by Kelsey King
I return home and gather the mail, and then spread it out on the kitchen table. The surface of the table still has scratch marks from my grandmother’s butcher knife—I call it an heirloom, but it’s so old that the glue in the legs keeps shaking loose and no matter how many times I re-glue them, the table never sits flat.
My legs feel equally unsteady, and I sink into a kitchen chair and kick my feet up on another.
What would my mother say if she were here?
Cheer up, to start with.
You’re young, Sophia.
You can do anything you want with your life.
Which is all very good except most things require money….or an idea of what I might want to begin with.
Then I hear Mama’s voice, clear in my mind.
What you need is to find a good man.
I sigh, flipping absently through the adverts piled up on the table. It’s not that I’ve never had men call, but when Mama got sick, I didn’t pay them much attention. I had too many other things to worry about, too much weighing on me to try to think about romance.
And now? I live alone and work at a market, can’t afford rent, and can barely afford an ale at a pub. Where am I going to meet a man?
I look down at the table, my finger pausing over one of the adverts—a flier for an international dating site.
“No,” I say. “No way, Mama.”
It’s probably just my imagination, but in my mind, I think I hear my mother laugh.
I pull out the flier and read it. It’s less of a dating service—which I could try, but I haven’t been able to afford a computer or a phone in ages. Not since before my mother’s diagnosis. And last I remember, men expected to be able to text or chat online.
This arrangement is different. I’d fill out a profile it says, then be matched with a man in another country. Then I’d be flown out to meet him, and if we wanted, we could get married, and I could stay.
He’d pay for everything.
I let myself wander through one or two romantic daydreams about being flown to London or America by a man who has the money of Mr. Darcy and looks like Colin Firth. He’d woo me for a few weeks, and then we’d get married and live happily ever after. This quickly gives way to nightmares about being locked up in the closet by a man who’s mail ordered seven wives and then imprisoned each as she disappoints him.
Probably the truth would fall somewhere in between.
I stare skeptically at the card.
I know this is crazy. When you need an adventure, you find a job in another city, you go on a vacation, you get a pet. You don’t marry someone you’ve never met within thirty days. This—this isn’t something people do.
The card in my hand suggests otherwise. They wouldn’t be sending out bulk mail in Dublin if they didn’t see some kind of return on it.
And I can still hear my mother in the back of my mind, giggling.
Come on, Sophia. You could at least try.
I fix myself a salad for dinner—I rarely cook anymore, now that I’m only cooking for one—and head down to the library to use a public computer to apply to be a mail order bride. I’ve only got thirty minutes before they close, so I practically sprint there.
I run in, fill out the ten-page questionnaire, and let out a sigh of relief, which surprises me. As I leave the library, I already know I’m going to have to get a cheap phone to at least check email. If I’m chosen to go through the matching process, I’m going to need to check my email far more often than, and if I’m no longer trying to pay off Mr. Murphy, I will have a few euros to spare.
God, Sophia, I think. Are you really doing this?
I nod to myself, and a smile fills my face. As I walk home, I feel lighter than I have in ages.
3
Hunter
I don’t tell my mother about the plan. I only say that I’m dating again, trying to find someone. She smiles and squeezes my hand and tells me she knows this time I’m going to find the one.
I’m not sure I believe I’ll find that, but as her body shrinks smaller and smaller, and medicine drips through thin tubes into a port surgically installed in her chest, I’m at least trying.
Emotions aren’t something I’m good at, but I do know what helplessness feels like. I wish I could take the cancer and pain away.
Mom squeezes tighter and tells me she’s prayed for God to send me someone, and that night the international dating site emailed me to tell me they’ve found a perfect match.
I pull out my bottle of whiskey and a clean tumbler from the bottom drawer and read every word of the email. Even Cocoa seems to know something’s up—she comes over and puts her head on my knee, looking up at me with warm eyes.
“Her name’s Sophia,” I say to Cocoa. That’s pretty, and I like the way it sounds out loud. “And she’s twenty-six years old.” That’s a few years younger than me, but not an indecent number.
“She’s from Ireland.” I wonder about this girl across the Atlantic, what she might be doing or thinking right now.
Was she also reading an email, telling her she’s been matched? If so, what was she thinking about me?
The profile lists her occupation as a manager of a local market in Dublin. It says she’s in good health, doesn’t smoke or do drugs and drinks on occasion.
I take a long look at the bottle of whiskey, and then pour myself half a glass.
There’s not much else listed there—no reason why she might want to come to America and entertain the idea of a wedding with a man she’s never met. And there, at the bottom of the screen, is a button.
Accept or reject.
This is all I get, all I can know about her until after her tickets are booked, and she’s ready to come to meet me. Then I’ll get her email address, and we can exchange some basics. I’ve already paid an application fee, but pushing this button will authorize them to charge my card for flights, ferry rides—whatever she needs to get from Dublin to here.
I hover my cursor over the accept button and take a long drag of my drink.
What am I waiting for? Unless I’m going to go back to online dating or give up altogether, this is it.
I hit the accept button and pour myself another glass.
Sophia
I haven’t even gotten out of bed in the morning before I check my phone—one of those cheap, pay by the month deals that lacks bells and whistles, but gets the job done. In this case, the job is sparing me a run to the library three times a day to check to see if the agency is going to match me with anyone. I’ve gotten some legal advice from an old friend of my mothers, as I can’t afford a real lawyer. I’ve managed to put off my eviction for a few extra weeks by filling out some forms and filing them, but I won’t be able to stay in this apartment forever, and after that, I don’t know where I’ll go.
I try to ignore the fact my only plan at this point is to go live in another country with a man I’ve never met. And that it’s quite unlikely that he’ll actually be Colin Firth.
Blinking bleary-eyed at my phone screen, I find it.
An email, telling me a match has been found. I bolt upright in bed, and immediately open it.
His name is Hunter, the email says, and he runs an internet marketing company in America. He’s thirty-three, which is older, but hardly inappropriate. He’s apparently well off enough to spring for plane tickets for a woman he’s never met to interview to be his wife. A cold bolt pierces me through the heart.
That’s not theoretical. It’s me he’s asking to interview. Not that he has any idea who I am, but some patented algorithm has processed our data and decided that we’d be compatible.
There’s a button at the bottom of the email.
Accept or Reject.
It takes me another few days, but eventually my impending eviction and the calls from debt collectors—who took only a few weeks to find my brand new number—make my decision easier.
I push the accept button, turn off my phone, then bury my face in a pillow, and scream.
&nbs
p; Hunter
Two days later I’m out walking in the woods with Cocoa, checking out the damage from a recently fallen tree. I haven’t heard a word back from the dating site, and I wonder if she’s rethinking her application. If the cards were reversed and I was the one about to leave my home and fly out to meet someone I’d never met on their home turf with the prospect of being married, I’d be scared to death.
I wonder if there’s something she’s running away from.
When I get back to the house, I’ve got an email from the dating site. Match confirmed! My heart races. I’m given a date for a few weeks from now when Sophia will be flying out.
I stare at my email, realizing I’d been expecting her to say no. And there it is, an email address where I can contact her to make arrangements. The plane tickets will be taken care of—on my dime, of course—but the email suggests we might want to discuss dietary habits, schedules, and sleeping arrangements before she arrives.
Sleeping arrangements.
I have an extra room, but there’s no furniture in it, due to never having guests. But I can’t expect her to stay in my room on the first night—if she even decides she wants to stay—and it also feels rude to make her sleep on the couch. I go online and find a furniture website—I can make a bed frame myself easily enough, and god knows I’ve got enough wood, but I’ll need to order a mattress and then take my truck to pick it up in town.
Then I open an email, intending to introduce myself, I have no idea what to say. This is a problem I commonly have with women, but now I’m at even more of a loss. In six weeks, we’ll either be married, or she’ll have gone back home disappointed.
Hey. I’m Hunter. Obviously. I’m looking forward to meeting you. To tell you a bit about myself, I’ve got a mountain cabin—more of a house really, in the woods. I run an advertising company from my home office. I delete the last sentence. She knows this stuff from the website, no doubt, and I’m sure not showing off my prowess at writing ad copy now.
Maybe this is my problem with dating. I could treat myself like a product and sell myself. So much about advertising is about casting the truth in its best light…but inevitably anyone in a relationship is going to figure out the whole truth. And in relationships, no matter how long its been, there’s always an open return policy.
Besides, the main key to advertising is that you have to have a killer product. Maybe that’s been my problem all along.
Let me know if there’s anything that I can get for you before you get here. I’d like to make you comfortable.
I sign my name to the email and then stare at my inbox. It could be any amount of time before she responds—assuming she does respond. I’m not even sure what time it is in Ireland.
At least she must speak English. Until this moment I hadn’t thought of the possibility of ending up with a match that didn’t speak my language and having to explain that to my mother. Telling Mom I met her on the internet is one thing; having to explain how I met someone and need a translator would raise more questions.
I head up to my office and before I even get in the door, my phone dings.
I have an email. From Sophia.
4
Sophia
I’m curled up in bed in my apartment, surrounded by boxes when I get Hunter’s first email. I’ve got to be out of the apartment by the weekend, but I’m still sorting through old things, trying to decide which I’m going to pay to store for a month and which I need to sell now.
The furniture is the hardest, like our old armchair I used to curl up in when I was young enough to fit entirely on the small cushion like a sleeping cat.
I know I should sell it—no man of means is going to want to pay to ship threadbare and scratched furniture across the Atlantic ocean—but a part of me just can’t bear to let it go.
I stare at my disposable phone, on which I’ve paid for exactly one month. Hey, the email says. I’m Hunter.
I’d gotten that from the name on the email, but it’s sort of cute that he feels the need to clarify. The email is only a few sentences long and mostly about his “cabin in the woods.” I’m not sure if I should read this as a creepy omen or if he thinks his vacation home is his best asset, so he’s leading with that.
Do you go to your cabin often? I reply. There’s a long pause—which there should be, I suppose. It’s email, not texting, and it’s crossing the ocean to get to him.
But then my phone buzzes, and there is his response.
No, I mean…well, yes. I live there. Full time. In the woods.
Now I’m definitely erring on the side of the omen. Okay, I respond. I hesitate for a moment and then decide I’m probably best off being honest. That’s a bit creepy.
There’s a long pause, and I feel a bit guilty for making this even more awkward than it needed to be.
He responds: I’ll wait until our second exchange to tell you about my impressive collection of axes.
I laugh and hope that was the appropriate response. It’s so hard to read tone from an email, but that definitely seemed like a sense of humor.
I’m suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to know what this man looks like, this stranger who I’ve expressed interest in marrying, for better or for worse.
Either way, I’ve felt better in the last month or so than I have since my mother died. It’s been lovely to have a possibility to look forward to, even if it’s also a frightening one.
Hunter
Another email comes through, and I relax in my chair and open it.
Would you send me a picture? It says.
I draw a deep breath, glad I wasn’t the first one to ask. I obviously want to see a picture of her, but for some reason, I feel like she might take offense to that as if the only thing that’s important to me is her looks.
I’d be lying, though, if I said it didn’t matter at all.
But as far as sending her one…
I send a message back: I’m not sure there are any pictures that aren’t many years out of date.
Somewhere on my computer, I have some old photos, at least. I start searching through folders, trying to find at least that much, when she responds.
Take a picture with your cell phone, dummy. Or don’t you have one?
I look down at my phone. I do, though it functions mainly through wi-fi, as the reception up here isn’t great. But yes, it takes pictures. I think all the photos on it currently are of things I wanted to remember at the store, and maybe one or two of Cocoa that time she got herself stuck in the fork of a split-trunked tree and couldn’t figure out how to kick herself loose.
Okay, I reply. Give me a minute.
I have a picture from last summer, she says. Maybe it will inspire you.
I hold my breath. I didn’t even have to ask. A minute later, another email appears. I open it and click on the attachment.
Sophia stares out at me from the screen.
She’s beautiful. Her hair is red and falls in curls around her face, her eyes a blue like the ocean. She’s wearing a delicate dress covered in peach wildflowers, with oceanside cliffs in the background. She smiles at the camera, but it’s a subtle smile, cautious, as if she has a secret she’d like to share, but is still debating the wisdom.
I have no idea why a girl like that could possibly need to be matched as a mail order bride.
Thank you, I respond.
Sophia
I stare at his response.
Thank you.
What is that supposed to mean? I went out on a limb and sent him a picture first, and all he has to say about it is thank you?
He must be disappointed. I sent him that picture because I think it’s the most flattering one I have taken by my Aunt Izzy last time she came to town for a visit. And what did I expect him to say if he isn’t attracted to me?
Thank you, I suppose, is sufficient.
Then again, he’s a wealthy man who hasn’t been able to find anyone to be with, even though he apparently has far more to offer and more time to pursue such
things than I do.
I sink down deeper into my covers. I’ve had so many romantic daydreams about this person—long before I even knew who he was. And only now does it occur to me that even if he’s a perfectly nice person and not the sort whose cabin in the woods might feature in a Stephen King novel, he might very possibly have the general appearance of a troll.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself.
But I already know it’s a lie.
I knot the corner of my comforter up in my fingers—and one of them pokes right through the material and into the fiber within.
And then an email appears.
“How’s this?” he asks.
I open the attachment and laugh again. It’s a picture of a golden retriever, looking suspiciously up at the camera as if it’s some torturous veterinary device.
Hmmm, I reply. Would our union be legal in America? It may be a technicality, but I’d think that would have come up in a background check.
Cocoa is offended, he replies. Also, she told me you wouldn’t fall for it.
Cocoa is beautiful, I answer. And it’s true. I always wanted a dog—a King Charles spaniel, specifically, but a golden wouldn’t be so far off. But what about her owner?
Okay, okay. Give me a minute.
I realize I’m grinning at my phone, and I’m glad no one’s here to see. I haven’t told anyone where I’ll be going, only that I have a friend in America who wants to fly me out for a visit. I think Anna suspects I have a romantic interest in this friend—she’s caught me humming my mother’s old tunes around the shop far more often over the last few weeks. I settle back on my pillow in the soft glow of the phone screen.
And then I wait. And wait. And wait.
Hunter
I stare at myself in my phone’s camera, but the sun is beginning to lower in the sky, sending stark rays through the window and into my office. I didn’t even realize I was squinting until I looked at myself.
Do I always look like that?
I stand up and move into the hall, Cocoa padding after me. She sits at my feet and looks mournfully up at me like she has no idea what’s come over me, but she doesn’t like it.