Joan, 1980
My mother disappeared the day of my father's wedding. She left a note, and all it said was this:
"To my children: Joan, Agnes, Ben, and James, I am very sorry. I love you. To my husband: I am sorry I was never a good wife to you…but I never loved you as I loved him. Forgive me for leaving you like this."
I know she killed herself. We never found a body, and she never said she was taking her life, just that she was leaving, but I know she killed herself. Because if I know anyone, I know my mother, and that is what she would do. What she did.
I used to get a few letters a year from my father. But then his wife…what was her name? Oh, yes, Rosalie, wrote me last year to tell me he died of cancer. He was only sixty-four, and it made me sad that he had never mentioned it to me. I was saddened, for I had been planning a visit for me to take my own children, Ben (named for my brother who died in '68) and Rachel (named for her grandmother), to see their grandfather.
When I was in Canada on a business trip this year, I saw people who looked so like my father and Rosalie I couldn't believe it! But then they were gone, and I scolded myself for being so ridiculous.
For some reason I never told my stepfather or siblings about Emmett. It didn't seem fair to my stepfather, but I also wanted to protect Emmett's privacy. I don't know why, it's just a silly notion I've always had. It's not like he and Rosalie ever had anything to hide!
Emmett, 2000
I received a letter today, forwarded to me from the address I took so I could communicate with my daughter. Rachel Nicole, my granddaughter, wrote and said,
"Dear Grandfather Emmett,
I know you've been dead for a long time, but my mother asked me to do this, and I will. For her. Gosh I feel idiotic. But who will read this? Anyway, my mother died yesterday, June 11, 2000. And she wanted me to tell you that she's known since she met you…since the day Grandmother Rachel killed herself, that there's something special about you but she never, ever told anyone. And that you sure are one son of a gun, hiding that. I know that's really weird, but all of this is weird…I'm writing a note to a dead man saying how weird my mom is. OK. That's all. -----Rachel Nicole"
So my daughter is dead. Rosalie, though she tries to hide it, is ecstatic. My last tie to the human world is gone. But the last part of the note stuns me. Rachel killed herself that day? And Joan knew…she didn't know what she knew, but she knew she knew something. And I find myself chuckling at my daughter's audacity, and smiling proudly at her intelligence. I may not have been a father to her as I would have been had I been human, but she was still mine; half of that intelligence and audacity was mine.
But half was certainly my Rachel's. I felt it safe to call her mine. I loved her, though Rosalie will never understand how I can love both of them at the same time. And for a moment I think of how life would have been, if the bear hadn't attacked. I would probably be dead by now. And then Rosalie is before me, smiling. She loves me, as much as I love her. We would do anything for each other. And I destroy that previous thought, because it is hell to imagine my life without her. Into a dark recess of my mind I shove my most bittersweet memories: the memories of life before Rosalie.