Phoenician Wings

That one in five homes was in foreclosure was no solace to Jess when he lost his job and they were forced to move in with Jamie's parents.

Senior engineers survived prior downturns and Jamie understood the lightning strike to his pride and ego, eliciting Jess' reaction of a daily ritual of his isolation behind the study's closed door, sending resumes and tearing ends from envelopes delivering what felt like rejection cloaked in mail-borne sucker punches.

Not ten minutes after handing him Monday's mail, an expresso and English muffin, Jamie heard Jess emerge and his footfalls approach the kitchen and Jamie wondered aloud to her mom, "Did I forget the jam?"

Jess leaned over and gingerly kissed the back of her neck as his hand came around to the front of her chest, the other hand extending 4"-tall origami Phoenix.

Her eyes misted as she noticed a tiny red heart and her initials on one wing as if painstakingly tattooed there, and heard him whisper, "Open your Valentine, baby?"

Careful not to rip the delicate sculpture, it only took a glance before she pirouetted from the chair and leapt into his arms, smearing sloppy, lipsticked kisses across three days' stubble, the job offer letter clenched in one fist at his back in a white-knuckled hug.