Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

Is this painful to read? Or do you feel nothing? Do you even remember who I am or what we had together? I ask not to wound you, but — truly, Marcus, I don’t wish to make you suffer but I must talk aloud in the tribal sense and free myself from that castle aerie. What could be more painful than what has already happened? I’d like to try to impart the history of the years since you left, without malice — I have no “malicious intent.” If my words are crude, forgive me. You were always the writer in the family.

My life became a “psychological” melodrama — I drew comfort telling myself you’d had a prescient glimpse of something awful, and you feared you might hurt me and that is why you went away … some dream you had that night of our wedding, that perhaps you saw yourself tossing me from the bloody tower; I was very Gothic! — had to tell myself you loved me that much. I know now there was no real explanation and never will be; I’ve always detested people who search for motive. Your illness is a cunning one but as your progress attests, the miracles of modern medicine may finally be rooting it out

nothing to do all those years but kneel at the altar of your unfathomable illness. I understood for the first time why my brother collects abandoned buildings — there’s a purity and a longing for something frozen between what-once-was and what-will-never-be-again. That’s what the tower became for me. I took to visiting it at night and still sometimes do (but haven’t for months) — now I do tell too much! Always my flaw. Your flaw was that you resembled those in my tribe — the tribe that tells too much — when in fact you told too little or said nothing at all with your torrent of words.

It wasn’t your fault …

I left L.A., had to, but where could I go? On top of everything, I was so embarrassed! The ego dies hard. I couldn’t deal with talking to my society “friends” (all of whom flew in for the wedding) — because of my silence, some very strange rumors began to circulate about what had happened … drugs and satanic murders and what-have-you — I didn’t want to know! It was quite the Hollywood scandale. I flew around the world, morning (and mourning) sickness in every time zone. Absolutely crazed — even retracing the footsteps of our Paris trip — at least I had the good sense not to revisit the Colonne, for that would have finished me off — and wound up at the Plaza Athénée, literally back in our old suite, immobilized. Do you remember when I kept vigil there after your long walk to Versailles? Our son was born at La Croix Saint-Simon … I named him Toulouse — after your little joke. By then, the joke of my life seemed utterly cosmic … and there was something spritely about “Toulouse,” something playful and musical and unburdening.

I knew I had to get him home because I was secretly planning to become Debra Winger from The Sheltering Sky and go wandering in the desert (somewhere a bit more exotic than where I am now) and get boffed by gorgeous nomads until I lost my mind. So I dropped off our Toulouse at Saint-Cloud and began my peregrinations …

I’ve scanned the above and see I’m babbling like an ass so I’ll do the noble, foolish thing and give this to the driver to take to Montecito — tho I’d rather give it to one of those pigeons who specialize in airmail delivery. Feels like a message in a bottle. There I go mixing metaphors again. I do not wish you to answer this — it was not written to begin a correspondence. I don’t mean that to sound passive-aggressive; you’ve probably had enough of “jargon”!

I will not read anything you write so please do not bother — I wrote this for myself. The worst part is, I know that if I was still seeing a therapist myself, he’d applaud me!

Wishing You the Best,

Katrina Trotter

A SECOND LETTER

Marcus,

Please discount what I wrote. Clearly, there is too much — and too little — to put in a letter. I feel now I was overwrought; there has been so much pent up in my mind. I shouldn’t have sent it but it was too late to get back. The shrinks say that one is supposed to write those things then burn them, or put them in the mailbox with no address … how typical of me to fuck it up. There is really nothing that can be said. I do wish you well, and hope I did not stir anything up that will make things difficult for you; or any more difficult than they already are. I reiterate that was not my intention. I do, sincerely, wish you the best.

Katrina Trotter

A THIRD LETTER

M. — I feel my last entry did not say all I wished. I’m writing this final “installment” to say I am attached to you, not only through our son, but because I’ve spent so many years feeling your absence. I told Toulouse a lie — that you were dead — and in truth it was a half-lie, because you were all but dead to me, and to him. But in time he found out otherwise, as I suppose I knew he would, and set out to find you. He is an amazing boy. Marcus, if you feel you’d like to see him that is up to Toulouse and, of course, my father, to arrange. I would not stand in the way of that. So when I said I do not wish to see or hear from you, I didn’t want you to draw the impression I was ruling over you or would hold back my son from visiting. That is not who I am or what I’m about.

I wanted to clarify this because I would not like to wake up one morning and be told you have gone again without seeing our son, if in fact a visit is something he too would like to have. If Toulouse wished to see you but did not because of an impression you got from one of my letters, I would never forgive myself.

I just wanted to make that clear, as I felt it wasn’t from the previous correspondence. I hope you are continuing to make progress and remain well, and that nothing I have written is puzzling or upsetting to you.

It has been a great help to be able to write these things down and send them. Perhaps I have made a mistake. If indeed I have, then forgive me. I do not wish a response; I wish things were different, or that I felt differently, but I have long since moved on in my head and in my heart.

Sincerely,

Katrina

A FIRST LETTER

Dearest Katrina,

How kind your letters were, how kind and thoughtful, and how difficult it has been for me not to answer them; I have been mindful of your emotions, and of course, of the boy’s, and feel a great pang of selfishness in now breaking my silence — but I must, just as you, put some things down! If this returns unopened, so be it; I will make the next entry to my journal instead, a notebook which I have kept for many years and entitled “News from Nowhere.” Aptly named it is too, for that is the very strange place I resided all this live-long time. Until now.

I remember everything about you. While I appreciate your delicacy in referring to the powerful forces that conspired to have me living homelessly and somewhat deranged these past years, reading your words (which I have, over and over, in the wee hours of the night)—“Or do you feel nothing? Do you even remember who I am or what we had?”—has caused much sorrow. And I do not wish you had not written them. I encourage you — implore you — to set down, if you’ve a mind, every little miserable thing, to the end. It is a help rather than a hindrance. I stand on the prow of a ship now, in the head wind; each memory that slaps my face and stings my eye also revivifies, and makes me more human. I never felt that I lost my humanity in that other incarnation; but I did lose the one who was closest to me. I do not think it unwise you told the boy I was a goner; I might have done the same. What else could you have said? Please do not badger yourself over decisions and choices made in the wake of that upheaval.