#dearhawk

Dear Hawk,

             It would have been so easy to stay. To let you take charge, take care, like you were always so good at. I wanted to. You don't know how I wanted to. A bus ticket after eleven years and I was right back there. We were right back there. Except of course how we weren't.

             I wanted a taste of who you are now — a father, husband. I wanted to know the eleven-year-old version of you that lived on in your son. I watched through the window as you danced in golden light, and in that moment felt such a vicious stab of jealousy I thought I deserved nothing good to ever happen to me again. How was that love, to deny you an obvious source of joy and comfort, just because the source was not me nor mine? When I realized that they, too, were only allowed slivers of you, I didn't know who I felt sorry for more—them or you or me or the whole sorry lot of us together. It put things in perspective. How embarrassing, to be competing with your children for your affection. No matter how much we wanted to pretend that you had room enough for both.

             You think this was a drastic measure to take, even for me. Lock myself up for the next decade, just to keep myself away from you. Let me assuage your guilt and ego both: yes, but only in part. You don't want me to martyr myself to a cause? This is the greatest cause I can think of. I can't be around you without losing myself. I won't be responsible for causing that kind of pain in someone else.

I'm sorry for not saying goodbye.

I'm sorry for saying it wasn't real.

                                   Jan 21, 1969

Skippy,

What did you write me? What does Lucy know, and how long has she known it? At least tell me that, before I humiliate myself confronting her.

Are you blackmailing me into honesty? I’ve never lied to you. Omitted maybe, but never lied. Not about anything important.

Here’s a truth. I turn 50 this year. The last time we saw each other (before the last), I was the same age as you are now, which is unsettling to think about. It feels like an eon has passed, and yet I'm frozen in place.

I keep waiting… for things to start making sense. My life. The choices I’ve made and what they’ve led to. Always in pursuit of that “goal”, and now… not only do I not know what the goal is anymore, but it feels like every single day is a step in the wrong direction. I am treading water. Barely. Seeing you again made that painfully clear.

You asked me once if I liked my life this way, and I thought I had it all figured out. The goal, the plan, the path to freedom. How is it that I'm eleven years ahead of you and still running to catch up?

Skippy. This is the fifth letter I've started. The others were full of misdirection, innuendo and half-truths. Let this be honest enough. You already have me stripped to the bone.

You do know me. I wonder if I ever knew you, or just the person I wanted to see. So much about you surprised me, when we saw each other in November. My memory of you has stayed frozen in my mind. Instead, you’ve changed, you’ve lived, and I’ve found myself cursing those lost years. We've missed so much. We don't have to keep missing it.

Tell me about — anything. Your mentor. How you met. Your time in Seminary. Your life now. What you eat for breakfast and what time you sleep and what you’re reading. I don’t have faith in the prison library, so name something and I’ll send it. I want to know you. Everything about you. I miss you telling me about your family, even if I was too distracted sometimes to listen.

Yours.

H —

If you want me to write back, tell me something true.

(I know you.)

— T

                                                           Jan. 6, 1969

Dear Tim,

             I received your letter today. Somehow it ended up in the pocket of a coat I never wear, so you’ll forgive me for not writing sooner. Alternately, forgive me for writing at all. My mother taught me never to let a letter go unanswered.

             My sister Lucy — she told me you met a couple months back — wanted to spend the holidays somewhere quiet this year, so I joined her and the kids at her house in Bucks County. It’s been uneventful. Lonely. Hunting season has passed, so the men are trapped indoors, making everyone antsy. We had fireworks, to ring in the new year, and I thought of you, and the last time I saw you. And today I found your letter.

             I thought you’d like to know that Jerry is still on the case. Not just for you, but for Father Lawrence and the others, too, working to get your sentences reduced. It’s a long shot, until fervor for the war dies down, but he has ample funds. I’d hate for you to be trapped there longer than you have to be. I don’t know how much access you have to news, but you might be happy to see the extent of the support for your cause. Trying, for those of us entrusted with keeping order.

             In the meantime, I hope that you’re keeping safe. Or, safe enough. If there’s anything you need from the outside world, you’ll tell me. I wish— a lot of things. I let you stay away without writing before. It didn’t work, for either of us. So, write me back. Please. You can address it to me, at the return address.

                           With affection,                            Mary