The Legend of James Grey

by Jennifer Moorman

  “Emma,” James called.

  His shoes slapped the soft earth as he hurried to catch up with her, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop because then she would have to face him. She would have to look in his eyes and know she’d have to say good-bye soon. If she had to say good-bye to one more person—

  “Emma,” he said, taking hold of her arm and slowing her forward motion. “Hey, look at me.”

  Emma stopped walking, but she didn’t turn her head. She didn’t trust herself to keep her composure. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m—I’m about two seconds away from making a blubbering, embarrassing mess of myself.”

  James moved to stand in front of her. “Tell me why you’re upset.”

  “Is that a joke?” she asked, her voice breaking with sadness. “You know why I’m upset. You’re leaving. Tomorrow. And then what? What about me? What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “Be thankful?”

  “That you’re leaving?” Emma glared at James and shoved him out of the way. But because of his fast reflexes, he hooked her arm and spun her around.

  “No, because of the time we’ve had. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me,” James said. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I know it’s been only a few days spent with you, but these have been the most wonderful days. Because of you. And I don’t regret a second of our time. Let’s not waste our last hours together feeling sad. I want to enjoy every moment with you.”

  Emma closed her eyes as tears pressed against her lids. “How am I supposed to pretend that you’re not leaving?”

  James touched her face. “I’m not asking you to pretend. I’m suggesting that we both spend this time together being thankful. No, I can’t stay here forever, and, yes, we knew this was temporary, but I wouldn’t change anything. Look what’s happened to you in just a few days. Your heart has opened back up. You’re happy, Em.”

  She opened her eyes and pressed her finger into his chest. Warm tears slid down her cheeks. “Because of you.”

  “If I can open it up, then there’s hope that someone else can too. That’s proof that you can be happy again with someone.”

  Emma’s bottom lip quivered. “But I don’t want someone else in my heart making me happy. I want you.”

  James cupped her face in his hands and wiped away her tears with his thumbs. “And I want you. Tonight we still have each other.”

  He pressed his mouth against hers, and she responded to him, melted against him. It was so easy to let go of her anxiety and sadness when he was kissing her, when he erased everything from her mind except for the feel of him. She gripped the back of his shirt and pulled him as close as possible.

  Lightning bugs danced around their bodies, and Emma sighed against James’ lips. He filled her with the kind of happiness that made her feel buoyant. Without his arms around her, anchoring her to the earth, she felt sure she would have lifted right off the ground. She could hold herself together for one more night. She could push aside the emptiness that prowled around the edges of her mind, threatening to swallow her again once James was gone. When she pulled away from him to suggest they disappear into Morty’s cottage, the lightning bugs left behind trails of glittering words. Hang on. Come through. Have faith.

  15

  Early Monday morning Emma woke up with her arm and leg draped over James. Faint light drifted through the slats in the blinds, telling Emma that the sun was still making its morning ascent. Something had woken her. A noise? James shifted beneath her, and when he spoke, his voice rumbled in the ear she had pressed against his chest.

  “Your phone,” he said, sensing she’d woken. Then he stretched his arm off the couch and reached for her cell phone on the chair, tapping it with his fingertips until the phone slid over far enough for him to grab. He handed it to her.

  Emma pushed the button and wrinkled her forehead. Morty had texted her, which he had never done for as long as she’d known him. She had no idea his phone was even capable of texting. He often complained about how involved people were with their smart phones these days, and he believed that texting was a passive aggressive mode of communication. Morty said texting gave people a way of talking about serious topics without having to actually look at the person. Morty liked personal communication; he thought discussing life in front of another human being was vital and necessary to a solid, healthy relationship. So the idea that he had just texted her made her smile. He must have felt he was betraying himself even while he did it.

  She opened the screen on the phone and read the message. Then she pushed herself up on one arm. “Morty wants to come home this morning. He didn’t want to call this early because he thought I would still be sleeping. He probably thought I’d snooze right through the text alert.”

  “He wants to come home or he’s being discharged?” James asked. “He can’t just decide he wants to come home unless they give him the okay, right?”

  Emma leaned over James and put her phone on the floor beside the couch. She lay back down on his chest and inhaled. “I’m going to assume they’ve told him that he can go home or he’s pestered them enough to consent to his will. But I want to lie here for another few minutes, and then I’ll get up and call him.”

  James put his arm around her and held her against him. Then he rubbed his hand against her hair, slow and gentle, and Emma closed her eyes. When the thought of his leaving popped into her mind, she shoved it aside. Just a little while longer.

  She felt so peaceful for approximately five more minutes, and then her throat tightened and her stomach responded in kind. Thoughts of the future crept in and robbed her of the last slivers of stillness she felt.

  James kissed the top of her head. “Right now, in this moment, I feel like I would give anything for it to go on and on.”

  Emma squeezed her eyes closed. She wanted to clutch him as tightly as possible, and she felt a flicker of regret. Why did I do this? Didn’t I know it would end? Why did I think this was worth it—worth hurting myself? Another voice in her head whispered, Love—real love—is always worth it.

  “Hey,” he said, “you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said, surprised her voice didn’t crack. She’d been acting like she was okay for so long, the lie came out easier than it should have. But this time, the lie made her stomach feel jittery and uneasy. “Why?”

  “You were holding your breath,” he said, shifting around beneath her. He sat up on the couch and lifted her with him, forcing her into a sitting position. “You don’t look okay. What’s wrong?”

  She swung her legs off the couch and hopped up. “I need coffee.”

  “Em,” he said, grabbing her hand.

  She sighed. “I stink at living in the present. I stink at appreciating this moment right now because I’m so caught up in the fact that you’ll be gone in hours. I want to be present and here and feel a spirit of thankfulness, but all I really feel is this empty, sick emotion because I can’t stop reminding myself that you’re leaving. I’ve had the best days ever with you, and then I’ll be left here without you, and I’m…” She closed her eyes and tried to control her emotions. When she opened her eyes, words fluttered in the sunlight. Sad. Leaving. Good-bye. “And I’m sad.”

  James stood up beside her. He opened his mouth to say something, and she shook her head.

  “I mean this when I say that I don’t want to talk about it. Nothing we can say will change what’s going to happen, so I’d rather not beat it to death or wallow in it. Let’s just have some coffee, and I’ll swallow this down. I’ll save my falling apart until you’re gone.” She walked into the kitchen and grabbed the carafe from the coffee pot. “Talk about something else.”

  “I don’t want you to fall apart,” James said. “I don’t want that for you. I want you to be happy.”

  Emma filled the carafe with water and lifted the back of the pot to pour it in. The sincerity she heard in his words calmed her a little, but the
air felt rimmed with sadness, muting the colors of the day. She nodded. “What will it be like for you? Will you remember all of this? Will you remember me?”

  James grabbed the can of coffee grounds and placed a filter in the pot. Then he spooned in a few teaspoons of the dark, ground beans. “I’ll remember you when I return. It’s difficult to explain what it’s like when I’m not here. It’s a state of being, but it’s like being in my whole life all at once, like everything happens simultaneously. It’s not controlled by time like life is here, and it’s not like a movie on replay as though I’m reliving my life from start to finish indefinitely. The awareness of daily life and timekeeping…well, they just aren’t something that’s perceived.”

  Emma watched him while he struggled to explain, and a line formed between his dark brows. “That’s mostly confusing, but it almost makes sense.”

  “There’s no equivalent that I can use as an example. The closest I can imagine is inner stillness, or heaven, but that’s still too much for the human mind to completely grasp. It just is. All things, all time, all connected, forever.”

  Emma nearly smiled. “Yeah, that’s clears it up.” She turned on the pot, and it started heating. “When you come back here, like when Morty brings you back every year, do you remember all of the times you’ve been before?”

  James nodded. “That comes back to me instantly. I guess the easiest way to explain how it feels is that it’s similar to downloading a file on a computer. All of my moments here are downloaded immediately into my mind as soon as I arrive.”

  Emma pulled two mugs out of the cabinet and placed them on the counter beside the coffee pot. “How strange that must be for you. It sounds like waking up after a dream.” She turned to look at him. “Does it feel like a dream for you? Being here now?”

  James shook his head. “No. Being here with you feels more like the reality to me. Nothing has felt more real.” He pulled her against him, and she pressed her head against his chest and sighed. What would the world—her world—look like after he was gone, after she’d been reminded about how it felt to be close to someone and feel safe and happy…and loved? Maybe she was being too dramatic. She’d only spent the last few days with him; how attached could she possibly be? Fairly attached. Because it wasn’t just his presence that had changed her. It was also the hope that had been reborn in her heart, the ideas of a future filled with happiness that sprouted like wildflowers inside her, and the whispers of love that she had not heard sincerely in a very long time.

  She felt fairly certain now that Thomas had not truly loved her. He had desired her and sought to possess her the way a child guards his favorite toy, but he had not loved her in the way that made her heart open like a sunflower turning its face toward the light. He had not turned on the light inside of her and stood mesmerized with her beautiful heart. She’d known James less than a handful of days, and he had shown her a better example of love than Thomas had in all the months they were together.

  She pulled away and looked up at him just as three, simple words coasted over his shoulder and shimmied down her arm. Be here now.

  “Okay,” she said out loud. “Let’s have coffee and you can tell me a story.”

  “What kind of story?” he asked.

  “Something hopeful.” Emma pulled the half and half from the refrigerator and placed it beside their mugs. Then she opened the silverware drawer and took out a spoon.

  “That sounds like the story of us, which is my favorite story,” he said, slipping his arms back around her and pulling her close again. “I can’t keep my hands off of you.”

  She allowed herself a smile as she breathed in slowly to make room for the returning happiness that filled her chest. “So don’t.”

  Two hours later Emma helped Morty into the passenger seat and made sure he was buckled in before she closed the door. They drove in silence for a few minutes while Morty closed his eyes and turned his face toward the warm sunlight flooding in through the car window.

  After a long, slow exhale, he said, “You forget how much you love and need the sunshine when you’re stuck indoors for so long. You know you love it, and you know it’s a blessing, but you almost forget how good it feels on your face. The warmth, the feeling of peace in knowing that it’s still rising and setting and right now it’s warming you with its light. I’ve missed that. Sure it came through my windows every day, but being outside in it reminds me of how much I like being alive.”

  Emma glanced over at him before returning her gaze to the road. She wondered what it would feel like to know that her time in the sun was limited, that she might be confined to the hospital and never feel the sun’s warmth on her face again. Would she be anxious? Sad? Accepting? As soon as she were free again, she imagined she would want to stand in the sun, arms stretched open wide, face turned toward the sky and smiling.

  “I like you being alive,” she said finally.

  She felt Morty’s eyes turn toward her. “Thanks, kiddo. It’s good to be going home. Want to tell me what’s going on with you?”

  Emma shot a look at him and then focused on driving again. “What do you mean?”

  Morty turned slightly in his seat to face her. “I’m not one to pry too much into your personal life, but I’ve known you a long time, and I think that gives me a pass when it comes to prying. Normally, I wait for you to come to me with what’s happening, and sometimes this takes you a long time, to reach out to anyone. Sometimes you never do, and that’s when I have to dig it out of you. You were lit up like a lantern the last time I saw you, but now, it’s dim. There’s a melancholy outlining you. So, what’s happened?”

  Emma used her turn signal and turned toward the library. “Nothing’s happened, and everything’s happened. I feel like my whole world opened up, like Dorothy must have felt when she stepped into Oz. Technicolor overload. Kansas was black and white, but Oz…Oz was beautiful and magical and brilliant. It was the adventure of a lifetime. But then she couldn’t stay there. She had to go back home, where the world was black and white. And how do you do that? How do you see the world in this new, beautiful way and then go back to your normal, mundane life? How will that not kill me?”

  Morty nodded and stared ahead at the street, at the stand of pine trees that lined the sides of the road. “It won’t kill you. This I know to be true. Letting go of something that brought you joy will seem as though it might take the life out of you, and it can for a while, but it won’t forever. And Dorothy carried the dream and beauty of Oz in her heart forever.”

  “That’s bullshit, Morty.”

  “Emma,” he scolded.

  “I’m sorry, but it is. I can’t think of a more fitting word. I’m supposed to just carry this hope and love and beauty in my heart for the rest of my days and be thankful for it, but never have it again? Always know that I had it for a while and then it was taken from me? That’s sounds like crap.”

  “Who said you’d never have it again? Or have something greater?” Morty asked.

  Emma didn’t answer. No one said it, but it’s how I feel, and it feels like the truth.

  “Do you regret it happened?” he asked. “Are you sorry that you’ve allowed yourself to feel something again? To be happy?”

  She pulled the car into Morty’s driveway and parked behind his car. “Mostly no.” She pressed both hands to her chest. “I have loved the feeling I’ve had with him. But I have a little regret because I’m afraid of how much it’s going to hurt.”

  “So, you’re afraid of an unknown future. Remember that Mark Twain said, ‘I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which have never happened.’”

  Emma turned off the engine and shifted in her seat so she could look at Morty. “But he’s leaving. That is a fact.” She couldn’t stop the tears that pooled in her eyes, and she stared down at the console.

  Morty reached over and grabbed her hand. “It’s okay to let yourself feel. We don’t know what’s going to happen after this moment. Nothing is guaranteed, Em, and
you know the future is still being written. It’s a changing beast, every second. I wish I had all the answers for you. I wish I could help in some cure-all way. But I love your heart, and I’m glad it’s open again.”

  A tear dropped onto her arm, and she wiped it away. “I want to be angry about it, for letting myself be talked into opening up again. But…but I’m not really sorry for that. I’m mostly sorry for my heart, that I have to explain to it that yet again we’ve loved and lost.”

  Morty shook his head. “I don’t see this as a loss.”

  Emma leaned against the seat and dropped her head back, releasing a loud exhale. “Love is a wonderful, terrible thing.”

  “More wonder than terrible, I hope,” Morty said.

  Emma looked over at him, wiped at her tears, and nodded. “Me too.” She cleared her throat and inhaled. “Let’s get inside before we spontaneously combust. It’s gonna be as hot as a two-dollar pistol today.”

  After settling Morty back into his cottage and starting a load of laundry for him, Emma had walked into town to grab lunch for the three of them. She, James, and Morty had sat around Morty’s small kitchen table and ate salads and sandwiches from Cavelli’s Deli. James and Morty talked about their experiences through the years while Emma half listened because part of her mind searched for ways she could prolong her time with James. She imagined all sorts of scenarios: holding onto James when he started to disappear, sprinkling the glittering sand over her head like pixie dust, even stamping The Legend of James Grey again with the magic ink just to see if it would extend his stay. None of her ideas seemed especially plausible, but she felt willing to give any—or all—of them a try.

  Morty lay down for a nap, so James took Emma walking around the library grounds. James did most of the talking, but they also spent a lot of time walking in silence while James held her hand and led her into the shade scattered around the wide lawn. Still her mind labored over harebrained ideas that might allow James to stay—or could she go with him? She thought about mixing the dust into milk like hot cocoa powder or eating it like rainbow sprinkles on a sugar cookie. The ideas grew increasingly absurd in her rising desperation.