Sharon and Fergus had a whirlwind romance. They quickly married and had been in that state for a few years. However, all they do is fight or visit the bedroom. They don't seem to have anything else in common. Sharon truly trusts her husband and believes that he loves her and would never stray. Yet, she has been receiving notes recently - three in total. The last one she decides to check out just to prove to the "helpful writer" that nothing is going on. After all it claimed that both her husband and Elaine had resigned their jobs and were running off to elope! (btw how does one elope when they are already married to someone else?) She finds her husband kissing his coworker, Elaine, and Sharon reacts rather than rationalizing things out, and wants to give her husband a divorce since she wants it all! No caring for OW, it's all her or none at all. Fergus for his part feels awful and really guilty so he consents rather than fighting the divorce.
Five years later, Fergus is a widower and Sharon seems content w/ her work at a hotel. Yet she is being sexually harassed by her boss and believes she deserves a promotion. When she doesn't, she believes it ties in w/ her not putting out for boss. So she promptly reacts, blows up, and storms out only to quickly return and then get caught holding the murder weapon. Fergus seems to have all that money can buy but he doesn't seem content. He didn't fight for his first marriage, and the second wife conveniently burst an aorta and left him too! He gets a call and quickly runs off dropping all else to defend his ex-wife of a murder charge!
He had still loved and wanted wife but had strong feelings for Elaine - but seemed like they were compatible on the surface, on paper, but Sharon and he were more compatible. She just needed to grow up because at the time of their marriage they had nothing much in common other than arguing and sex. He truly regretted not fighting for his marriage to Sharon. He and Elaine were never truly happy because their whole marriage was built on the demise of his and Sharon's. He may have cared for/loved Elaine, but it was never even close to the passionate love he had for Sharon.
He would have never told her about Elaine if she hadn't caught them together. He truly didn't want their marriage to break up, but someone did. I'm wondering if in the end it didn't truly matter who wrote the notes as they both had to own some mistakes from the past.
He tells Sharon, "I'll tell you anything you want to know as long as it doesn't compromise Elaine's dignity or right to privacy." Um she is dead you are trying to win back your wife why wouldn't you compromise OW. Perhaps that is to show he is a stand-up guy and wasn't willing to malign Elaine's character just to help him out w/ his ex-wife.
The book doesn't outright say who wrote those notes, so I tried to work it out for myself. I felt like his stating towards the end that you would be surprised what some people would do helped to solidify my thoughts as well as the character of Tracey in this story. Tracey didn't really serve much of a purpose, but Fergus seemed to be able to assess her character from experience. Tracey was someone that would take advantage of a situation and perhaps throw in some emotions to boot to manipulate things and get what she wanted. So I felt like Elaine was that experience for Fergus. He would never have divorced Sharon. However, that wasn't to say that Sharon wouldn't divorce him if given enough provocation! How else to get her to the house than to send some notes, which Fergus implied the author was a professional and knew what they were doing - Elaine is an attorney w/ some inside information, so seems to work for me. Besides how standup can this woman be who blatantly admitted to the wife that she was willing to commit adultery w/ her husband! Of course, there were no other incidences against Fergus after his divorce from Sharon either . . . so makes sense to me.
I liked that Sharon didn't fully trust in his love throughout the whole story but she finally decided to take a gamble. She made him work for her though, but in the end she still made the decision.
Leave past behind and get on w/ future "All people were flawed and capable of hurting those they loved most, but the ones that were truly blessed could forgive, and then forget the transgression and work towards a better life."
