The feelings were still there. Still raw and uninhibited. It was as if time hadn’t passed, and we were back there in those days when we first met. But of course, there was nothing to be done, we had both moved on. I had a wife and kid with another on the way and she, well, I never got to find out then since we didn’t even say hello, just stared at each other across the way until we disappeared from view of each other.
Years later, I found out that her mother had lied. She’d thought that because we came from such different economic backgrounds that things wouldn’t work out, but by then, I had already settled into married life with my wife and children, whom I was not about to destroy, and so there was no way for us to be together.
Jan never married; I also learned. Her love for me was so strong that she couldn’t bear the thought of being with anyone else. That knowledge brought me more pain than joy. The thought of her being alone and lonely while I carried on with life, almost broke me. Every significant achievement after that, was tainted with the shadow of what could’ve been. And wishing the woman I loved was the one I shared my successes with only made the guilt I felt towards your grandmother more profound.
Then when I was finally free, which is a horrible way to say it, but not long after your grandma passed away, Jan became very ill and moved back to the Hollow. Ellie came to live with her and take care of her, and that’s what we both did. Now here comes the hard part. I need you to be as open minded as you can be and remember that this is your beloved grandpa talking. Whatever you have come to think of me in the last year, you must know by now that I would never hurt you.
There’s an old legend in the Hollow, something not many know about. Have you noticed yet that there aren’t many young people milling about? Well, that’s because most of them move away to find their lives, but a very select few, the ones who know about this legend and have had certain …. experiences get to come back for a second chance.’
What the hell is he talking about? A second chance at what? Life? I think the youngest people here, except for Ellie and I and the young couple that moved here a year or so ago, are in their sixties, but most of them are way older than that.
I never gave much thought to the reasons behind that as it never seemed important. The truth is, the Hollow is no place to live unless you have a good job in one of the neighboring cities an hour or more away. Most of the people who live here now had been raised here and went away after college to return after retirement. Grandpa had done the same.
Of course, if you run a corporation like some of the folks here did, in this day and age, you could live here and fly out as needed while working remotely, which isn’t a bad idea since the place is so damn perfect for all its laid-back tranquility. I looked into the flames in the fireplace until I was almost falling asleep.
There was a kind of warmth not from the fire, that wrapped itself around me like a blanket and I just wanted to snuggle in and close my eyes. I could almost feel myself drifting as my eyes grew heavy. Snapping myself out of it, I went back to reading with that lingering feeling hanging over me.
‘It’s a second chance at love with the one person you truly loved but could never be with in this life, star-crossed lovers they’re called, or at least that’s the closest term to describe it. I know you’d scoff at what I’m about to say, but it’s the truth, and hopefully, you’ve seen some of what I’m about to describe, which would mean that Jan and I could finally have our happily ever after.’
What the hell? How could two people who are gone from this earth find their happily ever after together? Nothing here was making any sense. Had the old man been suffering from some kind of dementia there at the end? He’d been the most pragmatic person I knew, and none of this sounded anything like the man I knew and loved.
I was torn between throwing the drivel into the flames and being done with it and carrying on as he’d asked. In the end I told myself I owed it to him. That even if I was coming to believe that he’d lost his mind, I at least owed him the decency to read the words he’d left me. I looked back down at the papers in my hand, hoping that by the end I would’ve made sense of what was written there.