Day 15 - There You Are

Monday arrived before Elliot was ready for it.

The legal pad with the twelve-year timeline was still face down on Megan’s desk.

He had left it that way Sunday night.

Not because he had decided not to look.

Because delaying something and deciding against it were not the same thing.

Elliot understood that distinction professionally.

Apparently it applied to grief too.

At seven fifteen, he was standing in the jobsite trailer reviewing a schedule update while Marcus drank coffee across from him.

“You’re staring at that like it insulted you.”

“It did.”

“What happened?”

“They moved delivery to Thursday.”

“Tragic.”

“That pushes installation.”

“Catastrophic.”

“It is when inspection is Friday.”

Marcus leaned back.

“You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think you enjoyed this.”

“I enjoy competence.”

“That wasn't what I said.”

Elliot kept reading.

Marcus watched him for another second.

Then asked, “Train weekend?”

Elliot looked up.

“What?”

“You read more of Megan's stuff?”

“Yes.”

Marcus nodded.

“Anything good?”

The question caught him.

Not anything weird?

Not anything upsetting?

Anything good.

“Yeah,” Elliot said.

Then, after a moment:

“Actually.”

Marcus smiled.

“Look at that. Fiction.”

“Don't ruin it.”

At lunch, Elliot turned the legal pad over.

He had brought it with him.

That was new.

The page contained only years.

2013 through 2024.

Nothing else.

At the bottom, where he'd stopped Sunday, his pencil mark had pressed slightly harder beneath:

2019

Diagnosis.

He could fill the rest in later.

Instead, he opened the photo he'd taken of the loose fragment labeled morningmaybe.

There you are.

The phrase had been bothering him for days.

Not because it was unusual.

Because it was too ordinary.

Megan had never used it like a declaration.

She didn't stand in doorways saying it with tears in her eyes.

She said it while opening mail.

While looking for him in a grocery store.

While waiting at a restaurant table.

While half asleep.

The words belonged to logistics.

Presence confirmed.

Person located.

There you are.

And now they were sitting inside a train story about two people who shouldn't know one another.

He closed the photo.

Worked through the afternoon.

Then drove home thinking about three words.

The file was called morningmaybe.

Elliot hated that.

He had expected that if the fragment mattered, Megan would eventually have given it a proper name.

Apparently not.

He opened it.

This time he read past the first page.

THE MORNING CAR

Maine, 1932

The woman had worked at the station café for eleven months before the man walked through the door.

There was nothing remarkable about the morning.

That bothered her later.

She thought something important should announce itself.

Weather.

Music.

A dropped glass.

Anything.

Instead, it was cold.

The coffee was bad.

Someone had burned toast.

The clock above the register had been seven minutes slow since October because the owner refused to pay for anyone to fix it.

The woman was carrying two cups when the bell above the door rang.

She looked up.

Saw the man.

And said:

“There you are.”

He stopped.

She stopped.

The cups remained suspended between them.

The man looked over one shoulder.

No one.

Then the other.

Still no one.

“Sorry?”

The woman stared at him.

Heat rose into her face.

“I’m sorry.”

He glanced toward the door as if considering leaving.

“I thought you were someone else.”

That wasn't true.

She did not think he was someone else.

That was the problem.

She didn't think anything.

The words had arrived before thought.

There you are.

As if she had been waiting.

As if he were late.

As if some part of her had noticed his absence before the rest of her knew he existed.

“I get that a lot,” he said.

She looked at him.

“No, you don’t.”

He smiled.

“Not usually.”

She set the cups down before she dropped them.

“What can I get you?”

“Coffee.”

“Sugar?”

“No.”

She nodded automatically.

Of course not.

Her hand stopped halfway to the pot.

Why of course?

She looked at him again.

He had chosen the table against the wall.

Facing the door.

Of course.

Her stomach turned.

Not fear.

Something stranger.

Familiarity without memory.

Elliot stopped reading.

The office was quiet.

He looked toward the doorway.

Facing the door.

No sugar.

There you are.

He scrolled back.

Read the opening again.

The words had arrived before thought.

He rubbed one hand over his face.

No.

Too easy.

Megan knew him.

She knew how he drank coffee.

She knew where he sat.

She knew what she said when he entered a room.

Of course she could build a character from those things.

He kept reading.

The man returned the next morning.

The woman told herself she had not expected him.

This was technically true.

Expectation required intention.

She had merely noticed the door every time the bell rang.

He ordered coffee.

No sugar.

Sat facing the entrance.

Opened a newspaper.

After ten minutes, she walked over.

“You're doing that thing again.”

He looked up.

“What thing?”

“Sitting there like someone is coming to arrest you.”

“I like seeing the room.”

“You saw it yesterday.”

“Rooms change.”

She stared.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was very clearly something.”

The phrase escaped before she could stop it.

The man became still.

The woman did too.

She had said that before.

Not yesterday.

Not to him.

Somewhere.

When?

She couldn't find the memory.

The man folded the newspaper.

“Have we met?”

“No.”

“You sound less certain than yesterday.”

“I am completely certain.”

“That was convincing.”

She turned away.

He called after her.

“You forgot my coffee.”

She looked at the cup already sitting in front of him.

He followed her eyes.

“Right.”

“Rooms change,” she said.

He smiled.

“Apparently.”

Days became weeks.

He worked for a shipping company near the harbor.

She learned that because she asked.

He learned she had a younger sister because she talked about her constantly.

He disliked pears.

She could not whistle.

He arrived early.

She considered punctuality an unnecessarily strict interpretation of time.

He asked practical questions.

She asked questions that made practical people suspicious.

“What did you want to be when you were ten?”

“Why?”

“Because I asked.”

“A carpenter.”

“Really?”

“No. I wanted to own a lighthouse.”

She smiled.

“That’s better.”

“What about you?”

“Everything.”

“That is not an occupation.”

“I was ambitious.”

He laughed.

She watched his face change.

And suddenly had the strongest sensation that she had seen that exact expression before.

Not one like it.

That one.

The feeling disappeared before she could hold it.

Elliot lowered the page.

A lighthouse.

He had never wanted to own a lighthouse.

At ten, he had wanted to build houses.

At least that was what he remembered.

He almost laughed at himself for checking.

Not every detail had to be him.

That was important.

If he turned every fictional man into Elliot, he would eventually find evidence because he was looking for it.

Megan had written characters.

Characters needed lives.

He continued.

One morning, the man did not come.

The woman noticed.

The following morning, nothing.

On the third, she told herself she was being ridiculous.

On the fourth, she became angry with him.

This was also ridiculous.

She did not know where he lived.

She did not know whether he was ill.

Whether he had left town.

Whether he had decided the café coffee was finally indefensible.

The bell rang.

She looked up too quickly.

Not him.

By noon, she hated every person who entered the café for not being him.

At two seventeen, the bell rang again.

The man walked in.

The woman stared.

He had a small bandage above one eyebrow.

Before she could think, she crossed the room.

“There you are.”

This time, he did not look behind himself.

He only looked at her.

“Yes,” he said.

The answer stopped her.

Not hello.

Not sorry.

Yes.

As if he understood the question she had not asked.

“Where were you?”

“Portland.”

“For four days?”

“My brother broke his wrist.”

“You have a telephone.”

He smiled.

“You missed me.”

“No.”

“You appear furious.”

“I’m furious because your coffee is sitting here getting stale.”

“There’s coffee waiting for me?”

The woman looked toward the counter.

There was.

She had poured it ten minutes earlier.

No sugar.

The man followed her gaze.

Then looked back at her.

Neither spoke.

Finally, he said:

“How did you know I was coming?”

“I didn’t.”

“But you poured coffee.”

“I pour coffee all day.”

“That one is mine.”

“No coffee belongs to anyone.”

He walked to the counter.

Picked it up.

Took a sip.

“No sugar.”

She folded her arms.

“You never take sugar.”

“I told you that?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

She opened her mouth.

Nothing came.

Had he?

Surely.

She knew it.

That was not the same thing.

The man set down the cup.

Something in his expression had changed.

“Tell me something.”

“No.”

“I haven't asked yet.”

“I don't like where this is going.”

“Neither do I.”

He leaned against the counter.

“Have you ever had the feeling you remembered something that never happened?”

The woman stopped breathing.

Outside, a train pulled into the station.

Steam passed the windows.

For a moment, the glass went white.

She looked at him through it.

Not his face.

Something beneath it.

Something she had no word for.

When the steam cleared, he was still there.

She said the only thing that felt true.

“I think I've been waiting for you.”

Elliot stopped.

His chest tightened.

He read the sentence again.

Then the next page.

The man did not laugh.

That mattered.

He did not ask what she meant.

He did not make her explain.

He only nodded slowly.

“I know.”

“How?”

“I don't know.”

“That is a terrible answer.”

“Yes.”

She looked down at the counter.

At his coffee.

At her hands.

“If I knew you before, I don't remember.”

“Neither do I.”

“What if we’re imagining it?”

“We might be.”

“What if there's a perfectly reasonable explanation?”

“There usually is.”

“That sounds like something you would believe.”

“It is.”

“And?”

The man looked at her.

“And here I am anyway.”

The story ended there.

Not with a kiss.

Not with marriage.

Not even with the certainty that the two people would stay together.

Just:

And here I am anyway.

Elliot stared at the screen.

He scrolled farther.

Nothing.

Then noticed a handwritten note on the scanned draft.

Megan had written it beside the first There you are.

too direct?

Below it, in different pencil pressure, apparently added later:

No. Let her know.

Elliot went still.

Let her know.

He looked at the file metadata.

Original draft: 2024.

One of the latest.

His hands rested on the desk.

He had been approaching the manuscript as if Megan had hidden pieces of their marriage inside unrelated stories.

A habit.

A phrase.

A cup of coffee.

A man who needed plans.

A woman who noticed people.

But this wasn't that.

Not anymore.

This woman did not merely resemble Megan.

She knew the man before she knew him.

And Megan had chosen not to soften it.

No. Let her know.

Elliot stood.

Walked downstairs.

He did not know why.

The kitchen was dark except for the light above the stove.

He turned it on.

The room appeared around him.

Table.

Chairs.

Coffee maker.

Fruit bowl.

Everything exactly where it belonged.

He could suddenly remember Megan in a hundred places at once.

Standing at the refrigerator.

Sitting cross-legged in a chair.

Coming around the corner.

Looking up from her laptop.

Hearing the garage door.

And always, casually:

There you are.

He had never asked why she said it.

Why would he?

People said things.

Marriages accumulated language.

The phrase had belonged to them so completely that it had become invisible.

Now he wondered if Megan had ever heard herself say it.

If she had ever stopped afterward and thought:

That's it.

Or whether the train stories had given the words meaning later.

He would never know.

That was becoming a recurring problem.

He walked back upstairs.

The page waited on the screen.

No. Let her know.

Elliot sat.

For several minutes, he did nothing.

Then he opened Dining Car.

Observation.

Sleeper.

Platform.

Club.

He laid printed pages across the desk.

The man changed.

The woman changed.

Names.

Years.

Lives.

But now that he had seen it, the pattern seemed embarrassingly clear.

Not identical people.

Not exactly.

Something underneath.

Megan had not kept writing variations on a romance.

She had kept writing variations on recognition.

And somewhere along the way, she had stopped being subtle about who was recognizing whom.

Elliot picked up a pencil.

On his legal pad, beneath:

She’s in all of them.

and:

Maybe I am too.

he crossed out Maybe.

The page now read:

She’s in all of them.

I am too.

He stared at it.

Then added:

Why?

He put the pencil down.

The question frightened him less than he expected.

That might have been because the answer, whatever it was, had belonged to Megan.

And for the first time since her death, Elliot felt as though he was getting close enough to hear it.

He left the office near midnight.

At the doorway, he looked back at the pool of light around the desk.

Three words came to him.

He almost laughed.

Instead, quietly, because the house was empty and no one was there to hear how foolish it sounded, Elliot said:

“There you are.”