Sharyn McCrumb: If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

He heard her take a deep breath. “Guilty,” she said without looking up.

“I figured that. But how bad is it?”

A long silence. More deep breaths. Finally A. P. Hill sat up. “First degree. They decided that the crime was premeditated because Eleanor took the gun with her.”

“I thought she always kept it in her purse. Which is illegal, of course, but-”

“I’ll appeal. I don’t think it will do much good, since every silverback in the court system is a friend of Jeb, but I will try.” She smiled bitterly. “At least they stipulated that she not receive the death penalty. Wasn’t that big of them?”

“It’s one less thing for you to worry about,” said Bill.

The cold smile again. “Sure, no problem! Eleanor Royden could stay in prison until she’s seventy-five, that’s all. Good old Jeb wins again.”

Bill said quietly, “Jeb Royden is dead, Powell.”

“He still wins. He wanted Eleanor to suffer and, by God, she will. It was over for him in an instant, but not for Eleanor. She will suffer at leisure.”

“How did she take the verdict?”

“She had that tight little smile that Southern women put on, no matter what. I don’t think the truth has sunk in yet for her. She’s clinging to the notion that an appeal will save her, but I doubt that it will. I have to get a trial transcript, and start looking for loopholes-”

“Not now, Powell,” said Bill. “I thought whichever way the case turned out, you might need fortifying. So I ordered you something from room service.” He went to the bathroom, and brought back a plastic ice bucket and a fifth of Jim Beam.

A. P. Hill picked up two glasses from the dresser and held them out. “I’ll take it straight,” she said.

“Same here.” Bill poured two ounces of whiskey into each tumbler, “To a truce,” he said, raising his glass, “in the battle of the sexes.”

( I bought them some new stationery. Engraved. Elizabeth. )

Dear Cameron,

This will be the last letter, the last time I put pain onto paper so that I can look at it, instead of packing it away, so that I can go on.

I think it’s time I gave up, because pretending that you are coming back isn’t going to help either of us. You have gone on to wherever it is you’re going. So must I. This is my decision, finally, and not a course of action that Dr. Freya has urged upon me. She said once that I would know when it was time to really begin to grieve, and she was right.

I am grieving, but I also realize that at least it is a clean wound. There are other fates that might have been harder to endure.

Some things are worse than losing someone you love. Consider the Roydens, whose youthful romance soured to domestic skirmishing and finally to remorseless murder. Or even my own parents who called it quits out of mutual boredom. At least we were spared those fates.

They don’t even seem to realize what they’ve lost. Eleanor Royden, whose case is being appealed, is giving cheery interviews from prison to the likes of Geraldo. She seems to have forgotten that her husband Jeb was ever a person; to her he has become a legal problem. And Mother is still trying to find herself. She has gone from white-water rafting to being an intellectual sophisticate, and I see signs of restlessness that indicate she may be moving on soon to something else-God knows what. I don’t even like to speculate.

At least I escaped their fates. They both seem to be searching for something they wouldn’t recognize even if they found it. At least I know what I’ve lost.

There’s a line from A. E. Housman that keeps running through my mind: “Smart lad to slip betimes away…” Were we fortunate after all? Perhaps in a way we were spared not a greater pain but a more protracted one. I wouldn’t have wanted our love to die by inches over the long trickle of years, as so many romances do. At least I can think back over our time together without anger or regret. I don’t have to seal off a part of my life as if it had been a bad investment. Eleanor Royden does that. So does Mother.

So, Cameron, goodbye and thank you for being kind and loving and never dull. Thank you for leaving me with happy memories instead of bitterness.

I don’t know where I’m going from here, but a part of you will go with me. I will always remember you, and so we will always be together. Isn’t it funny? Death doesn’t really part people; it’s life that does that.

Cameron-goodbye-for now.

Love always,

Elizabeth