by Sarah Jio
“When are you coming?” Bee never wastes words.
“Is tomorrow too soon?”
“Tomorrow,” she said, “is the first of March, the month the sound is at its best, dear. It’s absolutely alive.”
I knew what she meant when she said it. The churning gray water. The kelp and the seaweed and barnacles. I could almost taste the salty air. Bee believed that the Puget Sound was the great healer. And I knew that when I arrived, she would encourage me to take my shoes off and go wading, even if it was one o’clock in the morning—even if it was forty-three degrees, which it probably would be.
“And, Emily?”
“Yes?”
“There’s something important that we need to talk about.”
“What is it?”
“Not now. Not over the phone. When you get here, dear.”
After I hung up, I walked downstairs to the mailbox to find a credit card bill, a Victoria’s Secret catalog—addressed to Joel—and a large square envelope. I recognized the return address, and it only took me a moment to remember where I’d seen it: on the divorce papers. There was also the fact that I’d Googled it the week before. It was Joel’s new town house on Fifty-seventh—the one he was sharing with Stephanie.
The adrenaline started pumping when I considered the fact that Joel could have been reaching out to me. Maybe he was sending me a letter, a card—no, a romantic beginning to a scavenger hunt: an invitation to meet him somewhere in the city, where there’d be another clue, and then after four more, there he’d be, standing in front of the hotel where we met so many years ago. And he’d be holding a rose—no, a sign, and it would read, I’M SORRY. I LOVE YOU. FORGIVE ME. Exactly like that. It could be the perfect ending to a tragic romance. Give us a happy ending, Joel, I found myself whispering as I ran my finger along the envelope. He still loves me. He still feels something.
But when I lifted the edge of the envelope and carefully pulled out the gold-tinged card inside, the fantasy came to a crashing halt. All I could do was stare.
The thick card stock. The fancy calligraphy. It was a wedding invitation. His wedding invitation. Six p.m. Dinner. Dancing. A celebration of love. Beef or chicken. Accepts with pleasure. Declines with regret. I walked to the kitchen, calmly bypassing the recycle bin, and instead set the little stack of gold stationery right into the kitchen trash, on top of a take-out box of moldy chicken chow mein.
Fumbling with the rest of the mail, I dropped a magazine, and when I reached down to pick it up, I saw the postcard from Bee, which had been hiding in the pages of The New Yorker. The front featured a ferry boat, white with green trim, coming into Eagle Harbor. I flipped it over and read:
Emily,
The island has a way of calling one back when it’s time. Come home. I have missed you, dear.
All my love,
Bee
I pressed the postcard to my chest and exhaled deeply.
