The beginning of the end

Ava's journals, loose pages, maps drawn over in coloured pencils, dried daisies, dried violets, dried bluebells, steeped, misshapen found at the bottom of a nightmare house upon a shocking mountaintop in Vermont. "America was built from the bottom up girl" some simpleton whispers to me smelling of scotch and cavities. The barman tried to feel me up on my way to the washroom that cold afternoon when I needed to gather some strength after flying in from Europe. It didn't matter. I had arrived, I had some answers and the story was even more sordid than I could have imagined. 

America was home yes, America was home but did it have to feel so vile? Now that Paul was finished and I could lick my wounds and move on, I had to ask myself if all my life I'll be chasing one disappointment after another. What was the steadfast fervour that had filled Adam's heart when he left England? How did Ada die? Why did she have to die? Why do need to move on after the worst has happened? 

London - 

The snow is so cold. I touch a tiny pyramid of it heaped loosely on top of some bushes. There is a fog that appears altogether cloudy as I breathe out into the city dusk. I can't quite remember the last time I have felt such excitement. He touched my hand. Outside Trafalgar Square, he touched my hand.

Ada and I were meant to catch the last train back home but we just couldn't leave the boys on a night like tonight. They were playing music inside St. Martin-In-The-Fields and it echoed all the way to the Execution of Lady Jane Grey. 

Jocey - 

I watch him cross the street that dusty morning. He is shading his eyes with his left hand and he is quite handsome. Devilish handsome. Not boyish handsome. Not classically handsome. Handsome in the way that smart men are handsome. Smart men who know this world and have grown weary but their spirits are quick so they hang onto this life and twist and fashion it in their hands until they've made some impact. 
 Mama has said to me Joce you gotta look past the small things and take in the whole picture as if that man were a mountain. Does he beckon you? Does he mesmerise you? 
Yes, mama. He mesmerises me. 

In fact, he had heaps of money. 


*
Jocelyn, I'll never let you go. I'm here beside you. 
Heaps of money. Heaps of money. Heaps of heart. 
Heaps of my heart ripped from his. 

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,   How little that which thou deniest me is;   It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;   Thou know’st that this cannot be saidA sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,    Yet this enjoys before it woo,    And pampered swells with one blood made of two,    And this, alas, is more than we would do. (The Flea, J. Donne)

That a man greater than Shakespeare spoke of our love, mama. I had recited this bit to her one Christmas morning after a savage fight with daddy. She sat there crying in the bedroom at her beautiful vanity of the years lost, of the years ahead. 

Donne got it done. John Donne.

J O H N D O N N E

She didn't get it. But then, maybe she did. She changed the bedsheets that very morning.