The first such postcard had arrived at the end of December, and since then others followed, with increasing frequency. Elli Thomas began to await them with eagerness and anticipation. If a week or more passed without receiving a card, she would sift through her mail again, wondering if one had arrived but was overlooked. Her mailbox – one of twelve in the shared entrance of the apartment building – mostly contained bills, or reminders for unpaid bills, and a bunch of advertisements for mass catering. Much of the mail that arrived in her box was addressed to previous tenants who had long since moved out, so Elli assumed that "S. Ibotson," the person to whom the postcards were addressed, was one of them.

Except for the colorful postcards always featuring images from Greece, Elli would toss all the other stray letters into the mailbox at the corner of the block, after scribbling the words "Return to sender" on them – although the post office surely forwarded them to the trash bin. The postcards could not be returned to the sender. The sender was unknown. And the signature beneath the brief texts was simply an "A." "A" as in "Anonymous." And whoever S. Ibotson was, nothing else had arrived by mail addressed to that recipient name during the three years Elli had lived in that depressing apartment in Kensal Rise.

So, she began pinning them to a large corkboard, which, apart from her social security number pinned on a piece of paper in one corner and an occasional shopping list, remained empty. As the weeks passed, the cards formed a vibrant mosaic dominated by blue and white – sky, sea, boats, and whitewashed houses with blue shutters. Even the flag visible on some of them was in the same pure colors.