A Note from the Rivermill Mailroom.

Postmarked October 1994. Delivered this Tuesday.

Lila Markham brought this in herself, and gave permission to share it. — J.D.

The postcard came on a Tuesday afternoon, between a power bill and a flyer for the new chiropractor. Lila Markham, sixty-nine, Alder Lane, brought in the mail with one hand and a bag of green beans with the other. She set the beans on the counter and shuffled the envelopes and stopped.

The postcard was in her own handwriting.

She knew it the way she knew her own face in glass. The slant of the L. The little hook on the y. Her own address on Alder Lane, written by her in blue ballpoint pen.

The postmark said October 1994.

She turned the card over. The image was of the Rivermill Headlands and Highway 1, the way it looked before the county put in the railing. On the back, in her hand, a few words:

Margaret, sorry about the upset. Of course I forgive you. I forgot to say it before I left.

She sat down at the kitchen table. The beans were still in the bag on the counter. She thought about her sister Margaret, who would turn seventy-three in the fall, and was still in the same house in Petaluma.

Then she got up and went to the phone.

Welcome to the Rivermill Mailroom. Mail comes here in its own time, and not always in the order it was sent. There will be more. — J.D.