JOSIE'S JOURNAL
Josie Williams kneeled beside her husband's grave, outlining the letters of his name slowly with her index finger. A single tear seeped from the corner of her eye and traveled unceremoniously down her cheek. She wiped at it absently and smiled.
"No more tears. . .I know. I did promise you that, didn't I, sweetie? But, well, it's only been two months and I. . . keep thinking you're just running late as usual, that you'll walk through the door any minute now."
Josie smiled again, remembering with affection the man who had brought so much happiness into her life. Ellis Williams had been a generation older than she and had always tried to prepare her for his eventual passing. He had never been morbid in his thoughts, only practical. He wanted to ensure his wife and daughter were well taken care of, financially, when he finally did die. Never one to believe he would ever live to see forty, much less sixty-nine, he had prepared his family well for his demise. At fifty-five, Josie knew she would never have to work again unless she simply wanted to, and their daughter, Katherine, would receive a substantial trust fund when she turned thirty, only six years from now. Josie also felt satisfaction knowing that she and Katherine had been primarily responsible for Ellis having had the distinct pleasure of having been truly loved by the two most important women in his life. Having grown up with a childhood filled with orphanages, reluctant and distant relatives-not to mention surviving a first marriage to a woman cold enough to freeze all of Hades-he often remarked that he had been truly blessed the day he met Josie Tolkin.
Giving the flowers she'd brought with her a final adjustment, Josie rose and brushed the grass and dirt off her favorite, well-worn pair of jeans. An unusual blistering blast of cold, January air stung her hazel-green eyes and blew her layered, auburn locks in alternating directions. The winters in their small Alabama town were normally mild to moderately cool; however, Mother Nature rose up every few years to remind the southern citizens that they were not exempt from life's climatic unpleasantness. Thus, the winter of 2009 was more than living up to Mother Nature's wrath and, having been cold-natured all of her adult life, Josie hurriedly made her way to the black and gold Trooper parked a few feet away. She turned for a final look at the grave before escaping into the warmth and security the car offered. She blew a kiss, hoping Ellis would catch it, got into the Trooper to began the thirty-minute trip home to her comfortable, country abode located just across the Chattahoochee River.
Josie sighed contentedly as she pulled onto the gravel driveway that led to the home she and Ellis had purchased in 1999. The 13 acres of land were complete with a rushing creek, crystal clear waterfalls and a small swimming hole. Most of the land had been left undeveloped and it had taken them two years to turn it into the envy and pride of their small, country neighborhood. It had been more than they could comfortably afford, but they mutually agreed it was a sacrifice worth making. It was a home to be proud of, to live out their remaining years. Little did they know they would only have ten years to enjoy it together, as a couple. They had made the most of those ten years, especially the last three years when Ellis had fought valiantly to beat the prostrate cancer that had dared to invade his lean, well-maintained body, and attempted to destroy their lives.
Trying to shake the dismal thoughts that threatened to surround her, Josie smiled with relief when she saw her daughter's car in the garage. She spotted Rebel, Katherine's ten-year old Maltese, bravely chasing a large rabbit into the wood line. Ellis had surprised Katherine with the puppy for her fourteenth birthday and the twosome had been virtually inseparable ever since.
"Thank you, God," Josie sighed, "I didn't need to be alone tonight. Not tonight of all nights. My anniversary. . ."
Katherine Williams threw open the door and rushed outside. "Mom! You're home! Where have you been? I've been waiting for nearly two hours. I've been worried to death. . ."
Josie reached up to accept the energetic hug offered by her beautiful twenty-four year old daughter. No easy feat, considering that at five-foot seven, Katherine was easily six inches taller than her petite mother. "Hey, sweetie! Well, it's good to see you, too. Katherine. . . Katherine. . . baby, you're. . . choking me. . ." Josie exhaled deeply as her daughter relinquished her inadvertent chokehold on her.
"Oh, sorry about that, Mom," Katherine grinned sheepishly as she released her hold on her mother and held open the door for her. "Come on in, hurry. It's freezing out here. I've got a fire going and a pot of coffee on."
"Coffee. . . God, that sounds wonderful! Lead the way, kiddo!"
The two women spent the rest of the evening catching up on each other's news for the past two weeks while Katherine had been out of town attending a training course offered by the hi-tech computer company she'd gone to work for fresh out of college. In just two short years, she had proven herself invaluable to the company and had recently been offered a junior executive-level position within the well-established firm. Josie knew that Ellis would have been so proud of his only daughter, especially since he'd never even learned how to turn on their home computer, much less know how to take one apart and rebuild-Katherine's specialty.
By ten o'clock, Katherine could tell her mother needed some rest, so she called for Rebel and put on her oversized down jacket.
"Oh, sweetie, you're not going home, are you? Why don't you stay here tonight?" Josie asked with a worried frown, "It's so cold out. . ."
"Can't, Mom. Wish I could, but I brought some files home to work on over the weekend. I also didn't bring Rebel's medication with me and he needs a dose before he calls it a night." Katherine scooped up the small dog and rubbed noses with it. "By the way, I put all your mail on your desk in the study. There was a pile of it, too. When did you last check it?"
Josie scratched her head and sighed. "The mail? Goodness, I don't even know. What's today? Friday? I think I got it on Monday. . . yeah. . . I did get it out on Monday. Guess I'm getting forgetful in my old age, huh? But, thanks. . . I'll sort through it later. You be careful driving home and call me the minute you get there. You know I won't sleep a wink if you don't."
Katherine kissed the top of her mother's head and followed it by fluffing the thick auburn layers into a mess. "Gotcha! Will do! Gotta go. I love you. I'll see ya sometime tomorrow. Oh. . . by the way. . . did you tell Daddy I said hi?"
Josie smoothed back her rumpled hair and grinned up at her daughter's image-so much like her own but also with a trace of Ellis' good looks blended in for good measure. "As a matter of fact, I did. Now, go on and get going if you insist on going. I'm making chili tomorrow, so. . ."
"I'll stop over around lunch time, Mom. Hey. . ." Katherine smiled, "Get some rest, okay? You look tired. Daddy wouldn't want you wearing yourself down."
Josie grinned back and nodded. "You're right. I am kinda tired. Maybe I'll call it an early night."
Katherine looked at her watch. "Ten-thirty? Yeah, I guess that is kinda early for you, isn't it? Still, promise me you'll get some rest this weekend, okay?"
"Okay, okay. I promise. Now go! And don't forget to call me when you get home!"
Josie stood outside watching until she could no longer see Katherine's tail- lights. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms before hurrying back inside to the warmth of the wood-burning stove. She cast a quick glance inside her study and saw the pile of mail Katherine had stacked neatly upon her desk.
"I think I need another cup of coffee before I tackle that pile." She directed her comment to Swayze, her sixteen-year old black and white alley cat who managed to open one sleepy eye in response to Josie's voice. "What do you think, Swayze? Care to share a cup?"
The cat's one eye closed noncommittally and Josie shook her head, grinning. "Guess that's a no, huh? Too bad, you don't know what you're missing. . ."
Josie went into her bedroom, the one she had shared only two months ago with Ellis, and changed into a comfortable pair of lounging sweats. She cleaned and moisturized her face, brushed her teeth, and walked back into the kitchen for her last cup of coffee. She thought that she probably should have waited to brush her teeth until she finished the coffee, but her thoughts had not been very orderly all day, so why start now. Today. . .hers and Ellis's anniversary.
"Thank goodness, it's decaf," she spoke aloud, adding extra cream to the large, steaming mug of coffee. The phone rang and she spoke briefly to Katherine, knowing she was safe in her own home on such a cold, desolate night. She felt wide awake and didn't feel like reading, so she moved reluctantly to her study and began sorting through the pile of mail-mostly junk, a few belated sympathy cards, the power bill, and. . .
It was at the bottom of the pile: A plain, white, long envelope with no return address. However, it didn't need a return address because Josie instantly recognized the handwriting. A handwriting she hadn't seen in more than ten years. A handwriting she thought she would never see again.
Raymond Bowers.
The man she had almost sacrificed her marriage for. . . the man she had come so dangerously close to having an affair with. . . the man who had stirred untamed passion within herself. . . the man who had ended their seven-month relationship without a word eleven years ago. Thank God nothing had ever really happened between them-nothing more than reckless, searing kisses and intimate touches. Fate had always intervened and prevented any true consummation of the relationship. And, thank God, Ellis and Katherine never suspected anything-not to mention Gwen, Raymond's wife for the past forty-four years.
Josie's hands trembled as she held the envelope out in front of her. Just as her fingers had lightly outlined the letters on Ellis' grave earlier that day, they now moved across the almost illegible handwriting on the envelope.
"It's been eleven years, Ray. What could you possibly have to say to me now? After all this time? Do I even want to know?"
Rosie walked into the living room, holding the envelope as though something would certainly crawl out and eat her alive. She opened the heavy doors to the wood burning stove and moved her arm in a motion to throw the letter inside the inferno.
She stopped midway.
She couldn't do it.
Don't do it, Josie. Don't destroy it.
Josie jerked around at the sound of the intruder's voice. But it wasn't really an intruder's voice. It was Ellis's voice. . . inside her own head. Ellis telling her not to destroy a letter from her former would-be lover? Ridiculous.
She moved to throw it into the fire again, but once again, she couldn't do it. She could not physically do it. It felt as though an invisible hand had reached out to stop her. From the grave, maybe?
Josie flopped down onto Ellis's comfortable recliner and looked at the envelope in her hand. She turned it over slowly and pulled her fingernail beneath its sealed opening.
Against her better judgment, not to mention her own will, she began reading.
It was almost dawn before she finally succumbed to a fitful sleep, crowded with dreams and memories from the past.
The next two weeks sped by for Josie.
The contents of Ray Bower's letter had turned her complacent world upside down. She never thought she would be experiencing such turmoil at this stage in her life. She'd been there. . . done that. She'd survived being molested as a child by her own father, raised her four brothers and sisters, survived date rape and countless broken hearts before finally meeting the one man who promised to change her world-to make life safe and secure for her. Ellis Williams had made those promises and he had more than lived up to them during their twenty-seven years together. And now, after all those years of thinking she had known Ellis better than anyone, had trusted him more than anyone on the face of the earth. . . had it all been a lie?
Ray's letter stated that he had written to her every month for the past eleven years.
It had taken her two weeks, but she finally found all his letters, bundled together, hidden in a large shoe box beneath a loose floor board in the attic. There must have been over a hundred letters, some of them unopened, all of them addressed to Mrs. Josie Williams with no return address, and all of them from Ray Bowers.
It had only taken Josie two days to read them all. They all read pretty much the same. Professed love, dreams for the future, hope for forgiveness and understanding, explanations for why Ray had ended the relationship so abruptly. It appeared that, somewhere along the way his wife, Gwen, had found out about them. Ray evidently had a nasty habit of talking in his sleep and it didn't take Gwen long to discover who Josie was. After all, they had met numerous times at luncheons and other social functions and since Josie and Ray worked together for four years, it was inevitable that she would meet Mrs. Bowers occasionally.
The letters outlined Gwen's threat to go to Ellis with news of the relationship if Ray didn't end it-cold turkey. No good-byes, no explanations, no contact whatsoever. Ray didn't want to see Josie's marriage suffer the same consequences his had endured as a result of his wife's discovery, so he had allowed himself to be manipulated into complying with her demands. However, he never stopped loving Josie, always wondering what may have happened if fate had been kinder to them. In his letters, he begged her forgiveness and understanding. He hoped that one day they would be able to meet again, as friends, because he'd never been able to forget her or the excitement he felt whenever he held her. She made him feel alive and wanted, feelings that had diminished at one time or another during his marriage to Gwen. The last few letters described the cancer that was eating away inside his wife and his determination to provide for her daily care and comfort.
When Josie got to the last letter in the stack, she heard Ellis's voice inside her head once again-for the first time in more than two weeks.
I couldn't lose you, Josie. I didn't think anyone could love you as much as I loved you. It was selfish of me. . . so very selfish, and. . . I am so, so sorry, my love.
It was several weeks later when Josie decided to tell Katherine the whole story. She waited until they had eaten a light supper and had both curled up in the living room in front of a low-lit fire. Katherine listened quietly while Josie told the story.
She had been forty-four and Ray had just turned fifty-one. She was working alone in her office one day in April 1998 when Ray came in, with the pretense of using her phone and to say hello. Gwen had been out of town for two months and Ellis had recently moved into the guest room over an insignificant spat he and Josie had. Circumstances. Life is full of them. Ray was lonely and Josie was feeling alone and unwanted that day in April when Ray said, "Oh, hell, come here," pulling her up from her chair into his waiting arms and penetrating lips. Consequences? There could have been many, ranging anywhere from sexual harassment charges against her supervisor to possibly catching AIDS from unprotected sex. However, the only consequence was a seven-month love affair that was never allowed to reach fruition. Ray and Josie had seven months worth of stolen kisses and caresses, discovering each other's body and what made them tremble with desire and anticipation. The feeling was like nothing either of them had experienced since their adolescent years. They couldn't seem to get enough of each other whenever they could steal moments together, but fate also never cooperated by allowing them real time alone, time when they didn't have to look over their shoulder at a sudden movement or sound. Something or someone always interfered with the plans they made to rendezvous and bring the relationship to a mutually satisfactory completion. It never happened, and for months after Ray retired and quit calling her at the office, Josie was obsessed with her own anger for being such a fool. It took several more months to regain a sense of normalcy to her life, accepting Ellis back into their bedroom being the first step.
Although she may have been successful in pushing Ray Bowers to the farthest recesses of her mind and memory, Josie always wondered what happened to him, how his life had turned out, what might have been. . .
Josie shared all these thoughts with Katherine, whose initial reaction was immense anger toward a mother for being unfaithful to a father she worshipped more than any man alive. But, at the same time, she also felt a formidable bond with her mother for being brave enough to share such a personal history with her-to get everything out in the open. With her anger quickly subsiding, Katherine hoped that now that everything was in the open, her mother might find some closure in it all-a way to say good-bye to a past that was never meant to be.
"Mom, what are you going to do? Are you going to see. . . that man? That is what he wants, isn't it? That's what his last letter asked you, isn't it?"
Josie sighed and closed her eyes. She suddenly felt ten years older than she had two weeks ago. "Twenty-seven years, Katherine. Twenty-seven years your Daddy and I were together. I thought I knew him, thought I knew everything about him. And then. . . to find out he knew all along. . . he never let on that he knew. Oh, God, how hurt he must have been. . ."
Katherine placed a gentle hand upon her mother's shoulders. This was a woman she had looked up to all her life, admired, respected, trusted. To find out that for seven months this woman was contemplating leaving her husband, possibly her family, for a man who was already married. . . so many emotions coursed through Katherine but she knew it would be selfish to think of herself at this time. After all, her mother had stayed, she had not abandoned her, she had always been there for her. And now, Katherine wanted to be there for her mother.
"Mom. . . Daddy had no right to withhold these letters from you. If anything, he should have confronted you with it when the first one arrived. And why didn't he? Surely he wasn't in the habit of opening your mail, especially mail with no return address. Why would he open these letters? Did anyone know about the relationship? Someone who might have told Daddy?"
Josie stood up and walked to the large glass window. The last leaves of winter had fallen and the land looked naked and lonesome. "I never told anyone. In fact, the only thing. . ."
Josie stopped and paled visibly.
"What's wrong, Mom? What. . ."
Josie rushed into her bedroom and walked quickly around to her side of the bed. She lifted the quilted comforter and ran her hands hurriedly within the area between the mattress and box springs.
It wasn't there!
Katherine entered the room, worried about her mother's paled complexion and anxious demeanor. "Mom, please, you're worrying me. What's wrong? What are you looking for?"
Josie was on her knees, searching frantically for the journal she always kept hidden in that area-a place no one would ever think to look because no one ever changed the bed except for herself. Ellis had always been good about making it-last one out of bed had to make it-but he wasn't one to strip the bed and replace it with fresh linens.
Except. . .
"Katherine. Do you remember when I came down with pneumonia years ago? Remember, I was so sick and your Daddy tried so hard to help out, but he wasn't very good around the house. He was usually more hindrance than help. Anyway, one night I got sick to my stomach and threw up in bed. It was disgusting, not to mention embarrassing. He helped me into the guest room, cleaned me up and pulled the covers tight around me. He was so sweet, so thoughtful. . . He must have gone back to our room and changed the sheets that same night. He would've had to before he could go back to bed."
"What are you getting at, Mom? I don't understand."
Josie sat down on the bed's edge and shook her head in wonderment. "Your Daddy must have found my journal that night. I always kept it hidden there, between the mattress and box springs. It's gone now. It's not there. He must have found it that night. Who knows how many times he read it after that and put it back in its place. Oh, God. . ."
"What was in it, Mom?"
Josie smiled and shook her head sadly. "Everything. My life. My feelings. My dreams. My regrets."
"Your affair with Raymond Bowers?"
Josie nodded. "Yes, although I never mentioned him by name in the journal. Just called him R.B."
"Where could it be now? Do you think Daddy destroyed it? When do you last remember writing in it?"
Josie shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, but it's probably been three months or more since I last wrote anything. I really haven't thought about it until now. Where could it be?"
"He could've hidden it anywhere, Mom. You may never find it."
"No, I don't think so, Katherine. Why would he want to hide it after all this time?"
Katherine moved around to her father's side of the bed and sat down. She looked at her mother and they must have had the exact same thought simultaneously.
Katherine jumped off the bed while Josie crawled across it to Ellis's side. She knelt beside the bed, running her fingers beneath the dust ruffle.
It was there.
Josie pulled the black and white, marbled notebook from beneath the mattress and smiled. "He knew I'd look on his side of the bed. He knew. . ."
"Mom, do you. . . uh. . . want to be alone for a while?"
Josie flipped to the last entry in the journal and was not surprised to see that it was written in Ellis's eloquent handwriting. So neat, so exact. . . just like Katherine's. . . and so unlike her own sloppy penmanship.
"No, kiddo. . . I don't want to be alone. Come. . . sit beside me. I'll read this out loud. I don't ever want any more secrets to come between me and my family."
The entry was brief, but complete.
Hello love,
By now you've discovered that I read your journal and that I know about R.B. I've known almost since the beginning. If you haven't already discovered them, there's a shoe box hidden in the attic, beneath a loose floor board just inside the door to your left. Ray must have loved you a lot, Josie. Maybe as much as I loved you, if that's possible. I'm so sorry for keeping the letters from you, love. I had no right. I only wanted to keep what was mine. . . you. That was selfish of me. I had no right. His wife is dead, Josie, and the man has never stopped thinking about you and what might have been. I think you both deserve a chance to find out. It's not too late and please don't feel it's too soon after my death. If you give him one ounce of the happiness you gave me, Josie, he will be one hell of a lucky man. Katherine will understand and accept him, I'm sure of that. So don't waste any more time, Josie. Life is so very short. Find him, explain to him what happened, and. . . be happy, my love. . . as I will be knowing that I've provided you the closure you need for this new chapter in your life.
Loving You Always,
Ellis
P.S. Your handwriting really is pretty awful, love.