Karen Day put another letter into the battered, worn shoebox that she had on her lap. A weak, tender smile stretched her simple lips. A memory of a long-lost yesterday filled her mind. A tear welled in her eye.

"I wonder where you are, Henry Thompson," she uttered so low that her words came out as a broken whisper. Sniffling in her sorrow, she placed the shoebox beside herself on the bed. A moment later, she glanced at her calendar on the wall across the room. Eyeing the circled date, she knew there was no mistaking it, today was Henry's birthday. What she wouldn't give to be celebrating it with him.

Standing from the bed, she wiped a tear from her cheek. Her gaze fixed out the window, she stood still, staring, as her mind tripped to a simpler time in her youth.

In a computer age when finding old classmates, forgotten friends, and lost loves can be easy, Karen had never tried to locate Henry. Her memory of what they once had together was too perfect.

Karen knew that holding onto Henry's youthful letters for over a decade was probably silly. She realized that allowing them to command her day once every year was crazy, too. But Henry's writings were Karen's lifeline. They were the reason why she got up in the morning: to think about them all over again. They were the reason why she went to bed at night: to dream about how much they meant to her.

For Karen, most of Henry's teenage letters had been written on personalized stationary that he had printed in high-school shop class. Other writings had been penned on Coca-Cola-embossed napkins from their neighborhood soda shop. Some notes were on paper scraps that still housed the wonderful scent of him.

Each day that Karen thought about the letters, Henry was right there with her. Every year on his birthday, when she reread them, Henry's words swelled her heart all over again.

Karen did date. But no man ever made her spirits soar like Henry had in their youth. His simple grin had warmed her in childhood. His dimpled cheeks had melted her heart in their adolescence. His compassionate ear had helped to soothe her tormented mind, when she was a teen and a car crash had taken her brother from this world far too soon.

In their youth, Karen and Henry had been inseparable neighbors and friends. They had dated in high school. They kept in touch throughout college. But then life presented them each with different roads to follow: Henry's desire to write for television had encouraged him to move to Hollywood with a screenwriter he had met in his writing class; Karen's kind heart had directed her into social work in the neighborhood where they had grown up. They then, simply, drifted apart.

As Karen watched the rising sun now, she nibbled her bottom lip, mumbling, "If only we had promised to meet somewhere, at a later time in life, if we ever lost touch."

But Karen knew that was only a pipe dream. When Henry had left for the west coast, Karen had felt his relationship with his writing partner was serious. And since year after year had passed, without communication between Henry and herself, Karen feared looking him up. He, no doubt, was married, had children, and no longer cared about hearing from her.

You can't go back, Karen, Cindy, her best friend, had told her yesterday, as they exited the office together. Holding onto a memory is why you don't have a love life.

That's easy for you to say, Cindy, Karen had recalled arguing back, as they had made their way into the building's subway station. You have a husband and kids.

Cindy had sighed and rolled her eyes as the train pulled into the station. Karen had given her that "husband-kid" argument so many times.

When I see you tomorrow, I want to hear that you got rid of those letters, Cindy had said boarding the train, hurrying to a set of vacant seats, after grabbing Karen's wrist and pulling her along. Then we'll celebrate by signing you up for that single's website.

I don't know if I can, Cindy, Karen had answered, settling into the seat beside her friend, and rubbing her own wrist.

You're never going to find love in a shoebox, Karen, Cindy had huffed. Then she started to massage Karen's pained wrist. Those letters served their purpose—in the past, in your youth. Now recycle them, and help save a tree!

Karen's lips had puckered with some annoyance. Then she had slipped her wrist from Cindy's care, and stared straight ahead as the Pullman's doors closed, and the train had exited the station.

As Karen stepped from the shower and dressed for the workday, she realized, again, that she didn't want to spend the rest of her life alone. But as long as she had Henry's letters, she would have no other choice but to do so.

Focusing on those thoughts, Karen picked up the shoebox from her bed and stepped, purposefully, forward. Rushing through her living room, and into the hallway, she unlocked her house's main front door, its screen, and went to exit.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, the mail carrier's front stoop presence startling her. So surprised was Karen that her sudden back step caused the shoebox to fall from her hold, and some letters to fly out and down to the top step.

"Didn't mean to scare you," said the mail carrier smiling and tipping his cap. Then he bent down to retrieve the strewn papers for her.

"I'm okay, Tim," she said, looking down at him. "Y-You don't have to do that. Really. I'll get them." She squated and scooped them up in a hurry.

Tim chuckled. "All right, Karen," he said, as they stood tall together. "Then here's today's mail."

Karen's heart missed a beat when she noticed the first envelope atop the pile Tim was handing her. The handwriting looked somewhat familiar. Henry?...

"Have a nice day," said Tim, turning from her, on his way to continue his route.

"You, too," she, mindlessly, answered back. Then her focus, again, fell to that envelope. A second later, she tore it open. But when she pulled out the card from within, she saw that it wasn't from Henry, but, instead, from a writing agent.

Some years ago, Karen had tried to write for TV. It had been a crazy idea, she now knew, but at the time it seemed right. When Henry had first moved to the west coast, Karen had thought that if she could just sell one script, they would have more in common. Then she could move to California, and they could live happily ever after.

At the time that Karen had written her script, an acquaintance of hers knew someone who had a friend who knew an agent that might be able to help her. Karen had sent that agent her material, but had never heard back...until today.

I'm sorry, but your material isn't right for me, Karen read from the card. She laughed at the irony, as she recalled a recent news story about a lost love letter delivered fifty years after it had been mailed.

She fed the agent's rejection note into the mouth of a paper shredder that was to the left of her front door, and watched it destroy the mailing.

Then a sanitation truck's breaks squealed its familiar sound.

"Oh, no!" she cried, snapping from her reverie.

Karen knew that if she didn't get rid of Henry's letters on his birthday today, she never would. So, she threw the letters into the shoebox and bolted out of her house.

As she ran down the pathway, visions of Henry danced in her head. She shook them clear, but others continued to tap her memory.

Then the sanitation man dumped the contents of her paper-recycle pail into his truck. He hit a button on the truck's side and the trash compactor began to whirl.

"Wait!" she called, her voice muffled by the noisy mechanism.

The man looked at Karen and then at the box she was carrying. He smiled and stepped toward her, his hand reaching out for what she held.

But it was too late for him to get a hold of her prized shoebox. Karen had already tossed it forward toward him—but not hard enough. The box's contents had emptied into the air, were drifting down to the street, and settling beside the shoebox that had already banged to the asphalt.

Karen froze. Her face winced.

"It happens," said the sanitation man, his dime-sized dimples in full bloom. He tapped another button that halted the trash compactor, then began to retrieve the scattered papers, nonchalantly glancing at them. A moment later, his welcoming demeanor turned to stunned silence. "Rosebud," he said through the slightest whisper, eyeing one of the papers as he stood and stared at Karen.

The man's utterance gave him away, but, still, Karen asked in amazement, "Henry?"

His look fell back to the personalized stationary in his hand. "Well, isn't it a small world," he marveled, his eyes then lifting and locking on hers. "You kept these all this time?"

The fact that he hadn't, immediately, revealed he was, indeed, Henry, forced Karen's brow to wrinkle, as the man handed back her bunched mementos.

"It's me, Karen! Henry Thompson!" he exclaimed, pulling a worn, identical piece of stationary from his wallet's billfold—a paper with a printed "Rosebud" sleigh from Orson Welles's classic "Citizen Kane" movie on it, and a handwritten note from Henry to Karen.

Karen's mouth fell open, her eyes blinking with astonishment. She hugged the letters to her chest, as she spied the note in his hand.

"But...you lived in California."

"Yeah, well," he began with boyish charm. "Things didn't quite work out...with anything. I moved back here a while ago, wrote this note telling you how I've always thought about you, and, well...I meant to look you up, to mail this to you, but..."

"Yeah...me, too."

They kissed with their eyes.

"Wow," he said, heartfelt, "I'm so glad I ran into you."

"Me, too."

"Yeah?" he asked with exuberance.

They stood quiet, their eyes melting into each other's look.

"Let's go, Henry!" called a man's voice from the driver's seat of the sanitation truck, through a series of quick horn beeps.

Henry glanced the truck's way, then back at Karen. Folding his "Rosebud" paper and handing it to Karen, he said without missing a beat from where he'd left off, "That's great, Karen, because my route's changing. I'm going to be a supervisor in our old neighborhood on the west side."

Tenderly unfolding the note, Karen glimpsed it, then looked up at Henry, and bubbled with joy. "That's where I work."

He grinned. "Why don't we get together later?"

"Sure thing, birthday boy!"

Her words sent him, happily, back on his heels. "You...remembered?"

"Always," she said. "I'm so glad you're back."