Return Address

Clara Voss hadn't planned to think about Marcus Reilly on the drive back to Millhaven. She'd planned to think about the boxes she needed to pack, the estate agent she needed to call, the three weeks of leave she'd burned to do this. She'd planned to be efficient.

But the town appeared out of the fog at the bottom of the valley exactly the way it always had — the church steeple first, then the maple-lined main street, then the pale yellow roof of the house she grew up in — and her throat tightened in a way that had nothing to do with efficiency.

Her mother was waiting at the door, smaller than Clara remembered.

"You look tired," her mother said, which was her mother's way of saying I missed you.

"Long drive," Clara said, which was her way of saying I missed you too.

The house smelled of cedar and old paper, the way it always had. Clara dropped her bag in her childhood bedroom and stood still for a moment, surprised by how much fit: the same quilt, the same crack in the ceiling, the same window that stuck unless you lifted it at an angle. Ten years had not changed this room at all.

She started with the bookshelves.

She was two shelves in when her foot caught the loose board near the bed — the one that had always squeaked, that she'd always meant to fix and never had. She crouched to check it, and that was when she saw the envelope.

It had slipped down into the gap between the floorboard and the baseboard, protected from dust by the bed frame above it. She worked it free carefully, as if it might dissolve.

Her name was written on the front in handwriting she would have recognized anywhere.

Marcus.

She turned it over. The seal was intact — never opened. In the upper corner, a postmark: June 3rd. Eleven years ago. The day she left for university. The day she drove out of Millhaven without saying a single goodbye to anyone, because she'd been afraid that if she said goodbye, she would stay.

She sat on the edge of her old bed and held the letter for a long time.

The light changed. Her mother called her for dinner. She set the letter on the nightstand, face down, and went downstairs.

She would read it after she ate. After she had time to think. After she was ready.

Her phone buzzed on the way down the stairs. A contact suggestion: Marcus Reilly, 0.2 miles away.

She missed the step.