{i miss paper letters}

Sheila and Frank had been high school sweethearts.  When Sheila went away to college, away from the borough for the first time in her life and as far away as possible—to California—Frank got a job as a mechanic in his friend’s dad’s neighborhood garage.  He worked hard, and most days.  He squirreled away any “extra” money (as if such a thing existed) to buy her a ring.  He wrote her a letter every week, sometimes more, though she often failed to write back.  He made plans and those plans gave him something to live for, because without Sheila he didn’t know who he was or what he was supposed to be.  She had always appreciated the attention.  Meanwhile, Sheila was having a great time, enjoying the sun, which felt different on the left-coast somehow, going to beach parties and drinking a lot.

One day the envelope was waiting for her on the shared kitchen table; she recognized Frank’s chicken-scratch from the doorway: a one-way plane ticket back to Queens.  Suddenly she felt it: the spontaneous aversion.  She knew that she’d relied on Frank for so long to remind her who she was as well, but now she’d found those reminders within herself, and although never having to pay for car repairs seemed a tantalizing consolation, she just couldn’t imagine going back to the life of a mechanic’s wife; she knew so much more now, wanted even more than that.  No longer content with the idea of a little house, some kids, maybe a dog in the yard, she could only imagine the worst, and her new-found affection for felines, well, now a dog was just out of the question.  (Frank had already purchased a puppy to bring to the airport.)

She became despondent; was depressed for weeks until the night she put the ticket into a fresh envelope addressed to Frank without so much as a one-line missive, and walked to the corner where the blue box waited with an open mouth.