The Incoming Tide

A Story about Recovery and Romance and the Universe coming through for a person without hope.

                                       When the Tide Rolls In

                                              By Tom Brosman

 

Cindy was a letter carrier, in Ocean Shores.  It was noon on a Wednesday and Cindy was eating her brown bag lunch.  She had parked her delivery truck behind the Shiloh Motel, where she could watch the ocean breakers roll into shore.  She was a short redhead, with a decent build and a kind face.  She looked younger than her 43 years and those who casually knew her thought she was a happy go lucky person who had never seen misfortune.  They assumed that her present marriage…was her first.  Cindy’s life before Rob was as private as it was tumultuous.  A few people, in addition to Rob, knew about her past…13 friends.  Cindy had seen these friends every night for the past eight years and three months.  She would sit down with her friends and when her turn came, she would rise and say, “My name is Cindy…and I am an alcoholic”.  She would work her 12 steps in the program and bear her soul those people who listened without judgment…and who loved her, unconditionally.  Cindy was on the street by the time she was 14, doing tricks and sweeping floors, anything for a place to sleep.  Cindy learned to drink…..and the bottle carried her life for many years.  When she was 23, she was working as a dispatch clerk at a trucking company.  It was there she met Fred, her first husband.  Fred loved her.  He tried to help her with her addiction…but he only enabled her.  The marriage held together 7 years and Fred’s love slowly died.  He finally left with Kristen, their daughter.  Cindy still visited  her daughter, but the bottle has a way of making the things you love the most disappear.  Kristen had no use for her mother.  Cindy had finally accepted that there are some things you cannot change, that you were responsible for, that a kind and loving Heavenly Father can forgive you…as you forgive yourself.  Cindy knew that to hold onto guilt and bitterness would jeopardize her sobriety.   For many years before her sobriety, Cindy had no hope, then she found AA and crawled out of the bottle.  She got a good job with the post office and never missed a child support check to Fred for her daughter.  Cindy mused as she watched the ocean and her mind went back two years, to a December day.  She had found a letter without an envelope in the pile of mail she picked up at the drop box.  It was against the rules, but Cindy read the short note.

“I am a healthy 40 year old male.  I wonder if your foreign

bride agency could help me find a wife to love.

I have had no luck with American woman.”

The letter was signed R. Chalmers.  Cindy had not heard the name before.

She searched for an envelope with his address but could find none.  She tucked the letter away in her truck, instead of returning it to the station.  It was cold that winter and she had worked hard through the Christmas delivery season.  January, then February came.  Cindy enjoyed the company of “normies” for the first time that year.  She was sober and hung out with people whose lives were not continually depleted by the bottle.  In March, she had gone to a play in Aberdeen, put on by the Driftwood Players.  She stopped at Billy’s for some fish and chips.  She watched the people in the restaurant.   By this time, Cindy was being asked out.  She wasn’t ready and politely declined.  She paid for her meal and started for Ocean Shores.  She had just crossed the Humptulips River when the left front tire blew.  It was dark and it was raining sideways.  She got out of the car to get the spare out of the trunk.  A car roared by…then stopped quickly and backed up.  Three drunken men were inside.  They started cat calling and whistling and offering to “help” her, as the rain soaked her to the bone.  Cindy was frightened and her hands shook as she got the jack out.  The men were getting loader and bolder and the one in the back was determined to be first.  He was getting out of the car with a leer on his face.  Not one of the men noticed as a big diesel pickup that had pulled in behind them, until the driver turned his lights on and got out, with a steel pipe in his hand.  The three men roared off, before the third man got his door closed.  The man in the truck asked Cindy if she would like to wait in the warm pickup.  She sat in big cab and watched the man change her tire.  From his rear view mirror hung a Weyerhaeuser employee  ID Badge. It read Robert Chalmers.  Cindy was stunned.  She had always pictured the author of the letter to be old, bald and a loser.  When Rob finished, he followed her home to make sure she was safe.  The next day, the roses arrived.  Cindy had always figured that her chances at happiness were long ago used up, but, Robert Chalmers had news for her.  He knew that Cindy was the woman he had been looking for.  She had known enough heartache to be real and she had hit the bottom and made a u-turn.  She had passion and she had depth and Robert was after that redhead, wooing her and winning her, keeping her, became his life’s goal.  The man never let up and Cindy…never looked back.  When they had dated for two months, Cindy gave Rob back his lost letter and he cried at the goodness of the Universe to answer his heartfelt request.  Lots of nights, in their own home, when they were making love, and Cindy’s legs were wrapped around her man and Rob was in her, body, mind and soul she cried.