The post card

The postcard simply read "I love you, come back to me. Shell." I stood frozen in the doorway, unable to take my eyes off of the familiar handwriting. I got one every month, and every month I stood frozen in the doorway. Every month I stared at the jagged handwriting, I stared at the words, willing it to say something else. Willing it to say something more. But it never did. The picture on the postcard was always the same- the same ornate ivory comb sitting next to a silver coin, surrounded by pink and red ribbons, and a hand mirror decorated with tiny pearls. The postcard had no return address, no names. It just had my address and Shell's desperate message. I contacted the landlord after the third postcard, asked for the address of the former tenant; the former tenant, a teacher at a nearby private school claimed to have never heard of a Shell, and decided he wanted nothing to do with the postcards. After the seventh postcard, I started looking up the name "Shell" online and in phone books, first starting out in my city, then my county, then state. But nothing came up, as I had expected. No one named Shell. I had figured it was simply a nickname or perhaps even an elaborate codename belonging to a CIA agent- or a cruel joke on the part of his or her parents.

I didn't, couldn't, tell any of my friends what I was doing, they'd simply think I was crazy for not telling the post office that I kept getting wrongly delivered postcards. But I couldn't go to the post office- what would happen to all those postcards? It was like clockwork, every month, around the 10th, I got a postcard. The same exact postcard with the same message, in the same tight handwriting. Call me a hopeless romantic, or maybe just hopeless, but I expected that one of the days, I would come home to find a man sitting on the stairwell waiting for me. Telling me he's been waiting for me, telling me that I was the one he had been looking for all his life. Telling me that I was wonderful, that I was perfect, telling me how he was going to love me until the skies collapsed and angels fell. Of course this wasn't possible, surely I would remember someone named Shell.

On the days the post card came, I stood on my porch with a glass of wine, watching couples, young and old, holding hands walk in and out of the Italian restaurant across the street. I imagined what it'd be like to have such a persistent lover, and why this person had left Shell. A month went by when nothing came. Then two. I missed the familiar ribbon and comb layout, the familiar handwriting, and the hope that filled my heart every month. Then three months passed. It quickly turned into five, then seven months. I imagined something terrible had happened to this Shell. Always the pessimist, I felt great sadness at the possibility that Shell would never be with his love again. Or that Shell had given up. I couldn't bear the thought that after two years, Shell had to move on.

On Saturday, I shuffled out of the bedroom for a cup of coffee, and noticed Friday's mail that I had simply tossed onto the dining room table at night. I couldn't believe I had missed it. All I needed was to get a glimpse of its corner with red ribbon running through it. I quickly lifted it out from under the bills, and held it in my hand. My heart started racing as I flipped it- "I'm sorry I've been away. I still love you, come back to me. Shell"