A widower speaks every day to the empty seat where his wife used to sit.

What the widower did not know was that for the last six months, he had an audience.

The Listener was a student who rented the small, detached coach house at the back of the widower’s property. The coach house was separated from the main house by a dense, overgrown cluster of lilac bushes and a high stone wall. However, due to an odd acoustic phenomenon—a quirk of the chimney structure and the alignment of the dining room window—the quiet murmur of the widower’s voice, especially after dusk when the coastal air was still and damp, traveled perfectly to the student’s upstairs bedroom window.

The Listener did not set out to eavesdrop. Initially, the faint, regular sound of the man’s voice was merely a curiosity, a gentle backdrop to their evening studying. But soon, the repetitive nature and the intensely personal content of the monologues became impossible to ignore. The Listener, a young scholar specializing in archival studies and human behavior, was drawn into the unfolding narrative of the widower’s life. They learned about the intricacies of the marriage, the triumphs of the Architect, and the quiet, supporting role of the wife. It was an involuntary, intimate education on the nature of enduring love and loss.

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