Elsewhere by GABRIELLE ZEVIN

Author:GABRIELLE ZEVIN
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-10-27T02:17:48+00:00

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The ship arrives at sunset. Owen wonders if Emily wil recognize him. After al , it has been nearly ten years since they last saw each other. He notices that other people on the pier are carrying handmade cardboard signs with people's names written on them. Maybe he should have made one of those, too?

Emily is the second person off the ship. Even from five hundred yards away, the distance from Owen's position on the pier to the ship's gangplank, Owen can tel that it is her. The sight of her distinctive red hair makes Owen want to sing. She must be thirty-six now, but to him, she looks exactly the same as when he died.

Upon spotting Owen, Emily smiles and waves. "Owen," she cal s.

"Emily!" Owen pushes through the crowd.

As soon as they reach each other, Owen and Emily embrace and kiss. It feels like a movie to Owen. He has waited so long for her, and now she is here.

"Did you miss me?" Emily asks.

"Oh, just a little," he says.

Emily holds Owen at arm's length, looking him up and down. "You look good," she pronounces.

"You don't look so bad yourself," Owen says.

Emily pushes Owen's hair back behind his ears. "You look young," she says, furrowing her brow.

She looks around the pier. "Are we al young here?"

"Eventual y, yes," Owen replies.

"What do you mean 'eventual y'?" Emily asks.

Owen smiles. "Don't worry," he says, "it al works out in the end. I'll explain everything." Owen takes Emily's hand. As he leads her out to the parking lot, he feels that the sad times are behind him, once and for al .

In the car, Emily asks, "So how does this work? Do I stay with you?"

"Of course you do," Owen answers. "You're my wife."

"Am I? Stil ?"

"Of course you are." Owen laughs. "Who else would you be?"

"But what about 'til death do us part' and al of that?" she asks.

"I've always thought of us as married," Owen says, "and now we aren't parted anymore."

Emily nods but doesn't say anything.

"Haven't you always thought of us as married?" Owen asks.

"In a way, I suppose I have," Emily says. "Yes."

"Have I told you how happy I am to see you?" Owen asks.

That night in bed, Owen says to Emily, "Is it wrong that I love the flu? Is it wrong that I want to sing songs in praise of the flu?"

"I'm glad my death brings out the troubadour in you. But I am dead here, you know. A little gravity is in order." Emily laughs and says, "The flu. What an entirely stupid way for me to go." And then she sneezes. "Hey, I thought there wasn't any sickness here," she says.

"There isn't," Owen says.

And then she sneezes again. And Owen remembers that she is al ergic to dogs. (He had decided to leave Jen with Liz for Emily's first night in town—he had suspected that he and Emily might want to be alone.) "The thing is . . ." Owen begins. "Wel , I have this dog.

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