Leave The Light On

The first Sunday after she died, he didn't know what else to do with himself, so he wrote her a letter.

He kept doing it every Sunday after that.

Tonight was no different. The kettle hissed on the stove, the way it always had, though there was no reason to make two mugs of tea anymore. He still set hers out -a chipped white one with a blue ring near the lip - on the far side of the table. Habit was a kind of grief, too.

He sat in his chair, pen poised over thick paper, and began the same way he always did:

Hi, love.

The words came slowly, spilling in crooked lines, telling her about the cold snap that had set in, the cat that still waited by the door at dusk, the smallness of the house without her laughter to fill it. Sometimes he told her things that mattered. Sometimes he told her nothing at all.

The porch light burned behind him through the kitchen window, casting a long, pale rectangle across the floor. He never turned it off anymore. Once, when she was alive, she'd called it his lighthouse -a way to guide her home on dark nights.

When the letter was finished, he slid it into an envelope, wrote her name on the front, and, out of reflex, began to put it in the box under his bed with the others. But his hand hesitated.

He reached for the address book instead. Found the entry for the old cabin by the lake-the place where she first told him she loved him- and copied the numbers carefully.

The mailbox was a short walk, the night air bit at his skin as he slipped the envelope inside.

He didn't know why he sent it.

He only knew the light would be on if by some miracle, she came back.

_____

The mailbox creaked when he opened it the next morning. Bills, a grocery flyer, and - an envelope with his name scrawled across the front.

His breath caught. The handwriting was unmistakable: wide loops, the faint tilt to the right, and the tiny heart she always dotted her lowercase i with, a habit she claimed she'd never grow out of. The postmark was smeared, the return address was nothing more than a line of dashes.

Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded twice.

It's cold here. Are you still leaving the light on?

No greeting. No signature. Just the words, neat and unhurried, in the same blue ink she used to keep in her purse.

For a long moment, he simply stared. His first thought was that someone was playing a joke. Maybe her sister, maybe one of their old friends who remembered the way she wrote. But the curve of those letters was too perfect. No mimicry could capture the little flicks at the ends, the slight smudge where she always pressed too hard.

He set the letter on the table, careful not to crease it further. The porch light glowed faintly in the early-morning haze, as if it had been listening.

That night, he sat in his used chair, pen hovering over paper. He could almost feel her eyes on him, waiting.

What could he possibly write back to the dead?

_____

The next letter came two days later.

Do you still go to the dock at sunset? I can hear the water from here. The boards still creak in the middle, don't they?

He read it three times, his pulse drumming in his ears. The creak in the dock wasn't something you noticed unless you'd been there often, unless you'd stood in the same spot over and over, shoulder to shoulder, tossing pebbles into the darkening lake.

He wrote back without thinking, telling her the dock was the same, the lake the same, but that he hadn't been there in years. He asked where she was. He didn't expect an answer.

It arrived the next day.

Over the week that followed, the letters multiplied. She mentioned the carved initials in the underside of the cabin table-initials they'd hidden like treasure after their first summer together. She asked if he still fed the stray orange cat that used to linger on the porch. She described the smell of the pines in the early morning, and the way the air caught in her throat when the frost set in.

And she wrote in the present tense.

He told himself it didn't mean anything. People remembered the past that way sometimes. But the letters kept coming, each one threaded with longing. I miss you. I can't move on. Not until you come back.

His job started to fray at the edges. He called in sick to wait for the mail. Dishes piled in the sink. The tea kettle went untouched. His entire day revolved around the walk to the mailbox and the moment his fingers brushed paper that had been in her hands-hands that shouldn't be able to hold anything anymore.

At night, He stayed up late at the kitchen table, bent over his replies, candle burning low. He poured himself into each letter, telling her about the things he'd never said aloud, about the emptiness after she was gone.

I was almost like having her back.

Almost.

_____

The letter was waiting for him before dawn, as though it had been slipped into the mailbox in the middle of the night.

No envelope this time-just a folded sheet of paper, the ink slightly blurred as if the words had been written in damp air.

It's so dark. I'm so cold. Please come tonight. Leave the light on for me.

Beneath it, a single line: The cabin. Our spot.

He didn't think about work, or about how absurd it was to follow the instructions of a dead woman. All he thought about was the way her handwriting curved on that final word-his name-like the press of her hand against his cheek.

The house was silent as he pulled on his coat. He left the tea mug where it sat on the counter, half-full from yesterday, and crossed to the porch.

The bulb above the door hummed softly, casting its pale circle into the frostbitten yard. He reached up, touched the glass, felt the warmth in his fingertips.

"Stay on," he murmured.

Then he stepped into the dark, the light burning behind him as he drove toward the lake.

The cabin stood crooked and weathered, its wooden siding faded to a dull gray, windows clouded with years of dust and neglect. But through the cracked front door, a faint flicker of candlelight spilled into the night, casting trembling shadows on the porch.

He hesitated only a moment before stepping inside. The air was thick and cold, carrying the scent of damp wood and earth. Somewhere deep within, a hollow ache blossomed - like the quiet space where her laughter used to live.

In the dim glow, she waited.

Her silhouette was delicate, shaped by moonlight slipping through the grimy windows. When she spoke, her voice was soft, impossibly familiar - a melody he had carried in his chest for years.

"I've been waiting," she said.

She stepped forward, and the candlelight caught her face - pale as frost, slick with moisture, eyes unnervingly wide and glassy, reflecting more shadow than light.

"You left the light on," she whispered, almost a breath against his skin.

His heart thundered, pounding out the echo of every lonely night spent keeping that porch light burning.

He reached out, trembling, and wrapped his arm around her.

Her skin was ice-cold beneath his fingertips, a chill that crept up his arms and settled deep inside his bones.

For a moment, he held onto the illusion - the warmth of her presence, the softness of her voice - before the room seemed to tilt, darkness crowding in around them like a tide.

He should've pulled away.

He couldn't.

_____

The next morning, his porch light flickered once-then died.

For the first time since she left, the windows stared dark and empty.

Somewhere deep inside the quiet house, a silence settled like a stone.

_______________________________

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