A Letter for Later ~ Short Story

Maggie savored the sounds from down the hall, her two boys playing, the eldest making the younger laugh. She smiled over her cradled cup of coffee and tried to imagine their future. These days she often thought of things to come. Maggie’s smile tightened and withered. The future eluded her.

“Bah-bah, don’t touch that!” the three-year-old said. “Mommy, come quick.”

“I’m coming, dear.” The words were delivered with calm strength, but the coffee sloshed onto the table. Maggie winced as she rose to go. She knew that the power outlets were covered, the windows were secure, the entire house was safe for her two boys. Little Daniel called again to his mother and then yelled at his brother Bobby saying, “Don’t, Bah-bah, don’t!” 

What could it be? Maggie wondered as she worked her way down the hallway. Why had she let them play beyond her reach?

A wave of relief crashed over her tide of pain. Through the doorway she saw that Bobby had partially removed his diaper. Danny’s poop aversion was the cause for alarm. 

“It’s okay, Danny,” Maggie said entering the room, “climb up on your bed.”

Within an hour the boys were napping, the messes were sanitized, and all was in order. In the kitchen, Maggie took her mid-day pill. Swallowing, she looked across to the empty couch. She was tempted to stretch out for a few minutes, but she told herself no. She had a writing project to complete. 

~~~

Across town, in a mid-rise office building, Daniel Falstaff was thinking about his young wife, Maggie. He was working with a set of architectural drawings, turning back and forth from the floor plan to the door schedule, making small notes with his red pen. His motions were around the drawings, but his mind was at home.

He returned to door 207B the third time. It was the architectural equivalent of repeatedly reading the same line in a dry textbook. With a sigh Daniel let the drawings flip closed and he then capped his pen. He reached for his desk phone but paused. Maggie might be resting. 

Daniel stood, picked up his empty Taliesin West mug, and made his way to the office break room. He managed to acknowledge the coworkers he encountered in route; a nod here, a single syllable greeting there, then he waited wordless for his turn at the coffee pots. He took his Cherokee Red cup, black with coffee, into the adjacent conference room. Alone, he stood at the window and looked across the treetops to the skyline beyond. His eyes landed on the medical complex - the tops of tan buildings and decks tucked in at the base of the greater structures of the city. Daniel brought the mug to his mouth and his lenses fogged momentarily. The scene turned inward to that consultation room where he and Maggie first confronted her diagnosis. What he had been keeping at bay rushed in with a vengeance. Daniel gripped the coffee cup with both hands and swallowed hard. 

What in the world am I going to do?

Daniel understood that today was the day they would get Maggie’s test results, tomorrow at the latest. He’d offered to stay home with her and the boys, to wait it out together. But Maggie refused the gesture. “Dr. Jones didn’t say which day we’d hear back,” Maggie had said with her hand on Daniel’s chest. “You go on to work. Besides, Mom’s just a phone call away if the doctor calls us in. She’ll watch the guys.” Daniel hadn’t dared to express his fear then, he couldn’t show it now.

“Daniel,” a voice came from the doorway behind him, “The Fifth-Street team has scheduled this room.” There were several clinic projects in the office, but this was not one of his.

“Back to work then,” Daniel said with imposed mirth and a professional smile.

~~~

Maggie was a practitioner of the lost art of letter writing. In lieu of a rest break this day, she was completing a most pressing piece, and keeping an ear for the phone call from the doctor’s office.

The letter was addressed to her two sons, still sleeping down the hall.

Where Maggie’s father and Maggie’s husband would surround the boys with the art and science of Architecture, she had other gifts. She longed for her boys to appreciate fine music and she was already instilling in them a wonder for words. This letter, she supposed, would one day be an anchor for their love for written text.

Maggie imagined she would read the letter to the two boys when they were a decade older; or leave instructions for Daniel to do so. The letter’s fate was uncertain until that call from Dr. Jones came. Maggie knew she was penning an odd document; half time-capsule, half will and testament. It was a letter for later. 

For the past week, Maggie had been compelled to conclude her writing before she got the news on her condition. Today was her deadline. 

It was therapeutic for her to commit her hopes and fears to paper, in her own handwriting. Writing by hand was an unforgiving task. There was no spell-check, no backspace key, no delete function. Handwriting was much like life; one had to simply press on. But to Maggie’s way of thinking, ink committed to paper was a more authentic representation of the writer’s heart and mind. She wrote in royal blue ink in an open, flowing hand. 

All that she could say was said; she closed and signed the letter.

“With all my love, Mommy.” 

Maggie screwed the cap on her favorite fountain pen and placed it in the stationary box. She gently blew the ink of her last line. She might have read it over, this was often her custom, but her eyes were too blurred to see. Her heart was too tender. She placed the single-page letter in the middle of the table and wept.

After an undetermined time, Maggie heard the concerned voice of her elder son.

“What’s wrong, Mommy,” he said as he reached for her arm.

Maggie pulled back from her sorrow. She produced a smile and lied to the boy. “There’s nothing wrong, Danny.”

“But why are you crying?”

With practiced effort Maggie took the three-year-old up into her lap. She was good with words, but she was speechless now. She gave him a hug and began to hum over his tousled blond head. It was a song of comfort and consolation which she had ministered to each of her boys from time to time, a lilting lullaby she had learned long ago. The simple tune now settled Maggie. She heard her boy humming along. Maggie smiled through the tears and cherished the embrace.

After too few moments, the mother-and-child duo was interrupted by the phone’s ring. It intruded with an unusually harsh tone. Maggie started the song over from the beginning. The phone rang again. Maggie couldn’t see the caller ID screen from where they cuddled. It could be her husband, it could be her mother, but it could also be the doctor’s office calling. The third ring. Maggie had a hunch it was the doctor.

“Mommy?” Danny said without looking up. 

Maggie was usually quick to pick up a ringing phone. Her son would have observed this; perhaps he expected it. But not this time. In that moment the patient-mother decided that it was a call for later.

Maggie squeezed a little closer and whispered, “Danny, let’s count the rings until they stop.”