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.

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.

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.

Garrett

“Deanna, do you have a minute? I need to talk to you.”

Deanna looked up from her computer and took off her reading glasses. “Of course I do. What’s up?”

Theresa laid the three letters on Deanna’s desk without speaking. Deanna picked them up one by one, her eyes widening in surprise.

“Where did you get these other two letters?”

Theresa explained how she’d come across them. When she finished her story, Deanna read the letters in silence. Theresa sat in the chair opposite her.

“Well,” she said, putting down the last letter, “you’ve certainly been keeping a secret, haven’t you?”

Theresa shrugged, and Deanna went on. “But there’s more to this than just finding the letters, isn’t there?”