The community was small, and consisted mostly of older people, so most of the familiar faces she had grown up with were still there. But their grandsons wouldn't be visiting them this year, and most of the boys Kate had grown up with were absent. But many of the girls she knew were there, and on Labor Day, their neighbors gave the same barbecue they always did. Kate went next door with her parents. She hadn't heard from Joe for nearly a week by then. The letters she received had always been written weeks before and sometimes arrived in batches.
He could have been dead for weeks and she would still be receiving letters. The thought of it always chilled her when it crossed her mind.
She hadn't seen Joe in nearly nine months, and it was beginning to seem endless. She had talked to Andy a couple of times since she'd gotten to the Cape. He was spending the last week of vacation with his grandparents in Maine, after working at the hospital for three months. She could tell from talking to him that he had grown up a lot over the summer.
He was going to be starting Harvard law school when they went back. He had completed his undergraduate work in three years instead of four. Since he couldn't go to war, he was anxious to start working. It seemed like the right decision for him, particularly since his father was the head of New York's most prestigious law firm, and they were waiting for him with open arms.
It was hard not to think of Joe as Kate stood at the barbecue, toasting marshmallows, remembering when she'd seen him there the year before.
It had been the beginning of their romance. They had started writing to each other shortly after that, and then she had invited him to Thanksgiving dinner. But she could remember almost every word he'd said that night when they walked along the beach. She was standing lost in thought, when someone standing behind her broke into her reverie. She had been a million miles away, thinking of Joe.
“Why do you always burn them?” the voice said, as she gave a start, and then turned quickly backward to see him.
It was Joe, standing right behind her, looking tall and thin and pale, and a little older. He was smiling at her, and in a split second she had tossed the branch with the burning marshmallows into the sand, and he had his arms tightly around her. He was the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen.
“Oh my God… oh my God…” It couldn't be, but it was.
