In her heart she believed that the man in Denver was David. Perhaps she would just go, now, to the train station and buy a ticket to Denver. To hell with the telegram. After so much time, she didn’t need anything but to find him and take him home.
Trembling, Vivien collapsed onto the sofa. She could almost feel his lips on hers that long-ago April morning when he left her in bed. How many times had she imagined his journey away from her, as if it held a clue to his fate? He had walked down the street, turned the corner, and either hopped on the trolley or continued on foot to Market Street. If he’d gone by trolley, then he would have been in his office when the earthquake hit. His partner would have already been there, waiting for him and their meeting. But Duncan had died that morning, crushed by the collapse of the building. They’d found his body there, buried. Vivien had no one to ask if David had ever arrived. She imagined him dazed, wounded, wandering from the rubble. Wandering all the way to Denver, perhaps.
Something caught her eye, peeking out from beneath the tray of tea and toast. A white edge of paper. Vivien pushed the tray away so hard that the half-full cup of tea toppled and spilled. There was the telegram, waiting to be found.
Her hands still trembled, with relief now, as she ripped it open.
ROOM NUMBER WORN AWAY. STOP. MAN HAS SCAR ON FOREHEAD INDICATING HEAD INJURY. STOP. IN GOOD HEALTH EXCEPT SEVERE AMNESIA. STOP. EYES BLUE. STOP. HAIR GRAY. STOP. HEIGHT 6’1”. STOP. COME TO DENVER IMMEDIATELY TO POSSIBLY CONFIRM IDENTITY. STOP.
Vivien read it once, twice. A third time. Yes, David’s hair would have grayed after all this time and trauma. But she could see his blue eyes still. She could remember gazing up the length of him to meet those blue eyes with her own. The possibility that this man in Denver was David now seemed even more likely.
She needed to go there as soon as possible. Immediately, the telegram said. This would require packing. Purchasing a ticket. Finishing the obituaries for Benjamin Harwood’s wife and newborn daughter. It would require taking a train for several days, getting off in Denver, Colorado, and walking into a hospital to reclaim her life. Finally.
Vivien stayed up until well after midnight composing the obituaries. She knew that her words comforted people in grief. It was a responsibility she took seriously. Even those people who believed that David had died on April 18, 1906, still did not know what to say to Vivien. Grief made people awkward. It made them afraid and hesitant. But an obituary writer could not be awkward or tentative. An obituary writer had to be assertive and honest, kind and insightful.
She included the Dickinson in Jane’s. She wrote about how as a young woman Jane had nursed her own parents and future husband when they had the Spanish influenza; how she held Benjamin in her arms at night when nightmares about the war woke him and he trembled, remembering; how her cheeks flushed in the sun; how she liked to knit on cold nights, the yarn tumbling from her lap like a waterfall.
But to write for Hazel, who never got a chance to see the world or to know her father’s love, the way it felt to be in her mother’s arms, was more difficult. Vivien stood, her neck and shoulders tight from having sat so long bent over the paper. A light rain had begun to fall; she could smell it in the air. David used to love the smell of spring rain. He would wake her if the rain came late at night, as it had now, and make her get dressed to stand in it with him.
She would stand in it now, Vivien decided. She made a cup of chamomile tea, spooned some honey into it, and brought it outside. The rain was so light it was almost mist, dampening her nightgown and hair. Her hair would curl from the moisture, and thinking this she lifted her hand to smooth it. She should have put on slippers before she went out. But she hadn’t, so she stood barefoot, sipping her tea, watching the clouds moving across the dark sky. A crescent moon could just be seen through a circle of rain. That’s our moon, David had said that first night at the Majestic Hotel. Vivien had gone to look out the window, and he had joined her there, standing behind her with his arms around her waist and his chin resting on her shoulder, both of them still naked, sore from a night of making love. He had pointed to the sliver of moon and said, That’s our moon. Whenever you see it, you will always think of me.