My dearest Charlie,
My love and my life. I’m yearning for you to come home after these days and months away. I recall the happy hours we spent together before and after our marriage. I tire of your mother’s company, longing for a home of our own. You have a son whose face remembers you. I look on him and my love for you grows.

Now here in your mother’s house I haunt the window watching the ships come into the harbor. When I see the flag of the Rose Company, I race to the dock searching for your face and figure among those streaming down the gang plank.

Alas, you remain absent, and those on the ships cannot tell me of you or your adventures. Where have you gone, my love? Where have the sea lanes taken you? Has a storm cast you to the briny deep?

Today I send forth this message in a bottle praying the same currents that carried you away from me will carry it to you.

Wither art thou my love? Come back, come back. I wait holding you in my heart.

Your loving wife, Mary