Strangers

The table wobbled as Julia sat down, placing the large, beige ceramic mug on the table. Smoke from her latte drifted into the air, catching a ray of sun peeking through the coffee shop’s window. On a typical Tuesday, this would have made for the perfect Instagram photo. But today Julia was distracted.

The usual buzz of the coffee shop was muffled in her head as she stared aimlessly out the window. Deep in thought, her gaze landed on a small oak tree at the end of the parking lot. The tree, although mostly green, was beginning to show signs of change. A cluster of three leaves had already embraced their fate, turning red in preparation for their descent.

“Fall is coming,” Julia thought to herself. A wry smile turned the corners of her lips upwards for the first time since sitting down as her thought continued: “Pumpkin Spice season is on its way.” The gentle smile faded quickly as if she remembered why she was in the coffee shop today. Melancholy returned to her face, as she focused again on the tree.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a hand land on the back of the chair. As if awakened from a slumber, her glassy eyes looked at the woman standing before her.

“Excuse me,” the female customer repeated a second time. “Are you using this chair?”

Surprised by the benign request, Julia inadvertently snapped back, “Yes. I’m meeting someone.” Julia’s forceful tone was an unusual departure from her typically affable personality.

“I’m sorry,” apologized the customer, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Julia raised an apologetic hand, knowing that this woman didn’t deserve to be spoken to so abruptly. “No, I’m sorry. My husband – .“ Julia trailed off, lost again in thought, eyes welling with tears.

Sitting down, the female customer embraced Julia’s hand. “Are you okay?”

“My husband,” Julia began again softly. “He – he died last night.” This was first time she had said those words out loud. As the woman holding her hand gave an empathetic squeeze, a single tear caressed Julia’s cheek, dangled for a moment, then splashed against the table as she diverted her eyes from the stranger’s gaze in embarrassment.

“I’m so sorr-,” the woman began, emotions building inside herself, before being interrupted by Julia as she stared out the window again.

“That tree. We love that tree. For me, it was always the first sign of fall when the leaves on that tree began to change.” For just a moment, Julia was lost in the memory of the 22 falls she and her husband David spent together at this exact table, holding hands, looking at that tree. She looked back at the woman comforting her and chuckled, “My husband would always chide me, ‘Look, there’s a red leaf. Break out your puffy vest and pumpkin spice the whole world.’ He hated pumpkin spiced anything.”

With tears rolling down their cheeks now, the two burst into laughter at the realization that they were both wearing puffy vests, and sipping lattes.

Composing themselves, the two women continued to chat for a few more moments. After dabbing the tears from their eyes, and sipping from their drinks, the woman asked, “I hope you don’t think this is crass, but if your husband died last night, why are you here today?”

Julia’s smile evaporated again. “Every Tuesday at 10 o’clock, my husband would meet his son for coffee. DJ doesn’t know yet that his father died.”

Recognizing what was about to happen, the woman offered Julia a hug and returned to her own table of friends, who were anxiously awaiting the details of the crying woman in the puffy white vest. It was 9:54.

Gathering herself, Julia reached into her purse and pulled out six little black books. The covers were cinched together tightly with two blue rubber bands. The rubber bands were each looped twice, and formed a cross in the center of the stack that ensured maximum security. Her delicate fingers traced the edges of the books, then began to strum the rubber bands. Julia’s head jerked up as the chime on the front door announced a new patron.

Standing in the doorway, surveying the coffee shop, was the embodiment of Julia’s husband. The 20-year-old version of her husband shared his eyes and chin. He walked with a confident swagger, one she had always admired in the love of her life. He surveyed the faces of other patrons in search of his father.

Julia waved him over.

DJ walked cautiously over to the table, still peering around the room for his father.

“DJ, please sit down,” Julia said, before adding, “Your father isn’t coming.” Julia motioned the young man to take a seat. Confused, but obedient, DJ descended into the chair.

No longer focused on finding his father, DJ saw the pain on Julia’s face. Before she spoke, he sensed something was wrong. She reached across the table towards the young man as she delivered the news of his father’s death. DJ recoiled from her consoling contact. His head hung low as he processed the news. The silence of the moment hung in the air until DJ glanced out the window. Not looking at Julia yet, he shared “That tree. ‘Your tree,’ he called it. Every week we talked about your tree.” He paused, afraid to catch Julia’s gaze. “Did he ever talk about me?” asked the young man timidly, grasping for any connection to his father.

The question poured into Julia’s brain like acid. The question awakened the bile in her stomach. She considered a simple, solitary lie. “Just say yes,” her inner monologue urged. But the lie wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

The truth, though. The truth was something she hadn’t had a chance to fully process herself. She herself, had only been living with the truth for 14 hours, when with his dying breaths, her husband of 22 years asked her to grab the little black books from the firebox he kept locked under his side of the bed.

Fulfilling his dying wish, Julia had dropped to the floor, reached under the bed, and, with a trembling hand, extricated a small, silver, lockbox.

“Drawer,” he said through labored breaths, and pointed with a weak and failing arm to the nightstand. Julia furiously dug through the drawer, racing against the sands of the hourglass, which were pouring out the life of her best friend, partner, and lover. What could be so important in these final moments?

As she searched the nightstand beside the bed she could hear his breathing slow, the whine of his lungs filling with fluid. He gasped for air. The time for words had passed.

Julia abandoned her task and grabbed his hand. Sobbing, she climbed into bed with her husband one final time. Their hands interlocked in a passionate embrace. It was all he could muster in these final moments.

Julia brought her hand to his face. As if to capture the last moment of life, she placed a single finger over his lips while his final breath was expelled. The man she loved was gone. Inconsolable, she wept for her husband until her body, sensing her anguish, shut down and forced her to sleep.

The clock on top of the ransacked nightstand had continued to churn for several hours before she awoke to the grim reminder that the cooling body next to her had once housed the vibrant spirit of the love of her life. She sat up on the edge of the bed and tried to remember what she needed to do next.

The couple knew this day was coming. They had planned for this. But in the moment, all Julia could see was a faint glimmer of a tiny key peeking out from under some trivial items in the nightstand.

Her hands shook as she grabbed the key and prepared to open the mysterious box that she was previously unaware of. As she turned the key and opened the lid, Julia was greeted with the same six black books that now sat on the coffee shop table.

With trepidation, she had uncoiled the rubber bands and released her husband’s secretive prose into the world. Opening the book labeled “1,” her fingers trembled. Her world would go silent as her husband’s pen revealed the truth for the first time.

Her attention snapped back to the DJ, the stranger in front of her. Julia paused one extra second as she decided how to answer his question. With stoic fortitude, she garnered DJ’s attention, and uttered a simple, “No.”

Not shocked by this admission, DJ slowly nodded his head in solemn acknowledgement that the father who had been a stranger to him for 18 years had never shared the news of his secret son with his wife.

Julia broke the extended silence between the strangers by saying, “He never mentioned you.” Sliding the bundle of notebooks towards DJ she added, “But he wrote to you almost every day.”

DJ sat in stunned silence as he flipped through the pages of the books. Each page offered up different snippets of advice for his son; each book revealing more and more about the man who DJ felt had never loved him.

Grabbing her purse, Julia rose from the table. She stopped herself as she was about to place a consoling hand on DJ’s shoulder. “I can’t…” were the only words she could force from her lips as she left the table and exited the coffee shop.

DJ didn’t look up. On the pages in front of him was the deep connection with his father that he had always searched for. Two years of Tuesday coffee meetings and he was just now learning about his father’s love.

Questions swirled in DJ’s brain as he dug through the bundle for the sixth and final notebook. This notebook was newer. There were only a handful of entries in this edition.

The handwriting was different in this one. The letters were jagged, rougher. His sentences and advice were shorter. Towards the back of the book, DJ saw what appeared to be a bookmark. Dozens of pages were left blank between the previous entry and this page.

DJ,

I’ve always loved you.

-Dad

In this final entry, words scribbled askew, DJ could feel the pain of his father must have endured as his life drifted away.

After absorbing the enormity of those four simple words DJ gazed out the window. Planted under the tree, he saw the woman who had just given him the connection to his father that he had always longed for, sitting against the tree holding her knees, sobbing. In that moment, he realized how much he had gained today, and how much she had lost.

His fingers wandered aimlessly over the open page of the notebook until they reached a crease. Startled by the anomaly on the page, DJ looked down. He unfolded what he assumed was a bookmark. He was wrong.

At the table across the aisle, the woman who earlier had consoled Julia saw the young man get up abruptly, leaving all his belongings strewn about the table. She tried calling to him, but the door was already closing.

The woman rose and walked to the table. She looked down to discover the notebooks and a check left behind. Looking up, she scanned the parking lot for the young man’s car. Then, she saw him walking towards the tree at the end of the parking lot.

The woman looked back down at the table and realized that the young man would be back. Staring back at her was a check for $20,000. She glanced towards the tree one more time before she quietly returned to her table.

The sounds of the coffee shop were dulled as her mind grasped for the true meaning of the inscription she had seen in the check’s memo field:

Be The Man I was Never Able To Be.