{"id":115,"date":"2003-11-22T03:41:33","date_gmt":"2003-11-22T03:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/3500years.com\/zsallia\/?p=115"},"modified":"2003-11-22T03:41:33","modified_gmt":"2003-11-22T03:41:33","slug":"i-know-who-you-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/2003\/11\/22\/i-know-who-you-are\/","title":{"rendered":"I Know Who You Are"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I know who you are.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

I said nothing, allowing Edna’s quiet words hang in the air behind me as I gazed upon Catherine’s final resting place. Her marker was large, yet very simple- a granite spire, somewhat weathered as were all the stones in this corner of the cemetery, with just her name and the dates: b 1831 d 1896<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“She was only sixty-five. Even being wealthy and protected, the damned winters were like a scythe, weren’t they?”<\/p>\n

“I know you heard what I said, so don’t pretend you didn’t.”<\/p>\n

I had been feeling something<\/em> from her for two days now. It was the only reason I had not left yet- I had to know what it was. Her certainty was so strong and it excited her so. I turned to face her.<\/p>\n

“Who do you think I am?”<\/p>\n

“Great Grandma hired a Pinkerton man to track down Elaine a few years after the War Between the States. He went to Boston, found her lawyers’ offices, but they were well paid, quite reputable and very tight-lipped.” She paused then and said, “I think I need to sit… could we move to that bench?” She gestured with her cane and I nodded. Edna shuffled over, suddenly looking every day of her ninety-eight years, and settled down with a sigh, placing her cane before her with her hands perched atop. She waited until I took a seat beside her. “Where was I? Boston. You always seem to go back to Boston. The Pinkerton man was no slouch, and you’d a way of impressing people, of course. He found a name: Melissa Burns, and there was some talk of Georgia. It took some doing but he tracked you down to a plantation where you were hired as a tutor in literature and mathematics. Then he discovered that you’d murdered a man named Clayton Williams. You were caught, tried, convicted and hanged. End of story, or so he thought.<\/p>\n

“I have to wonder what he thought when Catherine sent him back to Georgia and told him to dig up your corpse, if he could. He went back and started asking more questions, spreading around money and liquor, until he bumped in to these two gents who’d had a near religious experience. Neither of them’d had a drink in years before they ran in to him- reformed men, they were. But his questions shook them up, and the whiskey was good, and the tale they told him… well, he’d never heard anything so wild and unlikely in his life, but he had his orders, and like I said, he was no slouch at his job.<\/p>\n

“He tracked you to a border town in Texas. A pretty young redheaded prostitute named Molly, sweet and kind and very quiet, and sporting a hanging scar. Only by the time he got that far poor Molly’d had an accident, took a spill in to the river and drowned. Body never recovered. Of course, it couldn’t have been the same woman, because everybody swore she couldn’t be more than eighteen and Elaine’d have been close to sixty by then, except that Melissa Burns hadn’t been more than twenty-five…”<\/p>\n

“He would have had a very difficult time following me after that. Molly was a throw-away…” I stopped there because there was no point in continuing. Edna’s gaze was fixed on me, waiting. “How many people know this story?”<\/p>\n

“Just me. It’s been passed down through the women in the family. Honestly, I didn’t really believe it myself until you showed up, and even then I wasn’t sure until just now. I haven’t told anyone; Sarah would be the obvious choice, but she’s such a Chatty Cathy I just couldn’t trust her with it.” She sat up straighter then, and took a deep breath, “So, if you wanted to you could shoot me with that ugly old pistol you’ve got your hand on and the story’d die with me. I suspect you’d be able to get out of town before anybody caught on.”<\/p>\n

I snatched my hand from my bag- I had not even realized I had my hand on the gun. I was embarrassed that she had noticed, that I had even unconsciously considered<\/em>…<\/p>\n

And then I was shaking, trembling so violently that I could not even speak. It was not fear, or anger, or joy, but simply conflict. I did not know what to do.<\/em> Then a sharp pain exploded in my shin and I cried out as Edna drew back her cane after striking me with it.<\/p>\n

“Get a hold of yourself! Lord, you’d think someone as old as you’d be beyond this kind of thing!”<\/p>\n

I laughed out loud at that. “I’ve heard that before… I should introduce you to the Yeti!”<\/p>\n

“The who?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, never mind, it’s too hard to explain.”<\/p>\n

We sat for several minutes before Edna finally asked, “So, what’re you going to do?”<\/p>\n

“That’s the question, isn’t it? It’s not so easy as Jeremy thought it might be.”<\/p>\n

“Sure it is. My son had you checked out- you’re loaded. I name you as my successor in the trust and then you can do what you want.”<\/p>\n

“Really? It’s not that simple at all. Everything I know is telling me to leave, now, and never come back! I have rules<\/em> I live by and I didn’t come up with them on a whim!”<\/p>\n

“And you married Jerome- what’d your rules have to say about that? Why’d you do that? Seems pretty stupid to me. Be careful what you answer because Catherine had an idea and I think she was right.”<\/p>\n

“I fell in love with him. Is that so hard to believe?”<\/p>\n

“Honestly? Yes, it is hard to believe. Catherine believed you were just lonely, and tired. Marrying her uncle was almost like trying to kill yourself. Just look at the trouble it’s caused you. Look at where you are right now, honey. Sure you loved him, but you loved him because it gave you a taste of something you couldn’t ever really have. You were trying to destroy yourself. Or at least destroy your life. You wanted an end, and Jerome was just the right man to help you find it.”<\/p>\n

She sat back, her shoulders sagging. I could see the exhaustion radiating from her and suddenly I was ashamed again. How could I not see how much this was costing her<\/em>? To be out here confronting me… Without another word I helped her to her feet and steadied her as we made our way back down the path to my car. She settled in to the seat and I buckled her in, then came around and started the car. Edna had her head back against the headrest, her eyes were closed.<\/p>\n

“See, I think you’re going mad. All that running and hiding can’t be good for a body.”<\/p>\n

“Do you understand how… how impudent<\/em> it is of you to presume to speak to me like this?”<\/p>\n

She laughed quietly, opening her eyes to look over at me. “Do you think you are wise?” she asked.<\/p>\n

I thought about that as I maneuvered down the narrow drive to the cemetery’s exit. “About some things, yes. Others, no.”<\/p>\n

“Good answer. I am<\/em> wise, and about a lot of things. That cemetery makes me wise- I know that’s where I’m headed, and soon, too. Focuses the mind, assuming the mind still works of course.” She chuckled then at her own little joke.<\/p>\n

“And that’s something I lack, is it?”<\/p>\n

“It’s not just something you’re missing, it’s something you need<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

That was not a new thought for me, so why did it disturb me so to hear it from this woman?<\/p>\n

“A cemetery’s not just a place of endings,” she continued, “it’s a symbol, a place of roots. Kids today just don’t understand this stuff; they go wandering off in all directions and don’t give a thought to their family or their history. My daughters… I haven’t seen either of them in five years, or the grandchildren. All picked up and moved off to California and Hawaii… I kept hoping that one of them would get the notion to come home, but it’s never happened.”<\/p>\n

“Yet here I am.”<\/p>\n

“Yes,” she smiled, “here you<\/em> are. I’m fit to be pickled now that you’re here. I honestly never believed it was possible, just some funny folk tale, or better yet a practical joke.”<\/p>\n

I considered that for several minutes as we drove on in silence.<\/p>\n

“So, if I were to say I was merely humoring you…”<\/p>\n

“I wouldn’t buy it for a second. I saw the look on your face when you were touching that pistol- you’re first thought was to kill me and run like the dickens.”<\/p>\n

“I would never have…”<\/em><\/p>\n

“I know, but you thought it. So why are you here?”<\/p>\n

“I needed to know how much damage… no. I wanted to come, to see what had happened to the people I cared about. I was here a few weeks ago- I visited Jeremy’s grave. I thought that would be enough…” I stopped then, feeling tears coming from someplace unexpected. I pulled to the side of the road and parked the car, then just gripped the wheel, desperate to compose myself. Why was this happening? Why was this woman, somebody who was still just a child in comparison to myself, having this affect on me? Why was I so damned angry?<\/em><\/p>\n

“Don’t stop now.”<\/p>\n

I looked at her, uncomprehending for a moment, and then I asked her, “What would you do if I took you home and then left, and never returned?”<\/p>\n

“Nothing. I’d go to my grave knowing that I’d been privy to a great secret. Of course that’s easy for me to say because we both know you’re not leaving. C’mon dearie, stop trying to nice to the little old lady and spit it out- why are you here?”<\/p>\n

“Because I was never ready to leave!”<\/em> It came out so suddenly and so succinctly that it drew all of the emotion out of me in a single statement: I had never wanted to leave. I left because it was my way, a habit, a rule<\/em> I lived by. It had never been a problem before, but so much had changed since the early centuries of my life…<\/p>\n

“Then why leave?”<\/p>\n

“That’s enough,” I snapped, my voice dropping in to a peremptory tone that made Edna sit back a bit. I put the car in gear and pulled out again, unwilling to talk any further, or to listen for that matter. Edna attempted to engage me, but I tuned her out so thoroughly that she soon gave up.<\/p>\n

What was wrong with me? I had been willing to reinsert myself in to this family so long as I could do it on my terms, maintaining this thin fiction of secrecy, holding myself aloof from them. Why did Edna’s knowledge change things so? Why that sudden impulse to murder and flight? It was clear to me, unmistakably clear that she posed no threat. Even if she did choose to tell her family what she knew, what would they think? She knew this, I could tell she knew this.<\/p>\n

I am terrible at snap decisions. Every one I have ever made has turned out to be ill advised in one way or another. I needed time to think. I arrived at that terribly insightful conclusion as I pulled in to Sarah’s driveway. Edna sat beside me, radiating dismay.<\/p>\n

“I am going back to Boston,” I told her, making my voice as gentle as I could.<\/p>\n

She emitted a quiet sigh of resignation, and then visibly nerved herself to ask, “And What will you do there?”<\/p>\n

I paused, unwilling to be short with her again, and then gave her the most honest reply that I could: “Think. Decide. Act.” She nodded at that, and allowed me to help her out of the car and up to the house. At the door something suddenly occurred to me. “You never visited your husband’s grave…”<\/p>\n

“Oh, that’s not important. Perhaps next time…”<\/p>\n

“Yes, perhaps.” I turned to go, but I could feel her eyes on me, as if they sought to pull me back.<\/p>\n

“Genevieve… now that can’t be your real name, can it?”<\/p>\n

I paused and turned back to face her as she stood framed in the open doorway, looking small and frail and forlorn. “No, of course not. I don’t have a given name that I can remember, but I chose one, long ago,” and I told her my name, the name I chose that I have called myself for more than two millennia. Then I turned away and walked to the car. It was time to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I know who you are.” I said nothing, allowing Edna’s quiet words hang in the air behind me as I gazed upon Catherine’s final resting place. Her marker was large, yet very simple- a granite spire, somewhat weathered as were all the stones in this corner of the cemetery, with just her name and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,15,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friends-found","category-immortality","category-the-past","category-the-present"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}