I
was totally obsessed with Jimmy Bean.The night he took me in his arms and kissed me for the first time will
remain with me until my dying day.I
learned things about how my body responded that to me were a wonder and a
fright.And to this day I am convinced
there is a God up there … as fickle as he might be … because Jimmy loved me in
return.There was never any need for him
to say it.I saw it in his eyes and
later felt it in the tenderness of his hands.He was my own personal miracle, sent down to love me like an angel
would.Jimmy was the reason for my
life.Everything that had ever happened
to me had taken place so that Jimmy and I would unite in love.But it lasted such a short time.
When Jimmy left me on that terrible morning, I did
not get over it and struggle on in my world.Instead, I moved to another world.I didn’t change jobs right away, I didn’t leave town.I don’t know if I can properly explain it,
but it was as if everything changed in my life.I was so heartbroken that I refused to think about him, pushing thoughts
of anything to do with Jimmy from my mind as soon as they tried to enter.The thought of future children now played out
in my mind without Jimmy hovering behind us.The trolleys passing on the street now contained no possibility of Jimmy
on board.The handsome man in the
magazine advertisement no longer looked like Jimmy.And when I went to church … well I didn’t go
to church hardly at all after Jimmy.There was no one there I wanted to talk to.
Losing Jimmy was so awful.I know I’m dragging my heels getting to it,
but it’s so hard to even think about.Sometimes I wish Jimmy had gone off and married some hussy at the
factory and I would have walked up to the roofat lunch time and just jumped over the railing and landed onWhitesboro Street like a sack of
potatoes.That’s selfish, I know.Pa and Blanche would have been devastated and
I’d have wound up in hell for killing myself, if Father Flaherty is right about
those things.
Jimmy and I were meant to be together.We never married, but we did … love each
other.Oh, my God, I never dwell on
it.But why shouldn’t I?I’m too old to worry about what a woman
should and shouldn’t think about.I can
think about anything I want.Just as I
now say anything I want.
I never told my husband everything about Jimmy and
me.I could be wrong, butI don’t think Jack guessed.He was a gentle and wonderful man and he
loved me.I mentioned Jimmy Bean had
been my boyfriend.I didn’t give him any
details.On our wedding night I said I’d
slipped while climbing a fence when I was a little girl and bled a little and
what do you know.Jack loved me until he
died a few years ago.I loved him so
much for that, for his caring ways and the children he gave me, now gone too.
