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“Since I’m not equipped with a visual interface, unfortunately I am unable to—”

“That was a rhetorical question.”

“Oh. Okay!”

Maybe it was for the best that she’d ruined their budding friendship before either of them became too invested. Or maybe she should have shown more appreciation for his interest. His patience. His kindness. Or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered either way. Maybe—

He returned home from his shift, and the basket was outside his window again in minutes.

She pulled on the rope, hand over hand, and took out his message.

Then we best get to know each other better. Because I want to hear all your stories.

She felt a swelling beneath her breastbone.

Bradley was persistent, but she didn’t feel poked and prodded. She felt…important. A present being mindfully unwrapped. She leaned into the feeling, allowing their exchange to strip away more of her layers, infinitely more comfortable writing down her thoughts than saying them out loud.

She told him about her favourite middle school teacher, who kicked a boy out of class for saying Devra couldn’t be better at math than he was simply because she was a girl. She told him about her brother, David, and his talent for music, and asked him about his sisters. Bradley responded with seven full pages. He described how Lana and Sara had been unimpressed with him at first, often excluding “the baby” from their games and adventures, until he grew taller than they were. They discovered I was pretty handy to have around when they needed someone to grab the cookies off the top shelf. And suddenly, they never went anywhere without him in tow. They became an inseparable unit big on dares and pranks and sibling affection. He told three separate stories where one of them jumped off something they shouldn’t have risked standing on, which had, apparently, led to their mother going prematurely grey.

In fact I’m pretty sure the stages of my life can be marked by the colour of my mother’s hair, from her light brown when we were kids, to the grey of my teens, to the stark white that just happened to appear during the peak of my alcoholism, which, I suppose, must be a very good sign for my recovery since she’s recently dyed it a deep mahogany.

It was the perfect way to get to know Bradley better, she realized, as they wrote letters back and forth like pen pals separated by miles of ocean and not a narrow strip of yard. Because it slowed him down. Or at least the speed at which she could read his notes. Bradley was so much easier to understand on paper, compared to trying to dissect his unfiltered, stream-of-consciousness style of talking in real life. It allowed her to analyze and look for patterns. She could appreciate the humour in most of what he said. She also noticed how he wrote about his history with addiction as slapdash, amusing anecdotes, even when she asked him more directly about his experiences. They had more in common than she originally thought, with his quick jokes and her hesitations to speak, both practiced ways to deflect.

By the third day, Devra knew more about Bradley than she did her long-time coworkers. Because he was more real to her than any of those primarily online correspondences. A person she would catch glimpses of through the window. Who would wave at her when their eyes connected.

Then she received a message from Bradley that shifted everything.

She was telling him about Squally. Devra assumed he’d be bored by the technical details, so she kept it brief at first—a three-minute elevator pitch to summarize a massive three-year project and counting. But he surprised her, as he often did, by asking for more information. So she told him more. Relishing in being able to share the joys of her work in essay format to someone who sounded genuinely interested. Not just politely curious as was the case with her brother, who’d always preferred the arts to tech. Or proudly curious as was the case with her father. Bradley asked for every detail of her work, and she delighted in sharing.

It was after a lengthy description of Squally’s Calm setting, where the VA could send tranquil sounds and imagery directly to a person’s phone, including pictures of mountains and waterfalls and whispering glens, that she casually ended her letter with So what’s the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen?

Bradley replied with only two words.

Your smile.

BRADLEY

Devra was building a robot. The woman with a mess of warm-brown hair and lips that spoke to him in his sleep was a computer genius building a robot—or programming a virtual assistant, as she kept correcting him, because apparently there was a difference. He could have read a whole book by her on the subject. It was captivating. She was captivating. Her knowledge, her expertise, her passion.

Their exchange of letters was as intoxicating as downing a two-six. The thrill of looking out the window and hoping the basket would be ready and waiting for him, the adrenaline while opening each envelope, the speed with which he devoured her words, the quickness of his hand as he wrote her back.

His impression of Devra was changing. This friendship he’d begun out of some blend of empathy and determination was now one he wanted to maintain out of pure admiration.

He hadn’t thought twice about his last note. And as always, his not thinking twice became a source of regret.

Because now she wasn’t writing him back.

Bradley returned to his carving project. He chipped and scored and smoothed, but the headboard continued to fail at keeping his attention. Maybe because the image his hands were itching to create wasn’t a generic scrollwork pattern.

He grabbed a loose piece of paper and started planning a new design. For a completely unfunctional project. A useless piece of art, or so his father would tell him.

His pencil moved quickly, sketching the wild tangles of her hair, the slope of her nose, the rounding of her lips.

That seductive mouth.

It was going to get him in trouble.

Bradley slid the sketch away. He checked the window again and saw the basket still sitting empty, twisting in the wind on her side of the pulley system.