The Unfinished Song

Lilliana received the envelope the day before her 25th birthday, which in 2025 was also six days before Thanksgiving. It was a plain white envelope, the normal advertisement, offering you a credit card you couldn’t afford, or offer you a bank loan kind of envelope. She didn’t even know why she thought about opening it. Maybe it was the handwritten return address from a town in Maryland that set it apart and, at the very least, piqued her curiosity. It was definitely not a local letter nor was it from an address she recognized.

Sitting at her study desk, so called because it was the one she had used for college and now for the occasional work she brought home from her job as an Analyst at Meriplace Communications, or when she used to research articles that she turned in for her church newsletter. Shaking her head, she tore open the top of the envelope to find a plain white piece of paper folded inside. She pulled it out to find a handwritten letter written on lined notebook paper, definitely not the graphic logo and large, colorful writing you might expect from an advertisement. She carefully unfolded it. At the top were eight short lines, one on top of the other in poetic fashion, double spaced.

I walked alone.

Darling, so did you.

We walked together.

A love spell come true

Now you’re all alone,

so free to roam.

It has been way too long

this unfinished song.

Unfinished song, she thought, as she finished reading it. Very appropriate to her whole life. Below the poem, looked to be a couple of other lines, a note of some sort. Curious, she held it up and carefully began reading it.

Lil, the note began. I am sure that this is a surprise to you.

She stopped reading. Lil, she thought. Nobody called her that, at least nobody had since an old boyfriend from several years ago. But it couldn’t be him, she reasoned.

She continued reading. The short poem above is something that I have written for you. It’s time for you to finish the song your own way. Jay.

She dropped the letter on her desk. The only Jay that she knew was Jason, Jason Horowitz. She had dated him for three years. But that had ended four years ago, not because they broke up, but because he was killed in an automobile crash a month before Thanksgiving. She thought, almost four years ago to this very day. Despite the time, he still had a place in her heart, maybe the only place in her heart. The unfinished song. She could feel the tears start to form in her eyes. How long had it been since she cried? Not that long, unfortunately, she thought. She shook her head and turned back toward the piece of paper.

But how could he have written this. He certainly did not know he was going to die. He did not come back from the dead to pen this note. And who sent it to her?

Was she dreaming, she thought, looking at the letter lying on her desk? She remembered the funeral, his mother and father standing there with the other mourners. Why was she receiving this letter so many years later? Could it be from someone else? No, she thought, she knew no other Jay, certainly not one that would write her a letter like this. Plus, the paper, the handwriting. It all looked familiar. It was his, she was sure of it.

She looked at the return address again. 2117 Mortimer Lane, Baltimore Maryland. She pulled out her computer. Maybe she could find out who lived there. She entered the address int the search tab and immediately got a hit. Terrence Allen was the name at that address. Terence Allen, she thought. That name wasn’t familiar. She did some more searching using an application that she downloaded to find a phone number. Could she, should she dial it?

Her hands shook slightly as she punched in the number on her cell phone. She pushed the speaker button and held it close to her chin, as if holding on to it would provide her with more support. She listened to the rings. One, two, three, four, and just when she was fixing to hang up, a man’s voice sounded.

“Hello,” he answered softly. “Hello,” the man spoke again when she didn’t reply.

“Hello,” she said, her voice timid and unsure. “Is this Terence Allen,” she asked hesitantly?

“Who is this,” the man returned the favor, asking his own question?

“This is Lillian Carter,” she replied, realizing that she had passed the point of no return and the only thing to do was to go ahead and try and find out what she could. “I received a letter from your address, and I wanted to ask about it.” There it was, she got it out and waited for his response.

The man sighed. “I guess in these days of computers, internet, and public information, I am not surprised that you were able to find my number. So, you are Lil,” he asked?

“Yes,” she replied, “but only one person ever called me that.”

“I know,” he said, “Jason.”

“You know Jason,” she asked?

“Yes,” he replied, saying nothing else.

“Are you a friend of his,” she continued, wanting to know more about the letter and why it was sent to her.

“No, not a friend exactly,” the man replied, “he was very special to me. He was my son.”

Lillian dropped the phone, shocked at this unexpected revelation. “But that can’t be true. I know his mother and father well. We were at his funeral together.”

“I know,” he replied softly. “I saw you. I was there, but not with the family. I wasn’t welcome up front.”

“I don’t understand,” Lilliana was almost crying now. “How could that be?”

He sighed. “I did not anticipate this conversation,” he said, “and in retrospect, I should not have put my address on the envelope. A force of habit, I guess.”

Lillian was getting frustrated with the way the entire conversation was going. “Why did you send me that letter,” she asked? “And how did you get it?”

The silence at the other end of the line lasted for several minutes. Just when she was about to speak again, he answered.

“He gave it to me, along with some other things that he wanted me to have. More accurately, I guess, he didn’t want to be left in the house where his mother or stepfather could find it. I wasn’t with Jason when he was growing up. In fact, his mother and I never married. She had better sense than that. Until he was 10 years old, he thought that Bryan was his father. Suffice it to say, I was not a good person back then.” He paused. She could almost see him wiping the tears from his eyes.

“About six years ago, I got straight. I went to work and finally became the man that I should have been all along. That was when Jason and I started seeing each other, initially in secret, but as he grew older, he told his mother about our growing relationship. She wasn’t happy about it, but she also knew that he was old enough to handle it. About a year before,” he hesitated, “the accident, he brought a box over filled with what looked like diaries, letters, and things like that. He was moving into his apartment at the time and, from what he told me, the two of you had just started getting serious. He never came back to pick it up and I kind of forgot about it. After the accident, I didn’t think about it, I left it sitting in a storage closet in my house.

A few weeks ago, I was cleaning some things out and came across the box. For the first time, I started looking through it. I didn’t read his diaries; I couldn't bring myself to do that. Maybe sometime in the future, but not now. However, I did find this letter. There was no date on it, but it was definitely his handwriting. I am sure you noticed the same thing,” he said, confirming what she had already surmised. “I obviously knew about you. You were all he talked about and I was hoping to meet you sometime.”

“Wait a minute,” Lillian interrupted. “That is another thing. Why didn’t he tell me about you? Why didn’t I meet you?

“I guess that is on me as well,” Terence replied. “With my history of trouble and the way he felt about you, I encouraged him to put that off. Perhaps until after you were married.”

“Married,” she shouted into the phone. “What do you mean married?”

“I guess you never talked about it,” he asked?

“Not really,” Lillian answered. “I mean we loved each other, but we were also young. I was barely twenty when I lost him, when we lost him,” she corrected herself. “He was only twenty-two years old. We both had just graduated from college and were still kind of trying to find our own way.”

“I know,” Terence answered, “but, as you said, you both loved each other. At least, I know that he loved you.”

“Then why did he write that letter,” Lillian asked?

Another pause. “I don’t know. For that matter, I don’t know when or under what circumstances it was written. I found it in a pile of other letters, some just drafts that he had written, some that were sent to him over the last few years, mainly from you. I know that he never mentioned sending it to you, but when I read the letter, I thought that it addressed what we both felt. It was in an envelope even, with your address already on it so I basically put a stamp on it and dropped it in the mail.”

“I see,” she answered softly, her head leaning forward over her phone. “I think I know when it was written,” she murmured.

“When,” he asked quickly as if wanting to get it out before she changed her mind?

“About a year before the accident,” she answered. “We had an argument about, I don’t even remember what, something stupid, I’m sure. He stormed out of my house, and I didn’t hear from him again for over two weeks. I tried to call him, even went to his house, but he either wasn’t at home, wouldn’t answer his phone, or was just trying to avoid me. Finally, I was about ready to accept the fact that I had lost him when one day he showed up at our front door with a bouquet of flowers, tulips, my favorite. He said that he was sorry, although I am sure the fault was as much mine as his. Then he kissed me and said that he would never leave me again,” Lillian said, the tears streaming down her face. “And he never did, until,” she finished, not being able to go on.

After a minute, Terrence asked, “so you think that is when he wrote this letter?”

She nodded, then remembered that he couldn’t see her. “Yes, I mean, it has to be.”

After a minute, Terrence spoke again. “Then, I think you and maybe, both of us, have to take this as a message. We both have a loss; we have that unfinished song with many verses still to come. We will never forget Jason, but it is up to us to write the next song, with many songs left to sing.

Lillian couldn’t think of anything else to say and, finally, thanked him and hung up.

Was it true, what he said? Is that why she had abandoned her life outside of work since Jason’s death? Even her family had only seen her intermittently. She had few friends, most of which she had seen even less than her family, no purpose outside of the day-to-day work that had become her reason for getting up in the morning.

She nodded, and for the first time in a long time, smiled. The unfinished song would never be forgotten, but the next song was ready to be written.