palms stopped my fall. I felt the sting of pavement more than the slap that had forced me to the ground.
Jack’s howl was animalistic, raw against my open heart. He lunged toward his father and pummeled his face with clenched fists just as my daddy came running full speed toward us. His feet were bare, his striped pajama bottoms tied at the waist, his mouth moving with words I had never heard him say, ones I did not know were within his cultured expressions.
Daddy pulled Jack from his dazed father, who was now on the ground. I jumped up, ran toward the confusion, toward Daddy and Jack. Jack lifted his left foot, reached it back and kicked his father in the ribs. A loud crunching sound made nausea rise to the back of my throat, just as the pain from the slap ascended to my face, to my cheek. I turned and bent over.
Jack grabbed me, pulled me to him, and the sting of the slap, the emptiness waiting just past me with a vortex of loneliness, faded. He reached into his pocket, withdrew his hand in a fist, then held his hand out to me and opened it. On his palm lay a round gold ring—one I distinctly knew was a Claddagh ring. “I meant to give this to you for your birthday next week, but now is as good a time as any. Not the way I meant it to be.”
Mr. Sullivan groaned behind us, words garbled and empty of meaning. Jack looked down at him. “Not the way I meant it to be at all.”
I lifted the ring—words gone, emotions churning. Jack took the ring from me, then slipped it onto my right ring finger. “I’ll call you when we get . . . somewhere.”
Then I heard Mrs. Sullivan screaming, “Get in the car. Get in the car. Get in the car.” It sounded like a mantra from a deranged lunatic.
Mr. Sullivan stood up then, his fists clenched at his side, blood leaking from his mouth. “You son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you.” He lunged toward my daddy, who sidestepped him. Mr. Sullivan fell to the ground with the momentum of his delirious anger.
Sirens screeched across the road. Flashing lights joined the rising sun, and dizziness enveloped me as I heard my daddy tell Mrs. Sullivan to get in the car and go, go now, he’d take care of the rest.
Jack turned from me, then back again. He touched my cheek, kissed me one more time, a long, beautiful kiss.
“I’ll find you,” I said as the dizziness became complete and I let go—released the control to stand.
When I awoke, I was in my bed with Aunt Martha-Lynn standing over me, clucking, holding ice to my cheek. I looked up at her, swiped at the ice pack, which hurt more than the leftover ache of the slap.
“Are they gone?” I meant to say, but no sound, no voice came out.
“Shhh. Shhh. You’re fine.” She leaned toward me, a tear falling down her cheek. “You’ve lost your voice from screaming for your daddy. He probably saved poor Mrs. Sullivan’s life.”
I shook my head. “Jack did.” I mouthed the words.
“Yes, child, so did Jack. You both did. Now Mr. Sullivan is in jail . . . and they’re gone.”
“Gone,” I mouthed again, then rolled over and let the sleep take me where I needed to go: oblivion.
In those young years I doubted if anyone else had ever experienced such an amazing memory of joy mixed with such staggering pain. How could both be present in the same moment, exist together in the same space and time? I wrote about it: poems and letters. When Mama had died there had been grief without joy. But when Jack had kissed me good-bye, there’d been both.
I still didn’t understand it, but I didn’t know anyone who did. And, truly, I’d stopped thinking about it.
I swung my feet over the dock, and water licked my toes. The tide had come in during my remembering. It was incredible to me that I could still, after all these years of forgetting, bring up details. Or maybe I had changed some of them, colored over parts. I didn’t know. The only way to know would be to ask Jack.
No. I cracked my neck, stood. This was insanity. I needed to stop by the florists and double-check the flower order, call the dressmaker and check on the progress of the bridesmaids’ dresses, call in the