Jane Two (29 page)

And there's one with a (bad) drawing of Jane's wooden fence with a little grass at the bottom that read,

And another, written without any quotes or apostrophes when I was nine years old,

The last letter at the bottom of the FedEx box was dated my birthday:

Eight days with Jane. Now she was gone.

RETURN TO SENDER ADDRESSEE UNKNOWN
stared back at me and I cried like an infant on that trampoline until I remembered it.

Beneath the stack of letters was the fat upholstered book. It was Jane's diary, hand-stitched in raw purple silk. I read everything about a girl I had loved for far longer than eight days, and I loved her more with every word. She described finding my can and hoping I had not chosen to sell it, and then concluding that I must not have known, after having seen my film of her, and that she had waited. And waited. For me to reach down. But a shy and insecure boy never did. A photo of Jane slid from the fragrant, spiced pages into my scarred hand. It was chased by a rubbery little insole that flopped into my lap, exposing bled ink on its bottom.

enaJ
I made out the first word.

!ti htrow yletinifed er'uoY

But my reality was used to being inverted, and it quickly recombined the words in my memory, and I was at the top of The Pole again, and, yes, Jane still was. The note I had stuck under the insole of her 95s the day I tied the laces perfectly and placed them into her mailbox had long since disintegrated along with her sneakers, but the phantom letters remained on the insole, indelibly stating what I had known since the first day I saw her—she was worth it. I continued to read Jane's most intimate thoughts, hopes, and dreams about a life she had hoped to lead with a boy just beyond two fences and a ditch. A boy whom I know had missed his porthole. The rest is private and I shall keep for myself alone.

Under the purple book, and wrapped in waxed paper, was the completed oil painting on canvas of the field of green that I had once seen Jane painting in her garage and then again in her vacant bedroom on the golf course. There was now a fallen empty lawn chair with yellow and green webbing right in the foreground above those same detailed blades of grass, and a young naive, suited-up boy standing perfectly still under the white H uprights looking straight at me through his facemask, his arms raised and waving to what I knew was his family, the number 24 on his jersey only partially visible behind the football that was glued securely to his chest with Stickum, and an empty field of hash marks stretched out behind him.

L
ew's rain was starting to mask my tears as I climbed into the red Firebird in front of Jane's old house and I drove away from my past. But it was on that trampoline in her backyard that I first asked for help. I got about thirty yards down her old street when something shook the undercarriage of Kevin's old car like I had just run over a cinder block, until the back end sort of lurched and pitched the car sideways and I skidded to a stop on the wet street. I climbed out to see what I had run over, and there, in the street, about ten yards behind the car was The Plank. As rain continued to soak me to the bone, I lifted the hood and inspected the radiator. But nothing leaked at all. In Jane's street by the golf course I realized that that plank had gone through the grille, but never actually pierced the radiator at all. It just dented it in a few inches and lodged itself there, taking all of these years to work its way free on its own.

The car idled perfectly, and none of its lifeblood escaped. I left that plank in the street in front of Jane's house. And I climbed back in and headed home.

You know, I think grief compresses you into a manageable volume so you can operate, be functional while you landscape your emotions. Mine had been clear-cut and strip-mined. But I'm okay. And I hope that she knows that I'm okay, even though it hurts like it was
then
. Some people in this modern world may question why I talk to you. Well, the reason is simple. It's because you've always been there, subtly nudging my conscience. I could always feel it, even at my worst, like that day on the golf course when I bludgeoned Andy when I was so young. The day the fat man played that song. I wrote down the bits I remembered on my social studies homework from my three-ring binder while leaning against that house on the golf course with those bloody banana leaves at my feet. I still have those homework pages today. I pull them out occasionally just to be sure.
September 19, 1975
is scrawled across the top next to my name in the undeveloped handwriting of my youth. The lyrics I wrote down questioned where your love went when fear stretched time. Even then I knew it stayed right where it always was…where it lives. I loved that song. I went to numerous record shops and sang what I remembered but no one recognized it, not even Samir. Two months later, on a date that would eventually house my grief, a ship went down in Lake Superior that would be the impetus for a melody that I'd heard just a bit too soon for logic. But I now know that love doesn't live in logic. So, when I peer into my mailbox to check, it's not because I don't believe. It's because I do.

I sent 187 letters to Jane and prayed that somehow they would find her, and that she'd know. I wanted her to know everything. One hundred eighty-seven sealed letters were returned to me through the years, undelivered by an angry mailman who missed 187 chances to do the right thing. It was not until after Jane left that I truly understood my flaw. I had prayed and asked to put something in your hands that you'd already put in mine. That's not how you work, is it? I should never have asked for you to deliver Jane a message that I could've simply whispered in her ear: 187 little secrets I wrote when no one was looking, and I could've told her each one, 187 little wounds that slowly dug the hole in my chest where Jane's plank had been.

Windows of opportunity really are portholes, and I had missed mine. I understood, but I knew I had one more letter to write. I needed Jane to know everything that I thought I had more time to convey—how she moved me, how she changed me forever, how the mere recollection of the sight of her will forever be incomparable, how there's nothing I ever wanted to do without her, how I wanted to hold her and never let her go, but mainly just how I loved her. Oh God, how I loved her. And so I wrote. And I mailed. And I prayed again.

One hundred eighty-eight letters sent to the love of my life. You know it's modern-age blasphemy to talk to God. Hell, it's even modern-age blasphemy to believe. But I believe. You've always listened. I know it. And I just want to thank you for listening again—and apologize. I asked you for 187 favors for Jane, favors that I could have done for myself. I'm sorry for that. But now I understand, and I just need to patch a hole.

I realize now that I only ever needed your assistance on the 188th. So when I walk out to my mailbox every day and look, it's not because I doubt, it's because I don't. I know it won't be there. I know that letter will never be returned from 33 Lieu Lieu Lane. It's been ten years since I stopped writing when no one was looking, and you've never let me down. I just wanted to thank you for the delivery…and to thank you, Lord, for Jane.

Amen.

To three girls,

I met an invaluable developmental editor on the Internet named Ghia Gabriela Szwed-Truesdale. I needed help. See, I was left a box of almond seeds, and the sun was always there…so was the rain. Thank you, Ghia, for throwing them in the dirt and sprinkling some pabulum. It seems a Boudin Heirloom needs more than just one pair of hands.

I suppose there's always an intersection in which an opportunity lies to follow your future. The one that counts. The one that holds it all. The one that not all roads lead to. I'd like to thank a girl named Julie McCullough for pointing a wandering boy in the right direction…to a Happy Ending.

And to the one who deserves the most…I'll write nothing. I've learned. I'll simply whisper it in
her
ear.

—Sean

Sean Patrick Flanery is an American actor, born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and raised in and on the outskirts of Houston, Texas. He graduated from John Foster Dulles High School in Sugar Land, Texas, and then attended the University of St. Thomas before penning his first script and heading off to Los Angeles. He has appeared in over one hundred movies and television shows, some of which he hopes you've seen, and some of which he hopes you haven't.

He lives with his family in Los Angeles, California, where he loves his life, works in the entertainment industry, writes, and owns and operates a martial arts academy, Hollywood Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

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