Chapter 12: What He Did Not Write Back
Ethan didn't pick up the letter right away. He held the towel I had set down, the white terry cloth still damp from the spill and bunched in his left hand. The letter lay flat on the metal counter between us, the crease I had pressed into it starting to soften in the humidity from the coffee machine.
For a second I thought he would smooth it out and read it again. He didn't. He folded his right hand over the towel instead, like he needed something to hold onto.
"I wrote one too," he said.
I didn't answer. The fluorescent light hummed over us and I could hear the milk steamer hissing behind me where Carla had left it.
He set the towel down carefully, right next to my letter, not on top of it. Then he reached into the cargo pocket of his OCP pants. Not for anything paper. He pulled out his phone.
"I didn't send it," he said. "I typed it and I kept telling myself I'd call instead. Then I didn't call either."
He turned the screen toward me. The brightness was up too high and I had to blink. It was his notes app, not a text. A draft with a timestamp at the top.
I leaned in and read it.
Ethan — draft — March 28 06:14
Maya, they said I could put in for early return. Ten days. I didn't put my name in yet because I wanted to ask you first. Do you still want me to come through that door? If you say no I'll stay. If you say yes I'll be on the bus. — E
That was two weeks ago. Two weeks before he showed up standing in the open glass door without warning.
I stared at that last line. If you say yes I'll be on the bus. My throat got tight.
"You had this for two weeks?" I said.
He nodded once. "I wrote it the night Sergeant told us we could request it. I had it ready to send."
"Why didn't you?"
He looked down at the phone, then at my letter. His voice stayed low, even.
"Same reason you didn't mail yours, I think," he said. "I was scared you'd say no. I thought if I tore it up and just showed up, you wouldn't have time to tell me not to come."
He swiped with his thumb. There was another version underneath, shorter, half deleted. Maya do you want me home?? crossed out. Then the longer one again.
"I typed it three times," he said. "The first one sounded like I was asking permission to be your husband again. The second one sounded mad. This was the third."
I felt my hand move on the counter without me deciding to move it. My fingers stopped just short of the phone.
"You tore it up?" I asked.
"Not this one. The one before this," he said. "I wrote it on the MWR paper in the barracks. Actual paper. Then I ripped it in half and threw it away because my handwriting looked like a kid's. I thought you'd think I wasn't serious if it looked like that."
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. It came out sharp and a little wet.
So we had both done the same thing. I had folded my letter and hidden it in my apron and told his mom he wasn't coming home for the holidays. He had typed a draft at six in the morning and carried it for fourteen days and then got on a bus anyway.
"We both used drafts instead of calling," I said quietly. It wasn't a question. I was saying it because I was just now understanding it.
He nodded. "Yeah."
I picked up my letter with one hand and his phone was still in his other hand, lit up between us on the counter. Two pieces of paper that never got sent. One that I had tried to hide, one that he had kept on a screen.
"Did you want me to say no?" he asked. He wasn't challenging me. His eyes stayed on my face, calm, waiting.
"No," I said. "I didn't. I just didn't think you'd want to come back through that door after everything."
"I did," he said. "That's all I thought about."
He didn't move to hug me. He didn't slide my letter closer or pull the phone back. He left both things exactly where they were, side by side on the metal edge where I had clutched that towel an hour earlier. The counter between us was only two feet wide, but it felt like we had finally put the truth on it instead of under it.
I looked at his draft again. The timestamp glowed. March 28. While I was wiping that same counter and planning to leave town.
"You should have sent it," I said.
May you like
"You should have called his mom," he said, but gently, and then added, "We both should have."
For the first time that morning I didn't feel like I was the only one who had been guarding the door.
