I walked into your living room and called Dean Dawson on the visiphone.
I accepted that job teaching.
And now, Laura, it's nearly midnight. You're in your room, sleeping, and the house is silent.
It's hard to tell you, to make you understand, and that is why I am writing this.
I looked through Charlie's box again, more carefully this time, reading the old letters and studying the photographs. I believe now that Charlie sensed my indecision, that he left these things so that they could tell me what he could not express in words.
And among the things, Laura, I found a ring.
A wedding ring.
In that past he never talked about, there was a woman—his wife. Charlie was young once, his eyes full of dreams, and he faced the same decision that I am facing. Two paths were before him, but he tried to travel both. He later learned what we already know—that there can be no compromise. And you know, too, which path he finally chose.
Do you know why he had to drug himself to watch me graduate? So he could look at me, knowing that I would see the worlds he could never live to see. Charlie didn't leave just a few trinkets behind him. He left himself, Laura, for he showed me that a boy's dream can also be a man's dream.