Nina looped her arm around Maura. “You leave an impact on everyone you meet,” she said. “You’re just that kind of person. You’re almost annoyingly impactful.” Nina smiled.
And Maura laughed at that, softly and somewhat restrained, but a laugh that made her realize that she was okay. They were okay.
“Well, maybe Amie will hurry up and have some kids, so we can be the cool aunts.” Maura grinned. “Or at least I can be the cool aunt, and you can be the one who reads them the newspaper at bedtime.”
And they both laughed again, a heartier burst this time, until Nina kissed Maura deeply, and the two women fell back onto the bed.
Dear B,
Dear B, During a vocab lesson today, one of my students defined “foolhardy” as “funny,” and I had to tell her that she was wrong. She looked so confused, and then she said, “I’m sorry. I thought it meant what I wanted it to mean.” I’ve never heard a student phrase it like that before, and I’ve been thinking about it all day.
Maybe the boxes are like that, too. Nobody can offer any foolproof explanation for them, so they just end up meaning whatever we want them to mean—whether that’s God or fate or magic. And no matter how long your string is, that, too, can mean whatever you want it to—a license to behave however you want, to stop dieting, to seek revenge, to quit your job, to take a risk, to travel the world. I don’t have any desire to leave my students, but sometimes I do imagine myself spending a year abroad, on a pilgrimage to my favorite literary sites, wandering the dramatic moors of Emily Bront?, bathing on the beach of Fitzgerald’s Riviera, bundled up against the winter of Tolstoy’s Russia （though I’d probably wimp out and go in the summer）。
Every morning, I wonder if today will be the day that I just break down and open it.
If it’s not too personal, can I ask—do you regret looking?
—A
Ben
Ben didn’t know why he was surprised. He should have expected the question eventually.
But it took him a while to craft a response. He tried procrastinating with a sketch of a new building, until he had erased and redrawn the design so many times that he ended up back at the original, and that’s when he knew that he had to start writing. But it was so much more complicated than the author’s simple query—Do you regret looking?—made it seem. And it threatened to dredge up every emotion from that night, the night he learned of his short string. All the shock and sadness and fear. The look on Claire’s face as she wept.
He believed that the stranger on the other end of his letters had always been honest with him, and he wanted to be open with them in return. But he found that he couldn’t quite bring himself to share the story in its entirety. He preferred not to relive that night. At least, not yet.
Dear A,
I feel like there was a time before my box was opened and a time after, and they’re just so completely separate. There’s no way to ever go back to the time before. I know that sounds cliché, but it’s true. Once you know something, you forget what it was like to not know it.
And yes, most days, I do regret knowing. But I try to tell myself that this initial regret will pass, and that one day, I may even be grateful to know.
Of course, if it turns out that I die suddenly in some accident, then maybe I would have been better off not knowing beforehand and just being hurled into oblivion instantaneously with no time to think about mistakes or what-ifs. But if it turns out to be a slow ending, with no shortage of time for self-reflection, then I have to take comfort in the fact that it will not come as a horrible surprise, and I will hopefully have spent the previous 14 years living the way I wanted, so I can look back and feel as content as one can hope to be.
Ben felt drained after writing the letter, like he could fall asleep right then. But there was something else he wanted to say.
I have to assume from your most recent letter that you’re a teacher, and now that it’s June, perhaps you’ll be heading off on summer vacation somewhere, away from the city.
Ben didn’t know how to conclude. Should he reveal his name? Leave his address? Suggest they meet in person?
He was honestly surprised that the letters had even lasted this long. His only similar experience was after sleep-away camp, when his bunkmates had sworn to stay pen pals throughout the school year, even sealing their pledge with a spit shake. By winter, though, once the boys’ lives were consumed yet again with classes and sports and music lessons, nearly all of the exchanges had died off. It was Ben who had written the final letter, never to receive a response.