It’s hard to imagine that after writing 13 pages last night, Dart still has eight pages left in him, but he does. His letter last night only served to make him feel more lonesome. He’s also concerned that he may have said some things that will hurt her, but his faith in her is so strong that he believes she’ll understand that he meant no harm. “You’ve understood me before when I’ve said things that were tactless or unusual. That’s one of the many things that make you so dear to me.” I love how he can identify attributes that are uniquely Dot’s that add to his love for her.
He reflects for a page about why he misses her so much after he’s been driving. “We’ve driven so many miles in complete harmony that a long drive always seems as though it should include you.”
A visit to Pop brought the news that chest X-rays reveal there is still a large part of one lung that is not functioning. As soon as that clears up, doctors say he can go home. Dart worries that they still haven’t addressed his issues with insomnia.
On the way back from the hospital he stopped at the Plain Dealer to let them know he couldn’t work tonight. He hasn’t heard from them today so he hopes everything will work out okay.
As he listened to the midnight news tonight, he had a lovely thought. Maybe they could have a radio by their bed and on some future Sunday night they could fall asleep listening to beautiful music. “I think of so many lovely things to talk about when soft, pretty music is on. We wouldn’t even have to talk.”
“I imagine us lying there in each other’s arms, not cramped as we are on the davenport, but not taking up much more space than we do there, just murmuring our thoughts to each other. Maybe murmurs wouldn’t even be necessary. They haven’t always been, have they?”
Because all they have right now is memories, he likes to bring up each special one and examine it with love. “Remember the night of that bad storm here, when we stood in the vestibule? … Storms surely make us feel closer, don’t they? There’s something fierce and passionate about a storm. Something that makes us feel the same way. I like storms. Remember the other stormy night, when we drove to Kent and back to get your clothes? That was a storm!”
I recall many times when I was a child, sitting on the couch in the living room with one or both of my parents and a sibling or two, watching a violent storm raging outside the bay window. It seemed to me at those times that the louder and more ferocious the storms were, the cozier I felt, sharing the spectacle with my family. To this day, I’m warmed and energized by a great Midwestern thunderstorm!
He also recalls a night when Dot slept on his shoulder when she was feeling sick. “I loved you as tenderly and passionately that night as I do tonight. It made me feel wonderful that you confided your very personal secrets to me, and that I was, in some little way, helping you over the tough hours.”
Returning to his thoughts of music, he remarks that their love feels like music to him: Full of variety, fire, and rhythm; full of tenderness, laughter, and a few tears; full of great heights and dismal, lonely depths. Yes, he likes the idea of them listening to music together, under a single sheet on hot summer nights, or “under fluffy blankets in winter, our breath hot on each other’s air-cooled cheeks.” He claims he’s so lonely now that he never wants to sleep again until he can fall asleep touching her.
He has temporarily written himself out. There are no letters tomorrow.