The next morning, orange sunlight tickled Vicky's closed lids, drawing her to wakefulness against her will. She preferred to sleep in on Sundays, taking the extra measure of installing black-out drapes in her bedroom to ensure the sunrise banging off her east-facing window didn't interrupt this once-a-week privilege. In her distracted state last night, she must have forgotten to ensure the drapes overlapped properly. Now she regretted the mistake, but without a working time machine, there was nothing to be done about it except get up and start the day.

With her eyes still shut tight, Vicky rolled away from the offending light source and stumbled to the bathroom. She emerged a few minutes later a bit more alert, her hair brushed back in a simple ponytail and her face freshly scrubbed. In short order, she was sitting at the table with her oatmeal, apple, side of bacon, and steaming cup of coffee to watch the world outside wake up. She considered grabbing her phone or laptop to check the news but immediately rejected the idea. There would be plenty of time tomorrow to catch up on the latest gossip about her vanished boss and other less personal drama.

The silence in the apartment allowed Vicky to hear the first chirps of the birds, drawn out into the crisp spring air as the sun warmed it. This early in the season, Colorado Springs still struggled to escape winter. Morning temperatures flirted with freezing a couple days a week, but every tree and bush boasted tender new foliage. In a month, the shade provided by tree branches above her corner of the building would prevent this morning's dramatic sunrise invasion with their impressive oak leaves. As it was, the shadows cast by the fragile greenery overhead mixed with random sunbeams and a breeze to create fascinating ever-changing patterns on the table. The simple beauty of the quiet morning tugged on a memory of a song about an "Awesome God" from her childhood, and she found herself humming it as she cleaned up.

The peace of the morning soothed her soul and sparked her creativity in return. The bustle of work had long since absorbed the time and energy she needed to create her poetry, and she searched several places before locating her journal, lying sideways across the books on the top shelf of her small bedroom bookcase under a coat of dust. Finding her favorite gel pen required a few more minutes of digging in drawers. She curled up on the couch with her supplies and got lost in capturing the morning in verse.

Taking only a few breaks for necessary bathroom and snack breaks, Vicky spent the day engrossed in her writing. By the time the blue sky outside boasted streaks of orange and pink, several new poems adorned the journal's pages. With a yawn, Vicky stretched her arms overhead, splaying her fingers wide and rotating her wrists to dispel their stiffness and ease the cramped muscles. Even though her body ached, satisfaction filled her mind at the sight of her accomplishment.

Never an organ with great timing, her stomach rumbled, reminding her that several hours had passed since her last substantial meal. She took a moment to put away her writing paraphernalia and tidy up the remnants of her snacks. In short order, she sat at the kitchen table with a hot meal and a glass of cold water. Her hunger drove her to scarf down the tasty food, and within minutes, she stood at the sink washing dishes. She opened the window, wondering if her visiting vocalist would return tonight. The darkness outside revealed nothing; she doubted anything short of a person dressed in neon glow-in-the-dark fabric might as well be invisible tonight.

She hummed aimlessly as she scrubbed, but she couldn't settle on just one song that felt right. While she'd enjoyed her day of writing, she was no closer to solving her employment problem. Creating poetry filled her soul with light, but she needed money to pay her bills. For the first time in years, she regretted choosing a career path that required so much of her time, keeping her from pursuing her writing consistently.

The silence around her pressed in, scratching at her sanity like a trapped animal at the walls of its prison. Vicky refused to give in to it, snatching up her phone from its charger by the coffee machine and turning on a music app. As often happened, the first song to blast from the device fit her mood, a band singing about pain that "God Only Knows." She began to sing along, but before she finished the first phrase, someone knocked on her door.

The complex had strict rules about letting people into the building, so Vicky was rarely surprised by visitors. The only person she provided her door code to was a thousand miles away on her honeymoon and certainly not thinking about visiting her. Vicky thought the knocker must have the wrong door and ignored them, tapping her phone screen to restart the song. This time, only the first half of the song intro played before another series of taps interrupted. With a sigh, Vicky paused the app and went to the door. A glance through the peephole revealed Phil, her immediate downstairs neighbor and property manager, holding up a brown paper bag.

Curious, she opened the door. "Hi, Phil. What's going on?"

Phil leaned his head to the left and scratched at the puff of white hair at his temple. "Sorry to disturb you on your day off, Victoria, but your tall gentleman friend was quite insistent. He gave me five dollars to bring this up to you right away. Said you weren't expecting him, so he couldn't deliver it himself." He held out the bag. "Funny thing. Seemed like he didn't want to be recognized. Dressed all in black clothes, the hood of his jacket covered his hair and shadowed his features, and he wore dark sunglasses, even though the sun set almost an hour ago! He refused to tell me his name, only that you'd know from his note, in the bag." He squinted at her suspiciously. "Is everything okay, Victoria?"

She snatched the bag from his hands before he could pull it away. "Everything's fine. My friend is just very private; nothing nefarious, I promise. He's big on surprises, so all of this is normal for him. He'll get a laugh out of your reaction later, though. Thanks!" Not prepared to elaborate, she smiled and waved with her free hand as she pushed the door shut with her opposite elbow, cutting off any more conversation.

Deadbolt re-engaged, Vicky set the unremarkable bag on the kitchen table. Despite her assurances a minute before, she couldn't think of any friends who would drop by unannounced, and incognito to boot. Carefully, she unfolded the creased-closed brown paper and peeked inside, searching for the promised note. At first, the bag looked mostly empty, filled with more paper scraps the same blah brown. Remembering the heft when she held it, she stuck in a hand to riffle through the trash for anything heavy. At once, her fingers discovered that the "scraps" were actually three paper-wrapped objects atop a cardboard drink carrier—the sort given out at fast food drive-thru windows.

Vicky removed the items and arranged them on the tabletop, a strong scent of bananas and cinnamon clinging to the packages and teasing her nose. She opened the small flat rectangle first, and a handmade greeting card emerged. The heavy cardstock bore a cartoon of a large black gorilla holding a picnic basket standing at the base of a stone tower. At the top of the tower, a girl with a long blonde braid held cupped hands around her open mouth. The caption at the bottom read, "I have a headache today. Did you happen to bring a ladder, too?" Inside the card added, "Hope these help you manage your life's headaches." Underneath where a signature would be, there was only a "T".

"So much for the note revealing the sender," she muttered to herself. Maybe the gifts themselves would provide the missing pieces of the puzzle. To that end, she tossed aside the card and turned her attention to the other two items. The cylinder was heavy for its size, while the large cube was relatively light. Neither item made a sound when shaken. The paper covered all other hints of the contents.

She chose the cylinder to rip open first. The brown covering fell away to show more plain brown packaging, this time in the form of a cardboard cylinder, its ends closed with black plastic caps. On one of these, a white label read, "Open this end first. FRAGILE!" She followed the directions, and found a styrofoam plug tightly fitted in the top of the container. Under that, the foil-wrapped end of a bottle appeared, a familiar logo stamped in gold on the flat surface. She gasped before carefully tipping the package over and sliding out the bottle of ice wine from its nest of padding. Such a treat was a rare thing on her assistant's budget, though she'd fallen in love with the beverage at a wine tasting years before.

She half-expected the same anticlimactic reveal of the cube-shaped gift. However, when she tore off the brown paper, the box immediately revealed its contents: an assortment of chocolate truffles from a renowned Belgian chocolatier. A bit of drool escaped the corner of her mouth by the time she finished reading the list of included flavors.

Sweet wine and gourmet foreign chocolates. Whoever her anonymous visitor was, at least he had good taste. Similar to the stranger shrouded in shadows at the reception last night, in fact. She discounted the connection immediately as impossible. The odds of a random stranger finding her again were so slim as to be nonexistent, especially since they had exchanged no personal information. No, her friend Claire must have hired a service to deliver this gift, sometime before the wedding. However, that didn't explain the note inside the card, since news about her boss and his indiscretions had broken only a few hours before the ceremony, and Vicky refused to cast shade on her friend's celebration with her own troubles. If Claire didn't know about Mason, then–

A familiar baritone voice floated through her open window, interrupting her spinning thoughts. She recognized the opening lines of Michael W. Smith's "Place in This World," and joined in, bringing the wine and chocolates with her as she moved to the kitchen sink. She let the lyrics sink into her soul as she sang. She didn't mind when her unseen partner started the song over again when they reached the end. During the encore, Vicky released all of her worries about her future, and a deep peace settled over her mind.

When the final notes of the chorus faded into the night, she called out, "Thank you. I needed to hear that tonight."

"You're welcome. Enjoy the wine and chocolates," came his response, followed by quickly retreating footsteps.

"Wait!" she managed to yell as the night began to swallow the sounds of the man's withdrawal. "Did you send those gifts? How did you know I have a...headache? "

For half a minute, she thought he wouldn't respond. Perhaps he was already too far away to hear her when she shouted her questions. The quiet of the night began to fill with the chirping of grasshoppers, and she half-turned from the window to retrieve her bottle opener from the utensil drawer.

"What if I did?"

The words, barely audible, drew her attention back to the window. Taking a deep breath to boost her volume, she responded, "I would want to give you a hug for the most thoughtful gift I've received from a man since my brother died."

"In that case, I'll gladly take the credit and a raincheck for the hug. Your brother must have been a great guy," he responded promptly.

"The best." Her voice emerged from her tight throat a bit choked.

"Then being compared to him is an honor I will cherish. Till next time, Victoria."

Stunned by his casual mention of her name, she could only listen as he walked away whistling, "The Great Adventure," the tune and his footfalls slowly dissolving into the cool evening air. Only as she closed the window for the night did she realize he never answered her second question.