Page 121 of Wrong Mail

Port Angeles, Washington

Isit in my car at the end of the street with the newspaper open across the steering wheel. The article runs on an inside page. Small now. A story shrinks once it stops being news.

The search of Lake Washington has been suspended. The vehicle was recovered. Neither occupant was found. After several weeks, the county has moved them from missing to presumed dead.

Presumed dead.

I read the words twice, until they stop looking like news and start looking like the world moving on. Then I fold the paper and set it on the passenger seat. The envelope waits beside it.

Robert Lane

141 Harbor Ridge Road

Port Angeles, Washington

I check the address against the house at the end of the street, and I get out of the car.

November has come in off the strait, gray and wet. The street is empty. I make myself walk like someone with nowhere to be.

The house is small and well kept, the cedar siding gone dark with rain. It has a narrow porch, and a short strip of lawn. It’s a house you pass without remembering.

I check the number on the mailbox.

141

Then I go up the path and knock.

The man who answers is in his mid-forties, silver at the temples, a dish towel over one shoulder.

"Can I help you?"

"Sorry to bother you," I say. "This came to my place by mistake. I just moved in down the road. A hundred and fourteen. Yours is a hundred and forty-one. Yeah. They must have got them mixed up." I hold out the envelope. "I've been meaning to walk it down all week."

He takes it, reads the name, and his face warms.

"I appreciate that." He looks past me at the wet street, then back. "I've got coffee on. Can I give you a cup before you head back out in that?"

"Oh, I shouldn't. I've taken up enough of your afternoon." I take a small step back, like I mean to go.

His shoulders loosen. Just a little.

"Please, let me repay the kindness." He steps back and opens the door wider. "You walked all the way down here. It's quiet at this end of the road. I don't see many people. I could use the company, honestly."

I let myself hesitate.

Then I nod. "All right. Thank you. That would be nice."

The kitchen is narrow and clean, with a window over the sink and a small table pushed against the wall. He sets the envelope on the counter and takes two cups from a cabinet.

"Milk? Sugar?"

"Black is fine."

He pours one cup, then the other. Steam lifts between us. He sets them on the table, his closer to the chair by the window, mine near the end.

A landline phone rings somewhere beyond the kitchen.

He turns his head. "Excuse me."