They felt a mutual gratitude toward each other. Jack came home for the first time in his life to a warm kitchen and a charming young wife. And just the thought of Laura reminded him, with a deep fine thrill, that he was married; he was truly a man. It was worth a lifetime of homosexual adventures.
Laura went to pains to please him, to show him that she cared and that she was working to make things right as she had promised him. And they were, all things considered, happy.
It wasn’t until Terry’s letter came, forwarded from Jack’s old address in the Village, that Laura felt even the slightest apprehension that anything was to go wrong. And the note was postmarked San Francisco and seemed so far away that she recovered promptly from the first shock and sat in the kitchen with the rest of the mail on the table in front of her, wondering what to do.
Laura and Jack had made a strict rule never to open each other’s mail and never to ask prying questions. But Laura hated to think of the turn it would give Jack to have this ghost from his past rise up to haunt him.
She turned and looked out the window at the sparse snow, falling that first day of December, and played with Terry’s letter, letting it slip from corner to corner through her fingers. She burned with curiosity.
I could just steam it open, she mused. He’d never know the difference. Damn that Terry anyway! Who does he think he is! After the hell he put Jack through, he has a lot of nerve. I’ll bet he wants some money.
She could bear it no longer. She got up and went to the stove, where she had a kettle full of hot water left over from breakfast, and turned the heat on under it. The glued flap of the envelope surrendered to the steam in a quiet curl. Laura held the letter a moment longer before opening it, feeling very guilty. But she loved Jack and she felt a fierce desire to spare him more pain. Besides, her curiosity was smothering her. She rationalized that Jack had told her himself he had given up the gay life forever, and that included Terry. What if this set him to drinking again?
She sat down and pulled the letter out with nervous hands. It was rather a short note, folded twice, and she opened it and read it quickly. It was not dated.
Dear Jack. Have been out here in S.F. since September. What a crazy town. You’d love it. Have a nice apartment on Telegraph Hill with a kid I met at a party a month ago. (Not the same one you beat up the night you kicked me out.)
God! He just has to rub it in. He’s just the kind of guy to mention such a thing, Laura thought, hot with indignation.
Don’t know how long I’ll be out here. I sort of miss the Village. And you. Why don’t you come out for a visit? We’ve got lots of room.
He doesn’t seem to realize it would damn near kill Jack, Laura thought. He’s hopeless. It never occurs to him that Jack would go crazy in a situation like that. Or does it?
Laura was used to the idea of Terry as a good-natured scatterbrained boy who hurt people, mostly Jack, with monotonous regularity—largely because he didn’t think about what he was doing. Usually, this was true enough. But the rest of his letter made her wonder if he weren’t deliberately needling Jack, trying to get him to come out to the coast.
She continued to read the tidy blue ink script.
I do miss you, lover. I was always so unsettled before we met.
Before, after, and during, Laura fumed.
And now it’s worse than before. I used to feel so safe and comfortable with you, like you’d always watch out for me, no matter what. I guess that’s a selfish way to look at it, but I wish we were back together. If you by any chance want it that way too, write to me. Write to me anyway, I really want to hear from you. Love, Terry.
He signed his name with an elaborate flourish, like a fifth-grade child drunk on the possibilities of fancy penmanship.
Laura folded the letter and stuck it back in the envelope and wrote a brief sizzling note in answer. She said:
Terry—Jack and I are married. You are not welcome here, now or ever. Jack asked me to write and tell you that he does not want to be bothered with any more letters from you and he will not answer any if you do write. Please leave us alone. Laura.
It sounded sharp and cold, and she had a momentary feeling of misgiving. Terry was a nice kid, in spite of it all. Everybody liked him, even Laura. But she couldn’t risk having him torment Jack. It had to sound mean or he wouldn’t believe it. She put the note in an envelope, sealed and stamped it, and copied his San Francisco address on it. Then she burned Terry’s letter over the stove.
When Jack came home that evening Laura’s note was in the mail and Terry’s was in ashes in the wastebasket.
“Any mail?” he asked her.
“Just a bill from the laundry,” she said.
But it bothered her. It came to her at odd moments and it seemed ominous and frightening to her, like the first sign of a break-up. She had broken her promise to him, and it didn’t help much to tell herself she did it only to protect him. I’m not going to let anybody hurt what we’ve got, least of all Terry
