Message in a Bottle (7 page)

Here and now, she knew such a man existed—a man who was now alone—and knowing that made something inside her tighten. It seemed obvious that Catherine—whoever she was—was probably dead, or at least missing without explanation. Yet Garrett still loved her enough to send love letters to her for at least three years. If nothing else, he had proven that he was capable of loving someone deeply and, more important, remaining fully committed—even long after his loved one was gone.

Where are you?

It kept ringing through her head, like a song she heard on early morning radio that kept repeating itself the entire afternoon.

Where are you?

She didn’t know exactly, but he did exist, and one of the things she had learned early in her life was that if you discovered something that made you tighten inside, you had better try to learn more about it. If you simply ignored the feeling, you would never know what might happen, and in many ways that was worse than finding out you were wrong in the first place. Because if you were wrong, you could go forward in your life without ever looking back over your shoulder and wondering what might have been.

But where would this all lead? And what did it mean? Had the discovery of the letter been somehow fated, or was it simply a coincidence? Or maybe, she thought, it was simply a reminder of what she was missing in her life. She twirled her hair absently as she pondered the last question. Okay, she decided. I can live with that.

But she was curious about the mysterious writer, and there was no sense in denying it—at least to herself. And because no one else would understand it (how could they, if she didn’t?), she resolved then and there not to tell anyone about what she was feeling.

Where are you?

Deep down she knew the computer searches and fascination with Garrett would lead to nothing at all. It would gradually pass into some sort of unusual story that she would retell time and time again. She would go on with her life—writing her column, spending time with Kevin, doing all the things a single parent had to do.

And she was almost right. Her life would have proceeded exactly as she imagined. But something happened three days later that caused her to charge into the unknown with only a suitcase full of clothes and a stack of papers that may or may not have meant anything.

She discovered a third letter from Garrett.

The day she discovered the third letter, she had of course expected nothing unusual. It was a typical midsummer day in Boston—hot, humid, with the same news that usually accompanied such weather—a few assaults brought on by aggravated tensions and two early afternoon murders by people who had taken it too far.

Theresa was in the newsroom, researching a topic on autistic children. The Boston Times had an excellent database of articles published in previous years from a variety of magazines. Through her computer she could also access the library at Harvard University or Boston University, and the addition of literally hundreds of thousands of articles they had at their disposal made any search much easier and less time-consuming than it had been even a few years ago.

In a couple of hours she had been able to find almost thirty articles written in the last three years that had been published in journals she had never heard of, and six of the titles looked interesting enough to possibly use. Since she would be passing by Harvard on the way home, she decided to pick them up then.

As she was about to turn off her computer, a thought suddenly crossed her mind and she stopped. Why not? she asked herself. It’s a long shot, but what can I lose? She sat down at her desk, accessed the database at Harvard again, and typed in the words

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

Because articles in the library system were indexed by subject or headline, she chose to scan by headlines to speed up the search. Subject searches usually produced more articles, but weeding through them was a laborious process, and she didn’t have time to do it now. After hitting the return key, she leaned back and waited for the computer to retrieve the information she requested.

The response surprised her—a dozen different articles had been written on the subject in the last few years. Most of those were published by scientific journals, and their titles seemed to suggest that bottles were being used in various endeavors to learn about ocean currents.

Three articles seemed interesting, though, and she jotted down the titles, deciding to pick those up as well.

Traffic was heavy and slow, and it took longer than she thought it would to get to the library and copy the nine articles she was looking for. She got home late, and after ordering in from the local Chinese restaurant, she sat on the couch with the three articles on messages in bottles in front of her.

An article published in Yankee magazine in March of the previous year was the first one she picked up. It related some history about messages in bottles and chronicled stories about bottles that had washed up in New England over the past few years. Some of the letters that had been found were truly memorable. She especially enjoyed reading about Paolina and Ake Viking.

Paolina’s father had found a message in a bottle that had been sent by Ake, a young Swedish sailor. Ake, who had grown bored during one of his many trips at sea, asked for any pretty woman who found it to write back. The father gave it to Paolina, who in turn wrote to Ake. One letter led to another, and when Ake finally traveled to Sicily to meet her, they realized how much they were in love. They married soon after.

Toward the end of the article, she came across two paragraphs that told of yet another message that had washed up on the beaches of Long Island:

Most messages sent by bottle usually ask the finder to respond once with little hope of a lifelong correspondence. Sometimes, however, the senders do not want a response. One such letter, a moving tribute to a lost love, was discovered washed up on Long Island last year. In part it read:

“Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face—I know it is an impossibility, but I cannot help myself. My search for you is a never-ending quest that is doomed to fail. You and I had talked about what would happen if we were forced apart by circumstance, but I cannot keep the promise I made to you that night. I am sorry, my darling, but there will never be another to replace you. The words I whispered to you were folly, and I should have realized it then. You—and you alone—have always been the only thing I wanted, and now that you are gone, I have no desire to find another. Till death do us part, we whispered in the church, and I’ve come to believe that the words will ring true until the day finally comes when I, too, am taken from this world.”

She stopped eating and abruptly put down her fork.

It can’t be! She found herself staring at the words. It’s simply not possible. . . .

But . . .

but . . . who else could it be?

She wiped her brow, aware that her hands were suddenly shaking. Another letter? She flipped to the front of the article and looked at the author’s name. It had been written by Arthur Shendakin, Ph.D., a professor of history at Boston College, meaning . . .

he must live in the area.

She jumped up and retrieved the phone book on the stand near the dining room table. She thumbed through it, looking for the name. There were fewer than a dozen Shendakins listed, although only two seemed like a possibility. Both had “A” listed as the first initial, and she checked her watch before dialing. Nine-thirty. Late, but not too late. She punched in the numbers. The first call was answered by a woman who said she had the wrong number, and when she put down the phone, she noticed her throat had gone dry. She went to the kitchen and filled a glass with water. After taking a long drink, she took a deep breath and went back to the phone.

She made sure she dialed the correct number and waited as the phone started to ring.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

On the fourth ring she began to lose hope, but on the fifth ring she heard the other line pick up.

“Hello,” a man said. By the sound of his voice, she thought he must be in his sixties.

She cleared her throat.

“Hello, this is Theresa Osborne of the Boston Times. Is this Arthur Shendakin?”

“Yes, it is,” he answered, sounding surprised.

Keep calm, she told herself.

“Oh, hi. I was just calling to find out if this is the same Arthur Shendakin who had an article published last year in Yankee magazine about messages in bottles.”

“Yes, I wrote that. How can I help you?”

Her hands felt sweaty on the receiver. “I was curious about one of the messages you said had washed up on Long Island. Do you remember which letter I’m talking about?”

“Can I ask why you’re interested?”

“Well,” she began, “the Times is thinking of doing an article on the same topic, and we were interested in obtaining a copy of the letter.”

She winced at her own lie, but telling the truth seemed worse. How would that have sounded? Oh, hi, I’m infatuated with a mysterious man who sends messages in bottles, and I’m wondering if the letter that you found was written by him as well. . . .

He answered slowly. “Well, I don’t know. That was the letter that inspired me to write the articles . . . I’d have to think about it.”

Theresa’s throat tightened. “So, you have the letter?”

“Yes. I found it a couple of years ago.”

“Mr. Shendakin, I know this is an unusual request, but I can tell you that if you let us use the letter, we’d be happy to pay you a small sum. And we don’t need the actual letter. A copy of it will do, so you really wouldn’t be giving anything up.”

She could tell the request surprised him.

“How much are we talking about?”

I don’t know, I’m making all this up on the fly. How much do you want?

“We’re willing to offer three hundred dollars, and of course, you’ll be properly credited as the person who found it.”

He paused for a moment, considering. Theresa chimed back in before he could formulate a rejection.

“Mr. Shendakin, I’m sure there’s a part of you that’s worried about the similarity between your article and what the newspaper intends to print. I can assure you that they will be very different. The article that we’re doing is mainly about the direction that bottles travel—you know, ocean currents and all that. We just want some actual letters that will provide some sort of human interest to our readers.”

Where did that come from?

“Well . . .”

“Please, Mr. Shendakin. It would really mean a lot to me.”

He was silent for a moment.

“Just a copy?”

Yes!

“Yes, of course. I can give you a fax number, or you can send it. Should I make the check out to you?”

He paused again before answering. “I . . . I suppose so.” He sounded as though he’d been somehow maneuvered into a corner and didn’t know how to get out.

“Thanks, Mr. Shendakin.” Before he could change his mind, Theresa gave him the fax number, took his address, and made a note to pick up a money order the following day. She thought it might look suspicious if she sent one of her personal checks.

*  *  *

The next day, after calling the professor’s office at Boston College to leave a message for him that the payment had been sent, she went to work with her head spinning. The possible existence of a third letter made it difficult to think of anything else. True, there still wasn’t any guarantee that the letter was from the same person, but if it was, she didn’t know what she would do. She’d thought about Garrett almost all night, trying to picture what he looked like, imagining things he liked to do. She didn’t understand quite what she was feeling, but in the end she finally decided to let the letter decide things. If it wasn’t from Garrett, she would end all this now. She wouldn’t use her computer to search for him, she wouldn’t look for evidence of any other letters. And if she found herself continuing to obsess, she would throw the two letters away. Curiosity was fine as long as it didn’t take over your life—and she wouldn’t let that happen.

But, on the other hand, if the letter was from Garrett . . .

She still didn’t know what she would do then. Part of her hoped it wouldn’t be, so she wouldn’t have to make that decision.

When she got to her desk, she purposely waited before going to the fax machine. She turned on her computer, called two physicians she needed to speak with about the column she was writing, and jotted a few notes on possible other topics. By the time she had finished her busywork, she had almost convinced herself that the letter wouldn’t be from him. There are probably thousands of letters floating around in the ocean, she told herself. Odds are it’s someone else.

She finally went to the fax machine when she couldn’t think of anything else to do and began to look through the stack. It hadn’t been sorted yet, and there were a few dozen pages addressed to various people. In the middle of the stack, she found a cover letter addressed to her. With it were two more pages, and when she looked more closely at them, the first thing she noticed—as she had with the other two letters—was the sailing ship embossed in the upper right corner. But this one was shorter than the other letters, and she read it before she got back to her desk. The final paragraph was the one she had seen in Arthur Shendakin’s article.

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September 25, 1995

Dear Catherine,

A month has passed since I’ve written, but it has seemed to pass much more slowly. Life passes by now like the scenery outside a car window. I breathe and eat and sleep as I always did, but there seems to be no great purpose in my life that requires active participation on my part. I simply drift along like the messages I write you. I do not know where I am going or when I will get there.

Even work does not take the pain away. I may be diving for my own pleasure or showing others how to do so, but when I return to the shop, it seems empty without you. I stock and order as I always did, but even now, I sometimes glance over my shoulder without thinking and call for you. As I write this note to you, I wonder when, or if, things like that will ever stop.