Chapter Seven | The Letter and the Leaf

The letter arrived on a Wednesday.

She knew it was his handwriting before she even saw the name.
Something about the slope of the “s,” the way the letters never quite closed.
The return address was familiar. Too familiar.
A place she’d driven away from with swollen eyes and a heart too quiet for its own good.

She let it sit on the table overnight.
Didn’t touch it.
Didn’t even look at it, really.
Just felt its weight in the room like humidity—pressing against everything, curling into corners.

By Thursday, she was tired of pretending it wasn’t there.

She opened it slowly, like it might bite.
It didn’t.

Inside was an apology too late to be useful, and too carefully written to be sincere.
Words like closure and growth and wishing you well.
But not a single sentence that said what she’d needed most back then: I was wrong. I hurt you. I see it now.

She folded the letter in half. Then in half again.
Then tucked it into a drawer without anger, but without sentiment either.
It didn’t belong on display. But it didn’t need to be destroyed.

That afternoon, she didn’t want to go to the bakery.
But she did.

He was already there.
Blue coat, boots speckled with dried leaves, a notebook in his lap.

He looked up and smiled.
And something inside her—something tight and old and always waiting—unraveled just a little.

“You okay?” he asked.

She hesitated. Then nodded.
Then, unexpectedly, said, “I got a letter today.”

He didn’t ask from who.
Didn’t pry.
Just waited.

She sat down beside him and let the silence do what it does best—make space for what can’t quite be said yet.

After a while, he reached into his coat pocket and handed her a folded piece of paper.

“I wrote something this morning,” he said. “Didn’t know why. Maybe it was for you.”

She opened it.

It was a poem. A short one.

Some things return
not to be reopened,
but to remind you
how far you’ve come
without them.

She didn’t cry.
But she wanted to.
And somehow, that was better.

When she left the bakery that day, she didn’t take the usual path home.
She wandered the long way, through the woods, past the creek, letting the late October air pull at her sleeves.

By the time she reached the cottage, the letter in the drawer didn’t feel quite so loud.
And the poem in her coat pocket felt like armor.