#chapter Ninteen
Maura’s phone pinged with a text she didn’t bother to check for some thirty minutes or so — busy with work and not expecting anything important, she registered the message when it came in but promptly forgot to check it when her boss peeked around the edge of her cubicle with a new folder of work for her go through. Thirty long minutes before she saw the message was from Ian and her heart leaped. Thirty minutes, she thought, in which maybe he’d been waiting on pins and needles for her to reply.
It was a photo, taken with one of those phone apps that add effects and filters to turn any mundane snapshot into brilliance. Ian had always been derisive of those pictures and the online services that showcased them, yet here it was, a squared picture of an artificially bright landscape. A tree, bare of leaves but for one still stubbornly clinging to the dark branch. The grass below it, very green. The tree itself black. The leaf, a gorgeous, glowing red.
The text below the photo said, “thought of you.”
Damn him for making her want to cry at work. Damn him for taking this beautiful picture — and despite the pretentious use of filters and effects, the shot was beautiful. It was art. Ian had made her something beautiful and sent it to her, and Maura actually clutched her phone to her chest for a moment before heading down the hall and out the back door to the smoking area so she could have some privacy to talk to him.
“I love it,” she said without preamble when he answered her. “But it surprised me. Why did you send it?”
“I told you. I saw it and thought of you.”
She paused, scuffing her toe along the concrete while she thought of what to say. “Why?”
“The one leaf. It won’t let go of the tree, no matter how hard the wind blows.”
She closed her eyes against the spark of tears. “Oh.”
“Eventually, though, it will have to give up. Fall down.” Ian’s voice got a little rough. “Eventually, the leaf will let go. When it starts to snow, it won’t have a chance.”
“Maybe,” Maura said, “we’ll have a mild winter.”
They shared the silence for a minute or so. The sound of his breathing comforted her. The fact he was there, real and alive somewhere out in the world, even if it could not be beside her…well. It had to be enough, didn’t it? And if it wasn’t, she would have to find a way to make it be.
“Will you…have dinner with me?” Ian asked. “At my house? Tonight? Forget it. You probably have a date already —”
“I do. Two, actually.”
He paused before answering. “How do you have two dates in one night?”
“I have a spreadsheet,” she told him, and burst into semi-hysterical, on-the-verge-of-tears laughter. She pressed a hand to her mouth and looked around to make sure she was alone, but there weren’t many smokers left in the office.
“Can you squeeze me in?” Ian laughed, too.
It was so good to laugh with him. “I miss you so much,” she said impulsively.
“I miss you, too.”
“I will have dinner with you,” she told him. “Absolutely.”