Coming out of the bathroom, she turned and looked at her wrinkled face in the mirror and gasped a tired answer to her long asked question, "never, you just keep driving in the sunset."She shook her head to wing away those vicious butterflies in her mind. She knew she couldn't join them so she didn't want them to hang around her either.

Tanya got out of the bed while the sun was still asleep. "Would I be able to watch sunrise today?" She asked her heart. She knew the answer but was afraid to tell herself. Mike, her husband, was still in bed and so were her four kids. Even their sleep couldn't prevent her from doing them service. She arranged her work to the microscopic details. From pressing clothes to polishing shoes, finding sports socks to putting school bags in order, fixing up breakfast to preparing snack-boxes, she wanted to make it all happen like magic, She did it all, like a magician.

Life ran like a wheel. The circle started every morning and ended up late in the night, and then morning appeared again. There was no pause, no rest, not even a slight change to insert the circle. She condemned herself for not experiencing even a thought of ever getting out of this circle, but she just committed herself to the orbit of life.

She never got to know when morning ran into noon: even the clock failed to tell her that. Mike left for office still screaming and shouting for his towel and the school bus only arrived after the kids had swallowed their breakfast. Their absence couldn't cease her work for there was too much work to do. She was planning to send dirty clothes to laundry when the doorbell rang. It had been so long nobody coming to their home that she had forgotten what their doorbell sounded like. She tried to guess who could it be but not a single name appeared in her mind. She opened the door with an uncertain hope but only found the postman standing in the door to vanish that uncertainty.

She entered the kitchen and heard Mike yelling in his uneasy voice for the absence of his towel in the bathroom. Her youngest daughter Karen started crying that she didn't want to go to school that day. Nicole, the eldest, couldn't help herself but to blame Daniel for the overnight fragmentation of her dollhouse while Randal registered his protest from his bed that he was not going lo drink milk in breakfast like every day. In the kitchen, sugar had run out. So she was still looking for that magic wand.

"Hi David! Since when did you start ringing the doorbell? "Words flew out of her mouth without her own consent.

"Ever since I was a kid. In my childhood I would ring the bell and run away. " David was a cheerful postman.

"But you don't need to run away now."

"I am not sure. It's someone named L. H. M. Sounds like a postgraduate degree to me."

"No. not until you have signed and received your letter. " "My letter! Who could send that?"

Tanya received the letter. It was a registered letter from within the town. She wondered who could that L. H. M. be. She opened the envelope and the mystery that was enclosed in it. The handwriting sparked a memory but she felt too overwhelmed to scrape her past. Her heartbeat started flying like butterfly wings.

My flowered wish Tanya!

"Never mind, I'll sign it."

I once saw my home in the streets of your palm, my destiny in the smiles of your promises, and my shelter in the shadows of your eyes. I treasured all your

It wasn't just a letter with ordinary words written on a piece of paper. She could feel those words blazing over her heart. They were telling her stories of her long lost love.

The sun always rose from the sparkle of your eyes.

And then, time flew you away into someone else's world. That sun vanished and ever since I haven't seen a sunrise.

whispers under my pillow, your fragrance in my breaths, and your name in my ears. Your face still lightens up the sky in the night, your voice still rhymes them rain fall, and your hair still soften the wind.

Life is spending me and I am aging. Days keep climbing the mountain of years. Moon disguises its face in the clouds and the night refuses to bring sleep onto my pillow. I fight your memories and defeat myself. The pain-waves of your absence storm through my stale heart and leave it in a misery.

My face has lived with me for ten cold winters, now l want to feel the warmth of your face. Bring the sunshine of your eyes to me. Meet me while the sun sets this Sunday at the river bridge. My eyes will be measuring the passage until you come.

Larry

The letter ended and left her standing at the door of her time-faded memories. Larry was her classmate in college days. He lived in her heart and she dreamed his eyes. They had planned to get married after graduation as soon as Larry found a good job. It took him a year to find one and this expansion of time let Mike surface. Mike was an elegant and handsome man with already a good job. Larry got a first-rate job the day Tanya got married.

In the next six months, Larry left the country and Tanya moved to Wisconsin. Mike's love scattered into his job, kids and Tanya. She did the same to him, except for the job. Her concern was to take care of the kids and the home. "Easier said than done", she liked this phrase ever since. Her housework imprisoned her wishes and she couldn't even wish for her freedom.

And today, after more than ten years, a letter came into her life like a butterfly carrying on its wings, words written in rainbow colors. It was Wednesday and she wished to jump over those three days into the Sunday sunset.

She never got to know when the kids came back from the school and how she spent the rest of the day. The days had started flying with her. In the night she would read that letter to the moon, the stars and the breeze. She would tell them stories of her love; the first time she met Larry, her first words and her first kiss. Every inch of her memory had a bond to a whole new memory. Now she remembered everything; every ray the sun ever endowed on her love. She could feel a powerful freedom that was removing those tedious thoughts from her mind and thrusting life into her veins. Life was wearing hope now.

No one in the family felt any change in her. Mike had to go to meet a client and was quite busy looking at himself and the kids were too involved in watching the TV. It was an hour to sunset and she was ready, wearing her best dress and wrapped in her favorite fragrance. She looked several years younger and brought back a charming smile onto her lips.

The time from Sunday morning to evening was hard to spend. Time clock was snailing Out of the day and the sun got hung up in mid air. Wind stopped on the surface of water and the shadows declined to shrink. She wished time was a horse with a tail on the forehead and she would pull it from its tail. She wished time was a dry leaf and she would blow it in the windstorm of her heart. She wished time was a boat and she would sail it in the river of her eyes. But today, time had turn into a teaser. She wanted the time to fly and it was crawling. She tried to make her self busy in house chores but her eyes quit supporting her hands as they were still looking at the sun. And the sun also kept glaring at her all the day. Finally the sun lost the battle and started going down. From the rim of the roof, it skidded to the window.

"Aa, well, actually I thought L would go for some shopping", she hardly uttered.

"Where are you going, dear?" Her preparation couldn't wage enough resistance against Mike's curiosity.

视上转移开了.其余的人全神贯注,甚至没有听到对话.

"Yeah dear, why don't you take Nicole with you, she could be helpful."

"Mom! I would go with you." Nicole yelled as the idea of going out had removed her attention from the TV. The rest were so absorbed that they didn't even hear the conversation.

The sun was hurrying down now. She was afraid of getting late so she speeded up a little.

Tanya didn't feel comfortable having a company at that time but she didn't want to change Mike's curiosity into suspicion so she said OK.

All the way to the City Center, Nicole kept telling her of all the stuff her friends had and what she wanted to buy in response. Tanya wasn't listening. She was just nodding her head in approval of whatever Nicole said. She couldn't possibly have said a word. Her heart was rumbling like a volcano, hitting the rib cage trying to get out to take a look at its long lost love.

"All right." It was OK for Nicole as long as it didn't alter their shopping plan.

"Mom! Aren't we supposed to go to the City Center?" Nicole asked seeing her turning to a different street.

"Yes dear but I have to take care of something important before we go shopping, all right?" She said.

The bridge was getting closer and so was logic. Sanity had started penetrating her enthusiasm. The question of "how should I do it?" turned into "why should I do it?" The eclipse of her memories had started declining. She could see the bridge now. She stopped the car a hundred yards away from the bridge.

Larry was standing on the corner of the bridge, with his back to her. He was looking down the bridge into the running water. She walked for a few yards and then stopped.

"Honey! You stay in the car, I'll be back in a few minutes." She said to Nicole without a slight touch of emotions. She didn't wait for her answer, stepped out of the car in a mechanical way and started walking towards the bridge.

Larry turned his face towards her. Age seemed to have worn him out. He looked tired as if he had traveled a huge span of years. His presence sent no waves of fresh air to clean her heart from the mist of dissatisfaction. He disappointed her again. She hoped to find a ray of hope and he damped down her hope. She looked back towards the car and her daughter. "I have lost too much. I don't want to lose my ten years." She decided and turned back. Larry ran after her but she had reached her car. Larry

called her with a passionate cry, "Tanya!" She opened the door and sat in. Larry stopped abruptly with shock in his eyes. Tanya turned the ear back.

"Who was he, mommy?"Nicole couldn't catch any idea out of it.

Tanya kept driving into the sunset.

"You are my wish, Tanya!" Larry murmured. She stepped on the car. Larry saw her going into the sunset.

"He was a nobody, my dear."