The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time

by Samuel Ben White

“That’s so amazing. I grew up reading stories about him and his heroism and everything and to think you actually met him! It’s incredible.”

  There was an extensive article written by the editor—a man Garison did not know—of the paper lamenting the loss of a person he called "the town matriarch." He effused for several paragraphs about her kindly nature, her unending devotion to the church, and her support of the Revolution; including a note that both her sons had fought against the British, with Justin having given his life. Completely absent, Garison noticed sardonically, was any mention that Sarah had been the town outcast for the first two decades of her life. He was glad people had changed their opinion of her, but it also seemed somewhat hypocritical.

  Of the most interest, however, to Garison and Heather was the mention of her husband. The article read:

  “One cannot mention Sarah Fitch, however, without speaking of her undying love for the husband she lost in 1744 to a fire. Though still a young and beautiful woman, and seemingly pursued by suitors until her dying day, she remained faithful to her husband, the carpenter and well-known barrister, Garison Fitch.

  As we filed by her graveside at the service the other day, the service having been performed so grandly by the Honorable Justice Jameson Miller, we could not help but notice that curious inscription on her husband's stone. For some unfathomable reason, which rumor has was revealed only to her children and never to anyone outside the family—who in turn have kept it as a family secret—Garison Fitch is said to have been born in the year 1975!

  “Just as curious, is a letter Mrs. Fitch purportedly wrote just before her death. Although she has been a staunch Baptist all her life, [‘Christian,’ Garison mumbled in correction] it is said in some rumors that she left a letter with the Anglican vicar with the instructions that he pass it on to a person whose identity only he knows.”

  "So the letter was common knowledge?" Heather asked with surprise.

  "Apparently so," Garison replied. "It appears, however, that its contents were not."

  "It must have seemed terribly strange to those people back then," Heather mused. "The letter, the tombstone, her not remarrying."

  "It would seem terribly strange to people today," Garison pointed out. "What if I were to die and leave a letter to be opened by someone in two hundred years? I think people would find that most strange."

  Heather nodded, "But back then you might be in danger of being carted off as a nut for such actions."

  Garison nodded and pointed out, "Don't have to worry about that if you're already dead, though." Then he added, "And they didn't really cart that many people off. Some of the modern perceptions of my day are kind of out of whack."

  They went back to the articles. After reading through the one about Sarah again, and having a photostat copy made of it, they commenced to read through other articles. By the time the newspaper closed that evening—and the rather unpleasant woman who had "helped" them had run them off—they had a pretty good idea of what had happened to the Fitch clan in the years after Garison's death.

  Heather's Diary

  March 19, 2005

  I love Garison Fitch.

  That probably seems strange considering a couple days ago I was writing about how afraid of him I was. It's kind of hard to explain.

  The old Garison really is in there. My Garison. He's back, or most of him is.

  But there's more.

  I mean, there's more to him. It's not just all those new memories he tells me about, he has new dimensions. Well, there's a bad pun.

  Diary, you know how rocky things sometimes were between us. I mentioned that the other night. I think that's behind us now.

  Maybe I'm just being naive. All my life I dreamed of someone who would love me and be what my life needed. I used to think Garison was that person.

  But then, after we'd been married a while, I started to think maybe he wasn't. Maybe the person I was looking for was a fantasy. A Prince Charming.

  If I'm honest with myself, and I had better start being honest now, I have to admit that that's what has caused some of the problems in our married life. I held Garison up to a standard that no one could match up to. And when he didn't live up to my fantasy, I got mad at him when I should have been mad at me.

  Now, I'm having to get to know Garison all over again. And I'm having to let him get to know me all over again, which is kind of scary or daunting, or—I don't know what word I'm looking for.

  And I'm being honest with him. Not that I ever set out to lie, or hide anything from Garison. I don't think a marriage can survive that. But now, I want to tell him everything. I want to open up to him.

  I feel a little like Jimmy Stewart in that Christmas movie I watch every year. It's like I've been given a chance to start over.

  I know this isn't making sense, and I know I'm probably rambling, but I can't help it. I love Garison Fitch and I have since before I married him. Only now, I have a chance to start over and do it right this time.

  Excerpt from A Fitch Family History by Maureen Fitch Carnes

  When the New York Giants tried to send him to a farm team he had never heard of, Calvin Fitch hung up his spikes for good and took his family back to Cherry Creek. He had made his peace with his father two years before—just three days before the old legislator died—and felt like he could return to the mountains comfortably. He couldn't bear to run the Emporium, though—it having been the scene of so many disagreements with his father—so he took a job with the college up in Boulder teaching the young men there how to play baseball and let his cousin Ralph take over the business.

  Boulder turned out to be a good place to raise his kids, so he added two more to the three he already had. When World War II swept across the world, Calvin was sitting at home with five children (thanks to a leg that had been broken in a collision with an outfield wall and hadn't mended properly, according to military standards), trying to explain what was going on to them. Unfortunately, it wasn't much easier than trying to tell a five year old why they were moving for the second time in one season. But then, families all over the country were having the same problem. The Fitch family, at least, had Daddy home during the war time.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  As Garison sat on his bed and typed in a journal entry for the day. Heather picked up the book about the Fitch family Garison's cousin had written. It had a lot of pictures Maureen Carnes had collected, and photos of documents she had found. Much of it was only mildly interesting to Heather and she quickly found herself flipping through it after having read most of the introduction, which was devoted to Maureen telling why she had set about writing the family history to begin with. It was remarkably similar to the introduction Heather's aunt Lucille had written in her history of the Dawson family, detailing the desire each woman had to find her roots, reconnect with her heritage, and so on. Remarkable not only in their similarity but also in the boredom they conveyed to the reader.

  After a few flipped pages, Heather suddenly became very intrigued. She looked up from the book and over at Garison in surprise, then back to the book. She suddenly got up and asked, "Where's all that stuff we ran off at the paper today?"

  Garison, not even looking up from the computer on which he wrote his journal, replied, "Still in the car, I think."

  In her bare feet, T-shirt and sweat-pants, Heather darted outside to the car and quickly came back inside carrying the folder of information they had put together. Rubbing her feet on the carpet to warm them up after the chilly sidewalk and asphalt of the parking lot, she asked, "Do you have a pen?"

  "Sure," he replied. He pulled a pen from a nearby bag and handed it to her, asking, "What's up?"

  As she hopped onto the bed and began arranging the papers and the book before her, Heather answered, "Just wanted to check something."

  Seeing as how she didn't seem inclined to explain, and he couldn't think of a reason to be interested, Garison merely mumbled, "OK," and continued typing.

  March 22, 2005

>   I still feel sorrow when I think of Sarah, but it is somehow already passing. Well, maybe passing isn't the word. The wound has become a scar, I guess you might say. Even then it is far quicker than I could have expected an open wound to heal into a semi-painful scar, and that makes me feel guilty. It will always be there, and I will never forget Sarah or let the memories die, but the pain does fade. I guess some of that is due to being in love with Heather, but I still have trouble reconciling that as well.

  It came to me that it was unfair to continue comparing Heather to Sarah, and I think things will get better with that resolve—providing I can convince myself to truly resolve it. Heather is her own woman and to continue comparing her like that is fair neither to her or me—or the memory of Sarah. So, one of these days I hope to finally be able to let Sarah go to the past and be the husband to Heather I pledged to be three years ago in Dallas.

  But it's not easy to even think about making the resolution in the future. If this double life is a penance for the sin of destroying the world, I will always wonder why I was so blessed as to be given two such wonderful wives. It is such things as this that make me doubt the doctrine of penance, for Heather is definitely more of a prize than a punishment. Of course, I guess she could have done something wrong which made her penance marrying me.

  The only way I can think of to not care so much for Heather is to purposefully try not to. But I literally can't do that. I am her husband. I did fall in love with her three years ago. I can no more change that than I can keep the sun from setting.

  Heather comes from a long line of lawyers, a family trait many people would find horrifying. I remember meeting the members of her family and liked them none at all, except for her eldest (living) brother, Henry. He was much like what I envisioned my son Henry to have been like. Henry Dawson is everyone's friend. He is also somewhat of a black sheep in the family because he has forsaken a life in the courts and become a plumber—he even came up to La Plata Canyon when I was building our house and laid in the plumbing, giving us a chance to get to know each other quite well. The family joke through all this is that he makes the most money of all of them.

  While we were looking up the records of my descendants, I asked Heather about her ancestors. I could remember nothing about them and I wondered if it were just a memory I had not yet accessed or if I had never taken the time to ask. I can't imagine that as it's in my nature to be inquisitive. As I look at Heather's Garison, I wonder if I was really as insensitive as memory sometimes tells me I was. I was beginning to wonder why she married me, but I think it had something to do with catching her on the rebound, as they say. So I owe some credit for my marriage to Bat Garrett, though part of me for some reason bristles at owing him anything. I just don't care for the guy for some reason. Anyway, about her family—

  Heather's great-great-grandfather had been the first in the family to practice law and it somehow became a tradition. He started a practice where there was not yet a town in the early days of Texas and when a town was built, they called it Dawson. His son took over the law firm from him when the elder Dawson retired in his late eighties.

  Heather's grandfather took over the firm in Dawson then moved the practice to Dallas and incorporated it with a man named McElroy who was also running a long-standing family firm. Heather's father took over from his father and added to the partnership one Virgil Fitch—my uncle (who I have yet to come up with any concrete memories of). When Heather's father decides to retire, his son Jeff will be ready to take over and pass it on to his son, providing he ever gets married. Jeff, who is thirty-three, is—as they say—still playing the field. Pretty wildly, I might add. Jeff has never liked me because he considers me a brainy bore and I have never cared for him because I've always thought him a childish, pompous ass.

  Heather took after her family for a while, and originally even moved to Colorado on my offer of a partnership in a law firm. We soon gave up on the law firm, but we made another sort of partnership—which is infinitely more enjoyable. I think maybe the reason Heather's father doesn't care for me—one of the reasons, anyway—is because not only did I take his daughter a couple states away, I think he had hoped to turn the family law firm over to Heather in the likely event that Jeff never grows up. (Aside from Jeff's immaturity, Heather is also a better lawyer.)

  I, apparently, am a member of the Colorado bar, but there just is not enough business in Durango to make law exciting—not enough courtroom excitement, I should clarify. There's plenty of business for a lawyer, but not the kind I preferred. I was Justice of the Peace in Durango for a while, and I met Heather through that office. That, however, is another story, told most admirably by Bat Masterson Garrett, Private Detective. Law was always just a hobby with me, anyway, not storytelling.

  "Wasn't your grandfather named Calvin Fitch?" Heather asked, looking up from the book and the notes she had made.

  "Yes," Garison replied.

  "And he played pro baseball and coached some at the University of Northern Colorado, right?

  Garison shook his head and said, "He never played baseball. We didn't even have baseball. He was a worker in an automobile factory."

  "Was he?" she asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  Heather queried, "Which memory are you using? Is this 'back in your day'? or is this in this time line? What did your grandfather do in this time line?"

  He sat there for a moment, trying to remember what the true story was. He finally replied, with wide eyes, "Calvin Fitch was a baseball player. He died when I was pretty young, but I remember Dad telling me about going out and watching his Dad coach when they were at Boulder. I think I've even got one of his baseball cards from when he was with the Senators. Dad has several, now that I think about it, and he gave one to each of us kids. It's in a frame in my lab, isn't it? I remember wondering what that was now. Why are you asking?"

  She leaned back against her stack of pillows, nodding in answer to his first question and chewing her lip as she often did when trying to figure out how to put an idea in her head into words in answer to his second question. It occurred to Garison that Sarah had done almost the same thing. He quickly shook the comparison out of his head. Finally, Heather broke the silence by asking, "So, Calvin Fitch is your grandfather? Your grandfather?" she repeated, with emphasis.

  "Yeah," Garison replied. "So?"

  Heather held up a finger as she thought a moment more, then asked, "And your father is the Robert James Fitch this book mentions."

  "Yeah. So?" he asked again. He had no idea what she might be getting at but knew her well enough to know it would be important when she had the phraseology worked out as she wanted it. So he sat, quietly but impatiently.

  Heather finally began to explain, "This book was published in 1957, but it really stops in about '56. So you're not mentioned in it. But I wanted to make sure this is really your family and not some other family of Fitchs."

  "Huh?"

  "Bear with me," she instructed, holding up a finger again. After a bit, she said, "Follow me on this. Your father is Robert James Fitch, the son of Calvin Fitch, right?" He nodded, so she continued, "His father was Harry Fitch Junior, the congressman from Colorado who died on the house floor, right?" Again a nod. "His father was Harry Fitch, Senior. Harry Fitch Senior's grandfather was Julius Fitch, who was half-Indian. Got this so far?"

  "Yeah," Garison nodded again. He was trying to figure out why this was so important. He was concerned with his descendants, not his ancestors.

  Heather saw his confusion and assured him, "I'm almost to my point, but it's important you get all this. Julius Fitch's father was Darius Fitch from Mount Vernon, Virginia."

  "Like my grandson?" Garison asked, still not catching on.

  "Yeah," Heather took her turn to nod. "Darius Fitch, father of Julius Fitch, was the son of Justin Fitch, who was the son of—make sure you get this—Garison and Sarah Fitch of Mount Vernon, Virginia."

  Garison understood exactly what Heather had said to hi
m, but still responded, "Huh?"

  Heather pulled out the large brown book and said, "Let me read to you something from right at the first of this book." She cleared her throat dramatically and read, "'The progenitor of the Fitch family is one Garison Fitch. He is a mystery man, appearing as if from thin air in Mount Vernon, Virginia, in the year 1739. There is no record of where he came from, in the form of ships' transit records, birth certificates, or anything. If he ever revealed his origin even to his wife, she kept it a secret until her dying day.'" Heather held up a finger again to make sure he stayed silent, then flipped over a page before reading, "'Garison Fitch left the world as mysteriously as he entered it in March of 1744, one day short of exactly five years since he first appeared in Mount Vernon, the story goes. According to an eye witness account published in the local paper, a small shack he was seen to enter burst into flames shortly after his entrance and Garison did not get out alive. Adding to the mystery is the fact that,'" Heather read with emphasis, "'No body was ever found, though some said it had been cremated in the fire. In keeping with that supposition, ashes purported to belong to Garison Fitch were buried in the Mount Vernon cemetery in March of that same year.'"

  Garison got up from the bed he was sitting on and came over to sit next to Heather and look at her notes and the book. After a moment, he asked, "You're saying that, if you trace my family tree backwards..."

  "It doesn't fork were it should," Heather told him, barely suppressing a smile.

  After a moment, he asked, counting off on his fingers, "You mean to say I'm my own great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather?"

  "Are you sure you put in enough greats?" she asked, still in awe over the revelation.

  "I think so," he said. He arose from the bed and began to pace the room. Finally, he turned to Heather, who was still sitting and looking absently at the evidence before her, and asked, "Could it be true? Could it really be true?"