Chapter Text
EPILOGUE
January, 1924
Montreal, Quebec
I woke up to someone shaking my shoulder. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know who it was, because if I’d had any doubts, the soft kiss pressed to my throat, and the murmured “Morning, old sport,” gave it away.
I smelled fresh coffee and something salty and brined that turned out to be fresh lox bagels from our favorite deli. I sat up with a yawn, smiling at Jay, who was lounging in the window seat, casual in a cable knit sweater and slacks, balancing a plate on his knee.
“I bought breakfast,” he grinned.
I got out of bed with a sigh, wincing as my bare feet met with the cold floor of our apartment. I retrieved my robe from where it was slung over Horatio’s cage, and bid him a good morning as I fastened the belt around my waist. The parrot cocked his head and made a happy, clicking sound at the sight of me.
“What time is it?” I asked, padding over to the table to collect my plate of breakfast and my cup of coffee.
“Ten. I let you sleep in. Thought you might be tired after last night.”
“You sound mighty smug,” I said with a grin, ambling over to him. He chuckled.
“Well, am I wrong? I wore you ragged.”
I responded by taking a seat next to him and kissing his freshly shaven jaw.
“Mm. You smell good.”
“New aftershave. Do you like it?”
I nodded. We ate in silence for a while, accompanied by the sound of Horatio singing a tune to himself.
“What’s on your agenda today?” Jay asked through a mouthful of salmon and capers. I shrugged.
“I have to turn in my piece. The Quebec Chronicle and Quebec Gazette will not be kept waiting. Everyone wants the ubiquitous New Year’s reflection from their good man Carraway, in the field.”
I nodded to the typewriter that sat at the desk one corner of the room, the final draft neatly stacked beside it.
“And after that?” Jay prompted.
“Hmm… I don’t know. I was going to go for a walk down to the Vieux-Port, but I could be persuaded to stay in… it being our anniversary, after all.”
He beamed.
“So it is. I thought you’d forgotten.”
“Me? Never.”
He nuzzled the spot below my ear that made me shiver.
“I don’t suppose you’d have time for a little… dalliance before work? After all, like you always say, the news waits for no man.”
I arched my back and leaned into the fleeting pecks that were peppering my skin.
“It’s only a fluff piece… and I am rather good about my deadlines, aren’t I?”
Jay hummed in agreement.
“Well... I suppose… it being our anniversary and all.”
Jay cleared our plates away and returned, but when I made to get up, he pushed me back down into the seat.
“I must say,” he said as he lowered himself to the floor, “that I don’t sing the praises of bathrobes nearly enough. They are wonderfully convenient, aren’t they?”
My response was a serious of expletives as he worked to quickly reduce me to an incoherent mess.
Afterwards, he lingered in the doorway as I stood in the bathroom, running through my regular morning ablutions. He looked good like that – rumpled, with his belt open and his hair mussed, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth as he mooned over me. I said as much as I shaved, peering at him out of the corner of my eye.
“I could go with you, you know,” he said. “To turn your segment in. I could wait for you and then we could hire a calèche and ride around the city a little. Maybe we could take in a show.”
For once, I agreed to the indulgence.
We rarely had the money for excesses – the few expensive things we owned came to us second or third hand. I made a good living on my salary – nothing extravagant, but reasonable, and took care of the usual things like rent and food and so on. Other than Horatio, we only had ourselves to look after – Jay was constantly surprised at how little food we needed, having grown used to buying enough to feed hundreds upon hundreds of houseguests.
Jay was doing the best he could, bless him. It hadn’t been as easy for him to find work as he’d thought – or rather, what work he found was difficult to adjust to. He did not want to return to bootlegging, but the fact remained that it took longer to earn an honest dollar than it did a crooked one. Only the fact that he’d grown up poor saved him from complete shock at having to adjust to living within more modest means.
He’d told me about his upbringing in greater detail ‘round about the same time he changed his surname back to Gatz. Jay Gatz – past and present, mixed together. It suited him – the real him. The him I’d come to know.
It has not been easy – any of it. Immigration was a lengthy ordeal, and Jay is still waiting on his papers. His record, though he’d been acquitted, made things a bit more complicated for him than they were for me. For now, he does odd jobs – menial work. The kind of thing his father might have done, had he not stuck to farming. He told me, once, under cover of darkness, that he had doubted his father would’ve been proud to know that he had turned out to be poor – richer than he’d started off as, but much, much poorer than he’d ever been as Gatsby. I’d told him his father would’ve appreciated his work ethic all the more, now that he was an ordinary, middle-class fellow, and though he’d changed the subject that night, I’d been proved right in due time, when I at last convinced him to write to old Henry and tell him a heavily edited version of our recent Canadian adventures, and the old man had sent us written confirmation of his praise.
What didn’t make it into letters will probably one day make it into this journal, though I admit I’ve grown quite lax at adding to it. I haven’t had the time – I’ve been so busy living.
I still here from Daisy from time to time. She’s trying, bless her. She says she’s taken up patronizing charities. I’m not sure what Tom thinks about it, but she seems to think it will help ‘build her character.’
Jordan I hear of only in passing, through Daisy’s letters. I don’t wish her any ill.
Even Tom, who I’ve always found a bit difficult to take in large doses, I’ve learned to forgive for what transpired.
Jay says it’s because I’m getting wise in my old age. Ha! The wisest one in our little family is Horatio by far. He’s the only one who’s been able to train two grown men to bring him treats whenever he wants them.
In the end, it was like I’d thought. Love. Who would have thought so much love could exist in one place? Sometimes, as I’m falling asleep, I fear I’ve dreamed all this, and that any minute I will wake up and Jay will be in prison – or worse, that this is all some momentary flash in my mind as I bleed to death in Jay’s pool.
I’m always reassured, in those moments, by Jay holding my scarred hand in his. Such a simple touch, reassuring me of all things.
I won’t add this to my newspaper piece, though it feels as though it would fit:
1924 has only just begun. Goodness knows what the future holds. I can’t imagine it can be any worse than what’s come before. With every day that passes, the world grows a little brighter. Perhaps it’s not just Jay and I who are healing. I really don't doubt that we’ll always have better tomorrows to look forwards to.
Ah, but I’m rambling now. Horatio wants my attention – he’s been whistling at me for the past five minutes. Once Jay gets out of the bath, I imagine he’ll want me to stop writing so we can finish celebrating. Setting down my pen is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.
So I’ll leave it here, for the time being. We’ll see what the future holds. I know we’ll manage. It was love that guided me to save Jay's life, and it is love that guided him to, in a more abstract sense, save mine. We're both better men for it.
It's always been about love, after all. I never saw how much, until I finally got to live it. But perhaps I ought to have guessed, for it's been said before, in words more tried and true than mine.
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
1 Corinthians 13:7