Mary Monoky speaks
Writer • Speaker • Exploring the Long Middle
Pumpkin Pie
After years of phone calls and texts, a long-awaited face-to-face visit seemed to confirm what Mary Monoky hoped might be possible. Then a simple question on the drive home revealed that two people may not have been imagining the same future after all.
Mary Monoky
5/30/20263 min read
Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin Pie
For three days, I thought we were getting to know each other.
We drove through Hot Springs Village looking at neighborhoods and houses. We shared meals. We laughed. We talked for hours.
It was our first face-to-face meeting after years of phone calls, texts, and easy flirtation.
By the end of the first day, everything felt surprisingly natural.
I enjoyed being with him.
And because I enjoyed being with him, I started imagining.
Not marriage.
Not forever.
Just more.
Another visit.
More conversations.
More ordinary days spent exploring places and possibilities together.
The future didn't arrive as a grand vision.
It arrived quietly.
One shared meal at a time.
On his last day, I drove him to the airport.
A few minutes after I left, my phone rang.
His name lit up on the screen.
I smiled.
Part of me hoped neither of us was quite ready for the weekend to end.
Instead, he was calling about the airplane.
"It's tiny," he said.
We laughed.
He described the passengers getting off looking slightly green. I teased him about surviving a ninety-minute flight.
The conversation drifted.
I mentioned a little pie shop I had finally found.
The kind of place that makes one thing and makes it well.
I told him I wasn't even especially interested in pie.
I liked the idea of it.
Someone deciding to build something beautiful around one small thing.
There was a pause.
Then he asked,
"I wonder if they make pumpkin?"
It was such an ordinary question.
Three days together.
Three days of driving, eating, laughing, and talking.
And the first real question he asked me was about pie.
I knew what he liked for breakfast.
I knew stories about his work.
His family.
His plans.
I knew how he took his coffee.
I knew he worried about flying.
I knew which subjects made him animated.
Which ones made him quiet.
But somewhere between the airport and home, I found myself wondering what he knew about me.
Not my writing.
Not what I hoped for next.
Not whether I'd enjoyed our time together.
Not whether I wanted to see him again.
The question arrived quietly.
Had we spent three days building the same future?
Or had I been the only one imagining it?
Pumpkin Pie
For three days, I thought we were getting to know each other.
We drove through Hot Springs Village looking at neighborhoods and houses. We shared meals. We laughed. We talked for hours.
It was our first face-to-face meeting after years of phone calls, texts, and easy flirtation.
By the end of the first day, everything felt surprisingly natural.
I enjoyed being with him.
And because I enjoyed being with him, I started imagining.
Not marriage.
Not forever.
Just more.
Another visit.
More conversations.
More ordinary days spent exploring places and possibilities together.
The future didn't arrive as a grand vision.
It arrived quietly.
One shared meal at a time.
On his last day, I drove him to the airport.
A few minutes after I left, my phone rang.
His name lit up on the screen.
I smiled.
Part of me hoped neither of us was quite ready for the weekend to end.
Instead, he was calling about the airplane.
"It's tiny," he said.
We laughed.
He described the passengers getting off looking slightly green. I teased him about surviving a ninety-minute flight.
The conversation drifted.
I mentioned a little pie shop I had finally found.
The kind of place that makes one thing and makes it well.
I told him I wasn't even especially interested in pie.
I liked the idea of it.
Someone deciding to build something beautiful around one small thing.
There was a pause.
Then he asked,
"I wonder if they make pumpkin?"
It was such an ordinary question.
Three days together.
Three days of driving, eating, laughing, and talking.
And the first real question he asked me was about pie.
I knew what he liked for breakfast.
I knew stories about his work.
His family.
His plans.
I knew how he took his coffee.
I knew he worried about flying.
I knew which subjects made him animated.
Which ones made him quiet.
But somewhere between the airport and home, I found myself wondering what he knew about me.
Not my writing.
Not what I hoped for next.
Not whether I'd enjoyed our time together.
Not whether I wanted to see him again.
The question arrived quietly.
Had we spent three days building the same future?
Or had I been the only one imagining it?
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Writing about identity, uncertainty, emotional endurance, and learning to live inside changed realities.