[…]

First, you do not get to tell me that I’m stupid. We are clearly idiots together. Also, speaking of together, idiot, we’re not. You’re not allowed to write me anymore. This is the last e-mail I’m going to answer.

Yes, she was born on January 3rd, you can relax. Dad took the pictures. Isabel is healthy, and home. I moved the washer and dryer into the hall closet, so the maid’s room is a nursery now. I put carpet in, and am slowly baby-proofing.

I’m healthy, too. I’m tired all the time from sleeping in ninety minute spurts, and I’m still fat, but I’m happy. At peace.

Yes, I regret how it happened. I should have found another way. But I don’t regret that it did happen. I should tell you, there was never anyone else. I mean, I was seeing someone before you left, but not really. He left as soon as I told him I was pregnant, and good riddance.

I just needed to find a way to get out of whatever it was that we were doing. That was not living. We were killing each other.

I should also tell you I was diagnosed for the first time a two days before I met you. I didn’t actually intend to go to Thailand. I thought I was going to die. The next day they called back saying that it was benign, and that they wanted to leave it alone for six months, rather than operate on me. Then you called, and you were so excited—you were so alive. All I wanted then was to have some fun. But l learned to love you so quickly. So quickly. It was all such a surprise. I’d dreamed that I would meet someone who would run away with me, and love me so intensely that it would cancel out everything else. I worshipped you, I think—I thought you had the power to keep me alive.

And you did. What I learned from you, from everything, is that there is nothing better than being alive. Every cell in your body aches for it, every system, every piece of you, even while it’s dying, is dying to live. It’s all we have to do.

All you have to do is live. Live as long, live as much as you can.

Love,

Me