Page 52 of Fragile Wicked Things

To believe we map out the design of our lives is a falsehood.

We are our greatest tormentors, haunted by pasts that form us.

And, just as our history creates us, it can also destroy—annihilate the homes we’ve built, the families we’ve formed, decimate the shield we once believed impenetrable.

We are inundated with pain at the discovery that control over our lives is a mere illusion and we can no more predict the outcome of it as we can the end of civilization.

An end comes to all of us. Yet, we shed our past and dare march toward our future.

My own past is not so easily discarded. Often, when I think of Rochester, I remember the expression of quiet euphoria on his beautiful face when he set Blanche free.

Expecting mercy on my part, he begged me to do the same for him, to give him that which he long desired—Peace.

When confronted with Rochester’s demise under the blackening of the sun, I could no more have a hand in his true death than I could my own.

My peace lay elsewhere, far from Thornfield, so I forged ahead, hoping to find it someday.

I call Brooklyn home now. We first settled into a brownstone in Park Slope, which proved to be too small and dangerous to live in, yet the danger didn’t compare to Thornfield.

Not staying there for long, we then found this apartment nearby.

It's bigger, brighter, more expensive. We spent the last few years working on it; we painted, took down a temporary wall the tenant before us had put up and tinkered with the plumbing because we could never get hold of the superintendent.

Eventually, an opportunity arose to buy the apartment and we scraped together whatever we had which still wasn't enough.

Thomas begged me to dip into an account Rochester had set up for me many years before, and as it would establish a home for us and our future family, I relented.

We purchased the apartment outright, the sale of the home representing only a small portion of what Rochester had given me.

The rest remains tucked away, rarely dipped into and, for the most part, Thomas and I live a very modest life.

The kitchen in the back is small and isolated from the rest of the apartment, but the large room in front is where we entertain our friends.

When the dining room table is not in use, the ladies and I paint signs.

This one week, I was overwhelmed with three different protests that I brought a pro-choice sign to the men's only club protest. The apartment has two bedrooms, a rather large master and a smaller one we used as an office.

One day, Thomas came home to find me moving everything out and into the living room.

He joined in and helped me carry things out without questioning why, and when we finished, we sat on the floor of the empty room, staring at the white walls.

"Pink or blue?" he asked me.

"Green."

The next day, he painted the nursery apple green.

Thomas proposed on numerous occasions. The first time occurred when we moved into the apartment in Park Slope; he felt it would be easier for the neighborhood to accept an interracial couple that was married as opposed to an interracial couple living in sin.

I refused him. The second time happened when we bought the apartment.

He felt the owners would be kinder to a married couple than one living in sin.

He seemed to like that argument. Again, the answer was no.

The third time was when he finished painting the nursery and he dropped down on one knee in the middle of the apple green room.

The paint fumes must have affected me because I said yes.

Over the years, we moved forward together, putting time and space between our lives then and now.

Thomas had an easier go of it, but I could not shed Thornfield.

One day while I thumbed my fingers along the spines of books on a shelf, I came across Byron’s collection of poems. For a moment, I doubted it was the same book for how could it have become entangled with my belongings?

Yet, when I opened it, there lay the inscription—Edward F.

Rochester, 1905. I pressed my lips to his name, and a tsunami of emotion rushed over me.

When his eyes stared back at me that fateful day, I was sure he was gone, and emptiness consumed me. I cried, kissed his hands, shook him and told him to say something. His eyes blinked. I thought I had been dreaming until he blinked again.

Rochester had suffered burns to most of his body, but over time, he began to heal.

At first, he walked with a cane, but when his strength returned, he burned it in the fireplace with fervor.

Often, he sent Thomas into town to pick up supplies, many of which were hard to find.

I think he quite enjoyed sending Thomas out on these foolish errands.

During those times, he had me read to him and when we conversed, it was no longer as master and servant, but as equals.

By the end of the first year, Rochester was strong, not a mark left from that troubled time.

Colonel and Bunch, the archer who had saved me, were the only survivors from their group.

The Colonel walked out of the hospital and, according to Thomas who witnessed the scene, a nurse followed the Colonel, yelling that he had not been discharged.

Right then, he turned to her, said he had to rebuild and grabbed her, planting a long, passionate kiss.

Then the Colonel strutted out. The way Thomas tells it, it was like the final scene of a film, when the hero rides off into a sunset. I doubt it happened quite that way.

When I knew Rochester would survive, I took inventory of Thornfield and cleaned up the mess the nest had created over the weeks they were there.

I swept away their ashes, scrubbed blood from floors and carpets and destroyed anything that had belonged to them.

Others showed up, from the order the Colonel belonged to and collected the bodies of their fallen.

They remained a further hour, ensuring we told no one what had transpired and I laughed at them.

Who would believe us? Once they left, Thomas and I let out a collective breath.

We had hidden Rochester away in the attic, unsure how the Men of Psalms would react, so we lied and said all the Vampyres were dead.

We certainly had enough ash to prove it.

Was it fate that things came full circle? Rochester had met members of the group long ago in England. They had chased Blanche then, too.

After cleaning up and collecting the ash from inside Thornfield, I built up the courage to go outside to collect the ash from the Great Oak tree in front.

But when I walked along the gravel, I found the bloody stake on the ground and nothing else.

Could a wind have swept away Blanche's ashes?

It was possible, and soon I had convinced myself of it.

Then I saw a few drops of blood on the gravel, a few more a couple of feet ahead and a few more beyond that.

A path led into the maze. I knew immediately what had happened.

We were too engrossed with Rochester to notice that Blanche had pulled the stake out and ran into the maze to hide herself from the sun's rays.

Just as she had fooled Rochester into thinking she had been destroyed in England, we, too, were fooled.

The demon lived.

Although we never spoke of Blanche, I knew Rochester was not free from the demon and never would be.

She crossed an ocean to be with him once, and, under the pretense of her death, Blanche hid, biding her time until she resurfaced.

No, Rochester would never be free of her and, if I remained at Thornfield, neither would I.

Ultimately, I wanted what Rochester had always desired—peace—and I could not spend eternity under her torment. I had to leave Thornfield.

One day, Thomas had returned from town with a young man, Louis, and announced he would be Rochester’s new handler.

The news was not a surprise; we had planned for it, yet when I heard, when I understood our time at Thornfield was to end, a wave of sadness enveloped me.

I was free to live my life. Rochester had set me free, yet I didn't know I needed to be freed.

It seemed to me we stayed of our own accord, to care for Rochester just as he had always cared for Catherine.

He was an honorable man, true to his word, and had taken action in releasing me.

When it was time for us to leave, Rochester was not at Thornfield.

He had been whisked out of town by his new handler, and although Thomas downplayed the whole event, I knew Rochester would break to see me go.

As I stood on the graveled driveway with the carryall I had when I first arrived, I looked back at Thornfield, its stone columns, the black window shutters against the white of the house, and the upper and lower verandas wrapping around it.

It was a grand home. Then, driving down the path between the great oak trees, I felt a lump in my throat and my gaze caught the branches of the great oaks.

It was as though they were standing at attention, saluting me as I headed to my new life.

I never looked back at Thornfield Hall again.

The day will come when I will tell our daughter the story of Lowood and Thornfield, of Helen, Rochester and Catherine.

After all, she carries the namesake, Catherine Helen, but I fear she will not believe me and I have nothing to help me prove what happened.

Thomas does not share my view. He said he has left Thornfield behind and will not revisit that part of our lives.

Instead, he concentrates on us as a family.

Still, I worry and wonder if Blanche is hiding around a corner, or in the treetop outside our bedroom window.

She has a pattern of disappearing for periods at a time, but she will never stop hunting her Rochester.

And now I fear she will come after me one day even though I have abandoned him.

There is a park at the end of our street where Catherine often plays while Thomas and I sit at a nearby bench.

We stay past dark because Catherine doesn't want to stop playing, and Thomas lets her have her way.

I tell him he'll have a spoiled daughter one day, but he says he doesn't care as long as she's happy.

We make our way back up our street, Catherine between us, holding our hands and swinging them in the air. She sings another of her made-up songs, this time about a giraffe and a mouse. A pebble gets into my shoe, and I stop on a stoop to remove it and shake it out.

"Go ahead. I'll catch up," I tell Thomas.

Catherine runs ahead of him, up the sidewalk, too far ahead.

"Catherine, wait for Daddy," he tells her before scooping her up in his arms and carrying her the rest of the way home.

I stare after them as I put my shoe back on. This is freedom. This is happiness.

A chilly wind blows through the night air, and the figure of a man across the street catches my eye.

I am struck with the familiarity I see in him and, jumping up, I take a step towards him, but he moves back.

For mere seconds, we stand there, both staring, neither wanting to walk away.

Finally, out from the darkness behind him comes the silhouette of a woman, and I can see by the light from a street lamp her long, blond hair cascading down from a red ribbon.

Did he make her in his likeness ? I wonder.

Does she keep him from the darkness like Catherine did?

She takes him by the hand and steers him away.

I turn towards home, to the life I chose with Thomas and our Catherine, and a life without Edward Rochester.

THE END

THANK YOU so much for reading my novel FRAGILE WICKED THINGS.