The archivist offers to contact the letter writers, but will not hand out their addresses. You leave the box on her desk, relieved to have found a task that comes with clear instructions. Before you finish your coffee, an elderly woman arrives for a letter to her sister. They settled their argument thirty years ago. She opens it anyway and laughs so hard she has to sit down. She takes a photograph of the terrible spelling to send her sister. Iris watches, smiling through wet eyes. On the way out, you admit you used to imagine returning in a better coat, with a better explanation for leaving. I already liked you before you learned to sound like a job interview. You catch her looking at your sleeve, where Dora once patched a burn. She remembers the old coat just fine. You ask whether she ever wondered about the letter. Her hand stops on the door. Every time she passed the shop, she says. Then she steps outside, leaving you to follow with your unused explanation.
A weekend in your grandmother’s bookshop. A box of unsent letters. The person you never quite said goodbye to.
Listen closely. Choose carefully. Carry the consequences.
Every path leaves a different story.