The West Wind (18 page)

“If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.”

Zach read from “Ode to the West Wind” as he presided over Xander’s
funeral service a week later in the garden behind the Brighton House. The
coffin was closed. Xander’s body had been found the day after he drowned,
washed up on the rocks inland from the mansion. A picture of him that Hero had
taken at her birthday party stood in a frame next to the casket, surrounded by
white lilies. She sat in the front row in a simple, modest black dress and
matching heels. To please her mother, she wore a black, wide-brimmed sun hat
and a black mesh shawl over her shoulders. Her left hand lay in her lap while
her right rested against her belly. She had not yet begun to show, but she
imagined she could feel the life growing there.

“While we mourn,” Zach began, “my son would be complaining. He
would want us to celebrate his life, to recognize the fullness of it, and how
well he lived. He believed that we should seize the day, every day. When his
mother died, he did as she asked and held a wake for her. He was too young to
have put much thought into his own funeral, but I am certain he would have
wanted those of you who dance to do so in his memory.” He lowered his head for
a moment. When he lifted it again he went on.

“I have lost a son and a wife, so it is hard for me to find the
motivation to seize this day. I feel as though Atlas himself shifted his
burden, the world, to my shoulders. I want to run, to bury myself in books and
work and leave life behind for a while. Xander, however, would have none of
that. Where I have lost a son and wife, I have gained, in a way, a daughter.”
He paused and looked at Hero, who nodded. Those in the gathering who knew her
looked her way, curious as to what was going on. Anna took Hero’s hand between
hers and patted it comfortingly.

“Xander found love before the ocean swept him away from us. In
Hero DiBenedetto he found the one he imagined himself living, working, and
spending his life with. When dancing in the rain had become something we’d lost
with his mother, he found it again in Hero. He often spoke of their connection
when they were dancing, how well they fit when they were working to restore the
house, the way he couldn’t take his eyes off of her when they were in the same
room. . . Even after she slapped him when they first met. If that’s not love. .
.” He trailed off suggestively and laughter rose gently from the crowd.

“Hero has generously agreed to continue her work and will be a
partner under her mother’s guidance in Brighton Contracting and Interior
Design. Hero,” he said directly to her. “You were my son’s heart, and I would
consider you family even were the circumstances different than they are.”

The attendees burbled with muffled confusion. Hero stood and went
to stand beside Zach, who continued his speech.

“So it is, that even in his death my son and the woman he loved
give us reason to celebrate life. It is my honor to announce to the world for
the first time that in spite of his passing, my son was considerate enough to
leave behind a legacy.” He gestured at Hero’s flat stomach. Anna’s hands
gripped her chair tightly. If she hadn’t been wearing gloves, her knuckles
would have been white.
“You can’t tell yet, but Hero was nice enough to let me be the one to tell you.
I’m going to be a grandfather,” Zach said, beaming with pride.

“HERO!” Anna screamed.

Approximately nine months later, Hero lay in the maternity ward of
the Vista Bay General Hospital. Her parents, Jaimie, and Zach McConnell stood
around her as the doctor lay a tiny little being into her waiting arms.

“Congratulations, Hero,” the doctor said. “You have a healthy baby
girl.”

She smiled and looked at her baby for the first time. The child
looked back at her with Xander’s deep blue eyes and Hero’s heart ached just a
little.

“She has her father’s eyes,” Hero told her audience. Zach smiled
at everyone, almost as proud as if he’d been the father himself. The baby was,
after all, the only family he had left.

“What are you going to name her?” Anna DiBenedetto demanded from
her daughter. Hero had refused to tell anyone what, if anything, her intentions
were.

Hero waited a moment as if thinking it over. “Shelley,” she
finally answered.

“Why Shelley?” asked Anna, Jared, and Jaimie in a surprised
chorus. Zach grinned.

Hero nodded and smiled down at the little girl in her arms.

“Because,” she said. “It means that spring has finally come.”

~Fin~

Dear
Reader,
I am endlessly flattered that you made it this far. Thank you for reading my
debut novel, as short as it was. Whether you liked the ending or not, I hope it
moved you. (My friend Jen from the dedication probably still wants me to
rewrite it.)

Writing
The West Wind
began as an intention simply to practice writing that took
off with a life of its own. The first draft was written in less than a month,
though it only contained 40,000 words. Editing it to a place where I was
satisfied, or just had enough, took nearly four years.

Now
that you have read through the story once, I wanted to point out a couple of
themes I thought might interest you. The story is very loosely based in
Christopher Marlowe’s poem, “Hero and Leander,” which Xander and Zach refer to
on occasion. Unfortunately, while Leander was returned to the surface by
Neptune, our story ended much more tragically.
One of Marlowe’s more interesting devices in “Hero and Leander” is related to
his descriptions of his characters. Marlowe wrote of Hero without really
describing much of her physical form, choosing to detail her with clothing,
accoutrements, and vague beauty terms. We don’t know what she looks like at all.
He wrote Leander physically, sensually, and in detail. I endeavored to do the
same here with my characters, in honor of what fascinated me about the poem
when I studied it in college.

Beyond
the subtle literary reference, it was also my hope that female readers might be
able to connect with Hero more, imagining themselves in her role, rather than
picturing someone else. If it worked for you, wonderful! If not, wonderful! It
was fun to play with.
The use of Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” as a theme is rather apparent, so I
won’t blather about it. However, a final theme operating throughout is in the
chapter titles. Many, though not all, are lines from various poems by the
Romantic poets. Samuel Taylor Coleridge got a mention; of course, Shelley had
several; and William Blake was in there too, to name a few.

I
won’t bore you with any more details. If you really enjoyed
The West Wind
and would like to read more of my writing, I post poetry on Instagram daily.
You can find me there by searching @m0rg4nd_poet

Thank
you so much for spending a portion of your life with my words. I am forever
grateful.
Sincerely Yours,
Morgan Douglas
P.S. By the way, Hero’s clothes are all real descriptions of pieces that could
be shopped on Google at the time I wrote
The West Wind
. In case you were
particularly interested in anything she wore. Additionally, while Vista Bay and
everything in the town is fictional, The Century Ballroom is a real place in
Seattle, and it is on my bucket list to go dance there.

Also,
if you think the West Wind would make a good movie, please feel free to
petition movie companies. ;) 

Morgan
Douglas is a Pacific Northwest poet, dancer, dance instructor, and writer at
heart. At present he holds a Clark Kent job as an advertising/marketing
coordinator for a university bookstore. He is currently in love with West Coast
Swing, though his roots will always be in Lindy Hop and other vintage swing
dances. His bucket list includes balboa, Argentine tango, bachata, and kizomba.
His goal in life is to be a Renaissance Man, and has done so much you would
simply have to have coffee with him several times to breach the surface. Or
wine. He likes wine. If you have any questions about learning to dance, he’s
always happy to do his best to answer. He has not met his Hero(ine) yet.