My Oxford Year

“It’s said we live longer now. Fallacy. We’re simply kept alive longer. Death with dignity. Every culture had it. The Greeks drank hemlock. The Romans fell on their swords. Samurai and seppuku. Medieval knights, so armored there was no conceivable way to suicide on the battlefields, gave that honor to one another, a misericord slipped between the plates and straight into the heart. But us? No misericord for us. We cure people to death.” He pauses. “This is where the ones who truly love you ought to step in, champion you. They ought to.” Jamie swallows. “In those awful final days, the one who might have been able to give Ollie some comfort, the one he loved most, Ce, he kept away. He couldn’t bear having her see what he’d been reduced to. By my father.”

In the ensuing silence I can hear Jamie’s breathing begin to thicken, grow more audible, more rasped, choking down the long-repressed emotion and losing. Finally, he says thinly, “He would have had him plugged into those bloody machines forever. So Oliver made me his Lasting. His Power of Attorney.” Jamie swallows. “Truth? I had hoped that Oliver would die before it became my decision. Cowardly? Yes. But we might have come through the whole palaver without William ever knowing we’d switched the paperwork. We could have preserved the illusion that he was still in charge. When he found out . . . things were said.” He stops. That’s it. That’s all I’m going to get.

Jamie can be obtuse, especially where feelings are concerned. He speaks in fragments, pieces that he leaves for me to put together.

To his credit, William has held up his end of their bargain. For the last three months it’s been as if he doesn’t exist. While Antonia visits often, and though I know William’s been in London a lot for business, he’s exiled himself from his son’s life just to ensure Jamie does what, he believes, Jamie needs to do to keep his life. My translation? William loves Jamie. And William loved Oliver. That’s evident now.

Tears seep from the corners of Jamie’s eyes. I want to say something to help, to make it all better, but what would that be? Nothing helps the loss of a brother, the betrayal of a father. So I rub his feet while his hand kneads my thigh.

Jamie looks up, watery blue eyes finding mine. “Don’t worry. I’m not giving up. That’s not what I’m implying by any of this . . . natter.” He chuckles once, softly, self-deprecating. “You’re not rid of me yet. I’m only saying, when the time comes, let it be my Oxenford.” He looks back down at his feet. “‘Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, when I put out to sea.’” Jamie closes his eyes.

Tennyson. Always Tennyson.

Everyone has his metaphor. For Tennyson it was a sandbar, for Jamie it’s a ford in the river. For me?

I don’t know yet.

I can’t think about it.

I’m not ready to think about leaving this world. Right now I’m just struggling with the thought of leaving Jamie in June, and there is no metaphor for that.

Jamie’s invited me to move in with him, but I haven’t brought more than a toothbrush and pajamas over here.

Because when I pack up in June, I don’t want to do it in this house. It has to be at Magdalen. The place I originally came here for and the place I will leave behind. I’m shallowly planted there; here, the roots have taken and will be harder to remove when the time comes.

“Relinquish,” Jamie says, more calmly, more composed. “Knowing when to let go. Release oneself. There’s nothing worse than being caught, trapped in indecisiveness.” These random thoughts that come and go as he slips in and out are little cherry bombs that he sets off in me.

When my father was dying, did he relinquish? It happened so fast. He probably spent his last moments cursing himself for taking an icy corner too quickly. But he knew his daughter and wife loved him, I’m certain of that. In that moment, was that enough?

I can’t imagine the terror William must live in, that he could get a call in the middle of the night and it’s me—me, whom he loathes—telling him Jamie’s gone. Antonia’s words come back to me. Sometimes one must ask oneself why the bull is in the china shop in the first place.

There’s no right or wrong. No judgment to be passed. Life just gets complicated when people love each other. To take sides is an exercise in futility. How do we get rid of the sides?

How do I, in good conscience, leave Jamie at the mercy of his father if nothing’s been resolved?

I will fix this. I will figure out a plan. It’s my gift, after all, and it will be my parting gift to Jamie and his family. And, in truth, to myself as well. The gift of a plan duly executed. The gift of a clear conscience.

In the deathly quiet, my phone rings. My head drops to my chest. “I’m so sorry,” I murmur.

Jamie squeezes my thigh, letting me know he doesn’t mind. “The final debate. Just the two of them, Wilkes and Hillerson. It’s tonight?”

“Yeah,” I say, standing. “It’s crunch time.” I pull the phone out of my pocket, step out of the bathroom into the bedroom, and answer softly. “Gavin.”

“So. Janet’s pregnant.”

What. “What?”

“She’s pregnant.” I’ve never heard his voice sound like this, detached, just reporting the facts. It’s so unlike him. Which is why it takes me this long to realize he’s not joking.

“It’s not mine,” he states.

Jesus, maybe he is joking. “Gavin, please, if this is your idea of a—”

“It’s the boyfriend’s. Peter’s.”

I don’t even know where to start. “H-how far along is she?”

“Four months.”

“Four months!” I yelp, turning farther away from the bathroom.

“Apparently, she’s not very—how am I having this conversation?—‘regular,’ some premenopausal thing, so it took her a few months to figure it out. The goddamn doctor’s office leaked it, just in time for the debate tonight. Not that she could’ve hid it forever.” He sighs. A measure of Gavin comes back into his voice when he says, “It’s done, kid. We’ve overcome a lot, but . . .” He sighs again. “This is just a bridge too far.” I’m silent. “I gotta make calls.”

“O-okay,” I finally answer, but he’s already hung up. I bring the phone down from my ear and just look at the blank screen.

It’s over.

I should be surprised, and I am.

I should be shocked, and I am.

I should be angry. I am.

I should be afraid of what comes next; that too.

But with all that churning inside me, my only thought as I stare at the blank screen is: now I can stay in Oxford.

It trumps everything.

And that scares the hell out of me.

I turn back toward the bathroom and see Jamie. He’s nodded off, back against the wall, chin to chest. The way a toddler can fall asleep. I stare at him for a moment. A long moment.

Then I step back out into the bedroom and call Gavin back.

“Yeah?” he answers.

“Why?” I ask.

“Why, what?”

“Why is it over? Why is she dropping out?” It’s so quiet I think we’ve been disconnected. “Hello?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Ella, just spit-balling here, but maybe because we can’t have an unmarried, single mother for president?”