Chapter Text
Mary is not entirely surprised when she opens her door to the stranger. She has noticed him around town for the past few days, maybe a week. He is extremely noticeable; Mary may be a happily coupled woman but she still has eyes in her head, and the stranger is a strikingly handsome man. Bridgetown is not such a small place that it was likely a coincidence that he was in so many places she was; or, rather, just outside those places. Never praying in the church, or buying from the baker, or meeting anyone in the park. Just lingering.
Still, there is a large space between not being entirely surprised and feeling well prepared. It’s much earlier in the morning than she likes to take visitors, and this man, good-looking though he may be, is clearly not the kind of person with whom she usually mixes - not that that is a bad thing. It’s just that she has had very few interactions with people who wear tight leather trousers and loose linen shirts, or men with hair quite so long. She had suspected there was a possibility someone from Stede’s other life may approach her one day, and before the stranger opened his mouth, before he even showed up at her door, that is what she was concerned was happening here.
“Hello, sir,” Mary says, politely, with a slight incline of her head. “What can I do for you?”
“Uh, hi, yeah. I’m looking for Mary Bonnet.”
“I’m Mary Bonnet,” she confirms. “And your name might be?”
“My name might be a lot of things.”
He’s gruff, and not exactly intimidating, but certainly imposing. He’s holding himself stiffly and doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. He isn’t making a great deal of effort to ingratiate himself with her, and Mary is as near to certain as she can be that this man is something to do with Stede. Oh, this has worried her. Stede was quite reticent about his time at sea - well, that’s not entirely true, in fairness to him, and Mary is trying to be more fair to him these days - it was more like she didn’t want to hear it. It was clear he had some genuine piratical experiences though, and the Stede she knows will have certainly made some enemies, whether he intended to or not.
Mary needs to ensure his freedom continues, and not give anything away to any callers who may have a score to settle. Not to mention, if an enemy of Stede’s found out he was alive and truly meant to cause him harm, what better way to achieve that than through his children?
“Very well,” Mary says, making a decision. “If you don’t wish to be forthcoming, I shall get along with my day.”
Mary tries to close the door abruptly, and the stranger quick as a flash slips his boot into the gap. Damn.
The stranger lowers his voice, talking in a warm rumble through the gap in the door. “I need to talk about Stede.”
There’s something about the way he says his name, a tiny pause before, almost running out of air as he breathes out the word. His eyes flick away as he says it, like he’s looking to someone who used to be in the empty space beside him.
“He died six months ago. Remove your foot.” Mary tugs the door as hard as she can. She hoped the sharp yank would catch him by surprise, but no such luck.
“Wait, wait, please. I’m a friend. I heard he - well, I heard,” the stranger says. He sounds sad, he sounds like something is cracking in him, but it could be faked. He could be that smart. “I’m not armed. I want to find out what happened and, uh, pay my respects.”
Mary looks through the gap in the door. He looks sincere. Fuck. She wishes Stede had left some bloody instructions, he was always terrible about thinking ahead. “Your name, then.”
“William.”
William,” Mary repeats.
“Yes.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
The stranger shrugs. “Guess you don’t.”
“Do you know someone called Ed?”
His words snap. “What? Why?”
“Just someone Stede mentioned when he came home.”
“Know a lot of people called Ed. Common name, Ed. Why d’you wanna know?”
“It seemed Stede was friendly with him while he was away. I thought, if you know him, perhaps you could pass on a message? Make sure he’s heard the sad news.” If this William is truly someone who was friends with Stede, he would surely know who Ed is, Mary thinks. A test, to try to feel out if this man is being straight with her.
“Word gets around. I’m sure he knows.”
He’s good at dodging a question. He’s clearly an intelligent man; Mary needs this interaction to be over, and then she can get a message to Stede, warn him someone has come looking, and let him handle his own mess. “If I tell you how he died, and point you to his grave to pay your respects, will you leave?”
The man nods, and Mary opens the door a little further. The stranger - William, she will have to accept though the name sounded foreign in his mouth - steps back a few paces, stops crowding the doorway, which Mary finds reassuring. His eyes are shimmering, wide and slightly moist. He is worrying at his thumbnail, peeling slivers of nail off with his teeth. God, Mary’s manner is unconscionably cold if this man is genuine, but there’s really no way to know, and if he’s not genuine, he is a danger she needs to manage.
“I’m sorry. If you were truly a friend of Stede’s I’m being rather cruel. But you can’t possibly expect me to trust you.”
“S’fair enough,” William says, and he shrugs again. “Sensible. You don’t know what he got up to off his travels. Will you tell me then?”
“Yes. He had been home for a few days. We were in town, I’d had a showing at the dress shop, and he was attacked by an escaped jungle cat.” Mary wishes, oh how she wishes, that Stede’s death had a less outlandish story. He had fun with it, and there were plenty of witnesses, so that seemed fine, but repeating the story now makes her realise how completely ridiculous it is. She needs to sell this.
Mary bites her tongue until her eyes water and casts her eyes down, like she is trying to stay her emotions. “And though the cat didn’t kill him, he was injured, and too slow to dodge a carriage which came down the street, running him over. And then -” oh, seriously, damn Stede to hell and back for this, why did she go along with it, “a piano fell on him.”
Mary dabs at her eyes with her handkerchief. William is looking at her with a piercing gaze, eyes narrowed.
“A piano?”
“It was being moved into a second story flat. It may have been a harpsichord. The rope snapped. I think - I think he was already dead from the carriage collision. I try to comfort myself with that.”
William continues to stare, then barks out a harsh, cold laugh. He steps forward again, still a few paces away from her but she feels the meaning is still clear; he means to be threatening, without reaching the point of making a threat. “Now why on earth would I believe a story like that?”
“Doug!” Mary screeches at the top of her lungs. She immediately hears his footsteps running down the stairs, and while he’s not exactly the most physical of men, she is relieved to have him at her side nonetheless.
Doug arrives at the door looking wide-eyed with concern. “Everything alright here?”
“This gentleman, William, says he is an associate of Stede’s and queries the manner of his death.”
“Okay…”
“And who might this be?” William asks, eyeing Doug up and down before turning back to Mary, with a clear intention to summarily ignore the new addition to their conversation.
“Doug is my painting instructor. He witnessed Stede’s death.”
“Your painting instructor? He’s here first thing on a Wednesday morning? Is that a normal time for painting lessons?”
“It’s a Tuesday, and I don’t see what business that is of yours.”
The man scoffs and rolls his eyes rather dramatically. “You’ll understand if I don’t consider your ‘painting instructor’ a neutral party.”
Doug speaks up then. “What about the undertaker?”
Mary groans internally. That will only draw this out and she wants it done.
William ignores Doug, but asks Mary, “What about the undertaker? What’s he talking about?”
“The undertaker saw his body - I suppose he could confirm it for you. That he died, how he died.”
“And,” Doug interjects, “his mother happened to witness the death itself.”
Mary elbows Doug and hisses under her breath. Not only dragging this out, but involving both Evelyn along with her son seems like a clear route to disaster. She cannot send this man off to the Higgins household. She trusts Evvie but she does not know Melvin well, and does not know what this William is capable of. She can’t send a potentially dangerous man - a man who is obviously a pirate - to their home without warning.
Goddamn it all. “I will invite the undertaker and his mother to morning tea tomorrow. If you want, you can attend and ask them your questions. Will that satisfy you?”
At least it will give her a day to arrange for the children to be elsewhere, and Evelyn more than most people Mary knows can handle a tough situation. This way, she gets this man off of her doorstep, and can attend to this issue tomorrow with the support of a thoroughly warned Evelyn and the benefit of some time to think things through.
The man seems to be considering the offer. He runs his hand through a short scruff of black-grey beard, then drags it across his eyes, tilts his head back to the sky. “Fine. Tomorrow. And I want to see the grave.”
Mary gives him curt directions to the graveyard, and this time when she shuts the door, he allows her to do so.
Fuck.
The knock on Mary’s door the next day comes far too early. She has only just seen Doug off to take the children to his aunt. William stands on her porch in the still-crisp morning air, same clothes as yesterday, face a little more drawn. His eyes are a touch more reddened, his hair tangled in the same loose knot at the back of his head, half falling free more by accident than design.
“Dunno know what time morning tea’s supposed to be,” William says.
He looks lost, Mary thinks. Or maybe hungover. Is this a clever ploy to back-foot her, to get to the house when she may be alone, or when the children would be here, or simply a man who doesn’t want to miss his appointment?
“Did you find the grave?”
William nods.
Mary waits for him to say anything further, but he just stands there. The fidgeting energy he carried yesterday has left him. He’s tense and held taut. “Evelyn and Melvin will be here for tea in an hour and a half.”
“That’s the coroner and his mother?”
“Yes. You’ll understand, under the circumstances, I won’t invite you in to wait. You’re welcome to sit in the gardens though.”
“Sure.” William walks away.
Mary closes the door. She bustles through the rooms of the house, trying to look busy and purposeful, but truthfully looking into the gardens to see where William is, hopefully without him noticing that she is watching. She is in the drawing room pretending to arrange cushions when she spots movement from the corner of her eye.
William is sat beneath the cassia tree. His legs are tossed out in front of him, back leaning on the trunk. The yellow blossoms of the tree are coming to the end of their life, fading to paler whites. Mary watches him picking up the petals which litter the ground around him and scattering them again. He looks younger than he did yesterday - not physically, but in the way he is holding himself; if Mary were to paint him, she thinks, she would want to capture the boyishness of him in this moment, the way he looks to be adrift, like he’s not sure what to do with his long limbs, not sure where to cast his eyes.
He glances up and Mary gasps, steps behind the curtain. Shit. It’s her house, her garden, she needn’t be embarrassed to be seen looking at him. It’s perfectly right that she would want to keep an eye on the stranger - the pirate - sitting in her garden under a veil of pale blossoms.
Mary abandons her spying in the drawing room and goes to the kitchen, to prepare for the morning tea. She curses Stede under her breath once more. This could be his Ed, Mary knows. Doug said it to her yesterday as though she hadn’t already thought it herself. But she has given him the opportunity to make it known, has said enough to show she knows of Ed, and he has only dodged. She has only his word that he’s unarmed; only his word that he is a friend, not an enemy.
She is not going to put Stede at risk because of who this man could be. What is she to do, she had asked Doug, last night. Say, “ Are you Ed, because if so my husband said he was in love with you and oh, by the way, he faked his own death to come back to you? ” As though Stede is not in enough danger by his own decisions. Mary slams the tea cups onto the tray, and one chips at the flared base. As though Stede really needs, on top of being a pirate, for her to inform a man who randomly turns up at her house that he is still alive, on the run from the crown, and that he is in love with a man.
She would dearly like for him to live long enough to visit the children again.
She will get through today, and she will write to Stede, with a description of William, and let him handle anything further however he wishes.
By the time Mary finishes arguing with herself in her own head and setting out the accoutrements for tea, she’s only peeking around the drawing room curtain to watch William again for a few minutes before Evvie and Melvin arrive, with Doug returning in tow. William doesn’t appear to have moved an inch while waiting.
Mary lets them inside, asks Doug to take them to the reception room, and calls around the side of the house to William. He moves quickly, quietly, to join them inside. He’s light on his feet.
It is painfully awkward. Mary pours tea and Doug hands around cookies, and after names are exchanged the silence is palpable. Mary can hear Melvin chewing and it makes the hairs on her arm stand on end. Evvie is stirring her tea many more times than necessary, the spoon clinking against the china on each turn.
William is adding a frankly absurd amount of sugar to his cup.
“Well, William,” Evelyn says, clearly having had enough of beating around the bush. “I understand you mistrust our dear Mary’s account of the tragic loss of her husband. Ask your questions then.”
William shifts a little in his seat and doesn’t meet anyone’s eye. “How did it happen?”
Evelyn scoffs. “I believe Mary answered that question for you yesterday.”
“Yeah, well, wanna hear it from a different source. Sounds like bullshit.”
“Fine.” Evelyn puts her tea cup down and crosses her hands in her lap. “Stede came into town to visit Mary, she was clearing up after a show of her artwork. She’s extremely talented. Stede was attacked by a leopard on main street. He was then hit by a carriage and crushed by a piano. There is no chance he survived, I can assure you.”
“You saw this yourself?” William asks.
“Yes,” Evelyn answers simply.
“Ridiculous.” William shakes his head.
“Yes,” Evelyn says again. “But Stede was often in ridiculous situations in life. Why would his death be any different? There were around 20 direct witnesses. My Melvin handled his body personally.”
William shifts again in his chair, and turns his attention towards Melvin. “You the coroner?”
“I am.” Melvin is not as confident as his mother - who could be - and Mary notes he seems distinctly uncomfortable in the presence of this strange man. His voice has a slight shake to it. Mary would be worried as to whether he can keep it together, but then, she is confident he will ultimately be more scared of Evelyn than of William, and she will certainly have made clear how important it is that he does not blow their secret.
“But you weren’t there?”
“No, I wasn’t. I was called to attend after it happened.”
“Did you know Stede Bonnet before he died?” William’s questions seem clipped, fast, like he’s planned this interaction carefully in advance.
“I knew him in passing. We were not close associates but he was a good man.”
“Knew him enough to recognise him?”
“Absolutely.
“Cause of death?”
“His skull was crushed. Could’ve been the carriage, could’ve been the piano.”
Mary thinks it is a little like watching a tennis match. William fires off questions and Melvin answers them as quickly as he can.
“How d’you recognise a man with a crushed skull?” William asks.
“I’d rather not get into that in front of his widow, sir.”
“Mm. His widow and her painting instructor.”
“Now, that’s quite enough!” Evelyn snaps. “I don’t know what sort of nonsense Stede Bonnet was mixed up in while he was away, but I will not have you putting Mary through anything more than she has already been unfortunate enough to endure, and I will certainly not have you making any implications of impropriety on her part!”
Mary tenses. She sees William’s hand fly to his belt as if on instinct, and then still. He looks down at his feet and scuffs the heel of his boot against the carpet.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“It can be hard to accept loss,” Doug says gently. He’s resting his hand at Mary’s lower back, a small comfort of warm pressure. He looks at her for a moment and Mary nods, go on. “When my mother passed, I felt for a very long time that it didn’t make sense, that there must’ve been a mistake. It was sudden, and it didn’t feel like the world was ready for her to be gone yet. It took me quite a while to feel it was real.”
William nods, still looking down at his feet. Mary can see him in profile from where she is seated; his brows are drawn together, eyes closed, lashes resting soft and gentle on his cheek. Where before he had looked boyish, this shifting sand of a man is now bone weary, like his joints will pop and crack and his tendons will rip if he moves from this place.
“William,” Mary says, and she leans forward to place a comforting hand on his knee. She feels the muscle of his leg twitch with surprise at her touch, almost a flinch. “We all miss him very much, but Stede is gone. You can ask people in the town, ask the minister, go to the town office and ask for a copy of the death certificate - Stede is not here any more.”
It’s not a lie. But it cannot be safe to tell the whole truth.
As broken as he looks, Mary cannot know who this man is. Cannot know if he is for real, cannot, will not, risk Stede’s life because someone she doesn’t know looks sad . Because she feels sorry for a stranger. She grits her teeth for a moment and shoots Doug a look.
“Would you like to stay for lunch?” Doug asks.
For fuck’s sake .
“Maybe,” William answers.
Evelyn and Melvin make their excuses. Mary shows them out while Doug shows William to a washroom to freshen up for a minute. Evvie corners Mary on the porch, pulling the front door shut behind them.
“Shall we fetch the town guard?” Evelyn asks. “That man is clearly a pirate. The hair. The tattoos. It’s quite the look but you can’t trust him.”
“I don’t know. I mean, yes, he’s a pirate. But I don’t think we need the guard. He seems - sad?”
Evelyn raises judgmental eyebrows.
“I know! It wasn’t my idea to ask him to stay for lunch! I could kill Doug. But I don’t think he’s going to harm us.”
“Mm. Well, take care, Mary. And take this, just in case.” Evelyn reaches into her handbag and passes Mary an elegant, wooden handled knife.
Evelyn demonstrates the knife, folding the blade along a hinge into its wooden casing and out again. Mary sees the sun gleam on the metal, and its sharp-edge is so fine as to almost be invisible to her eye. She folds it again and presses it firmly into Mary’s hand, clasping it in a squeeze.
“Be careful. Keep it on you, just in case.”
“He’ll be gone soon, Evvie,” Mary promises. “We’ll be careful.”
Mary secrets the knife in the pocket of her skirt and returns inside. Doug tells her that William is still in the washroom down the hall, and profusely apologises for inviting him to stay for lunch. It is in Doug’s nature to be as kind as possible, Mary knows, and unfortunately that instinct rather took him over when the man was looking so morose.
“I really think that he might be Ed,” Doug says, eyeing the hall to the bathroom, making sure they’re still alone enough to talk freely.
“I know, I know,” Mary says. “But what if he’s not? I asked him if he knew an Ed, he was evasive about it. He could be anyone, he could be looking for Stede because he means him harm.”
“He just seemed so sad.”
“I know! But he could be putting it on, and if he’s genuinely a friend, it’s still not our place. We agreed with Stede; we all stick to the story no matter what, to everyone. It’s for his safety and for ours.”
“You know if he is Ed, Stede would want you to tell him,” Doug says.
“And if he told me he was bloody Ed I would tell him! But he’s saying he’s William, and I can’t just take a punt on it, can I?”
Doug turns soft, sad eyes on her, as if to say “but what if?” again, and Mary feels it right in her chest. She’s as much of a romantic as he is at heart, but Christ, this is a tightrope walk. “Fine, I know, alright. I’ll ask him about Ed again while we eat and then we’ll see.”
Doug smiles and gives Mary a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll put some lunch together.”
While Doug goes to the kitchen, Mary pats the knife in her pocket and walks down the hall to the washroom. William has been in there a while now. She raises her hand to knock, to ask if he is ok, but pauses as she hears a muffled sniffling, then a high-pitched catch like a choked off sob. She’s paralysed for a moment, entirely unsure how to handle a pirate crying in her washroom over a man who isn’t really dead. There’s a low rumble as though he’s talking to himself, then another pained sound.
The door flies open and Mary nearly jumps out of her skin. “Oh, I, sorry! I was just coming to check if you’re okay.”
He is very clearly not okay. His eyes are red, the lids puffy. His skin is blotchy and wet and there’s a tiny spot of blood on his lip as though he’s bitten it, hard.
“M’fine. Might skip lunch. Thanks though.”
“Wait, wait, please, William - are you - I thought I heard you crying?”
He shrugs his shoulders and sniffs. “Nah, not me. Maybe you’ve got a bear in your garden? D’you get bears in Barbados?”
“No.”
“Huh. Curious. Well, bye.”
He turns and bolts down the hall, leaving Mary’s hand outstretched in a futile effort to grasp his arm. She repeats his name, but he’s already slamming the front door behind him.
Mary stews in uncomfortable guilt for the rest of the day.
The knock early the following morning is almost a relief. Mary had been listening intently for the door all the previous afternoon and evening, even got up twice to check on phantom knocking that she hadn’t really heard. She reread Stede’s letters before bed.
Today, William is a broken man on her porch. His skin looks painful, raw and dry from the salt of tears. His hair is untied and tangled, waves and curls tossed haphazard framing empty eyes. He’s smaller today, as though holding himself upright is hurting. When she swings the door open, releasing a sigh of relief that he came back at all, he looks at her as though he’s staring through thick fog. He’s barely there at all; it feels like his long shadow in the morning light has more substance than he does.
“Say I did know Ed. What message would you want to get to him?”
“I’d tell him,” Mary starts, then she stops. She takes a deep, steadying breath. “I think he should know that Stede felt very strongly for him. That he was important to him. And that Stede was sorry, that he deeply regretted leaving the way he did.”
William speaks in the softest, smallest of voices Mary thinks she has ever heard from a grown man. “Stede told you that?”
Mary nods and slowly moves to lay her hand on his arm. He flinches away, more suddenly, more harshly than when she touched his knee yesterday, as though her touch has burned him. Mary opens her mouth to apologise and his face crumbles, eyes squeezing shut, mouth twisting, and a sob escapes him as he tries to haul in a desperate breath of air. Tears escape past his lashes and tumble down his cheeks as he makes another sound, a quiet whine from the back of his throat, like his airways are slamming closed in the onslaught of emotion.
“You’re Ed, aren’t you?” It’s not really a question anymore.
“Maybe. Yeah.”
“Come inside, quick now,” Mary tells him, and she swings the door wide, steps back. “Let’s go to the drawing room, we need to talk.”
Mary eyes him carefully as he follows, not confident he will remain on his feet the few necessary steps. He’s hollow. She didn’t know, couldn’t have known, but God what she has put this man through. She guides him to the sofa, the same seat he took yesterday, and he folds in on himself immediately, shoulders shaking.
“You need to understand, when you arrived, I didn’t know who you were and you gave me a fake name. Stede never described what you looked like, and when I asked about Ed you didn’t give me anything to work with,” Mary begins, trying to explain her coldness.
He - Ed - waves his hand, brushing off the apology she is building to. He makes a noise which may be a question, or may simply be more sounds of a man shattering to pieces in front of her.
Mary has to do this. “Ed, he’s alive. Stede didn’t die.”
His head snaps up so fast she thinks it must hurt him, and he stares dead into her eyes. “What?”
“He’s still alive. His death was a fake, he faked it.”
His hands are trembling in his lap. “If you’re fucking with me-”
“I’m not, I promise. I had to know who you were, before it was safe to tell you,” Mary tries to explain.
The tremor of Ed’s hands spreads throughout his body until he’s shivering, crying openly as he looks at her, holding his arms around his waist like he’s trying to keep all his broken parts together. His deep brown eyes are magnified by the gathered weight of tears, but Mary could swear she sees the mist lifting from his gaze.
“Why did he…?”
“Oh, Ed. So he could go home, to you.”
Mary sits with Ed as his sobbing subsides, as the shake in him stills, and then she stands. “Would you like to see his letters?”
Dear Mary,
I hope you and the children are well. I am sorry it has taken so long to write. There were some unexpected hitches in my plan, and locating my ship is taking rather longer than anticipated. I have commandeered a temporary vessel though and I have much of my old crew with me! I’m sure we will track Ed down any day now! The wind is in our favour.
We’ve recently been to Nassau, which was bracing, and I will have many stories for Alma and Louis (when they get older of course!)
I hope Doug is well and your art continues to flourish. You should hold another showing.
Tell the children I love them.
-S.
Dear Mary,
Santo Domingo is really a rather lovely place. Good sea views.
I think it is clear to me now that I make a habit of underestimating how much I hurt those I care for. I didn’t think of what it would mean to you and the children when I left the first time, and I didn’t think of what it would mean to Ed when I came back to Bridgetown to fix my own mistakes for once.
I’m still looking for Ed. I cannot stand to get into the details here. I’m angry with him and with myself, but it’s become apparent I have hurt him dreadfully. I will never forgive myself if I cannot find him to explain myself, if he’ll be willing to hear me out. He would be within his rights to refuse to do so, I would think. But still, I hope.
In some ways, luck has been on my side. My crew are all safe and well, after a few trials and tribulations. Perhaps that luck will extend to helping me find him.
I have enclosed a letter especially for Alma and Louis, if you would be so kind as to share it with them. I have made an effort to keep my stories age-appropriate, as discussed! There is still some fun stuff though!
My best wishes to you and Doug.
- S
Mary,
Despite the handwriting, it is I! I had a minor altercation which resulted in some light damage to my hand, so my scribe is very kindly assisting in writing this for you. I am assured my hand will heal fine with a few weeks’ rest, and that I will be left with a rather fetching scar. This is just a short note to confirm my safety under the circumstances; I didn’t want you to worry if I left you too long without any letter at all.
Has Doug ever been to Curacao? I feel I recall him mentioning it once. I met some lovely travelling artists from there, they reminded me of the both of you.
No sign of E yet. I will keep looking, and looking, and looking.
- S
Mary,
I’ve fucked everything up. I never told you about how I left Ed, about precisely what I had done. I was so overwhelmingly happy to realise how I felt, and to realise there was a way back to him. It was only when I was back at sea that the reality of my own actions and their consequences began to set in.
Please don’t feel obligated to read this. But I cannot find him to tell him, and I must tell someone. My crew rather understandably do not want to hear it, given the consequences my - and subsequently his - behaviour had for them.
We made plans to leave together, and I abandoned him. I was scared and cowardly, as you know all too well I can be at the worst possible times. I didn’t know what I felt then was love, but I think he did. I was such a fool. I’ve hurt him so terribly. I didn’t even tell him I was leaving. Mary, I was so cruel. So stupid.
I may not have seen him since but I’ve spoken with enough people who have to know that I have quite possibly ruined any chance of him ever wanting to see me again. It seems he has, for a time at least, been cruel in return. His crimes feel like mine, some days; I treated such important things as worthless and he has followed my lead. I am so angry with him and I miss him so much.
Tomorrow marks 6 months since I saw him last.
I keep wondering how long he waited for me. When I close my eyes I see him sitting at a dock alone. Mary, I love him and I am beginning to fear I will never have the opportunity to tell him so.
I will keep looking until the end of my days. Even if only to have a moment to tell him how sorry I am. Even if he wouldn’t let me talk at all, just to lay my eyes on him, or hear my name in his voice again. Even if he can only ever say it with anger now.
I understand that I shouldn’t put this on you. I will be fine, do not feel you need to comfort me. I just needed to tell someone. I love him. I wish I could say it to him. I love him. It is beginning to hurt to not say it in every breath. Even if he hates me now and for always, my greatest wish would be for him to know I love him. Now and for always.
S.
Mary watches him read. He progresses slowly through the words, though whether that is because reading is hard for him or because he wants to savour each one, she can’t say.
Perhaps it is both. He traces his fingers around the edges of each sheet of paper. He rests his thumb on the ‘S’ at the end of each before he turns to the next. A cavalcade of emotions play across his face.
He is quiet for a long time once he finishes reading. His eyes glitter with something new. Still a pain, Mary can see, but different.
“Do you know where he is now? How do you write back?” Ed asks.
“If he mentions a place, that’s where he’s going next. Even if the letter says he’s already been,” Mary says. “I send a letter to the postmaster of whichever town he mentions, on a false name, and he collects it when he arrives.”
“There’s no place in the last letter.”
“Ah, I think he - I think he may have been a little too upset to weave it in on that one. Turn it over.”
Scrawled on the back in a hasty, sloppy hand, is Ocracoke .
“Fuck,” Ed hisses. “Can you - can I send a letter there?”
“Of course,” Mary says. She gathers some paper and a quill, sets them down before him.
He shakes his head, staring at the blank page. “I can’t - ” The thick choke to his voice is returning.
“How about I give you some privacy to think about it?” Mary asks. “I’ll go and see to the children for a while.”
By the time Mary returns, Ed is sitting on the floor with torn and crumpled paper strewn about him. Some looks to be filled with writing, thick black lines and curves bleeding like oil over the pages. Others have only a word or two, ripped through with angry scars of ink.
There is a single page clasped in his hands. The creak of the door alerts him to her presence and he looks up as if broken from a dream.
“Just send this,” he says.
Wait for me.
- Ed