Authors: Jax Jillian
Letter #10 - September 15, 2011
Dear Ryan,
One down, five to go. That’s what I kept telling myself two days ago as I struggled to pick my legs up into the bed. Ryan, I was so sick, so exhausted. My fragile body didn’t want to work right. So this is what it’s like. I had always read about cancer and chemotherapy in my nursing books and in the pamphlets the doctors had given me, but they certainly didn’t give the disease nor its potential killer any justice. I decided at that exact moment—the fifth time I had gotten sick that day—that this opponent had garnered my full attention, my full respect. Growing up an athlete, I had always been a fierce competitor mainly due to my father always preaching to me about fearlessness and never backing down no matter how big the challenge was. But this challenge, this is bigger than not giving up the winning drive to the basket in the basketball championship, or not striking out when your team is down one run with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh. This is life or death. And I certainly want to live. It had only been twenty-four hours since the chemo treatment, and the last twelve hours had been as dreadful of a time as I had ever experienced. I can’t imagine that it can get any worse. I finally decided that lying on my back was a comfortable position, for the time being anyway. I looked around the room that had been my haven as a kid growing up. After I moved out, my parents turned it into a guest room, so there is nothing familiar about it anymore. Everything is new—a new bed, new furniture, even the hardwood floors are new. But it does give off a sense of homeliness with its cottage-type decor—a white dresser and two nightstands with chipped paint, giving them a rustic glow, a decorative brown aluminum star hanging on the wall just over the head of the bed, and a big open window giving way to the bright sunshine. But it’s the finishing touches of the multi-colored calla lilies that my father must have placed throughout the room when my mother and I were at the hospital that are my favorite. As you know, Ryan, my father is a hard man, but when it comes to me, he has a soft spot. He is the compassionate one while Joan has always been the disciplinarian. He had always wanted a son, and although he raised me as a tomboy, he always treats me like a lady.
I am so happy my parents have always had a happy marriage. I have always admired the way my father treats my mother, and no matter how long they have been married, they always act as if they are newlyweds. My father, always brought my mother a fresh bouquet of flowers home every week, and he still does to this day. Every time I would come home to visit, I would take notice of the fresh arrangement sitting as the centerpiece on the dining room table. Roses, lilies, sunflowers, daisies, carnations. Every week it was different, and it depended on the season too. My father has always been attentive toward my mother’s needs and desires, and he does everything he can to make her happy. In turn, my mother reciprocates his kindness, and she does everything she can to make sure he is happy, too. My father is such a hard worker, and he always made sure there was food on the table and clothes on our backs. Being the battalion chief of the Atlantic City Fire Department meant working long days and being on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. When he was called away, he always promised me he would make it home that night, and he never once broke that promise. I have always thought of my father as invincible, and I never really found myself being too scared for his life when he was working. He is the epitome of everything I want in a man, and I had always hoped the man I would marry would be just like him.
As I laid on the bed, I could feel the sickness coming on again, and the spinning blades of the ceiling fan above me were not helping. I quickly rolled to the side of the bed and lowered myself to the floor. Crawling to the bathroom, I couldn’t help but think of how grateful I was to my parents for deciding to add on a bathroom to the bedroom when they redesigned it. They did leave me a bucket next to the bed, but I wanted to avoid having to use that if at all possible. I cringed at the thought of either one of them having to clean that out. After the toxins exited my body, I knew I did not have the energy to crawl back to the bed, and besides, my knees were too sore and bruised from the crawling back and forth on the hardwood floor all day. I just wanted to get some sleep to make this feeling go away, and at that point, I didn’t care where, so I decided the bathroom floor was as good a place as any. As I curled up into a ball on the cold, gray, tile floor, I could only think of one thing that could possibly make me feel any better—and you were half a world away. I can’t quite understand the feeling I was having for you. I longed for you to be there. I longed to see your perfect face. I yearned for you to nurture me and to protect me. It was a feeling much different than I had ever felt for Chris. It was deeper, it was intense, and it was mysterious. As I lay on the cold bathroom floor, I struggled, wanting to keep my eyes open and to stay awake so that the sleep wouldn’t cut off my thoughts of you. My thoughts of you were what kept me going. But as I succumbed to the battle that I was having with keeping my eyes open, I gave in and slowly let them close, and as they did, I prayed to God that maybe I would see you in my dreams.
This last letter struck Ryan like a lightning bolt upon the earth. To imagine her suffering like that killed him. Neither of them had known what to expect, and the doctor had told them that everyone responded differently to the chemotherapy. He had wanted to be there those days following her first chemo treatment, but he wasn’t able to stay with her. He had to fly back to South Africa to get back to work. Even though he had been half a world away from her, she was never far from his heart.
It had been sixteen hours since the plane took off out of Philadelphia and touched down half a world away in Cape Town, South Africa, but with the time difference, it was more like twenty-two hours. Ryan had been able to stay with Larkin for only a couple of hours after her chemo treatment before he had to head back to work. To most people, the time and the energy to travel twenty-four hours one way to spend only a few hours is not worth it, but Ryan wasn’t most people. Besides, he had promised Larkin he would be there, and he had known what he was getting himself into. He had tried to get more time off, but the director, Leon Lewis, was demanding, and the film was on a deadline. He was thrilled when he was told he could have
two
days. He knew he could make it work where he could at least spend some time with her.
He remembers it was a tough good-bye when Larkin and Joan had dropped him off at the airport. It had haunted him on the plane ride home. He had sensed that Larkin hadn’t wanted to let go when he hugged her good-bye. He knew she didn’t know what to expect in the coming days and neither did he, and he had wanted to be there to help her. She had understood, of course. She always did. He didn’t want to leave her. It was the first time he had difficulty letting her go. He had looked into her blue eyes and saw an ocean of strength and courage that amazed him. He was proud of her and the way she was handling things. He was proud at how she hadn’t flinched one millimeter when they pulled the IV out of her arm, or how she hadn’t seemed to be too scared when they told her she was more than likely to get pretty sick that night.
He remembers the conversation on the phone that night that had uncovered an awareness that had been buried inside his heart since he was a child. He looked at his watch as he entered into his hotel room and set his single luggage bag down next to the couch. His time was 3:00 p.m., 9:00 a.m. her time. Maybe, just maybe, she’d be awake to answer his call, he had thought. He walked out onto his balcony overlooking the waterfront and took in a breath of fresh air. Although he had missed his home, he was mesmerized by all the beauty that surrounded him. The hotel he had stayed in was perfectly positioned along a private waterside platform alongside the edge of a port that extended into the Table Bay. That particular afternoon, the sun was just in the right position to draw out the illuminating orange that colored the mountainside that sat just to his left, and the sun’s rays extended out to the marina that was directly in front of him. The glare of the sun off one of the yacht’s windows in the marina had caught his attention. It was then that his attention had immediately shifted to Larkin and all they had shared in their past. They were raised in a haze of sun and sand and boats and fishing, and Larkin had always told Ryan about her dreams of owning her own yacht one day. He worried that maybe that dream would never happen for her.
As he made the phone call, the disappointment that had set in by the time the fourth ring had ended was quickly replaced with relief when he heard a familiar voice on the other line answer hello. Although it wasn’t the voice he had been wanting, nor expecting, to hear. After all, it was
her
cell phone. It was still nice to know someone was there with her.
“Hey, Mr. Wilson. It’s Ryan.”
“I know, Ryan. How are you? You made it back safely, I assume?” Ryan knew Russell had always liked him mainly because he always looked out for his daughter when they were kids.
“Yes, sir, I did. Thank you. I was hoping to speak with Larkin. Is she awake?”
“I’m sorry, Ryan, she isn’t. She’s pretty sick. She’s been up all night, and I really don’t want to wake her now that she is finally asleep.”
“Okay.” The disappointment that had left him moments ago had conveniently made its way back into his gut.
Up all night? Pretty sick?
That was definitely not what he had wanted to hear. “I see. Well, can you please tell her I called and was asking for her?”
“Absolutely, Ryan. I will.”
As he started to pull the phone away from his ear, he could hear Russell start to say something.
“Ryan, I wanted to thank you personally for what you have done for my daughter. Not for just helping her financially, but for being there with her yesterday. I know my daughter, and I know she didn’t ask you for help, which means you did this all on your own. You are a good man, Ryan.”
Those words had stirred up an array of emotions inside Ryan’s soul. He certainly had not felt like a good man. Larkin was at home fighting for her life, and he was out living the life. Traveling the world. Making movies. Making millions of dollars. Dating a different supermodel every month since his divorce. He didn’t have a worry in the world. He struggled to respond to the kind words that Mr. Wilson had just extended to him.
“Thank you, sir. That means a lot. Really.” He immediately hung up the phone, not wanting Russell to hear the cracking in his voice.
After he had hung up the phone with Russell, Ryan made his way through the French doors that opened up into the spacious private dining area of his one-bedroom suite. Just to his left was a separate lounge area which housed a fifty-inch flat-screen TV, a fully-stocked minibar, and a mini-library with his own personal selection of books. The lounge connected the dining room to the bedroom, which had another set of French doors leading out onto another private balcony. Elegant marble bathrooms with antique toiletries and fresh flowers throughout the suite highlighted the luxury Ryan had come to know as part of his everyday lifestyle.
He grabbed his luggage bag and carried it into the bedroom. He had noticed the voicemail light flickering on the hotel phone on the nightstand next to his king-sized bed. He was careful to not give out his cell phone number to just anybody, so if anybody other than family or friends or his agent and publicist needed to reach him, they called the main hotel number. And if they didn’t know the hotel number, they called his publicist. Three messages—one from the front desk welcoming him back from his two-day trip and asking if he needed anything, and two from Ada, a South African model he had met on the set just one week prior. She had wanted to know if he was free that evening. He had deleted all three messages, not taking the time to write down Ada’s number. She was young—ten years his junior—but she seemed nice, and there was no question about how beautiful she was. But the words that Mr. Wilson had just said to him about being a good man kept circling around his mind.
He couldn’t help but think of Larkin and her lying in bed sick and exhausted, probably crying and tossing and turning. He hadn’t wanted to go out with Ada that night; he had wanted to go out with Larkin. He had wanted to show Larkin everything he had been able to see the last ten years of his life. He had wanted to walk her around downtown Cape Town and introduce her to new cuisines and new cultures. He had wanted to bring her to the set and introduce her to his world. He had shared bits and pieces of his world with her throughout his career. She had been to many of his movie premieres, and she had become close to his three best friends—Ian, Sarah, and Justin—but that was only a taste. He had wanted her to experience all of it. They had shared an amazing childhood together. They had been in their own little world, and now they were worlds apart. Unfortunately, it had taken a tragedy to open his eyes. It had taken a tragedy to make him realize that he not only had wanted to show her his world, but in fact, he had wanted to be her world.
The wind gust was so hard it thrust open the French doors inside the bedroom, wrenching Ryan out of his sleep. He didn’t even remember falling asleep, but he was thrilled he was able to get some rest. He had spent most of the night reading Larkin’s letters. The more and more he read them, the more and more intoxicating they became. They had brought back many memories, and he hadn’t wanted to put them down. It was as if she was sitting there right next to him talking to him. He looked over at the clock. It was 6:30 a.m.
Ryan immediately picked up right where he left off. He felt a sense of urgency to finish reading these letters. He was searching for closure, and for some reason, he was sure these letters would get him there. He had been yearning for her. To see her face. To feel her touch. He wanted her to come back and haunt him. These letters were her ghost.
Letter #11 - October 16, 2011
Hey, Buddy,
It’s the second Sunday of October, and I am watching you sleep. Today was a perfect day. I am so glad we were able to spend the day together. It was only this morning when I was anxiously awaiting for your plane to land at the Atlantic City International Airport. I don’t have to be in Philadelphia until 11:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, so you and I are able to stay at my parents’ house tonight before heading out in the morning. Unfortunately, my parents are out of town for the next three days helping my sister, Laura, move from Baltimore to New York City for a new job, so you won’t be able to visit with them. I know my father really would like to see you. But the one good thing from it is that you are spending the next three days with me until they get back. I haven’t seen you since my first chemo treatment one month ago, and I could feel the butterflies fluttering around in my stomach as I waited for you at the baggage claim. I have been feeling okay the past couple of weeks but not before I battled through three days of sickness that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. I’ve noticed that I have a harder time getting over a cold, and I have also noticed that just the slightest bump on my arm or leg leaves a collage of purples and yellows on my skin for days.
As I waited patiently in the crowded baggage claim area, I couldn’t help but feel guilty and confused about the thoughts that were going through my head. I felt like this disease was punishment for something that I may have done in my past. But I don’t really know what. Maybe for my marriage failing. Maybe for not following my dream of being a writer. Maybe for…oh, I don’t know. But what I do know or feel was that this disease could be a blessing in disguise. If it weren’t for the cancer, I wouldn’t be seeing you as much as I am now. I know, I know, Ryan. It’s a pretty morbid thought. But I can’t deny it. I obviously don’t want to have cancer, but I do know that on the second Sunday of every month for the next four months, I am going to see you. And I couldn’t be happier.
You want to know something? Just as I saw you turn the corner just at the bottom of the escalator earlier today, I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. Your high cheekbones give way to your narrow jawline and your brown eyes complement your infamous crooked smile. You were dressed as fashionably as ever, but then again, you always are, aren’t you? You had black jeans on with a cool blue plaid shirt, slightly unbuttoned at the top, revealing a white tank underneath, and your sleeves were rolled up to your elbows. Your perfect face was complemented with a gray newsboy cap, and your casual black Converse Chucks lightened up your look. As your eyes finally met mine, you gave me that crooked smile with your lips pressed together, as well as a quick wink of your left eye that sat underneath your furrowed brow. It was at that exact moment, the moment when I couldn’t look away from you, that I realized maybe this was the reason for my punishment. That I had loved you and I had always loved you even though I had been married to another.
“Hi,” you mouthed to me as you dropped your carry-on bag on the floor next to you, quickly lifting me up as you embraced me. “You look good, Larkin,” you said, and I could hear relief in your voice. I think you were expecting me to look sickly.
I couldn’t help but smile at you as I said hello back. We stared at each other for a moment before walking outside to my car, and you took my portfolio bag off my shoulder and draped it across yours, alongside your carry-on bag. I never carry a purse. Sometimes a backpack or a portfolio bag but never a purse. You always liked that I am more of a grab-my-cash-or-cards-and-put-them-in-my-back-pocket-and-go kind of girl. As we walked side-by-side, I could feel your hand occasionally brush mine, and it sent a shock of excitement all the way up my arm into my chest. All I wanted to do was just take your hand into mine and interlace our fingers together, but wanting and doing are two totally different things. Despite what you think, I have never been brave, especially when it comes to you. I actually had wondered if maybe you were purposely brushing my hand because you had wanted to grab my hand too, but when I glanced over at you and down to your hand, I had noticed you hid it in your pocket. It was as if you were reading my mind and saying back to me, “Forget it, I don’t want to hold your hand.” Of course not, why would you? I asked myself. As we approached the car, I asked you to drive, and you, of course, accepted. I handed you my set of keys—five keys to be exact. One to open and start the car, one to my parents’ house, one to the house I used to share with Chris (I really should give that one back, huh?), one to my locker at the gym that unfortunately I haven’t been able to go to much lately, and the fifth and final key is to your house in Los Angeles. “Just in case you ever decided to come visit,” you had said to me about three years ago when you bought the house with Abigail. But I, of course, never stayed with you when I did come to visit, mainly out of respect for Chris.
We only had about a twenty-minute drive to my parents’ house, but I still pulled my manuscript out of my portfolio bag anyway. I could sense you peeking over, trying to see what it was I was doing. I looked over at you, showed you the manuscript, and you acknowledged me with that crooked smile. God, I love your smile. And you gave me a nod, letting me know that you wanted me to read it to you.
“It’s been a while,” I offered.
“Too long,” you agreed.
It had been too long, almost eight months, since I last read to you. I picked up where I left off—when Jillian led Nathan into the room that would change everything. I proceeded to finish the chapter and start the next one, and neither of us budged when you parked along the curb in front of my parent’s two-story cape cod on Colgate Street. We sat in the car as I finished, and I could tell you were listening attentively. I could see you were truly involved in the story. It was the first time I actually read to you in person, so I was never really able to see your facial expressions or see if your eyes were really interested. After I finished the last sentence, I closed the manuscript and looked over at you. Your eyes emitted a look of approval, a look of pride.
“Larkin, it’s great. Really great,” you said.
“Is it okay, you think? I know you’re biased.”
“It has nothing to do with bias. I really do
think it’s great. And I would tell you if I didn’t. You need to finish it.”
“It’s almost there, but I have been working on another project, too. But I’ll tell you about that some other time.”
And I will tell you sometime, Ryan. Just not yet.
I watched you as you looked all around at your surroundings. At all the neighborhood houses and the boats parked in the driveways. I could tell you were in deep thought as you watched two young boys walk down the street with a fishing rod in one hand and a tackle box in the other. It may be October, but it is never too late in the season to fish. Autumn fishing is sometimes just as fun as summer fishing, and autumn has always been your favorite time to fish. I could tell you missed home. You don’t come home as much anymore, especially since your father died almost four years ago. You usually just fly your mother out to LA to see you. I know it’s much easier that way. I also know you haven’t been to the cemetery since your father’s funeral. You never really talk about your father since his death, but despite the differences that you had regarding your career choice, you two still had a pretty strong relationship, and I know you miss him. I miss him.
I never told you this, Ryan, but I am going to tell you now. I have made it a point every year on the anniversary of your father’s death to bring flowers to his grave in your honor. I also sit and read to him a recent article I had found, reviewing your latest movie and your career. I also went to visit the grave back in early February after you won best actor and placed a picture of you holding your award. I am sorry I never told you I go to see your father. It was something private between him and me.
I knew you were deep in thought because I felt your hand jump when I touched it. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah,” you said. “Let’s go.”
You grabbed your carry-on bag and my portfolio bag as we made our way into the four- bedroom home I grew up in. We entered into the family room that was decorated with floral wall art surrounding the wicker furniture that sat atop the bamboo floor. My mother has always had a knack for interior designing, don’t you think? As you took my bag up to my bedroom, I went into the kitchen to make us a pot of coffee. And as I waited for you to come down, I heard the creaking of the front screen door, and I knew you had gone outside to the front porch. I joined you several minutes later, and we sat quietly giving each other a quick glance and smile every so often as we sipped on our coffee. These had been my favorite times growing up with you. Sitting on our porches quietly, not needing to say anything to each other. Like I wrote before, Ryan, you always say it best when you say nothing at all. It’s your eyes and your smile that do the talking. Every time you would give me a glance and a smile, I knew you were content and at peace. I knew everything that was going on around you since you landed was giving you a sense of nostalgia—my house, the neighborhood, the smell of the saltwater blowing in from the bay with the cool autumn breeze.
It was a cool sixty degrees, and birdsong was echoing from the half-barren trees standing above front lawns that were carpeted with the mixture of yellow, red, and orange leaves. It had rained earlier in the day, and the road was smeared with the residue of the wet leaves that were stuck on the tires of the passing cars. I noticed your attention was focused on the crowds of people that were coming and going from the house next door. There has been a “for sale” sign out front for the past two months, and today, there was an open house. There had been a middle-aged couple who had lived there for the past three and a half years before they moved out two months ago to relocate to a fifty-five-and-over community. But prior to them, it had been the home that you grew up in. It had been a second home to me, and I was sad to see the changes that had been made to the property since your mother moved out after Robert died. “It’s different,” I heard you quietly mumble. It sure is different, Ryan. It sure is.
You asked me if I minded if you went over to take a look, and I, of course, didn’t mind at all; and although you had asked me to join you, I declined, knowing that it was something you needed to do by yourself.
I don’t know what happened when you went over to your old house, but the minute you came back, you approached me as I was making us dinner in the kitchen and asked me to go dancing tonight. And I want to thank you for an amazing night. Dancing with you tonight was an escape for me. An escape from the cancer, from the loneliness, from the darkness. I can’t wait for our next dance.
He couldn’t help but smile as he remembered that day. Ryan had approached that two-story colonial and noticed that the shutters that were once maroon were now forest green, and the garage had been turned into a screened-in porch. The swing his father had made and lassoed to the enormous maple tree in the front yard when he was five was no longer there, and the small flower garden that sat underneath the front bay window that he and his mother would plant together every spring had been replaced by a trio of perfectly square-shaped bushes. He had entered into the four-bedroom house and immediately felt a sense of pensiveness. Not so much because it had brought back fond childhood memories, but because it was different. Nothing about it was the same as when he had walked through the house four years prior after his father’s funeral. The color of the walls in the kitchen had changed from a cream yellow to a dark beige, and the hardwood floor had been replaced with white marble tile outlined with black grout. French doors had replaced the single exterior door that connected the kitchen to the garage—now the screened-in porch— and the hardwood floor in the family room that he and his older brother had helped his father lay when he was in high school had been replaced with white shag carpet. He had quietly made his way through the house, weaving his way around the crowds of people. He couldn’t believe how many people had come to the open house. There were at least a dozen, he had thought, and they all had to have been in their fifties. He remembers overhearing the realtor saying a couple of times to the prospective buyers, “This is the house that Ryan Boone grew up in.” He had chuckled to himself, knowing that the majority of the people there probably had no idea who Ryan Boone was. Even if they had, why in the world would that persuade them to buy the house?
He had made his way up the stairwell, noticing that the walls that used to boast pictures of him and his brothers throughout their childhood years were no longer there. Instead, there was a white blank wall of nothing. He had entered into only one room—his room—the room he had grown up in. But it really wasn’t his room anymore, and he had been quickly reminded of that as soon as he stepped foot into it. In fact, it wasn’t even a bedroom anymore. It had been renovated into a study with two giant bookshelves against the wall to his right filled with books from the likes of Charles Dickens, George Elliot, Jane Austen, and Stephen King. There was a medium-sized cherry oak desk with a closed laptop against the wall to his left, and there was a small French-style armchair sitting directly underneath the window on the far wall. It was the window that faced Larkin’s bedroom; the window he so often would open at night time before going to sleep to talk with her about the day they had. Their houses were close enough they could easily hear each other without having to yell and wake everyone else up.