Anna, thank you so so much! You know how much I value your insights - and am not particularly eloquent about expressing it (because I want to jump around the room and squee like a teenage girl who just got a letter from her rock-star idol.)

But what you say about "precision of detail" is something I really admire in other writers very very much, and something I strive for, if rarely achieve. So that's a wondeful thing to hear, even if I feel that I can't take credit for it, that I was just a vessel for this story. That sounds awful (woman as empty vessel? Ugh) and it's difficult to overcome.

all that unspilt emotion, is so effective.

Oh yes. I love those moments -things left unsaid. in Mrs Dalloway, "He did not tell her he loved her,not in so many words. But...she understood" always makes me weep. I love First Date and the electricity in the air between Giles and Buffy, the unacknowledged ghosts; and even a silly show like Bones, every once in a while they get it right, a grace note:
***SPOILERS FOR BONES*** (because I don't know if you've watched it)
Temperance opening a present and we see her silent reaction but not the gift because the gift itself is not important; telling Seeley Booth she is pregnant and we see them smile at one another - no hugs or shouts or dramatics, just joy expressed in silence (DB and ED are really wonderful in this series, I wish the writing were up to the level of the performances more often.)
***END SPOILERS***

But we also know that silence really can equal death, and so knowing the difference is part of what we have to learn to navigate - when the silence allows pain and injustice to blossom.

You mentioned elsewhere that you hadn't seen the movie and rereading this with fresh eyes I still think it could work with either the movie or the book.

Three words that sum up everything - and told in a rhythm that exactly reflects that out-take of breath.

I almost deleted that repetition! I went back on forth on that (was it too on the nose?) so I'm glad that worked for you. And it wasn't until I read your comments here that I noticed the way I use a very similar phrase in my musings on Ted! "they can breathe again, for a time". Maybe it's to do with the fact that I'd re-read and posted this story so soon beforehand, but it's obviously an important metaphor for me.

For a brief period in high school and college I wrote poetry and I learned to love the rhythms, challenging myself to pare down, and use repetition, so a similar phrase at the end means something very different than it did at the beginning, or so that the end somehow changes our understanding of the opening. I find that same spare quality difficult to achieve in prose - note my lengthy replies - when I have unlimited space to fill (ie the blank page); on the other hand I'm quite good when I write up posts on the local food co-op's facebook page; "guerilla writing" I call it, and because of the limits I naturally dash in and out.

So I'm pleased with how this came out, obviously, and that it spoke to you. The Ted meta also turned out to be a lovely surprise in it's brevity and directness, but as with this story, I was motivated and inspired by deeply-felt emotions; I had a purpose in writing, in both instances, and I think that makes the difference. And in that meta I also use repetition of language for effect.