![]() ![]() I savored the sensation that coursed through me as I watched him. I stood by a nearby counter, pretending to sort through my own mail. ![]() His hand shook as he opened and read it by the mailbox slots of our apartment complex. ![]() The words were different -merely advice:Īlthough it was short, he was visibly shaken by it. He’d stopped picking up his landline, allowing the answering machine to pick up his calls and returning them on his cell phone. I let him be for two weeks, and gradually his fears ebbed and he returned the coat to his closet. His attempt to conceal himself from the world was pointless, but I found his modesty endearing. Although it was only October and the temperature rarely dipped below the seventies, he’d begun wearing his long black winter coat. I was not there when he read it, but I knew he had. I stroked it with my gloved finger, smudging the ink. I wrote the first letter of his name in the center in red ink. I folded the letter and slipped it into the envelope of the same paper, decorated with two ivy leaves in each of the four corners. He would have to appreciate the truth for what it was. It was ridiculous, but it was also sincere. I wrote only a paragraph, but I read it over and over again, several times out loud to hear the ridiculousness of it. I wrote him a letter on the Almalfi paper I had purchased years ago in Florence – the laser printer inked neatly inside the embossed ivy border. ![]()
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