Tammy leans back in her chair and crosses her legs. “Aunt Elsie donated her body to science. Apparently, they might use it for up to two years, then they’re supposed to cremate whatever’s left and scatter the ashes over the Gulf.”
“That’s nice,” I say, trying to convince myself. “I know she loved the water.”
“Did she?” Tammy looks doubtful.
Did she even know her aunt? Or is the little I know not even true? I clear my throat. “Do you know anything about what happened while she was serving in Korea? When she was declared deceased?”
“Nowthatshe talked about. Aunt Elsie loved to tell everyone how she was dead for a short time. It was one of her favorite stories.”
“Maybe you can fill in some blanks for me then,” I say. “I figured out from my research that it was some sort of clerical issue, but do you know how it happened?”
“There was a helicopter accident. Aunt Elsie and some other nurses were flying to help out at an understaffed hospital near... what’s that place called? Inky... Inchy... Incheon! That’s it. Anyway, she broke her leg and a bunch of ribs in the crash, but the pilot and another nurse were killed. The nurse who died, her name was Elise Bruhn. So Elise Bruhn and Elsie Brown both on the same downed helicopter, one dead and one injured—some wires got crossed somewhere along the line, and Elsie was administratively deceased for a week or so, until someone noticed the error.”
Elsie Brown and Elise Bruhn, both Navy nurses, serving on the same ship, traveling in the same helicopter when it crashed. Geez. In college, I knew three Andrews who all lived in one dorm room and I thoughtthatwas confusing.
Tammy smiles politely. “Does that solve the mystery?” she asks.
I nod. “One of Mrs. Nash’s letters to Elsie was returned to sender with a stamp that said deceased. She never knew that Elsie was still alive.” That familiar guilt creeps up on me again. If only I looked into this sooner. If only I found Elsie before Mrs. Nash died, then maybe...
“I don’t understand. Wouldn’t Aunt Elsie have written to her to let her know what happened?”
“The letter that was returned said that Mrs. Nash’s husband got a new job, and they were moving from Chicago to DC. So Elsie never got their new address. She probably had no way of finding out what happened to Mrs. Nash. No way of knowing where she went.”
“How sad,” Tammy says, turning her cup a few degrees clockwise. “Well, if they were as close as you seem to think.”
I guess when she called and seemed so glad to catch me before I left town, I hoped Tammy might want to cry and reminisce with me, mourn our respective yet mutual losses. I hoped she would be eager to share everything about Elsie that I wanted to share about Mrs. Nash, and that we could use each other’s memories to form a more complete picture of the love story that inadvertently brought us together. But Tammy is apparently not the crying-and- reminiscing type. She isn’t all that curious to learn about the woman who loved her great-aunt so much and for so long. Our interaction feels businesslike and stiff, no matter how much she smiles and nods.
I want to get out of here. I don’t know where I’ll go since I can’t go back to Hollis. Another hotel I guess, somewhere else on the island.
“You said you have letters for me.” I mean to pose it as a question, but it comes out as a statement that sounds kind of rude. Honestly, my emotions are thoroughly shot; there’s not much energy left for pretending to be polite anymore, and Tammy isn’t making me particularly inclined to care.
Luckily, she doesn’t appear to care either. “Right, yes,” she says, pulling a large, yellow, clasp envelope from her briefcase.“Here you go. This is everything Elsie told me to give to Rose’s pigeon.”
The packaging makes me feel like we’re spies performing the world’s least-covert handoff of confidential information. My fingers tremble as I pinch the metal clasp together and open the flap. I stare blankly at the contents, trying to figure out what I’m looking at. I expected a stack of beaten-up opened envelopes, or a bundle of folded, aged paper like the one I have in my backpack. But there’s just one sealed standard envelope and a small book with a worn brown leather cover.
I pull out the envelope, which is crisp and white. It looks brand-new. Like taken straight out of an office supply closet this morning. “I don’t understand,” I say. “I thought you said letters, plural. I assumed you were going to give me the letters Rose wrote to Elsie.”
“Oh, sorry, no. I don’t think Elsie kept those. At least, I never saw them.”
“Oh,” I say. “Okay. And um, what’s this thing?” I hold up the brown leather book.
“The letters,” she says. “The ones she wanted you to have.”
This is making about zero sense to me, and I’m getting more and more annoyed with Tammy. Which is probably not even her fault.
If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s Hollis’s. If he hadn’t used me, betrayed me, he’d be here with me right now. We’d be doing this together. That’s the worst part, I think. The part that is making me extra grumpy. I thought I wasn’t going to have to face any of this alone. But here I am. Alone. More alone than I’ve ever felt in my life.
“Well, thank you,” I say, rising from my seat. “I appreciate this, but I have to get going now.”
“No problem. I hope you have a safe trip back home.”
“Thanks.” I turn to leave but suddenly remember what brought us here in the first place. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own grief I forgot I’m not the only one who lost someone I loved. “Um, I’m really sorry for your loss, by the way. From what I know about Elsie, she was an amazing person.”
“Thank you,” Tammy says. “She really was.” She gives me a brittle smile that feels like the most genuine thing we’ve shared in the last ten minutes. “And you too. I mean, I’m sorry for your loss as well.”
For the briefest moment I think she’s talking about Hollis. That loss is the most fresh and at the forefront of my mind. But no, that doesn’t make sense. Mrs. Nash. She’s talking about Mrs. Nash.
I hurry away from the Starbucks to avoid awkwardly running into Tammy again and find myself sitting on a curb outside of a nail salon. A pigeon lands beside me and bobs its head toward a piece of old gum on the sidewalk. Determining it’s not the tasty morsel of food it expected, it struts around in disappointment.
