"Take your hands off of her
She's the only one I have ever
loved."
You're old enough to know the truth. You're at that age where everything is showing itself to you in a new way. I want to be apart of that because I've lived long enough to see many things.
I've seen pain. I've seen death and gore. Most importantly I've known love and the heartbreak that always walks hand in hand with it. You need to understand what love is and how to handle it. With it comes a pain that changes you forever...
This story isn't about your grandmother. No, no. I loved her deeply. More than I can explain, but there was one person before her that showed me what love was. She was love. That's the only way I can explain how it felt to be with her. I was never the same after she left. I could only love your grandmother with what was left.
This woman's name was Alice. She never gave me a last name, as ridiculous as that may be it didn't matter. When I asked all she would say is "what's in a name?". That's what I liked about her. Nothing was concrete.
She had black spiky hair and pale skin as cold as snow. Her eyes were red as dried blood due to some eye condition. Alice had the grace of a cat, I swear. Every time she took a step it was like a dance. I just loved to watch her.
When I first met her I was eighteen years old. It was 1961, the decade of love. It wasn't that way in the south though so I moved to California. That's where everything was going on really. The festivals and the parties were like nothing you'll ever experience in this decade.
We ran into each other on my way home from a party. I had big hair and the fashions of the time. She looked like a little pixie from the cartoons. So small and bubbling with energy. I like to think I fell in love with her instantly. I also like to think it was fate.
It started from nothing. One chance encounter led to an ache that still hasn't gone away in my old age. One bump of a shoulder led to this lesson I'm giving you now. I wish sometimes I could travel back in time to keep her from leaving. To beg harder, to weep more intensely in her arms. Maybe then she would have stayed.
Alice and I were friends first and lovers second. We could talk until morning or lie together staring at the twinkling stars silently until they fade away into morning. Those moments are what haunt me more than the labored breaths and slick tongues.
Our relationship was never defined. That doesn't make a relationship nonexistent. Back in my time things didn't have to be written out to be real. I know what we had was real deep in my aching soul. When I dream of her eyes like I have for over forty years I still feel the same.
She only shared five years with me. Five precious years that I would never say were wasted, even though she left me. Never say that any relationship was a waste. Each one teaches a lesson and makes you better in some way.
Alice made me feel more than I ever have in my life. She made me see life in an entirely different way. She showed me that life is not concrete. That every choice you make changes something in the future. The butterfly effect, if you will. She showed me this by just being with me.
If I hadn't bumped into Alice that one dark night, nothing in my life would've been the same. I've imagined it in mind. Walking past her and seeing her bright smile as danced on past me. Me smiling back in confusion at the giddy woman. I like to think that I would've still been drawn to her.
I'm sure you're wondering what any of this has to do with anything so let me get to the meat of it.
It was a cold and dark night when Alice came to tell me she was leaving. I remember the pitch of her voice, the tears in her eyes that never fell. The tense set of her shoulders and the lifelessness of her hair. I remember every single word in detail because that was the first time I died.
There was a knock on my door at 2 a.m. It could only be one person. My little Alice, the light of my life. She only ever came at night and I understood why. But, she hadn't came over in a while which scared me.
I opened the door to see Alice standing at the bottom of the stairs. She looked haunted like she'd seen something that made her feel horrid. She probably had. Alice could see so much more.
"Alice, is everything alright," I asked hesitantly. I felt a bad feeling in my stomach as she looked up at me. I saw something I didn't like at all. I knew then my life wouldn't be the same.
"No."
Such a simple word but so impactful. Everything that could possibly go wrong went through my mind in seconds. My heart jumped into overdrive as the anxiety flared inside me.
I closed my door and came to stand in front of her. I didn't dare touch her lest she run away. She looked so troubled.
"I have to leave," she whispered. Just those four words. Burned into my memory forever and ever. I began to panic immediately.
"Why? How? Is it me?"
"No. I just have to go and..I can't come back. I'm sorry," she rasped, on the verge of sobbing.
My heart shattered into a million peices. Just the other day I was imagining a life with Alice. The white picket fence and the house. The children and grandchildren running around. A garden with daffodils and white roses. Alice's favorite.
Now all I see is pain. Isolation. Brokeness.
She looked into my eyes and wrapped her arms around me as I cried and begged. My tears soaked into her expensive, pink blouse. I hoped they stayed forever as a reminder of me. That maybe peices of my heart were falling onto her as well.
"There is nothing we can do to change this. This time, it's definite."
She kissed me one last time. Her small lips swallowed by own with tears leaking onto her porcelain skin. When she broke away from me she took something away from me. I could almost hear an audible crack.
I watched the most important pieces of me trail on the ground as she walked away. I wanted to follow more than anything but she was gone with the wind. Only her words left to spill into my empty chest like blood. In her absence I became a silhouette.
Dark was the night, and cold was the ground when my Alice killed me. When she lowered my broken body in the dirt.
It hurt, yes. What was worse is I never saw her again. Only in dreams is Alice mine for eternity. Only in my battered mind do I ever see her in the corner of my eye.
But, there is a lesson in this. I would gladly do it again.
I realized that love is not being with someone forever. It is being able to set them free and not ever holding them back. I wanted her to stay, yes, but I did not curse her when she didn't. I wanted her to be happy and safe. To see the world and all of its wonders even if I wasn't beside her.
If you ever love someone, don't make them a prisoner. Set them free. That, in itself, is the essence of love. To watch the one you love become who they are meant to be without chains or shackles holding them back.
Never let yourself be the shackles.
Love,
Grandma.
I clicked send on the computer with tears in my eyes. My grandson was writing a paper for school and needed my input. It was the meaning of love from the perspective of an elder. I hated the word but I obliged anyway. I finally got to tell some of my story.
Of course I couldn't tell him about my Alice being a vampire or that she had visions. He'd probably accuse me of having dementia. The way I've been feeling theses days, I might. I keep feeling like something is coming. Or someone.
I walk to to the kitchen to get a cup of tea when there's a knock on the door. I'm confused because no one ever comes to see me anymore. Most of my family have better things to do then come and see old granny.
I walk to the door and open it slowly. My frail heart beats faster than it has in years.
"Molly?"
Alice looks the same. I should've guessed she would from what I knew but I couldn't fathom how striking it would be. After all these years, Alice still looks like a goddess among peasants. The feelings she once evoked come back in waves but somehow I wasn't surprised. It felt like she never left.
"Yes, it's me," I said, breathlessly. By her side is a man with blonde hair. I faintly wonder who he is but his arm around her tells me all I need to know. I smile at them as the melancholy sets in. Of course she'd bring someone.
Alice looks like she wants to cry. She steps toward me hesitantly like a sudden move with send me toppling over. I smile at her cautiousness.
"Why don't you two come on in?"
We sit on the couch silently, just staring at each other. Jasper, the blonde man, is silent but not unkind. I have a feeling he knows just how important this moment is for us. How connected we are.
"You're eighty one today," she said, looking at the pictures that lie on my coffee table. I nod and smile. I had forgotten it was my birthday. That explains the letters I received in the mail. I hadn't even thought to open them.
"What's in a number?"
Alice looked me in the eye and smiled. It was haunted with memories of a time much simpler. Of a love that hadn't vanished in the sea of time. I could feel it hitting me in waves now. It's crazy how some things never change.
"You married. You even had children," Alice said, picking up a picture of me and my late wife. She looked happy but sad at the same time. I understood but I looked away pained. My wife's death was not something I had the chance to get over.
"She died a year back. We had five children together with a surrogate. I have eleven grandchildren," I said, casually. Alice looked at me with wide eyes glistening. I noticed they were golden now. She'd changed even more than I thought. "How have you been?"
She sat the picture down slower then normal and looked at her husband. I noticed the ring on her finger the second she sat on my couch.
"So much has happened. I found Jasper and we found a family of animal feeders that took us in. That's why my eyes are golden," she gushed. I nodded along with her words, a bit irritated. Jasper caught my eye and looked at me oddly. I turned back to her with a soft look.
"You know what I meant Alice."
Her expression turned sullen. She knew what I asked was deeper. I wanted to know why it was that she left. Though I didn't regret her leaving, I wanted to know what she saw. What was so important for her to vanish.
"I had visions of Jasper from the moment I woke up from the change. I saw you too but the visions of him never stopped," she explained. I could hear the pain in her voice. It was soul shattering. "He's my mate. My true mate."
For some reason I felt sick at the thought of that. Of Alice seeing someone else while being with me. It made me rethink everything that I thought was true.
"Thank you for telling me the truth," I said, smiling. It wasn't real I could tell that she knew. I rubbed my aching hands to relieve the soreness that never stopped. It was like the one in my chest. "It was nice seeing you again, Alice. Pleasure to have met you Jasper."
She looked hurt at my obvious dismissal. I just couldn't handle having her here anymore. I felt like I betrayed my grandson now. Love is pain. That's all it is. A nuisance that finds you in a time where you're vulnerable enough to catch the virus.
And there's no damned cure.
When they left I locked the door and sat on the couch where Alice had. It was cold. I was cold. I looked the my left and noticed a white note on behind a pillow. It had my name on the front in Alice's handwriting.
I opened it hesitantly, wondering what lie ahead for me to read. I put my glasses on to see the tiny words. My old eyes had long since give out. To my surprise, the paper was aged heavily.
Dear Molly Ann Johnson,
I think about you every second of the day, every day of every year, and all that haven't even come yet. There is nothing for me to say but I am sorry. That I love you and have since you ran into me that night. That life is not fair and love is cruel. That there were places where I was needed but I always needed you. I hope you can forgive me. I hope I can forgive myself for what I did to you. Please live.
Love,
Your Alice
July 6th, 1971
I clutched the letter to my heart with tears forming. She hadn't forgotten me all those years ago. She'd written to me, no matter if she kept them. I sighed at the feelings the letter evoked.
Time went on and so did the letters. They came by mail every day. Sometimes their were more than one. Sometimes they made me laugh, most times they made me cry.
I never got to finish the last one, though. She wrote on the back of the envelope that she found it in the Asylum. That right there should've have told me not to read it.
My body decided it was time to return to whence it came. My old brittle heart finally gave out on me like I always knew it would. After so many years of strain and aching it had had enough. It was only right that Alice kill me a second time. My eldest daughter found me with it on my kitchen floor, clutched to my chest.
Dear Molly Ann Johnson,
Do you remember when we saw those flowers in your mom's garden? We were so awed at them like they were so much more than just plants. We went to pick one and your mom stopped us. She said, "If you like a flower you don't pluck it out, you water it. You give it life."
That stuck with me because that's how I felt about you.
I wanted to give you life but I gave you pain instead. I'm sorry for that, Molly. I can't give you back what I've taken away but I can let you know that you have a piece of me too. You're my white rose. I'll always remember that. I want you to be happy and forget about me. I want you to live and take care of yourself.
It doesn't matter what I want though. None of this has happened yet and you don't know who I am at all. You'll think I'm crazy like the doctors. They say you don't exist but you will. God, you will. They can't erase it from my mind. Not even with their electricity.
Anyway, I feel so very empty without you.
There's no light here.
Love,
Your Alice.
1917
P.s. I'm sorry for what will happen and I love you even though I haven't met you yet.