*Diary Entry – Black Ink Stains on Old Letters*
The letter arrived in a plain grey envelope, no return address. The handwriting was unfamiliar—uneven, slanted, as though the writer hadn’t held a pen in years. Yet there was something oddly familiar in those jagged lines, as if each letter knew her by name. The postmark dated it three weeks ago. Emily knew instantly—who it was from. Her chest clenched, her heart stumbling like it was late by years, by an entire lifetime.
She hadn’t seen David in sixteen years. Not since that wretched autumn when he simply shut the door behind him and left, taking neither his coat, nor his toothbrush, nor even the photo from the beach where they’d both been happy. He abandoned everything: a half-drunk cup of tea, his razor by the sink, and silence—the worst of his belongings. That silence rang through the flat, soaked into the pillows, the curtains, the spaces between days. His last word had been nothing at all, and that was what ached the longest.
The letter sat on the kitchen table for nearly an hour. Emily paced, pretending to be busy—rinsing a mug, wiping the hob, picking up the newspaper without reading it. But eventually, she took the bread knife and slit the envelope open. The paper inside was thick, slightly rough, with smudged ink spots—as if his hand had shaken, or he’d scribbled in haste, on his knee. She traced the lines with her fingers, as if feeling not the letters but the breath of the one who wrote them.
*”Em. Don’t know how you are. Or if you even are. This isn’t about trying to get anything back. I know you can’t. And I think you don’t want to. Just wanted to say—I remembered. Not always. But more than I ever admitted. Stupid, isn’t it?”*
Emily read it aloud, barely moving her lips. The room fell still. Even the old clock on the wall seemed to stop ticking. The air thickened, like before a storm. As if time itself had held its breath.
She sat down. The smell of yesterday’s burnt shepherd’s pie lingered. Memories surfaced: him laughing, plucking apples from the tree in the yard, the day he brought her that old typewriter. *”Write. Your words should be heard!”* She’d been cross then—too busy for stories. Now all that remained was these letters.
The note was short. Beneath it—an address. A small town near York. He was there. Or wanted her to think he was. That address wasn’t a destination. It was a confession: *”I still think of you.”*
The next morning, she boarded the coach.
Not because she missed him. Not because she’d forgiven. But because she couldn’t leave that letter on the table like an unbandaged wound. Because it was easier to travel to one place than to spend a lifetime too afraid to step outside. Because sometimes risking it hurts less than forever wondering *”what if.”*
The coach rattled over potholes, snowy villages and crooked fences blurring past the window. At every bend, she half-expected to see his silhouette. She didn’t listen to music or open a book—just stared ahead, as if the next hill might hold an answer.
The house was old, wooden. The gate creaked like something from a film. The number on the plaque was barely legible. She stood there a minute. Breathing hard. Then pushed it open.
He answered the door. Hunched, a cane in hand. Hair gone grey, eyes weary but warm. And in that look was everything: the guilt, the longing, the silence of sixteen years.
*”Emily?”*
She nodded.
*”Come in.”*
They didn’t embrace. Didn’t weep. Didn’t accuse. Just sat at the table. The kettle hissed on the stove. The kitchen smelled of mint and old paper.
They were quiet a long while. But the quiet wasn’t heavy. It was a bridge—from her to him.
*”Did you think I wouldn’t come?”* she finally asked.
He took his time. Shrugged.
*”Thought you’d forget. Or learn to live without me. You always were the stronger one.”*
*”I’m not stronger,”* she said. *”Just quieter.”*
Then she looked at his hands. On the table, beside his mug, lay a scrap of paper with a smudged blot of ink—just like the one in the letter.
*”You never wrote to anyone else, did you?”*
He shook his head slowly.
*”Only you. Even if I never sent them. All for you.”*
*”I haven’t forgiven,”* she said. *”But I came. Maybe that’s enough.”*
He nodded. Then, as if out of habit, he pulled out the old typewriter. The same one—she recognised it at once, the scratch on the side, the chipped ‘S’ key.
*”Still works,”* he said. *”Sometimes I write. Letters I don’t send. Like talking, just without answers.”*
Emily glanced out the window. Snow fell softly, soundless, pure—like a blank sheet of paper.
*”Then maybe… today—we write something together?”*
He looked at her. His eyes were brighter. He didn’t answer. Just smiled the faintest bit.
And that, truthfully, was enough.
*—Sometimes the letters we never send are the ones that bring us back.*
