In 1975, at 27, I met “Paula,” 19. My girl chasing had been going nowhere. I made a date with Paula, only to cancel, having found a hotter prospect. Which soon duly fizzled. However, my uncharacteristic “bad boy” behavior toward Paula intrigued her. She gamely contacted me again.
We quickly formed a nice bond, my first lasting relationship, and after a year moved in together. That frisson of unconventionality tickled me; marriage wasn’t discussed.
But being unmarried proved corrosive for her, especially after her job situation soured and she became financially dependent. She fell out of love. Long after, I stumbled upon an accidentally left-behind jotting where she’d vented searing pain at feeling trapped.
We struggled with the relationship for another decade, through some pretty rough patches. I offered marriage but it was too late. Yet meantime I was also trying to extricate myself. She too, via military pen pals. Finally one jelled, and she left to marry Dan in August 1987.
Our parting was ostensibly amicable. But I too wrote down some deep resentments. The next May a phone argument over some bank details pissed me off enough to mail her those harsh words.
Most regrettable thing I ever did. Paula cut off communication. My apologies did nothing. Finally she threatened legal action if I contacted her again.
Meanwhile I got a wonderful happy marriage. As though my pain with Paula was the price for that. It certainly prepared me for it, making me a more mature person. But still Paula nagged at my conscience. Mindful of the price she too had paid. (Indeed, she’d left a lot of stuff behind; we still use some of her childhood furniture!)
More than three decades passed.
Paula’s existence, out there, was unfinished business, a wound on my heart. I’d often ponder what it would be like just to speak with her again. One Christmas I dared to send a card (to the last address I had), asking whether the passage of so many years mightn’t have mellowed her feelings. It didn’t come back, but she didn’t reply.
Then on December 21, 2021, an email popped up from her. What a jolt to see it! My heart leaped into my mouth.
The message opened with profuse remorse for how she’d treated me in leaving. Saying the past silence had been dictated by Dan — “A true psychopath . . . violent, controlling and exploitative.” Who finally absconded after 25 years, with all their assets; leaving a daughter disabled by his abuse.
Wow. Reading all this was a gut-punch.
But there was more. She needed money (surprise) or she’d lose her house. A lot of money.
I immediately showed the message to my wife, who judged it sincere. Then I phoned Paula and we had a nice long pleasant chat. Weirdly, it felt nothing like a third of a century had intervened. With my wife’s concurrence I sent her the full amount, plus some extra.
We’ve since had further talks, hours long. Mostly Paula venting about Dan, and her legal battles in that realm (she achieved divorce and custody). But she’s also recounted remarkably vivid and fond memories of our time together.
Perhaps strangely, my own subsequent life is not discussed. I’ve kept shtum on that, because of what feels like survivor’s guilt. She’d leaped from the frying pan into the fire — while for me things turned out beautifully.
As though that was at Paula’s expense. Her exit made it possible, the necessary precursor for my happiness and my wife’s as well — and our daughter’s. A positive utilitarian calculus, like a trolley problem with Paula the one sacrificial victim.
I can’t help thinking about the “what ifs.” And thinking that if I’d somehow been a better partner, she would not have felt impelled to that leap into the fire. We’d actually had the makings for a good relationship, saving her from all the subsequent pain and suffering. Or — what might her life be like if we’d never even met?
So in all those ways I do feel a kind of guilt. Certainly more than I already did during those 33 incommunicado years. After the intense intimacy we’d shared, it had felt unsettling to have no idea what was going on with her. Now that I know, it sure doesn’t feel better.
