She thought of John as she sat down to write. He would be home soon. As she watched the embers fade to ash she knew she needed to write something. John would never forgive her if she didn’t. But how could she express all the things that would be left unexpressed, how could she say all the things she would never say again? How could she write her soul onto a page, leaving her soul forever in ink, never to feel or love again.
Now there wasn’t much time. And John would be home soon. So many years to remember and live in only the moments left. How to remember them all? How to bring them all with her? Only the good, there was no need for the bad now.
Once when they were young her family took a trip to the zoo. She remembers thinking that if only life could always be the way it was on that day. The excitement and adventure of the wild animals, only kept away by the bars. Even as a girl she felt a strange kinship with the animals, felt like she was living behind bars and that there was so much more life outside of her cage, more than the artificial terrain she walked over and over leaving a rut in the man made ground. But that day she was not trapped. Her father held her hand in one, and her mother’s in his other. Her sister ran up ahead showing them all this animal or that. Everyone had a smile on their face. She would look from one to another and in that moment, she truly believed they were all this happy family, a family that always took a Sunday trip to the zoo, that her father never beat her mother, that her sister wouldn’t soon run away, leaving her all alone with no defense.
That was John at the door.
“Dearest? Why is the door locked?” He would find a way in soon enough. This wasn’t the first time she had tried.
“Please come out so we can talk.” He sounded scared, but there was nothing that could be done now, she had timed it just right.
“Joanie!”
The last sound she heard was love. Her pen slipped from her fingers as the last stroke cursed the page. She had timed it just right.
Dear John,
The time we shared has been the happiest of my life. You saved me, but the pain was too deep to be washed away completely. I know that you will be sad, but I leave with your love in my heart, I leave whole. He cannot get to me now, he wont be able to find me here. He haunted me but now I am free!
Dearest, don’t cry for me.
Love Always,
Joanie
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