Two in the Morning

He opened the door before she knocked, which meant he'd heard the car on the gravel.

He was in the same clothes. He looked at her for a moment and then stepped back to let her in.

She handed him the letter without speaking. He read it standing in the hallway, the kitchen light behind him, while she leaned against the wall and watched. He was a careful reader — always had been — and she watched him be careful with this, the way he turned the pages.

He got to the last page. He stood with it for a long moment.

"Sixteen years," he said.

"I forgot it existed. It was in the desk."

"You wrote this the night before you left."

"Yes."

He looked up. His expression was something she didn't quite have a word for — not grief exactly, not relief exactly. More like the feeling of a question finally answered that you'd stopped expecting an answer to.

"I wrote mine that same night," he said. "The one you found under the floorboard." He set the letter down on the hallway table. "We both stayed up writing. We both said the same thing." He looked at her. "And we both chose not to send it."

"I was afraid," she said.

"I know. So was I." He crossed the hall. He took her face in his hands, the way you hold something you've been careful with for a long time. "Clara."

"I have to go Thursday," she said. "I have a career. I have a life. I don't know how this works."

"I know."

"I'm not going to be the person who gives everything up and then resents it. I've seen that. I won't do it."

"I'm not asking you to give anything up."

"Then what are you asking?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"I'm asking you not to drive away again without saying it," he said.

She looked at him. The hallway was very quiet. The clock on the kitchen wall had been ticking steadily for the whole conversation.

She put her hands over his.

"I love you," she said. "Present tense. I don't know what the logistics look like. But I wanted you to have the present tense version."

He pressed his forehead against hers.

"I've been waiting eleven years," he said, "for you to find that letter in the desk."

She laughed — a real one, surprised out of her — and he kissed her, not briefly this time, not carefully, with eleven years of patience finally released.

Outside, it started to rain.

She drove home at four in the morning. Her mother was in the kitchen with the kettle on, as if she'd been expecting her.

"Well?" her mother said.

"I'll be back," Clara said. "I need to sort some things first."

Her mother handed her a cup of tea.

"I know," her mother said. "I've known for eleven years."

Clara sat down at the kitchen table and started making a list.