But Logan doesn’t go away. The thought of going away makes him blanker than anything. It’s as if a part of him believes that leaving his house is the most dangerous thing he could do. He is loath even to walk Achilles, and takes her out for the most perfunctory of marches through the growing inches of mud. Because it is raining; the wettest March for a decade, says Jules. As he waits for his own tears to surface, the sky is obliging with its own, as if demonstrating How To: Just let it fall, Logan. Water courses over the tiles outside his study window. The drops play musical notes on the jam jars Jules hung in the trees to catch wasps in the summer. And now the emotions are surfacing. He stands at the window, hoping for distraction. But observing the driveway, all he can think is how empty it is. Why does no one ever visit them? He was never very comfortable with people, but what few friendships he enjoyed were dissolved by bereavement. The wives sent cards but the men didn’t know what to say. Invitations were floated, but Logan was too out of shape for squash, had no appetite for beers and blokiness. Nor could he stomach suppers skating over what mattered, heading off platitudes, listening to someone or other’s opinion of a film that couldn’t interest him less when his own drama had destroyed all normality. Then they moved. Now he is important to no one but Jules. Perhaps not even important to her, any more. The first sting of sadness. He retreats to the sofa, crunches his knees up under a blanket. He writes in his journal
Coming off Anesthine is like peeling off layers of skin
but the words don’t transmit the pain to the page, and the pain doesn’t lessen. Now he understands why April wrote poetry, reached for expression, putting something outside of herself that she couldn’t contain any longer. Perhaps if she’d been a better poet, she wouldn’t have needed to explode people. But it is too late. Logan has never practised writing consistently, and now the words come tumbling out and he knows they are the only words that matter, the only words worth writing, and he must write them out, over and over, tears wetting the page as he howls.
Flora is dead and I miss her so much.
Flora is dead and I miss her so much.
Flora is dead and I miss her so much.