At 78, I let go of everything I owned—my apartment, my old pickup, even my beloved vinyl collection.
Elizabeth’s letter showed up unannounced, wedged between utility bills and junk mail, as if it didn’t understand the weight it carried.
“I’ve been thinking of you.”
That’s all it said. I read it three times before I let myself breathe.
A letter. From Elizabeth.
“I wonder if you ever think about those days. About how we laughed, about the way you held my hand by the lake that night. I do. I always have.”
We started exchanging letters after that.
Then one day, she sent her address. No instructions. No explanation. Just the address.
I sold what I had left. Booked a one-way flight.
As the plane rose into the sky, I closed my eyes and pictured her waiting for me.
But a tightness in my chest made it hard to breathe.
“Sir, are you alright?”
I tried to speak, but no sound came.
When I opened my eyes again, everything had shifted. I was in a hospital room.
A woman sat beside me, holding my hand gently.
“You gave us quite a scare. I’m Lauren—your nurse,” she said.
“Where… am I?” I managed to ask.
“Bozeman General Hospital. Your flight had to land early. You had a minor heart attack. You’re okay, but the doctors don’t want you flying just yet.”
I let my head sink into the pillow. The journey would have to wait.
“I’m not someone who likes to sit still and wait for the end,” I murmured.
She didn’t scold me. Didn’t offer false cheer. Just sat there, understanding in her eyes.
“You were going to see someone?”
“Elizabeth. After four decades, she reached out.”
“Forty years is a long time.”
“Too long.”
She didn’t press for more. Just stayed there, her hands resting calmly in her lap.
“You remind me of someone,” I said after a pause.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Myself. Back when I still believed in things.”
There was something in her expression—quiet, unspoken.
On my last morning in the hospital, she walked in holding a set of car keys.
“What’s that?” I asked, confused.
“Your way out.”
I looked at her, unsure.
“You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough. And I want to help.”
We drove for hours. When we finally arrived at the address Elizabeth had sent, it wasn’t a home—it was a nursing facility.
Lauren shut off the engine.
“This is the place?”
“It’s what she wrote.”
Then I saw someone—not Elizabeth, but her sister.
“Susan,” I whispered.
She gave me a gentle, sorrowful smile.
“James. You came.”
“You let me believe she was waiting. That she was still—” My voice faltered. “Why?”
“I found your letters,” she said softly.
“She never stopped reading them. Not once.”
“She passed away last year. I lost the house too.”
At Elizabeth’s grave, I leaned down and whispered,
“I made it. I came.”
But I had come too late.
Maybe it was time to stop chasing what was already gone.
Lauren stayed. She got a job at the local care home. I managed to buy back Elizabeth’s old house.
One evening, I asked Susan to stay awhile.
She hesitated.
“James, I don’t want to be a burden.”
“You’re not,” I told her.
“You were looking for a home. So was I.”
Eventually, Lauren moved in too.
Now, each evening, we sit outside in the garden—watching the sky fade, playing chess, saying nothing, saying everything.