Resilience Page 14

  James and Roger had invented a role-playing game when we lived together in Potomac Lodge. They called it Triangle, and they decided to play it during our Taj Mahal visit. Each of us pretended to be an ambassador from a particular nation. James was from the Soviet Union. Roger was the US ambassador, and I was from China. In the 1970s, Henry Kissinger was wooing China out from behind its diplomatic walls, so Roger tried to convince me—as China—that he would make the better ally, while James tried to convince me that he would be better. We were drinking wine by then, yet Roger and James engaged in a vigorous debate. I ended the game by putting my arms around James and kissing him. “You win,” I declared, “because you’re mine!”

  Late that afternoon, the sun turned red, and darkness began to descend. We sat in the gardens outside the Taj Mahal and watched.

  An arrowhead of

  Snow geese

  Shoots into an

  Orange globe of

  One setting sun—

  I rejoice at their fragility,

  At the yearning of my soul,

  At the intensity of life,

  At my existence,

  Which is my

  Poem.

  There are only a few perfect moments in one’s lifetime, and while it may be difficult to remember everything that happens during your life, these perfect moments are forever burned into our memories. When I close my eyes, I can see the three of us sitting on the cool grass, our backs against the wall. We three would always have each other’s backs, against a wall or not—or so I thought.

  What we saw that evening was a full moon, a luminescent moon, and in that moment all of us felt completely free, as if there were no struggles in our lives. We loved each other. It was as if all three of us could “coast uphill” forever. The moon and the softly glowing Taj Mahal gave me a gift that night. The gift was our adventures in India; the gift was getting through the hell of James’s operation and my own personal hell of being at his bedside. The gift was, quite frankly, love.

  Back at our hotel, we went for a dip in the pool to help clear our heads, and Roger made another declaration. He’d decided to use his American Express card to buy us airline tickets back to the United States and to give us enough cash so that we could afford to live comfortably in India while we settled our affairs.

  A few days after Roger left, I mailed him a thank you letter. He always got a kick out of how we signed them. I put down my first name and James signed his, so our autograph was Jessie James.

  In that letter, I informed Roger that we had cashed in the airline tickets that he had bought for us and were using the money to travel overland across India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and then fly to Greece. When you calculated all the costs, we would still have enough to fly home, plus we would get to see three additional countries. Roger sent word back that he was delighted that we were continuing our big adventure together.

  Near the end of our stay in Athens, James leaned forward while we were eating dinner at a sidewalk café and said, “Let’s get married.”

  James had told me earlier that he didn’t believe in marriage.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I replied.

  “No. Will you marry me?”

  I looked at his too-thin face and said, “Of course!”

  We left the restaurant and found a priest who agreed to marry us if we could find two witnesses. We grabbed a couple from the sidewalk outside the church.

  James was crying when he said, “I do.”

  It was the second perfect moment in my life.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  James wouldn’t come out of the bedroom. He had made a reading nest next to the window and was staying aloof from my family. James and I had returned from Greece to New York and had driven to Greenwich to be with my parents and siblings, all of whom were living at Grandmother Moore’s house.

  My family had not said anything blatantly negative about my surprise wedding, but from their less than enthused reactions I knew I had disappointed them again. Dad made a point of telling me that he thought the only reason a couple should get married was to have children. When I told him that James didn’t want children, he seemed both relieved and puzzled. Why had I bothered to marry him, then?

  I was happy when James boarded a flight for Texas, where we had decided to set up housekeeping as husband and wife. I was scheduled to join him a few days later. The only family member who liked James was Granny Close. Being from Texas herself, she enjoyed his Texas accent and southern manners.

  In India, James and I had seemed a perfect match. Now our differences screamed out. He was from Texas. My family and I were Yankees from Connecticut. He’d grown up poor. I hadn’t. James was an autodidact. My family had sent me to some of the best boarding schools in the nation. Looking back now, I also suspect James was suffering from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder because of his combat in Vietnam—feelings that he didn’t feel comfortable discussing with us. He woke in cold sweats, sitting upright and gasping for air, in the years I knew him. And he would never discuss it.

  By the time my flight began its descent into the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport several days later, I was nagged by doubts. Peering through the jet’s window at the landscape below, I felt like an alien about to land on an unknown planet.

  James was waiting, and he happily announced that he’d found us an apartment in Arlington, a city between Dallas and Fort Worth. After we’d settled in, James told me that he’d decided to postpone writing his book. He had a new plan. He was going to run for the Texas state legislature from Cayuga, in Anderson County, where both James’s and Roger’s mothers lived.

  I laughed, thinking he was joking.

  “Are you completely out of your mind?” I asked.

  “I believe I can get elected,” he replied indignantly.

  He began telling me why, and he was convincing enough that even I began to believe he would. The Texas state legislature only met for 140 days every other year. Being a representative was not a full-time job. Because of his injured back, which was still causing him considerable pain, James said he couldn’t work at a regular nine-to-five occupation. Being a part-time legislator would be a good match.

  I liked some of the ideas that he wanted to implement. What I didn’t like was the idea of being a politician’s wife. I had my own plans. I wanted to finish college, and I certainly didn’t want to move to a tiny Texas town so my husband could get elected.

  “James,” I said firmly. “Do you really want some local reporter digging into our pasts—especially my past?”

  Continuing, I reminded him that he was still regularly smoking pot. “Even though running for office could be a good idea, under our circumstances it’s not.”

  James was adamant that it was, so I asked: “How are you going to finance your campaign?”

  His answer was direct: my trust fund.

  My body went cold, and I felt nauseated. “But I’m going to be using that money to pay tuition,” I replied. I’d already been accepted at the University of Texas at Austin, which meant we would have to move even farther away from the political district that he planned to campaign in.

  “There’s not enough money for both of us to do what we want,” I added. “And I want to finish college.”

  Our discussion turned into a debate, and our debate turned into an argument, and that argument soon became emotional. James’s back was hurting him, and he was lying on the floor in our apartment as we argued.

  “You have no idea what it’s like to not be able to do things,” he declared. Then he yelled, “To no longer be strong; to be old!”

  “I’m not going to support you,” I snapped.

  I went for a walk. I needed to breathe. There was nothing but pavement near our apartment. I could hear the freeway roaring nearby and the cars coming and going from all the carbon-copy apartment buildings surrounding us. I hated Arlington, I hated Texas, and I wanted to return to the East Coast, to Greenwich. Or, better yet, I wanted to wake up f
rom this mess and be in Naini Tal.

  By this point, we had been in Texas about six weeks. Two months earlier, we had been celebrating our wedding in Greece, madly in love. Where had the romance gone? My mind was racing. I began to question whether James and I should have gotten married. Had my parents seen something I was missing? Did James love me, or was he simply after my money? Was he using me? Was this all part of his “coasting uphill” game-playing? Was this my first husband, Brad, all over again?

  My love for James was being poisoned by my growing paranoia. I couldn’t get Brad and his abuse out of my head; couldn’t stop thinking about his bullying, about all of it. There was no possibility of my ever becoming a politician’s wife, even if I wanted to be one. Some reporter would dig up all that dirt about me, all the drugs, KPOT, all the sexual experimentation. I felt panic and wanted to run far away. When I finally returned to the apartment James was in the shower.

  I telephoned Mom in Wyoming.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I explained. “James wants to run for the Texas state legislature. I want to go back to college. We don’t have enough money to do both.”

  “Jessie, your father and I are not going to give you and James money,” she declared in a firm voice.

  “I wasn’t asking you for money!” I protested.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” I said. “He can’t work full-time because of his back. I want to continue college…”

  “Does that mean you’re going to support him for the rest of his life?” she asked, interrupting.

  The reality of that hit me. I visualized myself stuck in his political district in a tiny rented house while James schmoozed with voters. I’d have to hide my past somehow. How would I do it? I already hated the fact that everywhere I went in Texas, people asked me, “You’re a Yankee, aintcha?!”

  “Maybe you need to get out of this relationship,” Mom said.

  “I don’t have anywhere to go,” I replied, becoming distraught.

  “You can come here to Wyoming and live with your father and me,” she volunteered. “James isn’t good for you. You need to leave him.” Her bluntness surprised me. “If you stay with him,” she added, “don’t call us asking for help again.”

  My thoughts and growing anxiety were already churning inside me when Mom told me point-blank that I needed to make a choice: James or my parents.

  When she hung up, all I could think about was that my parents finally wanted me to be with them. After years of feeling abandoned and rejected, they were saying, “Choose us.” I would feel safe there.

  I heard James turn off the shower and began to panic. I had to act. I couldn’t stand this anymore. I quickly called a taxi, grabbed a suitcase, and began throwing clothes into it.

  “What are you doing?” James asked when he emerged from the bathroom.

  “I’m going to Wyoming,” I said.

  “What? Wyoming? Why?” he replied, clearly shocked. “Jess, if there’s a problem, we need to talk about this. I don’t have to run for the legislature. We could move to San Francisco—where Roger is—you could go to college out there!”

  I paused long enough to glance into his eyes, which were filled with tears. But I heard my mother’s voice in my mind, and my heart grew cold.

  “No,” I said, slamming closed my suitcase.

  As soon as the taxi pulled up to our apartment, I bolted out the door and down the stairs, leaving James completely bewildered. He’d not seen this coming.

  As the taxi pulled away, I glanced back at our apartment and saw James standing behind our big picture window watching me go. It would be my last image of him.

  I ran off the airplane as soon as it landed at the Jackson Hole airport and collapsed into my father’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

  “I’ve made a huge mistake,” I cried. “I need to go back to Texas. James loves me. This is crazy coming here.”

  Dad gripped my shoulders, looked into my eyes, and said, “No, Jess. You are not going back. You are coming with us.”

  Although my father was a brilliant doctor, neither he nor I realized that my hysteria was being fueled by my undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Only much, much later would I understand that panic, paranoia, rapid thoughts, confused thinking, and anxiety were symptoms of my mental illness—symptoms that would surface again and again, always causing my moods to swing dramatically from feelings of momentary elation to utter hopelessness.

  James called later that night. We could work out a solution to our financial problems, he assured me. I was overreacting. I needed to come home to Texas. James offered to give up his stupid idea about running for political office. We could move to San Francisco, where he and Roger could start a business together.

  He was convincing. I wished I had never called my parents. I wished I had not flown to Wyoming. I had been overreacting. I wished James and I had never left India. I wished we could turn back the clock.

  My mind was spinning like a whirligig in a windstorm. Think, think, think. I wanted to be with James. I wanted to be with my parents. I wanted to please James. I wanted to please Mom and Dad. I didn’t want to be the difficult, irresponsible child anymore.

  I hung up the phone and immediately decided that I was not going back to Texas. I loved James, but we were over. I was moving on. I spent the next two days in bed, crying.

  Roger called me as soon as he heard that I’d moved out. “If you divorce James,” Roger said, “you will be divorcing me too, Jessie. And I don’t agree to that. I say no.”

  I spent another day crying. My parents accused me of being overdramatic. It was time to knock off the theatrics and stop feeling sorry for myself.

  At their urging, I filed for divorce. A requirement was that I had to live in Wyoming at least three months, and I also had to have a reason to get a divorce. I remembered that James said he wouldn’t raise a child to believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, so I told my lawyer that I didn’t want to have children with him because of that. It was a ridiculous excuse and wasn’t my real reason for filing, but it was enough to satisfy Wyoming law.

  I began looking for an apartment and gradually turned James and Roger into memories. As soon as I tucked them away, my racing thoughts and panic dissipated. I was moving forward, or so I told myself.

  During the following sixteen years, I lost track of James and Roger. I was convinced that I would see James again in an airport somewhere. But I never bumped into him. He did call me once, years later, and we spoke briefly, but I had moved on and so had he. Still, there was a connection.

  In early 1994, Roger contacted me. He said that after our divorce James had moved to San Francisco, where they had practiced James’s “coasting uphill” philosophy by renting a large Victorian mansion. James’s injured back gradually improved, so much so that he went to work at what then was an upstart telecommunications company, MCI, which had been created by the breakup of the AT&T monopoly. James saved enough for a nest egg, then quit and returned to Texas. His mother had died, so he moved into her home and had finally started writing his book. It had not been about Vietnam. It had been about intimidation in the business world—how to use it to get what you wanted. James had told Roger that he would commit suicide on his fiftieth birthday, but Roger said James had agreed not to do it on his actual birthday because he’d wanted to get his book published first. Sadly, no agents bit, and his book went unsold.

  Roger spent hours trying to talk James out of his long-planned suicide. He argued that James’s life was not his own to take. It belonged to his friends, too. But James was undeterred. A few weeks after his fiftieth birthday, James sat down and wrote his own obituary. He penned a letter to Roger and several of his friends. He put the letters into a briefcase with other important papers and walked across the road to a neighbor’s house, where he left the case. Returning to his mother’s house, James wrote a note to the police.

  “My name is James Thompson. My body is below this note. I have chos
en to die this way.”

  He told the police that there was no foul play at work and that he didn’t want an autopsy. He pinned the note onto his shirt and, seconds later, took his own life.

  Roger got a phone call from the police at 4:00 a.m. in California. James’s suicide was so devastating that after the funeral Roger sold all his possessions and drove to Collegeville, Minnesota, where he entered Saint John’s Abbey with the intent of studying to become a Benedictine monk. He was searching for explanations, for purpose, for hope. He eventually left the monastery without taking a monk’s final vows. Instead he returned to Texas, where he began writing a book of his own called Coasting Uphill, about his adventures with James.

  “James died because of his thinking,” Roger told me. “He literally thought himself to death.”

  There was something else Roger said.

  “James had other girlfriends through the years, but you were the most important person in James’s life—except for me. He loved you, and he wanted the two of you to live like you had in India. He was a pure romantic in that regard. It was the happiest time in his life and one of the happiest in mine.”

  Roger mentioned that there had been a brief period after the divorce when James and I might have gotten back together, but neither of us had tried. I discovered another irony years later. The last “rejection” letter that James had received had not really been a dismissal. The agent had simply suggested numerous changes that would have made the manuscript more marketable. Who knows? Perhaps James could have sold his book. When Roger sent me that letter, I realized it was from the same agency that would eventually sell the book that I would write years after leaving James.

  None of us gets through life without having regrets, without wondering about those roads we did not take. James is my untaken road. I have always wondered what would have happened if I had stayed in Texas with him or if we had moved to San Francisco together. I have always wondered if he would have killed himself if we had stayed married or if he had gotten help for what I am certain was his PTSD. In the end, it doesn’t really matter, does it?