September Ends

by Jones, Hunter S.

Like when we dived in the Tennessee

  And she'd come up her T-shirt a-clinging

  'Still like the way I look, Pete? Look at me.'

  by Pete Hendrix

  51st LETTER FROM PETE to JACK (Jack is too ill to receive, read, or reply to Pete's letters now.)

  Dear Jack,

  I understand. I will keep my replies short. Yes, I do understand that your nurse is writing for you, which is why your handwriting is different.

  Re the incident with the water moccasin in the creek. The old Indian guy caught the snake for me and took it away. I am sure he did not kill it, as he respects all the Great Spirit’s creatures.

  Yep, is it getting cold now that all the leaves are falling. I confess I do always feel a touch sad around this time of year because of what happened to me when the disaster struck. I will light a candle for Liz tonight as the 1st of Sept is her birthday. I will watch the candle burn and think of her. I can think of her calmly now and all I wish for her is that she is happy wherever she is in the world.

  Jack, TALKING WOLF came to me again the other night. Not in a dream this time. It was a vision. He came through the wall of the cabin and sat with me. He did not speak, though. He just sat there like he knew. If I could walk through walls, I would sit with you, Jack, sir. Enough said.

  With much respect for a gifted man,

  Pete

  #10. POST FROM THE WORLD

  'Your Audubon Magazine subscription.'

  'We're terminating from the 14th of May'

  And this from Tom Myles, my attorney-at-law:

  'It is with regret that I inform you...'

  'On account of your third non-attendance...'

  'Full custody awarded to your ex...'

  Just so. All I have left is you now, Liz

  My fantasy from another lifetime

  You and I, a man in a novella

  If you made me up and wrote me down

  The world would insist you'd created a clown

  by Pete Hendrix

  52nd LETTER FROM PETE to JACK

  Dear Jack,

  I am sorry my last letter upset you, Jack, I never intended that. I am profoundly sorry.

  Yes, TALKING WOLF did come back to me in another dream and I was ready for him this time because I was not asleep, if that makes any sense. I have not been sleeping well, to be honest.

  Yes, I was ready for him this time and I had pen and paper to hand and I wrote down the lines he spoke. Here they are.

  O GREAT SPIRIT

  You pass through the eye of the hawk

  You run through the heart of the deer

  You flow through the stream of life

  You sing in the voice of the bird

  You rise with the sun and sleep with the stars

  O Great Spirit! You are the things we cannot see

  You pass through our blood

  You pass through our breath

  You pass in your birch canoe

  You pass through our eyes

  We see you pass into the skies

  I will never say goodbye to you, Jack. Because I will never leave you. There may be no more letters between us. But I KNOW that you will always be there, whenever I look at the sun or the stars, I KNOW that you will see me looking. Be strong, Jack man.

  Your friend far off close,

  Pete Hendrix

  Chapter 20

  The Night You Died

  So, it's over, but not over. I just know it will never be over. How can it be? Wherever I go, it will always be the same. The questions, the looks. My life is frozen because of your death, Jack. I'm your widow. Yet it's like they own me in some weird way. They don't care that I've lost the man I love. The nation has lost its poet and that's more important than a woman that they don’t really know losing her husband.

  No one owned you, Jack, not ever; not me, not them, not even your beloved words and God knows they were closer to you than any of us ever were. That's why I loved you. You were free, totally and absolutely.

  I miss you. Damn you for dying on me! A day will not pass when I don't think of you, Jack. Damn you for leaving me like this. Damn you! Damn you! I just wanted to love you, that’s all.

  So what if I did faint in that awful service? So what? Did they really think, really believe, I was faking it? How stupid they are. They know I was never an actress. Why make such lies up? I don’t understand your country sometimes, Jack. The pettiness of it. They didn't deserve you, that's for sure. Nor did I, in truth. But I got lucky. I had nooooo idea what was going on when I met you, that's for sure. But, thanks be to a merciful God, am I glad I did get you. And, get you I did, in so many ways.

  I'm sitting at your bureau, your desk, using your fav red letter pen, not your poem writing pen. You know I'd never use that. I've done everything exactly as you wanted. I'm going to open your letter to me in a moment, though I know what you wrote in it.

  I'm never going to leave this house, Jack. And I'm not going to change this library. I know your soul's in here, Jack. I know you love this room. I love it too. How could I not? We made love in here. I miss your touch, Jack. I miss you.

  Zelda misses you, too. I thought she was all right. You know how strong she is. But she isn't all right. In fact, she is very not all right. But I will look after her. I promise you I will hold it together for her. I know you'll support me in this. I know you're there, Jack. I know how you were. I know we are in your thoughts and I know your thoughts are all around me and Zelda now.

  The night you died, I dreamt we were at a party. We were in Venice. There were thousands of people there. It was at some renaissance palazzo. Black ties and evening gowns, black gloves. Black and white. The marble floor was like a checkers board. A band was playing in some minstrel gallery somewhere. We danced and smiled. Jack, you whispered one of your verses to me as we danced. Almost as if you sang the verse to me. I was floating with you. Bits of verses swirled dreamily around the two of us as we twirled and swirled with them, silk gossamer puppets on unseen strings. My grandfather's there in the happy crowd, waving and smiling at us as he danced by. My brother Charles whirled by. He looked so happy and shook your hand with both his. I'd never seen him so happy. We were all happy on that dream dance floor.

  You tell me I have never looked so beautiful. You sigh and kiss me on the lips, ever so softly. My very own knight in shining armor, Sir Jack, the guy who made all the fairy tales come true. You turned all the nightmares of my life into dreams.

  Then you are off, looking for Zelda, my hand slips from yours and everything feels different suddenly. A chill fills the air and a fog slips into the room and across the dance floor.

  Our magical child smiled at us from across the marbled dance floor. I am soooo relieved. I turn to smile at you, Jack, but you were gone, lost in the haze. Lost to me in the crowd even as I found Zelda.

  She takes my hand and pulls me after her. She wants to show me something. We make our way to the reception hall and step out into the darkness. It's cold and foggy.

  The dream changes because you are no longer there. The dream so real becomes more a distant memory. Why did you leave us? The fog and haze surround Zelda and me as we look for you. Where are you? Zelda points and there you are, across the courtyard. Standing by a white limousine with three guys. You are in a deep in discussion. I sense two of the men are my brother and grandfather. They get into the limo and I see that the third is the Cherokee warrior I'd seen in dreams throughout the years. His hand is on your shoulder. This time, Jack you have to go with him. You look my way. Our eyes meet. You looks confused, Jack, sad... Before you get into the car, you smile at Zelda and me. You smile that smile that could melt a frozen heart, the smile that melted my ice covered, shattered heart years before. Then you blow us each a kiss. You mouth the words, “I love you.” And then you bow, just like you did for me the first evening we meet. The Cherokee warrior helps you get into the car. The limo's doors clunk shut behind you and there's no way back for you now. All this is in silence. Zelda and I
wave and cry. Fog swirls around the limo as it drives away, into the darkness. Zelda and I cling to each other, our faces streaming with tears.

  I swear to you, that's how it was, Jack.

  The next thing I know, my mother and father are looking down at Zelda and me with tear rimmed eyes. We are curled up next to each other under a blanket in the TV room. I get up and go into the games room. You're lying there in your bed, looking peaceful. I'd never seen you so still before in all the time I'd known you. You are no longer breathing. There is no more cough. I sense the verses in the air around you. I know they were watching over you, just like you said they would. I would cry, but there are no tears left, only a gasping sob that racks my entire body. I touch the top of your hand, the hand that wrote so many beautiful poems that enchanted so many lives. And, I pray for all the angels that would ever sing a verse, to guide you peacefully to your new spirit home in the Above World.

  As I leave Jack and walk back into the TV room, Zelda just says, “Daddy?”

  My mother’s voice whispers ever so softly, “He's gone, Zelda, sweetheart. He passed away while you two were sleeping.” As she says it, a lone tear trickles down my left cheek, onto the top of Zelda’s dark hair, crazy curls of dark hair, just like her father’s.

  It was just like when Charles died years ago. Dad's hand on my shoulder. ”The nurse wanted you to know something.” Then he takes one of my hands in his. This time, I've got Zelda to hang onto, though.

  Tears roll down Mom's cheeks as she dabs my face with a tissue. Dad can't go on. It's all too much. We all cry the mournful tears wept only by those who truly love. There's rain tapping against the window. God's tears at the loss and the wounds to my heart and our family, who loved Jack dearly.

  And then it all became a crazy blur. The press get a hold of it. Spider and Malachy keep me going. Spider keeps Malachy going. Spider's sister holds us all together, says Jack was strong, never complained, didn't struggle with his fate.

  Writing for therapy? Yes, this diary is my therapy. Doctor Diary.

  Jack's doc came round that afternoon. I make him a pot of tea. He's professional, but he's upset too. He declines to stay, says he will come back when things have settled down, unless we need him, in which case we are to call. Then he hands me a worn piece of paper, folded. The paper had a torn crease from being opened too many times.

  I recognize it straight away. Evidently, Jack dropped it down the side of a sofa in Dr. McSwan's office. The doc had found it and forgotten it. I recognize my writing. Evidently, Jack was upset that he'd lost it. And then Dr. McSwan had himself lost it, to his acute embarrassment. I look at the paper as the doc hands it to me. It's a sheet of airline paper I'd picked up in the Atlanta airport and kept in my handbag. The doc closes my hands around it. It's the poem I wrote for Jack back in our time in The Wren Tower. He'd kept it all this time. It was like getting a piece of us back.

  “He told me it was the most prized thing he possessed,” said the doc in his crisp English accent.

  I had no idea Jack had kept it. Seeing it again brought it all back; our first meeting, our times in the Tower, how broken up he was over Indie Shadwick, how broken up I had been after that guy.

  I pull Zelda to me.

  “What is it, Mummy?”

  “Something I wrote for your father when we first met, years ago.”

  “Read it out, Mummy.”

  The tears well in my eyes and my chest heaves with sobs. The reality of my loss hits as I look down and remember that September morning, almost a decade ago. The beginning. So new, so unexpected. Zelda forces my fingers to open, unfolds the paper, and reads my words to Jack, slowly, innocently. I can't bear to listen, but nor can I bear to stop her.

  Two messages the morning brings of your sweet lips upon my skin.

  “Hun, are you awake?” you say as you move, long hair across the pillow, gaining access to my neck. You kiss.

  “Hun,” you say and then sweet butterfly kisses touch my back as your fingers lightly move from shoulders...down...to gently caress address command my open desire in your hungry curious fingertips.

  I move to you, skin on skin. Every atom of my being warmed by your caresses.

  Touch. Your naked body with my body. You are all I want. All I desire.

  We pull the covers over our heads. A tent to shield us from the harsh reality of another day.

  You take me in your arms. Nothing more is said.

  Sultry sweet delight. Returning responding with love and energy.

  Your thoughts creative,

  Your mind expansive,

  Your soul immortal

  and

  Your heart broken.

  Yet all I ever want to be is naked with you in this bed. A sanctuary for your savage spirit

  and

  soul immortal divine.

  I love your essence the very you of butterfly kisses and thousands of things.

  The poet healer who has found my dreams.

  “You really did love Daddy lots and lots, Mummy.”

  I stroke my daughter's hair. “Yes, sweetheart, I did; lots and lots.”

  “So did I, Mummy. And I love you lots and lots.”

  She looks me straight in the eye when she says this and it's Jack's eyes I see, looking into me from her. I smile at her through the tears and pull her tightly to me.

  Chapter 21

  The Letter

  Thirty-nine today and you're not with me.

  Now what? Is this it? Am I to be the widow-curator for my lost poet-man? Tell me, Jack. Give me a sign, anything. Jack, Jack, Jack. If I say your name enough times, will you hear me?

  I'm missing my birthday poem, Jack.

  I sleep on your side of the bed now. Eleven months on. Soon will be just another September, Jack. It should be our month, the month we met and not the month you died.

  I won't deny it's been hard. Zelda's changed, Jack. She is so changed. She was okay to start with after you left us, but then not so okay. I'm so worried about her, Jack. She needs you, big guy; she misses her daddy. She was always her daddy's girl. I think she misses you more than I do, in a profoundly different way, of course.

  Jack, I can't manage her. I so need you to tell me what to do with her. I found something she wrote the other day: “My name is Zelda Savage and I am the daughter of a famous English poet. Who are you?” She's willful, Jack, far worse than I ever was. Can you even imagine that? She has more moxie than I ever did. I try not to fall out with her, but you know how I am, Jack. There's only so much I can take, including from my own daughter. That said, every time I look at her, I see you in her eyes. So how can I tell her off? I can't. So I end up hugging her. But she pushes me off. Can I love her too much? Do I love her too much? Is that it?

  She spends hours with Malachy, but he's not himself either. None of us are, to be honest. Spider's wonderful sister stayed on for a while, but she's gone back to Hull now. And now that the press has forgotten us, there's not much for Spider to do either. I make stuff up for him to do, to be honest, because I’m afraid of losing him, too. I got him to drive up to London the other day to pick up some stuff from Fortnums. I think he has me figured out though, to be honest. He’s onto me, but I believe he wants to stay with us. We’re all family. A family of misfits all brought together by our mutual love of you.

  Something terrible happened with the sheep, Jack. But I guess you know all about that. I don't want to talk about it.

  Malachy's at his wit’s end. I insisted that he go to see Dr. McSwan. He is actually that unnerved. I've said he must stay at The Nook for as long as he likes. He has the freehold to Tor Cottage, as you said in your will, but I don't think he's spent a night there yet. He spends all his time in the library here, going through your papers. I've got him an intern to help him, a young Scottish woman from your old university. She knows about archiving better than anyone I have ever met. I'm hoping Malachy will write your biography, Jack. No one else is better placed than he is, though heaven only knows many want t
o and several have in the past– badly, I might add. I'll keep you posted.

  Guess what? I found a first edition of DYING ASHES in an Oxfam shop in Taunton! I snapped it up. It’s silly, considering there are three in perfect condition on the shelf above your bureau here, about two feet in front of my eyes. There! Did you feel that? I just reached out and stroked your name on the spine of the middle one. God, I wish you could reach out and touch my spine, Jack O. Savage. I miss you. There's so much about your life I want to share with the world. But the world will have to wait. You're mine, Jack, and I'm not for sharing, other than with this journal I've kept since I wasn't much older than Zelda is now.

  You'll read this one day, Zelda. It will be my gift to you, my sweet girl. Yes, you are Jack's daughter - and mine, too. Whether you like it or not. And I love you just as much as your father did. So there!

  There's so much to share with you, Zelda, stuff the public has never seen. Films and recordings. I've kept it all for you. He would have thrown it all away, except for you. You changed everything. He kept it, all of it. So when you are old enough to know, I will pass it all on to you, stuff that even Malachy will never see. Recordings he made just for me, and just for you. His pens. So very many things; little things, big things. They will all be yours one day, Zelda my love.

  Thirty-nine today.

  The first fire of the year; it's that chilly. Malachy had the chimneys swept. He lit the fire for me. You always loved doing that. The fire's casting a luminous glow around the library as it gets dark. It's like the books are alive, breathing. The library was always your father's favorite room. It's where he told his stories, where he wrote many of his poems. It holds his collection of first editions. There are some great books here, rare books. None more so than your father's. And there's his red leather wing chair. And his bureau. I love sitting at this bureau with its scrolls and swirls and secret compartments. They knew how to make things in the eighteenth century.