Postcard from the Future

Months into dating, my girlfriend and I sat across from another couple and drank margaritas. “If we ever get married,” I said, “we’re going to combine our last names to create a new one: Lavisi.” Our friends laughed at our plan, made so early in our relationship. One of them addressed the free postcard that came with our check to our future selves: “Dani and Jen Lavisi, 123 Lesbian Lane, Lesbos, Greece.” It hung on our fridge for five years — a joke that became a prophecy when that same friend married us and we legally changed our names. — Danielle Lavisi

7,000 Miles Away

To make a certain Chinese cake, you have to knead piping hot dough. Too painful for some, but no match for my grandmother, who raised seven children. Because of the pandemic, my father hasn’t been able to visit China to see his beloved mother or eat his favorite cake. After months of searching, my father and I found the cake’s main ingredient in the United States. The evening we finally baked the cake, my grandmother passed away. Maybe she knew that even though he was 7,000 miles away, my father had a taste of home and would be OK. — Lisa Wang

My Teacher’s Attention

I was an English major who earned a D on my first calculus exam. I waited with a dozen students, drop-card in hand, watching our professor sign quickly. At my turn, she stopped and said, “I’m not signing that.” She remembered I’d been to office-hours; I’d tried. She gave me practice problems. I gave her a novel about a math teacher. I fell in love the way youth does, in the luxury of her attention. By term’s end, I had an A. Twenty years later, I think of my professor’s words whenever I’m struggling: “Keep working, learning, you’ll get it.” — Lisa P. Sutton

No Need to Speak

When Jamie goes away on a business trip, he doesn’t write a love note to place on my pillow. He leaves a tea bag with my morning mug on the kitchen counter. And fresh water in the kettle. As Jamie rides his early-morning train from Boston to New York, I hope he can picture me in our kitchen, wearing a T-shirt and flannel pajamas, making the tea he set out. We’ve been married over 30 years — enough time to know that love is less about the words and so much more about the deeds. Indeed. — Maribeth Stratford Millar

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