Remember This

by Patricia Koerner

  Kathleen, my fellow member of the Consortium, had agreed to pick up my mail and water my plants while I was in Miami. When Guillermo and I arrived home, there was a pile of mail to go through on the dining table. I sorted through it while Guillermo was in the shower and found a letter from John among the bills and junk mail. My hand shook when I saw his handwriting. I couldn’t wait to read it and opened it there and then.

  2 November 1990

  Dearest Hannah,

  I send all my love to you on your birthday and with all my heart hope it is a happy one.

  I certainly understand that you don’t want to spend your life alone and want the happiness a good relationship can bring. Still, I can’t say I’m exactly happy to see you with someone else, though I know I’ve no right to object. If Guillermo can give you the love and companionship you want, then that is what I want for you.

  Next week, I’m going to Astoria, Oregon to appear in a play there. I’ll be there for five weeks. Just so you know I’ll be away for a while.

  Kylie is getting so big. I can’t believe she’ll soon be in kindergarten. Time goes by and children grow up so fast. It’s unbelievable. Matty must be quite a young man by now.

  I too, want us to continue to be in touch. I couldn’t take never hearing from you again. I still love you as much as ever and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. All you need do is ask. Please remember this.

  Love,

  John

  I lay awake most of that night, thinking about John and about what Laurie said. I realized she was right, whether or not I liked how she made the observation. I saw John everywhere, felt his presence inside me. It was no stretch of the imagination that I would be attracted, even subconsciously, to a man who bore a resemblance to John. I realized too, that though I was fond of Guillermo and determined to make the best of things with him, my heart belonged to John and always would.

  Though the next day was Sunday, Guillermo went in to his office to get caught up on work. I took the opportunity to phone Laurie and ask her forgiveness. We had been friends most of our lives and I loved her and would have never forgiven myself if I drove her out of my life just because she saw something I was blind to. Luckily for me, she was a better person than I in that respect and readily forgave me.

  38

  Present Day (August 11th):

  “Come out to the balcony for a bit, Sophie,” Hannah said as she let Sophie into the apartment. “It’s stifling and I think out here we can at least get a little air.”

  Sophie pulled a peach colored envelope from her bag and handed it to Hannah. “I’d like you to come to the wedding.”

  Hannah opened the envelope and looked at the photo of Sophie and Eddie. “I see you went with one in an outdoor setting. Beautiful. You two make a handsome couple.” She set the invitation down on the table. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me to attend. I don’t want my presence to be a distraction or an embarrassment on your special day. There’s no way to know how many people saw those pictures on the internet and read the stories …”

  “Hannah, stop talking bullshit!” Hannah jerked her head up in surprise. This was the first time Sophie had ever snapped at her like that. “You need to get out of your own head. Don’t let what happened exert power over you. That’s part of why we’re doing this project, right?” Sophie’s voice softened. “For you take the power. Come to my wedding like the woman I know you are, like a woman who tells it like it is and doesn’t apologize for her life. Even if there are people there who have seen the pictures and recognize you from them, they will also see the dignity with which you’ve dealt with it. And, I want very much for you to be there. The time we’ve spent together these past months has been a journey, a journey on which we both have travelled a sometimes bumpy road. So, let’s keep moving forward, OK? I’m taking my next step forward and I want you there when I take it.”

  Hannah put her head in her hands. She knew Sophie was right, but she wasn’t sure how or where to turn to ‘get out of her own head.’ For most of forty-two years, she’d had John to confide in, to help her keep things in perspective. He’d always been there for her. Hannah considered herself a strong woman, but she now realized that much of her courage and strength came from John and the depth of his love for her. She didn’t want to admit, even to Sophie, that the prospect of having to live now without him frightened her. She then remembered how John had shown her that what made one strong wasn’t never being afraid, but acknowledging the fear and still forging ahead. It was a point that took him many years to finally come to.

  Hannah sat up and took a deep breath. “OK, Sophie, let’s get to work, shall we?”

  “Yes, let’s.” They went inside to the dining table. Sophie put the recorder on the table and switched it on. “Did you have any specific plans for when you finished your doctorate?”

  39

  January 1991:

  Even before Guillermo and I married, I was applying for teaching posts. I applied to five schools – to USC in San Diego, University of Washington in Seattle, University of Colorado in Denver, University of Utah in Salt Lake City and University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. I was hoping for Seattle of course, and my second choice was San Diego, but I wasn’t called for an interview at either. I was invited to visit and interview only at Albuquerque and Salt Lake City and Guillermo and I spent the last week of January touring those campuses and meeting the faculties of their music departments. Though I was disappointed at not getting a crack at the others, I believed that either Albuquerque or Salt Lake could work out well.

  In February, I received an offer from Utah. That happy moment was mixed with a little sadness as I remembered Danny and the trip he and I took there. As Guillermo and I began the grueling process of packing and tying up our affairs in New York in preparation for the move to Utah, I thought of John and wondered if it might prove easier to resign myself to living without him in a city in which he and I had no history, no memories.

  Ford Motors agreed to transfer Guillermo and he was to start the first of May, so although I wasn’t going to begin until September, we moved in mid-April. We worried a little about finding our way around, and so were relieved to see the city was laid out on a grid, much like New York, the streets being numbered according to their direction and distance from the city’s focal point, in this case the Mormon Temple. What plagued us most was the high altitude and the arid climate. I had occasional nosebleeds for the first year we lived there and Guillermo’s skin became dry and itchy and he had to constantly apply lotion.

  Through an agent, we’d bought an apartment in Holladay, a bedroom community southeast of the city. The surrounding mountains were so large and imposing, they seemed to be almost at our doorstep though they were actually miles away. It took me some time to get used to them.

  Becoming accustomed to the people and way of life was another matter. I was taken aback at how unafraid people were to approach a stranger and strike up a conversation. I was astounded at how much personal information people would divulge to someone they’d just met. It happened to me at the market, at shops, on the university campus. Eventually I relaxed enough to make small talk, but I never was nor would be comfortable enough to be open with people. It took time too, for Guillermo and me to adjust to the markedly slower pace of life. Once we did, we found that it suited us. We could take time to enjoy ourselves, whether to take a drive up one of the canyons or to just relax around our home and neighborhood.

  We were perplexed by the dichotomy between the ‘cowboy’ culture which permeated politics and social life and the fact that Utah was fast becoming a center of technology and scientific research. It seemed that half of the people believed that they still lived in the ‘Wild West’ though it was 1991 while the other half was busy putting Utah on the map for the 21st century.

  Before we moved, I read up on the Mormon Church to acquaint myself with the faith, so I knew they were a proselytizing people. Still, I wasn’t prepared for the persistence of their m
issionaries. One evening, I finally emptied the last of our packing boxes and took them out to the dumpster. Almost the second I was back in the apartment, two young men appeared at the door, teenagers, really. They looked to be barely older than Matty.

  “Good evening,” one of them said. “Are you interested in hearing about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?”

  “Well, I have heard about it …” I began.

  “Have you read the Book of Mormon?” his partner held out a copy.

  I was trying to find a way to politely decline. “I really don’t have time to do much reading.”

  “How about you, sir?” he said to Guillermo who, curious, had come up behind me.

  “I don’t do much reading, either,” Guillermo said with a shrug.

  “Don’t you want to know about the restored church of Jesus Christ?”

  I was becoming quite irritated by this time. It was a chilly evening and I was standing in the open doorway in a thin tee shirt and shorts and was starting to shiver, something this kid seemed oblivious to. “Young man,” I said, “I don’t need to hear about a restored church because mine is the original. Now, please excuse us. Good night.” With that, I closed the door before he could say anything more.

  A few weeks later, Guillermo answered the door to two more young missionaries. This time one of them was Hispanic. I surmised that the previous two had reported back to their superiors that Guillermo was Hispanic and perhaps they thought a Hispanic missionary might have better luck with us. I smiled awkwardly at the Anglo partner while the Hispanic one engaged Guillermo in conversation in rapid Spanish. I caught that the missionary was from Nicaragua and had been in mission service for eight months. They went on at length about the missionary’s hometown, Estelí. Guillermo would tell me later that he had traveled to Nicaragua before on business and that he had been to Estelí. After they talked for some time, the missionary turned to me and said, “You do know that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are coming, don’t you – coming for you.”

  “Well, don’t let that worry you,” I told him. “They don’t have any better chance than you do.” They must have given up then on saving our heathen souls, because after that, we had no more visits from missionaries.

  That summer, we had Matty down from Seattle for his visit. We took him to a baseball game, showed him around the city and went on a picnic and hike up in Millcreek Canyon. He was getting so tall. All his trousers were too short for him and I took him shopping to buy new ones. He was wearing glasses too, and I thought it made him look even older and more sophisticated.

  Consuelo came for a visit in August with Victoria and Olivia. I had to let Guillermo take over most of entertaining them since I was preparing to begin my teaching job. I was able at least to give them a tour of the campus and take them to the Natural History Museum between department meetings. The girls loved the dinosaur exhibit and Olivia vowed she was going to study to be a “dinosaur expert.”

  Right before school started, I received through Laurie a letter from John. I hadn’t heard from him for most of the summer as he was filming a movie and the shooting schedule was tight. I had mixed feelings about the news it held.

  7 September 1991

  Dearest Hannah,

  I meant to write you sooner, but I just couldn’t find a spare minute. I have thought of you often though, and wondered how life is for you and your husband in Utah. I imagine it’s quite different from New York or California. I enjoyed the photo you sent of you and Matty hiking in the canyon. I wish I could have been there with you. He’s going to be quite a young man, I can tell.

  Rachel had the baby on August seventeenth – a son. We’re naming him Robert, after my Dad. I think he’s even going to look like him. Kylie isn’t sure yet how she feels about having a little brother. The other day she asked Rachel when he was “going back home.”

  I’m so proud of you; getting your doctorate, being a teacher. You are so gifted. I’m happy to see you sharing that with the students you’ll be teaching. They’ll be the better for it.

  I’m going to take a little time off to spend time with the baby, so I won’t be around the studios for a while, but I will still phone Laurie now and then to see if there’s a letter. I know you’ll be busy, but please write as often as you can. Remember this – a part of me is always with you.

  Love,

  John

  While I wished him happiness with his new son, I again felt a twinge of sadness that it never happened for us. I put the letter away and made a note to ask for a photo of the baby so I could see whether he really was going to look like Robert.

  With two undergraduate classes to teach, plus private piano instruction, my days were full. I had little opportunity to do the research expected from me as a tenure track professor. Still, I managed to investigate the early and world music scenes in the Salt Lake area and was pleasantly surprised to find them vibrant and diverse.

  One group I encountered, Terpsichore, included dancers as well as musicians. They performed on campus as part of a holiday concert – a concert I attended only because one of my fellow professors in the department had two extra tickets and offered them to me. I took Laurie with me. She and James came to visit for a few days during Christmas. They and Matty visiting at the same time made for a busy and crowded holiday season, but it was the best one I’d had in years.

  I was happy to see that Laurie enjoyed the concert. Afterward, Laurie and I went to dinner to talk. When the server left with our order, Laurie’s demeanor changed. “I found out something a few weeks ago.” She fiddled with her silverware. “You know, for years now, James and I have been trying to have a baby. We went to specialists, underwent all kinds of tests. All of them were inconclusive. Finally, they ran out of tests.” She stopped to swallow back tears. “There’s nothing more to do. We’re trying to accept that we’re probably never going to have kids. I want to adopt, but James has had enough and wants to forget about kids. It’s straining our marriage.”

  My heart broke for her and James. If any people would have made good parents, it was Laurie and James. I resisted weighing in on whether or not they should pursue adoption. Instead, I urged her to concentrate now on strengthening her marriage. I remembered how broken I was when I lost Rosebud and how remembering that I still had Matty and focusing on him had helped me. I believed that, if they focused first on what they still had, with time, they would arrive at the decision which was right for them.

  When school resumed, I made contact with the Terpsichore group. I was so delighted with their performance at the holiday concert that I wanted to work with them. Happily for me, they agreed and selected several of my compositions for us to arrange and choreograph for a planned performance in May.

  I loved working with this group though my time was sometimes limited. Eventually, they invited me to become a regular member. I even learned to play the tar, which I remembered first seeing when John and I traveled with the free school people, and the doumbek, a drum also originally from the Middle East. We made plans to record an album.

  40

  When June came, I was pleased with myself at having completed my first year teaching. Guillermo and I thought it would be a treat for us to drive to Seattle to pick up Matty for his summer visit with us. We’d heard that the scenery in the Northwest was lovely and we planned to take it all in. I also hoped that this trip would be a shot in the arm for our marriage. After our first anniversary, Guillermo seemed to lose interest in doing anything together, either by ourselves or with anyone else. All of his time at home was spent in front of the television, watching sports matches; basketball, baseball, soccer. Before long, the only time he remembered I existed, it seemed, was when he wanted me to fix him something to eat. I was happy when he showed some enthusiasm for this trip.

  Everything went well at first. We took the route along the Columbia River Gorge to Portland and stopped at various place to photograph the sights. We made a special detour to see Mount Hood and the Oregon Trail. Wh
en we reached Seattle however, Guillermo missed the exit and immediately began berating me. “Why didn’t you tell me that was the exit? Now we’re lost!”

  “Dammit, Guillermo!” I snapped. “I don’t know this city, either. This is my first time driving here, too so stop blaming me whenever anything goes wrong. Just calm down and turn around.” At the time I attributed this to fatigue after two days of traveling, but this bickering would become routine.

  We checked into a hotel and made sure to get some rest and sleep before we proceeded to Tony’s. Given how rude Tony was to John, I was apprehensive at how he’d react to Guillermo. I was also a little nervous at meeting Tony’s new wife, Deirdre. Matty had talked about her and said he liked her, but I wanted to meet her and see for myself.

  Matty answered the door. I was astounded. He was as tall as I was. “Dad and Deirdre just went to the store. They’ll be back soon.” Motioning us toward the patio doors, he said, “Come see the parrots.” He led us out onto the patio where three cages held a red, a green and a blue parrot. Matty opened one cage and allowed the red parrot to walk up his arm and sit on his shoulder. “This is Sookie,” he said. “She’s the gentlest one. The others are Freddy and Petey.” Matty offered Guillermo and me each a dish of grapes. “Here, feed these to them. They’ll eat them right out of your hand.” While Guillermo and I were busy feeding and petting the birds, Tony and his wife returned.