Journal for Christmas 1962
The summer of 1962 I was in the Valley for summer work
again, but this time was there only a month. We wrote letters through the
fall and then Frank came to Alberta for Christmas.
La Glace Alberta, December 27 1962
Living room, past midnight, the album of Schumann's Concerto in A Minor
in the background, because Mother and Father were sleeping. Earlier there
had been regular squeaks from the bedroom.
Everything he said and I said, and everything I learned from him, and
every time we touched, and all of this, entirely, I want to keep. I want
terribly to keep.
There is both the weary desolation and the thrusting spearheaded panic,
fluctuating and at one, overtone, undertone. I have lost you. I have given
you up.
This morning in the dark I woke momentarily to a single awareness of
the window scattered with snow, streaked, the wind. A blizzard. I thought
of Frank sleeping in the basement and wondered if he heard it.
He came in for breakfast late, nearly at eleven. I had been up for a
small while.
I love you. I've never loved you so terribly before. I never knew anything
about it before. The record player is on; Concerto in A Minor - we heard
this soft haunting passage last night and every time it played it caught
up some of our feeling - and now every time I play it I will hear a little
of us sitting together in a corner of the brown sofa with our arms about
each other. He said when I laughed, "Why are you so gleeful?"
"Frank, I'm not. Wait, I'll show you what it is." I found the
book and let him read:
- Because I love you - Dorothy Reed
-
- Because you love me, the dull minutes slip
- Through my fingers like fine dry sand;
- And the days run past us, laughing-eyed,
- Because I love you.
"But this is present tense," he said. "Yes," I said.
And we sat without saying anything until I stirred - we were sitting
a little apart - and said "I'm just not shy any more." His face
looked the way mine felt - how can I explain it? Open, sorry and at once
glad because we were still together and still communicating. And he said,
"Doesn't that mean we were meant for each other?"
And how can I tell about him at all, how wonderful he is? I wish I had
called him by his name often, said "Frank, hello" and "Frank,
good morning." His name. I am desolate without it. "I won't remember
your face five years from now, no matter how hard I try to memorize it now."
"You have a beauty spot here on your chin and there is another one,
here on your forehead" (his hands brushing my hair away from my forehead,
softly, softly, the piano fingers of the record and his ragged, working,
tender, fingers under my hair), he said. "Yes. I know. I have been
staring too." His very odd face, his bristly chin with its cleft, his
small wistful mouth moving when he talks, somehow conscious of itself when
he looked down at me and we were close.
"Do you remember those first few dates?" he said yesterday,
smiling in his green coat with his strange corner-tilting wry smile - I
want to keep it, I want to keep it, that smile, all of him, I want him.
But not enough. "Do you remember those first few dates? I was crazy
about you." "Even that first afternoon when we wanted to climb
the hill Frank?" This bare smile - I can see it, I don't want to lose
it! -
This strong restrained twist of mouth that shows happiness in his mind,
and his nod following it quickly. His hair curling over his forehead, strong,
wiry, his short crooked nose with the bump on the side and the skin stretched
taut over it, the blue eyes with their straight lashes, each lash stiffly
individual and light-tipped. And even in the corners of his eyes his eyelashes
are long and stiff and strange. His eyebrows wandering, one of them scarred,
his skin rather pale, his rough square hands, his neat narrow hipbones and
his square chest, his boyish thin legs in their blue jeans, his brown knotted
thick-veined arms under the teeshirt, all of this Christmas the red plaid
shirt, the thick socks, the blue jeans, the high boots. The suit on Christmas
Eve.
The way he moves his mouth when he talks, his strange small mouth twisting
in the corners, pulling into a close-lipped smile.
Last night closely held, lightly held by each other, we listened in the
one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock silence to hearts moving, our shoulders
shifting and rasping on the couch back, our feet brushing the floor, the
tearing-sad, agonizing-sad movement of music. There was even a joy. We couldn't
help laughing as we lay against the corner early in the morning of the day
that he left, laughing because we were together.
My cheeks sting with salt tears, they are a soft wet. I am seventeen.
In five years he will be twenty seven. I will be twenty two. We won't know
each other.
Last night again. The record had played through. I said, "Shall
I change sides?" So he released me and I went away to the phonograph
and turned the record, came back and sat with my hands in my chin; "Fairy
tales - the princess and the prince buy a record player and set up house-keeping
and live happily ever after." "But that is a fairy tale."
"Yes."
"When we were small we used to have ceremonies when it rained, rain
ceremonies. I wore a maroon bathrobe, an old one, and took a tin cup and
had parades and muttered things." I told him about it when I was sick
on Sunday, in the afternoon, when we sat on the kitchen couch, I wrapped
in my blanket, he sitting nearly and holding my hand. We are so delighted
with these things from each other's past, we want to keep hearing.
"A timbering process," he mentioned about today's final goodbye
- all of these five days of Christmas have been a timbering process. I don't
know how long this new feeling will last, but I feel as tho I'd fallen in
love with him again and newly. Timbering process - that is what happened
to all my feeling for him. It was becoming feeble, but now it is intense
and wild, timbered by losing him.
What do I know now about love?
1. It is warm - hands and eyes; it doesn't constantly ache for the touching;
it is friendness.
2. It wants to know about everything in you, in your mind and soul and
body. It wants to know who you are, to explore, to get into situations with
you. It is curious.
3. It is maternal and paternal also. It is concerned that you remember
your things and are warm enough and don't get the smallest slice of ice
cream. It reassures you about fires and Hereford bulls, it says smilingly,
as he said yesterday, "I want to protect you" and it throws an
arm around your shoulders or cups a hand over your cold ear to warm it.
(And him saying "Yes, I'd give you all I know. I'd give you the shirt
off my back." - Said as we read poetry together in a corner of the
table and Mr Dyck argued with Father.)
4. It doesn't care if you don't wear Ivy League clothes, or if you substitute
red plaid shirts and blue jeans for them. It doesn't care if you don't shave.
It doesn't care if you are sick and a grey-green color on the Sunday before
Christmas. When you ask it (I did, sitting in the kitchen yesterday) "What
does a man really think about a thing like a physical handicap?" "If
a man loves a woman, he just doesn't care. It isn't repulsive Ellie."
"But it is, anything grotesque is repulsive." "It isn't,
Ellie."
5. It wants to tell and to communicate constantly, even now I am most
desolate because of all the things I want to tell him that he will never
know. That is why I had to show him my scrapbook of summer '61 this morning.
And think of all the things he'll want to tell me - I'll never hear them.
Is there ever again going to be anyone I love as well, who loves me as well,
who is so near to me, so unified with me? Last night was like a honeymoon.
And after the funeral today, there is grief for a perfect human relationship
that ended.
This morning again he came in for breakfast late, and didn't look at
me or say good morning until he had his back to me and was washing. When
he turned his head I said my good morning softly and he answered softly,
sadly, shyly almost, altho' we were no longer shy, not ever. We can't be
shy. We are hardly separate individuals. We are brothers, friends, parents,
lovers, at once. We cannot be shy. We had breakfast alone together. I poured
his coffee and my hand shook. We had to put the cup down together to keep
it from spilling. He drank it and his hand shook. We were all alone on the
corner of the table, shaking and dreading what now is.
- He must be driving now, on the dark ice, in the cold, in the snow.
If he died - but he won't - we'd have had our goodbye. How many times did
I tell him what was on top of my mind - "Take care of yourself."
I can't remember what we talked about this morning, besides the shaking.
Then we began to gather up his stuff. I had piled his records and his books
- he's taking 1984 and an extra copy of "The Age of Analysis"
- and his two extra shirts. I dabbed perfume on their collars quixotically,
I want him to remember in spite of the whole purpose of this. Ironical.
And as we stood by the piano he packed his beautiful leather bag and I plunked
on the piano. On last Tuesday we thumped a bit, he and I - he taking the
low B note as himself, I taking a shrill B. They were dissonant together,
and yet the same note. We kid around a great deal with symbolism, we always
have, right from the June 27 afternoon when we began all this.
We got his stuff together, poured out nuts from his sack into our boxes.
We stood in the living room together, he pulled his watch out to say "Am
I a man or a mouse? I'm a mouse" so we could be together just a bit
longer. I don't remember what we talked about there either. I don't think
we did much, we just stood. And then he went to La Glace to get his brakes
fixed. While he was gone I burst into tears and came to Mother to talk to
her. "I just wish you could tell me if I'm doing the right thing or
not What if he's the only one I'll be able to get along with? Maybe this
is the biggest mistake of my life." "I can't know. But if you
were to get married now it would be the worst thing for both of you. I don't
know. He wants to be serious." "He says it doesn't have to be
immediate - it isn't urgent." "But you want to be fair with him
and you couldn't unless you cared for him." "But I do care for
him, so much." And again there were tears all down my cheeks. Then
I saw him thru' the window, home from La Glace, and I rushed away to clean
up my eyes.
We got his stuff together. "There's just one thing in this basement
that I want most to take along -" with a wide exuberant movement of
his arms, swooping joyously - "you." "You wouldn't know what
to do with me if you had me." And I smiled serenely from inside his
arms. "If it were five years later I would."
Last night again, shifting on the sofa with our haunted sad eyes, he
said "Could you sort of explain to me just what it is you are afraid
of? It might be easier for me if you did." "It's very simple really;
I'm afraid that what happened to my mother will happen to me." "Oh
Ellie - I do come from a long line of wifebeaters, don't I!"
When and how did these five days of Christmas begin?
Saturday nite I slunk around in my brown skirt and the brown sweater
buttoned up front. The living room was drip-wet with my blouses drying over
chair backs. 10:30 at night, Paul sleeping on the living room floor, Rudy
asleep with his face turned away, on the couch. A knock, and Mother at the
door. Frank in the doorway, hands cold, ears red. Strange. I never remember
his face from one time to the next. Dave there, Paul awake soon and working
models with him, giggling, eating oranges in bed, Frank and I left alone,
talking until two. He sat on the edge of the large chair near the hot stove,
I sat on my cold bed in our room and we talked thru the hole (heater-hole)
in the wall. He held my hand, cold as it was, touched my wrist.
One of the things we said - "Here I'm roasting and there you are
shivering." "Symbolic" - one word, said lightly. I would
never have said it, feeling as I do now. But it shows the reserve I felt,
the tread-lightly wariness, the arms'-length raillery. When I knew he was
gone and no threat to me my love exploded boundariless, warinessless, and
I had no reserve left, I had to tell him in every way I could, I had to
make a foolish female of myself, to let him know how it was. My eyes speaking,
my elbow touching his, my hand on the back of his chair - he looked up and
said "Hi!" softly.
And I put my head down for a while on his arm, - oh there is so much
I want to tell you now that I can say it to you! - rested it there as I
did the first touching day in the berry patch at dinner when we sprawled
under the swaying branches and he held my hand and I wanted so terribly
to put my head on his shoulder, on his arm, and I finally did, while he
stroked my hair.
(Finally I closed the wall window with the sheet of plywood, because
I was so cold. He was into his sleeping bag before I knew it and my feet
were icy cold, my knee hurt, my foot hurt, I felt rather sad, saying slowly
to myself "I'm sorry but I think it is gone." Tossing, creaking,
winding and unwinding, I fell asleep. In the morning I was sick. However,
up and into the brown skirt and my green sweater still damp. No breakfast.
It was Sunday morning. I felt worse and worse, gave him 1984 and let him
sit on the couch and read it while I fled to the bedroom, threw up my supper
from the night before, lay under the cold cover listening to Paul and Dave.
Just before dinner I moved to the kitchen and lay the length of the couch
under the green coverlid while he ate dinner - pink ice cream - and he would
speak to me over Father's head and smile and I see his vivid bemused face
now, eyebrows raised to speak to me, mouth posed. I love that strange face.
After dinner the family went to church to practice for the Sunday school
concert. He sat with me on the couch; I curled my legs up under the cover
and he held my hand. The strangeness was gone and we were such extremely
good friends again.
Judy went carolling with Frank's big leather boots laced to her mid-calf.
The carollers came, we cracked nuts. I don't remember a word anyone said.
That last night is lost.
We stayed up late again, he on his side, I on mine. I took my skirt off
while he wasn't watching and crawled under, and set my hair as he watched.
(On Wednesday night I tho't, this is our honeymoon. And so these nights
were. A honeymoon closeness. Honeymoon intimacy of holding his hand through
the boards before I was out of bed on Sunday morning.) Again cold feet and
sore knee and tossing. While we talked and brushed faces John had gone to
sleep on the floor. Frank's sleeping bag was beside his. Darkness and quiet
while I tossed.
Morning, glimpse of his red shirt, he up before I was. Monday. The day
before Christmas. Brown skirt again, slim one, and green sweater. Paul,
Dave and he went out to get the tree, tramping thru' crusted snow. While
they were gone I was domestic - ironed. He came home and packed the tree
away efficiently. Dinner, the turkey came over carried by Danny, a naked
monster. Frank and I singed him, I held his wings and we built a smoky paper
flame on the snow outside. Auntie and Uncle arrived while this was happening.
Then the boys and I went to Sexsmith with him, sliding on icy roads without
brakes. We parked by the post office while I dashed in, putting marks of
ourselves on even those things in Sexsmith that I see every day. Drugstore
- he found a toothbrush and watched as I chatted with Jim. Larsen's - he
stood and waited by the door while I checked out my groceries. The corner
store - he met me by the door there. Our La Glace post office - he waited
outside the truck for me to climb in thru the driver's side. This road this
town this doorstep; he has been here. We left other marks too. He sat here.
We stood here, we walked here, he touched this note on the piano. This shaving
lotion - Mennon - is his scent. His fingers moved on this sweater, he touseled
this hair, his hands held this book, his shoes sat here by the door, his
luggage, his fine leather bag, here, his truck stood here - and look! here
is a newspaper that fell into the snow when he unpacked. I love you, newspaper.
My darling Frank. His bottle of Listerine was here, so, on the piano, his
coat hung here, his suit next to my clothes in my closet; here by the piano
we stood close, and here on the piano is a letter with a word in pencil
scribbled on the margin - poignant. ("That is what this is,
Frank: poignant." "It's more than poignant.") We left it
here, with fragments of conversation, with the invisible press of our footprints
on the floor, here by the piano. Poignant. And in the poetry we read together,
and in every topic of conversation we have ever touched and in eating apples,
in church where you stood by the door. In my orange dress, my school clothes,
my white high heels which you saw briefly, in my gloves that you held, in
your gloves that you took off to touch my hand to your lips. In my silver
dollar on the chain that you gave me last Christmas ("You better not
wear it too long or you'll get bumps on your skin again. You'll keep it
for a long time but then you'll lose it - I lost that keychain from Marvin
- and it will mark the end of something.") On this Oberkirchen Children's
Choir recording ("If a record can wear out, that one will."),
in oatmeal at breakfast ("My kids are going to have oatmeal at least
once a week if I have to stand over them and make them eat it." He
said it and his face grew red. Ironical - this pain saves me cooking oatmeal.)
Even on the faces of clocks ("Twelve o'clock - am I a man or a mouse."
"Eleven - twenty to. This really helps things!" "I say we
get there about twenty to eleven - on the dot."). On songs - Climb
the highest mountain, Bernadine, a silly thing called "It's Time to
Cry" ("I didn't mean to bring it; I didn't know I'd need it").
We came home again and had lunch and began to get ready for the program
- I "did" my face and backcombed my hair while he watched, and
he drove off to church with the boys. The minute outside the door wondering
if I should go with him, the minute of turning from the dim mirror to see
his eye in the crack in the door and glower at him for peeking.
The program at church, sitting and knowing he was behind me, seeing his
face briefly when I turned. Then swiftly home to see him on a chair cracking
nuts, and smiling. Christmas Eve. I remember sitting in the big chair with
my skirts spread about me and the tree dropping tinsel onto my shoulder.
(A squat, heavy-branched tree that bulges out into the room on one side
and hangs its balls and tinsel out over the floor. He brought it over his
shoulder.) We whiled away time sitting - he on the chair, I on the chair
cushion on the floor with those skirts all around and shining in the lamplight.
We ate a hurried dagwood-ham bun and Judy came with us to Mass. The green
blanket tucked about our legs, driving slowly and carefully to Sexsmith.
The church, the chimes from the belfry, the people entering. I took his
arm when we crossed the slippery street and he gave it a hug. We found a
seat in the back, Judy by the aisle, then he, then me beside a massive Ukrainian
woman with a wrinkled brown face, clawing fingers on her rosary, lips moving
constantly throughout.
The ceiling lit, the choir behind me, the serene nun's faces with their
curving caps, the glowing madonna in the front wall niche, the candles being
lit by altar boys, the strange regular crash of an instrument clacking throughout
the music, swung by an altar boy, the "Excelsius Deo" of the choir;
Frank's silent uncertain face, his friendly fingers around mine; Pat's lean
length on a chair by the wall, his still face. We walked out almost last
of all, into the lit cold, holding hands through the snow, to the red truck.
We warmed the motor and were so cold until it warmed that we had to partridge
up, Frank and I and Judy, under the green blanket and arms around. We ate
the oranges and banana in my big bag, teased and laughed, eventually drove
home again, slowly enough for one hand driving.
On the yard we stopped near the door. It was late, long past one o'clock.
I had his clock in my bag. We didn't go in. The truck was warm, peaceful,
and he had one arm around me anyway. So he put the other one around too.
I pulled Judy down too, "C'mon, join the fun Judy."
"Will you promise?" I asked. I had been trying to persuade
him to write me only once a month; I know I must give him a chance to become
free of me. "That's dying by inches Ellie. No." Then I don't know
how it was but I told him again that I am out of his reach. "How far?"
"Completely."
Completely out of reach. "Then I'm afraid it's goodbye, my friend."
Convulsive hug. Then into his ear I said what I tho't I'd never be able
to say, and it was easy. "I love you." "But not enough."
Not enough to leap into your arms and so push us both into life-ever-after-despair.
Love! Crazy!
I can see his face tilted against the window. "I wish I could see
the bottom of a bottle." "No!" "Tip it up and
forget." "No! No!" I was afraid, desperately.
He was so despairing and so desperate and I was still satisfied then, that
I was doing what I had to. We lay slumped in the corner of the warm truck,
his arms around me, one of mine lightly around his neck, Judy almost asleep
against my side. "I've been steeling myself for this. I knew it had
to happen." "What do people do when they break up?" "Not
this, Ellie," but there was no move to draw away. And dry sobs against
my shoulder. I was moved. Dry soft half-kisses (half his mouth and half
of mine), and then a frantic demi struggle with my one hand clutching Judy's
arm and the only passionate full kiss that ever happened between us. I could
feel his teeth pressing against my lower lip and all my mind could say was,
this is really the end, this seals it, and I need breath, breath! It was
almost a frightened sensation. ("Why did you let me kiss you?"
"It was a sort of climax, I guess.") "It was really a very
angry kiss," he told me afterwards.
Judy ran inside abruptly and while he was curving his arm to gather me
up even a little more his arm bumped the horn and we had to hurry inside.
It was dark. With Auntie and Uncle sleeping all over the kitchen and the
kids in the living room the house was full of breathing. We had to find
Frank's sleeping bag in the living room with Auntie's flashlight (she woke
to tease me) and while we blundered around Mother demanded if that was us
and when Frank went out to the basement to sleep I explained very feebly
that we had had to hash something out. And then I stumbled into bed with
my dress thrown into the chair and woke crying, early in the morning. That
was Christmas morning 1962.
They began to open gifts in the living room. My 4 parcels were brought
to the kitchen table - I told Mother with tears what had happened - and
I was untying blue tissue paper packages to pull out my suit when he came
in and we faced each other bleakly across the table. Few words. (Later in
the day when we were friending he said "I think I'll stay as long as
I was going to anyway.") Then I put on my red suit with prickly holly
on my shoulder and was duly admired.
Christmas night. Tears in bed, sleep.
Morning of the 26th. I was up before he was in, again. He went to La
Glace to see about repairs for his brakes. We had dinner. Then in the afternoon
I went outside over the hill, and when I came back stood outside the window
where he was reading and played with the dog. He knocked on the window -
I see his face-teasing-but-earnest behind the curtain - and we went for
a walk. Through the cattle and horse - "So you are afraid
of Hereford bulls? I'll protect you!" and the arm clasped around my
shoulder, over small hills along cow paths, hands swinging, down a gully
talking about things, thru' trees and scratchy branches to the straw pile.
Behind the straw stack where 3 calves slept was a sheltered spot. We stood
straw-shouldered against the stack. I felt snow against my cheek. His was
stubbly, cold. The tip of his nose was as cold as mine was. We bumped heads
joyously - the whole walk was a happy one - and he held me - he likes to,
I like him to, but talking was paramount - showing a certain "maturation
process" - and we laughed.
At midnight the rest went to bed. Frank and I were alone on the living
room couch. We played Concerto in A Minor rather endlessly. At two thirty
there was the most peculiar sound in the kitchen. We investigated. Only
Rudy, small-boned childish Rudy sleepy curled up without his cover. And
so he pulled me into his arms beside the stove and nearly squashed all fear
out of me. Fierce and breathless and terribly painful this last-embrace
idea. "Ellie!" "Frank. Your name will hit me everywhere."
And when he crushed me against his body again it seems boneless, shapeless,
organless, only a pressure against my shapeless, boneless, organless pressing
body. "Easy." A sound. Father emerging from his bedroom and we
started apart; he quickly to the door. And through the open door I leaned
toward him. Thursday morning early. "Now that I've finally learned
to say it I can't stop! I love you. Goodnight. Oh, take care of yourself!"
Into my bedroom. Rocking on the bed sobbing with my arms around my knees
and the cold drawing up bumps in my skin. Tears and sleep. The rest you
know about.
Poetry -
- Like a child from the womb,
- Like the ghost from the tomb,
- I will arise and unbuild it again.
"I think it is the vapor rising to make clouds, unbuilding the sea."
Friday Dec 28
I couldn't help but skip, going out the door before him into the sun,
because just being with him was such gladness, I with his green-grey wool
coat over my shoulders and my feet light and my hair mussed by his warm
hands. Going up the slippery snowy slope from the basement door and skipping
ahead of him in the sun. We went for dinner and I felt no wincing at all
when I walked away and his eyes followed my bare feet. I know he doesn't
care and it doesn't hurt him.
I served the ice cream and gave him the biggest dish. I heard his bemused
murmer about unfair helpings behind me.
While at the table we talked about world-weariness, the tiredness of
living. Father said, "I felt it first when I was sixteen or seventeen."
Mother said she'd felt it when she was perhaps eighteen. Frank said he had
been eighteen. "I wanted to just stop breathing for a while. I tried.
It doesn't work."
Only now can I understand how he has been feeling all these years when
I was too young to know how to love at all. Now I'm old enough to love him
well - now that I'm old enough to know world-weariness, life-weariness and
old enough to give him up because I love him.
I'm glad we were strong enough to cut each other off and it is his courage
in facing pain that I respect more than ever. It was because he loved me
that he let me go, and for these five days of Christmas his jaw has trembled
just as my eyes have continually filled and refilled, and while I slept
he lay awake.
Marvin will be marrying today; your sister Judy is in Vancouver and never
comes home; I am cut off from you. You will be so alone, Frank, so alone
and desolate. As I am alone and desolate, but I have my mother.
When his things were all put away in the truck he came back to the house
and sat on the arm of the kitchen couch. Neither of us said anything. I
looked down, he looked at the floor. Dave stood awkwardly. Then Dave said
goodbye all around, he shook my hand and I said "Goodbye Dave"
much too loudly. Frank stood up to shake my mother's hand. She had been
standing around not knowing what to say. Awkward and earnest and dear. "I
don't know what to say. Just may God be with you in whatever you decide
to do." He stood holding her hand. Slim in his tight jeans with his
boots laced up, his jacket to his hips (the beige reverse side of the black
jacket he wore when he came to see me in Yarrow). His small head with its
small unique features, his grey-brown hair curling over his forehead and
over his head.
Pain - it isn't the worst thing that could happen to a friend because
it isn't the worst thing that could happen to me, but this pain of not being
able to communicate with him is so huge!
"I just want what is best for you kids" Mom said intensely
and then she went away to the living room and left us. Perhaps she had a
tear too. By now I had pulled back tears again. Frank took my hand and said
"Goodbye Ellie" and I choked again and said a very small "Goodbye
Frank." And we stood silently again. He took my hand (last night: "How
are we going to say goodbye tomorrow? Will we shake hands or will I kiss
the back of your hand?"), kissed the back of it. I had to tell him
again what I told him before in the basement. "We're giving it a chance,
Frank," because it seemed agonizingly important to find a small hope
again.
And he went to the door quickly and outside, and his mouth was trembling.
He said "When you feel like not breathing any more remember other people
have felt that way and will feel that way." And he looked up with his
foot on the steps and a light in his eyes and said "I think I'll remember."
And all I said was "Take care of yourself." "You too, Ellie."
And he pulled shut the door, and I ran with my face tear-wet to the frosted
window. The red truck standing before the door, two dark shapes behind the
ice-covered windows, the white exhaust fluffing snow behind it, and then
the movingness. He pulled down the window and I can see his sharp face still,
staring back at me as he left. I feel myself kneeling on the chair beside
the cold window, face wet and naked staring back at him with my mouth a
little open, like a grieving fish. His yellow-gloved wave, his face once
more, and then this aloneness stinging in all the fissures and pores and
scars of me.
Saturday nite December 29
Last night was not so bad. But tonight! I've finished my history, all
the bittersweet story of Frank and Ellie. And tonight I feel so overwhelmingly
alone. And he, at home now, perhaps just going to bed, must be as alone
as I am. What will happen to us? We are entirely alone now, without a tie
that has been friend-security for a year and a half. Only that long? Only
a year and a half? It seems aeons.
Frank's letters 1963 - 1965 |