❦ Tirana · Friday, the 17th of April, 2026 ❦
Being a faithful recollection of the week just past, the journey upon the morrow, and the bright week that lies before us.
My dearest Florida,
Friday has laid itself down softly at last, and I have sat down with it — pen in hand, to tell you what my heart has been turning over all this week. It was not, perhaps, a loud week; but it was an important one, you and I.
We found our way back to us. Not that we had gone very far — only that we had been busy, and the small things had waited patiently for us to remember them. This week, we did remember.
O the small things, Florida — they are, in truth, the whole of it.
Touch each day, dearest, and it shall remember for you.
A week begins so ordinarily, and we never know, upon the Monday, which week will turn out to be a week of note. Yet something soft was already gathering between us — a softness we had perhaps been too busy for, a pause we had forgotten to take.
— the week begins, and we do not yet know —
We spoke. Really spoke. The kind of conversation that begins about nothing particular and ends with the two of us closer than we were at its beginning. We laid down what we had been quietly carrying, and we picked up, in exchange, a little more of each other.
— tell me everything,
you said, and I did —
We cooked fish together, opened a bottle of wine, and — because we are, after all, very ambitious people — ordered sushi on top of it. Later we watched Johnny English, and you laughed, which I count as a fair victory.
— wine, fish, sushi, and a spy who can barely tie his shoes —
We slept as two people who have chosen one another — knowingly, quietly, without any need of ceremony. I remembered, and you remembered, and the night remembered for us both.
— and nothing in the world was urgent —
And now — today. We have been in conversation with the bank for some time now, you and I — figures, percentages, numbers turned over at the kitchen table late into the evening, the occasional quiet worry about whether it will all add up.
And yet — when we grow tired of the numbers, we remember what the numbers are for. A roof of our own. A kitchen where you will stand barefoot. A garden where Missy shall consider herself the rightful sovereign. A small wooden table where we shall take our morning coffee, the mountain looking on, the sun falling in long golden stripes across the floor.
— the figures are only figures; the house is already ours, in our minds —
Saturday · 18 April, at the hour we please
We shall rise at an unhurried hour. We shall throw into the car far more than we need. Missy shall settle herself into the back — sovereign of the trunk, as is her custom — and we shall set off.
Tirana behind us. Vlora ahead. The road south, the windows a little open, and your hand somewhere within reach of mine.
We shall walk the beach in the early hours — the air still cool, the sand still untroubled, Missy flinging herself into the surf as if it were her life's ambition.
Somewhere between the olive grove and the bright blue of the Ionian — we shall visit venues, whisper to one another “not quite”, and then one day, “yes, this”.
Your brother and his fiancée, you and I — and Missy turned loose at last into the open space she was made for: a garden, long grass, the kind of room a Labrador ought to have.
My darling — so we close this letter. A week has slipped quietly into us, and tomorrow another begins: the road, the coast, Missy keeping watch from the back of the car, and you beside me, which is the only arrangement I have ever cared for.
I am not a man of grand speeches. I am only a man who would rather be beside you than anywhere else the world is capable of offering. A house with you. A seaside with you. A garden, a morning coffee, a Tuesday, a quiet Wednesday — all of it with you.
Forever, and with the most sincere affection —
Yours,
Henry