I reached out, my fingers brushing against his as I took it. On the back, the postmark was clearly stamped July 14, 1972, addressed to me at my sister’s house on Cherry Street.
“I never saw this, Daniel,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. “I never knew you wrote to me after the hospital.”
“I mailed it the day they cleared me for travel,” Daniel said, his eyes fixed on the postcard. “I wanted to let you know I was coming home.”
Across the front of my name, written in thick, red wax pencil, was a single word that made my throat go dry.
Undeliverable.
“But I was there,” I said, my fingers smoothing my skirt again and again. “I lived with Clara all through that hot summer. I never went anywhere.”
Daniel rotated the watch on his wrist, the metal band catching the morning light. “My father told me you had gone. He said you could not bear to stay in Oakhaven after the second year.”
“I was right here,” I said. “I spent every afternoon on the front porch waiting for the mail carrier.”
He looked at the steam rising from his coffee mug but did not reach for it.
