Day 7: Check One

1997 - Fall

Dear Benjamin,

Would you like to be my friend? Check one:

Yes or No

From,
Maureen

***

Maureen,

Stop sending me notes. I don’t want them.

-Ben

***

Benjamin,

Why don’t you want to be friends? If you asked me to be your friend I would say yes.

From,
Maureen

***

I know you would because you just asked me. Now quit passing notes or we’re going to get in trouble and I do not want to stay in at recess because of YOU.

-Ben

***

Benjamin,

I really think this is unfair. You won’t even give me a reason why you don’t want to be friends?

From,
Maureen

***

Dear Ben,

I think you should consider telling Maureen you will be her friend. You don’t have to say yes, but she is very nice, and it will stop her passing notes, which has been very disruptive to today’s lesson.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Rabalski

***

Dear Mrs. Rabalski and Maureen,

Fine. I will be Maureen’s friend. But I don’t want to play handball with her because she plays too rough.

Sincerely,
Ben

***

Benjamin,

Obviously you need the practice.

From your FRIEND,
Maureen

***

Dear Maureen,

No more passing notes in class, or I will have to pass a note home with you to your parents. Understood?

Sincerely,
Mrs. Rabalski

***

Dear Mrs. Rabalski,

Yes I understand I am sorry but if you want to see Benjamin get his rear end whupped come out behind the fifth grade classroom today where we play handball and see what happens.

Your student,
Maureen

---

2001 - Spring

Maureen—

Are you going to the 8th grade graduation dance? Someone Special wants to know.

-Sarah R.

***

Sarah—

You can tell S.S. that I am going to the dance, and I don’t have a date yet.

-Mo

***

S—

Wait. “Someone Special” means Anthony Delgado, right???

-M

***

Mo—

No…I was asking for Ben.

-S

***

NOOOO can you tell him you got it wrong??

***

I showed him the note… :( He got really happy and he said he’s going to ask you after school. I’m sorry, Maureen! You don’t have to say yes! Or you can go with him but you guys don’t have to dance together. We’ll all be in a big group anyway.

***

Maybe I can just avoid him after school. Maybe I can call my mom and have her pick me up early.

***

That seems dramatic, but do what you have to. I thought you were friends? Plus he’s cute.

***

I just don’t want him to ask me, okay? It’ll mess everything up.

***

w/e, good luck avoiding him!

---

2002 - Spring

Dear Ben,

I don’t want you to read anything weird into this letter. Like I’m jealous of Courtney or whatever. Just that since you two started dating, you haven’t been hanging out with our friend group anymore. And I know there’s this “rule” that says the boyfriend has to join the girlfriend’s friends, but honestly that seems kind of dumb. Like, every time you’re dating someone, you’re just going to leave our group and go join hers? What if you date Courtney for the rest of high school, we’re just never going to see you again?

I dunno. We only get one freshman year, right? I just thought we’d be spending a lot more of it together.

Are you still going to the football game on Friday, and if yes do you think you’ll sit with us or with Courtney’s friends?

From,
Maureen

***

Maureen,

Hey, sorry it took me a couple days to get back to you. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do here…Courtney feels kind of weird around you guys, and she’s my girlfriend…so I feel like I should probably hang out with her friends.

Maybe we could all go to the game together? Or maybe I could eat lunch with you guys one day a week?

-Ben

***

Whatever, Benjamin. See you when we see you.

-Maureen

---

2004 - Summer

BENJY!!

How is your summer going? Camp is way more fun than I thought it would be. A lot less crafts and a lot more hanging out by the lake, which is cool. Sarah R. and I lay out most of the time to work on our tan (well…she tans and I burn). Our counselor’s name is also Maureen, which is weird, but there’s another counselor named Harrison, and Sarah and I made up this song about him—we’ll sing it for you when we get back. I think Harrison has a crush on Sarah. Yesterday she wore her daisy dukes and he let us drive his golf cart all the way to the dining hall. It was fun, but Harrison’s so gross. Sarah said it was good practice for when she takes her license test next month. I think she’s getting tired of having to bum rides off the rest of us.

We met this guy Peter who’s going to transfer to our school next year. He’s pretty cool. I don’t know if you’ll like him but since you still hang out with Courtney’s friends I guess it won’t matter too much if he joins our group or not.

Gotta go—lights out in five minutes. Stupid rules! I’ve taken so many pictures, I’ll show you after I get home and have them developed. Hopefully they don’t all have my finger in them like that one trip to Six Flags. Hope you and Trevor are having fun at soccer camp!

-Mo

***

Mo—

Your camp sounds like way more fun than mine, even if I can’t pronounce your camp’s name. Soccer camp suuucks, and Trevor is all into it and I still can’t tell my parents that I don’t want to play. Just because my brothers played, they think I have to play too, and Dad’s already talked to the coach about me joining the team next year. Maybe I can convince them before school starts.

Anyways. Have sum fun in da sun and don’t get too sunburnt or you’ll look like a lobster and someone will try to dip you in butter.

-Ben

PS—Courtney and I broke up last week. So hopefully this Peter guy is cool!

***

Dear Benjamin,

I’m so sorry to hear about you and Courtney. My time at camp is almost over. Let’s talk when I get back, okay?

Or we could skip the talking and just play handball. Your call.

From your friend,
Maureen

---

2005 - Winter

Mo—

Are you going to Winter Formal with Pete?

-Ben

***

Benjy,

No, we’re all going in a group together. Why?

-Maureen

***

Oh. I just heard he wanted to go with you. Never mind.

-Ben

***

Would that bother you?

-M

***

No way, Jose.

-Ben

***

Well, good. What’re you doing after school? You don’t have soccer practice, right? Wanna get ice cream? I have a seeerious craving. Mostly for the toppings, but you can’t just go in there and ask for a waffle cone filled with only toppings and no ice cream. That’s like serial killer stuff right there.

Anyways. Please check one:

Yes or No

-Mo

***

My dearest Maureen,

DO YOU EVEN HAVE TO ASK?

If you want, we can swap orders and I’ll embarrass myself by asking for a cone full of toppings.

-Ben

---

2005 - Spring

Maureen,

Kelsey told me about your date with Peter. Why didn’t you tell me yourself?

-Ben

***

Ben,

Yeah, we went on a date. It went okay. He’s nice. It was weird to date a friend, though, you know? We went to dinner and a movie. Pretty standard stuff.

I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. You and I don’t really talk about crushes. That’s just never been our kind of friendship. You know?

-Maureen

***

Okay. Well, I’m glad you had fun. Do you think you guys will go out again?

-Ben

***

Maybe. If we did, at least everyone could keep their friend groups intact.

Is that okay with you?

***

It’s not like you need my permission.

-Ben

***

What’s wrong?

***

 Nothing.

-Ben

---

2005 - Summer

Ben.

I don’t know what your problem is, but the fact that you would say those things to me in front of everyone is NOT OKAY. What, do you think you own me or something? YOU DON’T. We’re friends. That doesn’t mean you get a say in what I do or who I date, and I don’t know what makes you think that you do. It’s MY choice whether to go out with someone or not. If I need your input, I’ll ask.

I don’t know what you have against Peter anyways. You’ve never liked him, and I don’t get it. He’s always been perfectly nice to you, and then you go and say all these things about him in front of everyone else.

Funny how when you had a girlfriend, I just had to accept that everything changed and you didn’t even hang out with us anymore. Now that I have a boyfriend, though, you expect everything to stay the same, I guess? Well, if you can’t handle it, then maybe we shouldn’t be friends at all.

-Maureen

---

2005 - Fall

Hi, Benjy.

Sooo, it’s been a while, huh? I was pretty mad at you the last time we talked. Actually, mad is probably an understatement.

I hate to admit this, but you were right. Peter wasn’t a good boyfriend. I shouldn’t have dated him. I mean, he wasn’t awful, but you were justified in warning me about him. Thanks for always looking out for me. Aaand yeah, I definitely overreacted that day. I think because I knew deep down that what you were saying was right? I just didn’t want to listen. For a lot of reasons. Which…don’t matter right now. To be fair, you could have talked to me privately instead of in front of all our friends, but that doesn’t justify how harsh I was afterward. I shouldn’t have said what I did or written you that note.

I’m sorry. I feel really lucky to have you as a friend to look out for me. Assuming we still are friends and I didn’t completely wreck our friendship. That would suck.

Anyways, write me back if you’re not too mad at me, and if you are too mad at me I guess I’ll find out by you not responding. Either way, I’ll see you in physics tomorrow.

From,
Maureen

***

Maureen,

It’s cool. Everyone makes mistakes. Oh hey, happy late birthday!

-Ben

***

Ben—

Thanks…? That’s all you have to say in response to that whole long letter?

***

What did you want me to say?

-Ben

***

Something more than “it’s cool” and “happy late birthday”? We’ve been friends for almost ten years, do you seriously not have anything more to say than that?

***

Not really.

-Ben

***

Okay. I guess that’s that, then. See you around.

-Maureen

***

Benj-oh-man,

Hey. So Maureen’s like, really upset. She didn’t tell me exactly what you guys talked about, but honestly, I’ve been hearing both sides of this story since ninth grade and I would like to state officially, for the record, that you are both idiots. I mean, I love you, and when it comes to anything other than each other, you seem to be sensible enough. In a way, that’s what makes you such a good match. Compatible levels of idiocy.

Here’s the deal, Shaquille O’Neal: the short story is that Maureen has always been way in love with you, and although she is too proud and stubborn to admit it even to me (except once at a sleepover at Sarah’s when everyone else was asleep and she was all hopped up on Twizzlers), and although she would murder me to death by slow, agonizing torture if she ever knew I was telling you any of this…it’s true.

Seriously, if you didn’t have some sort of inkling about this, I question your observational skills. But anyway. You should like ask her out or something. You know. Like normal people do.

Or don’t. It’s your life.

kbai.
Kel-C

***

KELSY I SWEAR—WHY DID YOU WAIT UNTIL NOW TO TELL ME THIS??

-Ben

***

You spelled my name wrong.

-KelsEy

***

THAT’S HOW FLUSTERED I AM, WOMAN. (But also sorry.)

-Ben

***

Dearest of Maureens,

Over the course of our many years’ correspondence, both in person and in writing, it has come to my attention that you are the mos

Nope. This is stupid. I was trying to write something flowery because this is a very important note. Maybe the most important one I’ve ever written. No, wait. Actually I think the most important note I ever wrote was the one where I said I would be your friend as long as we didn’t play handball. That’s worked out real well, huh? Did you know I kept the first note you ever sent me, asking if I would be your friend? Lame, but true.

I guess that’s really as complicated as it needs to be, right? Here goes.

I think you are very nice and stuff. Do you want to go out with me? (Romantically…just to be clear.) Please check one:

Yes or No

Love,
Benjamin

***

Sweet Benjamin,

Who writes notes anymore? Come find me and ask me to my face, you coward.

Love,
Maureen

Day 6: Pen Pal

Terry was the tallest mail carrier the town had ever had. Not the tallest in the county; Oak Ridge had one who was decidedly the tallest mail carrier anyone had ever seen, but Terry was still pretty tall. However, that was the most anybody really knew about him. He was friendly, very friendly. And he was new in town. But whenever anyone tried to ask him about himself, they left the conversation realizing that Terry had said hardly a word, but they felt much lighter.

Although he liked pretty nearly everyone in the town, Terry’s personal favorite house to stop at was Miss Carver’s. Always smiling and rosy-cheeked beneath a spray of white curls, the tiny woman waited on her porch every morning with a letter for him to collect.

“Where’s this one going today?” he’d ask her.

“Guatemala!” she’d announce mysteriously. Or Vancouver. Or Luxembourg.

“Bon voyage, little letter!” he’d say, placing it carefully into his mail pouch and closing it with a pat. Miss Carver would look up at him with a very small smile.

She’d been trying to find a pen pal since long before he knew her. There was an agency, she told him, that sent you an address where you could mail a letter and hopefully establish a fulfilling correspondence that would allow one to learn about other cultures, deepen social bonds, and improve language skills—or so the brochure said. Terry couldn’t help but notice, however, that she never received anything back from the far-flung places she sent letters to. She received very few letters at all, in fact. A few cards around Christmas. Some perfunctory notices. Nothing with international postage. He felt it was a shame, but what could he do?  

The question became more urgent when he bounded up her porch steps one spring morning to find her sitting on the bench, smiling as usual, but without a letter in her lap.

“Nothing to mail today, Miss Carver?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not today, Terry.”

“Did the agency forget to send you another address?”

“No, they always have some name to give me.”

“Have you run out of stamps?”

“No, that’s not it.”

Curious but not wanting to pry, he talked up the credit card offer he had for her, tipped his hat, and went on his way.

It was the same the next day, and the next. Miss Carver seemed tired, with an unfamiliar sadness clinging to her.

“I think you should write another letter,” he told her on the fifth day.

“It’s a silly thing,” she said.

“It’s not,” he insisted. “People sign up for these things and forget about it. Or the letter never gets to them. I wouldn’t repeat this, Miss Carver, but the postal service isn’t always reliable. You didn’t hear that from me, though.”

She smiled.

The next day she had a letter for him, this one addressed to Paris.

“One more try,” she told him.

“That’s the spirit, Miss Carver!” He tucked the letter carefully in his pouch, gave it a pat, and set off with a wave.

The mail bag felt heavier as he walked his route. After a lengthy conversation with Mr. Sanderson, he paused to adjust the strap on his shoulder. He opened the bag, just to make sure the contents were all in order. He paused. Looked over his shoulder. Then he took Miss Carver’s letter out—just to see where in Paris it was going. 20e arrondissement, it said. He went to put it back in the bag, but as he did, it caught on a buckle and the envelope tore.

“Oh, heavens!” he cried. “The mail has been compromised!” Despite his best attempts to repair the damage, it somehow managed to rip further until the letter fell out and the envelope was left in two pieces. He glanced around to see if anyone was watching, then picked up the letter and stuffed it, along with the envelope, into his pocket. He continued on his route with the creeping feeling that he had betrayed…everything.

When he got home, he unfolded the letter with trembling hands. He couldn’t shake the persistent feeling that he was committing a crime. With good reason, he thought. He was breaking the law by tampering with the mail. It was a mail carrier’s most sacred duty, to protect the mail, and he had broken his oath. But surely there was a higher law at work here. He didn’t know what it was, exactly, but he felt there must be something—some natural law that would vindicate his actions. When an old lady couldn’t find a pen pal, you were required to step in.

On Sunday, he took a notepad and an envelope stamped with international postage, and he walked over to the quiet grounds of the old Mason mansion. He settled on a bench, took out a pen, and got to work. Or, he tried to, anyway. After balling up his fifth attempt and tossing it into the trash can next to his bench, he looked around his surroundings for inspiration. He spotted two balloons, almost entirely deflated, caught up among some tree roots.

He began again to write:

Dear Miss Carver,

I was so happy to receive your letter. I have been waiting a very long time to have a pen pal, and I am so glad to have found one at last.

It’s la vie en rose here in the 20e arrondissement. I am sitting in a park right now, and at my feet are two balloons, pink ones. Their strings are all tangled together in the roots of a tree, and they’re sadly withered. I think I know how they feel.

You see, I recently moved to this part of France, and not very many people know me. I feel as though I know them, but it’s difficult for me to allow myself to be seen. I’ve always preferred to do the seeing.

I suppose I should start out slow with a small detail: I love to swim. Every year when my brother and I were small, my parents would take us to the sea for three weeks, and I spent every moment I could in the water. I don’t get much chance for it nowadays, but I think of it often.

I would love to hear something about yourself in return.

Your new friend,
Michel

He read it through, folded it up, and sealed the envelope. He wouldn’t be able to send it from abroad, of course, but he trusted that the international stamp would be enough to convince Miss Carver.

It wasn’t until the following Tuesday that he delivered the letter with a low bow. Her face lit up with surprise and excitement, and Terry was left buoyed for several days after. He hadn’t entirely considered that he would have to keep writing to her as her new friend Michel. After a while, though, he found that he enjoyed it. He sprinkled in little tidbits of what he imagined Parisian life to be like. He researched the 20e arrondissement and used a French-English dictionary to add authenticity. But under all that, he found himself telling her the truth about his own life. In a way he never had before, he inched himself into someone else’s view, and soon discovered that he didn’t mind being seen—at least, not by Miss Carver.

All through the fall, they wrote back and forth. Her excitement never dimmed whenever he pulled one of his letters out of the bag and handed it to her with a flourish. Sometimes he felt bad for deceiving the woman, but their conversations about her “ami Michel” reconciled him to it. She seemed so proud each week to update him on what Michel had been doing. It was strange to hear his own words repeated back to him, but Miss Carver seemed happy. That was what mattered.

One Monday when the air was brisk enough that he needed a scarf, he reached Miss Carver’s house and was surprised to find the door wide open. A large man wearing a back belt came out. He carried a standing lamp with a tasseled shade in one hand.

“What’s going on?” Terry asked, alarmed. “Where’s Miss Carver?”

“Dunno,” the man said, breathing hard. “Think she died. Saturday, maybe? We’re just clearing out whatever’s not worth selling.” He took the lamp to a moving truck idling across the street.

Terry was shaken. He very nearly didn’t finish the rest of his route. As it was, he found out later that he’d mixed up several houses, and neighbors were visiting back and forth all afternoon to straighten things out. Back at home, he sat on the living room floor with Miss Carver’s letters spread out around him, and he read and re-read them until he fell asleep.

After the funeral, a woman with dark hair pulled back into a tight updo approached Terry.

“Are you Terrence Warner?” she asked.

“Yes?” he said.

“I’m Miss Carver’s attorney. I represent her estate.”

She seemed to be waiting for a response, so he gave a vague, “Oh.”

She pulled out a brown paper parcel. “As you may know, Miss Carver left behind no heirs. Her estate was not large, and most of her assets were left to her church. However, she asked that you be given these.”

“What are they?” he asked as he took the parcel.

“That’s really none of my business,” she said with a curt smile. “If you have any questions, my card is there.”

He looked at the card tucked beneath the paper flap. Genevieve Ipswich. He felt sorry for the little girl who’d been forced to carry around that name.

As soon as he got back to his apartment, he took off his shoes and loosened his tie. He poured himself the dregs of coffee from the pot and settled into a chair by the window. Carefully, he opened the parcel.

There, all neat and orderly, he found a stack of letters addressed to Miss Carver, bearing international stamps and a return address in Paris.

He thumbed through the folded papers. She could have had them returned to sender; why would she bequeath them to him? She must have figured it out, but how could she have known?

Then he saw. At a certain point, about halfway through August, he’d started signing his own name instead of Michel’s. He tried to remember back to the end of the summer, whether anything had changed in his chats with Miss Carver, any hint that she’d found out his tricks. He couldn’t think of anything. She hadn’t given it away.

He searched the stack of letters for any word from her, any final note to say she understood or forgave him, but there was nothing. Just his own words left for him. A picture of himself.

Day 5: Bean

Walter had been waiting for a very long time. Every Saturday he went to this same diner, settled into this same booth, and waited over a cup of coffee and a book.

Well—except for the first Saturday. The first Saturday he hadn’t brought a book. He hadn’t expected to need one. That day he’d taken extra care with his outfit, and whistled as he walked the three blocks to the diner, and greeted the hostess with a chipper hello, and straightened the silverware on the table until everything was just so, and checked to make sure the table didn’t have a wobble, and wondered if the pendant light overhead was too bright, and carefully set a yellow daffodil on the placemat across the booth. Then he’d ripped his napkin to shreds and glanced over anxiously every time the bell over the door jangled at someone’s entrance.

He sat there through breakfast, then lunch. About mid-afternoon he finally stood up, sloshing from all the coffee he’d drunk, and walked home.

The following Saturday he lay in bed, determined not to go back. So he was extremely surprised to find his limbs clothing themselves of their own accord, his shoes jumping onto his feet, his legs carrying him to the same booth in the same diner. Once he was there, he figured he might as well stay. After all, it was possible one of them had gotten the date wrong.

It was this thought niggling at the back of his mind that drove him back to the diner every Saturday. For forty years. He turned down weddings invitations, vacation plans, job opportunities that would take him away from the area. He told himself it was because he was comfortable where he was. He didn’t like change or travel. He preferred that to the truth: that he was frozen. Stuck. The woman he’d hoped to meet there had become his religion, and he would remain devout as long as he was alive. He would never miss a service.

He was so entrenched in his routine that he didn’t even notice when a small girl, about eight or nine, with a stiff yellow braid sticking out from under each ear, slid into the booth across from him. She folded her hands on the table and stared at him.

He glanced around the restaurant, hoping to catch the eye of anyone who might be missing a child. “Are you lost?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “My name’s Bean. What’s yours?”

“Your parents named you Bean?”

“It’s short for Verbena,” she said, as if that were obvious.

“Silly me,” he muttered. “That’s a completely normal name.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“My name’s Walter Abram,” he said. “It’s been very nice meeting you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” She picked up a menu and disappeared behind it.

“Where’re your parents at?” He meant to add her name at the end, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to call a little girl Bean.

“At home.”

“They just let you come to the diner by yourself?”

“We only live down the street. Plus my brother works here.”

“What’s his name? Cilantro?”

“Matthew.”

“Of course.”

“He told me he sees you here a lot.”

Walter shifted in his seat. “Did he.”

“Yes,” she said. “He said you always come for breakfast, and I thought maybe you might not know how to make your own breakfast, and that you might want someone to teach you. So that’s why I came over here. I’m very good at breakfast. I can make pancakes.”

“I prefer waffles.”

“I can’t make those. Well, I probably could. But we don’t have a waffle maker at home.”

 He turned a page in his book, hoping she would take the hint and move along. He wasn’t certain how well children picked up on nuance.

“What do you do?” she asked.

“I used to be a professor.”

“What do you do now?”

“Now I’m retired. I don’t go to work anymore.”

“Do you have any kids?”

“No.”

“Grandkids?”

“If I don’t have children, I can’t have grandchildren.”

She thought about that for a moment. “You could adopt a grandkid. Or you could pretend. I don’t have any grandparents. I used to, but I don’t anymore. We could pretend you’re my grandpa.”

“No, thanks,” he said. “I think that’d be too much responsibility for me.” He glanced up to see her crestfallen face. “Just that—I don’t have any practice. I might not be any good at it.”

She shrugged as if to acknowledge that as a distinct possibility. “So why are you waiting here?”

He swept another look around the restaurant, trying to plead with his eyes for someone to come and rescue him. “I’m not going to explain myself to you.”

“Okay. Do you want to play a game?”

Walter was taken aback. This felt like a trick, like reverse psychology. “I’m not going to talk about it. I mean it.”

“I heard you.” She turned her placemat over to the blank side and plucked a crayon out of the little cup by the napkin dispenser. “I’ll be Xs, you be Os,” she said as she drew out a large purple hash mark. She placed an X in the center square.

He picked out an orange crayon and set an O in a corner. “Alright,” he said. “I’m waiting for a friend.”

“What’s your friend’s name?”

“Abigail.”

“How old is she?”

“She’s about my age,” he said.

“Is she pretty?”

“I don’t know.” The answer slipped out. It was true, but the fact disturbed him. She used to be pretty, but he had no idea what she looked like now. Or whether she was alive at all. She might not be. She might have been dead for decades. He let the thought scrape through his brain and took a deep breath when it was gone.

“I bet she is.” Bean drew a curved line through the Xs. “Cat’s game. How long have you been waiting for her?”

His mouth twitched. “A long time.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’ve you been waiting for her? Do you love her or something?”

His chest felt tight, and again he spoke without meaning to. “We were in love a long time ago.” He didn’t know why he was saying all this to a child. He hadn’t told anyone else about it. His friends had slowly drifted away after he started his weekly routine, after he refused to be set up with any of the single women they knew. He could have explained to them why his behavior had grown so erratic. But he didn’t.

She picked out a green crayon and drew a circle in the top corner of the placemat. “Matthew has a girlfriend.”

“Good for him.”

“Not really. She’s kind of mean. She’s always making fun of him and laughing at the way he looks and dresses and stuff. It sounds pretty weird to me, but he doesn’t seem to mind very much. Maybe your friend would have been mean to you. Maybe you’re lucky she didn’t show up.”

He laughed. “You don’t know my friend.”

“That’s true.” The circle turned into a green sun wearing sunglasses. She moved on to the landscape below. “So then why do you think she didn’t show up?”

He didn’t answer right away. His fear was that she’d simply forgotten about him. Fallen in love with someone else. It was a realistic fear. That was what people did. They fell out of love with one person and in love with another. They got married, raised families, forgot about people they once knew. But like with most fears, it was closely attended by the stubborn hope that he was wrong, that Abigail had merely been delayed by something. Every weekend. For the past forty years.

“Maybe she thought you were too grumpy,” Bean said.

“I’m not grumpy.”

She pursed her lips and tilted her head as if to say, Coulda fooled me.

Their server came to check on them and dropped off a bowl of whipped cream and three maraschino cherries in front of Bean.

“Thanks, Maureen!” she called as the server whizzed away.

Before she could take a bite, something hit the window with such force that the glass shook.

“What was that?” Walter said.

Bean scrambled over to the window and mashed her face against it so she could swivel her eyeballs to see down to the grass directly next to the building. Walter had the overwhelming urge to laugh at the sight of her, but he refrained.

“It’s a bird!” she cried. “Two birds! They ran into the window!” She looked at Walter, stricken. “Do you think they’re hurt?”

“I’m sure they’re fine.”

“We have to check!” She dashed toward the door. “Come on, Walter!”

He considered ignoring her and returning to his breakfast in peace. But by now, people were looking at him, no doubt wondering why he wasn’t going outside to help this little girl who was clearly upset.

Catching a server’s eye, he asked, “Hey, do you know Matthew?” The server gave him a confused sneer, so Walter wiped his mouth, took a sip of coffee, and followed after Bean.

He rounded the building and found her squatting over two small lumps in the grass. As he got closer, he heard her murmuring, “No no no no no no no—” He could see that they were alright—probably in shock, but alive.

“Please be okay,” Bean whispered.

He bent down next to her. “How’re the patients, doctor?”

“I don’t know,” came her small reply. “This one’s trying to get up. Should I touch it? I heard that if you touch a bird in the wild, its mother won’t let it back in the nest.”

“I think that’s only for baby birds,” Walter said. “These are great, big birds.” But he still used a sturdy piece of bark to raise the birds to their feet. They shook themselves and hopped around a bit.

“They’re okay!” she shouted.

He smiled and pointed to the smaller bird. “That one’s a brown house sparrow.”

“What’s the other one?”

“That’s a starling.”

She crooked a finger and held it out. The birds bobbed at it cautiously before flying off, one after the other. Bean watched them until they were out of sight.

“You saved those birds,” Walter said.

She sighed. “I like animals.”

“Do you know how starlings came to be in this country?”

She shook her head.

“Would you like to know?”

“I should go home,” she said.

“Oh. Okay, then.”

She looked up at him. “But my brother works again next Saturday morning. You could tell me about it then.”

His throat felt curiously tight. He coughed to clear it. “That…that’d probably be fine. Since I’ll be here, anyway. It’s a pretty good story.”

“Okay. Bye, Walter.” She wound up and took off with a tremendously energetic skip down the block.

“Bye, Verbena,” he called after her.

He returned to the booth, picked up his book, left some money on the table, and walked home.

Day 4: Balloon

They bumped into each other near a bridge. A tour of bicyclists created a draft that sent the pink balloon whirling up into a tree, where its string became tangled among the branches.

The small ghost looked on in dismay. Over the decades, she’d grown accustomed to watching earthly affairs play out and being unable to help. But this was different—this time she might be able to do something about it.

She made her way over to the tree and assessed the situation. It wasn’t dire; the balloon’s path was just impeded. A bit of wind would do the trick.

The small ghost wound up carefully, then twirled herself vigorously in hopes of generating enough of an effect on the air around her. She checked and—success! Whether it was her spinning or a passing breeze was unimportant. The balloon was free.

“Hello!” she called out.

The balloon said nothing.

“Would you like to be my friend?”

It floated closer to her, which she took as an affirmative.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

No response.

“Don’t have a name? That’s okay. I don’t either. I mean, I’m sure I did once, but who knows now, right? So!” she said, feeling lighter than she had in some time. “What do you think? Shall we have an adventure?”

In response, the balloon floated higher.

“Well, alright then! Lead the way, friend!”

The small ghost followed, and slowly they started on their way. The balloon didn’t move quite as quickly as she usually did, but it flew high: they could see for miles as they drifted over cities and fields, rivers and mountains and patchwork squares of farmland. At one point, they passed a flock of hot air balloons, arrayed in brightly colored diamonds and stripes.

“Do you think that’s what you’ll be when you grow up?” she asked with a delighted laugh.

The balloon simply continued on in silence. Almost as if it were searching for something. The small ghost knew how that felt. She’d been searching like that for a very long time. But now she had found what she was looking for. and she would do whatever it took to help her friend find whatever it sought, too. She didn’t bother to ask what it was, just followed along and scoured the ground for anything that looked like something a pink balloon might need.

As the hours passed, she noticed her friend flagging.

“Would you like to take a little nap?” she asked. “I guess I wouldn’t mind that, myself. It’s pretty sunny today, and I think a nice, shady spot in that garden there will be just right for a quick snooze.”

As they descended, it struck her that the balloon looked quite dejected. Perhaps—perhaps it wouldn’t want to be her friend anymore, if it couldn’t find what it was looking for.

“I know it’s hard,” she whispered. “You start to feel so sad. It seems like you’ll never find the thing you want. But you will. I did. I promise you’ll find it, too. Let’s just keep looking.”

Despite her encouragement, her friend came to rest on the roots of a tree in front of a great, sprawling house. It was possible to die from a broken heart; she knew that much. Maybe she could find whatever the balloon was looking for and bring it back here. But how could she do that when the balloon wouldn’t even tell her what it was?

“Please don’t give up,” she urged. “I will be here for the rest of existence. Will you leave me so soon?”

She did her best to conjure a bit of wind to buoy it up, but with no success. It rolled a bit from side to side, but it couldn’t seem to muster the strength to rise from the ground.

“Then I will stay here with you,” she cried. “Because this is what friends do, isn’t it? They stay with each other. Especially when one is in trouble. They stay with each other and they help each other. No matter what.”

She settled next to the balloon as the light faded, speaking softly to it. Even when it grew too dark to see the balloon, she stayed.

“I’m still here, friend,” she said into the darkness. “Don’t worry. I’m still here.”

Day 3: The Philosophers

It began in Mr. Abram’s Intro to Philosophy class. The girl raised her hand and, without waiting to be called on, began to argue passionately in defense of Aristotelian ethics. She wasn’t deterred even when the professor told her that yes, they were arguing the same point.

“Well, good,” she said, and crossed her arms over her chest.

The boy caught up to her in the hall after class. “My name’s Neil,” he wheezed, jogging to keep up with her.

“Nice to meet you, Neil,” she said, before peeling off into another classroom.

It took him a week to learn her name—Emily, Emily McKinsey—and another month before he worked up the nerve to ask her out.

“Why would you want to do that?” she asked coolly. “Show your work there, Neil.”

That caught him off guard. “Because…” He faltered. “I think it would be fun?” She raised an eyebrow. “And—and! I know how to tango. My mom made me take lessons with her when I was in high school. The story’s not important. Whattaya say?”

She smiled but remained unmoved. “You’ll have to do better than that.” Swiftly, she turned on her heel and strode away.

With this invitation, he asked her out four more times over the next four semesters of philosophy classes. The day of their Ethical Philosophy final, he caught up to her in the courtyard, under a tulip magnolia tree, and asked her once more.

“Why would you want to do that?” she said again. Her gaze was steady on him.

This time he was ready. He handed her a single poppy and said simply, “Aristophanes.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Explain.”

He shrugged. “I could explain. But it makes me so hungry. Maybe it’d be better to tell you about it over dinner?”

She considered for a long moment, her mouth hanging open, her eyes darting about the courtyard. At last she said, “Breakfast.”

“Fine.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Perfect.”

“Meet by the fountain? Ten o’clock?”

“I look forward to it.”

By the time the coffee landed on the table, they were already at it.

“You really buy into that four-legged creature stuff?”

“Maybe not literally,” Neil said. “But as a metaphor—”

“As a metaphor, it makes even less sense,” she said quickly as she stirred cream into her coffee. “If it were true, and each of us really used to make up one half of a two-headed, four-armed, four-legged monster that was split apart by the gods because our many limbs made us too powerful, and the only point to us being alive—”

“Well, I don’t think it’s the only point…”

“—is to reunite with our other half…” She took a sip. “Well, that’s pretty metal. I’m kind of into the idea. Especially if we can get physically stuck back together someday and roam the earth as we were meant to, like…half a giant spider.”

“I didn’t realize you were such a romantic.” He grinned.

“But if it’s just a metaphor,” she went on, “what does that say about our collective imagination? We feel incomplete all the time. It’s part of the human condition. But we just assume that another human being is the only thing that will make us feel whole? How egocentric are we?”

Two plates of pancakes arrived but didn’t break their stride.

“So I take it you’re a Nietzsche fan,” he said, offering her the syrup. “Standing bravely on your own two feet and all that.”

She scoffed. “Kindly do not speak to me about Nietzsche. He can take his misogyny and his gross, oversized mustache and get outta here.”

“And I suppose you would also reject anything Kierkegaard has to say on the subject.”

“Well, what about Schopenhauer?”

“What about Aristotle?”

Breakfast turned into lunch, which turned into dinner. Their arguments shortened as they grew more heated.

“‘Love is giving something you haven't got to someone who doesn't exist,’” she claimed.

“‘You do things because you enjoy doing them for the person you love,’” he cried.

“Are you forgetting about Stendhal?”

“Well, what about Plato?”

“Proust!”

“Jesus!”

“Buddha!”

They spent the night together.

“I love you,” he told her in the morning.

“How do you know that? Show your work, Neil.”

“What do you mean how do I know? I know because I feel it.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” she said, slipping into her skirt.

He wrote her love letters; she sent back dirty limericks. He brought her flowers; she plucked the petals off and ate them in front of him, one by one. Afterward, she became horribly ill and when he came to see her, she shouted, “This is what love does!”

In the end, of course, the fact could no more be denied than gravity: the two were in love. However, the more she felt for Neil, the lower Emily’s spirits sank. She bore it stoically, even cheerfully—but underneath the smiles and kisses and long walks in the rain and stimulating conversations that lasted late into the night, there remained a heaviness, like a stone in her stomach, weighing her down. She did her best to ignore it, but it was always there.

Two years passed this way. They graduated, drove their belongings to another city to pursue their next degree, and moved into a tiny apartment together. Every day she expected him to propose, and the thought made her quake. She walked to and fro across the living room, the wood floor protesting beneath her stocking feet, mumbling to herself, “If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; if you marry or do not marry, you will regret both.” 

Still they studied, and walked, and argued late into the night. They defended their dissertations and applied to PhD programs. The night before they were to be graduated and drive to another city for another degree, Neil gave her a single poppy and suggested they visit the courthouse.

She sat silently across the coffee table from him, worrying her hands. Restless, she stood and resumed her pacing.

At last she stopped, turned to him, and said, “Sartre.”

“Sartre?” he said.

“Well, Sartre and de Beauvoir.”

“What about them?”

She came to perch on the windowsill and looked out at the empty street.

“Oh,” he said after a moment’s thought. “Freedom. Love means giving up any desire to possess the person you love.”

“Love is inauthentic without freedom,” she said softly. In imagining this interaction, she hadn’t anticipated feeling as though her bones were made of lead and her skin wanted to melt away from her body.

The night continued with long stretches of silence peppered with an occasional comment or sniffle.

“You know,” he said, “philosophy can’t give us an answer to everything.”

“How dare you,” she whispered.

He breathed a laugh. “What I mean is that…I mean, philosophers have spent centuries—millennia—arguing over the biggest questions in the universe. Doesn’t that mean something? If there were any actual answers amidst this great mess, wouldn’t someone have found them already?”

“You know that’s not why we study philosophy.”

“No, but I think it’s an answer in itself. If there’s an ultimate answer, we can’t know it for sure in this lifetime. Love exists, that much we all agree on. Do the semantic differences really matter that much?”

She gave half a shrug. “Agree to disagree.”

The night was fading into a grey dawn when Neil finally let his head fall to his chest in surrender.

“I accept your terms.”

“What terms?”

“Freedom,” he said.

“Wait, what? Say more words, Neil. Why would you agree to that?”

“Agape,” he said simply.

She scratched her arm. “Agape,” she echoed. “Really? That’s it?”

He nodded.

“I’m about to refuse your proposal because of two people who used philosophical arguments partly to justify seducing their students, and all you have to say to me is agape?”

He shrugged, and if he felt any dismay at all, his face didn’t give it away.

“Well, that’s…” She stood only to collapse a moment later into a chair. “I suppose you mean to convey that you care for me in such a way that you would let me have my freedom, whatever the cost to your personal happiness, assuming it’s what I really want, and thereby prove that you do love me. Unconditionally and inarguably.”

He watched her silently.

“Well, are you going to bring up the nature of my love for you? Point to my inconsistencies, my grasping, the way I contradict myself by saying I expect freedom when, if you asked the same of me, you know I would be loath to give it? Will you make me eat my words like flower petals?”

He shook his head.

She frowned at the floor. Outside, the birds greeted the morning with a clamor. For a long moment, she watched the pink and orange light seep into the sky.

“Alright then,” she said softly.

He jerked out of a doze. “Alright?”

“Yes.”

He sat forward. “Could you—could you just—Em, it’s so late and I’m not sure what you’re—could you just specify—”

“Let’s get married.”

He blinked.

“Neil? Did you hear me?”

“Huh?” he said.

She smiled. “Do you wanna get married?”

“You mean, like…right now?”

She jumped up. “Yes.” She dashed to the fireplace and slid a cardboard packing box of books out of the way with her foot. “Come here! Stand right here. There. That’s perfect.”

Shaking his head, he took his place facing her by the mantle. She took his hands and looked into his eyes.

He gave a small cough. “Should we say something?”

She scrunched her eyes shut. “Hang on, I’m trying to remember it.” She hopped a little and then opened her eyes. “Got it. Ready?”

“We don’t have any rings.”

“Semantic details!” she shouted. “Are you ready, Neil?”

“I’m ready.”

“To misquote our good friend, Jean-Paul Sartre,” she said, “there may be more beautiful times, Neil. But this one is ours.”

“May our bodies fuse together that we may once again roam the earth as powerful and terrifying many-limbed creatures.”

“Like half of a giant spider,” she said.

“Like half of a giant spider,” he agreed.

Day 2: The Birds

The sun was just peeking over the tops of the pine trees when a sparrow alighted next to a pond in the middle of shabby, lonely park. He’d seen the other bird, waiting there, picking idly at the grass, but he pretended not to notice him. Once he had settled his feathers, he turned to look down his beak at the intruder.

“Oh,” the sparrow said. “So you’re here again.”

“Oh!” said the other. “So you’re here. Again!”

“You say that like you expect me not to be here. When you know this is my corner of the park.”

“You can’t claim an entire corner for yourself!”

“Okay, then I claim the old man who comes to this corner of the park every morning and throws bread.”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever yourself!”

“Great retort.”

“Whatever. This is my corner and you know it.”

They fell into silence, neither one willing to give any ground, and each determined to ignore the other.

Tentatively, after a few moments, the sparrow gave a small chirp. Then, more confidently, he opened his beak wide and let out a full-throated trill.

“What was that?” the other bird said with a smirk.

“What?”

“Was that for my benefit?”

“Just keeping the old voice sharp.”

“Well, can it.”

“Uh, it’s a free country, pal.” The sparrow shook his feathers defensively. “Besides, studies show that people are twenty percent more likely to throw bread to birds who make noise than those who stay silent.”

“Yeah? Who paid for that study? Big Bread?”

“What does that…what does that even mean?”

The other bird rolled his eyes. “If you don’t know already, it’s no use explaining it to you.”

“Well, all I know is that people seem to think if you do some singin’, you deserve something in return. Reciprocity, buddy.”

“Reciprocity, right.” The bird bobbed his head.

They waited in tense silence, each one scanning the park for any sign of the old man with the bread.

“What time is it?” the sparrow asked.

“Dunno.”

“Why not?”

“My watch broke.”

“Well, you don’t have to be sarcastic.”

“Just check the shadows, dummy.”

“Well, that’s why I asked. They seem shorter than usual.”

The other bird hopped toward the pond to get a better look. “You’re right. That one turtle’s already sunning himself on that rock. He usually doesn’t make it up there till long past bread time.”

“Exactly.” The sparrow lowered his voice. “Do you think…something happened? To the old man?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“Do you think he might be…?”

“What?”

“You know.”

“What? Busy?”

“Dead,” the sparrow whispered.

“Oh!” said the other bird. “Well, I don’t…I mean, I hope not. Christ! What a thing to—you know you’re going to feel awful if it turns out he actually did die.”

“Why? It’s not like I killed him. If he even is dead.”

“Hang on. How do I know you didn’t kill him? Pecked him to death so you could feast on his mountains of bread all by yourself. You selfish brute!”

“Would I be waiting here if I’d killed the old man?”

“Maybe if you wanted to throw me off the scent. Where are you keeping the bread, you fiend?”

“I don’t have any bread. And I didn’t kill any old man!”

“A likely story!” the other bird cried.

“You know what? I’m leaving. Since he’s obviously not coming.”

“Oh, sure! Fly away! Fly away to hide your guilt. Shame on you, sparrow! Shame on you!”

“Oh, I see. That’s how you want to play it? Fine. I’ll stay here all day.”

“So will I!”

“Then we’ll see who’s alive and who’s not.”

“I guess we will!”

They hunkered down on the grass and stared in opposite directions as they waited for the old man to appear. The shadows grew shorter, then disappeared, and finally lengthened to the east. The turtle splashed back into the water. Aside from three teenagers who trudged over to smoke in the gazebo up the hill, nobody else came to the little park. As the light faded, the sparrow began to get nervous. Clouds gathered overhead—dark clouds—and the air felt heavy with rain.

“Hey,” the sparrow said.

No answer.

“Hey!” With some embarrassment, he realized he’d never asked the other bird’s name. “Bird!”

The first raindrops fell, enormous drops that splashed down around them, falling faster and faster by the second. Without waiting for a response, the sparrow scurried over, dodging drops as best he could, and stretched a wing out as shelter for the other bird. The bird didn’t wake up, just shook his head quickly and nestled into the sparrow’s feathers.

Man, the sparrow thought. This bird’s gonna be so embarrassed in the morning when I tell him what—

But then he realized he wouldn’t be able to tell the other bird what had happened. Not after their standoff. If he were found aiding the enemy, wasn’t that as good admitting defeat? Still, a cold wind had picked up, and it wasn’t unpleasant to have another creature’s warmth next to him. He burrowed his head into his own feathers as best he could. He’d just make sure to wake up early the next morning so he could put some distance between them. The other bird never needed to know.

When dawn arrived, however, the sparrow woke to find the other bird gone and two fat caterpillars wriggling in the mud at his feet. He slurped one up without thinking, but then stopped to look around.

“Bird?” he called out.

“Yeah,” came a voice behind him.

The sparrow gave a startled hop. “Oh! I…thought you were gone.”

“Nope. Just been scouting.”

“Thanks for these,” the sparrow said, nodding at the remaining caterpillar.

“Eat up,” he said. “We’ve got a long flight ahead of us.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to find that old man,” the bird said. “And we’re going to pillage his bread mountain.”

The sparrow almost choked on the caterpillar.

“What’s wrong?” sneered the other bird. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

“Oh, you’d just looove that, wouldn’t you?” cried the sparrow.

“I wouldn’t be surprised, if that’s what you mean.”

“Enough chattering! Let’s go, already!” the sparrow shouted, spreading his wings and bobbing excitedly.

The other bird smiled. “Bet I find him before you do.”

“You are such a child,” the sparrow said. But he still darted off before the other bird had time to take a breath. “Too slow, old crow!” he called behind him.

And so they set off together, away from the shabby, lonely park, toward the mountain of bread that awaited them.

Day 1: The Topiarist

They said he was mad. They said he was disturbed and obsessed. But Cecily, the schoolteacher in town, didn’t think so. She thought he must be only very sad. At least, that’s what she gathered from the stories he told.

The rumors started when he bought the old Mason mansion after Hammond Mason died the previous summer. They said his ghost still haunted the place. They said how odd it was that a young man should buy that big, creepy house for just himself. Then there was the fact that no one ever saw him go in or out, just a glimpse of his elaborately coiffed, blond hair as he passed by a window. Wouldn’t it be better—for the town, you know—to have a family living there? Or turn it into a school? Having it sit idly seemed a waste, they said.

He’d been in town about a month when the stories began to show up.

It wasn’t obvious that’s what they were at first. He started with one shrub, shaped skillfully into a woman’s face. Passers-by would stop and wonder at the nuance of expression he was able to elicit from a boxwood.

A few weeks later, the town woke to find another topiary: two figures this time. They recognized the same woman, only now she was embraced by a man with spectacularly sculpted hair. Cecily shuddered when she saw it. Such joy as was evident in their faces gave her an ominous feeling. If the topiaries were telling a story, as she suspected, only heartache could follow this.

By the time the next installment appeared, the topiarist had become something of a local legend. People flocked to see the delicately expressive figures carved into the greenery. They took pictures through the bars of the gate, slipped cards and interview requests into the mailbox, and a group of them set up camp on the lawn in front of the gate in hopes of catching a glimpse of the topiarist in action. They spent a week out there, singing songs and chanting for the man to come out and demonstrate for them. But eventually they always fell asleep. The topiarist was never caught at his work.

One morning the group woke to a shout that a great ship had appeared in the night, its sails unfurled, a green wave cresting at its bow. Cecily, squinting past the iron gate, noticed a lone figure on the back of the boat, looking wistfully into the distance. She followed his gaze and there, standing far off on a boxwood cliff, she spotted the same woman as before, this time holding a small bundle in her arms. Her moss hair blew across her face as she watched the man sail away.

The next four appeared in quick succession: the young man working at a mill, shining shoes, digging a ditch, bent over a desk with a pile of leafy papers stacked precariously in front of him. Finally another ship towered over the lawn, with the woman holding a little curly-haired girl up to peer over the side at the green grass sea below.

By now the rest of the town had caught on to the narrative, and for many weeks they kept watch for a reunion and a happy conclusion to the story. But the days passed, and no new sculpture appeared. Not all at once, anyway. Cecily noticed a row of shrubberies shifting with each day, gathering like a storm, steadily approaching the ship where the two hopeful figures looked forward to their future. Her heart gripped her the morning she passed by to see that the storm had overtaken the boat. Waves thrashed around it; the figures fled for shelter as the ship rocked and weaved for days, tossed helplessly by the ocean’s fury. Then came the day when the sea grew calm again. The ship was nowhere to be seen.

The young man appeared once more, waiting on the end of a dock. Each morning he was there, for many months, so long that the townspeople concluded this was the end of the story and began to grumble. They said it was a shame to leave such a tragic story in their midst. They said if he was going to make something so public, he might as well give it a happy ending.

Eventually Cecily was the only one who still passed by to see the topiaries. Every day for a year, she stopped on her way to the school and peeked past the iron bars to see if the man had left his post at the end of the dock. She still glimpsed the man himself sometimes, looking out a high window of the mansion. He ducked away as soon as she caught his eye, but if she stayed there long enough, she saw him glance out again, warily.

She slipped a note into his mailbox:

I’m so very sorry about your family. —Miss Cecily Mills

Six more months passed before another topiary appeared: an exact miniature replica of the Mason mansion. Breathless with a curious excitement, Cecily pressed her face against the iron gate to get a better look, but there were still details she couldn’t make out. When school let out that afternoon, she snagged a pair of binoculars from the classroom and brought them to the mansion. Every detail of the new topiary was perfect, down to the iron gate, the row of miniature sculptures, and—to her surprise—a woman standing before the gate, looking in. He’d fashioned a tiny moss Cecily. And if that was so, then—yes, she scanned the tiny mansion facade and found the man with his fantastical hair peeking out one of the top windows.

Lowering the binoculars, she waved up at the house to let him know she’d seen it. She couldn’t see him, but thought she glimpsed a curtain moving.

After that the carvings ventured closer to the gate—fanciful sculptures of dancing circus animals, fearsome sea creatures, men in top hats that stretched six feet into the air, women with peg legs who smoked long pipes. Cecily delighted in them, waving each day up at the house in appreciation. Some days the man gave the tiniest wave back, evidently pleased to know that his work satisfied.

One morning, she passed by to find another scene, this one quite near the gate. A table was laid for tea, and two figures sat sipping from cups and smiling at each other. Cecily recognized the figures at once. She nodded up at the window. All day she was caught up in nervous anticipation, so that as soon as school let out, she raced to the mansion.

The gate was open. She ducked inside, closing it after her, and found a pathway weaving through the yard and around the house to the back garden, which she had never seen before. At the top of a set of stone steps, she found herself on a patio almost entirely enclosed by a magnificent weeping willow. She parted the boughs and found a table set for two, just as she’d seen in the sculpture, the young man waiting for her and twisting a napkin nervously. He stood when she arrived, hands clasped behind his back, his blond hair immaculately sculpted and adding perhaps five inches to his already considerable height. He gestured for her to sit and poured her a cup of tea.

After a bashful silence, Cecily said, “I half expected you to to be made of twigs and leaves.”

The man smiled. It was a thin smile that stretched so wide it seemed to split his face in two. He held up a hand. “No leaves,” he said. “Just flesh and bone.”

Tentatively, Cecily held up her own hand. She pressed her palm against his and then nodded as if satisfied. “Flesh and bone,” she said.