Dante's Letters

The first letter arrived on the day of my husband’s funeral. The return address told me it was from Washington State Penitentiary. It contained a single sentence: I’ll wait forever if I have to. It was signed by Dante.
A man I didn’t know.
Out of simple curiosity, I wrote back and asked him what exactly he was waiting for. His response? You.
I assumed the mysterious stranger was writing to the wrong woman, so I didn’t reply. But he wrote again, and again, insisting he had the right person. I thought we’d never met, but he claimed I was mistaken. So we kept writing, exchanging letters that became more and more intimate. More and more mysterious. Meanwhile, my life was falling apart, tossing me around like a rag doll. As if that wasn’t enough, the contents of Dante’s letters grew stranger and stranger. God knows I was at my wits’ end when I decided to take a desperate leap of faith.
By the time I understood the chain of events I had set in motion, it was too late. Dante was standing on my doorstep. And nothing was the same again.