11 years

Karen had learned, over time, the particular weight of unspoken things. They did not crush her. They rested on her, like a shawl worn in all seasons. For eleven years she had lived among half sentences and careful pauses. People spoke around her, not to her. They arrived with laughter, with half-baked attachments, with stories sharpened for telling. They left with equal softness. No one said the words that might have gathered her life into rest. Silence, then, became an object she tended. She carried it as one carries a sealed letter, turning it over now and then, tracing its edges, fearing what the opening might demand. She worked in a small archive near the river, where papers slept and names faded gently into time. In the evenings she attended a book reading workshop held above a closed cinema. The stairs creaked. The lights flickered. Chairs were arranged in a circle, not quite touching. People came to read, but more to be heard.

It was there that Brandon appeared, though he did not arrive in the way people usually arrive.

He did not announce himself with stories or glances. He sat, already present, as if he had been waiting for the room to catch up with him. He was large, not in size alone but in stillness.

His presence felt grounded, He would not flinch by any woman's beauty, he was so full and rooted inward without any boyish whim.

Karen shuddered. Brandon was looking at her face. Not her hands, not the page, not the space around her. Her face, as though he had arrived somewhere important and intended to remain.

A man like Brandon who seldom look at pretty women was gazing Karen with full wholesom gaze.

There was no rush in his gaze. It reminded her of reading Kafka slowly, or Nabokov with care, aware that speed would flatten what mattered most. After the reading, people gathered their coats. Chairs scraped. Mrs Hall, who always wore red scarves, complained about the cold. Jonah waved and disappeared down the stairs. Brandon approached Karen with a folded note. He did not speak. He did not watch her open it. He placed it in her hand and turned away, as though the act itself was complete. At home, Karen sat by the window where the city hummed softly below. She unfolded the paper. The words were few. At the end it said, Karen I love you. The sentence frightened her because of its lightness. It did not ask. It did not explain. It rested on the page without effort. She felt the old questions rise at once. How long. Why now. When will you leave. They shaped themselves easily, practiced from years of use. Then she recognized them as her own wound, speaking ahead of time, eager to protect itself. She slept badly. In morning there was snow all around. Karen walked anyway. She knew where Brandon’s café was, though she had never been inside. It was small, set back from the road, its windows pressed warm with light. Inside, the smell of coffee held the air steady. Brandon was behind the bar, sleeves rolled, hands sure. Karen did not sit. She handed him her note. He read it once. Then again. It said, If you promise that you will write everyday, I am going to stay with you forever.

His hands trembled before his face changed. Then his shoulders softened, as though something he had been holding finally set him down. Tears came without resistance. He took her hands, rubbing warmth back into them, and placed a cup of coffee between her fingers.

“I will be back,” he said quietly. “With a book we should read together.” “Only if you promise to read it out loud while I rest,” she replied. He did not ask what she meant. Understanding moved through him like recognition rather than surprise. He nodded once and disappeared through the back door into the snow. Karen remained where she was. The woman at the counter glanced at her, then away. The older man turned his paper the right way up. Outside, the snow continued its patient erasure. Karen held the cup, the heat, and the knowledge that some promises do not need explanation. They wait, like sealed letters, until someone is ready to listen. Behind the café, unseen, a door closed softly. Or perhaps it did not close at all.