connor that you never bothered to tell me!” I shouted.
“Yes, I knew,” Bridget confessed as tears streamed down her wrinkled cheeks.
With overwhelming disgust, I pulled my arm free.
“You completely stole my entire life away from me!”
Bridget’s eyes filled with tears of profound regret.
“I made a truly terrible decision back then, Abby, but it was not for the selfish reason that man told you.”
Connor suddenly stepped beside us, his expression turning icy.
“Do not do this right now, Bridget.”
She rounded on him with fierce anger.
“You do not get to command me or tell me what to do ever again!”
“Bridget, stop this madness,” Connor warned sharply.
“No, I will not be quiet,” Bridget snapped back.
Then she fixed her eyes on mine, her expression intensely serious.
“Fine, if you will not listen to me, ask your perfect long-lost husband who Brenda is.”
The unfamiliar name stirred something deep in my memory. Suddenly, I recalled our conversation from weeks earlier.
“The army nurse who cared for him?”
Connor went completely rigid beside me, his jaw tightening.
Bridget gave a small, bitter laugh filled with sorrow.
“Yes, Abby, ask him all about his precious nurse.”
Ignoring her remark, Connor turned toward me.
“She simply helped me recover after I was severely injured in battle, Abby. She saved my physical life, and that is all there is to it.”
“Is that truly all she was to you?” I asked Connor, searching his frozen face.
“That is all she ever was,” Connor stated firmly.
Bridget shook her head in utter disbelief.
“Then why do you not tell my sister exactly how many decades Brenda kept saving you?”
“That is enough out of you!” Connor shouted.
Connor almost never raised his voice. Hearing him roar like that frightened me far more than anything Bridget had said.
Within seconds, his harsh expression softened into one of affection.
“Sweetheart, after waiting fifty-five long years for each other, are you really going to let your bitter sister destroy our future all over again?”
I looked at my sister, weeping on my lawn, before turning toward Connor’s pleading face.
“No, I am not.”
Bridget stared at me in profound silence for several agonizing seconds.
“Then I truly hope you ask yourself why he suddenly showed up on your doorstep right now,” she said quietly before turning and walking away.
That night, Connor slept peacefully beside me in bed. I remained awake for every minute of it.
At two o’clock in the morning, I finally realized that my blind love had answered every emotional question while leaving the practical ones Connor kept avoiding completely unanswered.
Why didn’t he possess even a single copy of the letters Bridget had supposedly sent him? Why was he so determined to rush our wedding? Why was he so interested in the deed to my house? Why had he suddenly appeared after fifty-five years? And why had the mere mention of Brenda frightened him enough to make him scream at my sister?
I gazed at Connor sleeping peacefully beside me in the darkness.
“Who are you really?” I whispered into the silent room.
He shifted slightly beneath the heavy blankets.
“Did you say something, sweetheart?”
“It is nothing at all, go back to sleep,” I whispered softly.
Once his breathing settled into a steady rhythm, I quietly slipped out of bed, grabbed my car keys, and drove straight across town to Bridget’s house.
She opened the front door wearing a thick bathrobe, seemingly unsurprised by my arrival.
“I knew you would eventually come over tonight,” Bridget said softly, stepping aside to let me enter.
“I need you to tell me everything right now,” I demanded as I walked into her living room.
She settled into her plush armchair and took a deep breath.
Then she began dismantling Connor’s romantic fairy tale piece by piece.
“He did not spend fifty-five agonizing years searching the country for you, Abby,” Bridget revealed gently.
“What actually happened to him after the war?” I asked, my heart pounding in my throat.
“Brenda happened,” Bridget answered directly.
“The nurse from the field hospital?” I asked to confirm.
“Connor met her while he was recovering from his combat injuries, and they started an intimate romantic relationship right there,” Bridget explained.
“And then what?” I asked, feeling a cold sensation spreading through my limbs.
“She got pregnant with his child,” Bridget stated plainly.
Something inside my soul seemed to go completely numb.
“No, that cannot be true.”
“Yes, it is the absolute truth,” Bridget insisted softly.
“He was legally married to me back in Florida!” I shouted, tears welling in my eyes. “I know he was,” Bridget replied gently.
“Did this Brenda woman even know about my existence?” I asked, trembling uncontrollably.
Bridget paused before answering.
“Eventually she found out, but they never legally married because of his existing marriage to you. However, they spent almost fifty full years living together as husband and wife. They raised children together in Ohio, built a lovely home, and everyone in their entire community knew Brenda as his legitimate wife.”
“Everyone in the world knew except for me,” I whispered bitterly, closing my eyes.
Bridget lowered her gaze in shame.
“Everyone except you.”
“Then why did his army buddy come back home and tell me that Connor was dead?” I demanded.
“Because Connor explicitly asked him to tell you that,” Bridget answered honestly.
I stood completely frozen, unable to utter a single word. Bridget’s voice cracked with emotion.
“He did not lose you in the chaos of war, Abby. He actively chose to abandon you for another woman.”
