Message in a Bottle(37)
Author: Nicholas Sparks

Later that evening, as they sorted through the last few pictures, she saw the Garrett she’d fallen in love with. One shot in particular caught her eye, and she held it in front of her for a long time. Noticing her expression, Jeb explained that it had been taken on Memorial Day, a few weeks before the bottle had washed up at the Cape. In it Garrett stood on his back deck, looking much the same as he had the first time she’d come to his house.

When she was finally able to put it down, Jeb gently took it from her.

The following morning he handed her an envelope. Opening it, she saw that he’d given it back to her, along with a number of others. With the pictures were the three letters that had first enabled Theresa and Garrett to come together.

“I think he would want you to have these.”

Too choked up to respond, she nodded a silent thank-you.

*  *  *

Theresa couldn’t remember much about her first few days back in Boston, and in retrospect she knew she didn’t really want to. She did recall that Deanna was waiting for her at Logan Airport when her plane touched down. After taking one look at her, Deanna immediately called her husband, instructing him to bring some clothes to Theresa’s because she planned to stay with her for a few days. Theresa spent most of the time in bed, not even bothering to get up when Kevin came home from school.

“Is my mom ever going to be okay?” Kevin asked.

“She just needs a little time, Kevin,” Deanna answered. “I know it’s hard for you, too, but it’s going to be okay.”

Theresa’s dreams, when she could remember them, were fragmented and disorienting. Surprisingly, Garrett never appeared in them at all. She didn’t know if that was an omen of sorts or even if she should attach any meaning to it. In her daze, she found it difficult to think about anything clearly, and she went to bed early and remained there, cocooned in the soothing darkness for as long as she could.

Sometimes upon awakening, she experienced a split second of confused unreality when the whole thing seemed like a terrible mistake, too absurd to have actually occurred. In that split second, everything would be as it should. She would find herself straining for the sounds of Garrett in the apartment, sure that the empty bed meant only that he was already in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading the paper. She would join him in a moment at the table and shake her head: I had the most terrible dream . . .

Her only other recollection about that week was her relentless need to understand how this could have happened. Before she left Wilmington, she made Jeb promise to call her if he learned anything else about the day Garrett had gone out on Happenstance . In a curious twist of reason, she believed that knowing the details—the why —would somehow lessen her grief. What she refused to believe was that Garrett had sailed into the storm without planning to return. Whenever the phone rang, her hopes rose in the expectation of hearing Jeb’s voice. “I see,” she imagined herself saying. “Yes . . . I understand. That makes sense. . . .”

Of course, deep down, she knew that would never happen. Jeb didn’t call with an explanation that week, nor did the answer come to her in a moment of contemplation. No, the answer eventually came from a place she would never have predicted.

*  *  *

On the beach at Cape Cod, one year later, she reflected without bitterness on the turn of events that had led her to this place. Ready at last, Theresa reached in her bag. After removing the object she had brought with her, she stared at it, reliving the hour in which her answer had finally come. Unlike her recollection of the days immediately following her return to Boston, this memory was still unshakably clear.

After Deanna had left, Theresa had tried to reestablish a routine of sorts. In her confusion over the last week, she’d ignored the aspects of life that nonetheless had gone on. While Deanna had helped with Kevin and kept the house up, she’d simply piled the mail that accumulated in the corner of the dining room. after dinner one night while Kevin was at the movies, Theresa absently began to sort through the pile.

There were a few dozen letters, three magazines, and two packages. One package she recognized as an item she’d ordered from a catalog for Kevin’s birthday. The second, though, was wrapped in plain brown paper without a return address.

This second package was long and rectangular, sealed with extra tape. There were two “Fragile” stickers—one near the address and the other on the opposite side of the box—and another sticker that said “Handle with Care.” Curious, she decided to open it first.

It was then that she saw the postmark from Wilmington, North Carolina, dated from two weeks before. Quickly she scanned the address scrawled on the front.

It was Garrett’s handwriting.

“No . . .” She set the package down, her stomach suddenly tight.

She found a pair of scissors in the drawer and shakily began to cut the tape, pulling at the paper carefully as she did so. She already knew what she’d find inside.

After lifting out the object and checking the rest of the package to make sure nothing was still inside, she carefully loosened the surrounding bubble wrap. It was taped tightly at the top and bottom, and she was forced to use the scissors again. Finally, after prying off the remaining pieces, she set the object on her desk and stared at it for a long moment, unable to move. When she lifted it into better light, she saw her own reflection.

The bottle was corked, and the rolled-up letter inside stood on its end. After removing the cork—he’d corked it only loosely—she tipped it upside-down, and the letter spilled out easily. Like the letter she’d found only a few months before, it was wrapped in yarn. She unrolled it carefully, making sure not to rip it.

It was written with a fountain pen. In the top right corner was a picture of an old ship, sails billowing in the wind.

Dear Theresa,

Can you forgive me?

she laid the letter on the desk. Her throat ached, making it difficult to breathe. The overhead light was making a strange prism of her unbidden tears. She reached for some tissue and rubbed her eyes. Composing herself, she started again.

Can you forgive me?

In a world that I seldom understand, there are winds of destiny that blow when we least expect them. Sometimes they gust with the fury of a hurricane, sometimes they barely fan one’s cheek. But the winds cannot be denied, bringing as they often do a future that is impossible to ignore. You, my darling, are the wind that I did not anticipate, the wind that has gusted more strongly than I ever imagined possible. You are my destiny.

I was wrong, so wrong, to ignore what was obvious, and I beg your forgiveness. Like a cautious traveler, I tried to protect myself from the wind and lost my soul instead. I was a fool to ignore my destiny, but even fools have feelings, and I’ve come to realize that you are the most important thing that I have in this world.

I know I am not perfect. I’ve made more mistakes in the past few months than some make in a lifetime. I was wrong to have acted as I did when I found the letters, just as I was wrong to hide the truth about what I was going through with respect to my past. When I chased you as you drove down the street and again as I watched you leave from the airport, I knew I should have tried harder to stop you. But most of all, I was wrong to deny what was obvious in my heart: that I can’t go on without you.

You were right about everything. When we sat in my kitchen, I tried to deny the things you were saying, even though I knew they were true. Like a man who gazes only backward on a trip across the country, I ignored what lay ahead. I missed the beauty of a coming sunrise, the wonder of anticipation that makes life worthwhile. It was wrong of me to do that, a product of my confusion, and I wish I had come to understand that sooner.

Now, though, with my gaze fixed toward the future, I see your face and hear your voice, certain that this is the path I must follow. It is my deepest wish that you give me one more chance. As you might have guessed, I’m hoping that this bottle will work its magic, as it did once before, and somehow bring us back together.

For the first few days after you left, I wanted to believe that I could go on as I always had. But I couldn’t. Every time I watched the sun go down, I thought of you. Every time I walked by the phone, I yearned to call. Even when I went sailing, I could only think of you and the wonderful times we had. I knew in my heart that my life would never be the same again. I wanted you back, more than I imagined possible, yet whenever I conjured you up, I kept hearing your words in our last conversation. No matter how much I loved you, I knew it wasn’t going to be possible unless we—both of us—were sure I would devote myself fully to the path that lay ahead. I continued to be troubled by these thoughts until late last night when the answer finally came to me. Hopefully, after I tell you about it, it will mean as much to you as it did to me:

In my dream, I saw myself on the beach with Catherine, in the same spot I took you after our lunch at Hank’s. It was bright in the sun, the rays reflecting brilliantly off the sand. As we walked alongside each other, she listened intently as I told her about you, about us, about the wonderful times we shared. Finally, after some hesitation, I admitted that I loved you, but that I felt guilty about it. She said nothing right away but simply kept walking until she finally turned to me and asked, “Why?”

“Because of you.”

Upon hearing my answer, she smiled at me with patient amusement, the way she used to before she died. “Oh, Garrett,” she finally said as she gently touched my face, “who do you think it was that brought the bottle to her?”

Theresa stopped reading. The faint hum of the refrigerator seemed to echo the letter’s words:

Who do you think it was that brought the bottle to her?

leaning back in her chair, she closed her eyes, trying to hold back the tears.

“Garrett,” she murmured, “Garrett . . .”Outside her window, she could hear the sounds of cars passing by. Slowly she began reading again.

When I woke, I felt empty and alone. The dream did not comfort me. Rather, it made me ache inside because of what I had done to us, and I began to cry. When I finally pulled myself together, I knew what I had to do. With shaking hand, I wrote two letters: the one you’re holding in your hand right now, and one to Catherine, in which I finally said my good-bye. Today, I’m taking Happenstance out to send it to her, as I have with all the others. It will be my last letter—Catherine, in her own way, has told me to go on, and I have chosen to listen. Not only to her words, but also to the leanings of my heart that led me back to you.

Oh, Theresa, I am sorry, so very sorry, that I ever hurt you. I am coming to Boston next week with the hope that you find a way to forgive me. Maybe I’m too late now. I don’t know.

Theresa, I love you and always will. I am tired of being alone. I see children crying and laughing as they play in the sand, and I realize I want to have children with you. I want to watch Kevin as he grows into a man. I want to hold your hand and see you cry when he finally takes a bride, I want to kiss you when his dreams come true. I will move to Boston if you ask because I cannot go on this way. I am sick and sad without you. As I sit here in the kitchen, I am praying that you will let me come back to you, this time forever.

Garrett

It was dusk now, and the gray sky was turning dark quickly. Though she’d read the letter a thousand times, it still aroused the same feelings she’d had when she’d first read it. For the past year, those feelings had stalked her every waking moment.

Sitting on the beach, she tried once again to imagine him as he wrote the letter. She ran her finger across the words, tracing the page lightly, knowing his hand had been there before. Fighting back tears, she studied the letter, as she always did after reading it. In spots she saw smudges, as if the pen were leaking slightly while he wrote; it gave the letter a distinctive, almost rushed appearance. Six words had been crossed out, and she looked at those especially closely, wondering what he’d intended to say. As always, she couldn’t tell. Like many things about his last day, it was a secret he’d taken with him. Toward the bottom of the page, she noticed, his handwriting was hard to read, as if he’d been gripping the pen tightly.

When she was finished, she rolled up the letter again and carefully wrapped the yarn around it, preserving it so it would always look the same. She put it back into the bottle and set it off to one side, next to the bag. She knew that when she got home, she would place it back on her bureau, where she always kept it. At night, when the glow of streetlights slanted through her room, the bottle gleamed in the darkness and was usually the last thing she saw before going to sleep.

Next, she reached for the pictures Jeb had given her. She remembered that after she returned from Boston, she’d sifted through them one by one. When her hands began to tremble, she had put them in her drawer and never looked at them again.

But now she thumbed through them, finding the one that had been taken on the back porch. Holding it in front of her, she remembered everything about him—the way he looked and moved, his easy smile, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Perhaps tomorrow, she told herself, she would take in the negative and have another one made, an eight-by-ten that she could set on her nightstand, the same way he had with Catherine’s picture. Then she smiled sadly, realizing even now that she wouldn’t go through with it. The photos would go back into her drawer where they had been before, beneath her socks and next to the pearl earrings her grandmother had given her. It would hurt too much to see his face every day, and she wasn’t ready for that yet.

Since the funeral, she’d kept in sporadic contact with Jeb, calling every now and then to see how he was doing. The first time she called, she had explained to him what she had discovered about why Garrett had taken Happenstance out that day, and they both ended up weeping on the phone. As the months rolled on, however, they were eventually able to mention his name without tears, and Jeb would fall to describing his memories of Garrett as a child or relating to Theresa over and over the things he’d said about her in their long absences apart.