Charlie Tasker, my cousin, stood at the doorway, his shoulders facing forward, his head turned to the side, looking at me. I sat on the bed on the opposite wall, exhausted from tears and packing. Let's get this over with, I said, let's get this over with. I'd loved Charlie since I was four years old and I couldn't bear the thought of him going to Cuba to fight. McKinley had called up for volunteers. Our assemblyman, a loud, burly man with a thick handle-bar moustache, six children from two marriages, and a huge estate on the water from his family's railroad money, had cornered Charlie at an Oyster Bay town meeting, I'm organizing troops to fight for McKinley, would you join me? Charlie'd said yes without asking what I thought. And sure enough, off Charlie went with Colonel Roosevelt and the Rough Riders.
I never talk about what happened next. When I look back these forty years onto that time, there's a vacuum between 1898 and 1901. I don't like to think about those years. I don't like to think about what the years since would've been like, if Charlie had come back in 1901. So many possibilities for happiness that didn't happen. I met Cornelius in 1902. He was a nice man, kind enough, and since I couldn't think of any reason to say no, we got married a year later. I was in a fog the whole time and came out of it only when my two sons were born, young Cornelius and my special Norman. My Tasker relatives doted on the boys. It didn't help that Norman bore a great resemblance to Charlie. That much everyone knew and said. Cornelius, unsuspecting, gave me a good life. He was a nice man.
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