The park hadn’t changed much in fifteen years. The same winding paths, the same
carefully tended flower beds, the same ancient oaks spreading their branches like
protective arms over the grass. Eleanor walked slowly, the wooden box tucked under her
arm, her notebook in her hand. Each step felt deliberate, as if she were walking not just
through the park but through the chambers of her own memory.
Children played on the swings to her right, their laughter carrying on the spring breeze. A
pair of elderly men hunched over a chess board at one of the concrete tables, their
concentration absolute. A young woman sat on a bench feeding pigeons, her face serene.
Life continuing in all its ordinary wonder, oblivious to the extraordinary reunion about to
take place.
Eleanor checked her watch. Ten minutes early. She had timed her arrival deliberately,
wanting to be the first at the bridge, needing those extra moments to compose herself. As
she rounded the last bend in the path, the bridge came into view, and she stopped.
It was smaller than she remembered, this arched stone structure spanning the narrow
stream that cut through the heart of the park. Fifteen years ago, it had seemed like a
significant monument, a symbolic crossing between one phase of her life and another.
Now it struck her as almost quaint, a folly from another era preserved more for aesthetics
than function.
Still, it held its power over her. This was where Martin had first kissed her, on a summer
evening with fireflies rising from the grass around them. This was where he had given her
the river stone, smooth and perfectly round, telling her it reminded him of their love—
something ordinary made extraordinary by time and patience. This was where they had met
when they needed to have important conversations, as if the neutral territory of the bridge
allowed them to speak more honestly than they could elsewhere.
And now, it would be where they said the goodbye they should have said fifteen years ago.
Eleanor crossed to the middle of the bridge and leaned against the stone balustrade,
looking down at the stream below. Spring rains had swelled it, and the water moved
quickly, catching the light in brief, bright flashes. She opened the wooden box, removed the
river stone, and held it in her palm. Its weight was comforting, its surface cool against her
skin.
“You kept it.”
She hadn’t heard him approach, but there he was, standing at the foot of the bridge. Martin
Harlow, fifteen years older, and yet unmistakably himself. His dark hair was now liberally
streaked with silver, and he was thinner than she remembered, his face more angular. But
his eyes were the same—that particular shade of hazel that shifted between green and
gold depending on the light.
“I kept everything,” Eleanor replied, closing her fingers around the stone.
He walked toward her, his gait slightly uneven. A limp—something new, something she
hadn’t known about. Another reminder of the years that had passed, the experiences she
hadn’t shared. He stopped an arm’s length away, close enough for conversation but still
maintaining a respectful distance.
“You look well, Ellie,” he said, his voice soft with what might have been regret.
“So do you. For a dead man.” The words came out sharper than she had intended, but she
didn’t apologize.
Martin nodded, accepting the rebuke. “I deserve that.”
“You deserve more than that.”
“Probably.”
They fell silent, the space between them filled with the sound of running water and distant
laughter from the playground.
“Your collection,” Martin said finally. “It’s become quite renowned, from what I’ve read. The
Times called it ‘a profound meditation on the nature of human separation.'”
“The Times was being generous,” Eleanor replied. “It’s just a hobby that got out of hand.”
“We both know that’s not true.” He gestured to the box under her arm. “Is that… us?”
Eleanor nodded. “What’s left of us, anyway. The physical evidence.”
“May I?” He held out his hand.
She hesitated, then passed him the box. Their fingers brushed during the exchange, and
Eleanor was surprised by how ordinary the contact felt. No electric shock, no dramatic
flutter of her heart. Just the simple warmth of another human’s skin against hers.
Martin opened the box carefully, as if afraid its contents might disintegrate at his touch. He
examined each item, his expression softening as he recognized them. When he came to
the single gray hair preserved in a small envelope, he looked up at her with a question in his
eyes.
“You plucked it from my temple one Sunday morning,” she explained. “You were napping
with your head in my lap. I was reading. You looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to wake you.
When I saw that hair—the first gray I’d ever noticed on you—I was struck by this thought
that we were growing older together. That we would watch each other change, year by year,
until we were both silver-haired. It seemed like such a beautiful future.”
Martin closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, they glistened with unshed
tears.
“I robbed us of that future,” he said. “I thought I was being noble, sparing you the pain of
watching me die. I was a coward.”
“Yes,” Eleanor agreed, feeling no need to soften the truth. “You were. But I understand why.
I might have done the same in your position.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Martin said with certainty. “You’ve always been braver than me.
You face endings head-on. It’s what your whole collection is about, isn’t it? Looking directly
at what most people turn away from.”
Eleanor had never thought of her collection that way, but there was truth in his
observation. Her lifelong fascination with goodbyes had begun as a way to process her
grief over her father’s sudden departure when she was seven. By collecting and cataloguing farewells, she had found a way to make sense of the chaos of human
connection, to impose order on the messy business of separation.
But standing here with Martin, she wondered if perhaps she had been hiding in her own
way—using her collection as a barrier between herself and the raw pain of actual loss. By
transforming goodbyes into artifacts, had she been avoiding truly experiencing them?
“Why didn’t you come back when you knew you would survive?” she asked, the question
that had been burning in her since the phone call. “Twelve years, Martin. Twelve years
you’ve been in remission.”
He closed the box and handed it back to her, his movements deliberate.
“At first, it was because I thought too much time had passed. A year, then two. I imagined
you had moved on. Found someone else.” He paused. “Had you?”
“No.” The admission cost her something, but she owed him honesty if she expected the
same in return. “Not in any meaningful way.”
“Why not?”
Eleanor gestured to the box, to the notebook in her hand. “I was busy with my collection.
With building my archive, getting recognition for my work.”
“That’s not an answer, Ellie.”
No, it wasn’t. The truth was more complicated, more painful to acknowledge. After Martin,
she had found it easier to collect goodbyes than to risk another beginning. Easier to curate
the endings of others than to allow herself to be vulnerable again.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of adding another major goodbye to my collection,” she
admitted. “Not after you.”Martin nodded, understanding dawning in his eyes. “And then when I saw that article, saw
what you had built around the concept of farewell, I realized what I had done. By
disappearing instead of giving you a proper goodbye, I had left you with an unfinished
ending. For someone who collects endings, that must have been torture.”
Eleanor looked down at the stream, watching the water rush around the stones in its path,
always finding a way forward despite obstacles.
“So you came back to give me closure,” she said. “To complete my collection.”
“Partly,” Martin admitted. “But also…” He trailed off, glancing away toward the distant
trees.
“But also what?”
He turned back to her, his gaze direct now, unflinching. “But also to see if there might be
room in your collection for something else. A different kind of artifact.”
Eleanor felt her breath catch. “What kind of artifact?”
“A beginning.”
The word hung between them, as fragile and potent as a soap bubble catching the light.
Eleanor stared at him, trying to comprehend what he was suggesting. After fifteen years,
after the pain of his disappearance, after building her entire identity around the beauty and
finality of goodbyes, could she possibly consider a hello?
“That’s not what we agreed to meet for,” she said, her voice steady despite the turbulence
within. “You said you came to give me the goodbye you should have given me fifteen years
ago.”I did,” Martin acknowledged. “And I will, if that’s what you want to add to your collection. A
proper, honest farewell. But first, I thought I should offer you an alternative. A different kind
of ending—the kind that circles back to the start.”
He reached into his pocket and withdrew something small. When he opened his palm,
Eleanor saw another river stone, almost identical to the one she still held clutched in her
hand.
“I found this one in Switzerland, during my treatment,” he explained. “Same river system as
the one I gave you before, just much further downstream. It made me think about how
things can be separated and yet still connected. Different parts of the same journey.”
Eleanor looked at the two stones—the one in her hand and the one in his. They were
remarkably similar, worn smooth by the same water, shaped by the same patient forces
over time.
“I don’t collect beginnings,” she said softly.
“Maybe it’s time to start a new collection.”
She closed her eyes, feeling the weight of the moment pressing down on her. What was she
supposed to do with this unexpected offering? How could she integrate it into the careful
taxonomy of her life?
When she opened her eyes, Martin was watching her with an expression she remembered
well—patient, understanding, willing to wait for her to process her thoughts.
“Before I can consider… that,” she said carefully, “I need the goodbye. The real one. The
one you came here to give me. Otherwise, my collection remains incomplete.”
Martin nodded, accepting her terms. He pocketed his stone and straightened his
shoulders, as if preparing himself for a difficult task.”Eleanor Vance,” he began, using her full name, his voice clear in the afternoon air. “Fifteen
years ago, I made a choice born of fear and false nobility. I convinced myself I was
protecting you by disappearing, but the truth is, I was protecting myself. I couldn’t bear to
see the pain in your eyes as I deteriorated. I couldn’t stand the thought of becoming a
burden to you, of watching your love transform into duty and then resentment.”
He took a step closer, still not touching her but narrowing the space between them.
“I should have given you the choice to stay or go. I should have respected you enough to let
you decide what you could bear. Instead, I made the decision for both of us, and in doing
so, I stole something precious from you—the chance to say goodbye on your own terms.”
Eleanor felt tears gathering, but she didn’t wipe them away. They were part of this moment,
part of the artifact she was creating in real-time.
“I’m sorry,” Martin continued, his own voice thick with emotion. “I’m sorry for the pain I
caused you. I’m sorry for the years we lost. I’m sorry for leaving you with an unfinished
ending that you’ve had to carry all this time.”
He reached out slowly and took her free hand, the one not holding the river stone. This
time, the contact did send a jolt through her—not of desire or romantic feeling, but of
simple human connection, of the completion of a circuit long left open.
“Is this goodbye enough for your collection?” he asked softly. “Is this the ending you
needed?”
Eleanor looked down at their joined hands, then up at his face—older now, lined with
experiences she knew nothing about, yet still essentially Martin. She opened her notebook
and wrote a single line:
Goodbye #137-B – Martin Harlow – Romantic – Ceremonial – Mutually acknowledged –
Quality: healing (9.7/10)She showed him what she had written, and he nodded in understanding.
“It’s enough,” she said, closing the notebook. “The collection is complete now.”
She gently withdrew her hand from his and placed both the original river stone and her
notebook back in the wooden box. The goodbye had been properly given and received,
documented and archived. By all rights, this should be the end of their interaction—a
perfect farewell to add to her collection.
But as she closed the box, Eleanor found herself hesitating. The ritual was complete, the
artifact secured. Yet something kept her rooted to the spot, unwilling to turn and walk away
as her collector’s instincts told her she should.
“Your stone,” she said, nodding toward his pocket. “The one from Switzerland. May I see it
again?”
Martin withdrew it, holding it out on his palm just as he had before. Eleanor studied it
without touching it, noting the similarities and differences compared to the one she had
preserved for fifteen years.
“If I were to… consider a new collection,” she said carefully, each word chosen with
precision, “what would you suggest as its first artifact?”
A slow smile spread across Martin’s face, lighting his eyes in a way that transported
Eleanor back through the years to their first meeting.
“That depends,” he replied. “What would this new collection catalog?”
Eleanor took a deep breath, feeling as though she were standing on the edge of something
vast and unknown—a territory she had never thought to explore.
“Reunions,” she said, the word strange and new on her tongue. “Returns. The things that
come back to us when we think they’re gone forever.”Martin held out the stone, offering it to her. “Then I suggest this as your first item. A river
stone from a distant place that found its way back to its companion.”
Eleanor hesitated, then reached out and took it, feeling its weight alongside the wooden
box in her arms. The sensation was unfamiliar—carrying an artifact of return alongside her
carefully preserved artifacts of departure.
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” she said firmly. “And it certainly doesn’t mean we pick up
where we left off.”
“I wouldn’t expect either,” Martin assured her. “Fifteen years is a lifetime. We’re different
people now.”
“Yes, we are.” Eleanor looked past him to the path stretching away from the bridge, then
back toward the direction she had come from. Two paths, two possibilities.
“There’s a café at the east entrance of the park,” she said, making her decision. “They serve
a decent pot of tea. If you’d like, we could continue this conversation there.”
It wasn’t a declaration of forgiveness. It wasn’t a promise of reconciliation. It was
something much simpler and yet infinitely more complex: an opening. A door left ajar
rather than firmly shut.
“I’d like that very much,” Martin replied.
As they walked side by side down the path, careful to maintain a respectful distance
between them, Eleanor felt the weight of the two river stones—one in the box, one in her
hand. One an artifact of an ending, the other potentially the first piece in a collection she
had never imagined creating.
She glanced back once at the bridge, that symbolic crossing place of so many important
moments in her life. Today it had been the site of a proper goodbye, finally delivered and received. But perhaps it had also been something else—a bridge not just between endings,
but between an ending and whatever might come next.
Eleanor turned away from the bridge and continued walking, her pace measured and
deliberate. For a collector of goodbyes, she had spent her life looking backward, preserving
what was lost. Now, for the first time in fifteen years, she allowed herself to look ahead,
curious about what might be found.