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Elevator | Feb 09 2002

The last time he saw her, she gave him his winter coat. She was standing in her doorway. She said nothing the whole time, not even, “Here’s your coat,” or simply, “Here.” Instead she held the coat at arm’s length until he took it. Then she closed the door. No doubt she would have dropped it on the floor if he hadn’t taken it fast enough.

Today, seven years later, he receives an email from her. An email saying almost nothing, as it turns out, other than that she’s happy now and hopes that he is too. In response he writes that in his mind she’s been standing behind that door for seven years, because that was where he left her. “I guess it seems like I’ve been walking down your hall for seven years,” he adds, and it strikes him that this is exactly what he’s been doing all this time: just walking down her hall and never reaching the elevator.