Epilogue

Parker

All my gratitude to Sarah for her helpful insight into the epilogue.

I leaned back in my chair, my hands clasped behind my head, contemplating the screen of the computer before me.

One hundred and sixty pages total. Third draft. A year and a half to write and it still sounded empty to me. No matter how hard I tried, the words “the end” on the bottom of that page just did not look right to me.

But what could possibly have been missing? I had written everything practically from the old journal and what hadn’t been in there, I wrote from memory. I had included everything I could remember. I don’t know how I couldn’t have. Once I had started writing, it had all just poured out. I hadn’t realized I had needed to say anything until I had started saying it.

True, some parts were harder than others. But I felt I had done a satisfactory job handling them.

And still there was something missing. Something in the story that still needed to be said. But I could not figure out...

I picked up the picture laying on the desk next to me, the very one that had started everything in the first place. I turned it over in my hands, reflecting on the image of Taylor embracing me on our last day together in New York before he returned to Oklahoma. I smiled a little bit at it. That scene had taken me three different tries before I felt I had my emotions and observations right. I had felt a lot that day, saying good-bye to him for the first time since we had met, though not as much as I would feel saying good-bye to him for the last time in the airport in Oklahoma. It wasn’t forever then. I would see him again in a few weeks in his home state, where my life would truly change. Where I would find out just how much his life had changed as well.

Oh. Duh. That was what was missing.

I opened the drawer to my desk and began to rummage through it for the most recent Christmas card he had sent me, a few months before. The note on the inside of the card gave his current address and phone number. Still in Tulsa, though I knew he spent a lot of time in Los Angeles as well.

But the note said he wouldn’t be there again until the middle of summer.

So I began my letter to the Tulsa address:

Dear Taylor,

So I was writing this book (stop laughing). My daughter gave me the idea when we were putting away the Christmas decorations last year and she found the journal I had kept when I was staying in Tulsa as well as the old picture of us at Darien Lake. She asked me who you were and I told her everything. Then I went to the computer and told it everything, too.

In short, it’s been a year and a half long journey through three rather pain-stakingly different versions of the story. It’s not quite the tell-all I kept threatening you with--the names are changed and everything (how do you feel about the name Herbert? Just kidding)--but it does go fairly in-depth and stuff. Even so, there was just something missing.

I was wondering if you’d be willing to make this a joint effort? Or even a group effort if you wanted to get Isaac and Zac involved.

What do you think? You’re not going to, like, sue me now that you know I wrote a book about you, are you? Probably not. You’re not like that. I hope anyway. *gulp* Anyway, I could send you what I have before you decide. Thought I’d try.

Talk to you soon,
Parker Lowell

THE END
October 14, 2000

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." --The Beatles, "The End"
A Few Last Words
Index