Second Verse

I found the letter on a Tuesday in March, the same Tuesday I finally packed up Denise's stuff, which took four months because I kept finding one more thing of hers in a drawer or a closet and it just seemed easier to let it sit. The shoebox was under the Christmas decorations in the hall closet, and it was supposed to be full of tax stuff from my old pool route, receipts and mileage logs and the like, but instead it had the letter.

I knew what it was before I opened it. I'd kept it for ten years and I knew what it was, a pale blue envelope with Cleo Spaulding's looping handwriting on the front, no stamp because she'd slid it under my door herself after rehearsal that Thursday night in October. I sat on the closet floor and read it twice and then I sat there a while longer, forty-three years old and a maintenance man for three apartment complexes, holding a piece of paper like it was something that could break.

Cleo, I wrote that night. I don't know if you remember me, except I know you do because you wrote the letter. My name is Jeb Crawford, baritone, bad with the descant parts, you used to make a face at me from the soprano row when I came in late on the second verse. I found your letter tonight. It's been in a shoebox for ten years and I am not going to try to explain why I never answered it, because there isn't a good reason, there's just a scared man who was ten years younger than he is now and thought a woman like you couldn't possibly have meant a word of it. I'm sorry. The apology is late and small. If any part of what you wrote is still true, write back. If it isn't, then just know I read every word, twice, and I'm sorry it took me a decade to say so.

I put it in an envelope addressed to her old address, the one on the letter, an apartment on Delmar that I had no reason to believe she still lived in, and then I did the thing everybody does now, I looked her up, and there she was, administrative assistant at some nonprofit for kids, same last name, and a church directory from St. Matthew's with her name still in the soprano section. So I mailed the letter and I didn't sleep right for three days.

* * *

Her reply came in a pale blue envelope again, which I took as a good sign before I even opened it.

Jeb Crawford, it started. You have some nerve, is the first thing, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. I have moved twice since that address, so I want you to take a second and appreciate the fact that I keep old contact information in my phone notes as though I am out of my mind, because that is the only reason you got an answer at all. I was mortified for about a month after you didn't come, did you know that. I rehearsed what I'd say to you in the produce aisle for a solid four weeks, and then I quit the choir because I couldn't stand sitting two rows behind a man who'd read what I wrote and decided no. I assumed that was what happened. I assumed you read it, laughed, showed your girlfriend maybe, and threw it away. You kept it in a shoebox. Jeb. A shoebox. With your tax stuff, I assume, which is somehow both the saddest and the sweetest thing I've heard all year.

Then near the end she wrote, I meant every word of it, that's the part that embarrasses me. I was thirty-two and I'd watched you for a whole season and I meant it. Whether I still mean it, ask me at rehearsal, because I heard through the grapevine, meaning Linda Peck, who hears everything, that you're coming back.

I wrote back the same night. Yes, I'm back, first rehearsal is the ninth, baritones, back corner, same as ever. I'll tell you about the shoebox in person if you'll let me, and also about Denise, who left in November after nine years, which is a whole separate letter and I'm not writing it to you, you're not the counselor, you're the woman who wrote me the bravest letter I've ever gotten and I've been a coward about it for ten years. I'll bring coffee. You always drank it black with too much of that powdered creamer in it anyway, which we both know is not black.

* * *

The ninth fell on a Thursday. The basement room at St. Matthew's smelled the way it always had, old hymnals and floor wax and the percolator going by the coat rack, and Linda Peck did in fact hear everything, because she'd saved me a spot and was pumping me for information before I'd even set my music down. Cleo wasn't at the first rehearsal. I checked the soprano row twice a song and tried not to be obvious about it and failed, because Linda caught me looking and said nothing, which from Linda is louder than talking.

The text came at 9:40 that night, from a number I'd saved that afternoon.

I was there, it said. Balcony. I sat up top with the sound guy, Ray, you remember Ray, and I watched you fumble the second verse of the Kyrie exactly like you always did and I couldn't stop grinning. I didn't come down because I would have cried and I refuse to cry in front of a man before he's bought me coffee. It's your turn to ask, Jeb. Ten years, you get to do the asking.

I texted back before I'd even thought about it, standing in my kitchen with my coat still on.

I'm asking. Coffee, Saturday, the place on Grand with the bad parking. And Cleo, thank you for watching from the balcony instead of letting me see you cry, because I'd have cried too and then Linda would have us both.

She answered fast. Saturday. Nine. And I drink it black now, for real, I gave up the powdered stuff in 2019, you're the only person on earth who'd know that matters.

* * *

Saturday morning, nine o'clock, bad parking and all, she was already in the corner booth, forty-two years old with gray starting at her temples