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It was 23 years ago, but I easily remember when Jenna first handed me our little black notebook. She had never seen a notebook with real binding and had begged her mom to have it. It was like an actual book, she whispered to me, and we could use it to pass magnificent things.

Of course, we could always talk between the gaps in the rough wooden fence that divided our yards, and it often seemed that we spent more time at each other's houses than alone, but this was different.

Our maturing thoughts and ideas, which often seemed a transgression to utter aloud, found an easy home in the pages of our book. And the collective weight of those words transformed the book into something talismanic.

Each new message was not some orphaned thought, but was irrevocably tied to all those written before it. It was a conduit that was uniquely ours, which could only reach between us, and it touched all transmissions that we passed through it.

We were just friends, and I believe she felt the same.

But our book, with all that it held, felt like an emblem that helped define us during our long relentless waltz through early life.

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Twelve years ago, Jenna:

Jenna was devastated. It was her third year of college, and the boy she had dated since freshman year had just dumped her. By email. With no reason given. Except she knew there was a reason. She had seen him with that reason many times. Just studying, he would say, but who goes to a Starbucks to study without books?

With her forehead resting painfully on the edge of her cheap dorm-room-chic desk, she found herself staring into an open box that she never seemed to unpack. A dirty stuffed tiger stared back.

Behind the tiger's head, was the small black notebook.

Smiling at the warm childhood memories that seeped into her heart, she reached for the book.

After blowing her nose and washing her face, she sat on the cheaply-cushioned, heavily-dented couch, pulled her legs close, and began to write to her old friend.

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Five years ago, Me:

I laughed when I opened our wedding gift from Jenna to find the small black notebook. We had been passing it through the mail for years now, though less frequently as the final page began to loom.

My new wife, however, was far less amused to learn that I had a secret notebook which I shared with another woman.

But she laughed as she read it.

Most of the messages the book held, when seen without the gravity of youth, were overly dramatic and largely comic. As she approached the last written page, however, I watched her mirth-filled eyes transform into two overflowing wells of motionless liquid, held from bursting only by weak, shuddering surface tension. I felt a stab of guilt for having not warned her of the emotional turbulence that I knew she was now struggling through.

The distressing message, from a few years ago, was when Jenna conveyed the sudden death of her husband in a car accident. They had met watching a band that I insisted she check out, but I had only met him once, at their wedding. She moved West to escape the heartache, and we spoke on the phone when she was eventually able, but it had all happened before I met the enchanting woman that now sat reading before me.

My wife knew about the incident, but with the new contextual history derived from the notebook, it had instantaneously and painfully become real.

In a more recent message, I professed myself to be the luckiest person on the planet because I was marrying the woman of my dreams.

In the latest message, Jenna joked about how unlucky that made my wife and then followed that with sappy, enthusiastic well-wishes for us both.

There was also a characteristic anecdote of when Jenna received an unexpected life insurance payout for $20,000 from her ex-husband’s employee death benefits. Despite her best attempts at dissuasion during their time together, Jenna's husband had always been fond of get-rich-quick schemes and she believed that was the memory that convinced her what the money was destined for.

She had immediately visited a tiny investment firm and inquired about the riskiest possible financial venture. With a joking smirk, the man replied, “Byte-coin.”, or something like that. But his smirk evaporated when she insisted that was where all of the money was to be invested. After some hurried paperwork, she had left without a second thought.

I found myself wishing that I could easily read through my wife's past, as she had just been able to do with mine. But as we embraced, I ached with contentment knowing that we would build new and extraordinary memories together as we marched through the journey ahead.

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Two years ago, Jenna:

From her apartment balcony, Jenna closed their little black notebook and inclined her face to saturate it with sun as she watched its red-filtered rays through trembling eyelids.

The most recent note weighed heavy on her. It was another adult version of the secrets they passed as children. Her dear friend’s marriage was falling apart and her heart broke for them both. It was not some violent or angry process, but whatever instrument had first bound them together, had just as quickly abandoned them, and they could not seem to get it back.

Her own life had nothing stirring to report. She was managing a small grocery store, having procured the job nearly by accident. Upon moving to California, and subsequently looking for part-time work, she had liked the colossal pig logo above grocery store's doors, and so she applied.

She had planned on continuing her hunt for better jobs, but a few months in, while she was stocking oranges, she found herself staring at one of the stickers. Why did all of the oranges need to have stickers? If they came in crates and were stocked together, why did they all get stickers? Does someone do it by hand, or is there a machine?

“Jenna!”

Startled, and wondering if she was about to get fired since she was not entirely sure how long she had been staring at the orange like an idiot, nor how long someone had been watching her do so. She turned to see the owner.

Following a wholehearted diatribe on what he thought the odds were that the recently departed assistant manager would actually become a famous actor, as the "little twerp" had insisted he would when he quit, the owner offered Jenna the position, with the prospect of manager likely opening within a year.

She was comfortable.

Her life was entirely adequate.

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Seven hours ago, Me:

When I opened the white envelope to find our little black notebook, the usual warm emotions it conjured rammed into my current state of mind with the effectiveness of stabbing wet paper through a brick.

I had just been laid off over the phone, my savings were non-existent, and I didn’t think I could get unemployment before rent was due. I knew this was coming; the pandemic had ravaged the entire economy.

Then, however, it occurred to me that I could just leave. I barely had any furniture with me from the divorce; we had simply opted to have a big estate sale and split the proceeds.

Comforted by my new emergency plan, I was quieted such that when I looked at the notebook again, I was able to let the pleasant memories trickle in.

The cover was worn, but not abused, and I gently opened it to the last page. This page contained very few notes, but many tightly written “see page:” with numbers and dates. This directed us to some previous page where our younger selves had carelessly left enough space for entire messages.

Rather than finding a page reference, however, I found only an address. Written in a single line, taking up what little space remained.

The address wasn’t far, just a few hour drive, and the snow had let up since yesterday.

This galvanized me.

If the landlord wanted to evict me, then so be it. Lightly packed and heavy-hearted, I took a left on to the highway and aimed my car for I-82.

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Mere moments ago:

The roads were not okay.

I’ve lived in upstate New York for five years yet never seem to remember that every other mile is a new climate. It's dark by the time the GPS finally declares that I have arrived.

And I see now, that what I have arrived at is a tiny, isolated cabin, that I found at the end of a long, isolated road.

I start to calculate the odds that someone has just lured me to my murder when I think I see smoke coming from the chimney. As I’m squinting into the ever-darkening sky, a curtain moves to reveal a faceless silhouette. I poke my own head out from the car and wave, hoping the weak porch light will make me identifiable.

Seconds later, Jenna appears on the cabin porch in slim black pants and a thick knitted sweater.

“Sam!” she exclaims, laughing, “I was going to call you tomorrow; I didn’t think you’d just drive out here!”

Inside, Jenna explains that she had dropped the notebook in the mail before leaving California. A private investigator had tracked her down, explaining he represented the investment firm she had left the insurance money with and that her contact information had been missing. She had just assumed the venture failed, but her timing had actually been perfect, and the value had skyrocketed. Still, it had gone poorly for so many people that the firm officially divested from all such holdings years ago and had been trying to reach her to get written permission to move her money to more traditional investments. But the amount in the account… was staggering… She couldn’t process it. So she took leave from work and rented this cabin for the next month. She'd been here once in college and found that the isolation uncomplicated things.

I watch her tell this story from the couch, as she both makes tea and opens a bottle of wine in the tiny kitchen.

“Like… How much?” I ask, tentatively.

“Like… A million?” I suggest, before raising my eyebrows in mock annoyance at her sustained silence.

She shakes her head, huffing out one light laugh, “No. More. A lot more.” Then, more focused, “If you need any money, just ask. I’m serious. Actually, I’m just going to write you a check for $20,000 right now. That seems poetic, right? Though, it won't even make a dent..." She trails off briefly, "Can we just talk about something else? I really can’t process this still.”

She sets a mug of steaming tea down in front of me, and then a generous glass of wine next to it.

“I didn’t know which I wanted, so you get both too.” She says lightly, and sits down next to me, after retrieving her own two drinks.

I lean forward, choosing the tea, and lean back to sip it, gently reflecting on the complete turn my life just made. And of that moment, 23 years ago, when Jenna first handed me our little black notebook, and how that moment had become so pivotal.

I watch the fireplace as it dances light into the dim little cabin, and feel the warmth of it. And of the tea. And of our immeasurable friendship, now spread across decades.

I turn my head to find Jenna watching me with eyes that hold the same growing contentment that I assume is reflected in my own.

I nearly ask her a question, as I began to think that the physical distance between us may slowly be shrinking at both ends.

But then, I realize my heart had already whispered the answer, and I believe she feels the same.