Prologue

The bottle was dropped overboard on a warm summer evening, a few hours before the rain began to fall. It was sealed properly and sent to sea. It could float safely through hurricanes or tropical storms. It was, in a way, the ideal home for the message it carried inside, a message that had been sent to fulfill a promise. Its course was unpredictable. For six days, it slowly floated in a northeasterly direction. On the seventh day the winds died, and the bottle steered itself directly eastward, eventually finding its way to the Gulf Stream, where it then picked up speed, traveling north at almost seventy miles per day.

Two and a half weeks after its launch, the bottle still followed the Gulf Stream. On the seventeenth day, however, another storm brought easterly winds strong enough to drive the bottle from the current, and the bottle began to drift toward New England. Without the Gulf Stream forcing it along, the bottle slowed again and zigzagged in various directions near the Massachusetts shore. The bottle drifted back and forth for a few days - as if deciding where to go before choosing its course - and it finally washed up along the shore on a beach near Chatham. And there, after 26 days and 738 miles, it ended its journey.

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

CHAPTER ONE

A cold December wind was blowing, and Theresa Osborne crossed her arms as she stared out over the water. She was alone on the beach. The ocean, reflecting the color of the sky, looked like liquid iron, and waves rolled up steadily on the shore. She'd driven here this morning. When she'd made the decision to come, she'd planned to stay overnight. She'd made the arrangements and had even looked forward to a quiet night away from Boston, but watching the ocean she realized that she didn't want to stay. She wanted to drive home as soon as she was finished. When she was finally ready, Theresa slowly started to walk toward the water. Beneath her arm, she carried a bag that she had carefully packed that morning, making sure that she hadn't forgotten anything. She hadn't told anyone what she carried with her. She hadn't told them what she'd intended to do today, either. Instead, she'd said that she was going Christmas shopping.

It was the perfect excuse, and this trip was something she didn't want to share with anyone. It had started with her alone, and that was the same way she wanted it to end. Theresa sighed and checked her watch. Soon it would be high tide, and then she would finally be ready. After finding a spot on a small dune that looked comfortable, she sat in the sand and opened her bag. Searching through it, she found the envelope she wanted. There were three letters in it, carefully folded, letters that she'd read many times. Holding them in front of her, she sat on the sand and stared at them. He had used a fountain pen when he'd written them, and there were smudges in various places where the pen had leaked.

The paper, with its picture of a sailing ship in the upper right-hand corner, was beginning to discolor in places, fading slowly with the passage of time. She knew there would come a day when the words would be impossible to read, but hopefully, after today, she wouldn't feel the need to look at them so often. When she finished, she slipped them back into the envelope as carefully as she'd removed them. Then, after putting the envelope back into the bag, she looked at the beach again. From where she was sitting, she could see the place where it had all started.