The Things Jack Saw

The Things Jack Saw

Renata Vesey

Jack saw me drive past the house where you both lived one cloudy afternoon. He saw me inch closer to the windshield to peer up at the giant oak tree in the front lawn, then over towards the crooked front porch with two beer bottles resting on its edge.

Jack saw me, a few days later, nervously tap on the sugar-candy glass of the front door for the very first time, and he saw you open it with a rakish smile.

Jack saw you show me around his house, and watched as you picked up artifacts that belonged to him, rattling off their significance - a paperweight, a cracked pitcher, a typewriter, a framed photo.

Jack saw you pick up your guitar and pluck at the strings absently, meditatively, while I perched, ready for flight, on the arm of a chair.

Jack saw me laugh nervously when you asked me if I had ever cheated on my husband as your fingers settled on a chord, and he saw you watch from the front door as I floated back to my car to leave an hour later, untouched.

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Another day, Jack saw us run in from the rain, and he saw me put on your sweatpants behind a barely closed door, after I had tugged my wet clothes off and tossed them into the drier on low, like we, all three, lived together.

Jack saw us sitting in the armchairs in his living room with tea, volleying off quotes from our favorite writers in lieu of our own words, then still deliciously unspoken.

Jack saw a man walk in through the unlocked front door and pierce the thin glass pane of the world we were weaving for ourselves, and then Jack saw you yell at him, violated and spitting mad while the man, wide-eyed in shock and apology, tried to stutter his regrets and explain his presence.

Jack watched your face, unrelenting, while the man backed out of the door with his hands up, now a thousand pounds heavier with remorse.

Jack saw, a week later, when you recounted this story laughingly to a group of people gathered to listen to you read - a group, I might add, that included the former intruder, now a welcomed guest, but that did not include me. 

In fact, Jack saw you neglect to mention that I had been there at all when it happened, that you weren’t alone. But, even all-knowing Jack couldn’t tell if you were keeping it for yourself or if you had already forgotten.

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Before that, though, Jack saw us sit on the front porch late one night after another reading when everyone else had gone home except me, so he must have heard me say, half-joking, that we should skip town together.

Jack saw you, alone in bed that night, roll that notion around in your mind and taste it with your tongue.

Jack heard you ask me, the very next day, if I was serious about running away together, rephrasing the words in a way I hadn’t dared to, and he saw me hold my breath for a hundred years, look back at you, and say, firmly, “Yes.”

Jack even heard me later that evening when I told you over the phone from my parked car that I was leaving my husband, that I was in fact going to leave this place.

Jack also heard me asking you, again and again, to come with me.

Jack saw us, soon after, kiss for the very first time, pulling each other closer by the loops of our jeans right there in his living room. He saw your fingertips play with the drawstring on the front of my shirt and he even saw, much to his wild delight, your thumbs read the braille of my nipples, just underneath a thin layer of fabric, for a split second before trailing back to my hips.

Jack saw the message I sent you that night when I got home: “I’m on fire…”

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Jack was there for the planning, the thinking and rethinking that ensued over the next few days, and, when I wasn’t there, he heard you demand of yourself: Should I stay or should I go?

Jack listened to you ask me those same questions, and he heard me reasoning with you, assuring you of what could be, but Jack, who was certainly no fool, couldn’t help but notice a rusty patch of hesitation forming on your normally overconfident veneer.

Jack was used to running away from things headlong, so he watched with amused curiosity as you stayed put, deciding you’d rather live with ghosts than be on the road with me.

Jack kept silent when he heard you say that you still needed time to think it over, because he already knew you had made the decision.

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Jack noticed a nervy, high-pitched sort of sadness in both of us on those last couple days. 

Jack saw us stare at each other in silence, you with the wounded conviction you donned as part of your writer’s uniform each morning, and me with the stupid, stubborn blindness of someone who won’t let something dying die.

Jack didn’t get to see me, back at my place, putting all of my belongings back into boxes only just stashed away from another move not long ago. But he did see you pacing in his house, trying to fill your hours and minutes and seconds with other things and other people and other engagements and more readings and more books, other admirers.

And finally, Jack saw us leaning against my packed car, kissing, under the curtain of Spanish moss in the driveway the night before I left.

Without you.

*Image credit: Wikipedia Commons