Message in a Bottle (36 page)

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

? INCLUDEPICTURE “D:\\AVEL MIRC EBOOKS\\nicholas sparks\\..\\swish.jpg” \* MERGEFORMATINET ???

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

? INCLUDEPICTURE “D:\\AVEL MIRC EBOOKS\\nicholas sparks\\..\\swish.jpg” \* MERGEFORMATINET ???

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.

In July Theresa and Kevin flew to Florida and went scuba diving in the Keys. The water there, as in North Carolina, was warm, though much clearer. They spent eight days there, diving every morning and relaxing on the beach in the afternoon. On their way back to Boston, they both decided they would do it again the following year. For his birthday, Kevin asked for a subscription to a diving magazine. Ironically, the first issue included a story about the shipwrecks off the North Carolina coast, including the one in shallow water they had visited with Garrett.

Though she’d been asked, she hadn’t dated anyone since Garrett’s death. People at work, with the exception of Deanna, tried repeatedly to set her up with various men. All were described as handsome and eligible, but she politely declined every invitation. Now and then she overheard her colleagues’ whispers: “I don’t understand why she’s giving up,” or, “She’s still young and attractive.” Others, who were more understanding, simply observed that she’d eventually recover, in her own time.

It was a phone call from Jeb three weeks ago that had led her back to Cape Cod. When she listened to his gentle voice, quietly suggesting that it was time to move on, the walls she’d built finally began to collapse. She cried for most of the night, but the following morning she knew what she had to do. She made the arrangements to return here—easy enough, since it was off-season. And it was then that her healing finally began.

As she stood on the beach, she wondered if anyone could see her. She glanced from side to side, but it was deserted. Only the ocean appeared to be moving, and she was drawn to its fury. The water looked angry and dangerous: it was not the romantic place she remembered it to be. She watched it for a long time, thinking of Garrett, until she heard the growl of thunder echo through the winter sky.

The wind picked up, and she felt her mind drift with it. Why, she wondered, had it ended the way it had? She didn’t know. Another gust and she felt him beside her, brushing the hair from her face. He had done that when they said good-bye, and she felt his touch once more. There were so many things she wished she could change about that day, so many regrets. . . .

Now, alone with her thoughts, she loved him. She would always love him. She’d known it from the moment she saw him on the docks, and she knew it now. Neither the passage of time nor his death could change the way she felt. She closed her eyes, whispering to him as she did so.

“I miss you, Garrett Blake,” she said softly. And for a moment, she imagined he’d somehow heard her, because the wind suddenly died and the air became still.

The first few raindrops were beginning to fall by the time she uncorked the simple clear bottle she was holding so tightly and removed the letter she had written to him yesterday, the letter she had come to send. After unrolling it, she held it before her, the same way she held the first letter she’d ever found. The little light that remained was barely enough for her to see the words, but she knew them all by heart, anyway. Her hands shook slightly as she began reading.

? INCLUDEPICTURE “D:\\AVEL MIRC EBOOKS\\nicholas sparks\\..\\swish.jpg” \* MERGEFORMATINET ???

My Darling,

One year has passed since I sat with your father in the kitchen. It is late at night and though the words are coming hard to me, I can’t escape the feeling that it’s time that I finally answer your question.

Of course I forgive you. I forgive you now, and I forgave you the moment I read your letter. In my heart, I had no other choice. Leaving you once was hard enough; to have done it a second time would have been impossible. I loved you too much to have let you go again. Though I’m still grieving over what might have been, I find myself thankful that you came into my life for even a short period of time. In the beginning, I’d assumed that we were somehow brought together to help you through your time of grief. Yet now, one year later, I’ve come to believe that it was the other way around.

Ironically, I am in the same position you were, the first time we met. As I write, I am struggling with the ghost of someone I loved and lost. I now understand more fully the difficulties you were going through, and I realize how painful it must have been for you to move on. Sometimes my grief is overwhelming, and even though I understand that we will never see each other again, there is a part of me that wants to hold on to you forever. It would be easy for me to do that because loving someone else might diminish my memories of you. Yet, this is the paradox: Even though I miss you greatly, it’s because of you that I don’t dread the future. Because you were able to fall in love with me, you have given me hope, my darling. You taught me that it’s possible to move forward in life, no matter how terrible your grief. And in your own way, you’ve made me believe that true love cannot be denied.

Right now, I don’t think I’m ready, but this is my choice. Do not blame yourself. Because of you, I am hopeful that there will come a day when my sadness is replaced by something beautiful. Because of you, I have the strength to go on.

I don’t know if spirits do indeed roam the world, but even if they do, I will sense your presence everywhere. When I listen to the ocean, it will be your whispers; when I see a dazzling sunset, it will be your image in the sky. You are not gone forever, no matter who comes into my life. You are standing with God, alongside my soul, helping to guide me toward a future that I cannot predict.

This is not a good-bye, my darling, this is a thank-you. Thank you for coming into my life and giving me joy, thank you for loving me and receiving my love in return. Thank you for the memories I will cherish forever. But most of all, thank you for showing me that there will come a time when I can eventually let you go.

I love you,

T

? INCLUDEPICTURE “D:\\AVEL MIRC EBOOKS\\nicholas sparks\\..\\swish.jpg” \* MERGEFORMATINET ???

After reading the letter for the last time, Theresa rolled it up and sealed it in the bottle. She turned it over a few times, knowing that her journey had come full circle. Finally, when she knew she could wait no longer, she threw it out as far as she could.

It was then that a strong wind picked up and the fog began to part. Theresa stood in silence and stared at the bottle as it began to float out to sea. And even though she knew it was impossible, she imagined that the bottle would never drift ashore. It would travel the world forever, drifting by faraway places she herself would never see.

When the bottle vanished from sight a few minutes later, she started back to the car. Walking in silence in the rain, Theresa smiled softly. She didn’t know when or where or if it would ever turn up, but it didn’t really matter. Somehow she knew that Garrett would get the message.