The town leaned toward the water, like it was listening. Evergreen trees crowded the edges of everything. They stood patient and dark. Their needles caught the rain that never quite decided to fall all at once. The ferry horn sounded some mornings, low and tired, as if even it needed coffee first.

I bought postcards at the corner shop by the marina. Cedarwood racks, hand-painted scenes: gray water, a lighthouse softened by fog, a whale’s tail breaking the surface. The woman at the counter always asked if I was sending them far.

“Not today,” I’d say.

The air here smelled like salt and wet bark. Everyone wore the same quiet uniform flannel, boots, knowing how to wait. Time moved differently. Slower. Sideways. Like the tide that pulled back without asking permission.

I thought of you whenever the rain started gently and stayed all day.

The moss is growing on the steps again.
The café only plays vinyl now.
I still check the tide tables even when I don’t plan on going anywhere.

But postcards don’t like long stories. They don’t like endings that trail off or beginnings that start too late. So I tucked them into a drawer with old receipts and ferry schedules, letting the corners soften with age.

Sometimes, the fog rolled in thick enough to erase the horizon. At those times, it felt like the town was holding its breath.

One afternoon, the sun surprised us all and broke through, lighting the water silver. I mailed a postcard then just one. Not to you, but to myself.

You learned how to live with the quiet.

It arrived damp at the edges, postmarked and real. Proof that some things reach their destination even when they never leave town.

The rest of the postcards are still here. The Pacific knows how to keep secrets.