Do I Wish

Marie waits for him.

---

When they parted ways, he gave her a name on the back of an old crumpled train ticket, directions to a place where they’d never think to look for her. She carries it in her pocket as she travels, even after she’s memorized the name, the spelling, the directions he leaves behind in code.

She’s always wanted to see Europe, and now she does, hitching rides with what English and German and bits of French she has. Two men and one woman give her their phone numbers, but she rips them up as soon as she can, letting the white pieces of paper drift into trash cans.

When she feels uncertain, she grips the ticket tighter in her fist.

---

In Greece, she gets a job as a shop girl on the strength of her smile and the sadness of her eyes. The store looks over the Mediterranean Sea, and some days, after work, she’ll stand on sun-baked rock and look out over the clear blue water and feel like she’s at the edge of the world.

When she closes her eyes, she can still see the curve of his smile.

---

She writes two letters. One to her parents. One to her sister. No return address.

In these letters, she tells them that she is healthy, that she is happy, that they should not come looking for her.

She puts too much postage on the envelopes and writes the addresses with a careful hand. She hesitates before she sends them off. It would be easy, she thinks, to throw these out too, to carefully pack up what little she has and go home.

But then she remembers the feel of his arms around her shoulders, the sound of gunshots, the smell of hair dye, and then her decision becomes clear.

---

When he shows up, she smiles at him and she kisses him and she goes with him when he leaves.