Two Envelopes

Elena keeps the two envelopes in a wooden box at the back of her wardrobe in Vancouver. One is white and official, with the blue logo of an engineering company printed in the corner. The other is cream-colored and heavy, and her name is written on it by hand in black ink. Both arrived on the same morning, twenty years ago, when she was twenty-four and living with her parents in Zaragoza.

She remembers the morning perfectly. It was the end of May, and the postman was late. She was sitting on the stairs outside the apartment, pretending to read, when he finally appeared. He handed her the two envelopes together, smiled and said, "Good news comes in pairs." She has never forgotten that.

She opened the white one first. She still isn't sure why. Perhaps it was simply on top. Inside was a job offer from a company in Vancouver: a two-year contract designing bridges, with a salary she could hardly believe and a flight booked for the first of September. She read it three times, standing on the stairs, and then ran inside to tell her mother.

It was only that evening, after the phone calls and the celebrations, that she opened the second envelope. It was from a music school in Madrid. She had auditioned there in March, playing the piano until her fingers ached, and had told nobody because she was sure she would fail. They were offering her a place, starting in September, with a scholarship.

For a week, she hardly slept. Her father said that engineering was a real job and music was a hobby. Her piano teacher said that talent like hers was rare and she would regret wasting it. Her best friend said she should flip a coin. In the end, Elena chose Vancouver, partly because of the money, partly because she was afraid, and partly, she suspects now, because she had already told everyone. If she had opened the cream envelope first, she sometimes thinks, she would have had a whole day to feel like a musician before anyone could tell her otherwise.

The two-year contract became five years, and then a permanent position. She met Daniel, a Canadian architect, at a conference in Seattle. They got married, bought a house with a view of the mountains and had two children, Nora and Teo. Elena has designed eleven bridges. One of them crosses a river in British Columbia, and every time she drives over it, she feels quietly proud.

But on certain evenings, usually in late May, she takes the box down from the wardrobe and imagines the other life. If she had gone to Madrid, she would have spent her twenties in small practice rooms and crowded concert halls. She probably wouldn't have become famous, but she might have become good. She would be a different person now: less organized, perhaps, and poorer, and maybe happier, or maybe not.

And yet, if she had chosen music, she would never have met Daniel. Nora and Teo wouldn't exist. That is the thought that always stops her. It is easy to miss a life you never lived; it is impossible to wish away the people you love.

Last spring, something unexpected happened. Nora, who was then twelve, found the box while looking for a scarf. She read the letter from the music school and came downstairs holding it like evidence. "You never told me you played the piano," she said. "I used to," Elena said. "I haven't played for twenty years." Nora looked at her the way only a twelve-year-old can. "So play now."

There is an old upright piano in the school where Daniel's sister teaches. On Saturday mornings, when the building is empty, Elena goes there and practices for two hours. Her fingers are slow and stiff, and she makes mistakes she would never have made at twenty-four. It doesn't matter. Nora sometimes comes with her and sits on the floor with a book, pretending not to listen.

Elena doesn't believe in regret anymore, or at least not in the kind that wastes your time. If she had made the other choice, she would be a different woman, living a different life in a different city. But she made this one, and this one turned out to have room for a piano after all. Some roads, she has discovered, come back around if you wait long enough.