What We Meant to Do

The call comes just before sunset, when the light in the kitchen turns the color of old paper.

Mariella lets it ring.

Then again.

No one else calls her this late. No one else still uses that number.

She wipes her hands on a dish towel she keeps meaning to replace and never does. It smells faintly of lemon soap and something older.

“Hello?”

Breathing on the other end.

For a second, she thinks the call has dropped and she’s talking to herself. Then she recognizes the rhythm of it.

She imagines him on a sidewalk somewhere, one hand in his pocket, staring at nothing in particular.

She tells herself to stop.

“I didn’t think you’d pick up.”

“I almost didn’t.”

The fridge clicks on behind her, too loud for such a small kitchen.

She shifts the phone to her other ear. Always adjusting. Always making room.

She leans against the counter. The laminate is cool through her shirt.

“Why are you calling?”

“I don’t know.”

She almost laughs. It comes out as air through her nose instead.

She believes him.

“I just thought maybe… we could talk.”

They have talked enough for a lifetime.

They have not talked at all in seven years.

A moth taps softly against the window, persistent and stupid with hope.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she says.

“I know.” He says it too quickly. “I just wanted to ask.”

She traces a crack in the counter with her finger, back and forth, back and forth, until she realizes she’s doing it and stops.

Remembers him standing here with his keys already in his hand, jacket on, eyes already somewhere else.

“Where are you?”

“Near the river. That coffee place.”

Silence stretches.

In it, she thinks about all the things she never said because she thought there would be time.

“I’m not promising anything.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.”

“If you don’t come,” he says finally, quieter, “I’ll understand.”

He sounds like he’s practiced that sentence.

She looks at the clean sink. The single plate. The absence of everything else.

“I know.”

They hang up.

Mariella stands there for a moment, phone still warm in her hand, listening to the house settle around her.

She turns off the kitchen light.

Her hand rests on the doorknob. The wood is cool. Solid. Something that stays where you put your hand.

Outside, the air smells like wet pavement. Somewhere a dog barks and stops. The streetlight hums, steady in a way nothing else seems to be.

She pulls the door shut behind her. It clicks louder than it should, like a door making sure she hears it. She doesn’t lock it.

At the top of the steps, she can see both ways down the street. Left, toward the river and the coffee place. Right, deeper into the neighborhood, into nights that end the same way.

A breeze lifts her hair, deciding the direction for a moment. She closes her eyes, then opens them.

She starts down.

Later, she won’t be sure when the decision happened.

The night feels wider once she’s off the porch. Music leaks from an open window, already fading by the time she notices it. She smiles at a crack in the sidewalk.

Some things don’t bother changing. Some things never bother.

The neighborhood loosens its grip on her. Street names become guesses. At an intersection where the paint has nearly worn away, she slows.

No signs. No arrows. Just open space and moving air.

She exhales and keeps going.

Her breath finds a rhythm. Houses thin. Lawns give way to chain-link fences and parking lots with weeds pushing through the cracks. A train horn sounds somewhere — long, low, like something calling out and not expecting an answer.

She checks her phone.

No new messages.

The screen reflects her face back at her, pale and warped, like water. She locks it and slips it away.

At Maple and Third, she pauses by the bench.

They once sat there with a bag of fries, arguing about whether they’d ever leave this town. He had said yes. She had said maybe. They had laughed like it didn’t matter.

It had mattered.

The wood is rough now. New initials cut into it. Other people’s almosts.

A car passes, headlights washing over her, then gone.

She stands, then realizes she’s been standing for a while already, as if her body stopped first and forgot to tell her.

The river smells closer — damp and metallic and alive. The coffee place can’t be far. Neither is the bus station. Neither is the long way home.

All of it fits inside the same few blocks.

Across the street, a window glows warm. Someone is washing dishes. Someone is laughing. A life unfolding without noticing her at all.

She thinks of his voice.

She thinks of her clean sink. The single plate.

At the next corner, she slows, then almost walks straight through it, heart jumping when she notices the faint neon reflected in a puddle at her feet.

Left — the river and the café.

Right — the darker street, familiar and patient.

Straight ahead — nothing she recognizes.

Cars pass. A bicycle rattles by. Someone calls for a dog.

Time keeps moving, apparently unconcerned.

She shifts her weight.

One foot forward.

Then back again.

She presses her lips together, annoyed at herself for turning three blocks into a moral dilemma.

Her phone is quiet in her pocket.

The air smells like wet pavement and river water and something almost sweet.

She steps off the curb before she has time to reconsider.

Later, she won’t be sure if that was the decision.

She passes the café without realizing it at first.

The windows are fogged. A few silhouettes inside. A barista wiping the counter in wide, tired circles. Someone at a corner table hunched over a laptop, building a future out of small glowing letters.

She slows. Nearly stops. Keeps going anyway.

Across the street, the river slides past, dark and unreadable. It reflects broken pieces of light and keeps them.

Her phone vibrates once in her pocket.

Her hand lifts halfway, then drops again.

She stands at the edge of the block, where the sidewalk dips and the paint on the curb has peeled away.

She listens — to the hum of traffic, to the distant train, to the low conversation drifting from the café when the door opens and closes again.

Some choices announce themselves.

Others happen while you are busy trying not to think.

She breathes in.

She breathes out.

The night keeps going.

So does she.