The Love Letter

by Rachel Hauck

  She’s on her way home. You said to let you know.

  Thanks.

  Jesse set down his phone.

  Since his dramatic departure from Bound by Love, he was lost.

  Adrift. It was as if this film became a bookend to Loxley’s death, capturing every day in between. From death to death.

  He was restless. Anxious. Confused. Burdened by walking out on people who believed in him. Trusted him. Jeremiah assured him there was no ill will on his part. He’d have walked out on the project himself if he could have.

  But the assurance of a great director couldn’t change the reality—Jesse had killed his career.

  His agent was livid. “You walked out on Greg Zarzour?”

  “He wanted me to make crazy changes to the script. I couldn’t do it, I tell you. I couldn’t.”

  “Jess, you’re the new kid in town. You make the changes until you’ve earned the right not to. Even then, you don’t walk out. Think of your career! Think of mine. Everyone is talking about this. I can’t contain it. We may need to rethink our arrangement.”

  Since walking off the South Carolina set, Jesse’s love for show business had evaporated. His reasons for being in LA no longer made sense. Because Loxley died? How long would her death haunt him?

  Closing his laptop, Jesse picked up his phone and gazed out the window toward the pool.

  He’d miss this view. And Chloe. During filming he’d started to dismantle the borders of his heart. Maybe it was time to let someone in. Someone like her.

  When he left, everything clear became cloudy. Except for one thing.

  “Jesse?” A soft knock sounded against the door. “Raymond Daschle here. You got a minute?”

  Jesse invited him in, but the mega director motioned for Jesse to follow.

  “Walk with me. I’m expecting a call from Hong Kong on the landline.”

  They talked college basketball through the gourmet kitchen, past the marble and crystal foyer, and into Raymond’s hardwood and leather office. He motioned for Jesse to take a seat, then paused at the wet bar. “Care for a drink? Soda, water?”

  “Diet Coke?” He surveyed the space. One Jesse wouldn’t mind having himself one day. It spoke of success and comfort. As if great ideas could be born here.

  Opposite the windows overlooking the valley was a stone-and-beam fireplace with a family crest of some kind over the mantel.

  “Is that your family’s?” Jesse pointed, rising to see the image closer. The design was a white-and-black crest with a golden star, a warrior’s helmet, and a shield of crosses.

  “Yes, it belonged to my grandfather. But I cannot tell you more. Isn’t it sad how we lose our heritage after one or two generations? But who am I talking to? A man who wrote a movie based on an old family love letter.” Raymond handed him a cold bottle and a glass of ice, taking a cold cola can for himself. “So you walked off.” He perched on the corner of his desk.

  “I did . . . yep. I keep wondering if this is a bad dream and I’ll wake up any minute.” Jesse poured the caramel-colored drink over the ice in the glass, the fizzle filling his temporary silence. “How much damage have I done to my career?”

  Raymond shrugged. “Can’t say. Depends on Zarzour.”

  Jesse gulped the cool drink, the carbonation scratching his dry throat. “My agent said I shot myself in the head and the foot.”

  Raymond laughed. “Agents . . . love to exaggerate. But don’t give up. When you finish your next script, let me have a look. You’ve got a friend in me, Jesse. And in Jeremiah.”

  Jesse regarded him for a moment. “Why are you so nice to me? You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I pride myself on recognizing talent when I see it. But when a man walks out on a project because he refused to kill off my daughter, I fall a little bit in love.” Raymond chuckled, raising his Coke can.

  “She begged me to make the changes. Said it didn’t matter to her but—”

  “It did, and you recognized it.” Raymond stared absently toward the window and the scene of LA nestled in the valley. “You saw more in her than I did. Her own father, not sticking up for her when she was a kid because I didn’t think it mattered. She was cute, freckly, round. Not fat, round. She wanted to be in acting so badly we let her, but I didn’t mind the rejections because I thought I was keeping her from being caught up in the business, the hype. Then I cast her as a kid with cancer and . . .” He cleared his throat. “If I had known . . .”

  “How could you?”

  “I have few regrets, but that is one of them. And that mess with Haden. I never liked him, but she was twenty-six, a grown woman . . . I didn’t think I should interfere.”

  “I regret walking off the set. I feel like I let her down some. I should’ve made the changes.” He sipped his drink, laughing low. “On my way home I came up with a great idea for the end. It would’ve saved time and money and allowed Esther-slash-Chloe to live. And I think Jeremiah and Greg would’ve gone for it.”

  “What was this keen idea?”

  “Simple. After the battle scene, fade away, leaving the viewer to wonder, Did she live? Then show Hamilton and Esther on the farm X number of years later with their children. Like an epilogue. There is some fun B-roll of Chloe running out of the barn, declaring a rooster is trying to kill her.”

  Raymond arched his brow. “You’re right, that is a good idea. And would’ve worked.”

  “Yeah, but I walked out. Don’t have a right to say anything now. Besides, it’s too late. Greg Zarzour hit me like a truck. Didn’t give me time to think. He wanted Esther’s dying to be an emotional manipulator. Grab the heart of the viewer. No matter it had nothing to do with the rest of the story.” Jesse poured more soda into the glass of ice. “I hated what he did to my script, but more for what he did to Esther and Chloe. Jeremiah promised her, I promised her, that she’d live in this role. Esther’s death was never, ever on the table.”

  “Let me tell you something about my Chloe. She’s tough. A rebounder. Taken her share of disappointments and . . .” He shook his head, releasing a small laugh accented with irony. “Become a better woman. Most actresses would’ve quit. But not my girl. She’s genuine. She believes in her craft as a way to communicate, tell stories, and change lives. She expects no advantage because we’re her parents. She earns her jobs and her accolades. She has an amazing eye for details and photography. She’ll be a better director than me one day. After Haden, she found faith, which made her all the more . . . beautiful. Strong.” Raymond moved to the chair adjacent Jesse. “But you know what you did more than anyone in this town? Stood up for my girl—and I’m grateful.”

  Jesse felt Raymond’s confession, the swirl of an imperfect father wanting to do what’s right by his daughter.

  “She deserved it.”

  “Are you in love with her?”

  Jesse shot a glance at Raymond. “W-what?” Hackles rose on the back of his neck.

  “Are you in love with her?”

  “Who?” Did he seriously mean Chloe?

  “My daughter?”

  “W-we’re friends.”

  “And?”

  “There’s no and. She’s incredible. Beautiful, funny, and sort of broken and put together at the same time, but we’re not lovers, Raymond.”

  “But you risked your career for her anyway?”

  Jesse had no pithy answer or profound reply. Only truth. “I had a girlfriend. In college. She wanted something I couldn’t give, but I toyed with her, mocked her, didn’t understand the magnitude of my foolishness and stupidity. She went for a walk on a Florida beach alone and never returned. She drowned. Most likely a riptide.”

  “You feel responsible.”

  “Aren’t I?”

  “Bound by Love was as much about you as your ancestor.”

  “I didn’t think so until Chloe pointed it out.” The intimate conversation knocked against his defenses and disturbed his raw, bruised self. “But, yeah, I wanted to give her life. Something I stole from
her.”

  “Chloe found faith. Hope.” Raymond sat back, his arms resting on the chair, looking more like a therapist than a movie director. “Maybe that’s the path for you. Maybe that’s why you love her.”

  Jesse tossed back the last of his soda and placed his empty glass on a stone coaster, remembering his open e-mail, the decision he was about to make. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Raymond. But I need . . . I’m thinking of . . . I don’t know, change. A completely different path for me.”

  “And Chloe’s not on it?”

  “No, she’s not. Frankly, I don’t think she’d want to be.”

  As he exited, the echo of his words called him a liar. He desperately wanted her on his path, in his life. And for all his MIT smarts, he couldn’t figure out how to completely let her in.

  26

  CHLOE

  She glanced toward the guesthouse for the hundredth time that afternoon. He must not be home. In the kitchen with Mom and Glenda, she helped prep Saturday’s brunch—it was on the lanai today—as guests collected outside where a Hawaiian-shirt-wearing bartender served sparkling juices.

  Home for three days, she’d hoped to see him, but the guesthouse appeared vacant. All too quiet. She’d braved a text or two, but Jesse never responded.

  “So good to have you home.” Mom gave her a squeeze as she passed by. “It’s not the same around here without you.”

  “You have Kate.”

  “But I don’t have you. Glenda, make sure the kosher food is clearly marked for our Jewish guests this time. I think Lev Kirschbaum ate bacon last week.”

  Chloe grinned. Mom was such a beauty. In every way. “When’s your next movie, Mom?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Hollywood is getting tired of me. I’m fifty-seven going on a hundred. I refuse to have plastic surgery and—”

  “You’re too good not to cast.” Dad passed through, kissing her cheek.

  “—I refuse to play one of those horny old cougars who makes a fool of herself by falling for some hot thirty-something who only has one thing on his mind. What in the world?”

  Mom, for all of her experience and spicy roles, valued dignity and modesty. She was practical and levelheaded.

  Chloe glanced toward the guesthouse once again. Maybe Smitty knew where Jesse had gone. She snagged her phone from the kitchen counter and started a text.

  “I saw Laura Gonda the other day,” Mom said as she came in from the lanai, picking up another breakfast platter. “Glenda, this is gluten-free, right?”

  “If it’s on the blue plate, yes.”

  “What did Laura say?” Chloe hit send on her text to Smitty.

  “That she missed Jeremiah so much she was packing up all the kids and heading to New Zealand.” Mom started for the door and turned back. “Oh, Chloe, she saw a rough cut of your death scene. Said it was spectacular. Had her weeping.” With that, Mom exited the kitchen onto the lanai. “Gluten-free, everyone.”

  Chloe was still deciphering what happened that day. How her rebel yell, “Death, you cannot have me,” broke a chain she’d only recently identified. She wasn’t cursed. She was free.

  Mom swept inside again, her cheeks rosy, her hair swept up into a bright turban. “Hey, Mom, how come you and Dad never got married?”

  Mom stopped short. “What?”

  “You and Dad. Never married. Why?”

  Mom slipped on oven mitts and bent before the open stove, releasing the intoxicating aroma of brisket. “Careers, kids. Just didn’t seem necessary after a while.” She set the baking pan on the counter, then removed the brisket onto the carving board. “I know you’re all about true love and commitment, darling, but it doesn’t have to look the same to everyone.”

  “Didn’t you want a ceremony? A celebration? To look into each other’s eyes and declare before the world, ‘You are my forever love’?”

  Mom plugged in the electric carving knife with a backward glance at Chloe. “Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

  “I guess, but technically, you know, either of you could walk tomorrow. You’ve made no vow.”

  “Walk? Babe,” Dad said, reaching for a piece of meat, “I’d drive the Tesla.”

  “Raymond.” Mom slapped at his hand. “He cannot walk, Chloe. Not easily. We’ve been together too long and have too much invested.”

  “So that’s what your love is worth? A passage of time and the acquisition of things?”

  “Chloe.” Mom fired up the carver and raised her voice over the low motor. “What’s this about? Your happy-ending theory? What are you afraid of? It will never happen for you?”

  Chloe glanced through the open French doors toward the guesthouse. Yes! A thousand times yes! She feared it would never happen for her. Then do something about it. Stop waiting.

  “I’m going to see if Jesse wants to come.”

  “Chloe.” Dad met her at the door. “He’s not there.”

  “He’s not? W-where is he?”

  “I’m not sure.” He brushed aside her bangs, like he did when she was little. “But his things are gone. He left a thank-you note saying it was time to move on.”

  Chloe backed up to the nearest kitchen stool and sat. “He was so kind, Dad. Brave. You should’ve seen him, sticking up for his script, the movie. For me.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think he’s one you could trust, Chloe.”

  “Really? Dad, he just left without telling me good-bye. He doesn’t return my texts.” More guests arrived and lively conversations buzzed all around them. “Apparently he doesn’t want me.” She smiled her bravest smile. “But you know what, I’m okay. I am learning to trust God for these things.”

  Dad sat next to her, touching his shoulder to hers. “I’m sorry I didn’t steer your career better. Step up and guide you.”

  “It’s okay, Dad. I think I’ve been on the right path all along. It just looked like a wilderness when really it was an oasis.”

  His eyes glistened as he cleared his throat. “I’m proud of you, sweetie.”

  Chloe kissed his cheek, then stole a strawberry from the bowl Glenda was carrying out to the lanai. “You should propose to Mom.”

  “Raymond, Monte Wilson is here.” Mom beckoned him from the door.

  “What if she says no?” Dad teased, sliding from the stool. “Chloe, if you have any feelings for Jesse, any inkling he could be what you’ve always wanted, call him.”

  “I told you, he doesn’t answer.”

  “Then, dear girl, be creative. Write him a letter.” Dad’s expression was so kind. “Isn’t that what started all of this?”

  “Write him a letter. I don’t even know where he is.”

  Her phone pinged. It was Smitty.

  He went to Boston.

  “Chloe,” Mom said, brushing by again as she stared at the screen. “Claude Durand is here. He wants to see you.”

  “Me?” Boston? Jesse went home?

  “Raymond, Chloe.” Claude burst into the kitchen with his arms wide, his voice booming. The French director looped his arm through Chloe’s. “How do you feel about traveling into the future? I just got the green light on a space navy film. I want you as the lead. Faith Freeman. I’m launching a superheroine series. And you will be my star.”

  HAMILTON

  The cart hit every rut in the road. His severed leg throbbed, each jolt inspiring a lightning bolt of pain.

  At one point, his body went numb. Colored spots collided before his eyes. He was hot, then cold, wavering on his perch, Tilly’s reins loose in his hands. Yet he urged her on, the cart a swift and light load.

  On the eastern horizon, black clouds promised another storm, obscuring the midmorning sun and the peaceful blue of a spring sky. A low, distant thunder rumbled.

  As he rounded the next bend, he scanned the road for Sir Michael’s sleek gold-and-black carriage.

  With no sight of it, his thoughts twisted with doubts and questions. What would he say when he came
upon her? What words, what offering could he make to lure her from her father’s security, comfort, and will?

  He was grotesque, with a craggy, sawed-off leg, scars on his face and arms. Thin and pale, unshaven, unwashed.

  Yet he hoped in one thing. His heart. Surely it was his greatest treasure, and Esther’s for the taking. This was no hour to retreat from his own desires and wants. This battle for Esther was for keeps.

  If she’d say yes to him, he would give himself completely to her, without reservation, striving to overcome anger, regret, bitterness, and to cherish her with every part of his being.

  “Come on, Tilly! Ya!” He slapped the reins, and the mare quickened her pace. He must seize Esther before she arrived in Charles Town. Once there, she’d be lost in the bowels of Tory commerce.

  The cart jostled and bounced as the road rose and fell. The wind whistled, pushing northwest against his journey.

  But around the next bend, his hopes quickened. At last! He spotted the gloss of the black-and-gold carriage.

  “Good girl, Tilly. Good girl.”

  The mare, as if sensing her master’s pleasure, broke into a run, her mane flapping, her head bobbing, every muscle in synchronism.

  Sitting tall, filled with tension and anxiety, aware of every pain, Hamilton prepared to overtake them.

  Esther, I’ve come for you . . .

  Esther, I’ve little to offer you, but here is my whole heart and my love.

  Esther, if you have any affection for me . . .

  My love, come with me. See what life we can build together.

  My letter . . . I wrote you a letter. It simply said, “I love you.”

  Closer, closer the cart jostled, careening into and out of a rut. One, then another and another. Then Tilly stumbled, and the cart listed to starboard.

  “Steady up, girl.”

  The cart straightened as another bolt of lightning cracked. Tilly balked, and her right front hoof landed in a hole, sinking nearly up to her knee. The mare cried out and tossed her head, trying to scramble free.