Daffodils
by Jacqueline Doyle

How could I have known? The sun was warm on my shoulders that day as I stopped at the bank of mailboxes outside. There was the usual stack of bills, advertising circulars, credit card offers, catalogs, magazines. Back in the condo, I tossed them on the dining room table, setting aside the envelope with the handwritten address to look at later. I took off my running shoes and headed upstairs for a shower.

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The sun was out. The wind rustled through the trees and dried the sweat from my jog as I walked back from the mailboxes. I can still remember every detail of that long ago Saturday morning. It was almost noon. My neighbor Leona McGarry was walking her black Lab, who wagged his tail and strained at the leash when he saw me. "Hi, Natalie. How are you?" she said. "Fine," I said, and I was. When I got inside I sorted through the mail before tossing it in on the table. I noticed an envelope with no return address. I didn't open it right away.

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Sun streamed through the window in elongated rectangles on the dining room table. The light wavered as the trees swayed in the wind. I left the mail on the table, took off my running shoes, and went upstairs to take a shower. I threw my sweaty running clothes into the hamper. The needles of hot water felt good on my skin. I shampooed my hair twice before turning off the water and stepping out of the tub. I dried myself with an Egyptian cotton towel and wrapped another one around my head like a turban.

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I left the mail on the table, kicked off my shoes, and bounded up the stairs to take a shower. I wasn't thinking about anything in particular. After the shower I walked into the bedroom naked and chose underwear and a bra and jeans and a t-shirt. I towel-dried my hair and dressed. The t-shirt was newly laundered and I pressed it to my nose and inhaled the fresh scent before pulling it over my head. I wondered whether it was too late to go to the Farmer's Market to buy daffodils. I pulled on a pair of socks. When I ran down the carpeted stairs, the first thing I saw was the envelope. I sat on one of the bottom steps to put my running shoes back on.

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The t-shirt smelled good. It was one of my favorites, faded green with a blossoming tree traced in white on the front. I ran a comb through my damp hair and thought about daffodils. The patches of sun on the carpeted stairs were warm under my feet. I sat in a sunny spot to put on my shoes, still thinking about the Farmer's Market and daffodils. I picked up the envelope. It was postmarked Boston. I couldn't think of anyone I knew in Boston.

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My address was handwritten in blue ink on the plain white business-size envelope. I didn't recognize the handwriting at first. I didn't know anyone in Boston. It wasn't until I tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter that I recalled his handwriting. The letter was dated four days ago. Dear Natalie, it started. It's been almost ten years, and maybe you don't even remember me. But I remember you and think of you often. The letter was signed Rick and at first I was flattered. He'd been in love with me once, when I was a sophomore and he was a senior in college. I hadn't treated him very well.

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Dear Natalie,

It's been almost ten years, and maybe you don't even remember me. But I remember you and think of you often. There's something I want you to know, just in case you've worried about it. Our breakup wasn't your fault. I know you're the one who broke it off, but I was so young and so needy, I would have dragged you down with me and I think you knew that.

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Rick was a beautiful boy, the kind of slender, sensitive boy you don't really value in college, or at least I didn't. He'd been a runner in high school and he still ran on the hiking trails in the woods by campus. He had long legs and milky white skin. Hazel eyes with golden flecks in them. Pale blond hair that stood up in tufts. He had a disconcerting stare, like he was plumbing the depths of your soul. He read poetry out loud, and gave me flowers a few times. Daffodils once. It seemed so strange that I was thinking of daffodils when I opened the letter.

I was a bitch with Rick, really. I broke things off when this guy Lloyd on the tennis team started hanging around. I was boy crazy and immature. I didn't treat Rick well. I didn't think about him again.

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I was so young and so needy, I would have dragged you down with me and I think you knew that.
 

You probably heard that I had a breakdown after I graduated. It was like a deep dark hole I fell into and I thought I'd never get out. Therapy, antidepressants, they even used electro-shock. I've never felt fully alive, fully here since then. The last time I felt really happy was when I was in love with you.

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A real bitch. I didn't know about the breakdown. I wasn't curious enough to find out more about Rick's life after we split up. He'd graduated. He was gone. I liked Lloyd's swagger and sexual experience, spent most of fall semester my junior year smoking weed in his room at his frat. I broke things off when I found out he was cheating on me and I started seeing another guy. Kurt. I always had plenty of boyfriends.

When I got the letter I was seeing a guy named David, who wanted to get married. I didn't know if I was ready yet. I hadn't ever made a real commitment. I thought I was happy the way I was—single, carefree, no obligations, no complications. He made my heart flutter, though, and I knew I didn't want to lose him.

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I've never felt fully alive, fully here since then. The last time I felt really happy was when I was in love with you.

So I wanted to write you to say goodbye, and to tell you that it wasn't your fault. It was already in me, this shakiness, this darkness that keeps coming back.

Love, Rick
 
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 I sat down at the table and read the letter again. So I wanted to write you to say goodbye. My hands shook as I leafed through the front pages of the telephone book to find the area code for Boston. I punched the numbers for directory assistance into the phone. No Rick or Richard Margolies listed in Boston. I went upstairs to my computer, logged onto the college website, and checked the online alumni directory. No Rick or Richard Margolies. I Googled his name, and found a doctor, a lawyer, an astronomer, but no one in Boston. I finally called my old roommate Cecily, who didn't know anything. "Was he that good-looking runner? He was sweet. Listen, I've got to go. So great to hear from you! Let's catch up one of these days."

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Love, Rick. I still think about that envelope with no return address lying on the table in the sun.

David and I have been married for eleven years. We have two children—Emily, who's ten, and Bradford, who's eight. I never told David about Rick, but sometimes little things remind me of him. I've replayed the day I got the letter over and over in the years since then. I worry about Emily and Bradford in college, which is not so far off. The terrible fragility of the human heart. How can I protect them from themselves and others, against what they might do or what might be done to them?

Once in a while I search Facebook and the Internet, but there's no trace of anyone who sounds like Rick. When I moved out of the condo, I left a forwarding address, and for a long time I hoped I'd get another letter, but I didn't. There's still no listing for him at the alumni association. Last year on a business trip to Boston I found myself looking into the faces of every forty-something man on the street, so aware of their potential sadness and vulnerability. I know Rick's depression wasn't my fault. I was young and immature. How could I have known how deep his feelings ran? If I had let him down gently, or for a better reason, it wouldn't have changed his life. Even so, I'd like to talk to him. I know much more about love now. It's probably too late to explain that to him, but maybe "goodbye" didn't mean what I thought it did, and I'll see him again.

He won't be a shy 21-year-old boy any more, but of course that's the Rick I remember. How he ducked his head the first time he asked me out, and blushed pink when I said yes. We went to a movie, and he held my hand in the darkness, his own trembling slightly. He didn't care about what he wore, and his corduroy jeans and plaid flannel shirts were always rumpled. His pale hair stood up at crazy angles, like he'd just gotten out of bed. "I'll do anything for you," he said. "Anything. But not hair gel." He had a wonderful laugh, a sudden surprised shout of laughter, and a slow smile that illuminated his face. I remember a poem he read to me about a woman "lovely in her bones," and how afterward he traced each of my vertebrae with his finger. "She taught me touch," he repeated, caressing the soft skin inside my arm and elbow and wrist, tickling my palms. He liked John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk, and the French existentialists. He hadn't had a lot of girlfriends, and he made me feel like a revelation. I think I loved him too, until I didn't. I felt the glow of his affection and it warmed something in me, feelings I wasn't ready to understand yet or truly reciprocate.

Last fall Emily brought home a box of daffodil bulbs, a fundraiser for her school's music program, and we planted them in the back yard. When they burst into bloom this spring—their pale yellow heads raised to the sun, so innocent, so hopeful, so full of joy—I couldn't help myself. I started to cry.