Love Never Dies

by Loren Lockner

  The sketch was delicate and lovely, depicting two rose bushes, one pink, one red, whose interlocking branches mingled as if one. Upon the thorny trunk the initials SMH rested above the letters JAM, surrounded by the faintest outline of a heart. Seth Michael Hayes loves Julia Ann Morris; and she clutched the paper to her breast and allowed her tears to flow unabated. Later she carefully refolded the crumpled sheet and replaced it inside the envelope, stuffing it underneath the wedding set she’d hidden behind her socks. It was a long time before she was able to sleep.

  That night Julia had the strangest dream. She wandered through a huge white house, opening and shutting hallway doors at random, clearly searching for him. Julia knew she was getting close because the warm glow in her heart ignited and burned ever hotter as she approached a silver door at the end of the vast hall. The metal felt cool as she turned the knob. Seth, dressed in white, stood by a huge window, his ebony hair contrasting greatly with the bleached purity of the cloth.

  He turned to gaze at her with silver eyes she’d never forget and Julia noted his face was pallid and drawn. His hair hung long and stringy around his face as if he hadn’t washed or trimmed it in ages and a strange bandage covered part of his crown.

  “Seth!” she cried out, but he didn’t answer. Instead he just moved his too-thin hand over his chest, rubbing the painful spot.

  “Seth!” she exclaimed again, demanding he hear her, but no matter how loudly Julia shouted he remained deaf to her cries and she witnessed his head droop in sorrow. Seth leaned against the wall and using it for support inched toward a narrow bed. He limped badly, and finally grasping the cast iron headboard, lowered himself painfully upon the white-clad mattress, his unclosed eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

  His hand began to rub the white shirt over his heart in earnest and Julia willed him to recognize she was there.

  Finally the simple words burst from his lips. “I love you forever my Julia and I will come back for you. Please wait for me my dearest, please wait!”

  Julia bolted upright among the damp covers of her bed, her head and heart throbbing. “Take back your soul,” she cried to the darkness, begging him to depart the sterile limbo he was trapped within. But no matter how she shouted into the darkness the burning knife in her breast only cut more painfully. “My poor, poor Seth,” Julia sobbed, knowing he’d chosen to wait for her; to wait until this life released her.

  The days seemed endless as they plodded toward the end of the school year, until finally in May something odd shook her out of her lethargic preoccupation. On that hot spring afternoon she noticed a tan sedan parked outside the school fence. Julia remembered seeing it there before and thought she recognized the muscular dark man slouching behind the steering wheel. He had a wide bushy moustache and reminded her of a photo she’d once glimpsed of an old Greek aristocrat.

  Julia had originally surmised he was the father of a student, but he now appeared to just lounge about, lifting a cigarette to his lips as he took a nonchalant draw. The watcher appeared to be in his mid-to-late thirties and as she strolled past, heading toward the copy room, he totally ignored her, instead observing the front office intently. Two days later, as she pulled her blue Taurus out of the teacher’s parking lot, she once again noticed the tan sedan with its smoking occupant parked in the shade of a large eucalyptus tree near the east side of the school.

  She reversed her sedan and headed back into the office intent upon telling the secretary, Kerry Matthews, there was a man outside who might be stalking some children. Too many horror stories had been broadcast about child molesters and one could not be too careful. Kerry instantly phoned Connie, who was watching the sixth grade boys practice basketball in the gym and the principal immediately instructed Kerry to call their in-house security. Julia and Kerry watched the heavyset Jose Martinez stroll lazily up to the car and speak to the obviously put-out man, who gave a disgusted snort before gunning his engine and roaring down Hyatt Avenue.

  “Thanks for alerting me,” said Connie, arriving just in time to witness the Chevy’s departure. “As you said, one can’t be too careful when working with children.”

  Kerry stepped outside the double glass door and spoke earnestly to Jose, who’d just jotted down the Chevrolet’s license plate number and left to phone the police.

  “And how are you doing these days?” Connie continued, more softly.

  “Fine,” answered Julia in her most normal tone of voice. She’d discovered most people wanted only a benign answer if and when they asked, but Connie was not so easily thwarted.

  “Is it getting any better?”

  “I’m able to work and exist on a fairly normal plane if that’s what you mean. I suspect that’s all I can hope for now. I recognize that there are all these stages of grief; shoot, my mother gave me the book and I’ve been reading it diligently.” Julia sighed and shrugged. “Sometimes I’m not even sure I ever went through denial, though maybe I did. I’m just hoping I can finally achieve the acceptance part and move on with my life.”

  “Well it’s evident to me you’ve gained back a few pounds and maintain a little more color in your cheeks. Could you accompany me into my office for a moment? I think now might be the opportune time to relay to you something interesting I observed last winter.”

  Julia sat down heavily across from her principal, a middle-aged Hispanic woman whose full red lips constantly smiled, brightening a luxuriant head of long black hair coiled in an attractive braid at her neck. Connie was well-liked by her staff and students and had apparently been offered an administrative position higher up in the district, but had turned down promotions twice already.

  “I don’t mind having a long tenure as an elementary principal, so ask me again in five years,” she bade the District Office. Teachers and parents alike had breathed a big sigh of relief, Julia being foremost among them.

  Connie cleared her throat and fingered her reading glasses among the piles of paperwork littering her desk. “It’s about your boyfriend Seth. I saw him do something peculiar and hesitated telling you about it considering the timing. I was wondering; did he go in for tattoos?”

  “I beg your pardon?” stuttered Julia stunned, not remotely expecting anything like this.

  “Well,” said Connie, hurrying on, distressed by the undisguised confusion upon Julia’s face. “I was strolling on the promenade by some of those neat crystal and glass shops intermixed with the art galleries and restaurants. A few tattoo parlors are intermingled among the other specialty shops and I had ventured near them to visit one of our students, Carlos Ramirez, who’d broken his leg. I’d arranged a home tutor for him and was dropping off the paperwork at his parent’s; they own the taco shop right near the skateboard landing. Anyway, to make a long story short, I glimpsed Seth standing outside Ernie’s Tattoo Parlor. He hesitated for a moment and then ventured inside. That was on Tuesday morning, the day he died.”

  “So you think he was going in for a tattoo?”

  “He may very well have, but who knows? Perhaps the next time you’d seen him he’d have sported a big old tattoo on his bicep complete with a gaudy anchor and the inscription, ‘I love Mama.’”

  Julia managed a half-grin. “You’re right; that’s a very strange and peculiar story, but thank you for telling me. I enjoy other’s reminisces about him and add those little tidbits to my memory file. Sometimes people are too careful not to mention Seth so I’m very glad you shared that incident with me.”

  Connie smiled understandingly and accompanied her to the door, exchanging pleasantries before Julia once again headed for her car. She drove home feeling strangely unsettled and puzzled.

  Once inside her room she felt around the back of her sock drawer, her fingers ignoring the soft velvet of the jewelry box and reaching for the worn envelope instead. She pulled out the beautiful sketch of the entwined rosebushes so delicately drawn upon the small white sheet. Julia ran a trembling finger over the drawing and drew in a deep shuddering breath, realizing Seth�
�s commitment had been absolute. She only hoped he’d realized how much he’d meant to her.

  In her free time that summer she helped Angie and Paul prepare for their wedding, whose date was set for Septemberfourteenth. Both her brother and Angie managed to get time off work and her brother secretly told her he’d booked a week in Cancun for their honeymoon.

  “Tell Angie I keep talking about Yellowstone or Banff, or something like that.” Angie was an outdoor enthusiast and loved to hike and camp. The ploy might very well work, so Julia dropped a few subtle hints to her future sister-in-law about trees and bears and whatnot as her brother grinned conspiratorially.

  She also taught summer school and took a writing course in August to help pass the long summer days. During her free time she spent endless hours walking on the beach and collecting shells, helping her mother prepare for the wedding, and performing the simple maintenance needed for the oversized aquarium in her brother’s condo. The fish were doing nicely and her brother had added a silver eel and several anemones with their resident tomato clowns to liven up the beautiful tank where red and green algae covered the natural reef rock as the yellow tangs darted about. It was peaceful working on the huge tank, and she recalled the enthusiasm gripping Seth as he designed the perfect saltwater aquarium for the spacious living room.

  So the summer speeded toward Labor Day weekend and after school started once again, with a whole new class of small second graders gazing up at her with hope and trepidation, her brother’s wedding date arrived. The First Lutheran Church was filled to capacity as the sun streamed through stained glass windows depicting the Madonna and Child gazing lovingly at one another. The rosy rays fell upon the beautiful arrangements of gladiolas, baby’s breath, and roses decorating the wide steps of the front altar. Her brother looked splendid in a black-tailed tuxedo, and he, in his typical mischievous manner, had placed a glossy top hat upon his head. On another man it might have looked silly, but on Paul it looked jaunty and appropriate, making him resemble a modern-day version of Fred Astaire ascending the matrimonial stair.

  Angie’s niece Cindy took her job seriously as the flower girl and dropped fragrant rose petals freely upon the aisle as everybody chuckled at the dainty little girl in her bright violet dress. The music swelled as the pale bride, stunning in an exquisite full-skirted white gown with pearl beading covering the delicate front, approached. Beautiful gathered tucks ran the length of the material in the back and she wore a full see-through veil hinting at the lovely French braid dangling halfway down her back. Angie had never looked more beautiful or more nervous and Julia flashed a reassuring smile at her as Paul straightened his shoulders and received the hand of the bride from her suspiciously shiny-eyed father.

  The wedding proceeded without a hitch and Julia noted her mother shed more than one tear as Jim Morris beamed proudly at his only son. She steeled herself for the reception, recognizing too much genuine merriment and laughter would abound in the church’s flower-clad banquet hall. As Julia joined the reception line, she once again felt that strange pang above her heart where Seth’s soul lived. He should have been standing here next to her brother, watching the scene with his bemused gray eyes and tossing off cryptic comments as he was inclined to do.

  Instead he lay in a grave she secretly visited every Sunday morning to lay two beautiful roses, one pink and one red, upon his mowed plot. Julia would sit and converse with him, even though she knew only his ashes were interred under the earth, and found it comforting to relay her week’s business to his ever attentive ears. Sometimes, though not as often as in months previous, Julia cried, but more and more she was able to speak in resigned tones about her life without him. Oh, how she wished he were here!

  The bride and groom headed onto the dance floor and did their single waltz together as the festive crowd watched in delighted appreciation before moving onto the parquet floor themselves. Julia found a lonely chair near the buffet and watched her brother laughingly twirl his new wife around the floor.

  Julia couldn’t know that in a shadowed corner of the reception hall, a sad dark-haired man watched the transparent emotions flit across her face. He shook his head grimly, wishing he could somehow ease her pain. If only he knew a way to make her life easier. Julia was too thin, he could tell, having apparently lost a great deal of weight after Seth’s death; and her delicate face gleamed palely against the lovely violet dress Angie had chosen for all her bridesmaids. How he wished he could enter the noisy banquet hall and greet her, but knew that would probably be too much of a shock for her frail system. Instead he’d have to devise a more subtle way to meet her, so she’d know Seth hadn’t died completely friendless and without family. Thus determined and fortified, the tall stranger left the joyful reception hall with its one somber inmate, resigned to wait a few more days before he made his move.

  Chapter 7

  The letter arrived in a nondescript white envelope with only a return address in the upper left-hand corner. Julia opened it with all the rest of mail, which included the electric bill, a short note from her grandmother, and an invitation to attend the upcoming P.T.A dinner to be held at the school within two weeks. Her heart recoiled in shock at the contents and she reread the single sheet three times before picking up the phone and dialing her brother and his new wife. It was Octoberfirst, and Paul had only just returned from his honeymoon ten days ago, restarting work at Tri-Tek amidst a great deal of grumbling. When he heard his sister’s voice Paul instantly knew something was terribly wrong.

  “Could you and Angie come over here right now? I received something in the mail I have to show you. Something that is well… almost frightening. Please Pauli?”

  Paul had not heard that kind of distress in her voice for months and immediately agreed. Angie was in the kitchen chopping vegetables for their late evening stir-fry.

  “We’ve got to go over to Julia’s now; something’s happened.” Angie’s brown eyes locked with his and without a word she grabbed her coat.

  Within fifteen minutes he and Angie were seated at the small breakfast counter in the two bedroom flat Julia and Angie had shared as roommates only a couple of months earlier but now Julia had taken as her own. Mira lay at his feet as Paul reread the letter twice and shook his head grimly.

  “Did you know Seth had a brother?”

  “Well yes. Seth indicated he and his brother had had a severe falling out and when I tried to pursue it further, said he’d talk to me about it later. Seth also mentioned having a cousin but never went into much detail about him either.”

  “But this is not from the cousin, but the brother Simon. He says he would like to meet you but is afraid to do so because you’ll be shocked because they were twins.”

  “A twin!” snorted Angie. “You would have thought that was something worthwhile mentioning to you Julia.”

  “You’re right. It all seems so confusing now,” said Julia, pacing the kitchen again for the hundredth time.

  Angie scanned the letter again. “I don’t know what to say Julia. If it’s going to upset you, maybe you should just let us handle it.”

  Julia wagged her head vehemently. She’d never played the coward before and wasn’t about to start now. “It says he has something for me. Do you have any idea what that could be Paul?”

  “Maybe some of Seth’s personal effects; who knows. So you’re going to agree to see him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Julia, wringing her hands. Paul let her pace about, knowing the decision had to be hers. Finally she settled down and inspected the letter again. “I guess I could meet him, but only if the two of you agree to be here as well. I don’t want to see him alone. You know if they’re twins, they probably look similar.”

  “What if they’re identical twins?” said Angie, the thought just hitting her. “Maybe that’s why he’s so afraid of distressing you.”

  “I still can’t believe Seth wouldn’t have mentioned the fact he had a twin brother to me, though he did mention twins ran in his family. It
seems so unlike him.”

  “Was it?” asked Paul, rising and straying to the window overlooking the sparkling blue compound pool. “Was it really? One of my profoundest memories of Seth was how very private he was. I recall him mentioning once how he’d had a falling out with some people he’d known on the east coast and that’s why he transferred here. To make a new start he said. His deciding not to talk about a brother who’d pissed him off doesn’t seem unlike him in the least somehow.”

  “But no one came forward after the funeral. There were no phone numbers or any sort of records indicating relatives at all and suddenly this brother shows up,” grumbled Angie

  “Yes, but we also left the search for a will and family members to Lenny Glickstern, remember? Maybe he was successful in his search but never mentioned anything to us because he knew how distraught Julia was.”

  But Angie’s mind had already taken a different track. “Paul, you remember my great-aunt Beatrice and her sister Sharon?”

  “Yeah, what of it?” said Paul, drumming his fingers on the window sill.

  “They didn’t speak for forty years even though only fourteen months separated them. Then one day Aunt Beatrice calls her sister Sharon up just like nothing had happened and asks her to come over for tea. Though they only lived an hour away, they’d managed to avoid each other for nearly forty years. When they finally got together they couldn’t even remember the reason they hadn’t spoken for all that time. Maybe that’s what happened to Seth and his brother. Now it’s too late for Simon to make amends to his brother, but he can to his brother’s girlfriend. I think you’re right to meet him Julia, but I also believe Paul and I should be there as a backup.”

  Paul smiled at his bride. She was always clear-headed and rational, and had that uncanny ability of getting right to the root of a matter. “I believe you’ve hit the nail right on the head Carter! This Simon has a Santa Barbara phone number so I think you should give him a call Julia.”