Somewhere, deep within her soul, she feels a sob, then a dagger of shrapnel hurtles over the years since the explosion of the doomed affair with Pete to cut her heart open once more. Hot tears fall from her eyes. “Pete, please.” She wipes away the tears with the back of her hand.
“Oh, Liz. Don’t cry. I really didn’t mean to lie to you. Everything happened so quickly with us. I did everything wrong. We did everything right. We both leaped before we looked. When two people fall as hard and as crazy as we did, the world goes haywire. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, and I ended up hurting everyone. I am so sorry, sweetheart. So very sorry.”
She attempts to compose herself as the tears fall like red-hot lava down her cheeks. “Thank you, Pete,” is all she can whisper in reply.
“Can’t you just meet me for a cup of coffee at Warehouse Row? We can meet in the Food Court. Lots of witnesses and I promise to be on my best behavior. I don’t drink; it was part of my probation years ago, and I just never touched it again. Please, Liz, just let me apologize to you to your face. Please?”
Silence, yet for her sniffles.
“C’mon, Liz. Let me see you one more time. Where are your manners? Shouldn’t you thank me for saving The Poet’s Love Letters to you?”
More silence.
She remembers her brother and how happy they were as children, before the crash. She remembers how defiant she was at Vanderbilt, shedding the anger from witnessing her brother’s death. Liz recalls how happy her mom was before losing her only son. Once Liz was young and fresh and she recalls having HOPE. Scenes flash through her memory like a milli-second movie. The fucked up sad years that had made up the majority of her life. Memories of the last time with her brother, the car accident. The full disaster of Pete.
Her heart surges, physically surges. Pete. The dream-come-true surrealness of their relationship. Then the sadness, the abyss. Indie flashes through her mind. Then happiness, Jack with his sheep. Peddling his cheese in the village. Mrs. T. Malachy. The Nook Manor. Cornwall, England. The Shard in London. Standing there in the art gallery. Meeting Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack. Everything was magic after Jack. Then, he was gone. Gone too soon.
The nightmare on the bridge. The Savage Dwarf. Poor Zelda. Our magical child and Jack’s self-proclaimed greatest creation. Pete says, “Are you still there? Liz? Talk to me. Don't punish yourself and please don’t punish me anymore. Being away from you has been the worst punishment God could ever give me.”
She hears his pensive sigh over the phone line. “Liz, I am a changed man, but my heart is still yours. It has been since we met. Please say you’ll see me. Just let me see you one more time. One more time; that’s all I ask. Let me know that you are okay with your life and finally okay with me. God has forgiven me. I have forgiven myself. Now, I ask your forgiveness. I should never, ever have told you anything but the truth.”
Liz sighs audibly. A moment later, she starts to speak again, after a little laugh – a small, tiny little laugh through her tears. “September again,” she murmurs.
“What was that?” says Pete.
“Have you noticed how all the big deals in my life seem to take place in September? Luckily for us, it’s April. Just a cup of coffee, you say. You know it can never just be a cup of coffee between us, Pete. But, yes, I will meet you. I need to take the time to say thank you for saving my life.”
“I'd have done that for anyone, Liz.”
“And I want to thank you for bringing me those letters to me from Jack. I always felt so weird writing to you when he was so ill and wasted and couldn't do it. I hated you when I found out you'd been writing to him. But then I realized that you really did love him. You always did.”
“But you went through with it.”
“I couldn't hate you for loving him. And I was doing it for him anyway, because he wanted me to. It was hard, though. I didn't like deceiving you. I didn't even like being in contact with you. There; I've said it. Then you go and save my life.” She pauses. “Not for the first time.”
“How do you mean?”
“You saved my life the first time when you drove me across an ocean into the arms of Jack. I was dead inside when I left America after your…when I, um… ran away… when you drove me away.”
“I’m sorry about that, Liz. The day hasn’t passed when you haven’t crossed my mind.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose I have to believe you.”
“You don’t have to, but it is true.”
“Just a coffee, you promise?”
“I’m a different guy, Liz. I’m not the same man. I never can be. Nor do I want to be. I was a self-obsessed loser all those years ago. I caused a lot of pain. All the sorries in the world can never undo what I’ve done. I’ve tried to make things better by helping others. But it can never be enough. When the balance sheet of Pete Hendrix is checked out, the ‘pain caused’ column is always going to be deep in the red. I thought it might help you if we were to meet. Maybe I can apologize to you to your face. Not that it will change the past. You know how the Cherokees are about the getting the spirit on the right side of the Great One. I’m human, Liz. I just want to say sorry and ask for your forgiveness. Heaven knows I don’t deserve it.”
“No, you don’t. But I’ll give it. You’re becoming the man I always believed you to be, Pete. You’ve made a difference to Zelda. I believe she thought you might be her father at one point.”
“You’re lucky with her, Liz. She’s a good kid.”
“It’s not been easy, Pete. She’s not had it easy. She loved her dad and he loved her.”
“And you loved him.”
“Yes, I did.”
“I’m glad.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“But I wasn’t the first, Pete.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was another ahead of me. Indie Shadwick.”
“No, Liz. You were first.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve got letters from him.”
“What?”
“I’ve got some other letters. You haven’t seen them all. There’s one where he says that you not only helped him get over her, you became more to him than her. She really was crazy, Liz. She was like a female Hamlet. A Hamlet and Ophelia all in one personality. She was destroying him. Maybe that’s why she ended her life. She knew she couldn’t love him right, that she wasn’t right.”
“You been studying psychology out in the woods?”
“I’ve had time to think, Liz Snow. And, yes, to read as well.”
“Liz Savage, if you don’t mind.”
“Sorry.”
“For Pete’s sake, stop saying sorry.” Then, she sighs before saying, “Okay, but only for a cup of coffee.”
“A cup of coffee will be perfect. How about tomorrow afternoon around 3:00 at the coffee shop in Warehouse Row? You’ll be safe. Other people will be around.” His voice lightens with relief as he says it.
With that, they say good-bye, only to meet the next day, and, in the words of The Bard… “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” only these tomorrows are the tomorrows that should’ve been the yesterdays of their youth.
Pete and Liz have become friends. They find, once the shyness and Liz’s distrust abate, that they still share a love of poetry. They both loved Jack. And, Pete has become friends with Zelda. He shares her father’s letters with her, explaining how the two had a written correspondence throughout the years. How Pete had written her father initially upon reading in an abandoned newspaper left on the banks of the Tennessee River that Jack was ill with cancer. How her father had never shared the fact that his Lady from Atlanta was Liz of LaFayette. Pete never knew that Liz Snow was the wife of Jack O. Savage.
He reads a couple of these “healing” verses to Zelda. Pete takes the time to explain the correspondence Jack and he shared. Pete wrote to him about digging through the tough stuff of life to get to the good stuff.
Pete knew he was almost following how John Donne went from being a rake to becoming a man of God, which is, of course, exactly what Pete has done.
“‘From gimp masks to Genesis,’ as you would say, Zelda, so to speak. Or rather re-genesis. From one extreme to the other. Does this help you understand the dynamic between your father and me better? Does this enable you to see your mother in a better light now, Zelda?”
Liz allows Pete to travel to Nashville with Marlowe when he doesn’t have pottery exhibits to assist Zelda with her studies. He and Zelda discuss The Poet for hours and analyze his poems and letters, both from a personal perceptive, and a literary point of view. Pete redeems himself. Through his words and actions he enables the mother and daughter to see that The Poet loved them more than he had ever loved. Zelda retains her literary admiration for Indie Shadwick, but she continues to see her own mother in a new way, all because of Pete.
~
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]>
date: Thursday, August 12 at 4:33 PM
subject: Question & Secret
Mum, how are you? Just a quick email to say hello. Marlowe & Pete are just leaving. I want you to know, I understand why you fell in love with him so long ago. He really is a nice man, even after all he’s endured & the pain he has caused. He’s a handsome devil too.
So, with that out there & our new open communications & all…Jazz & Skyler are coming in for a couple of weeks. I’d like to bring them to the condo in Chattanooga. Bring them round to see you & Grand Guy on the farm. We owe them for getting the pics & poems of Dad’s from you to me a while back, doncha think? We’ll go round Chickamauga Park. All the local family stuff. Whaddya say, Mum?
To ensure a yes, I have a secret to tell you. I’m also bringing my boyfriend. You may actually like him. He’s a psychiatrist from Nashville, Dr. Joseph Tillman. Marlowe knows him.
Don’t fret, he’s not MY psychiatrist. I’ll tell you more when we chat.
I love you, Mum. Hope to see you soon!
XOXO
Z
~
Due to her growing respect for Pete, Liz begins meeting him quite often for casual dates. One night after dinner in Coolidge Park, with a soft summer rain beginning to fall at sunset, Pete and Liz run like children, looking for a place to escape the rain. As the last rays of the sun glisten against the droplets and the birds sing in the trees over their heads, Pete unexpectedly reaches for Liz’s arm.
“Liz, in the words of Christopher Marlowe, ‘Make me immortal with a kiss.’”
Almost as an impulse, Liz grabs Pete’s lapel and pulls him toward her. They kiss twice. Two souls entwined in one embrace, one sigh for all that was lost, yet another as lovers hope for what still might be. A thousand wrongs become a million rights as neurons and synapses make their hearts desires become one need. When souls kiss, the angels sing.
He brushes her wet hair back from her face and whispers, “This time, we’re going to do this the right way.” Pulling her under an awning, as if protecting her from the rain, he pulls her to him and lovingly warms his arms around her. She instinctively turns her back to him to nuzzle in his arms. With that, he moves her long hair to one side and kisses her neck. The seduction is complete as Liz and Pete realize they have known all along that somehow, someway, they are meant to be together.
As the sun sets behind the river gorge, they walk hand in hand to his truck, the fragrance of honeysuckle and magnolias surrounding them. In the distance, a blue heron crane flies parallel to the river, making its final journey of the day, and an owl screeches. The lights of the Walnut Street Bridge flicker on and the evening starts for Chattanooga. In the twilight, no one notices the shadow of the Cherokee warrior, faintly smiling. His prophecy is finally being fulfilled, the fair-haired and blue-eyed descendants of his bloodline would return to the ancestral lands. Liz, Zelda, and her children’s children would now stay connected in some way to the Tennessee Valley. They are back where they belong.
12.
September Forever
Walden’s Ridge Tennessee
The cabin
August 31
Hello, Diary,
It’s been a long time. We have so much to catch up on. Heartbreak. Loss. More heartbreak and loss. But, more importantly, love. Tomorrow, it will be September again and I have a secret for you. Is this my most important confession to you? A lot's happened between us. We've come a long way together, you and I.
Let me set the scene…the sun is setting over the gold and green of the Cumberland Plateau with a magnificent burst of orange clouds. A scent of autumn fills the air. Change is on the way. The water is gurgling from the cave and the night sounds are beginning. It takes me back so many years to another time and place. Yet, here we are. I’m on the porch at Pete’s cabi, alone with you at last. You will never believe the good news I have to share.
My heart has mended and I am healing. I will never recover from the loss of Jack. Never ever. Never. So there, Jack! We had and still have a bond beyond death. We have Zelda, our magical child. No matter how much she has hurt me, I will love her more than myself. She is part of you, Jack—that is more important to me than anything. Her darkness and her wild nature are so very Savage. She is you, Jack, untamed and unleashed on the world in a female form. She has your Savage spirit, even though it appears she is coming to terms with her own demons. And, with me. She is incredibly beautiful to me. A special little spirit—and yes, Jack’s greatest creation, just as he always said. I will never love anyone or anything as much as I love her. She may actually believe that now.
Honestly, I don’t know whether to write this to you, Diary, or to Jack. In my heart, Jack held all the secrets. The diary held only the words.
Pete Hendrix rescuing me from the bridge was the beginning of a new phase for us as a mother and daughter. Pete’s patience with her has been awe inspiring. He has openly shared and given Zelda poems and letters sent, unknown to me, to him from Jack before Jack became ill. Pete has been instrumental in our understanding of each other and aided her in overcoming the resentment of me, which she had harbored since finding my diary, which contained the story of Pete. I was going to give her that part of the story and explain it to her. Instead, she found it, unbeknownst to me. Sadly, what I meant to use to help her understand her life and my life with her father was taken the wrong way. I completely understand and know that I am a part of her troubled past. She has forgiven me. Thankfully!
She now understands that Pete was a part of my life that led me to her father-to-be. I never manipulated or seduced Jack. Jack and I healed each other from our pain, following the damage inflicted by Pete and Indie in our lives. We shared a love that was right and true. What I experienced with Pete was so wrong at that time. We were young and reckless, tied in a passion that could only burn a fiery ring. It did that too.
In this tangled web we call life, somehow Pete introduced me to Jack. I always knew that AND resented it. It felt as if Pete was in some way responsible for me knowing Jack. And, no matter how much I hated that, it was a fact that floated in my periphery of emotion and I never would accept it.
However, IF not for the relationship that certain summer, I would never have run away to London. That’s the part of me I always understand in Zelda—the need to run away. She did inherit some part of me, whether she likes it or not! But, run I did. Fortunately for me, I unknowingly ran straight into my one true, perfect love, Jack O. Savage. Somehow, even though he never said anything, I believe Jack knew more than he shared about my past. And, I believe he knew it was Pete that I was running from. Jack was smart and intuitive. Somehow, he knew the crazy poet writing him from Tennessee was in love with me. That was why Jack kept saying in the last weeks of his life, “Make it right, Liz. You know what to do.” Jack knew I had to make peace with my past before I could move forward.
I will never, never, ever never love another man the way I loved Jack.
But, Jack is gone. Now, I am older, weat
hered, and wiser. The years have changed Pete too. The heart and soul I always felt was there really is there. The timing was all wrong—everything was wrong. Now, it’s a different story. The fire has burned, yet the embers held a flame.
The dreams of my grandfather over the years urging me on, no matter how deep my despair…someday, one day, you will understand. But not today. The dream of my grandfather, along with the Cherokee and brother Charles, taking Jack when I lost him.
Pete tells me the Cherokee warrior saved him from drowning the day he wrecked in Atlanta. Even through all the years and all the pain, Pete remembers the Cherokee pulling him from the water and telling him the exact words…someday, one day…but not today.
So, Diary, are you ready for the secret? That day is today.
Remember years ago when I swore to you that we were going to get a happy ending? Remember when I told you I didn’t know how, but Pete Hendrix was going to ask me to marry him? That was so long ago.
But, silly girlish dreams seem to come true when the time is right. My life has come full circle. Pete Hendrix asked me to marry him. What can I do?
Zelda is a remarkable young lady. Her grades are outstanding and she has almost finished her doctoral degree. She is so beautiful to me. And so very in love with handsome Dr. Tillman. One day, she will give me gorgeous grandbabies. What she doesn’t know is that she is about to become even happier because Joseph – in an old fashioned way, you would be proud, Jack – Joseph has asked me if he can marry Zelda. He has a special evening planned. He will propose on one knee with the Kismet Diamond – just like you did, Jack. She’s mature enough to know what it meant to us. There is a twelve-year age difference, but that’s what we had, Jack. It seems normal that Zelda would fall for someone older. It’s what we taught her – how to love right. She is living what she knows.
September Again (September Stories) Page 9