My wife of 15 years died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. One moment she was laughing in the kitchen, the next—gone. In the silence that followed, I found a note hidden behind our engagement photo. In her handwriting: “For when you need to know the truth.”

Inside, she confessed that before we married, she briefly fell in love with a man named Roan. They met in Santorini. She chose me for my steadiness, but a part of her always wondered about him. “Love isn’t perfect,” she wrote. “It’s messy, layered, real.”

At first, I was crushed. Was I her second choice?

Then I found her gratitude journal. Every entry mentioned me. “Thankful Eliot made my tea just right.” “Grateful for his arms after my nightmares.” Slowly, the pain softened.

I reached out to Roan. He lived in Lisbon. When I told him about the letter, he said, “She loved you, Eliot. She told me she found peace with you.”

That gave me closure.

Love isn’t always clean or simple. But we showed up for each other, every day.

And that was enough.