Friendship While He Lives

The mailroom smelled of wet wool and old paper. A fluorescent tube buzzed overhead. Near the laundry doors, Mr. Bell’s potted fern leaned toward the light with the determined posture of someone listening at a wall.

Mara turned toward Daniel’s mailbox.

That was when Mrs. Pritchard opened the door to the mailroom carrying a stack of envelopes, a canvas shopping bag, and a small white dog that appeared to have been assembled from spare pieces.

“Mara,” Mrs. Pritchard said. “You’re here.”

“I am.”

The dog sniffed Mara’s shoe.

“Are you expecting something?”

“No.”

“Good. The postman left these in my box again.” Mrs. Pritchard lifted the envelopes. “I have told him three times that 2A is not 2B.”

“That sounds like a postal problem.”

“It is a building problem. Everything is a building problem.”

The dog gave a sharp bark, perhaps in agreement.

Mara glanced at the clock above the laundry doors. 7:08.

She slid the card into her coat pocket. She could wait for Daniel by the stairs. She could hear him coming. She could simply hand it over.

Then Mrs. Pritchard dropped the envelopes.

They scattered across the tile like startled birds. The dog lunged after one. Mrs. Pritchard lunged after the dog. Mara lunged after Mrs. Pritchard, because there was no room for three people to lunge independently.

The canvas bag tipped over. A jar of olives rolled beneath the mailboxes.

“Don’t let him eat that!” Mrs. Pritchard cried.

“I don’t think dogs eat olives.”

“This dog eats receipts.”

The dog found a receipt.

Mara caught it just before its teeth closed. Her shoulder struck the wall, and the card slipped from her pocket.

It landed face-down beside the outgoing mail slot.

For one second, nothing happened.

Then the dog sneezed.

Mara bent to retrieve the card, but Mrs. Pritchard’s shopping bag swung backward and nudged it across the tile. The card slid neatly beneath the brass flap of the outgoing slot.

Mara froze.

The slot swallowed it.

Not slowly. Not ceremoniously. It disappeared with the brisk finality of a waiter removing a plate.

“No,” Mara said.

Mrs. Pritchard looked up from the dog. “What?”

“That was not mail.”

“It had an envelope.”

“It was a card.”

“Cards are mail.”

“It was not meant to go there.”

Mrs. Pritchard examined the slot. “Then it should have been more careful.”

Mara pulled the flap. It lifted two inches and stopped.

She tried again. The metal gave a hollow clank.

“Perhaps it comes back out,” Mrs. Pritchard said.

“Mail does not come back out.”

“Sometimes mine does.”

“That is because it is addressed incorrectly.”

Mrs. Pritchard considered this. “So it may be a family trait.”

Mara dropped to her knees.

The outgoing slot was built into the wall beneath the mailboxes, a narrow black opening designed to accept letters and reject human dignity. She inserted two fingers. They met dust, a rubber band, and something soft that might have been a tissue or might have been a former insect.

The card was gone.

At the end of the hall, the elevator groaned awake.

Daniel.

Mara stood too quickly and struck her head on the lower row of mailboxes. The sound rang through the room. The dog barked again, pleased by the development.

“Mara?” Daniel called from the stairwell.

She looked at the outgoing slot.

She looked at Mrs. Pritchard.

Mrs. Pritchard looked at the dog, who was chewing the receipt.

“Do not panic,” Mrs. Pritchard said.

“I am not panicking.”

“You are holding your head.”

“I struck my head.”

“That is how panic begins in this building.”

Daniel’s footsteps approached.

Mara grabbed the nearest envelope from the floor. It was addressed to Mrs. Pritchard at 2B, though Mrs. Pritchard lived in 2A. Beneath it lay a long white envelope with no stamp and a red notice printed across the front: RETURN TO SENDER.

“Maybe the back panel opens,” Mara said.

“Of the wall?”

“Of the slot.”

She pulled at the brass frame. It did not move. She pulled harder. The entire row of mailboxes shuddered, and somewhere above them a small metal object dropped inside a box.

Daniel appeared at the doorway wearing one shoe.

He stopped.

Mara was kneeling before the outgoing slot. Mrs. Pritchard stood beside her holding a dog and an olive jar. Three envelopes lay between them. The elevator doors opened behind Daniel with a soft chime.

“Morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” Mara answered, rising.

His eyes moved to the mail on the floor. “Everything all right?”

“Perfectly.”

The dog barked.

Daniel looked at the dog. “That so?”

Mara stepped in front of the slot. “I was just helping Mrs. Pritchard sort her mail.”

Mrs. Pritchard nodded. “She put a personal communication into the outgoing receptacle.”

Mara closed her eyes.

Daniel’s eyebrows lifted. “A personal communication?”

“It was an accident,” Mara said.

“It was a card,” Mrs. Pritchard added.

“Thank you, Mrs. Pritchard.”

“Perhaps for you.”

Daniel glanced at Mara’s coat pocket, then at the slot. “Was it for me?”

Mara’s careful plan broke apart in the narrow hallway.

She had meant to hand him the card with calm warmth. She had meant to say his name. She had meant to let the moment be simple.

Instead, she said, “It was not.”

The lie entered the room and sat down.

Daniel checked his watch. “I should go.”

“No,” Mara said. “I mean, yes. You should go to work. But the card - ”

“I don’t need a card.”

“That is not the point.”

“What is the point?”

The point, Mara thought, was that she had spent two evenings trying to write something that did not sound like a farewell. Daniel had been alive and busy and irritatingly present. He had helped her carry a broken lamp to the trash room. He had waited outside the pharmacy when she misplaced her keys. He had listened to her complain about the upstairs plumbing while eating an entire sandwich without once suggesting that she calm down.

She wanted to honor the friendship before some future occasion made everyone suddenly eloquent.

“The point,” she said, “is that I wrote something for you.”

Daniel’s expression softened. “Then give it to me.”

“I can’t. It is in there.”

He looked at the slot.

“I see.”

Mara turned to Mrs. Pritchard. “How does it open?”

“It does not.”

“Who empties it?”

“The mail carrier.”

“When?”

“He comes at nine.”

Daniel glanced at his watch again. “It is 7:12.”

“I know.”

“I have to leave.”

“I know.”

“Mara.”

“I will get it.”

The words came out with more confidence than the situation deserved.

She went to the laundry room and returned with a wire hanger. The hanger had been bent into a hook, but the hook was too wide. She bent it narrower against the edge of the coin-operated dryer. The dryer began a cycle somewhere behind her, thumping with the steady rhythm of a large animal trapped in a box.

Daniel held the elevator door.

“Mara, please don’t injure yourself over a greeting card.”

“It is not a greeting card.”

“What is it?”

“A friendship card.”

“That sounds more dangerous.”

She pushed the hanger into the slot.

The wire caught on something. Mara pulled. A handful of envelopes shifted inside the wall. One came loose and shot out through the slot, striking Daniel in the chest.

He caught it.

“Mrs. Pritchard,” he said, reading the front, “this is yours.”

“See?” she said. “The system works.”

Mara tried again. The hanger caught another envelope. She pulled with both hands.

The metal frame popped loose.

For a moment, the frame hung from the wall like a crooked brass smile. Then the outgoing slot opened beneath it, revealing a dark compartment packed with letters.

A small avalanche slid forward.

Mail spilled across the floor. Bills. Catalogs. A postcard showing a resort pool. Two envelopes addressed to people who had not lived in the building since the previous mayor. A coupon for twenty cents off pet shampoo.

And Mara’s card.

It landed in the middle of the hallway, face-up.

The blue sticker was gone. The envelope had a gray streak across it. The handwriting remained visible.

Daniel bent to pick it up.

Mara reached first.

The elevator doors began to close.

Daniel caught them with his hand. “You have it.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“No.”

He waited.

She looked down at the envelope. The corner was bent. Her name for him sat on the front in ink that now seemed too large and too honest.

“I wanted to give it to you properly,” she said.

Daniel’s gaze moved from the card to her face. “Properly is overrated.”

“That is easy for you to say. You are wearing one shoe.”

He looked down. “I am.”

Mrs. Pritchard’s dog seized the loose postcard and ran.

Mrs. Pritchard shouted. Mara lunged. Daniel stepped aside. The dog skidded across the tile, postcard in its mouth, and vanished behind the laundry machines.

The elevator waited with its doors open.

Daniel sighed. “I really have to go.”

Mara pressed the card against his chest.

He took it.

“Read it,” she said. “Before it enters another postal system.”

“I’ll read it at work.”

“That is not what I meant.”

The elevator doors closed between them.

Mara stood in the mailroom with the bent frame in her hand and the remaining envelopes at her feet. The dryer thumped. Water rushed through the pipes. Somewhere behind the machines, the dog growled at the postcard as if it had discovered a personal insult.

At 8:03, Mara found Daniel’s card in the lobby.

She had gone upstairs, changed her coat, and come back down with tape, scissors, and a fresh envelope. She had planned to replace the damaged card, but when she reached the front entrance, she saw Daniel through the glass doors.

He was standing beside the curb with three coworkers. His blue lunch bag hung from one hand. The card was open in the other.

Mara stopped behind the newspaper box.

Daniel read silently. One coworker leaned over his shoulder.

“Is that about your terrible jokes?” the coworker asked.

Daniel folded the card slightly. “Among other offenses.”

The second coworker pointed at the bottom. “What does that say?”

Daniel read the line aloud.

“Please read this while you are alive.”

His coworkers looked at him.

Mara’s face went hot.

Daniel looked toward the building. For a moment, his eyes met hers through the glass.

He did not laugh. He did not hide the card.

He simply held it up, bent corner and all.

Mara lifted one hand.

The bus arrived with a sigh of brakes. Daniel tucked the card inside his coat, said something to his coworkers, and climbed aboard.

Mara remained by the newspaper box until the bus turned the corner.

Then she looked down at the fresh envelope in her hand. She had written Daniel’s address on it in a hurry. The ink had smeared across the apartment number.

Behind her, the mailroom door opened.

Mr. Bell’s fern had fallen over.

And from inside the building came Mrs. Pritchard’s voice, calling that the dog had swallowed the postcard.

End of chapter one. 39 more chapters in the full book.