Alice awoke to the snorting of her sleeping husband. She sighed. “Another long day to fill with my darling Thomas.” Thomas scratched his bottom and turned to the other side of the bed, rolling his round belly with him. “If only he was still working,” she muttered to herself. “Retirement doesn't suit us.”
Alice puttered about their Rosedale estate. She dabbled in her painting, downed a glass of scotch, and then headed to the mailbox for her Saturday paper. As she picked it up, an old weather-stained letter flew out. She caught it with her bejeweled hand and let out a cry. She knew by the rough penmanship that it must be from James. “But I haven’t seen him in forty years. It can’t be.” She lowered herself onto the step, drew out her reading glasses, and ripped open the seal. She took out a sheet of the floral writing paper she had given him all those years ago. The date was 1976. It read, Ally, I know I’m not much of a writer, I really never have been, but I have to tell you that I love you and that I don’t want you to stay in Toronto. Come home. Marry me. We can make a life here. Your Jim.
“This can’t be,” whispered Alice as she cradled the letter. “Why now?” She drifted into the house and passed her daughter the letter.
“Hey Mom, what’s this?” asked Judy as Alice kept walking, ignoring her. Alice gripped the counter to brace herself. When Judy finished reading, she said, “I don’t understand.”
Alice marched over to her, pointing at the letter. “Don’t you see? I just received his letter now. After all of these years. He’ll never know how I felt.”
“How did you feel, Mom?”
Alice peered off into the distance. Confusion clouded her mind and guilt seethed from every pore. “I felt trapped growing up on a farm. Girls mocked my dirt-encrusted nails. They laughed at our outhouse, at my old-fashioned, out-of-style clothing. We didn’t even have running water. It was that awful. But I did have Jim. He was the only one who cared.”
“How come you never mentioned him before?”
“He couldn’t have given me this life. He couldn’t provide the bridge parties, the snotty neighbors, the endless gossip...No. All he could give me was the truth.” Alice dropped to the ground, her diamond rings hit the tile with a clunk, and she sobbed.
Judy came over and tapped her mother’s back. She had witnessed these theatrical pleas for pity on many occasions. “What do you want to hear this time?” asked Judy while she mouthed a curse. “Maybe we should go and pay James a visit.”
Alice’s eyes pierced Judy’s. “No Judy, I’m quite fine where I am. I don’t need to dig up the past. Why would I when I have a happy marriage.”
“Well, we all know that’s a lie,” Judy mumbled as she backed away from her mother.
“Fine, we’ll go. But I’m hiring a driver because you are much too reckless on the road.”
***
Alice stepped out of her shining black SUV onto James’ cobbled pavement in Manilla, Ontario. Her heels sunk into each grassy crevice and she seized Judy’s hand for support. She looked up at the old farm house - the stained glass windows sparkling in the sun, the circular veranda covering every inch of the home’s perimeter. It was heavenly and Alice sighed. “It hasn’t changed a bit.”
A young man answered the door. His hands were blackened with dirt. He wore ripped jean overalls and had wavy brown hair. “How can I help you, Miss?” He glanced over at Judy and smiled shyly. She caught the dimple in his cheek and cast her eyes to the floor.
Alice hesitated. “I’m looking for Jim....for James MacDonald.” He looked exactly like James. The long slender nose, the gloomy brown eyes that held a thousand secrets.
“And who’s asking?”
“Alice.”
“Oh, yes. You must be Alice Johnson. Come on in. I’ve been expecting you. Dad left you something.” 
“Really? That seems odd. We haven’t talked in years.”
Alice followed him up the long staircase. The same dated damask paper and ancestral portraits lined the walls. The floorboards creaked as they walked into James’ bedroom. The man lifted a dusty cardboard box off from the top of the mahogany dresser. He wiped away the cobwebs and handed it to Alice. She lay it on the bed like she would her baby in a cradle and opened the lid.
Alice rested her hand on the contents and no one uttered a sound. She lifted up the letters and pressed them close to her nose. She could smell him.
“Dad collected everything about you over the years - the articles, the recipes, the newspaper pictures. Some nights he would open the box and read everything inside. He seemed so proud.”
“Mom, why didn’t you ever tell me about this man? Does Dad know?”
Alice shook her head.
“If you had just been honest, our family would have been a lot better off. You know, I always knew you were lying about your youth. Your past was like a fairy-tale - so romantic and perfect. You said your Grandparents raised you on a beautiful horse farm in the prairies. You told me that when they died, they sent you to Toronto to work at Eatons as a shop-girl. Is there any truth in that?”
Alice turned away, covering her wet eyes with a handkerchief.
“I resented you because my childhood always felt like it was crumbling. I could never live up to your expectations…your god-damned standards! ‘Oh Judy, I never spoke to my Grandparents the way you speak to me. I just rode my horses, worked hard. I had dignity, Judy. I actually cared about my appearance. I wasn’t slovenly and careless.’ Thanks, Mom. Thanks for everything. It’s a wonder I’m not more messed up.” Judy stormed out of the room, trudged down the stairs, slammed the door, and headed to the backyard. She planted herself down on the grass outside the vegetable garden and leaned on the wooden fence. She tucked her knees into her chest. Alice studied her daughter from the window as the young man clutched the doorknob and exhaled away the display of family tension.
Alice inhaled and swiveled her feet around. She marched up to the familiar man. She stopped abruptly about a foot away from him, absorbing his features and expression. Her eye twitched. “I know who you are,” she whispered. She raised her hand to his face and rubbed his stubbly cheek with the back of her palm. “You’re our son.”
The man withdrew and turned to face the wardrobe. He rested his hand on the varnished wood. “I’m sorry, I should never have done this.”
“What did you do?”
“I sent the letter. I found it in my Dad’s drawer and wanted to meet you.”
She clasped his hand and pressed it to her chest. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I should never have left you. This is my fault.”
He pulled his hand away. “You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do. Can I see your father now?”
Judy suddenly threw open the door and stormed in. “Mom, I need to tell you something.”
“Give me a minute, Judy.”
“I can’t. James passed away last month in a car crash with his eldest son, David.”
Alice lowered herself onto the bed and seized the ancient bedpost.
Judy continued in a rapid pace. “I knew there was something missing in our life. I always knew. A few years ago I found a photograph in the back of your wallet. It was of a man. You never told me much about your past so I thought that there must have been something you were trying to hide. Well, when I was reading the paper last weekend, I saw in the obituary section that exact picture. I tracked down Matthew…”
“And we pieced the story together,” added Matthew.
“Why didn’t you just ask me about him, Judy?” cried Alice.
“Because I knew you wouldn’t tell me. I wanted to understand you but, until today, you’ve been so closed off, so preoccupied. I thought that if I found out the truth, then we could start over and have a real relationship.”
“And we don’t have a real relationship?” whimpered Alice.
Matthew took Judy’s hand as she sobbed, “No, we don’t.”
“So I presume you don’t understand me either,” groaned Alice to Matthew.
Judy cut in. “Mom, he’s not your son. David was.”
Alice jerked. She peered into her pristine, manicured hands. “You must think it was terrible of me to bury my past.” She removed a ring from her finger and played with it. “But at the time I didn’t feel I had a choice. I was only seventeen when I had the baby. James and I were in shock. We didn’t know what to do. I knew everyone in town. They could tell I was getting bigger and every time I passed them, they gave me the most awful looks. And then one day my friends turned on me. They shunned and mocked me to such a degree that I broke and confessed to my mother. She was so disappointed that she threw me out and told me never to come home.”
Judy ran over to her mother and sat down beside her. “I’m sorry, Mom. I had no idea.”
“I moved to Toronto, had the baby, and then gave him up. I created a new identity and found your father. I was grateful to him because he never asked any questions.” 
Matthew piped in. “Dad searched for you. He found David and wanted to bring you home. The morning he intended to send you that letter, he went to the post office to purchase a stamp. It was there that he picked up the newspaper and saw in it a picture of you cutting your wedding cake. He stuffed the letter in his pocket, returned home, and locked it in his desk drawer. He only told me the story a few years ago when I found the letter while cleaning his room. Mom had already passed away by then and I could tell by the tears in his eyes that he was still madly in love with you.”
“If I had known he had raised our baby, I would have come home to him,” wept Alice. “I didn’t know he still loved me. I thought he was angry with me because I never said goodbye.”
“He was happy you found someone and started anew,” replied Matthew.
“Oh Mom, my ignorance has made me so unfeeling. I wish we could just start afresh.”
Alice took her daughter’s hand and kissed it. “You have a right to know who I am. I shouldn’t have lied to you or anybody else. I was just so afraid of confronting my past and that fear made me a cold and difficult mother. In a way, I now feel quite relieved.”
“Me too, Mom.”
“I just wish I could’ve been better to you while you were growing up.”
“Well, it’s never too late to start again.”
Matthew piped in with a voice crack. “Why don’t you two stay here for a little while?” He shuffled towards the door trying to find a reason to leave as Judy rested her head on Alice’s shoulder. “You know what? I’ll go get you a drink!” He headed downstairs to the liquor cabinet.
“Something strong!” shouted Judy. She suddenly turned to her mother with drooping eyes. “If only we could turn back time.”
Alice winked at her daughter and squeezed her hand. “No, I would never ask for that. Because if I could rewind the clock, I might lose you, and I wouldn’t risk that for anything in the world.”