Page 180 of Jackie

L’histoire de ma vie n’existe pas. Ça n’existe pas. Il n’y a jamais de centre. Pas de chemin, pas de ligne. Il y a de vastes endroits où l’on fait croire qu’il y avait quelqu’un, ce n’est pas vrai il n’y avait personne.

The story of my life does not exist. Does not exist. There is no center to it. No path, no line. There are great spaces where you pretend there used to be someone, but it is not true, there was no one.

—Marguerite Duras

There is a dream I have—often—of you. I dream that you come for me, but I hold up my hand.

Once, not really thinking about it, I mention the dream to John. It’s morning; he’s home from college for the weekend. We are in the kitchen. I tell him about the dream, how it recurs, how it haunts me, how abstract it is and how real it seems, how I keep dreaming it, month after month, year after year, and how it makes me wonder, if you came for me now, would I go with you?

John listens, and only later do I realize I inadvertently upset him. He misinterpreted what I said. I wasn’t saying I don’t or didn’t love you. I was reflecting on how far I’ve come from the girl you knew. Perhaps I should try to explain that to John. Perhaps it is cruel not to. In the end, though, I decide to let it lie. He should be able to live with the ambiguity—that raw uncertainty our hearts are made of.

…

In the summer of 1993, I turn to Maurice. We are in the caves in the south of France. “I am not quite well,” I say—a strange fever, the walls spin, rock pouring into rock, suddenly liquid, and those lines of a cave painting someone made thousands of years ago. I feel a flush of heat, my body suddenly weak. Maurice reaches for me and takes my arm. He has always been that kind of man, prescient, gentle. He guides me, step by rising step, out of the cave into the sunlight of Arles, the rocks and the ground and the wild swirl of cypress trees, the gorgeous blazing world.

—

A summer flu, a doctor tells us.

—

That August on the Vineyard, preparing the house for a party, I sit at the dining table, writing out place cards. Something strikes past the window. A shadow, a bird perhaps. Farther down, past the lawn and the scrub, is the sea. The surface shifts, the distant bulk of Nomans Land under a translucent sky.

My head is light.

Marta, folding the napkins, glances up.

“Are you all right?” she says.

“Oh yes,” I say. “I’m fine.”

—

I feel it, though—that odd and haunting loneliness that sometimes comes in high summer, even in the midst of life, when the house is filled with children, family, friends. Every morning a swim or a bike ride along Moshup Trail, then long afternoons reading books and manuscripts on the bricked corner of the patio behind the library.

—

I force the loneliness down. I finish the place cards. The menu was set days ago. The shopping is done. Maurice offered to do these things—“It’s a party for you,” he said. Caroline and John offered as well. They had wanted it to be more of a surprise, but I prefer it this way. I know who should be seated near whom to feel at ease. It feels important—still—to build a room, a night suspended from time, with laughter, conversation, shine.

—

You’d appreciate it, wouldn’t you? Some of my younger friends—the ones you never met. What would you say to them? How would you size them up? What would you ask? I’ve wondered this.

—

Your face, still, wherever I go.

—

I am tired. That drained sense I’ve felt since the trip to France. There’s a manuscript I want to finish before the guests arrive. I tell Marta I’ll be on the patio, working. I sit in the chair, a blanket over my knees, a wide-brimmed hat. The breeze is light on my face. A few chapters in, I close my eyes.

—

When Caroline was getting married, I said to Carolina Herrera, “I’m going to let Caroline decide with you what she wants. I’m not going to interfere, because I had a very bad experience with my wedding dress. It was the dress my mother wanted me to wear, and I hated it. Caroline told me the boys want blazers and white pants. No morning suits. If they’re happy, let’s do it. Just call me from time to time and let me know how it’s going.”

As promised, Carolina Herrera would call after each fitting.

“Is Caroline happy?” I’d ask.

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