There is an old man who lives in the house now. He is very, very old — no one knows how old he is exactly because he’s been here longer than anyone else. His hair, or what’s left of it, is white, and he is very thin, except for his belly, which hangs a little ways past his belt. His skin is wrinkly and his voice is hoarse; he is only a remnant of what he once was. His name is Charlie Porter.

Now, just so you know, this is a love story.

When Charlie Porter was a child, 239 St. Michael Street was the only house on this street. In fact, there wasn’t even a street here; it was one small farm and a lot of open space. He lived with his parents and, from a young age, took care of most of the property. The farm grew many different things, including corn, wheat, pumpkins, potatoes, and several varieties of squashes. In a small barn there was one cow and one horse, and a chicken coop outside the barn with four chickens. Charlie’s life was quiet and small and forced him to work hard, but he was happy nonetheless. Shortly after his 19th birthday, his tranquil solitary existence was disturbed.

She came tearing into his life on a black horse in the middle of a June heat wave. With one leg on each side of the horse, she stood up with her feet in the stirrups. Her dark hair was loose and billowing behind her, and on her face was a hard look — triumph, concentration, rebellion, or maybe something else, simply radiated from her. In a few quick movements she was off the horse and walking up to Charlie.

“Hello,” she said, “I’m Daniella Peacham. I live on the other side of town. I hate to intrude, but my horse needs a break; could she have some water?” Daniella maintained eye contact and the ghost of a smile.

“I’m Charlie Porter,” Charlie said, and shook the hand she extended. Charlie guided her horse to the water trough in the barn. Daniella was a good conversationalist. She and Charlie continued to exchange pleasantries. He found out that she had grown up just a few towns south of Danforth, the town they both lived in now, and had moved a few months ago. She was 20 years old. He told her that he planned to spend the foreseeable future working the farm, even though his parents would probably leave soon to spend the rest of their days on the coast. How did she end up on his farm?

“Thomas Savoy, a suitor of mine,” Charlie’s gut clenched, “is a bit of a bore — nice man, really, but a stuffy sort, you know. Sometimes I just have to make my own fun. I feel guilty that I left him behind, but he had only wanted to walk the horses to town and back. I suppose I’ll have to tell him that Lucy got jumpy and ran and I, of course, became totally lost until I found this lovely and helpful man.” She gave him a real smile now, though her face maintained its strong composure. Suddenly, she stood up.

“I really should leave now. Lucy should be fine to go back. Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Anytime,” Charlie said, wanting to say more, but unable to find the proper words, and then she was gone.

“Oh God,” he thought, “Please let me see her again” Trying to remember her face was like trying to hold water in cupped hands; the harder he tried, the foggier his memory became. It didn’t matter. Charlie simply knew that he wanted to see her again. He didn’t know where she lived, or how long she’d stay, but all he could do was rely on his faith that it would happen. He found himself appealing to St. Michael. He wasn’t particularly religious, by any means, but he had learned about St. Michael the Archangel who fought battles in heaven, and, as a child, been thoroughly impressed. Knowing neither what St. Michael was patron saint of, nor what exactly he was praying for, Charlie simply conversed with St. Michael. He had no idea where his thoughts went, or if they left his skull at all. Regardless, Charlie found himself analyzing his life with greater honesty and greater clarity; his thoughts of Daniella were only a part of the whole process. For six months, he was introspective and thought often of Daniella. He hoped she would remember him, if they were ever to meet again. Then, it happened.

At Christmas Mass, of all things, Daniella was seated half a dozen pews in front of Charlie. He stared at her intermittently, disbelieving. After Church, he bumped his way through the crowd, trying to get close enough for a word. He followed Daniella and the elderly woman by her side to a bakery. “What have I got to lose?” he thought.

“Merry Christmas,” he said quietly, then again, louder. Daniella turned with a start — eyes looking hard — but broke into a smile; she remembered him. They talked, reacquainting themselves all over again, occasionally jostled by the customers in the busy shop.

“Daniella Peacham? It’s Charlie Porter, the man on the farm.”

“I suppose I’m Daniella Savoy now.” She gave half a grin this time. As if in response to the sinking feeling in Charlie’s stomach, Daniella took her gloves off in the warm shop. A gold band hugged one finger.

“And of course, my mother-in-law wanted to come to the bakery after Church, get a nice treat for Nonnie, that’s Thomas’s younger sister.”

“And Thomas is…”

“My husband.”

“Of course, how nice.” Was it there, or did he imagine, in the set of her mouth, in the crease of her forehead, a pained look?

“Please, God,” Charlie thought, “Give me a chance.” Seeing her mother-in-law at the counter, nearly ready to leave, Daniella gave Charlie her address.

“I’d love to see you again,” she added, another smile tickling the corners of her mouth. Charlie knew that he wouldn’t ever step near her house — that wouldn’t end well — but agreed.

Sending the first letter was difficult; Charlie feared retribution, of course, from Daniella or her family, but felt compelled to write something, anything, to make sense of his thoughts and to maintain this contact with Daniella. He got a letter back.

“For a respectable man, which I assume you are, I should say I’m shocked to think you might be pursuing me, a married woman. However, I cannot say I’m shocked because that would suggest that I was upset with you. I’ve yet to find any person who follows all the rules to which society insists we should adhere. Rules ruin the game; even children know that. Dear, let’s play a game. As you might remember, Thomas bores me silly. He has no ambition, no zeal for life. He crunches his numbers at work and comes home, pays me little attention, and goes to bed. He has only duties and no hobbies. I’m afraid I cannot fathom the thought of eternity with him. What I could use is a game to occupy my mind. I hope you will write me again — that will be our game.”

Charlie and Daniella became confidantes. Their letter-writing was not explicitly inappropriate; the words themselves were not lustful. Sometimes they would see each other in town, where they greeted each other with formality and respect, as any acquaintances would. This went on for many years. At some point, Daniella started signing her letters “With love, Daniella.” Daniella had two children, Peter and Luke, which made the tone of her letters happier and made her life, which she had described as “empty,” certainly more occupied. After Charlie’s parents left Danforth and the farm to live on Cape Cod with his aunt, he decided to explore his long-held curiosity for furniture-building. Building and designing furniture turned out to be a strength of his, and Charlie started selling custom-made pieces around town.

Ten Christmases after Charlie’s bakery encounter with Daniella, he did not receive the letter he had been expecting. He waited, but six months passed without a letter. He went into town a little more frequently than usual, but did not see her there either. He dared not visit her house. “She was never mine to have,” Charlie reminded himself for the thousandth time.

On a whim, one hot June day, Charlie decided to lease his farm. He found a family, new to town, six kids, that was willing to run the farm and live in the house for however long he decides to leave. With the money saved from the sales of his custom furniture, Charlie decided to explore — “What was the point,” he asked, “of staying in Danforth for a second longer?” Feeling a particular interest in landscapes, Charlie jumped from place to place, riding trains further and further west, selling paintings as he went. Eventually, Charlie got tired of the nomadic life; he came home after almost two years on the run.

Waiting for him was a letter dated several months previously.

“Dear Charlie,” it read, “I wish I could explain my long absence and my sudden reappearance, but I cannot. I also wish I could give you more information here, or, even better, a persuading argument, but I cannot do that either.” Below that, an address was carefully penned. As if it hadn’t been absent for so long, “With love, Daniella” rested on the bottom of the paper. It was the same handwriting, the same brusque and honest tone. Charlie endured a lengthy moral argument with himself about whether he should go. He asked himself what love was, what it meant, but his answers were circular at best. He figured he should at least make sure she was safe and healthy. The train journey was a blur. After two years on the road, Charlie had spent two nights at home, speaking to no one but the family leasing his farm. But who else was there? There was never anyone besides Daniella — no one like Daniella.

Charlie found Daniella’s new address with relative ease. He didn’t know what to expect, he hadn’t planned anything to say. Feeling shaky, he knocked on her door for the first time. He knocked with the confidence of a man who had had the courage to travel a long way to acknowledge his love. A hinge squeaked, the door opened, and he said, presumptuously, but with honest passion, “I’ve come to take you home.” Also for the first time, Charlie saw tears in Daniella’s eyes.

It turned out that around the time Charlie left to tour the country, Daniella was forcefully ejected from her home. She had been caught having an affair with a local mailman. She said to not ask her if she loved the mailman, or even her husband. She said it’s no one’s business but her own. “And I won’t pry about your most vulnerable moments,” she promised.

“Do you think I will judge you? After all those years of sharing our lives, why should we stop now?” He kept going, “I’m not the best man in the world, I’m not the best man for you; I could tell you all about the things I regret in my life. I don’t want you to have to hide what you did out of fear of my retribution. If we were perfect people, if we didn’t value each other despite our flaws, we never would have spoken in that bakery.” That was all he had to say, the rest was up to her. If he had to walk away now, at least he would know that he had defended the two of them once, aloud, as he had never done before.

Charlie and Daniella traveled back to Danforth together. They built a smaller house next to the original farmstead on Charlie’s property. Their lives were never so eventful again. They simply made a life for themselves, exploring new hobbies, exercising old ones, and traveling when they could. Their relationship was difficult sometimes — they’d known each other for many years, shared intimate details about their lives, but never spent more than a few minutes in the same room as each other. Yet, at the end of each day, they fit nicely together, not like something definite, like a puzzle piece, but instead like a pair of slippers and a warm drink.

Times, like everything else, always, were changing. The town grew too big and split in two. One Christmas, Daniella reached out to her kids via letter, old-fashioned at that point, but why change what had worked before? Slowly, Daniella worked to fix her relationship with Peter and Luke. The family that had leased, then bought, the farm from Charlie sold it to the town. The land, the animals, disappeared almost overnight. Soon, Daniella and Charlie had neighbors and an asphalt road running in front of their porch. The town reached out to the now past-middle-age couple and asked for their input in naming the street. It was the considerate thing to do, where the Porter family had been living on that land for close to a hundred years. In a moment of nostalgia, for he had not stepped foot in a church for many years now, he decided to name the new street “St. Michael Street” to honor the saint with whom he had shared everything in a tumultuous time of his life. That, and Daniella refused to have the street named after herself. Their house was assigned number 239 after much arguing among the town selectmen over the acceptability of such an overtly religious street name.

In the scheme of history their lives were quiet. One day, at the age of 80, Daniella had a stroke. Three days later she died. Naturally, Charlie grieved. “Beginnings could be rough, but endings,” he thought, “were such a tragedy when compared to beginnings.”

“Wow,” said Katie, “I don’t know if I liked that story or not.”

“That’s OK,” I said, “Are you ready to go home?”

“Yeah, going home would be good.” She looked at the house behind us one more time. “Goodbye,” she said to it.