Romance Through the Ages

by Amy Harmon

  “Happy birthday, Josie!” Lorraine sang out. I ran to greet them, putting my arms around Brett and getting a big bear hug in return.

  “I know chocolate cake is your favorite. I hope you haven’t eaten dessert already!” Lorraine said brightly.

  “Oh, Lorraine, I love you,” I breathed, euphoric. “I’m hiding this cake in the kitchen so it won’t get devoured. I’m not sharing!” She laughed with me and looped her arm around my waist as I took the cake from her hands and passed it off to Rachel with explicit instructions to “keep it away from Johnny!”

  “So how are you, Josie? I’ve been meaning to swing by the beauty shop, but just haven’t had a minute.”

  “I’m okay...”

  “Coach Judd!” Johnny came striding up, clasping Brett’s hand in a guy handshake thing. Quick pats on the back in a half-hug completed the greeting.

  Everyone called out their hellos, and soon Lorraine and Brett were being introduced to Samuel.

  “I remember you,” Coach Judd said, squinting up at Samuel. “I had you in my P.E. class your senior year. You were a good athlete, a heck of a runner. I was hoping we’d get you to sign up for track. Did you ever end up becoming a Marine like you planned?”

  “Yes Sir,” Samuel replied in answer, and Brett clapped him on the back. “Well done then. Good for you.”

  Lorraine was looking from Samuel to me with something akin to hurt in her eyes. I perceived the direction of her thoughts and felt a twinge of guilt. The guilt was followed by a flash of irritation. I hadn’t dated even once since Kasey died; I hadn’t wanted to. But Kasey had been gone for more than four years. I wondered if Lorraine thought I had a new boyfriend. The thought made me feel a little sick at heart.

  When Kasey was killed, the shockwaves had echoed throughout the community with unparalleled intensity. He was very popular in school and well liked by everyone who knew him. The football team had his number retired, put his name on their helmets the following school year, and the football from the first win of the season had been given to Coach Judd in his name.

  The Levan church was too small to seat the number of people expected at his funeral service. His family had to hold it at a much bigger church in Nephi where the chapel could be opened up into the gymnasium to accommodate huge numbers of people. There were no empty seats and many people had to stand throughout the two hour service. The line for his viewing extended all the way out and around the church, lasting for hours. I had stood in the line with the family, hugging sobbing friends and neighbors, enduring the endless ridiculous questions and comments of “How are you, Josie?” and “He’s in a better place now.” I spent the viewing wishing the non-stop stream of mourners and sympathizers both curious and sincere, would just, please, go away.

  The shock and sorrow was enormous, the sensationalism of small town drama almost cloying. It had been truly awful. Afterwards, every day that I did not grieve for Kasey felt like a betrayal. Everyone wanted to keep him alive; Kasey’s grave was always adorned with flowers, little notes from friends, photos, and stuffed animals. Even four years later, friends and loved ones visited his grave regularly. Kasey was still a priority in his mother’s heart, the grief very fresh. I wondered if it would always be that way. I thought of all this as I studied Lorraine’s pretty face. She was an attractive blonde in her late forties, but the strain of losing a child had aged her face prematurely, and she had a weariness around her eyes that had not been there before Kasey’s death.

  “We’ve just been up to Kasey’s grave, Josie,” Lorraine said a little too loudly. Brett’s conversation with Samuel trailed off awkwardly. “We knew he’d want us to stop by and wish his girl a happy birthday.” She patted my arm, but her eyes were on Samuel’s face. Samuel looked at me, his face smooth and expressionless. He excused himself politely and wandered over to where his grandparents were visiting with Jacob and Rachel.

  Lorraine prattled on for another half an hour, staying close to my side. Brett had eventually gone to talk football with my brothers, and I was alone with Lorraine, wishing I knew what to say to comfort her. She didn’t ask me about Samuel. There was nothing to tell if she did, but I was grateful all the same. Eventually, she ran out of steam and gave me a quick hug, telling me she’d be sure and stop by the shop this week. I really hoped she wouldn’t and felt guilty all over again.

  After Brett and Lorraine left, my head was aching and it didn’t look like my brothers and their families were going anywhere soon. Sheila had fallen asleep in the lawn chair in the shade of the huge maple. The kids were playing a relatively quiet game of duck, duck, goose. Tonya had roped Rachel into conversation about the latest book on child psychology and discipline techniques, and Rachel was holding her sleeping two-year-old son while still managing to cross stitch. Nettie fanned herself contentedly, and Samuel and Don were being included in the debate about the new football season.

  I needed to get out. I crept around the house and out the front, snagging a book and my bicycle on the way out. I couldn’t ride the baby blue bike of my childhood anymore, but I had a big goofy bike with large round wheels, handlebars like a Texas Longhorn, and a basket on the front. It made me laugh because it looked like something an English lady would ride through the countryside. It suited me. I breathed as I made my escape and pedaled quickly down the road, winding my way down and over to the cemetery. The sun was dipping low in the west, and the breeze was just light enough to be pleasant.

  I went to my mom’s grave first, pulling the long grass around the stone and brushing off the stray leaves and debris. I liked the feel of her name beneath my fingers. I talked to her a minute, told her how I was, that I missed her, and then made my way over to Kasey’s headstone. His parents had purchased the biggest marker they could afford. It was glossy and ornate with ‘Our Beloved Son’ centered across the top. They’d had a picture of Kasey embossed in the stone, so that everyone who visited the grave could see the handsome youthfulness smiling from his happy face. You would have to be made of granite not to feel something when you saw him, not to feel the enormous tragedy of our loss. He had been so alive and bright and beautiful…and his picture only captured a tiny piece of his magic. It hurt to look at him, and I brushed my hand in regret over his image before walking to the other side where I wouldn’t have to see his face as I read.

  I had only been lost in Baroness Orczy’s The Elusive Pimpernel for mere minutes when I saw him approaching. Samuel made his way respectfully through the headstones, never stepping over, walking around and down as he made his way to me. I remembered what his grandmother had taught him about anything associated with the dead being somewhat feared among the Navajo. I didn’t know if that was true so much anymore, but wondered at Samuel coming here all the same.

  He stopped when he was a few feet away. I sat on the east side of Kasey’s marker, sheltered from the sun. Samuel was facing the setting sun and had to turn his face a little to look at me. He squatted down and found relief in the shade of the monument. I thought he would ask me if I were okay or one of those things that people usually say when nothing else seems appropriate. Instead he just sat with me, not speaking, looking around at the stones, embracing the quiet. It was I who finally spoke.

  “That was a little strange back at the house.” I struggled to find words to explain without assuming an interest he may not feel. “I was engaged to Lorraine and Brent’s son Kasey. He was killed in a car accident three weeks before our wedding. It’s been over four years, but for them, and sometimes for me, it seems like yesterday.”

  “My grandmother told me.” He didn’t expound further, and I wondered what exactly Nettie had told him and when. I decided it didn’t matter.

  “My father’s buried here. Right over there.” He pointed back in the direction he had come. “My grandparents brought me to see his grave when I first came here eleven years ago. I’d never seen it before. I’ve never been back until today.” The silence was heavy around us.

  “Does it make you feel bett
er to come here?” he asked solemnly, his black eyes bottomless as they trained in on my own.

  I started to answer in the affirmative, and then couldn’t. I didn’t know if I felt better when I came here. Often, I felt fresh pain and a sense of timelessness that kept me rooted in the past. My mother’s grave had once been a quiet place for comfort and reflection. I didn’t know if Kasey’s resting place provided the same solace. Guilt had my stomach churning, and I wished Samuel had not come here.

  “What do you mean?” My voice was a little sharp, and I bit my lower lip in censure.

  Samuel stood and walked around Kasey’s grave. He looked into Kasey’s smiling visage without reaction. “Do you feel better when you come here?” he questioned me again.

  No. “Yes,” I lied. “I like the quiet.” That was true, at least.

  “There is quiet, and then there is too much quiet,” Samuel said cryptically.

  I waited for him to continue, but he stood still, looking again at Kasey’s picture.

  I climbed to my feet, grumpily brushing the grass and twigs from the colorful skirt Tara had brought me back from her vacation to Mexico earlier in the summer.

  “Did you love him very much?”

  Okay, now I was irritated. Samuel regarded me openly, unmoving. The way he held himself was so still, so contained. He never seemed to breathe, his only movement was the blink of his ebony eyes. He had always had that stillness. I wondered if his training had made it even more pronounced. He definitely didn’t have any scruples about asking very pointed questions. I don’t think that had anything to do with the training. That was just Samuel.

  I picked up my book and started making my way toward where I had left my bike. He followed me; I could see him peripherally. He moved so quietly that if I didn’t know he was there, I never would have heard him. I wondered how he had gotten to the cemetery. I couldn’t exactly give him a ride back home on my bike. Memories of him pedaling the two of us home all those years ago when I’d sprained my ankle rose unbidden to my mind. I quickly replaced the image with one of Samuel stuffed in my flowered bicycle basket. It made me feel a little better.

  “Did you walk?” I questioned him now.

  “I rode.” He indicated with his head toward the grassy shoulder of the dirt road where a chestnut mare nibbled contentedly.

  I realized belatedly that he’d changed into jeans and boots. How observant of me. I didn’t want to just ride away, but bikes and horses make awkward riding partners. He didn’t seem in a hurry to retrieve his horse.

  “Did you follow me?” I didn’t like my peevish tone, but I was peeved.

  “It didn’t take Navajo tracking skills or Marine recon to figure it out, Josie.” His face was serious despite his sarcasm. “I just asked your dad where he thought you’d gone.” He waited a few beats. “You didn’t answer me.” His tone was not accusing, but it was persistent.

  “I really didn’t think it was any of your business!” I flushed at my contentious words. I was not good at confrontation, and any time I was forced into one I usually stood my ground but cried later in my room. It was not something I willingly participated in, but Samuel raised my ire. Most people stayed away when someone went to a cemetery, ALONE. Not Samuel. He just walked right in and asked me if I had loved my dead fiancé.

  “I’m trying to understand you.” He said it point blank.

  I just shook my head in wonder. “Yes. I loved him. I miss him.” My breath huffed out in exasperation. “That’s why I’m here, to visit him, you know?”

  “But he’s not here,” Samuel was emphatic. “He’s never been here. Not since his death, anyway.”

  I desperately needed chocolate cake. Now. Or I was going to scream and pull my hair out. Or scream and pull Samuel’s hair out. The temptation to do just that had me gritting my teeth.

  “Why are you here, Samuel?” I crossed my arms and thrust my chin at him defensively. “I mean…why did you come back to Levan after all this time? It’s been seven years…and here you are. I’m sure you and I could probably be friends again, but…what’s the point? You know? You’ll be gone soon.”

  “My grandparents are getting old. I wanted to see them.” Samuel cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at me. “Didn’t you think I’d ever come back?”

  “Actually, yes. I just thought you would come back sooner. Where have you been? What have you been doing? I mean…you were gone so long!” Now where had that come from? I flushed and held my hands to my cheeks, mortified. Since the day I had seen Samuel in the rain I didn’t know myself. This was the second time I had acted completely out of character, speaking without thinking, reacting totally on emotion.

  “I still have the letters you sent me,” Samuel offered softly.

  “I wrote so many of them,” I blurted out and winced again. I didn’t seem to be able to curb my impulse to just tell him whatever came into my head. “But when you came back that Christmas and told me you had outgrown me…well, I thought it was time I stopped making a fool of myself.” My voice faded off awkwardly, and I tucked my hair behind my ear nervously.

  Samuel was looking off, almost as if he hadn’t been listening. “Even at boot camp, I didn’t feel right about writing to you, but I couldn’t help it, not then. I needed you too much.” His voice was low, and his eyes swung back to me, a brutal honesty in his expression. “But you were so young, and the feelings between us were too intense. I found myself thinking about you like you were my girl. Then I would remember how young you were, and I would be ashamed of myself. One of my buddies at sniper school asked me one day when I was going to show him a picture of you. I hadn’t talked about you, but you were the only one I ever got letters from and the only one I ever wrote to. I felt like a scum bag, nineteen years old, writing letters to a fourteen-year-old girl. I knew it couldn’t be good for you. You needed to grow up and so did I. I had things I had to do, and I did them.” His gaze narrowed. “I thought maybe it was time to come back.”

  The way he said this made it sound like I was part of the reason he had returned, and my mouth grew dry. I cleared my throat.

  “And when you leave? What then?” I wasn’t sure what I wanted him to say, and I felt incredibly foolish all over again.

  He looked at me wordlessly, considering, and I cursed myself silently. So what if he left? What was wrong with me? I felt like I was thirteen all over again and hated that he could make me feel so vulnerable. I picked up my bike, throwing my book in the basket. I climbed on the seat, twisting my skirt around my legs to keep it out of the spokes. He remained silent, watching me. I didn’t look back as I rode away.

  Parody

  The following morning I arose early as usual, pulling on my running shoes, slipping on my shorts and a T-shirt, and pulling my hair up in a ponytail. I took a forkful of chocolate cake, chugged down some milk, and walked out into the morning. Lying on the mat in front of the door was a thick manila envelope. Written across it in neat caps, someone had written JOSIE. I picked it up and turned it over. It was heavy, and I tested it in my hands curiously. I had ordered some piano books for some new students, but this wasn’t addressed or postmarked. Someone had set it on the mat early this morning, or maybe even late last night.

  Curiously, I peeled the seal and pulled out the contents. Inside were stacks of sealed legal sized white envelopes, all with my name written across them in the same handwriting as the writing on the front of the manila envelope. I sank down on the porch swing and pulled one out. Turning it over, I saw a date written across the back: 8-19-1999. I pulled out another one. Another date was scrawled across the back. Swiftly, I pulled out all the letters, finding them ordered according to their date. Suddenly, I knew what they were. The first date was June 5, 1999, about a year after Samuel left Levan.

  My heart pounded, and my blood felt icy in my veins. Reverently, with shaking hands, I opened the one on the top of the pile. It picked up where his last letter, so long ago, had left off. He confessed his agony at not being ab
le to respond to me, asking me over and over again to forgive him. Samuel had written me dozens of letters. Most of them were from the first year. Maybe that was when he had felt the most alone. But they continued on, through the following years. There was a letter written on 9-11-2001. I had thought of him when the towers were hit, wondering where he was, or if he would be sent somewhere. When the U.S. had invaded Iraq, I had watched the television, wondering if Samuel was among those first Marines sent in. Apparently he’d thought of me, too.

  I read several of Samuel’s letters, standing there on the front porch, and marveled at the places he’d been and the things he had seen and done. He told me about the books he’d read. I noticed many of them were ones I had read, and some of them were books I hadn’t heard of. There was a definite loneliness in many of them, but a confidence and sense of purpose was present as well. I abandoned my run and went back upstairs to my room. Running could wait. I had some catching up to do.

  * * *

  I walked out into the front yard a few mornings later, the screen door banging behind me. It wouldn’t wake Dad; he was already up looking after the horses. I sniffed hopefully, trying to smell fall in the air, but sadly got a whiff of summer leftovers instead. I leaned down and re-tied my running shoes, wiggling my toes.

  I meandered out to the road and faced my mountains wreathed in sunrise. I breathed and raised my arms high above my head, stretching and arching and working out my morning kinks.

  “You look like Changing Woman greeting the Sun.” A voice spoke immediately to my left.

  I was startled, and my arms dropped to my sides as I whirled around. “Oh! Samuel!” I cried out. “You scared me!”