The Email: Part 4 – The Name
672 Words
She notices Luke’s name in the signature. The professional request becomes personal.
Her throat tightened again at the lie.
This wasn’t about him.
It was about a building.
She lifted the laptop screen fully again, as if reopening it would make the situation more honest. The signature remained at the bottom of the email, unassuming. Black text. Standard font. No embellishment.
Luke Mercer
Festival Operations Coordinator
No exclamation point. No personal note. No “Clara.”
Just the role.
Her thumb hovered over his name.
If she clicked it, his email address would expand. Maybe a phone number. Maybe confirmation that this was official and not some strange coincidence.
She clicked.
The contact card slid open in a small white box.
lmercer@everlightharbor.org
There it was. Real. Municipal. Not personal.
For a second she felt absurdly disappointed.
She didn’t know what she’d expected. A private account? Something reckless? Something that implied he’d written the email himself at midnight instead of forwarding a drafted request from a council meeting.
Her gaze scanned the message again, slower now.
The tone was neutral. Efficient. Polished.
It didn’t sound like him.
Luke used to avoid email entirely. He preferred walking into a room and saying what needed saying. He liked eye contact. Silence when it mattered.
She leaned back against the counter, laptop open before her like evidence.
Had he written this?
Or had he signed off because someone needed to?
She imagined him sitting at a long wooden table in the inn’s back office, sleeves pushed up, pen tucked behind his ear the way he used to do when fixing boat engines. The image arrived too easily. Too intact.
Seven years and her memory hadn’t even bothered to blur him.
She scrolled once more to the top of the email.
Dear Ms. Bennett.
Not Clara.
Professional.
Deliberate distance.
That choice would have been his.
The realization landed softly but decisively.
He had written this.
And he had chosen restraint.
Her jaw tightened.
She reached for her phone without fully deciding to and unlocked it. The screen lit up, familiar icons waiting for instruction. Her thumb moved automatically to Contacts.
She scrolled.
There it was.
Luke Mercer
She hadn’t deleted it.
The number remained, unchanged. A small lighthouse emoji sat beside his name—a relic from some long-forgotten joke about him always knowing the way back to shore.
Her chest pulled tight.
She tapped the contact.
The call button glowed green.
She could press it.
She could hear his voice right now.
“Hey.”
He always answered like that. No flourish. Just her name after.
Clara.
Her thumb hovered over the green circle.
The apartment hummed quietly around her. The refrigerator. The faint whistle of wind along the windows. The city pressing forward, indifferent.
She imagined the alternative.
Him answering with formal restraint.
“Ms. Bennett.”
The thought struck harder than it should have.
She lowered the phone slowly, letting it rest face down on the counter again.
No.
If she went back, it would be because she chose to.
Not because nostalgia ambushed her in a kitchen thirty-four floors above a city that had no memory of her at all.
Her eyes returned to the email one last time.
The Winter Lantern Festival is scheduled for December 21st.
December 21st.
Fourteen days away.
Fourteen days to assess foundational damage in a century-old structure in the middle of winter.
It was ambitious.
Complicated.
Risky.
Her specialty.
Her pulse steadied.
She straightened, closing the laptop halfway again, but this time she didn’t hesitate because of him.
She hesitated because going back meant walking into a place where she was not the version of herself she had constructed here.
In Everlight Harbor, she wasn’t Ms. Bennett.
She was Clara.
The girl who left.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the counter.
Outside, the snowfall thickened, softening the skyline until the buildings blurred at their edges.
For a moment, the city looked almost gentle.
Her laptop screen dimmed automatically, waiting for input.
Waiting for a decision.
- Writer
