He wrote on Tuesday evenings, which was when the Branch Mail Service collected from his building. He had been doing this since he was thirty-eight, when the first letter from his alternate had arrived and he had written back the same day, before he had thought about what to say. That letter had set the tone of the correspondence. He had never quite matched it since.
The replies had stopped three years ago, after the nineteenth. He had noticed after the third week, and had begun to watch the mail differently. Four weeks, five, eight. He had considered writing to the Branch Mail Service to inquire about delivery delays, and then had not. He understood delays. He had also understood, after some months, that this was not a delay.
He had kept writing. He was not sure this was the right thing to do, but he was not sure stopping was right either, and stopping had a finality he was not ready for. The letters were real. He had sent twenty-one of them. The twenty-second was in his hand.
He wrote about the view from his window. He wrote about a book he was reading for the second time, which was different from the first time in the way second times always were. He did not ask why the replies had stopped, because he had asked this in letters eight and nine and the asking had not helped. He signed his name.
He put it in the envelope. He addressed it in the handwriting he shared with someone he had never met. He took it downstairs.
He put it in the post slot and went to bed.