And then the postcards began to arrive. It wasn’t just A postcard. It was plural, so very plural that he couldn’t even believe it.
The very first postcard to fall through his mail slot was from New York City. It carried a picture of the Empire State building in all it’s glory. The message side of the card simply said “Wish you were here, Love Emma.” Rolland knew Emma had never been to New York City and it wasn’t written in her famous scrolling hand. Who on Earth could this card be from?
But the next day, when the mail slid through the slot at 3pm on the dot, there they were, three post cards. One with a picture of the Grand Canyon, one with the salt flats of Utah, and a third from Graceland herself. All with the same message, “Wish you were here, Love Emma.”
As the days grew, so too did the distance for the cards. Soon Rolland had amassed pictures of the the street cars of San Francisco, Big Ben, the Great Pyramids of Giza, and tuktuks from the streets of Thailand, among others.
Finding the need to display these postcards, Rolland cleared the living room wall. He began grouping the postcards by continent and pinning them to the wallpaper of tiny rosebuds and baby’s breath that he and Emma had chosen together when they’d renovated the room a decade previously.
Travel had been the bug that bit Emma early in life. She had managed a semester abroad during her short stay in further education, but otherwise had been confined to the edges of their small town upstate Ohio. Emma had kept a peanut butter jar under the sink, tucking away funds any time she didn’t treat herself to something over the years. No new measuring cups in the kitchen, or hand towels in the bathroom, even though the paint lines on the former had begun to fade and the edges of the latter had begun to fray.
She planned elaborate excursions for herself and Rolland, often accompanying the excitement with a new dish found in the frozen foods section of their local grocery store: Peaking Duck, or Enchiladas, or Shepherd’s Pie. Over the meal Emma would explain how they’d fly economy to save as much money for the actual trip rather than waste it on fancy flying — she’d already been on an airplane, that wasn’t where the excitement stemmed from. Then Emma would lay out her dream itinerary for the local sights, sounds, and tastes. The internet was not a foreign object to this elder. Emma worked websites like an experienced travel agent, often book-marking streams of sites in slide-show fashion to share with Rolland.
But something always got in the way. The car needed a new tire, the kitchen sink backed up, the eavestroughing came down in a storm. That jar money was used up quicker than Emma could believe. Always it was her dreams that paid for their unexpected expenses.
When Emma was 65 she found a lump. Ever the cheerleader, Rolland said it would be nothing, they’d go to the doctor and he’d confirm it was nothing, not to worry, it was nothing. And when the chemo made Emma’s hair fall out, Rolland said it was a great time to wear all the colourful hats crocheted over the years and hidden in the back of closets without any recipients. And when the tests confirmed that Emma’s cancer wasn’t responding to treatment, it was the peanut butter jar that let Rolland put a hospital bed in the living room and take care of Emma at home through to her last breath.
The bed had been moved out immediately following the funeral. But the rest of Emma’s belongings remained, like an afterimage of the woman who had filled the unassuming two-bedroom home with such brightness. When they’d bought in the early 70’s, the second bedroom had been an unspoken dream of new members to join their family. But as the years wore on, and Emma’s doctor confirmed, there would be no tiny footsteps scampering through these hallways. Rolland had let Emma consider adoption for a short bit, but they’d both come to the conclusion that travel would be much more difficult with a little hand to hold, and they let the notion fade.
But there were no journeys. Neither modest nor extravagant. The furthest they’d been together was Cleveland to check out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after a friend’s wedding had brought them to town. But even that had only been a weekend away, and away had only been a 3 hour drive.
And here was a postcard from Niagara Falls, on one of Emma’s more realistic lists, a mere 6 hour trek. Rolland still felt the shadow of guilt that he’d never been able to let Emma’s dreams manifest into reality. Between hours on the factory floor, he’d considered a second job, but pain and fatigue always kept him close to home in his off hours. The two of them had been each other’s best friend, rarely making waves in social circles. Emma had her Bridge ladies and Rolland had his tobacco pipe; both finding solace in their activities. Though they’d been ever present during Emma’s downward progression, bringing casseroles and cards of hope, Rolland couldn’t imagine any of those ladies setting up this scheme with the postcards, it was just too elaborate.
Standing in the living room, in front of his wall of postcards, images from across the globe, Rolland let his mind wander down the current ever-present mystery. Where were these cards coming from? The literal answer was easy, they were coming from everywhere! But who had sent them? He knew it was more than one person, as not only were they so frequent, but also each “Wish you were here, Love Emma” was written across the back in so very many different fonts and slants, that each postcard was certain to be from a different hand.
Something like a tingling ran up the back of Rolland’s neck and he had an impulsive idea. Striding over to the kitchen and bending to open the cupboard beneath the sink, his aging bones crackling as he did, Rolland retrieved the peanut-butter jar. The jar itself, still wrapped in it’s long-faded sleeve, felt lighter than ever, but Rolland twisted the top suddenly certain something lay waiting inside. And he was right. Here was a bundle of folded sheafs, feathery against his fingers as he unfolded them to reveal Emma’s familiar script.
The top most page was dated a month before Emma’s passing, the lettering was easy to follow and read, but as he read further, the dated pages moved forward in time and her long-hand became messier, the last of the 5 pages was dated mere days before the end. Rolland felt moisture pricking the edge of his vision, but was still unprepared for the first tear to escape and mark the ink on the page before him.
It took Emma several days to explain in her letter, as fatigue and weakness fought against her determination to compose these ideas to her husband before she passed. Here, in blue markings before his view, Emma told Rolland about her discovery of a website called Reddit, a place where people could write about simply anything. At first she’d stayed in the travel subreddits, reading stories about other people adventuring around the globe and sharing comments with fellow onlookers. But soon she’d branched into topics and lists that had nothing to do with travel, even earning something of a name for herself as a top commenter. It was then that the idea struck her. Emma knew she had a bit of a following, a minor sense of fame, so she wrote openly about her cancer, inviting others to share their own experiences and feelings about how they, too, were facing death. There were heart-wrenching tales about young patients leaving behind partners and children, there were lonely sufferers who had no one to leave behind to remember them, there were women sharing how they’d been gifted a crocheted breast to fill their tops after life-saving mastectomies. All of these people thanked Emma for the opportunity to share their stories in a thread where she always responded, no matter how many people wrote to her or the length of their post.
And then Emma began to explain in her letter how her idea had taken fruition. Emma started a post about this very jar of peanut butter, empty under their sink. She had come to terms long ago, knowing that travel would not be the apex of her existence. She was content with her life, with living vicariously through others, with all the knowledge she’d learned about so many varied places in the world as she had planned her trips. But the one thing that would bring tears to her eyes every time, was the notion of leaving her best friend behind. Emma and Rolland had been high-school sweethearts. They’d never loved anyone else and they loved each other dearly. Emma knew he had few friends and acquaintances who would be around after she was gone. She wanted somehow to reach out to him from beyond the veil. Of course this wasn’t possible, but Emma was a crafty lady. She lay out her plans in a message and gave it an expiry date — she knew she didn’t have much longer.
Emma had somehow, with her words, convinced all these amazing people from all these distant countries to send postcards to her lonely husband for her, suggesting that any postcard, from any where, at any time would do the trick. The simple words were taken from a song they’d both admired in their early 20’s and listened to on many quiet evenings in as they aged. Music was eternal, Emma had been known to say.
Rolland turned over the last page of the letter, finding the words “I love you, Emma” at the bottom and then held the pages to his chest. She had done it, she had reached out to him even after she was gone. He walked back into the living room, staring at her gifts to him, pinned to the wall and whispered silently, “Wish you were here.”
