Here's the second chapter of this piece, which I am close to completing at this point. One thing I'll say at this point is that I found Pat as portrayed in the novel to be less intelligent than in the film, and my take is to play up the "slow" angle. For writing his lines, I have stuck pretty close to what I would do for a long-running original character who is possibly even more prone to misguided optimism.
Dear Tommy,
I can't believe I let Pat talk me into this. He's my new husband, we've known each other two years now, and I'll tell you more about him. The kicker is, he offered to deliver it. I'm sure he's going to read it. I just hope he doesn't pretend to be you writing back. Forgery's hard, I would know. I didn't do it well, and he still fell for it. My biggest problem with this is, I never felt sure about the afterlife, and I always figured, if there's anything at all on the other side, why would the people there give a rat's cock what we want to say back here? Still, I think I can manage pretending.
If there's anything I want to say, it's that I still miss you SO MUCH. Pat is wonderful, and there are times when I feel happier with him than I did with you. Lately, I don't even feel guilty thinking it. There are so many good things I do with him that we never did. Dancing, which I took up in place of our old self-defense training. Babysitting Veronica's baby girl Emily. Watching clouds. I have even gone to a couple Eagles games. We would never have done all of that, and we weren't doing much of anything toward the end, were we? But mostly, he and you are just different. No matter how much good Pat does for me, he could never give me everything you did, any more than you could have given me everything he does. It's apples and oranges, I guess. Or, I can't help thinking of something cheesy Pat says all the time, Alien and Aliens, which to him means two things that are really good but too different to say which is better. Goddammit, it works.
One thing about me and Pat is, he's pretty old-fashioned and a little inhibited about making love. For one thing, he always calls it love-making. Also, he wouldn't do anything until we were married; he said it's what the Bible says, and it would make things special for me. It did, too, though we didn't wait very long. He's still pretty shy. We don't touch each other casually a lot, because he's very sensitive. When he tries to start, he comes to me and says things like, "I want to," or "Do you want to?", and I'll tease him, "Want to what, Pat? Want to what?" We also set quite a few boundaries. We don't do things that have significance from our previous marriages, which for me includes anything in the dining room. We also don't make love after fights. At first, we actually tried that after every fight, and we had to quit because we ended up fighting too much. Now, one of us will just say, "Apart time," and then we stop talking for a while, and we don't do anything physical through the night. It might sound weird, especially for me, but there's an equilibrium you and I never got to, and I like it.
Another thing about Pat is that he loves kids, and they love him. He adores Emily, and that was enough to convince him he wanted some for himself, even before he wanted me. I talked him into keeping that off the table till our first anniversary, and made out like I needed the time to think about it, but there was never any doubt in my mind what I wanted. Now I'm finally going to be a mother, and I'm very happy about it. I'm taking good care of myself for the baby, and for Pat, I'm even trying to give up the f-word, though I think it's effin' ridiculous. I would like to think we would have gotten here, if we'd had the time. But the fact is, I did think about it a lot, and I just couldn't ever see you rising to the occasion. You were great at being buddies with the high school kids, and I suppose that was what got you thinking about it. But we both knew it would take a lot more than that to raise our own kids. Now, I can see that's the real reason I kept saying no.
It helps to be able to think about these things now, but it doesn't really fix how I feel. I still remember the last morning, I can't help thinking of it as our last fight, even if we didn't raise our voices. I still see you, every day, not even getting mad, but just looking sadder and sadder, and so quiet I can't even tell if you're registering what I'm saying. That memory still tears my heart out, more than being told you were dying, even more than when your buddies stopped me from seeing you. I can't stop thinking, you died believing I was never going to give you a son, and maybe didn't even want you anymore. I can't help feeling, it's my fault you're gone, and if there's anywhere to go, you must hate me.
If you're there, I'm sorry for laying this on you, but it's what I feel and I need to say it. And I guess I need to apologize for what I said at the start. I don't know what happens over there, but I know you. You always cared about me, you always cared about people period, and nothing could ever change that. So if you're out there at all, I know you still care, and you want the best for me. That's why I'm doing this, for you and for me.
Love always,
Tiffy