“My darling, I count the days between Tuesdays.”

That’s the line. That’s the one I read standing in our kitchen at like 7 in the morning still in my pajamas holding a book I’d picked up off the counter because I was going to move it to the shelf.

The letter had slipped out when I tilted the book. Pink stationery, handwritten, folded into thirds. I actually thought it was a bookmark at first. My brain genuinely just went, oh, someone left their bookmark. And then I read the first line and I stood there for a second and my brain completely stopped working.

His name is Dale. Dale returns library books every single Tuesday. Has done it for years. I always thought it was sweet, honestly. This whole little routine he had. He’d pick up whatever was on the holds shelf, read a chapter or two at night before bed, return it the next week. Boring, dependable Dale. That’s what I used to think about it, not meanly, just. Dependable. I liked that about him.

I read the whole letter standing right there by the kitchen counter. She described a chapter he’d left her inside a book. Said she’d sat in a parking lot and read it without moving. She signed it “Cla” and it was cut off, like the letter had been written on stationery that wasn’t quite big enough, or she’d run out of room and decided it was fine. There was no last name. Just Cla. I read it twice. Then I put it down on the counter and I walked into the bedroom and I looked at the nightstand on Dale’s side.

There were three books stacked there. I don’t know what made me look inside them instead of just standing there. Some part of my brain had already done the math, I think, before I was consciously doing the math.

I opened the first one. There was a letter between pages 80 and 81. Pale blue stationery that time. I opened the second book. Another letter. Third book, two letters. I sat down on the edge of the bed and I just. Sat there for a minute.

I went through the whole house after that. Every book I could find with a library sticker. There were more in the living room. A couple in his office. Fourteen letters total. All of them from Claire. I know her full name now, but at that point she was still just Cla, and then Claire, spelled out fully in one of the earlier ones where she’d had more room on the page. I stacked all fourteen on the bed and I read every single one of them at the kitchen table. I made coffee first. I don’t know why. Habit, I guess.