The Return

Rising from the table, Hope moved to the kitchen window. As her mind wandered, she realized that she could see Tru walking past the cottage with a fishing pole draped over his shoulder, a tackle box in his other hand, and she watched as he turned to face her. He waved, and in response, she reached out, touching the glass.

“I never stopped loving you,” she whispered, but the glass was cold and the kitchen was quiet, and when she blinked she realized that the beach was entirely deserted.

* * *

Twenty minutes to go, one item left. It was a photocopy of a letter she’d written last year. She’d placed the original in Kindred Spirit on her previous trip to the beach, and as she unfolded the copy, she told herself how silly her gesture had been. A letter means nothing if the intended recipient never receives it, and Tru would never learn of it. Yet in the letter, she’d made a promise to herself, one that she intended to keep. If nothing else, she hoped it would give her the strength she needed to finally say goodbye.

This is a letter to God and the Universe.

I need your help, in what I imagine will be my last attempt to apologize for a decision I made so long ago. My story is both straightforward and complicated. To capture accurately all that happened would require a book, so instead, I will offer only the basics:

In September of 1990, while visiting Sunset Beach, I met a man from Zimbabwe named Tru Walls. At the time, he worked as a safari guide at a camp in the Hwange reserve. He also had a home in Bulawayo, but he’d grown up on a farm near Harare. He was forty-two, divorced, and had a ten-year-old son named Andrew. We met on a Wednesday morning, and I’d fallen in love with him by Thursday evening.

You may think this impossible, that perhaps I’m confusing infatuation with love. All I can say is that I’ve considered those possibilities a thousand times and rejected them. If you met him, you would understand why he captured my heart; if you had seen the two of us together, you would know that the feelings we had for each other were undeniably real. In the short period we were together, I like to think that we became soul mates, forever intertwined. By Sunday, however, it was over. And I was the one who ended it, for reasons I have agonized over for decades.

It was the right decision at the time; it was also the wrong decision. I would do the same thing again; I would have done it all differently. This confusion remains with me even now, but I have learned to accept that I will never rid myself of the questions.

Needless to say, my decision crushed him. My guilt over this continues to haunt me. I have now reached a point in life where making amends whenever possible feels important. And this is where God and the Universe can help, for my plea is a simple one.

I would like to see Tru again so that I can apologize to him. I want his forgiveness, if something like that is even possible. In my dreams, I’m hopeful that this will give me peace of mind; I need him to understand how much I loved him then, and still love him now. And I want him to know how sorry I am.

Perhaps you are wondering why I did not try to contact him through more conventional means. I did; I tried for years to find him, without luck. Nor do I really believe this letter will reach him, but if it does, then I will ask if he remembers the place that we visited together on Thursday afternoon, right before it began to rain.

This is where I’ll be on October 16, 2014. If he remembers the place with the same reverence I do, then he’ll also know what time of day I’ll be there.

Hope

* * *

Eyeing the clock, Hope knew that Kindred Spirit was waiting. She put the items back in the box and closed the lid with finality, already knowing that she wouldn’t return the box to the attic, nor would she bring the contents home. The box itself would be left here at the cottage, on the mantel, and the owner could do with it whatever he wanted. Aside from the wedding invitation, the rest of the contents would be left at Kindred Spirit later in the week. She needed a day or two to erase their identities, but she hoped that other visitors would revel in the items, as she and Tru had once treasured Joe’s letter to Lena. She wanted people to know that love often lies in wait, ready to bloom when least expected.

The drive was straightforward, a route she knew like the back of her hand. She crossed over the newer bridge at Sunset Beach, drove past the pier to the western edge of the island, and found a place to park.

Bundling up, she trudged slowly through the low-slung dunes, relieved to see that as much as the island had changed, the beach was still the same. Storms and hurricanes as well as currents were continually altering the barrier islands along North Carolina’s coast, but Sunset Beach appeared relatively immune, even though she’d heard last year that Bird Island could now be accessed on foot even when it wasn’t low tide.

The sand was spongy, leaving her winded, and her legs felt leaden. When she reached the western edge of Sunset Beach, she glanced over her shoulder. She saw no one else walking in the same direction, only a lonely stretch of sand with gentle waves lapping along the shoreline. A brown pelican skimmed the breakers, and she watched until it became nothing but a speck in the distance.

Gathering herself, she started forward again, crossing the hard-packed sand gully that had been submerged only hours before. As soon as she reached Bird Island, the wind, which had been blowing steadily, ceased, as though welcoming her home. The air itself felt thinner and filmy here, and the sun, now ascendant, made her squint as it reflected off the prism of the sea. In the sudden silence, Hope understood that she’d been lying to herself ever since she’d arrived. She wasn’t making this trek to say goodbye. She’d come here because she still wanted to believe in the impossible. She’d come because part of her clung irrationally to the belief that Kindred Spirit held the key to their future. She’d come today because she longed with every cell of her body to believe that Tru had somehow learned about her letter and would be here, waiting.

Logically, she understood how crazy it was to wish for such a thing, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Tru would be there. With every step, his presence seemed closer. She heard his voice in the endless roar of the ocean, and despite the chill, she felt herself growing warmer. The sand clawed at her, grabbing every step, but she increased her pace. Her breath came out in little puffs; her heart began to race, but still she pressed onward. Terns and gulls clustered in groups while sandpipers darted in and out of the gently lapping waves. She felt a sudden kinship with them, for she knew they would be the only witnesses to a reunion that had been twenty-four years in the making. They would watch as she fell into his arms; they would hear him proclaim that he’d never stopped loving her. He would spin her around and kiss her, and they would rush back to the cottage, eager to make up for lost time…

A sudden gust of wind broke her from her reverie. A hard gust, enough to make her feel unsteady on her feet, and she thought:

Who am I kidding?

She was a fool, a believer in fairy tales, in thrall to memories that now kept her prisoner. There was no one standing near the water’s edge or approaching in the distance. She was alone out here, and the certainty she’d felt regarding Tru’s presence slipped away as quickly as it had come. He won’t be here, she chided herself. He couldn’t be here, because he knew nothing about the letter.

Breathing hard, Hope slowed, focusing her energy blindly on placing one foot in front of the other. Minutes passed. Ten, then fifteen. By this point, she felt she was progressing by mere inches with every step. Finally, she was able to spot the American flag in the distance, furling and unfurling in the breeze, and knew it was time to start angling away from the water’s edge.