Four Nights With Lovice

It's so positive to hear you say that Jack seemed for awhile last night to be talking, or at least mumbling. I realize neither you nor the night nurse could understand what he was saying. But still, good stuff, don't you think?

I remember his neurosurgeon team telling us that talking, even if nonsensical, could be the beginning of coming out of the coma. My God, it's been 30 days already. I pray that our lovely little brother is going to pull through this.

The newspaper here in Seattle published an article about Jack just this week, telling about the roadside bomb in Afghanistan that caused his massive brain concussion that led to the coma. I was so pleased to see that the writer went into detail about his career as one of the most respected and senior foreign correspondents covering the war. Every newspaper in the country has written about this. The TV networks have all done segments on his ordeal. I'm so proud of him. We all are.

And all my friends, after reading the story, wanted to know more about his time embedded with the Marine unit that he was traveling with. He wrote some important articles from that.

You asked if I knew anything of the two names you and the night nurse were able to discern during Jack's mumblings. You said he repeated them over and over. I definitely know the name Lovise. You were having babies back then and starting your career. But I was pretty close to him at that time, when he and I were in our twenties.

When Jack was a young journalist, just starting out in South America, he wrote me about her. A photographer, I believe. I forget where they were, maybe Uruguay. It's so long ago. Lovise had run into Jack a few times before, but they met up in Uruguay and got to know each other over a marvelous dinner at some al fresco cafe with all his other young journalist friends. He said she had just gotten in from a long trip and was dirty and disheveled, needed a bath but had no time to get one. Despite that, he was falling for her. Had been since he first met her.

But after dinner, she left immediately, had a bus or plane to catch and headed to the fighting in Nicaragua. She insisted that's where the "real" stories were. She was due back in Uruguay in just a few weeks, so they had mapped out plans to meet. There was a definite spark between them. At least that's what Jack said.

Two weeks later, she and one of Jack's other friends, I think his name was Klaus, were just outside Managua, riding in caravan north toward the war. Their car was stopped by some militia. All these years later, and I still hate to even think about it. And Jack would never speak about it afterward. Both were pulled out of the back seat, dragged to the middle of the street and summarily executed, shot in the head -- in front of hundreds of people. No arrests ever made, of course.

Jack grieved for a good two years. But he let few people see it. You know how he keeps his emotions in check. He never really got over her. It broke his heart, so he threw himself into his work and soldiered on. That's the story of Lovise.

And I can't believe you have to ask about the other name, "Anastasia," that you heard! What a poor memory you have, dear sister. Don't you remember that "Anastasia" is the name that Jack, when he was a boy, gave to Mom! He thought she was such an exotic woman that her name should be more exciting than just "Anna." He called her "Anastasia" for years.

I don't know why he's obviously still thinking about her. He was only 12 years old when she abandoned us all, leaving in the dead of night and us waking up in our apartment the next morning, just the three of us to face the world. I still have her note. "I'll come back to get you, all of you. I promise." Of course, she never did. With no dad either, how did she think we would survive. No thanks to her, we did.

Jack may still love her, but I don't. How could I? It broke my heart to listen to him saying, over and over, that she would come back to get us. Even after you left for college, he would wake up every morning and tell me the same thing: "Anastasia will come back. She loves us."

Yes, she could be so loving, but was so strange and elusive. Jack adores his memories of her to this day. They were inseparable. I remember the two of them curling up together on the bed with her reading to him, grown-up poetry that he couldn't possibly understand, like D.H. Lawrence. It was very sensuous stuff. Way over his head, but he loved it. And she'd teach him about architecture. Remember how she used to bore us to death talking about that, such a passion she had for it, though I don't believe she really knew much about it.

I never quite got their relationship. She would turn off the TV in the afternoons and play Patsy Cline records for hours, both she and Jack slow-dancing and singing along in harmony. I know one afternoon I was in my bedroom and a hard summer rain started, a real storm. I looked out the window and there were Jack and Mom holding hands, running up and down the street, getting soaked, both of them laughing hysterically. They'd do things like that. I sometimes thought they both were crazy. She freely admitted she was not destined to lead a normal life. She was different, she said. She thought the same of Jack.

I'm sorry I'm rambling. But it's bringing back memories. Do you remember when she would bring fresh flowers home, then pull out one apiece and give them to us, telling us that, no matter what happens, always remember her when we see flowers. Jack would press the petals in books and save them. Still has them in his Manhattan apartment.

As a kid, he pretended she was some kind of government spy and had to leave us for a secret mission. But she would come back for us when she was through. He was a teenager before he gave that up.

I think even when he was grown and dating, he was always trying to find someone like our mother, another version of "Anastasia" that he could love. But he never could find her, except maybe in his dreams.

So, in a sense, these two women he loved so much, both of them abandoned him in the end.

I'm not sure what to make of his speaking their names. It was interesting to hear from the nurse that when he mentioned "Anastasia" it was so lovingly, as if she were there with him.

I suppose we'll never really know. He may be dwelling in some netherworld of part memory, part dreams, maybe just hallucinations. If he is, maybe he's thinking about them. Then maybe he's truly happy. I'd give anything if that was the case.

I'm taking a leave of absence on Friday and will catch a flight back there again by Saturday to help out. I'll stay as long as it takes, and give you a break from all of this.

Last night, before I went to bed, Amanda, I prayed for Jack and reminded myself how much we love him. It's silly, I know, but I imagined standing beside his hospital bed, holding his hand, running my fingers through his hair and kissing his lips to bid him good night. And I said:

"Sweet dreams, dearest Jack. Your sister loves you. I'll be there soon, and once I get there, I won't leave you. Ever. I promise I'll be there for you. And if they're with you now, then give my best to Lovise and Anastasia."

Natasha