The Mailbox Read online

  What people are saying about …

  The Mailbox

  “A tender and relevant love story that is satisfying and symbolic. The Mailbox is a powerful metaphor for the dreams we keep, year after year. A perfect beach read!”

  Susan Meissner, author of The Shape of Mercy

  “If you’re looking for the perfect summer-beach read, slather on your sunscreen and pick up The Mailbox. Full of longing, angst, romance, and healing, this book will keep you turning pages and wishing several of the characters were your friends. A curious mixture of Nicholas Sparks and a style Whalen’s own, I dearly enjoyed this book.”

  Mary E. DeMuth, author of the

  Defiance Texas Trilogy and Thin Places

  “The only thing I didn’t like about this amazing story is that it had to end. If you are looking for the perfect chick flick in book form, this is it. Marybeth has masterfully woven together a story of second chances that women will be talking about for years. I loved it.”

  Lysa TerKeurst, award-winning author of What Happens When Women Say Yes to God and Becoming More Than a Good Bible Study Girl

  “Is there such a thing as a soul mate? Can you find true love at fifteen? Do we ever get a second chance at love? Marybeth Whalen has written the perfect novel to answer those questions. A young girl, brimming with hope and promise, a young boy who can’t forget her smile, and an isolated beach mailbox owned by the Kindred Spirit keep this story humming. The story takes place over several summers, and it’s the perfect beach read. Unfurl your towel, plant your umbrella, and jump into this book with both feet.”

  Bonnie Grove, author of Talking to the Dead

  “The Mailbox, a debut novel by Marybeth Whalen, begins with an isolated mailbox on Sunset Beach, North Carolina. It is a love story that begins between two teens, spanning twenty years as letters unfold the story of Lindsey’s search to understand betrayal, heartache, and a God who loves her. The setting is beautiful, the story unique, and I can’t wait to read the next book, and then the next from this storyteller.”

  T. Suzanne Eller, author and speaker

  “A romantically enticing debut novel, brimming with what we all long for—those unexpected second chances. Readers of Southern coastal fiction will delight in this tale that begins with young summer love and continues over the years.”

  Alice J. Wisler, author of Rain Song (2009 Christy Award finalist), How Sweet It Is, and Hatteras Girl

  “The Mailbox is a great beach read. I’m left longing to leave my own letter in that salt-air-weathered box.”

  Rachel Olsen, national speaker for Proverbs 31 Ministries and author of It’s No Secret

  “The Mailbox is a best friend of a love story, with a tenderness as fresh as first love and a wisdom as old as time. Marybeth Whalen is a gifted author with an instinct for the care and feeding of readers.”

  Kathleen Popa, author of To Dance in the Desert and The Feast of Saint Bertie

  “Marybeth Whalen is one of those rare authors who speaks the language of every heart. She navigates a journey of loss and longing with a deft and gentle hand, making us yearn for our own summers of long ago. The Mailbox will stay with readers long after the book is closed, a reminder of enduring friendship and love that never forgets.”

  Ariel Allison, author of eye of the god and codirector of the She Reads book club

  “The Mailbox is an enchanting, emotional island hop. Throughout its pages you’ll voyage with Lindsey Adams as, with the help of the Kindred Spirit, she transforms from a Walkman-wearing, chestnut-haired teen at Sunset Beach, immersed in ’80s melodies and enamored by first love, to a strong, sure, and devoted mother given an amazing second shot at her dreams by the One who numbered the very sands on the shores.”

  Karen Ehman, national speaker for Proverbs 31 Ministries and Hearts at Home and author of A Life That Says Welcome and The Complete Guide to Getting and Staying Organized

  “The Mailbox is a poignant tale of bittersweet memories, the love of a lifetime, and the God of second chances. Pack it in your beach bag for a great summer read.”

  Debbie Fuller Thomas, author of

  Raising Rain and Tuesday Night at the Blue Moon (2009 Christ Award finalist)

  “The Mailbox takes you to the coast of North Carolina where young love begins with a promise and ends in betrayal. With characters that are like friends and themes that are true to life, Whalen captures the power of hope, the sting of disappointment, and the lure of romantic mystery. This story stays with you long after the last page is turned. I sometimes still find myself thinking about Lindsey and Campbell, wondering how they’re doing.”

  Renee Swope, Proverbs 31 Ministries Radio cohost, speaker, and author of A Confident Heart

  THE MAILBOX

  Published by David C. Cook

  4050 Lee Vance View

  Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

  David C. Cook Distribution Canada

  55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5

  David C. Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications

  Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England

  David C. Cook and the graphic circle C logo

  are registered trademarks of Cook Communications Ministries.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

  no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

  without written permission from the publisher.

  The Web site addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These Web sites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of David C. Cook, nor do we vouch for their content.

  This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

  Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer,” Building the Perfect Beast © 1984 The David Geffen Company.

  LCCN 2010923222

  ISBN 978-0-7814-0369-6

  eISBN 978-1-4347-0217-3

  © 2010 Marybeth Whalen

  The Team: Terry Behimer, Nicci Jordan Hubert,

  Sarah Schultz, Jack Campbell, and Karen Athen

  Cover Design: Amy Kiechlin

  Front Cover Photo: iStockphoto.com

  Back Cover Photo: Peter Doran, www.peterdoranphotography.com

  First Edition 2010

  To

  My dear friend, Ariel Allison Lawhon, without whom this book would not have been written.

  And my husband, Curt: After twenty years, our love story is better than anything I could make up.

  Acknowledgments

  Abundant thanks to …

  My heavenly Father, who supplied exceedingly abundantly more (Ephesians 3:20) than I could ask or imagine throughout this whole process.

  My six unique and energetic children, who put up with Mom going off to write and are always faithful to ask, “How’d your writing go, Mom?”

  My mom, who never failed to believe this book would be published.

  My agent, Jonathan Clements, who is always in my corner.

  The online groups who offer me very real support: The Writers View 1 and 2 and Writers and Sisters in Christ.

  Cec Murphey for supporting the dreams of writers—especially this one.

  Susan Meissner fo
r being one of my first readers and encouragers.

  My prayer posse, who prayed me through the editing of this book!

  Mary DeMuth for being your gorgeous self and for making me cut the wases.

  My editor, Nicci Jordan Hubert, who saw the angel in the marble and carved (and carved and carved) until she set it free.

  The folks at Cook, especially Terry Behimer and Ingrid Beck, who championed the book from the beginning; Amy Kiechlin, who so far exceeded my expectations for an amazing cover; Jack Campbell, who had eagle eyes and a lot of patience; and Don Pape, who emailed to say he was praying for me.

  Buddy Messer, PsyD, who helped me with the details of anorexia. And his sister Amy, who connected us.

  The women of Proverbs 31 Ministries. I have said it before: You are family, plain and simple. I love us!

  My new friends Susan May Warren and Rachel Hauck, who saw desperation in my eyes and took the time to reassure me, quote Scripture to me, and give me some great insight into how to make this novel better.

  Bonita Lillie, who encouraged me to write the book I wanted to read. This is it.

  My uncle Bob and aunt Frances, who open their beach house to us each summer.

  And finally, Holly Drerup Ratcliffe, who first took me to Sunset Beach, North Carolina, when I was fifteen and sparked a lifelong love of the place.

  Do you ever wonder, where did the summer go?

  The Blue Nile, “Broken Loves”

  The Kindred Spirit Mailbox

  Sunset Beach, NC

  Summer 2003

  The Kindred Spirit waited from a safe distance for the man to leave the mailbox before she approached in the amber light of the late July evening. Because they knew each other, she would normally have spoken to him. But not here, lest he suspect her purpose. She watched until he drifted out of sight before she limped toward the mailbox tucked into the dunes, her knee aching dully. The doctor wanted to replace her knee but the recuperation would keep her from coming to the mailbox. There would have been no one to tend it in her absence, so she told the doctor the surgery would have to wait.

  The sun had nearly set, as she removed her turtle-watcher visor and stowed it in her bag. No one saw her take out the notebooks and various pieces of loose-leaf paper, all dampened by the sea’s spray and more than a few tears. She planned it this way, making the trek out to the mailbox only when she could come and go unnoticed, keeping her identity a mystery. She replaced the filled notebooks with blank ones, their pages crisp and smooth. She added a few new pens and took out the ones that had gone dry. Finally, she laid some extra loose-leaf paper on top of the new notebooks, smoothing it out with satisfaction, anticipating the words that would fill the pages by the time she returned.

  She turned away from the mailbox and looked out at the sea. She breathed in the scent of the ocean, watched two seagulls chase each other in midair, then turned to walk slowly back down the beach, the weight of the notebooks she had stowed in her tote bag causing her shoulder to stoop slightly. She looked like the crazy old woman she had become, hunched over and limping, her hair askew without her visor, coming and going in secret from a rusty old mailbox that had started out as a mystery and become part of coastal folklore.

  For years she had made this journey, taking her duty as keeper of the mailbox as seriously as a pastor takes his time in the pulpit. The Kindred Spirit played an important, albeit anonymous, role in their community. Every time she collected the notebooks, she remembered what the previous Kindred Spirit told her as she was dying of cancer—too weak to make the journey to the mailbox anymore—and asked her to step in. “This isn’t just some forgotten mailbox on a desolate stretch of beach. This is a place where dreams are shared, tears are shed, and lives are changed.” She remembered nodding soberly, grasping her responsibility to not only tend the mailbox but also to keep her own identity a secret. In her bag she carried the words of many strangers, scribbled in moments of grief or hope or joy, with the belief that the Kindred Spirit would guard their words, gathering them like pennies from a wishing well, protecting them like the treasures they were.

  When she got home, she would make a pot of tea and sit down with the letters, reading through them deep into the night and praying for those who had written the words before she packed them away with the others, her own little ritual.

  As she made her way home, she thought about the man she saw at the mailbox, wondering why he had been there, what story he had to tell. She had known him his whole life, yet didn’t know why he came to the mailbox. That part, she suspected, was private. She knew that—like everyone who visited the mailbox—a matter of the heart had sent him there.

  Chapter 1

  Sunset Beach, NC

  Summer 1985

  Campbell held back a teasing smile as he led Lindsey across the warm sand toward the mailbox. Leaning her head on Campbell’s shoulder, her steps slowed. She looked up at him, observing the mischievous curling at the corners of his mouth. “There really is no mailbox, is there?” she said, playfully offended. “If you wanted to get me alone on a deserted stretch of beach, all you had to do was ask.” She elbowed him in the side.

  A grin spread across his flawless face. “You caught me.” He threw his hands up in the air in surrender.

  “I gotta stop for a sec,” Lindsey said and bent at the waist, stretching the backs of her aching legs. She stood up and put her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes at him. “So, have you actually been to the mailbox? Maybe the other kids at the pier were just pulling your leg.”

  Campbell nodded his head. “I promise I’ve been there before. It’ll be worth it. You’ll see.” He pressed his forehead to hers and looked intently into her eyes before continuing down the beach.

  “If you say so …” she said, following him. He slipped his arm around her bare tanned shoulder and squeezed it, pulling her closer to him. Lindsey looked ahead of them at the vast expanse of raw coastline. She could make out a jetty of rocks in the distance that jutted into the ocean like a finish line.

  As they walked, she looked down at the pairs of footprints they left in the sand. She knew that soon the tide would wash them away, and she realized that just like those footprints, the time she had left with Campbell would soon vanish. A refrain ran through her mind: Enjoy the time you have left. She planned to remember every moment of this walk so she could replay it later, when she was back at home, without him. Memories would be her most precious commodity. How else would she feel him near her?

  “I don’t know how we’re going to make this work,” she said as they walked. “I mean, how are we going to stay close when we’re so far away from each other?”

  He pressed his lips into a line and ran a hand through his hair. “We just will,” he said. He exhaled loudly, a punctuation.

  “But how?” she asked, wishing she didn’t sound so desperate.

  He smiled. “We’ll write. And we’ll call. I’ll pay for the long-distance bills. My parents already said I could.” He paused. “And we’ll count the days until next summer. Your aunt and uncle already said you could come back and stay for most of the summer. And you know your mom will let you.”

  “Yeah, she’ll be glad to get rid of me for sure.” She pushed images of home from her mind: the menthol odor of her mother’s cigarettes, their closet-sized apartment with parchment walls you could hear the neighbors through, her mom’s embarrassing “delicates” dangling from the shower rod in the tiny bathroom they shared. She wished that her aunt and uncle didn’t have to leave the beach house after the summer was over and that she could just stay with them forever.

  The beach house had become her favorite place in the world. At the beach house, she felt like a part of a real family with her aunt and uncle and cousins. This summer had been an escape from the reality of her life at home. And it had been a chance to discover true
love. But tomorrow, her aunt and uncle would leave for their home and send her back to her mother.

  “I don’t want to leave!” she suddenly yelled into the open air, causing a few startled birds to take flight.

  Campbell didn’t flinch when she yelled. She bit her lip and closed her eyes as he pulled her to him and hugged her.

  “Shhh,” he said. “I don’t want you to leave either.” He cupped her chin with his hand. “If I could reverse time for you, I would. And we would go back and do this whole summer over.”

  She nodded and wished for the hundredth time that she could stand on the beach with Campbell forever, listening to the hypnotic sound of his voice, so much deeper and more mature than the boys at school. She thought about the pictures they had taken earlier that day, a last-ditch effort to have something of him to take with her. But it was a pitiful substitute, a cheap counterfeit for the real thing.

  Campbell pointed ahead of them. “Come on,” he said and tugged on her hand. “I think I see it.” He grinned like a little boy. They crested the dune and there, without pomp or circumstance, just as he had promised, stood an ordinary mailbox with gold letters spelling out “Kindred Spirit.”

  “I told you it was here!” he said as they waded through the deep sand. “The mailbox has been here a couple of years,” he said, his tone changing to something close to reverence as he laid his hand on top of it. “No one knows who started it or why, but word has traveled and now people come all the way out here to leave letters for the Kindred Spirit—the mystery person who reads them. People come from all over the world.”

  “So does anybody know who gets the letters?” Lindsey asked. She ran her fingers over the gold, peeling letter decals. The bottom half of the n and e were missing.

  “I don’t think so. But that’s part of what draws people here—they come here because this place is private, special.” He looked down at his bare feet, digging his toes into the sand. “So … I wanted to bring you here. So it could be our special place too.” He looked over at her out of the corner of his eye. “I hope you don’t think that’s lame.”