The envelope looked as though it had traveled for years. Salt marked its edges, and the stamp had never been cancelled. Bea found it inside her father's warehouse locker after his death, addressed to a city she could not locate on any current map.
The warehouse foreman read the address aloud and smiled without amusement. It was the name of a cargo vessel, followed by its berth number. Her father had written to a friend working aboard, intending to hand the letter over before departure. The ship left early when its schedule changed.
Inside, he asked for a small loan and promised to repay it before winter. Bea had always been told that he refused help from anyone. The unopened letter showed an intention, not a completed request, but it changed the confidence with which she could repeat that story.
She put the envelope back around the letter. The salt had come from the locker beside an open loading door. It had never been evidence of a voyage. The longest part of its journey was the distance between what her father needed and what he managed to say.