‘Stella Ryman and the Labyrinthian Puzzle’ by Mel Anastasiou

When Thelma Hu was eighteen and all alone, she stood on her sea legs on the Coal Harbour docks, spitting distance from the boat that had brought her on a two-week journey out of China. She had a full purse in her pocket and was dressed in her best green silk dress with covered buttons at the neck. Even so, she knew she appeared an unlikely bride. The picture her grandmother had sent to her prospective husband had been, at best, optimistic. Furthermore, she’d seen a photo of her bridegroom. She knew he could do better. 

Above her, seagulls shrilled like old aunties, and beneath her feet, between the dock’s grey planks, sunlight flashed off water. The air smelled of fish, engine oil, sweat, and tar. A pair of stevedores pushed past her. The box they carried off the ship she’d sailed in on emitted a whiff of sandalwood, but it was gone before the aroma could break her heart for home. 

Two hours’ wait dockside supplied Thelma with all the evidence she needed to deduce that her fiancé must have arrived early, taken in a good view of her disembarking in her best dress, and decided that she would never look better than she did today. He must have said to himself, no, I don’t think so. 

Or perhaps … She laughed aloud, and a passing labourer scowled at her. Perhaps her fiancé had been so filled with the prospect of lifelong joy with a bride from his Chinese home that he felt dizzy with bliss and stepped under a bus, Thelma’s name the last word on his lips. 

Whichever it was, no one had come to meet her at the dock. Therefore, she had a choice.