Jill

On a warm, clear spring morning, he woke with a headache. He glanced at the old, bronze clock. It was only five-fourteen, but it felt like well after ten. His new neighbor's dog was barking outside the window, making his headache worse. He grew nervous, thinking about his recent fainting spell, and began blaming the dog for his illness. To be safe, he decided to stay home today.

Winston didn't like spending warm days in his apartment building. He preferred walking in the park, and even though he was sixty-six, in the fall he still loved collecting colorful leaves and chestnuts glistening with raindrops, in the spring he admired the green trees, and in the summer he sat on a bench and read. This was how he filled his time until recently. Back then, he still had plenty of energy for solitary walks. Sometimes, just remembering the atmosphere of the park, the sound of children's laughter that always echoed there, he would jump up from his chair, put on his coat and appropriate shoes, and quickly set off. He enjoyed walking there. He tried to memorize every rustle, every splash of the pond into which the children loved to throw pebbles they found on the path, and all the laughter, so that when he returned home in the evening, he could still live in the joy of the people he met there and the beauty of the surrounding nature.

A window slammed. Winston forced himself to get up. It wasn't pleasant to think of having to spend such a beautiful day indoors.

"I'll at least go shopping," he thought, smiling at the mirror in the hallway. He felt a sharp headache again. He went to the kitchen and, after eating a few rolls he'd baked the day before, went to the window. A light drizzle began to fall. This worried the old man a little, but it soon seemed very optimistic.

"There's nothing to regret. The rain will soon stop in earnest, and even if I went to the park, I wouldn't find anyone there," he consoled himself, knowing he was lying to himself.

Standing by the window, he looked around for a moment longer, then went to his room. In the closet, he found his pants and his favorite sweater, which Jill had given him the last Christmas they had spent together. He remembered her startled expression when he opened the package she had wrapped under the tree. It had a pink ribbon, which they later tore while playing tug-of-war like little children. Winston picked up Jill's framed photo from the shelf. He looked at his wife's smiling face and asked her,

"Why did you have to die?"

He suddenly felt ashamed and began to look around instinctively, as if searching for that pink ribbon. Tears welled in his eyes, so he put the photo down, quickly put on his coat, and went out to buy some groceries.

It had warmed up outside, and the rain had stopped. The old man was glad he didn't have to go back to the apartment for his umbrella, which he'd forgotten to take out of the cupboard in his excitement. He slowly walked toward the brightly lit shop. He walked, gazing at the sky and thinking about Jill. He wondered if she missed him up there.

"Good morning," he heard a familiar voice. "What's up?

" "Good morning," he replied to his neighbor, who was just leaving the shop, opening his umbrella. "Everything's fine. The weather's nice, so I'm feeling good."

Mr. Shinns knew his neighbor had lied. His frown told Winston he had another headache. But he didn't want to stare at his neighbor in silence for too long, so he said jokingly,

"Sure. The weather's nice, and I'm opening my umbrella unnecessarily to hide from the rising sun.

" "And a black umbrella at that," Winston replied cheerfully, momentarily forgetting his headache and smiling.

"See you later." They said goodbye simultaneously, and each went in the opposite direction.

The cheerful old man finished his shopping. He also bought, as never before, some ladyfingers, which Jill had always loved. Sometimes, while playing cards in the evening, they would gobble down six packets of this delicacy, and if they managed to finish them all by nine, Winston would go buy more. Jill's mother would get offended when, instead of eating the homemade gingerbread cookies she brought, they would eat tons of store-bought ladyfingers.

"Remember that one time she tried to bake those ladyfingers herself?" he asked, thinking Jill was walking beside him.

A passing policeman glanced at Winston with a surprised look, which embarrassed the old man. He realized how unwittingly he had made a fool of himself in front of the younger man, and so he hurried home.

As he slowly climbed the stairs, he felt a twinge in his temple. He paused for a moment to let a little girl, carrying an umbrella, a stroller, a fat doll, and a dog on a leash, descend the steps into the yard.

"Good morning, Mr. Gulter," she greeted him as usual. "Is it raining heavily? Because if my child gets wet, I'll hang myself.

" "Don't worry. It just stopped a moment ago," the old man replied, laughing. "Besides, even if it gets wet, you can always wipe the child down."

"But not her, unfortunately," the girl replied, pointing out that the doll was made of cloth. "She always has streaks on her face after rain. She's gotten wet a few times already, and now she looks terrible. If today's rain makes it worse, she'll be gone. And I have so much hope for her. I'd like her to become a doctor."

The old man was startled by the seriousness of the girl's talk, and in an instant, his smile vanished. He watched calmly as the little girl turned and kicked the stroller with the fat doll forward, while simultaneously trying to force a long umbrella into her wellies to relieve her hands of the burden.

"Strange child," he thought, wondering if he'd said it aloud. "No joy in her face or in her soul."

Opening the door, he continued to think of his little neighbor. After a moment, he began to compare her to Jill, whom he'd met when she was five. He'd first seen her by a large delivery van, her eyes twinkling as she watched the men helping her parents move. They were unloading stacks of books and drawings, which they then carried to the small house. Jill stood in a suede hat, trying to balance a daisy in her palm. Winston remembered the sight in vivid detail to this day. Whenever he looked at his wife, and now at her photo, he immediately recalled her silence. She had been little then, and she had looked so beautiful.

Winston was just coming home from school. He had a new backpack, so he'd attached—to him today it seemed terribly trivial—two bells to it, the purpose of which was to draw the class's attention to the fact that he had the prettiest backpack. When he looked at Jill, he forgot about his bells and stared at her. After a moment, he heard,

"Have you washed your hands?" Jill said loudly to the man, who, after carrying the wallpaper paste to the basement, had grabbed the white sheets of paper on which Winston had seen sandwiches drawn. "Those drawings can't be dirty.

" "Nothing will happen to them," the man replied rudely, taking advantage of the girl's father's absence.

"They will. They'll have greasy black stains, and I won't be able to give them to my new friends," Jill explained calmly and with a smile, as if to a small child.

She picked up all the drawings herself, arranged them neatly, and looked around. She noticed Winston, who smiled and shifted from one foot to the other, the bells hanging from his backpack jingling happily.

"These are for you," Jill said to him. "I drew you some jam sandwiches. It's a gift for you greeting me like a little cow with your lovely bells.

" "Thank you," Winston managed to choke out, a mixture of fear and joy.

"You're welcome. If you ever draw some sandwiches, you can give them to me too," Jill replied with a smile, and ran home as her father called to her from the terrace.

The old man hung up his coat and put the groceries in the refrigerator. He took a glass bowl from the cupboard and poured all the biscuits into it. He looked at the window. The sky had cleared, and a huge sun had emerged, its rays falling on Winston's window and warming the entire kitchen. The old man went into the living room and sat down in an armchair, setting the bowl of biscuits on the table. He looked at her, then at Jill's picture. He closed his eyes, trying to remember the first time he'd visited her in their new home.

One autumn afternoon, he was sitting alone at home. His parents and sister had gone for a short walk, which suddenly became too long, so the boy didn't want to wait idly for his family to return and the promised huge helping of ice cream. He shuffled over to his desk, intending to draw something pretty. That's when he remembered Jill's sandwiches. From the drawer of his art supplies, he took the girl's drawings, wrapped in a white folder. Each card depicted jam sandwiches. They were the same size, but Jill had spread different kinds of jam on each one. He liked this the most. He thought for a moment and immediately began drawing sandwiches himself. He wanted them all to look just as lovely as the sandwiches in his friend's drawing, so he decided to draw bread in the shapes of wild animals, simultaneously drawing the same slice of cheese on each one. After an hour of careful drawing, he got up from his chair, placed the cards on the windowsill, and examined them closely. He smiled at the sandwiches and, after a moment, quickly drew a brown hat with the word "Jilly" written on the back of each card.

The old man opened his eyes. He listened for a moment, waiting for his headache to return. But the persistent morning pressure didn't return. Satisfied, Winston got up and opened the top cabinet of the large unit. There was a colorful container of building blocks, and next to it were small boxes. Winston carefully put them outside, closed the cabinet, and moved everything to the chair. At the bottom of the container, he found old, yellowed drawings of sandwiches, and next to each one were tiny inscriptions he couldn't read without his glasses.

Winston left a brief note for his parents about his unexpected departure and drove to Jill's house. The girl's house seemed more beautiful to him every day, even though no one was renovating or redecorating it. Winston happily stood on the steps and rang the doorbell.

"Good morning," he said to the woman who answered. "Could I see Jill?"

"Of course," the girl's mother replied cheerfully. "I didn't realize Jill already had friends here."

Instantly, Winston felt very proud to be considered Jill's friend. With a proud seven-year-old stride, he climbed the stairs and knocked on Jill's door.

"Come in," he heard the girl's cheerful voice.

"I brought you sandwiches," Winston said as he entered, feeling embarrassed. "I hope you like them."

The girl accepted the cards and, in response to the boy's nervousness about the visit, smiled and reassuringly replied,

"And where's the 'bon appétit' wish?"

They both laughed at the same moment. Winston no longer felt uncomfortable, and Jill smiled at the drawings. Her eyes twinkled, and she shook her head comically, as if wanting to examine the sandwiches from every angle. After a moment, she looked at the back of one of the cards. She read the inscription on the hat aloud and said,

"You're a very good friend. I've only ever called myself 'Jilly.' How did you guess that such a name only existed in my head?"

"The sandwiches told me so," the boy replied, embarrassed.

However, the girl liked this answer and thought she and her friend could find interesting names for the cheerful sandwiches.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Winston," Jill replied quickly.

"From now on, your name will be Winny, so Jilly won't be sad," she announced with a smile to the boy, whose eyes sparkled with joy.

Winston agreed to everything that day. He liked the diminutive form of his name, enjoyed playing name-making games, and before leaving, he and Jill drew a multitude of tiny sandwiches on a large piece of paper. Returning home, he knew he'd found a true friend today. He rode his bike, the bells on his backpack jingling softly against the rustle of the wind, and Winston proudly carried half of that large sandwich card, remembering his friend's resonant voice. At home, to his parents' surprise, he only said,

"Can you make me a nice sandwich?"

It was almost eleven o'clock. Empty boxes lined the table, and next to them were things that, at first glance, looked completely useless. But the old man really needed them. He looked at Jill's photo, and after a moment, he was crumpling an old vanilla sugar wrapper in his fingers, a clear plastic wrapper with an old BMW drawn on it. Looking at it, the past came flooding back. He didn't think about how difficult it was without Jill. He remembered only good and funny things, only strange events that had happened only to them, things that no human could understand. Only they could laugh at them, so whenever Winston touched and looked at these old reminders of their past fun, his smile returned, and most importantly, it briefly brought his wife to life.

Jilly and Winny spent the entire autumn playing together. Coming home from school, Winny would drop by preschool, where, with Jill's mother's permission, he would pick her up early and go with her to the park to collect leaves, chestnuts, and dry twigs with interesting shapes. Sometimes they would throw umbrellas, and when it was warm enough, they would take off their wellies, climb onto benches, and jump on the wet grass.

In winter, they would take the bus home so—as both mothers claimed—that they wouldn't freeze during the slow walk home. The children weren't at all worried about the change in their daily routine. They were happy that something new was happening.

One frosty day, Winston finished his lessons early and quickly went to pick up Jill. The preschool was in a terrible commotion as the children prepared for Christmas. Everyone was shouting loudly, except Jill, who stood quietly at a high table, drawing something on a piece of paper. The boy guessed what drawing the girl wanted to use to greet Santa Claus. So he walked up to her and said,

"Well, Jilly, do you think Santa will like it?"

Smiling and a little surprised by his friend's sudden appearance, Jill turned and replied,

"Sure. A reindeer-shaped sandwich with vanilla sugar must be delicious. But what does vanilla sugar look like?"

"I don't know," Winny said, wondering what it was. "We'll have to check it out at the store on the way to the bus stop. I'll put a hat on you because it's snowing.

" "Thanks. And look at my new gloves. I asked Mom to make your sandwiches in them.

" "I'll have some too," the boy decided, smiling at the little girl.

When they left the building, the snow was falling even harder, and the frost bit the children's cheeks. Jill pulled her friend by the hand into the store, where a long line had formed.

"We'll miss the bus if we stand behind those people," Winny said.

"But we have to find out what that sugar looks like," Jill replied, pushing her way to the counter without waiting in line.

Before Winny could say anything, various voices echoed through the store. An elderly woman spoke first:

"Child, don't push like that. Mommy didn't tell you how to behave in a store. You're not supposed to push past people, you're not supposed to—

" "What a poor girl," an old woman interrupted the woman's list. "Maybe she's hungry and cold. Maybe she just wants to warm up, or maybe she left something behind. After all, maybe she's looking for something.

" "Will you stop talking nonsense," the thin man said angrily. "What is this? Some kind of guessing game? If you're in such a hurry to talk, you should go to a game show, not the grocery store."

The shop erupted in a frenzy, with people shouting over each other, arguing not about Jill's appearance but about conflicts in 20th-century Europe, the Uruguayan government, and the best paints for Easter eggs. A sudden cough echoed among the raised voices, followed by Jilly's loud voice:

"Could I ask what vanilla sugar looks like?"

The crowd suddenly fell silent, and the saleswoman replied to the little girl:

"It's the same as regular sugar, but you don't put it in your tea. Look!"

The little girl carefully examined the pink paper bag the saleswoman offered. She smiled and said,

"Can I buy this?"

"Of course," she replied, surprised by the saleswoman's question. Jilly asked Winny for the amount she had given her for the sugar. Seeing the girl's wet gloves, the saleswoman wrapped the sugar in foil and handed it to the little girl, thanking her. A moment later, Jill, delighted with her purchase, and Winny, fascinated by Jill, were standing at the bus stop, waiting for the bus, which wouldn't arrive for another twenty-three minutes.

"Shall we walk home through the park?" the little girl asked, looking at the Christmas tree glowing in the shop window across the street. "I'm hungry. And I feel like eating a sandwich."

Before Winny could answer her question, she suddenly exclaimed,

"I know what I'll do! I'll eat that sugar!"

Jill's suggestion appealed to the boy, and for a moment he wondered if he could try it himself. Jill agreed when he asked. They sat down on a bench wet with melted snow and ate sugar from the bag with their fingers.

"Pretty good," Jill said, licking her fingers. "It's a shame there's so little in those bags."

"Oh well," Winny replied. "I hope we won't have to wait long for the bus, it's getting boring. Look at that great car over there. I'd love to have one someday."

"Draw it," Jill said unexpectedly. "You can have a drawing.

" "I can't draw by looking at something.

" "I have an idea," the girl exclaimed cheerfully, pulling her hair out from under her cap. "Take out the marker. You hold the foil, and I'll trace the car from a distance."

Winston smiled at his friend and blinked a few times, thanking her for her brilliant idea. They drew the car on the sugar foil, laughing and wiping away the smudged lines with wet snow. Finally, they finished their masterpiece, which was truly perfect. Hastily stuffing the foil and marker into their backpacks, they ran toward the bus that had just arrived. They quickly boarded, and the bus pulled away, slamming the doors, behind which Jilly's laughter and Winny's backpack bells could be heard.

The contents of the container and boxes, scattered all over the table, completely consumed the old man's thoughts. He flipped through old pages, glowing crayons, and covers. He no longer ate the biscuits because he had completely forgotten about them.

The old man sank into thought. He felt the warmth flowing from the window. The loud cries of the children, the splashing of the puddles, and the jingling bells from the children's bicycles reminded him of all the school years he and Jill had spent together. They always played the funniest games. They came up with strange names and catchphrases to amuse each other. In spring, they'd search for frogs in the park for some unknown reason; in summer, they'd ride bikes, throw stones into the pond, and pick flowers. In autumn, they'd gather leaves or make little plasticine figures with the school kids. In winter, they'd mostly draw sandwiches... And so the years passed.

Winston lowered his head and bent down to pick up a colorful card he'd noticed under the table. It contained birthday wishes written by Jill.

Winny didn't want his mother to throw him a special party for his sixteenth birthday. He preferred to spend the day simply, like any other. He'd much rather take a walk with Jill than sit idly over a plate of cake. He only agreed when Jill expressed a desire to come to his birthday party.

The evening after the school year ended, Jill showed up at the Gulters' and was the first to wish Winny a happy birthday. Sitting at the table with everyone, she seemed very sad to the boy. She spoke little, and her eyes sparkled too brightly. To change his friend's mood, Winston suggested a walk. She agreed, but without her former enthusiasm.

"We're moving to another state," she said loudly.

Winny, without thinking, bombarded her with questions. He didn't listen when she tried to answer them. He shouted pointlessly that he didn't understand. Only after a moment did he calm down and look at Jill:

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to say I don't want you to leave.

" "I know," Jill said, feigning calm. "Come tomorrow and help me pack all my things."

They no longer looked at each other. Jilly gave a reassuring wink and headed home. Winston stood helplessly on the sidewalk, watching his friend leave, tearing bark from an old tree trunk.

The next day he woke up early and stared out the window for an hour. The sun was shining and it was warm. He was nervous about the weather. It didn't fit today. Nothing fit at all anymore. When he checked his watch, it was 8:16. He got up and got ready to leave.

Jill's house was noisy, and no one had heard his knock. So he let himself in and went straight upstairs to see Jill. On the way, he met her father, who was so busy packing his paintings that he hadn't noticed the visitor. Winston knocked softly on Jill's door. No one answered. He knocked a second time, and a moment later, Jill opened the door.

"I thought you weren't coming," she said curtly, not even replying to Winny's greeting. "Pack everything in that cupboard in that box."

Winston opened the small cupboard and began taking out his drawings, his collages, and the sewn-together books with sayings he'd made up during breaks. For a moment, he thought Jill wanted to get rid of the things, but he didn't dare ask her. They silently packed everything in the room. After nine years of playing together, they now had nothing to say to each other. Maybe they didn't know what to say. In any case, it was as if they didn't know each other at all.

When the truck they'd ordered arrived, Winston helped Jill's father carry Jill's furniture out of the house. All the while, Jill stood staring at the boy, as if memorizing his every move, his smile, and the funny twitch of his fringe. Finally, she took out a piece of paper and, in neat handwriting, wrote her new address.

Everything was packed. The truck moved forward, and Jill's father parked his car in its place. Jill was about to leave. Winston stood beside her and looked at the piece of paper in her hand. Wordlessly, he took it and read the address written on it.

"Jilly, why so far away?" he asked, not expecting an answer.

Jill frowned and said goodbye to her friend. As they walked toward the car, they looked at their feet. They were taking the same steps. Jill opened the door and got in. Winston said goodbye to her parents and looked out the window. Beside Jilly was an old bag, with the little bells from his backpack peeking out. He was happy to see them. For a moment, memories flooded back, and for a moment, it seemed to him that his friend had just arrived to move in. Winston tried to smile as the car was already moving. The street was as quiet as it ever was at this time of day, and he felt as if everything had stopped to watch his suffering. But the silence didn't last long.

"Stop!" Jill suddenly shouted, grabbing her backpack and jumping out of the car. She ran to Winston and handed him her old suede hat, the one she'd once worn to town. She'd glued five letters to the hat: Jilly, and inside she'd slipped a note with a drawing of a sandwich inside.

"Write to me," she said, and in a subdued, trembling voice, hoping to comfort her friend, she added, "You can also draw a sandwich."

With that, she got in the car and drove to a place where Winny wasn't.

A tear rolled down the old man's cheek as he picked up Jill's birthday card. It was full of encouraging words, and it wasn't until today that Winston truly realized she'd used the card to warn him of her departure. He'd read it then as if it were just a simple greeting.

In a separate box, in envelopes, lay all the letters they'd written since Jill moved in. At first, writing them, they felt like they were talking to each other. They still laughed about the same things in them. After that, the letters were sent less and less frequently, and they were very short. They remembered each other, and when they left for their chosen universities, only infrequent phone calls remained. Winston remembered how difficult it had been for a long time, but he didn't dwell on that feeling. His wife had taught him to remember only the good things.

After leaving his hometown, Winston felt completely lost. He didn't know anyone and didn't want to know anyone, because no friend, male or female, resembled Jill in personality. No one could laugh at the things he and his friend laughed at. One day, he went for a walk in the park, as he used to do, to collect pretty leaves and imagine Jill picking them up as she walked by. It was a beautiful autumn, much warmer than in the state where he lived. Here, no one worried about an umbrella, because the morning sky could predict the weather for the entire day. After collecting the pretty leaves, Winston gave them to a little girl who, along with the children from kindergarten, was looking for similar ones.

"Thank you," she said sweetly.

He didn't answer, but smiled and headed for the post office, because he had to send a card to his parents informing them he wouldn't be coming in the next week. The building was hot, but he didn't take off the gloves he usually wore in late autumn to keep his hands warm. He joined the queue behind a girl in a short brown jacket. Behind him, a crowd of women gathered, shouting over each other, arguing over the price of a postage stamp to Portugal. Winston smiled to himself, as the old situation at the grocery store came to mind. He waited for the argument to continue, hoping there would be more to keep the argument going today. He was right. From the price of a postage stamp to Portugal, the women moved on to the prices of the best hair dyes, jazz concert tickets, and the composition of NATO troops, which didn't fit the previous topics at all. Winny, laughing, began chewing on the parcel post.

He stood there, looking at the ads, when suddenly, a large stack of papers the girl had been carrying fell to his feet, crashing down. He saw her bend down to gather everything. She held out her hand, and Winny saw a brown glove with a hand-sewn sandwich on it. Without a second thought, he quickly bent down and said, looking into her face,

"Jilly, I'll help you. Don't pick it up."

The girl looked at the boy's hand, which had quickly begun to gather the papers scattered on the floor. On it was a glove with the same sandwich as hers.

"Winny," she said quietly, and looked at her smiling friend.

As they gathered the papers, they began to laugh, not only at the unexpected encounter, but also at the gloves and the arguing women, who had suddenly started talking about the use of vanilla sugar. Unable to contain their laughter, they left the post office, completely forgetting why they had come. They walked, chatting about everything, as if trying to quickly make up for the six years lost since Jill left town.

They reached the park where Winston had just been collecting leaves. They sat on a bench and together sorted the papers they had collected at the post office.

"I'm glad we met," the boy said. "I didn't think we'd end up in the same place.

" "Me too," Jill replied, drawing something on a piece of paper.

"What, 'you too'?"

"I did," the girl replied, and she and Winston laughed. "Do you know what I drew for you?"

Winston looked at her glove. Jilly tapped the picture sewn onto his glove with her finger and handed him the paper.

"A sandwich," she said quietly.

The old man recalled the whole day they'd spent together, gathering leaves and chestnuts like they used to. They wished there was a pond where they could throw pebbles. But they were glad that everything had changed, that no one would be sad anymore. Now the memories comforted Winston, who was alone again, this time without the possibility of seeing Jilly again in his life. But the memory, the container, and the boxes were enough for him. Things that could, at any moment, restore his former joy and health.

Winston rose from the armchair. His head stopped aching, and he thought he might go for a walk. He was surprised by the thought, but decided it was a good idea. Cheerfully, he cleared away the scattered boxes and locked them in the cupboard. He put on his coat and kissed Jilly's picture before leaving. On the stairs, he heard knocking coming from below. He slowly descended and met the little girl with her stroller.

"Good morning again," she said loudly. "I'm going home because she's upset me. How can anyone eat so much?" She's so fat she can't fit in the stroller, and she keeps asking for chocolate bars.

Winston laughed.

"I'll give you a chocolate bar," she wagged her finger at the doll. "If I freeze you on the balcony in winter, you'll immediately lose your appetite

for chocolate bars." "Don't be so hard on her," the old man suggested, breaking his silence.

"I'm just kidding," the girl apologized shyly, and began climbing the stairs to the top floor, constantly catching her stroller and coat on the umbrella sticking out of her wellies. "Because, honestly, I'm craving a big, tasty sandwich myself right now."

Winston raised his head and looked into the girl's sparkling eyes. One of them winked at him.