Epilogue
Guilia’s Story
I refrained from the instinct to wipe the tears from my eyes.
Before me was Memaw’s bedroom. Just down the hall.
It was a bright sunny day, and Memaw sat in her old bent wood rocking chair very close to and facing her full-length mirror.
The brooch was pinned to the front of her white blouse so that it was also in plain view.
This way, she could look directly into the mirror, and it would seem to me that she was looking into my eyes and speaking directly to me. And she was.
“My sweet Lewie! If you are seeing this, then you caught all of my little clues.
I know this ordeal has probably been difficult for you to discover that your memaw had done such an awful thing, but I wanted to look you in the eyes and explain, so that maybe, in the end, you would begin to understand my perspective of the events surrounding the disappearance of my husband, John Robert.
I couldn’t die without telling you everything that happened, and I know I am not sick right now, but I am not a young person, so I need to get this off my chest now while I am able.
You can decide whether to tell my Claire everything after you hear all of it.
There is a lot to tell, so I guess I should start from the very beginning.
As you know, my parents were Sally and Edward Jenkins.
They had two children, David Alan Jenkins and me, Guilia Diane Jenkins.
David was born in 1939, and I was born in 1942.
David and I were very close. He was quite protective of me when we were coming up.
I think he may have shared the gift you and I share, but he never came right out and said it, only hints and small instructions.
He knew all about it, and he was the one who helped me learn to calm my mind and turn it all down so I could function. What he taught me, I taught you.
My mother did not work outside the home.
Not because my father forbade it, but the times were such that women just didn’t.
My father had been afflicted with polio as a child, and it left him with a permanent limp and weakness in his legs, so he was exempt from the draft during the Second World War, but he served his country by organizing metal drives, was an air raid warden, and worked on the draft board.
He was very proud of that service during the war.
He organized ‘Homecoming Parties’ whenever a soldier came home, and made sure that any family that lost a soldier would receive a care package of a month’s worth of food to help ease at least a little worry about meals while grieving.
My father was a very respected man who served on the town council for more than 30 years.
He may have been of small stature and walked with a limp, but other men listened to him when he spoke, and they valued his opinion.
So much, I wish that you’d been able to know them and my brother. They were all amazing people.
Now, Lewie, I don’t want to bore you with seemingly uninteresting family history, but I think it is important for you to understand how I was raised.
David and I used to joke that our parents were the most disappointed parents in the world to have us as children.
David, with his below-board dealings around town and beyond, and me being the ever-loyal beaten wife with no self-worth or self-respect.
Don’t disagree with me. I was exactly that, but I gradually got out of it.
When I was 16, I met the most handsome boy I had ever seen.
He was the gas jockey at Speedy’s, just out past the city limit.
The gas jockey was the boy who pumped your gas, cleaned your windshield, and checked your oil at a full-service gas station.
He had a smile that would melt sugar and a deep speaking voice like Elvis.
He came up to Daddy’s car when we pulled in, and I nearly swallowed my gum.
I started trying to invent reasons to go there.
He was a little older than me, just by two years.
He lived in the small kitchenette above the garage, so he was always working.
Old Tom, who owned the place, had taken him under his wing and was teaching him the business after his parents were killed in a car accident.
I think John Robert was his great-nephew or something like that.
Anyway, we started spending more and more time together, and eventually he asked me to go steady.
I shouldn’t have to explain this to you, but going steady was when the boy asked the girl if she would go out only with him. It was 1958.
Anyway, this is going to be five hours long if I don’t get on with it, so, needless to say, we end up married after what seemed like a normal dating life after two years; it was 1960.
We hadn’t even lived in the same house for two weeks after the wedding when he hit me for the first time after I dropped a glass and broke it.
I was so stunned, I didn’t know how to react.
I was sad, angry, mortified, but mostly dumbfounded.
He came back later and said that he was sorry, but if I hadn’t been so clumsy, he wouldn’t have been set off.
I ended up apologizing to him and promising to be more careful.
I learned fast to walk on eggshells around him.
We ate when he said, we watched TV when he said, I kept an immaculate house, and learned to cook his favorite meals, we had sex when he said, and saying no was not an option.
There were many times when he forced himself on me, and if I fought him, I would end up with a split lip instead of just bruises on my inner thighs.
How I lasted for as long as I did is amazing.
He had two or three girlfriends at any given time, and the first time I found out, we got into a horrible fight.
That black eye was bad but manageable. I couldn’t figure out how the wonderful man I had married had turned into such a monster in such a short time.
I just didn’t realize that he had really been that monster all along; initially, he was just really good at hiding it.
When I told him I was pregnant, he told me to “get rid of it”.
We had been married for three years when I found out, and he was so damn mean about it.
When I protested and said that it was illegal, he said he could do it easily.
But fortunately, he never did anything to me while I was pregnant.
I thought even he had his limits, but that was tested later on.
The most he ever did while I was pregnant was slap me across the face, and that was bad enough.
He never asked about the baby, never visited me in the hospital when I had Claire, and never called her by her name.
Never really acknowledged her existence with anything more than a grunt and only ever called her ‘the girl’ up until he was gone.
There was only one time that he spoke to her directly, that I know about, and it was the last time he ever spoke to her.
When Claire was five, we got into a horrible fight over absolutely nothing.
I think I didn’t get a piece of silverware clean enough for him, or something equally stupid.
He slapped me across the face, and I had just had it, and I punched him in the mouth as hard as I could and pushed him.
He was not expecting that. I ran as fast as I could out the front door, grabbed Claire from the front porch swing, shoved her into the car, and tore out of here and went to my parents’ house.
I had never fought back before, and it took him by surprise.
My dad was on a hunting trip with his best friend, but my brother, David, was there with my mother.
My mother cleaned me up while David entertained Claire.
Claire had fallen asleep in my old bedroom when we heard tires crunching in the driveway.
John Robert was there. David stuck his head in the bedroom and said, ‘Stay here, I’ll take care of this.
’ I asked David not to do anything stupid, but he just smiled.
David loved fighting. He hung out with the people he did because he loved to fight so much.
I never knew what was said between them.
I know that David hit him, and John Robert didn’t hit him back, but I don’t know the specifics.
Anyway, John Robert came into the house and told me to get the girl and come home.
I don’t know why I did. I guess I felt I would be a burden to my parents if I moved myself and Claire back into their house.
Plus, I was embarrassed. I had a horrible marriage to a horrible man, and no prospects to do anything with my life.
After my father got back from his hunting trip, he secretly transferred the house John Robert and I were living in into my name.
My parents owned some rental properties for extra income and had offered this house and property to us when we got married.
The rent was cheaper than anything else, and John Robert didn’t make enough money to afford a mortgage, so we took it.
Truth be told, Dad cut us a huge deal on the rent.
Back then, my parents could have gotten $50 to $70 a month for 9 acres and a house.
Daddy only charged us $25 a month. I didn’t find out about the deed transfer until after John Robert was gone.
It wouldn’t have mattered really. I would have gotten it after they passed anyway, but…
where was I? My goodness, my memory. She touched her forehead with those sweet hands.