Chapter Text
The period following Gatsby’s death I recall as a blur of relatives, writing, and drinking. The midwest now seemed bleaker to me than ever before. Everyone I knew was partying—I never wanted to again. Nevertheless I was dragged to several, but they all seemed bland and colorless in the afterimage of Gatsby's glittering lawn. It wasn't until the days became longer for the second time that I was abruptly drawn from my state of stupor.
That spring had been a stormy and moisture-filled affair, and that day was no different. All morning rain beat upon the windows and thunder sounded in the distance, and it seemed to me that it would continue raining all through the week. My parents had gone into town, so I was alone in the house. I was glad for the solitude, as I had gotten to a rather gripping part of the novel I’d been reading. I had a glass of whiskey on the table beside me, and my dog lay curled on the floor near my feet. I was so immersed in the book that when a knock came at the door I almost fell out of my chair in shock.
I hadn’t been expecting any visitors, and knew nobody should be returning this early. I set myself to the task of reading as stealthily as possible until they went away. It was when the third round of knocking rang out insistently that I reluctantly set down my book and trudged for the door. I swung it open, a reprimand already forming at my lips.
On the doorstep was a ghost.
“Well, old sport,” said the ghost, “I’m back.”
I blinked. Blinked again. The apparition did not dissipate. Whatever I’d been prepared to say dried up and stuck in my throat.
The dead man’s trembling hands tapped together in a constant rhythm. His eyes darted between me, the room behind me, his own feet. It was when he added to these constant movements a shuffling of the feet that I knew he was no ghost. This inimitable animation, neverending movement of thought and body, was a quality of his that no corpse could ever embody.
I considered slamming the door and locking it forever, thereby ridding myself of the last extant dregs of a summer long gone. But I knew, had known vividly these past months, that that summer would never leave me. And standing before me was the embodiment of it, here to haunt me personally.
He glanced again into my eyes, as if searching for something, before tearing his gaze away and taking a step back. “I shouldn't have come here,” he mumbled, almost to himself. “This was a mistake.”
He turned to go, and I was seized by an inexplicable panic, reaching out for him almost by instinct. Whether to pull him close or push him away, I didn't know. But nevertheless he stopped, staring at my outstretched hand. It occurred to me that in this instant I bore a striking resemblance to Gatsby the first time I saw him, hand outstretched so desperately. And I knew that if I let him turn away in this moment, I would be left forever chasing after him—reaching for a past that we had both let slip away.
I forced my hand back to my side. Gatsby's eyes followed it, otherwise frozen where he'd stopped, framed by the overcast sky.
I stepped aside in a wordless invitation to come inside. He seemed shocked for a moment, before breaking out into that smile which had haunted my dreams as much as his lifeless body had. He entered with a confidence unsuited for a building you've never been in before.
I led him to the sitting room and we sat across from one another. The book lay abandoned on the arm of my chair, carelessly placed spine-side-up to keep my place. I tried to recall what it had been about that had seemed so important, but I could no longer remember anything about it.
Gatsby sat with his hands folded in his lap and his leg bouncing. “This is—a lovely place,” He said, without looking around, “That you have here.” I nodded vaguely.
He swallowed and needlessly adjusted his tie. It was yellow, and over it he had on a pale blue suit, shoulders damp from the rain. His hair was longer than I’d ever seen it, which is to say it was not even an inch longer than he’d ever let it get to before. An inch longer than it had been on his corpse.
I downed what remained of my whiskey. I wanted to ask how, why, what heavenly intervention had brought movement back into his still body and made its heart beat once more. But I feared that upon questioning the impossibility before me it would dissolve away like a dream after waking.
“Why are you here?” I asked instead, voice hoarse from not speaking.
He stood up at once. “You want me to leave, of course, it's no trouble at all, I never should've come to bother you, old—”
I bolted up and grabbed him by the shoulders, and his rambling instantly shut off. “Stay,” I said, firmly. His hands came up and ghosted around my wrists. Almost in a whisper: “You're not leaving me again.”
He looked guiltily into my unblinking eyes. “Alright, I—alright. I'll stay.” His hands settled gently onto mine. They were rough, and their warmth seeped into mine. I felt myself smile—barely an upturn of the lips, but given the look on his face I may as well have been smiling one of his own gorgeous smiles.
I let go of his shoulders and his hands followed mine down until we stood with our hands clasped in the space between us. Rain pattered on against the windows.
“Why did you leave before?” I asked. Why did you have to die?
“It wasn’t my choice,” he said haltingly. This annoyed me somehow, but I didn’t yet have it in me to press further. Something in the set of his face suggested he wasn’t ready for that either.
I led him to the kitchen and put the kettle on. I busied myself with getting out the tea set while Gatsby looked around as if noticing the house for the first time. I felt as though in a dream—simply observing the nonsense around me, disconnected from my body and its actions.
I stood facing the kettle as it boiled, and something within me wailed that I would turn around to find Gatsby vanished—blown away by the wind in the same fashion he had blown in. I turned around and leaned on the countertop behind me so I could see him. He kept running his hands through his hair, messing up and then fixing his hairdo. The kettle squealed and he snapped his head around alertly, before realizing the source of the noise and clearing his throat awkwardly. The sound awoke my dog, who trotted into the room and followed us to the table.
I poured our tea and tried to remember how Gatsby had taken his tea that day Daisy had come over so long ago. I found this to be unhelpful, for at the time Gatsby had been so preoccupied that he added no less than five lumps of sugar before realizing he had added any at all. I decided to just let him prepare his tea himself.
We sat taking slow sips and delicate bites of cake. Gatsby seemed to be conducting a studious examination of the grain of the table. My gaze remained unerringly on him. Soon our cups were empty and, lacking anything else to do, I poured us both another.
Gatsby’s fingers clinked dully against his cup. I surrendered the rest of my cake to my dog under the table. The rain fell steadily harder.
“How have you been, old sport?” He asked suddenly, as if we were simply catching up after a long week.
“I've been better,” I said bitterly. “You didn’t answer me before. Why are you here?”
His hands gripped the teacup as if it was the only thing anchoring him to this plane. “I happened to be in the area, old sport,” He said quickly, “And I thought I might as well drop in on an old friend.”
The distant roar of thunder rolled over us. I set down my cup with perhaps more force than strictly necessary. “Gatsby. You can't just materialize at my house and expect us to go on like nothing's happened. It's been nearly two years—”
“Yes, I'd hoped to come sooner, but it couldn't be helped—”
The next thing I knew I had him by the necktie and had pulled him halfway across the table. “You DIED, Jay!” Lightning flashed through the windows. Something fell and crashed onto the floor. “And now here you are just—dropping in? You didn’t write, didn’t call—”
“It was imperative that the ruse of my death remained airtight,” He murmured smoothly. I felt like laughing.
“Well, I believed it,” I scoffed. “I went to your funeral.” He nodded gravely. “I mourned you.” He closed his eyes tightly, as if in pain. “No one else did.” He paused, then bowed his head once more in silent admission. He looked so small, so guilty—like a prisoner awaiting judgement. Distantly, I registered that I was crying.
I let go. He remained sprawled awkwardly over the table for a moment before withdrawing. I scrubbed a sleeve over the hot tears flowing down my face. He turned and righted his chair from where it had tipped over. He still faced away from me when he said, “Do you want me to leave, now?”
“Never.” A pause. “But you can’t pretend that you’ve just crossed our lawn to have a chat.” He sighed and nodded. I continued, with an effort to be genial, “What have you been up to, then, if you haven’t been busy being dead?” I choked a little on the last word. Images of his face, bloody, lifeless, flashed behind my eyelids. A face that was undoubtedly his, but devoid of some intrinsic quality that he had always carried. I opened my eyes to see that same face, robust in a way his corpse was not, and looking somewhat concerned.
He began haltingly: “Well, yes, I never did die, despite all appearances to the contrary. I lost my house—I couldn’t go on owning it when I was supposed to be dead. As it turns out, it’s hard to own much of anything when you’re dead.” He tried at a laugh, but quickly stopped when I didn’t join in. “Wolfsheim salvaged what he could, but my fortune is… gone.”
I tried to picture it: his house, his shirts, his rich persona, all crumbling into the dirt he had built them up from. The loss must have felt inconsequential to him in the wake of losing the girl that was his reason for it all in the first place.
“I should’ve called, old sport, you’re right. I almost did, several times. I just…never knew what to say. So I waited, until you could see me in person.”
He stooped and collected the pieces of shattered teacup off the floor. I brought over the wastebasket and he deposited the porcelain within.
“I kept working with Meyer—a legally dead man has his uses in that line of work,” He continued lightly. “I went where I was needed, until finally I was called to your city. So here I am.”
The room returned to its silence. More than that—the drumming of the rain had died away. There was a stillness in the air; a new peace had been brokered.
He looked up at me. Again, that smile—albeit strained. “I hope I don’t disappoint, old sport.”
“It’s hard to be disappointed with the impossible.”
He seemed to think I’d said something very funny, as his expression morphed to almost resemble laughter, but it was marred by a sort of grief. “You’d be surprised.”
The dog took this lapse in concentration as an opportunity to jump up on Gatsby in precisely the way I thought I’d trained her not to. Despite being jolted out of his reverie, he didn’t seem to mind.
“Oh hello there, you,” he murmured, and promptly pet her with a lack of elegance that came as a surprise to me. He found the tag of her collar and bent his face towards it. “What’s your name, then…‘Jet Wilson.’ “ He lingered for a moment, and I thought he might comment on the name, but instead he asked about her breed.
I shrugged. “There’s some Airedale in her and that’s all I know.”
Gatsby nodded. Jettie extricated herself from his grasp, clicked over to the back door and scratched at it with a white paw until I cracked it open for her. The air outside was moist and brought with it the smell of petrichor.
Jettie’s absence made the glaring existence of the man here with me all the more apparent. I reentered the kitchen to see Gatsby perusing the cabinets and I approached until I was just behind him. Upon some scrutiny, I discovered brown roots growing in along his hairline, dark against his bleached hair. I had never before seen his natural hair color except in photographs.
And it was that small thing that made it all real. In no dream of mine would he be anything less than perfectly groomed and polished to shining.
“You're really here,” I said hoarsely.
“Yes, old sport, I'm afraid I am.”
We embraced, then. Never before had I held onto someone so tightly and for so long, and he allowed it.