No Greater Love

by Susan Rodgers

  When Josh’s phone rang that day, he was startled to see the caller ID - Deirdre Keating. His panicked eyes met Steve’s across the table from him. Maggie, Sue-Lyn and Carter were all there, and Steve shushed them immediately. They were always on the alert for news about Jessie. They would never give up hope of finding her.

  Josh jumped up from his chair so fast he knocked it over. They all heard him say his first word before he walked out of earshot.

  “Dee?” He and Jessie’s manager had become fast friends after Jessie’s disappearance, partly because Josh was a very forgiving individual, but mostly because they were travelling the same worn path – they were two damaged souls who desperately missed a girl they loved.

  Her voice caught before she could speak. She knew every call from her would be a worry for Josh, so she tried to ease his mind right away. “Hello, Josh. I’m sorry to bother you at work.”

  “It’s fine,” he said, overcompensating in his attempt to sound confident and unafraid, so instead his words emerged high-pitched and fearful. “What’s up?”

  On the other end of the line Dee closed her eyes, picturing the dread in his posture, in his eyes, as he awaited some news – any news – of Jessie.

  She spoke quickly to alleviate the unbearable waiting.

  “Honey,” she was making up for past wrongs. “I was just wondering…Carlotta and I are at Jessie’s place,” again her voice gave way, but only for a moment. Stronger, she continued, “We’re at Jessie’s place, and we’re going through her things, just tidying and packing up and that sort of thing.”

  She was speaking fast now. Josh closed his eyes and placed his thumb and forefinger on his temple, and leaned against the doorframe for support. Beyond him Sue-Lyn grabbed Carter’s hand and Maggie snuggled up against Stephen.

  Josh couldn’t speak. This was all just one big never-ending nightmare. What he would give for one more night with Jessie, to hold her in his arms just one last time. He would memorize every freckle, every eyelash, every finger and toe. He would memorize her voice in the way she whispered his name, the sea-pearl eyes that shone with love every time she looked at him – before. Before Agassiz.

  Dee recovered after the lengthy pause and continued. “Honey,” she said again. “There’s one thing I can’t find, and I just wondered if you had it. If – if Jessie returned it to you.”

  Without thinking, Josh instinctively knew Dee was talking about the Tiffany engagement ring he’d given Jessie for Christmas the year before. It hadn’t come up in conversation before, and he had not had the heart to ask Dee about it, about whether Jessie had left it tucked safely away somewhere. He half hoped he would need it again someday.

  He found his voice. “No, Dee,” he said quietly. “ She didn’t give it back. Maybe she packed it in a box, or stuck it in a drawer or something?”

  “Josh, we’ve been through all the drawers. We’ve looked everywhere. There’s no ring.”

  It was then he understood what Dee was trying to tell him – that Jessie must be alive somewhere. If she’d taken her well-loved teddy bear, and her dad’s guitar – and the engagement ring – maybe it also confirmed what he already believed, based on the goodbye song from Jonathon’s party. That she still loved him. That it was her decision to go. That she hadn’t been forced – kidnapped.

  Josh did not allow himself to think she wanted to die with the ring in her possession.

  When he half-limped with relief back to the table, his friends were silent, expectant, waiting.

  “Well?” the impertinent Sue-Lyn asked as he picked up the fallen chair and sat down.

  Josh chanced a glance at all of them in turn – kindly Maggie, handsome Carter, little Sue-Lyn, and then his good friend Stephen, a man who also loved Jessie at a time when she needed someone on her side she could trust. He knew Steve’s feelings still ran deep. But he also wanted him to know – to realize – that Jessie was and always would be his and his alone, regardless of where she was in the world – or, God forbid, the afterworld – today.

  And so he spoke what he believed to be the truth. “She took the engagement ring with her.”

  The gang was silent as they digested what this meant. Maggie clasped her hands firmly around Steve’s when she felt him tremble. Steve looked down and then somehow found the courage to glance back up at Josh, who was eyeing him carefully. He recognized what Josh was telling him, but in his mind he fought it anyway. Yet there was something more important at stake here, and there was no need to fight over her – today.

  Steve said what all of them were thinking. “I’m gonna kill her when she shows up.”

  The friends mumbled in agreement, and then Carter surprised them all by standing and reaching across the table, and slapping Josh on the shoulder.

  Grinning, he tossed in, “It ain’t over til it’s over, my friend.”

  And that day, Josh couldn’t help but smile as he bowed his head and plowed into his food. She was out there somewhere but she had his ring. She loved him. And someday Jessie would come back. Of that he was certain.

  ***

  Jessie’s disappearance had been – was still - hard on all of them. But as time went on Josh employed a trick he learned from her, the master, and he shut himself off. With sheer self-will he numbed the parts that hurt the most, and he stopped caring about things that once bothered him. During the first few months before the shooting of Drifters started again he had mostly stayed at home alone. For a while the media continued to haunt him, but eventually things eased somewhat. There were other celebrities to concern themselves with, other bad antics and negative behavior to report. Still, in the public eye it seemed Josh would always go down as the man who beat Jessie Wheeler.

  The DNA testing from the rape had come back negative for Josh, but no one ever truly proved he was not the man who threw her around. All they had was Jessie’s voice on a digital file recorded by Charlie’s iPhone telling them Josh was innocent, that someone else was the bad guy, and that she initially blamed Josh in order to ensure his immediate safety by having him thrown in jail for a few days. Once she was fairly certain her aggressor fled the country, she had agreed with Josh’s suggestion that he continue to take the blame. Josh thought if he did so, the real culprit would eventually reappear on the basis nobody was looking for him. Josh was willing to be the bait. When the group finally realized the identity of the stalker, the heat on Josh lessened and, at least in his own circles, he regained respect and trust. Finding McCall in the Agassiz group photo cemented that trust.

  Even with Deuce’s clear message from the photo – his close proximity to Josh - Jessie knew Josh’s safety was ninety-nine percent guaranteed if the world continued to punish him, for that was what Deuce McCall truly enjoyed, punishing people. He needed to be in control. He had no remorse for his travesties towards other people. He was a true psychopath, a man with no regard for social mores, a mask of a human being, a space station robot. Also, Jessie knew Deuce truly wanted her and, if Josh were dead, Deuce would have no hope of ever getting Jessie back. Without the main magnet to encourage her return, Jessie was lost forever, to all of them, Deuce included. Now that there was distance and time between Deuce’s hysterical tirade and threats the night he beat her, perhaps the man was thinking more reasonably, too. It seemed likely the imminent threat against Josh, at least with Jessie gone, was fading.

  And so the hole Jessie left behind started to fill.

  After the third season of Drifters was in the can, Josh finally got hired on another film, which he shot in Maine the summer after Jessie’s disappearance. He was cast as the villain in a Stephen King thriller. He shrugged it off. He would have preferred to be the lead, but at least it was work. During the shoot he spent a lot of time alone in his cast trailer, during lighting and when he wasn’t needed on set, and one day the film’s publicist popped in without knocking. It was scorching hot and the screen door was open, so Josh didn’t necessarily mind. He was sitting at the trailer’s little cream-colored table going
over lines when her dark hair caught him unawares.

  “Hey. Can I come in?”

  “Looks to me like you’re already in,” he said, as she halted by the miniature stove and faced him. He gestured for her to have a seat. Josh had been told the publicist would be dropping by one day, so he figured rightly who she was.

  She slid in across from him and thrust out a hand. “Michelle.”

  “Josh.” He accepted the outstretched hand, taking notice of her firm grip.

  “I know,” she said, referring to his name. “Nice to meet you.”

  Secretly he wondered, is it? He had gotten used to the world’s general dislike.

  He relaxed somewhat and watched as she flipped open an iPad. Tapping a finger on the screen, Michelle explained her responsibilities and ran through a few general questions for him to think about before their next meeting. Josh found her immediately captivating, cobalt eyes dancing as she spoke, shoulder length black hair falling in waves framing peach-round cheeks. Dimples added to her pleasant features, and he caught his mind wandering, thinking she had likely been one of those cute children everybody took an immediate liking to.

  Michelle had to repeat herself a few times while chatting with Josh. Finally she closed her iPad and leaned on her elbows with a smile. She thought he was strikingly good-looking. He’d cut his hair after Drifters, in part because he missed Jessie playing with it, and partially because he wanted to cut off as much of those memories as he possibly could. Josh was wearing it shorter, still layered, falling just over and behind his ears. Michelle thought it suited him; those high cheekbones were so plainly visible now, and the chocolate brown eyes, endlessly and deeply captivating. The Drifters bad boy immediately intrigued her.

  “Josh,” she said. “There’s one thing we have to get out of the way right now.”

  He sat back, his expression wary, face falling. He dropped his hands to his thighs and challenged her with an infamous detached Josh Sawyer shoulder shrug.

  “Shoot,” he said, expectantly.

  Michelle waited a moment before speaking. She tapped a finger on the table and then met the dark eyes straight on. “Jessie Wheeler.”

  Her gaze never left his. Although she saw him falter, he was quick to recover, but his expression hardened.

  “Jessie’s off limits.”

  “I’m the publicist for this film, Josh. I am not big on surprises. I’m methodical, a planner. I want to know what I’m dealing with.”

  “It’s been more than a year since Jessie and I broke up. She’s old news.”

  At the time, sitting across from him acting all chill and in control, Michelle thought he was either coldly calculating and detached, or big on self-preservation. It only took her a moment to realize for certain it was the second. She saw something soften in his eyes. She could almost see the old film playing there – memories with a girl he obviously adored, someone he missed deeply. Sure, maybe he hurt her, but the story was that Josh in all likelihood had discovered her with someone else and so was badly hurt himself. True love turned a lot of men – and women – into monsters when they felt wronged. In Michelle’s mind she thought probably Josh was love-drunk at the time, acting out of passion, and truly sorry forever after.

  Josh veered away from Michelle’s penetrating gaze and looked down, swallowed a lump in his throat, and tried to regain his bearings. A window to his soul opened momentarily and she grabbed the opportunity for a peek. What she saw affected her deeply, for in front of Michelle sat a man whose heart was ripped in two. She didn’t know why exactly, except that it had to do with Jessie. Michelle’s own heart ached for him.

  “Okay,” she said, twisting uncomfortably on the bench seat. “Just promise me then, if there’s ever a time when you need to tell me something about that relationship and how it went down, especially...” she breathed, “especially at the end, you will come forward. Okay?”

  He glanced up at her then, and felt somehow he could trust her. Josh expected it was her dimples. Between those and the cobalt eyes, he felt rather disarmed. He yielded.

  “Fair enough,” he said quietly, and she caught herself thinking he wasn’t a villain at all. He was just a man.

  They went on their first date that night at the bowling lanes, in the company of the cast and crew of the Stephen King film. Soon Josh and Michelle were a couple, to the amazement of many and, above and beyond all, to the surprise of Josh himself.

  And so he buried Jessie’s memory in order to resurrect some part of his own lost spirit. But despite Josh’s best intentions to focus on the present, Jessie still seeped in. It seemed he was powerless to completely let her go, so when the dark of night edged its way into Josh’s dreams he often heard her voice - singing to him, calling his name, whispering.

  He loved her and missed her, but Josh was angry, too. So he also buried how he felt about what he thought was Jessie’s poor judgment and unilateral decision-making, and he refused to acknowledge the fear that drove her to those choices, because it drove him crazy to think about Jessie’s wretched summer alone. She could have talked to him, she could have talked to someone…and now all that remained was a deep hole that sometimes made it hurt to breathe - for all of them, but especially for Josh, who occasionally felt his own friends’ eyes on him, judging, blaming.

  What burned Josh up the most was the simple knowing that ultimately he was responsible for Jessie’s choice, whether she was living her life somewhere else, or whether she was dead. She had told them all that, in her own words, in her own voice, on Charlie’s beach recording. To protect Josh…to keep him safe…but the thing was, Josh didn’t feel worthy. He would never feel worthy.

  But he would always feel responsible. And more often than not, he would always feel angry.

  So as much as he loved Jessie, and always would, he pushed her aside and entered some form of new normalcy as his life began with Michelle. The anger remained buried, a slow burn deep in the caverns of his soul, alongside an exquisite sorrow borne of loss.

  And life went on.

  ***

  Chapter Two

  The following November

  Ignoring the crackling in his knees, Charlie bent down and lifted a tarpaulin.

  Below, a grizzled old man reached a knobby hand out from beneath a tattered tan jacket and accepted an apple offered by Charlie. He pondered the world with rheumy tired eyes as the younger man studied him, searching for signs of immediate trauma or sickness.

  “How are you doing, Alfred?” Charlie asked genuinely. “Are you having any luck keeping this cold rain off your shoulders today?”

  Charlie grasped the old feller’s jacket and pulled it tighter around his neck. He took the time to fasten the top button, and then he yanked a warm blue sleeping bag up over the man’s chest.

  “Do you want some hot coffee? Or tea? Seems to me you’re a tea drinker, aren’t you, Alfred? Last time I was here I recall it was that old Earl Grey you liked.”

  Grinning toothlessly in gratitude, Alfred hung onto the sleeve of Charlie’s navy blue rainproof Mountain Equipment Co-op jacket with trembling gnarled fingers. He didn’t want to let go. He liked the young man’s friendly eyes, although he spotted some deep lingering sadness there. They shared common ground.

  “Alfred, ya gotta let me go for a sec so I can get you some tea. I’ll be right back, I swear.” Gently, Charlie nudged the old man’s arthritic fingers apart, wondering - as he always did during his shifts as a volunteer - what brought the man to his damp perch underneath a dripping awning on a concrete sidewalk in a sodden Western Canadian coastal city. Had he lost money? A wife? A job? A child, perhaps? His mind? Had he declined slowly into some fantasy world spurred on by schizophrenia or another equally debilitating disease?

  Sauntering back to a nearby cube truck to get the tea, Charlie knew he would never know Alfred’s story. The old survivor never spoke, except with eyes alight with gratitude for the simple pleasure of an apple, a sleeping bag, a steaming cup of Earl Grey.

 
Charlie waited at the back of the truck for another volunteer, a blonde lady in her mid fifties, to ease out of the way before he asked the girl working their command post for the tea. The gal monitoring the truck wasn’t someone he’d worked with before, although he’d been here many times over the past year helping out as best he could, trying to ease an ever-present ache in his heart. They must have worked different trucks when he was on shift. She knew what she was doing, and wasn’t shy, intimidated or shocked by the truths of the Downtown Eastside. She was a veteran soldier in the rambling ranks of the tried and true.

  He smiled diffidently up at her, pulling the Mountain Equipment Co-op hood up over his head as the intensity of the rain increased. Charlie was thankful he remembered to wear rain pants that day. Still, he was drenched to the core.

  “Jane,” he said, all business-like. “Some Earl Grey for Alfred over there.” The actor lifted a foot and rested it on the back bumper of the truck, then leaned an elbow on his knee. He watched Jane pour hot water into a cardboard cup from a tap on a large brown insulated thermos. She glanced up at him, assessing the water droplets clinging to his tousled hair, grinned, then ripped open a small packet and dropped a tea bag into the steaming cup.

  “Why Charlie Deacon,” she said. “I must admit, you continue to amaze me.”

  Questioning, he raised his arms. “How is that possible? You don’t even know me.” Charlie had grown a great deal in the last few years. Loss did that to him. He no longer associated much of his personality and charm with his work as a film actor. It sobered him to realize that his old friend and ex-fiancée Jessie had been right all along. Fame was artifice; the Downtown Eastside was real. Being here in the frigid torrential rain with people who lived outdoors was real.