Chapter 7: ‘Jack’
These are the final installments (Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, on the next page) of eight in an anthology series, all taking place in the fictitious Between. Read Chapter 1, here. Read Chapter 2, here. Read Chapter 3, here. Read Chapter 4, here. Read Chapter 5, here. Read Chapter 6, here.
I made sure her blinds were closed before I quietly made my way from my door to hers.
I don’t want her to see me. I don’t want anything to ruin this.
I have thought about doing this more times than there are numbers to describe, through more years than one word could ever collect within the confines of a couple bunched-together letters.
And I can’t keep existing this way, never allowed to hear my wife say my own name.
I thought it’d be fine. What’s in a name, right?
You are.
Whatever personal connection that betrays itself in the inflection of how someone says your name out loud, that’s the importance of having a name.
The sad truth is, I don’t even remember it all the time anymore.
When June was erased, I found out that the Between can reach back further into our memories than I ever thought possible.
After I went back to see her on the street and talk to her — really to see if there was still recognition of me in her eyes — the only way she looked at me was with the same confused and pained eyes as when I used to wake up in the middle of the night while she was in the middle of a particularly bad episode toward the end of both of our lives.
It took me away from her.
And, in her mind, “Jack” never existed — in life or death.
She knows me as “Monroe” — name of the street where the first house we bought together after we first got married was.
Not even that obvious hint sparked any memory of “Jack” in her mind.
So, I decided I’d just let her forget “Jack”, and be “Monroe”.
And I’ve been living under that fictitious stranger’s name ever since.
For a while I could stomach it. For her, I could give up everything I had been before.
That’s what I thought — ever the romantic and ever the fool.
The truth is, I can’t take this anymore. I used to be numb here. I used to just kind of experience everything on the middle of the spectrum. Even when June and I were exploring before her memories of me were wiped clean, I was never as happy as I was with her when we were married.
I was maybe that kind of happy that feels more temporary. The giddiness here and there and being bewildered and enthralled by someone you — at that point — merely hope will stick around.
Then, both of those people disappeared one day in the middle of a street winding through an ever-growing row of cookie-cutter houses, under a sky that is unchanging.
And maybe I peak in the bottom of the middle here and there. ButI may be the closest person to being in Hell here.
I was wrong before. We do feel.
And, sometimes staring up at the ceiling — still stuck in the practice and routine of going to sleep without the actual ability or need to — I’ll say the things that I wish I could, not as Monroe, but as myself again.
“June, I’m sorry for everything I’m about to tell you. Because the last time I did, your memories of me were taken away … oh, what the hell am I doing?”
I can’t even act like it’s a reality that I can ever actually say the words out loud anymore. I can’t even finish one fantasy, lying to myself for one single moment that I could.
I know what will happen to her if they ever come out of my mouth again.
However, that doesn’t mean I couldn’t write it out.
That idea came to me a while back, when I was thinking about when I used to only have the option of sending June letters in the mail.
So, I grabbed a pen, sat down at the kitchen table and put on paper everything I had ever wanted to say to her here:
June,
First, I’m sorry I lied to you all this time, but the last time you knew the truth, your memory of part of your life got erased (or buried, really) in your mind. By what, none of us really knows.
And I finally want to tell you about the missing piece.
My name is not Monroe.
My name is Jack.
In life, we were married for 50 years. We fell in love young — actually, about the age our bodies look now — but we also grew old together.
We spent so much time together in life that I could notice every new curve or line on your face because I knew it so well. And I loved that you could do the same.
Everything I had ever been, was and would ever be was yours, and you were mine.
Then, you got dementia, June. You started having episodes of forgetting, at first, random things. One time it was the words “peanut butter” – which, at first, we thought was funny as hell.
But I stopped laughing the first time you forgot my name.
Yes, you did hang yourself. But you’ve forgotten it was in our house. In our bedroom. While I was sitting on the couch downstairs.
It’s okay. I’m so far beyond feeling any sort of judgment or sadness or anger over that whole situation that I hope you, too, are likewise beyond the same when it comes to guilt.
I don’t care about how life ended for you. Or that I drank myself to death in my grief afterward.
You found me again here. You were the first one to find me. And you were the one who gave me that little “welcome” speech about the Between that I gave you.
We were together again. We explored this whole place together. We kept a journal of everything we found out. The same journal that this letter was sticking out of.
But as you know, we’re not allowed to be too happy here.
So at some point here, as we were turning down our street after a walk together holding hands, I ran ahead to grab a blanket so we could just sit in the yard for a while. I still remember how beautiful the smile on your face was when I looked back at you for a second as I made a swift entrance into our house — the one I stay in now.
By the time I came back out, your memory disappeared.
That’s the day I “found” you on the street.
That’s the day “Monroe” was born.
Because I can’t bear the thought of you ever having to go through the same goddamn unfair condition in the afterlife as you did at the end of our time together before all this.
So I lied. However, I stayed close.
But I can’t hold it back anymore. I can’t keep holding in just a few simple things I’ve wanted to tell you all this time.
I know sooner than later I’ll slip. So, by the time you even notice this letter and the journal, I’ll already be gone, because I know if you see me, you might be happy.
I took one of our old travel bags and took off for parts which I won’t tell you where.
Don’t look for me.
Because, June, I love you.
I love you now.
I loved you in life.
I love you for all of my unchanging dawns and endless dusks in this place that for a moment was almost paradise when you still knew everything we’ve been through together.
But if you forget me again, If some day you forget my name, my face or even my very existence in the Between or before, I want you to just try to hold on to one simple thought this time — and I mean really fight like hell for this one, June:
“Jack loves you.”
I’ve kept the letter in the journal filled with all of the information about the Between June and I documented about this place since I wrote it. If I can’t be around to tell her more about this place over time, I should let her have it. It can answer some of the questions she’ll have about all of this. It will explain part of why I have to do this like I am, why I don’t really have a choice.
I saw my chance to pull it off in the right way just a little bit ago.
So I put my backpack on and creeped out of the front door to the house that was “home” here for the last time.
With her blinds still closed, it was easy to sneak up to June’s porch where she’s met me with a cup of coffee countless times here and carefully leave the journal with the letter sticking out of the top in front of her door.
Now, all that’s left to do is the only thing I can do If I really mean even a fraction of what I said in that letter.
I leave the woman I care about most, forever, because I love her more than I’ve ever loved myself.
And I can’t exist as somebody who doesn’t anymore.
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