Moved By His Words

I clutched the worn black notebook to my chest one last time, then sucked in a breath and pushed the doorbell. It was a chilly morning in Chicago and I shoved my long, curly hair back out of my face and stood up straight.

A dog immediately began barking on the other side and I heard a voice call out. I took a step back from the door and dropped the notebook back down to my side. I didn’t want to look like a freak, clutching the notebook like a lover. No matter how much it had come to mean to me over the past few weeks.

A man opened the door and he was so different from what I’d expected. He was younger, for one. Maybe in his mid-thirties. And harried looking. “Juliet, finish getting ready for school. I’m not kidding,” he called over his shoulder. “The bus will be here any minute!”

Then a little shaggy dog shoved between his legs, barking excitedly and trying to break free out the door. “Baxter! Down. Down, Baxter,” he said, finally looking my way.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “It’s a zoo here this morning. How can I help y—?"

But then he saw it. And froze. “Oh my God, you found it.”

I’d planned out what I would say in this moment a hundred times. A thousand times.

I was going to wax eloquent about how much his words had meant to me. How I hadn’t intended to read the notebook, but I’d just opened it to see if there was an address so I could mail it back. That was all.

But then— My eyes had glanced at the first page. The first page of a story that was both so personal and so beautifully written and soul-wrenching that I’d done the unthinkable.

I’d flipped the page.

And then the next. And the next. And I’d kept flipping pages until I’d gotten to the end of the notebook and gasped when I got to the last page, because the story wasn’t finished.

This must have just been his first notebook, the beginning of the story.

But did I say that? Did I tell him how his words had moved me, inspired me, made me sob, and made me call my mother for the first time in a decade?

Did I tell him how I’d run my fingertips over his graceful slanted writing and dreamed of telling him how his story was my story? How I’d lost someone very dear to me, too, and that his words helped me find light in the darkness all these years later?

No.

No, I couldn’t get out anything more than a croaking, “I found this.”

I shoved the little black notebook at him.

His eyes were wide and startled as he took it.

And in the process, he took his attention away from the dog, who took the opportunity to bolt through his legs and out the door.

“Doggie, no!” I cried, reaching down. I felt his long soft fur slip through my fingers but wasn’t able to grab hold of him before he was running down the stairs.

I hauled butt and all but threw myself to the ground after him.

Which was when I realized all the dramatics weren’t necessary, because the dog had stopped to water the fire hydrant. I almost got myself watered by grabbing him up.

“Oh!” I yelped, only just managing to avoid the stream.

“Baxter!” the man yelled, jumping down the stairs after us and taking the dog from me with outstretched arms. He’d tucked the black book into the waist of his pajama pants, and he shook his head at me, his longish hair falling into his good-looking face.

He smiled at me. “That’s twice now.”

I blinked, still a little stunned that I was standing so close to him. And that he was so, well, just so—

“Twice you’ve given me back something money can’t buy.”

He tucked the small dog close to his chest, on the opposite side of the black book. He pulled it out and held it up with his other hand. “You don’t know how much this means to me. I can’t even—”

He swallowed hard, then looked back to the house. “I’m sorry. I’ve gotta get my daughter on the bus or I’d stop and talk more.”

I waved my hands. “Oh, no worries.” I started to back away. “I’m sorry to have just barged in like this. And I’m sorry it took so long to get it back to you. I didn’t even realize I had it. I must have accidently picked it up one day at the café where I study and shoved it into my backpack with the rest of my books at the end of last semester. I’m in grad school at the University of Chicago.”

Crap, I was babbling. He’d just said he didn’t have any time. “Anyway, I just found it last week and went back to the coffee shop. They said you’d been looking for it. I wanted to deliver it myself. Sorry if that’s creepy.”

Oh God, now I was just making a fool of myself.

“Anyway.” I gave an awkward wave. “Bye now. Nice to meet you.”

I turned and started to speed away when he called out, “Wait. What’s your name?”

I spun back around, a little surprised. “Naomi.”

“Naomi, what?”

“Naomi Amspoker.”

“Naomi Amspoker?”

I nodded, blinking at how nice it was to hear him say my name.

Then there was a shout from inside his house, maybe his daughter. Or his wife. I didn’t really know anything about this man. I gave another little awkward wave.

“Nice to meet you, Naomi Amspoker,” he said before turning to head back inside.

I waved and that was the last I saw of the man whose words had changed my life without him ever knowing it.

*****************

The woman who’d showed up on my doorstep had changed my life and she didn’t even know it.

I’d written the first half of the best book of my career, feverishly pouring out everything on those pages of the black notebook. I’d tapped into the emotion that my editor—and my wife Brigitte—had always been pushing for more of.

Of course, losing Brigitte had turned everything upside down. Ripped me inside out and tore a hole through my and our daughter Juliet’s life. I still woke up in the middle of the night gasping and reaching for her empty space in the bed beside me.

Two years was nothing. Grief didn’t follow linear timelines. It swooped and circled back and crept up on you when you least expected it. It wasn’t fair. No. God knew it wasn’t fair.

I felt like an idiot at thirty-four to expect life to still be fair. It wasn’t like things had been easy for Brigitte and me. We’d married young, full of hope, scribbling our dreams on napkins in diners.

We lived in hole-in-the-wall apartments and had a baby before we could afford to, taking whatever jobs we could to stay afloat. And I wanted to be a writer! Ha! I couldn’t believe Brigitte even stuck with me, especially after she went back to school and got her Master’s. Then her Doctorate, and there I was, still just scribbling away and getting rejection after rejection.

Until finally, the call came.

We celebrated with champagne in the park while Juliet played on the playscape.

And then the next few years were so busy. Too busy. I hermited away in my office, obsessed with the ‘career’ I was building. Finally getting the accolades I’d always dreamed of. Finally making my mark in the world. Thinking it all meant so much.

Until I lost her. Car-wreck. Dead on impact.

And I realized none of it meant anything. Not a goddamned thing without her.

If not for Juliet…

Well thank God there was Juliet. I continued putting one foot in front of the other for my daughter, but some days, it felt like she was the only reason. Some days, I’ll be honest—she was.

I was numb. Some writers can write from pain but I could barely get dressed in the morning. Write?

Impossible.

Until one day in a café, I ditched the laptop and pulled out a little black notebook I’d just bought. Pen and paper seemed quaint, almost ridiculous.

And yet when I picked up the pen and the muscles in my forearm tensed and released in the old, familiar dance of writing by hand… I felt it again.

I kept writing, black ink scrawl on page after page. Pouring out my story. Meeting Brigitte. Telling our love story the way it was always meant to be told—imperfect, messy, beautiful. Two kids meeting and growing together like intertwined tree branches as the years passed. How I’d been so sure of what I knew about the world and my place in it with her.

Until then the floor dropped out from under us and she was gone.

And I was left like a gaping fish flopping on the shore starving for the water again.

I blinked hard, shoving the thoughts away. I’d thought the book lost forever. And then it was returned to me, in an act that seemed like fate.

So here I was. Returning fate’s favor.

I rung the doorbell of the apartment on the third floor.

No answer. I was about to leave when the door was flung open.

“Sorry, I was in the shower when I heard the bell. Do you have my package? I’ve been waiting all day. Oh!” she exclaimed, eyes wide. “It’s you.”

She was in a bright pink terry cloth robe, dark curly wet strands of hair falling from the towel stacked on her head.

“It’s me.” I rubbed my hand on the back of my neck. “Sorry for just showing up here, but I wanted to give you this.” I shoved an envelope at her. She took it.

Then I felt like a creeper just standing there while she held the envelope, still looking at me a little stunned.

“Okay, well, that’s it. Bye.”

I turned to leave.

I was halfway down the stairs before I heard her gasped curse. I smiled. I took it she’d opened the envelope and found the check for $20,000.

Then there were footsteps as she came down the stairs behind me. “Hey wait! What’s this for?”

I turned back to her. “It’s your finder’s fee. Your portion of my advance for the book I just sold. Without you, I never could have finished it. It was impossible to recreate what I’d written in that notebook.” I tipped my head to her. “So thank you.”

Her mouth was dropped open.

I turned to go, but her words stopped me. “What you wrote, that maybe we should consider grief a lingering celebration of love. I… That really meant a lot to me.”

I looked back at her and her hands were lifted to her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I read it. I didn’t mean to. I was just looking for your address but I read one page and then couldn’t stop. It was beautiful. Transcendent. I’m so glad the rest of the world will get to read it.”

I’d wondered what I would do if I’d picked up a stranger’s notebook. I liked that she’d told me the truth.

I nodded. “I’m glad you liked it.”

We stood there a moment, both staring at the other. She looked like she wanted to say more but was holding back. I found myself wanting to hear what she had to say. I’d thought of her often since she’d showed up on my doorstep that morning.

Yes, the earth had dropped out beneath me, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t find a new forest and keep growing, growing towards the ever-rising sun.

“You hungry?”

A smile slowly bloomed on her face. “Starving.”