Rhonda and Chris swayed together in the middle of the softly-lit bedroom, his hands across her hips. Neither danced well, but their movements were effortless and graceful. Chris found himself unable to look away from Rhonda’s face.

A few feet away, Rhonda’s phonograph whirled as it played “Like a Bandaid On a Bullethole.” She bought the vinyl album a couple of days before, hoping it would unlock more secret rooms in her heart. For the longest time, she kept the rooms locked; in time, she forgot they existed. When she looked at Chris, she found herself mentally flinging all the doors in her heart open. For the first time, she wanted to throw them open.

Over the last months, Rhonda took the time to make the room her own again. All the past relics slowly diminished and disappeared until one morning, she awoke to realize that the space was now entirely hers. Her grandfather’s table, the lamp she made, now entwined with fairy lights, and her wall of hats, each of these things shouted her singular name.

When Chris asked her if she wanted to go on a date, she said, “No. Come over. We’ll cook together, drink some coffee, have a glass of wine, and laugh.” Chris laughed and said he’d like nothing better. And the night had unfolded as effortlessly as one between two close friends. They made pasta, each contributing to the messy process and both doing the dishes afterward. They discovered that they already had a shorthand for movement.

Rhonda took the time to explain her aloofness and reluctance. To her surprise, Chris already knew. “Hurt creates space,” he told her. They looked at each other, smiling, knowing they just had an entire conversation in one sentence.

They sat at the kitchen table, the most unromantic of places, and drank a cup of coffee. Both felt as if they’d done so a thousand times before. Their eyes danced and queried each other as they sipped. Rhonda got up from the table and reached over for his cup, placing both cups in the sink. She reached out with her right hand for Chris to give her his hand. She led him through the living room into her bedroom. She stepped away and placed the needle on the vinyl album. Music flooded the room.

Neither spoke as Chris stepped toward her, already swaying.

As the song ended and the scratchy interim played, “Me On Whiskey” began to play. Rhonda nodded at Chris, who bent his head to kiss her for the first time.

In this new room, surrounded by a new life, and more importantly, new hope. And they danced, in all the ways that two people discovering each other do.

The letter he wrote to her sat on the upper level of his desk like an accusation.

Blake shook his head in irritation. Who was he kidding? He wrote the letter ten years ago on January 1st. The New Year had unexpectedly filled his heart with optimism. He guessed he had picked up the envelope at least twice a day, almost every day, in the interim. For the first month, he opened the envelope carefully and read the letter out loud. Afterward, there was no longer any need. The words were etched in his heart. The outside of the envelope had no address. It merely said, “Karen” in his best block writing.

Everyone laments the things not done, the words not spoken, and the embraces not ventured. Few people have to experience the agony of knowing they’ve taken people and circumstances for granted. That agony could find no worse residence than in his heart. Though the calendar marked the passing of each day, Karen lingered on the fringes of his mind. As a writer, her memory plagued him.

For ten years, he brought a fresh cup of bitter coffee into his private office on the far side of the large house. He sat down in his swivel chair each morning to touch the envelope. Often, he found himself tracing the name Karen with an index finger. His Siamese cat heard him whisper the name Karen so frequently that he sometimes mistook it for a request for him to stretch and jump up into Blake’s lap. Blake was oblivious to the fact that he often said her name like a prayer.

Afterward, he would spend anywhere from an hour to six hours writing the pages his publisher requested. When he finished, he stood up, touched the envelope lightly, and left the room. His next-door neighbor Cassandra, the eccentric lady who cleaned for him, knew to leave the envelope untouched. She asked him about the letter once. Blake shook his head and said, “I can’t talk about her, Cassandra. I just can’t.” She must have noted the melancholy in his voice because she never ventured another inquiry. Cassandra was wealthy in her own right. Blake had no idea why she offered to clean his house twice a week.

Today, Blake sat in his chair, happy that he had avoided the pull of invitations to celebrate the New Year. He picked up the letter, and though he hadn’t done so in a long time, he gave voice to the words contained therein:

…
~Karen~
I know we were just children when we fell in love. I am so sorry that I didn’t recognize the light you brought to my life. I am writing this letter to you on New Year’s Day because I’m tired of living a life where I forgot to tell you that I still love you. This poor heart has no right to ask that you find a way to ask yourself if you would like a life of appreciation and wonder. I don’t know what your life holds. I hope you are happy and loved. If not, I will wait as long as you need, even if the day stretches into a lifetime. I’ll take the possibility as a gift more generous than the certainty of mediocre love. Love, Blake.
…

The urge to see the words gripped him. He couldn’t remember the last time he opened the wrinkled envelope. As he pulled the page out, he knew something was wrong. The folded page inside the envelope was a blank sheet of linen paper taken from his box by the dusty typewriter. For a full minute, he sat dumbfounded and stared blankly. “Cassandra!” he thought.

Blake forgot his cup of coffee as he left the private office. He found a jacket in the closet in the expansive mudroom and exited the side door near the large garage. The front door was irrelevant to him. It didn’t occur to him to call Cassandra, not even as he walked across the broad lawn between the houses and knocked on his neighbor’s solid oak door. He then rang the doorbell to the right. Inside, the chime echoed in the tall vestibule. Cassandra’s house was both beautiful and empty. She spent most of her waking hours reading. Blake had no idea that he was her favorite author.

A few moments later, Cassandra opened the door. “Come in!” she said as if Blake made it a habit to knock on her door at 6 a.m. on each New Year’s Day.

Ignoring her politeness, he said, “Where is it?” His voice was surprisingly aggressive.

Instead of asking what he meant, Cassandra simply replied, “I mailed it three years ago, Blake. To Karen.” She smiled.

“You mailed it? How do you know who Karen is? What gives you the right?” Blake’s voice went up another octave.

“I read the letter five years ago, Blake. I was about to stop cleaning your house and figured, ‘What the hell.’ I mailed it three years ago and have been waiting to see what happens.” Cassandra laughed as she said it. “I shouldn’t have done it, I know. But imagine if she had read it and came to you? My, wouldn’t that be a story?”

For an instant, Blake’s mind went blank at the idea of Karen reading the letter he wrote all those years ago. He fought the urge to lash out at Cassandra as he shouted, “Go to hell!” He walked out her front door, leaving it open to the cold January wind.

Blake returned to his kitchen to make another cup of coffee. He absently petted the cat as he stood next to the island, wondering what had possessed Cassandra to invade his privacy. Deciding he couldn’t find an answer, he went back to his office to write.

He sat at his desk for five hours, ignoring the grandfather clock’s chimes as it announced each hour. Both cups of cold coffee sat to his right, ignored, and forgotten. Even the cat gave up hours ago. It was now curled against the heat vent across the room.

As the clock chimed noon, Blake looked up at the envelope holding the blank sheet of paper. From the other side of the house, he heard the doorbell for the side entrance ring. Only Cassandra used that door. Good. He expected some sort of apology. That is what happens when you hire a rich person to be your housekeeper.

Blake took his time walking down the long hallway and through the kitchen. Without bothering to put on his houseshoes, he flung open the door to give Cassandra another piece of his mind. Instead, Cassandra was walking away from him hurriedly, her head braced against the light wind. “Cassandra!” he shouted. She turned and bowed slightly. She then extended her right arm as if beckoning someone.

Cassandra waved goodbye as she continued back to her own house. She laughed loudly.

Blake found himself unable to breathe. Her hair was the same, with more grey. Her face was lit with a smile. She wore a pair of blue glasses. Karen. Walking toward him.

He stood immobile as she walked to him. She wrapped her arms around him and put her head against his chest.

As he looked down slightly, Karen tilted her head to meet his. “Yes,” she said as she kissed him lightly on the lips.

After a moment that defies measure, Karen took Blake’s right hand and led him inside and out of the cold. Forever.

Mary sat at her writing desk, one particularly suited to her eclectic style. Every exposed inch was initially covered with ornate, floral wallpaper based on black and gold, followed by hundreds of notes and reminders. The few tears she managed to cry earlier were long dried, salty patches that slightly itched. She hadn’t bothered to wipe them away. By a certain age, you learn that another set will inevitably follow. There were times she expected to see a series of wrinkles on her face forming a dry riverbed.

For fifteen years, she passed countless hours at her desk, her fingers flying furiously and fluently across the remote keyboard in her lap. Though her life was mundane, an unseen muse inside her continuously provided her with an onslaught of romance and flowery language. Those words fueled the fantasy lives of people she’d never meet. They also came from a place she couldn’t quite define. Her words paid the bills, though the skill was accidental. Her muse was her humanity, and she’d never found her own well to be empty.

Until four interminable days ago.

*

The officious hospital administrator relented and allowed her to go to the hospital’s fifth floor to accompany her best friend, Ashley. Her husband of twenty years was dying, dwindling more each day. Ashley managed to keep her wits for a couple of weeks. The idea of her husband dying made her immobile. “I’ll go with you,” Mary blurted out to Ashley. Ashley grabbed her and hugged her until her arms grew tired.

As they entered the room, Mary’s eyes scrutinized the alien medical monitors, tubes, and devices crowded around the bed. Ashley’s husband Mark seemed like a doll in the sheets. Mary found herself being led to the bed by Ashley, who gripped her right hand fiercely. As Mary neared the bed, she was surprised to note that it smelled like plastic in the sun or a recently-opened shower curtain.

Mark was immobile, having spoken his last known word four days ago. As Ashley leaned over him, he said, “Phoenix.” The nurse standing by the head of the bed on the opposite side raised an eyebrow, asking without really asking. Ashley smiled at her, though tears were clouding her face. “It’s where we promised to go to spend our last few years together. We’ve never been.” The nurse nodded. There was no right or wrong response, but her mouth wouldn’t open. Even the most seasoned and hardened heart sometimes couldn’t pierce the silence, lest they risk losing control of the mass of emotion lying behind the wall they created to protect themselves.

Mary stood next to Ashley for several minutes, her arm across the small of her demure back. Ashley leaned in precariously to touch the exposed cheek of Mark’s face. Her glasses slid from her face and fell to the bed. As she bent, a few minor beeps began to ping and buzz. Anyone there could discern a crescendo building in their warning. In moments, a nurse strode into the room.

Mary watched the nurse’s face as she inspected the monitors. The nurse looked across the bed. Ashley’s eyes were riveted on her husband’s face. As the nurse’s eyes locked with Mary’s, Mary saw the fleeting sorrow that passed across her face.

The nurse pressed a small disk at her neck and said, “It’s time. Room 5234.” She stood by the bed, waiting. Moments later, another woman entered the room and stood next to the nurse. Mary whispered, “Ashley, they need to talk to you.”

Ashley raised her head.

“As we discussed, Ashley. Do you want to do it, or do you want one of us to?” The doctor waited patiently.

Mary stood frozen, realizing that she was there to bear witness to Mark’s passing for Ashley.

“You,” Ashley said, surprisingly confident.

The nurse and doctor busily began to press buttons, move sliders, and close off fluid and oxygen flow.

It didn’t happen as it does on television. No monitor marked the decline of functions taking place. The doctor and nurse stood by the bed for another few moments. Finally, the nurse said, “We’ll be outside when you’re ready.”

It was Mary who sobbed when she heard the words, not Ashley.

Ashley reached and found Mark’s right hand and gripped it. She kissed her hand and then pressed it to his face, quickly and lightly. “Okay,” she whispered.

Ashley stood up and hugged Mary. She stepped away and walked toward the door.

“Where are you going, Ashley?” Mary asked, her voice hollow and lifeless.

“Phoenix, for both of us.” She smiled as she said it.
*

Four days later, Mary still sat at her silent desk, the words not flowing, the imagined love-filled lives she effortlessly created all stopped.

In a flash, the image of Ashley’s face as she left the room flooded her mind. She was smiling. In all that pain, she knew she had to find a way forward or crawl into the bed with Mark and die with him.

Mary turned slightly in her chair, placed her nimble fingers on the keyboard, and began to write a new love story, one grounded in an appreciation for a love monumental enough to fuel optimism in life. Her inability to create a life with words was already behind her and forgotten.
.