The Postcard

A faraway stranger took a chance and reached out across time

- LESLIE MOORE

FOR THE MOMENT, things were quiet at my office. With a couple of minutes to myself, I naturally began to think about my son, Cavin, who was living with me while looking for a job. He really wanted to work in France, where he’d just spent two years teaching English. But his visa required him to leave the country for a while before returning. Cavin had decided to look for a teaching position in Spain in the meantime.

“The town where I lived in France was pretty close to Spain,” he’d explained to me when he moved in. “I loved Barcelona. Plus, if I went to Spain I could pick up another language. I put in an application. Now I just have to wait for a response.”

“Your dad went to Spain,” I reminded him. “When he was in the Navy, he was stationed in a little town there. Something starting with a B…It was his favorite place the Navy sent him.”

“Uh-huh,” Cavin said, not interested in hearing more. Memories of his father were still too painful for Cavin to bear.

When he was a little boy, Cavin was the apple of his father’s eye. Then when Cavin was 10 his dad had a sudden heart attack and passed away. As much as I wanted to step in and fill the hole that Quinton left, I hadn’t come close. In the years after his death I became numb to everything. Cavin entered high school full of rage and pain. He refused to talk to anyone about his father. Instead he drank, experimented with drugs, even got arrested. He distanced himself from his sister, Shawn, who’d dropped out of college.