The woman was speaking to Ben, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was watching the other people in the park—the couple discreetly sharing a bottle of wine on a blanket, the jogger curled over the water fountain, the teenager reading at the base of a tree.
The woman’s phone suddenly rang in her purse, and she looked down at the screen.
“Oh shoot, I’ve got to run,” she apologized. But then her lips unfurled in an unexpected grin, and she looked up at Ben. “You know, I used to only mean that as an expression, because I couldn’t actually run, without literally gasping for air. But that phone call was from my friend,” she explained. “Now that I’m two months post-op, we’re going to start walking together, and then jogging. And then, next year, I’m going to run a half marathon.”
Ben smiled at the girl’s confidence in her own prediction. “Good luck,” he told her.
After the woman walked away, Ben stared at the peach-colored roses she had placed on the ground. How many people would walk past them and wonder why they were here, who they were meant for? Perhaps some of them might actually know.
On his way out of the park and back to the subway, Ben passed by the same black-and-white mural as before, but this time he wasn’t afraid to step closer. As he looked at Pandora’s distraught face and the empty box in her hands, he noticed that something had been painted on top of the mural that he hadn’t seen from farther away. It must have been added by a different artist, Ben reasoned, using bright blue paint and a thinner brush.
Only a small section of the box’s interior had been left visible by the original muralist, but it was here, in a dark corner of the chest, that a second artist had come along and inscribed a single word, Hope.
Amie
On Monday morning, Amie found the letter in her classroom.
She was stunned to see it addressed to her by name, rather than just her initial. She tried to recall if she had accidentally revealed her name in a previous note, but she didn’t think she had, and when she flipped the page over to the other side, she saw that the author had signed with his name, too.
Dear Amie,
I once heard about this remote island in the Galápagos, where only a hundred people live nowadays, but back in the 18th century, some whalers set up an empty barrel on the shore to serve as a makeshift “post office.” And they started this tradition where any ships passing through the island would take letters out of the barrel and carry them back to England or America or wherever they were coming from, essentially delivering the mail on behalf of their fellow sailors. To this day, visitors can still leave their own postcards or letters inside the barrel—no stamp required—in exchange for taking somebody else’s letter out and promising to deliver it to its rightful recipient. I haven’t seen any statistics, but supposedly the system works surprisingly well.
I’m not sure why I’m telling you this, other than maybe it makes me believe that even in the strangest of circumstances, a letter can find its way to the right person.
Somehow, months ago, my letter found its way to you.
And, as crazy as it sounds, we actually found our way to each other, and I realized that you worked at the very school where I’ve sat every Sunday night since April, in a support group for short-stringers. （This group is also where I met Maura, but I haven’t told her about these letters, or about you.）
I spent most of my twenties worrying about how my boss would react to my designs, or whether I was making as much money as I should be, or if I finally had the life that would make my old classmates see me as someone bigger and stronger than the nerdy boy they had known. And of course, those things—building a career, making money—are still important, but they’re not the only things that matter. The strings have made that clearer than ever.
I can see now, as an adult, that my parents gave me two wonderful gifts: They modeled what a true, loving partnership looks like, and they built me a childhood where I always felt safe and protected, never scared.
I think I could do that, too. Be a good partner to the person I love, and pass on to my kids the greatest legacy of my parents.
I’m sorry, Amie. I’m sorry for the shock that this letter will bring, and I’m sorry because you once asked me to write about little things, and this is perhaps the biggest thing of all. But you also said that we could each find our own measure of happiness.
A stranger recently told me that she didn’t want to waste any time feeling sad. She just wanted to live as much life as possible. And I think that’s as good a measure as any.