My dearest Joshua,
I know this sounds silly, but I’ve missed you so since I last wrote to you. As I’m penning these letters, I feel an inexplicable closeness to you, as if I’m really sitting next you and telling you about our history. I promise to write today for as long as I can before my strength gives out.
I know this must be hard, difficult to have faith in the impossible, tough to believe in what cannot be true. I so much want to spell things out for you, to make it easy so you won’t have to go through the pain, but no matter how much I want to, I can’t protect you from our past.
My role as your mother is to provide you with the pieces of this puzzle because it affects your life, and how you decipher my message will determine the direction of your future. Stay with me, Joshua, and fight the urge to give in to the pain. I’ll continue my story now, our story, and I hope you’ll open your heart to its message.
The next day brought more unanswered phone calls from Leo. I knew he was getting desperate because he had to leave for the West Indies in three days, but I simply could not force myself to talk to him. I knew I should call Ann, but I was putting it off because I was afraid of what I would discover. I knew her story would determine my future: whether I married Leo or spent the rest of my life in Edith’s kitchen. It was overwhelming to me, but in that moment I forced it to the back of my mind.
Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the warmth, the magic that was Leo, but as soon as I decided to call him, I’d remember Edith’s insinuations and I knew if he could leave her, he could leave me. And you.
And so the next morning I got up before anyone else, put on a pot of coffee, and sat for thirty minutes or so by the window and watched the world wake up. The gray horizon slowly turned blue, and I watched young boys with long colorful surfboards sneak into the water and disappear, only to resurface as tiny heads bobbing in the sea. Men and women were dragged along the beach by restless dogs, and young couples in love sat on the boardwalk and watched the day begin. I did, too, but did so alone and from another woman’s kitchen. I thought of Leo and your father that morning and wondered what my life may have been had I been a stronger, braver woman.
I couldn’t get Leo out of my mind, and as I sat there, my coffee growing cold in my hands, I decided I had to speak with him. I needed to hear his voice.
I walked softly into the kitchen, picked up the receiver on the wall phone and dialed Leo’s number, hoping I could complete the call and get to the truth before anyone in the house stirred. It was a call I wanted to make alone.
“Yes,” Leo said in his muffled morning voice.
“It’s me,” I whispered, and when he didn’t respond, I spoke louder. “It’s Grace.”
“I’m so glad you called,” he said, his voice becoming sharper, more awake. “You know I leave in two days.”
“Yes, I know,” I whispered.
“I can’t leave like this, without knowing that you’ll wait.”
I fought the urge to flow back into him and his world and concentrated instead on her. Ann. “If you could just tell me why you left her, maybe I could understand. It scares me, Leo. I need to hear what happened, and I need to hear it from you.”
I heard him sit up in bed and put his glasses on. “Grace, I want to but…” He sighed, frustration flowed through the line. “It just wouldn’t be right. It needs to come from her.”
“I don’t understand why.”
“I know you don’t, but I think you will after you speak with her. Please, Grace. I’m not trying to make things difficult, but it’s important that I do this the right way.” He waited, and when I didn’t respond, he spoke again in an urgent voice. “You are the love of my life, Grace McKeon, and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. And if I didn’t believe it would make things right between us.”
It was all I wanted, to go back to the time when I trusted him, felt that he would never do anything to hurt me. And so I agreed. I promised Leo I would call Ann and schedule a time to go and speak with her.
As soon as I hung up the phone, I heard a movement behind me and turned to find Edith there, leaning against the doorframe. “Don’t tell me you’re going to fall for that old trick.”
I drew my robe around me tighter. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you think he’s had time to talk to her? To get his story straight?”
“Leo would never do that.”
“Really? You honestly believe he’s being straightforward with you?”
She sat down in the green chair and waited impatiently for me to brew her a pot of coffee. I went about my work and tried hard to separate her voice from Leo’s, the truth from the lies.
And then you came into the kitchen, sleepy-eyed and hungry, and I pushed Leo and Ann and the possibilities of hurt and sorrow away and instead filled my mind with the everyday tasks that can so easily consume a life.
After breakfast, I took you for a walk along the surf as I did most days. Those walks are what I hope you remember of me because I was at my happiest that time of day, somehow transported beyond my responsibilities and worries. It was just you and I, mother and son, holding hands and kicking sand on that wide open beach. At that moment of every day, I felt the possibilities of life and would make endless lists and plans in my head about what we could do, where we would go.
I taught you to fish on that shore with a homemade rod of stick and string. You were almost four and so independent by then. Such a big little boy. It used to break my heart to watch you grow and become so much like the father you never knew. I knew then you would live your life on the sea, sweating under the sun during the summer, and wrapped in layers of damp, wool clothes in the winter while eking out a living. I know work as a fisherman is a hard life, but I also believe you were born into it, destined for it, and no other kind of work will ever satisfy you.
After hours of finding shells and fishing, we would return to the gray cottage and I would begin to prepare lunch as you continued to play. I came to dread this part of our day because Edith would move about the house following you and try to join in your games. Time after time, day after day, you would reject her and run to me. She had become elaborate in her efforts, building great forts from bed linens, or filling the wading pool on a hot day. But you simply refused to include her in your life.
But on that day, right before we entered the house after one of our morning walks on the beach, I asked you about it. “Honey, do you think you can play with Edith now and then?”
You shrugged and scrunched up your nose. “She’s weird.”
I held back my first response, which was to tell you that it wasn’t nice to call people weird, and instead asked what you meant.
“I mean, she’d old. And grouchy most of the time. And I don’t like the way she talks to you.”
I suppressed a smile and sat down on the steps that led to the deck. You wiggled up on my lap. “I think she likes you very much and just wants to play with you sometimes. Do you think you could let her once in a while?”
“Do I have to?” you asked as you wiggled your toes in the sand.
“No, but it would be awfully nice of you.”
You nodded in agreement. “Did you and Leo have a fight?”
My heart dropped. I remembered the softness of his voice on the phone that morning, his gentle pleading for me to call Ann and give our love another chance. Even then, sitting in the early afternoon sun, I could hear his laughter in the waves, feel his touch in the wind. But I could also hear him telling me that yes, he had left her and my heart would close down again. But I had to know, I realized. Then my thoughts turned toward this mysterious Ann and I wondered if I had the courage, the strength to see her, to open my wounded heart to her and hear her answer. Was she bitter? Angry? Still in love with him?
Then I saw your wanting face, heard the hope in your voice. And I stood up with a renewed determination to live a life of fulfillment and happiness so you could grow up and do the same. I picked you up and kissed the top of your san
d covered hair. “Nothing that can’t be worked out, honey. Now, let’s go inside.”
I called Ann from a public phone because I didn’t want Edith to interfere. I told her I was going to the market to run some errands and asked if she minded staying with you for a short while. Of course, she didn’t.
When Ann opened the door of the small ranch style home located in the middle of town, I didn’t know what to expect. Would she be willing to talk honestly about what happened or would she harbor resentment toward me? But when she invited me in I felt the cozy, warm environment wrap itself around me. There were photographs hanging on most of the walls, all of the same man, woman and baby at different ages, dressed in their Sunday best and smiling for the cameras. Ann was the woman in the photos, arms wrapped protectively around her baby, and her hand resting comfortably on the man’s shoulder. So, she had married after all.
That day, Ann was dressed casually in soft velvet bell bottom pants and a white gauzy shirt with too many buttons undone. Wooden beads hung loosely around her neck and she wasn’t wearing any shoes. They fit, I thought. People wouldn’t look at her and Leo curiously like they did when he and I strolled down the boardwalk together. Ann’s long straight brown hair would complement Leo’s scraggly blonde hair, her tall slim figure would look at ease strolling alongside Leo’s long, slouched body.
I felt her eyes on me, wondering why I had come to see her. On the phone, I had told her I was a friend of Leo’s and asked if she would mind seeing me. I sat on the sofa, and removed my white gloves, suddenly feeling silly and overdressed in my pink suit and pill hat. I looked around, unsure of where to start the conversation.
“Is he all right?” She startled me with her British accent.
“Who?”
“Why Leo, of course. You did come to see me about him, didn’t you?” She sat down in the overstuffed chair beside me, which was draped in a foreign looking tapestry.
“Yes, of course.” I felt the blood rush to my face and attempted to fan myself with my gloves.
“Are you all right? Can I get you some water?” She rose, but I motioned for her to sit.
“Now that I’m sitting across from you, I realize how foolish my coming here was. I’m so sorry, but I do believe I’ve wasted your time.”
“Well, you’ve come for something. Please, it’s obviously important to you.”
I nodded, and to my embarrassment, a tear slid down my cheek. “It’s about Leo… and you. I need to know why…”
“Is that it, then?” She stood up abruptly and walked to a cabinet where she took down an ornate brass box. She pulled out a cigarette and offered me one. I shook my head and braced myself to be kicked out.
“You’re in love with him, then?” she asked as she drew in a mouthful of smoke.
“Yes.”
She nodded as if she perfectly understood. She opened the front door and blew the smoke into the outside air. “My husband,” she offered as an explanation. “He hates it when I smoke inside.” She sighed loudly and leaned against the doorframe, obviously planning to smoke her entire cigarette there. “I was in love with him, too. Probably still am if I’m being truthful.” She inhaled more of the smoke. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry about that now. It’s ancient history.” She took another puff while studying me. “You don’t look like his type.”
“Nor he mine.”
She nodded in agreement. “Did he leave you, then?”
“No.”
She turned toward the door and blew out the last of the smoke. “So then, you left him.”
I looked down at my gloves. “Yes, but I’m not sure it was the right thing to do.”
“Then why did you do it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, I just… heard…”
“You heard about me and wondered whether he would leave you, too?”
I nodded slightly.
“Well you shouldn’t worry, really. It was all my fault.”
I looked at her and wondered where the line was. How much could I ask her without crossing the boundaries of polite company? I needed her to tell me what happened so I could make the right decision.
I watched as her gaze drifted outside toward a tall, towering palm tree that sat in the middle of her lawn, and I felt her mood dampen. I had the distinct impression she was entering a world of memories she would rather not revisit. She spoke in a low voice, one that needed to be coaxed, urged out of her. She seemed unsure, especially compared to the confident woman I had met only moments before.
“I was too immature to have found my true love,” she started. “Really, just too young.” She shook her head. “I didn’t fall in love right away. Leo isn’t the kind of guy who just knocks your socks off, you know? He just kind of grows on you.”
I didn’t know what she meant, but it didn’t matter because she wasn’t talking to me, but to the tall tree that monopolized the front lawn. “Eventually though, I did fall for him. Hard. We had what I’d call a whirlwind romance. It just happened so fast…”
She dropped her cigarette on the porch, stepped on it to put it out and then kicked it into the grass. She lit another one. “After the excitement of the proposal wore off, after I’d made most of the arrangements and my heart had settled down, I began to get scared. Typical stuff, you know,” she said, shrugging. “I began to worry that we’d moved too fast…things like that. Then a week before the wedding, my brother and some of his friends decided to take me out on the town for my last night of freedom. It was weird, really. It was something Leo should have been doing, not me. Thomas, who was one of my brother’s friends and incredibly handsome, began to pay attention to me, and honestly? It felt really good. I don’t typically drink much, but I did that night and I began to act in a way I normally wouldn’t have.
“Anyway, one thing led to another and I won’t bore you with the details, but I did something that night that was unforgiveable in Leo’s eyes. He was devastated when I told him.” She looked down. “He just couldn’t get past it.”
When she looked up, I could see that she was crying, and I began to feel the devastating pain she must have felt to lose someone like Leo.
“It wouldn’t have been the best way to start a marriage, would it?” She signed and let her eyes settle on the photographs that lined her walls. “But it all worked out in the end. I met Paul.”
I looked at the photos and saw that they did indeed look happy, but still, there were the tears. She may have married someone else, but it was obvious a piece of her heart still remained with Leo.
After a few minutes of embarrassed idle chatter, I thanked Ann and promised to let her know how things turned out. Then I drove, exceeding the speed limit, to the University where Leo was teaching his class.
I ran as fast as my slim skirt and matching pumps would allow. Once I was inside the century old building that smelled like pencils and stale coffee, I ran to the fourth floor, too impatient to wait for the elevator. While I ran breathlessly up those stairs, I went over in my mind exactly what I would say, how he would smell, how his ink-stained fingers would pull me into him. I imagined bringing him to you then, and from that day forward we would walk everywhere holding hands. Just the three of us.
I excited the stairwell and followed the signs to the English department, then to the faculty offices. Once I’d located the correct hallway, I ran to his office but when I pushed open the door and entered the room, the place that should have smelled of him and his exotic world, it was empty. Leo wasn’t there.
“Can I help you?” asked a woman in a tailored cream suit.
“Leo,” I said breathlessly. My lungs were burning a hole in my chest from the exertion, and my legs threatened to give out at any moment. “I’m looking for Leo.”
The woman eyed me curiously and pointed down the hallway. “In the teacher’s lounge.”
Relieved that he was there after all, I smoothed down my hair and walked anxiously toward the lounge where my love, the man I should have never doubted, sat waiting f
or me. I hoped.
When I entered the room, he immediately stood, the recognition of things resolved spreading across his face in the form of a smile.
“I’ve been a fool,” I said quietly.
He shook his head. “No you haven’t, Grace.” He gestured to the other people in the room. “I think you know everyone here.” And to the others, “This is the woman I’m going to marry.”
He discreetly pulled my hand behind my back, out of the view of the others, and slipped the all-encompassing ring back where it belonged.
I didn’t drive straight home after that, but instead pointed my car to the South Beach. My tires crackled as they pressed down the moist sand and crumbled shells and I came to a stop at the edge of the water. I sat there, where the known meets the unknown, and watched the waves tumble and roll. How could I have doubted him? I wondered. He didn’t refuse to tell me why he’d broken his engagement because he was trying to hide something from me, but because he was protecting the reputation of the woman he used to love. And now that love was directed at me, and I realized at that moment I’d been given a second chance, another opportunity to live my life with love and happiness. I decided right then and there that was exactly what I would do.
The tears I cried that day on the edge of the ocean were mixed with regret, anticipation, and the awed knowledge that I would marry a man capable of such love. Everything would be fine. I knew it like I knew the sound of your laughter, the taste of my own tears.
I wanted to make a statement to the world, to everyone on the beach that day that I would no longer wait to live my life. I wanted it known that as of that second, I would taste and feel every moment that came my way. I threw open the car door and stepped out into the wind. It was gusty that day, and I watched as the wind whipped the gulls around like puppets at the end of an out-of-control string. I must have looked a sight, me in my ladylike suit and heels among everyone else in their shorts and bathing suits. I marched toward the shimmering turquoise water, heels digging in and sticking in the sand, and kept walking. I lost one then both of my shoes. My skirt was wet at the hem, but I kept going until the blue surrounded me, and only then did I allow myself to feel the water, silky and healing, lapping at my body. I yanked off the pillbox hat with the matching pink trim and threw it up into the sky. I watched it roll and cascade in the wind, a dance of the free, until it landed and was consumed by the water’s hunger.
And then I shouted to Leo, to the world and myself. “I will no longer live in fear!”
That was the last day I ironed my hair, and I gave all my prim suits to the Red Cross. I took to wearing blue jeans and shirts with the buttons undone just a tad bit too far. I wore flowers in my hair and did, on occasion, go entire days without lipstick. If I was going to be a traveler’s wife, I wanted to look the part.
That day in the ocean was one of the best days of my life and I was never the same after that. I meant what I proclaimed to the world as I stood in the middle of the sea in my suit, but I’m sorry to say that events happened that were out of my control and they irrevocably changed everything.
I’m sorry, Joshua, but my physical limitations have once again come into play and I will have to stop here. God willing, I will write you again as soon as I’m able.
Love,
Mama