She had been delivering mail for almost forty years now, and every single day she enjoyed the sight of old Mr. Fuller, waiting in the window of his baby blue raised ranch, watching for the mail. She could see his friendly smile, that lingered just beyond those hideous green shutters. She loved the way he put both hands on his cane while waiting for her, and she loved even more the way he lifted a few pale wrinkly fingers in salute as she drove away. Sometimes, if she drove slow she could see him hobbling out to the mailbox in her rear view mirror.
You could say Martha and Mr. Fuller had a special sort of relationship, seeing, and only seeing, each other six days a week. But secretly, she longed to introduce herself to him. Every time she thought of actually trying to talk to him, she looked down at her unattractive Post Office jumper, and reluctantly drove away.
Perhaps she knew more about him than she ought to. She knew he had a subscription to a golfing magazine. She knew he had the same little brown car for far too long. She knew he loved to wear tacky crocheted sweaters, even in the summer. She knew companies often misspelled his first name, leaving out the second R when sending him a letter. She knew there used to be a Mrs. Fuller, but one day about 15 years ago, her car left and people stopped sending her mail to 45 Old Tower drive. She knew he was lonely, because the even at Christmas, he hardly received any cards. She had only look at her own wrinkly ring lacking fingers to be reminded of what loneliness feels like.
One cloudless Saturday summer morning, Martha turned onto Old Tower drive as she always did, smiling to herself as she made her way down the street. Still smiling as she passed Mrs. Turner on her front step, hands on her hips. She tood stood in her bathrobe with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, as usual.
She heard the ambulance before she saw it. Pulling up to the curb in front of his house, she sat in her truck stunned, for almost 30 minutes even after the ambulance wailed away. When she finally came back to reality, she realized there were tears dropping onto Mr. Fuller's mail. She gingerly put his mail in his mailbox, and drove away wondering if those were the last letters he would ever receive.
