Loss: A Love Story

By Bob Moulton

Loss is a story of love. A swift river of rampage, lust, war and redemption. Of growing up, growing old. And final loss.

There is nothing more I can do. You must learn to cope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452009568

Bob Moulton

Bob Moulton is an accomplished professional writer of magazine articles, and author of several books including a series of four children's books that chronicle the adventures of Rosey and Josey two tiny meadow mice who live on farm in Texas. In America. Loss is his first fictional piece.

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© 2010 Bob Moulton. All rights reserved.

Cover Art by Bob Moulton

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue

in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Published by AuthorHouse  09/25/2020

ISBN: 978-1-4520-0955-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-0956-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010906174

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

You are the panel of memory, fire-writing

Tonight of the Red Man’s dreams

Powerless is my magic crystal!

Powerless! Powerless!

I will become as stone.

Too many words and thoughts have been

lent to the child, and even so the deepest

strata may turn out to be impenetrable to

consciousness.

Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?

Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven…

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy

Have I not seen what human things can do?

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,

A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,

Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,

In word, or sigh, or tear—

Of evil done long since and always, quickened

No one knows how

While the red fruit hung ripe upon the bough

And fell at last and rotted where it fell.

Love, Hope, Self-Esteem, like clouds depart

And come, for uncertain moments lent.

At fifteen I stopped scowling

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

Forever and forever and forever.

SWEET CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME

A Noble Life

Come on, Caddo, we’re all going up

Where our Mother dwells-He’e’ye!

Let none admire that riches grow in hell.

…the red fruit hung ripe upon the bough

And fell at last and rotted where it fell… The

Refugees

Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse,

To sweep them from our sight! Time rolls his

ceaseless course

Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me

Through life’s road, so dim and dirty.

I have dragged to thirty-three.

What have these years left to me?

Nothing–-except thirty-three

And sometimes ladies hit exceedingly hard

This book is dedicated to those whom we have lost.

Esther, Reade, Mary, Art, Sally, Edgar and all the others.

Bless you all.

This book is dedicated to my dearest love, Palmer.

And to my dear friend, Ostrich.

You are the panel of memory, fire-writing

Tonight of the Red Man’s dreams

- Sioux Indian chant

W hen I was fifteen days old a letter addressed to me was delivered to our small yellow wood frame house in Ogdensburg New York. The curious way it arrived the fact I would never know the writer or understand his vague words of hope for my success or perhaps the ultimate knowledge that I would never achieve half of what he or anyone else ever expected of me washed over my childhood as the writer’s aged tears of regret stained the letter to the grandson he would never see.

T.P. Gilbert private messenger and acquaintance of John E. McCombs late of Portland Oregon stood awkwardly on our front porch shuffling his feet waiting patiently as my father scrutinized the envelope he had been handed tore it open and read the enclosed note. My father at long last invited the man into the house and sat opposite him staring openly at Gilbert as he sipped hot tea my aunt Mabel had hastily brewed. It turned out that Gilbert did not know my grandfather all that well had met him several times in the boarding house in Portland and listened to his rambling disjointed stories of Texas and California. He said John never spoke about upstate New York and he did not know how my grandfather had heard of my birth. It certainly wasn’t national news and how he got the word in Oregon no one ever seemed to know. Sweat glistened on his forehead as Gilbert donned his black bowler hat shuffled to the door and disappeared as mysteriously as he had come. We never heard from him or my grandfather again.

My grandfather wrote in the hand of a dreamer a Quixotic inventor who left five young daughters to fend for themselves among the hard scrabble farms of upstate New York and went west taking with him sketches of devices for which no patent would ever be pending.

In his pathetically hopeful letter my grandfather wrote:

"Dear Sir: I have this day received notice that you have come into the limelight on this stage. Perhaps you know that a guy called Shakespeare said that ‘all the worlds a stage and we are only players,’–-or words to that effect.

Whether or not he was right —I’m for you and whether or not I ever have the pleasure of seeing you I want you to know that I’m for you and expect and believe that you will ‘come throo,’ whether your Granddad did or not!

In any case, if I pass over I’ll remember you and if I don’t—I’m your Grand dad and Proud of it!

Signed…JE McCombs

**All spelling, punctuation and underlining are my grandfather’s.

Eight years after that letter arrived on Parkside Court in Utica New York in our gray stucco house with the big front porch and apple tree in the back my mother showed me the envelope and explained who had written the letter to me. As she sat with her feet curled beneath her on the window seat her silver hair glowed in the early summer sunlight. I stood directly in front of her leaning against her knee fingering the silky fabric of her yellow dress. She handed me the envelope. The envelope was flimsy like parchment but its weight seemed so overwhelming it pulled my arm down and I let it fall to my side. The envelope dangled from my stubby fingers.

My mother’s eyes shone and I could see the leaves of our apple tree reflected in them. The wind was blowing and the tiny leaves danced in her pooling tears. She had kept the letter since T.P. Gilbert had delivered in Ogdensburg eight years before. Fifteen days after I was born.

It’s from my father. Your grandfather. He died last year. Remember, I told you? Her voice was husky. She added absently T.P. Gilbert a friend of my father’s hand- delivered it to you. Her voice faded as she barely finished.

He died?

Yes, John McCombs lived in Oregon and he died last year. I told you about it, but maybe you don’t remember. You were only seven.

I stammered. D-D-Did I ever meet him?

No, you never did. He moved out west when I was young. Just a girl.

Is he the man who grabbed the whip and hit the man who was being cruel to a horse?

No. That was your father’s father Charles. Your other grandfather. He lived in New Hampshire. He’s dead too.

I didn’t know what else to ask. I couldn’t see my mother as a girl. I couldn’t grasp the connection between this person who lived in a place called Oregon and my mother who had been old as long as I had known her. Her silver hair. I couldn’t see her as a child. I stood my head hanging my chin nearly on my chest. I felt hollow. My lower lip began to quiver. I didn’t know where New Hampshire was. I didn’t know who this grandfather could be. A man who went west and left my mother. Now he was dead, but he was writing to me.

She held her arms out hands extended and fingers spread palms open and I fell into her my cheek hot on her bosom. She lifted my head and held my face against her cheek and we cried. Our tears wet her hair. She pushed me away from her with one hand wiped her face and pushed her hair back. She put her hands on my shoulders and held me firmly at arm’s length.

This is hard for you to understand now, Danny, but when you grow up you’ll know what all this means. I loved my father just like you love yours. He left us girls. But I know he loved us.

In a gust of wind the backyard apple tree stretched one of its limbs toward the dining room window, clawing at us. I stepped closer to my mother, holding out my arm. Stiffly. Awkwardly. The letter hung there, my small fingers pinching a corner. As if it were a cold slimy snake.

My mother took my hand and gently took the envelope from me. She opened it slowly and carefully, then held it up so I could see it. You see, this is his handwriting.

They were sweeping letters. Written with profound flourish. With a fountain pen. One side of his letters were heavily inked, the other light.

What do they say?

And she read me the letter.

Later in the afternoon I went into the kitchen to talk to my mother as she prepared dinner. It was wartime and my father was working nights at Savage Arms. Our stucco house had two sets of curtains. White ones and black ones. My mother pulled down the black ones when the air raid sirens howled in the night. My older sister Raney and I were terrified almost nightly by the howling of air raid sirens and the sound of bombers droning overhead in the dark of night. We were certain that our father’s house would be a target if and when the Germans or Japs came. He was making 50 caliber machinegun bullets and we knew they wanted to stop him because he was so good at it.

In the morning when my father came home from the war plant we would listen to his stories of macho machismo. I told him no Wop could get away with that. Goddam Wops. I punched him and he went right over the machine. My father held out his clenched fist. His knuckles were bruised. Goddam wop. My father was even fighting the local Italians. No Germans worked at Savage Arms.

I sat quietly and listened to my father’s bluster. It was the war. Goddam war. Everything was upside down backwards. My father was a loving man. Before the war he worked in a clothing store whistled like a bird drew pictures of people using numerals played the piano and danced. He was a vaudeville man. S & R productions. Sherman and Reade. Brothers on stage and off. He didn’t hit goddam wops and yell at my mother. But this was war. And everything was rationed even tolerance. I was relieved when he shuffled up the stairs to his room for a day’s sleep.

I went into the kitchen and asked my mother to see the letter again.

I can’t right now, Danny. I have to fix dinner. Your sister Nancy will be home tonight. It’s Friday so she can come out to the house. And she might bring a friend from work. Why don’t you go and play now. Until I call you.

I stood arms hands and fingers twisting behind me. Fidgeting, my mother called it. I wanted to see the letter again and hear about this grandfather who was writing to me about being on stage. I reluctantly turned and called the dog. Come on, Peggy. Our small brown and black terrier looked up from her snoozing place under the dining room table. Come on let’s go outside.

The dog followed me as I went out into the backyard feet crunching on the cinder driveway. The apple tree was short a perfect climbing tree. It was the best of all the trees we’d ever had. I climbed up to the first big branch and sat in its gentle curve. It was warm nearly summer. The dog rolled into a ball under me. I thought about this grandfather man, John E. McCombs.

I know you’ll come throo whether your Granddad did or not.

What could that mean. I twisted a tiny branch in my fingers. Through the kitchen window I could see my mother. She moved quickly, easily about the kitchen. I saw my sister Raney come in and begin to set the table in the dining room. She saw me sitting in the tree and she waved. With her left hand. She and my father were left-handed. He said that was good to be left-handed. Just don’t think that way. Raney did.

We ate later now that my father worked nights. After sleeping all day he got up read the paper had dinner with all of us drank a cup of coffee and as we all went into the living room to sit by the radio and listen to the war news he slung his jacket over his arm grabbed his black lunch pail and thermos and said good-bye. The same routine every night. He kissed my sister first rubbed his prickly cheek against mine then kissed my mother. You kids be good and mind your mother. Good night Esther.

In his New Hampshire American that came out you kids be good and mind yoah mothah. Good night Estah.

And he was gone.

I heard the car start and crunch down the driveway and fade as it went into the street.

When the news ended my mother sent Raney and me to bed. Sometimes, after the news we got to listen to programs like Inner Sanctum or Nick and Nora Charles.

Tonight we would sit around the living room and talk because Nancy was home and it was Friday.

Raney opened the screen door and called to me Danny climb down and come in for dinner.

Raney also had to go upstairs and wake my father. I would when my mother asked me but I didn’t like the job. As I came in I heard my sister talking with my father. Yes and Nancy will be here for dinner too. I think we’re having macaroni and cheese. And she clomped down the stairs.

Nancy came home with her friend. She hugged me as she always did. She smelled perfumy and sweet. Laughing. Her lips shone red with fresh lipstick. Her friend’s name was Doris. She had brown hair and was round-faced with pretty white teeth. We all sat at the dining room table and my father freshly shaven and smelling of Old Spice talked about Savage Arms the war and Roosevelt. He told us the Japs had taken another island in the Pacific. The Germans had underwater boats that were coming right up to the coast of Florida. My mother put her hand to her chin and said Oh my dear.

It scared me to think about Germans and Japs. I saw pictures of them in the newspaper and they were fierce looking people. And fat Wops. Scary. I looked at my mother and she put her hand over my hand and squeezed. She didn’t mention the letter the T.P. Gilbert had delivered eight years ago. I was glad.

After dinner Nancy and Doris helped clear the dishes then left. After good-byes my mother and Raney finished doing the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, then polished the dining room table until it shone. My father poured himself a cup of coffee and came into the living room and sat down to read the paper. I sat on the footstool near him. He didn’t acknowledge me. The dog curled up at his feet. I looked at my father around the newspaper studying his face. Patrician. Square jawed dimple in the center of his chin. Not harsh but stern New England. Heavy eyebrows and dark shadow of a beard, although he had just shaved. His hair was black and wavy on top gray on the sides and slicked back with Vaseline. He wore glasses with no frames. Wire rims. His hands were large his fingers short in comparison to his big hands.

I needed his help but I couldn’t choke out the words. Utica Mitchell and his gang were going to get me but I didn’t know how to ask for my father’s help. He couldn’t walk me home from school. What could he do anyway? I shuddered when I thought of being alone on the railroad tracks.

I was just opening my mouth to speak when he folded the paper and got up. Time for me to