Robert Waller - The Bridges of Madison County

Though I must be honest and tell you that, right from the outset, Robert understood better than I what it was the two of us formed with each other. I think I only began to grasp its significance over time, gradually. Had I truly understood that, when he was face to face with me and asking me to go, I probably would have left with him.

Robert believed the world had become too rational, had stopped trusting in magic as much as it should. I’ve often wondered if I was too rational in making my decision.

I’m sure you found my burial request incomprehensible, thinking perhaps it was the product of a confused old woman. After reading the 1982 Seattle attorney’s letter and my notebooks, you’ll understand why I made that request. I gave my family my life; I gave Robert Kincaid what was left of me.

I think Richard knew there was something in me he could not reach, and I sometimes wonder if he found the manila envelope when I kept it at home in the bureau. Just before he died, I was sitting by him in a Des Moines hospital, and he said this to me: “Francesca, I know you had your own dreams, too. I’m sorry I couldn’t give them to you.” That was the most touching moment of our lives together.

I don’t want to make you feel guilt or pity or any of those things. That’s not my purpose here. I only want you to know how much I loved Robert Kincaid. I dealt with it day by day, all these years, just as he did.

Though we never spoke again to one another, we remained bound together as tightly as it’s possible for two people to be bound. I cannot find the words to express this adequately. He said it best when he told me we had ceased being separate beings and, instead, had become a third being formed by the two of us. Neither of us existed independent of that being. And that being was left to wander.

Carolyn, remember the horrible argument we had once about the light pink dress in my closet? You had seen it and wanted to wear it. You said you never remembered me wearing it, so why couldn’t it be made over to fit you. That was the dress I wore the first night Robert and I made love. I’ve never looked as good in my entire life as I did that night. The dress was my small and foolish memory of that time. That’s why I never wore it again and why I refused to let you wear it.

After Robert left here in 1965, I realized I knew very little about him, in terms of his family history. Though I think I learned almost everything else about him—everything that really counted—in those few short days. He was an only child, both his parents were dead, and he was born in a small town in Ohio.

I’m not even sure if he went to college or even high school, but he had an intelligence that was brilliant in a raw, primitive, almost mystical fashion. Oh yes, he was a combat photographer with the marines in the South Pacific during World War II.

He was married once and divorced, a longtime before he met me. There were no children. His wife had been a musician of some kind, a folksinger I think he said, and his long absences on photographic expeditions were just too hard on the marriage. He took the blame for the breakup.

Other than that, Robert had no family, as far as I know. I am asking you to make him part of ours, however difficult that may seem to you at first. At least I had a family, a life with others. Robert was alone. That was not fair, and I knew it.

I prefer, at least I think I do, because of Richard’s memory and the way people talk, that all of this be kept within the Johnson family, somehow. I’ll leave it to your judgment, though.

In any case, I’m certainly not ashamed of what Robert Kincaid and I had together. On the contrary. I loved him desperately throughout all these years, though, for my own reasons, I tried to contact him only once. That was after your father died. The attempt failed, and I was afraid something had happened to him, so I never tried again out of that fear. I simply couldn’t face that reality. So you can imagine how I felt when the package with the attorney’s letter arrived in 1982.

As I said, I hope you understand and don’t think ill of me. If you love me, then you must love what I have done.

Robert Kincaid taught me what it was like to be a woman in a way that few women, maybe none, will ever experience. He was fine and warm, and he deserves, certainly, your respect and maybe your love. I hope you can give him both of those. In his own way, through me, he was good to you.

Go well, my children.

Mother

There was silence in the old kitchen. Michael took a deep breath and looked out the window. Carolyn looked around her, at the sink, the floor, at the table, at everything.

When she spoke, her voice was almost a whisper. “Oh, Michael, Michael, think of them all those years, wanting each other so desperately. She gave him up for us and for Dad. And Robert Kincaid stayed away out of respect for her feelings about us. Michael, I can hardly deal with the thought of it. We treat our marriages so casually, and we were part of the reason that an incredible love affair ended the way it did.

“They had four days together, just four. Out of a lifetime. It was when we went to that ridiculous state fair in Illinois. Look at the picture of Mom. I never saw her like that. She’s so beautiful, and it’s not the photograph. It’s what he did for her. Just look at her; she’s wild and free. Her hair’s blowing in the wind, her face is alive. She just looks wonderful.”

“Jesus,” was all Michael could say, wiping his forehead with the kitchen towel and dabbing at his eyes when Carolyn wasn’t looking.

Carolyn spoke again. “Apparently he never tried to contact her all these years. And he must have died alone; that’s why he had the cameras sent to her.

“I remember the fight Mom and I had over the pink dress. It went on for days. I whined and asked why. Then I refused to speak to her. All she ever said was, ‘No, Carolyn, not that one.’”

And Michael remembered the old table at which they were sitting. That’s why Francesca had asked him to bring it back into the kitchen after their father died.

Carolyn opened the small padded envelope. “Here’s his bracelet and his silver chain and medallion. And here’s the note Mother mentioned in her letter, the one she put on Roseman Bridge. That’s why the photo he sent of the bridge shows the piece of paper tacked to it.

“Michael, what are we going to do? Think about it for a moment; I’ll be right back.”

She ran up the stairs and returned in a few minutes carrying the pink dress folded carefully in plastic. She shook it out and held it up for Michael to see.

“Just imagine her wearing this and dancing with him here in the kitchen. Think of all the time we’ve spent here and the images she must have seen while cooking and sitting here with us, talking about our problems, about where to go to college, about how hard it is to have a successful marriage. God, we’re so innocent and immature compared to her.”

Michael nodded and turned to the cupboards above the sink. “Do you suppose Mother kept anything to drink around here? Lord knows I can use it. And, to answer your question, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

He rummaged through the cupboards and found a bottle of brandy, almost empty. “There’s enough for two drinks here, Carolyn. Want one?”

“Yes.”

Michael took the only two brandy glasses from the cupboard and set them on the yellow Formica table. He emptied Francesca’s last bottle of brandy into them, while Carolyn silently began reading volume one of the notebooks.

“Robert Kincaid came to me on the sixteenth of August, a Monday, in 1965. He was trying to find Roseman Bridge. It was late afternoon, hot, and he was driving a pickup truck he called Harry….”

As I wrote the story of Robert Kincaid and Francesca Johnson, I became more and more intrigued with Kincaid and how little any of us knew about him and his life. Only a few weeks before the book went to the printers, I flew to Seattle and tried again to uncover additional information about him.

I had an idea that since he liked music, and was an artist himself, there might have been someone in the music and art culture of the Puget Sound area who knew him. The arts editor of the Seattle Times was helpful. Though he did not know of Kincaid, he provided me access to pertinent sections of the newspaper from 1975 through 1982, the period in which I was most interested.

Working through the 1980 editions, I came across a photo of a black jazz musician, a tenor saxophone player named John “Nighthawk” Cummings. And beside the photo was the credit line Robert Kincaid. The local musician’s union provided me with Cummings’s address, advising me that he had not played actively for some years. The address was on a side street near an industrial section of Tacoma, just off Highway 5 running down from Seattle.

It took several visits to his apartment before I found him at home. He was wary, initially, of my inquiries. But I convinced him I had a serious and benign interest in Kincaid, and he became cordial and open after that. What follows is a slightly edited transcript of my interview with Cummings, who was seventy at the time I talked with him. I simply turned on my tape recorder and let him tell me about Robert Kincaid.

Interview with “Nighthawk” Cummings

I was doin’ a gig at Shorty’s, up in Seattle where I was livin’ at the time, and I needed a good black-and-white glossy of myself for publicity. The bass player told me there was a guy livin’ out on one of the islands who did some good work. He didn’t have a phone, so I sent him a postcard.