98
Gone with the Wind
IN THE FALL of 2018, two decades after Jay died, I decided to take Carrie to Virginia to learn more about her dad.
Jay had become an almost mythical figure to her, his image sketched posthumously in photos and anecdotes. Ellie and I, who are so similar in temperament, were bonded by loss and our memories of Jay. But Carrie, just 2 when he died, knew her father only from the stories we would tell. Any memories she might have had vanished with the passage of time.
For a while that protected her. Ultimately, it made her feel like an outsider among us—unable to share our grief.
When Carrie was 12, we gathered to watch an incredible video tribute Jay’s brother Chris had made. Through stories and recollections, it painted a portrait of Jay—his insatiable curiosity, his fastidiousness （on visits home from college, he organized his siblings’ sock drawers）， his compassion, his pet peeves, his loyalty, his love of history, his complexity. Carrie saw herself in him. Watching the video, she heard his voice for the first time and burst into tears.
Now, sitting next to her in our rental car as we headed south, I took in Carrie’s amber eyes, ridged brow, and sweet Stan Laurel smile, all gifts from Jay. I hoped our sojourn in Virginia would help her better understand her phantom father.
We drove through Middleburg, a horsey town where my uncle used to run the Tally Ho pharmacy—I don’t know what made me think it would still be there. He was married to my father’s sister, Charlotte, a competitive ballroom dancer; they’d raised two sons and named one of them Couric.
We stopped in Maurertown, the bucolic idyll that kindled our marriage and fed Jay’s obsession with the Civil War.
By the time Carrie came along, in 1996, we’d sold the house. But the new owner was happy to show us around. We peeked into the bedroom where Jay and I （mostly） slept and the adjoining room where we kept a fire going and watched TV with our toddler, Ellie.
A wet morning mist deepened the colors of the leaves. Carrie and I walked down to the river, where I took some pictures of her—I pointed out where her dad and I would go look for tadpoles. I imagined how delighted Jay would be to see his beautiful grown daughter standing by that river.
When it started to rain, we hurried to the rental car and left Valhalla behind.
Our next stop was the home of Todd Kern, who’d read the Sullivan Ballou letter at Jay’s funeral. He had some things belonging to Jay that he wanted to give me. And I knew he’d have some good stories for Carrie.
She’d graduated from Stanford in the spring, an American studies major. Her senior thesis was a reckoning with her ancestry and the role played by race, particularly on my side of the family. In the introduction, Carrie writes of Jay’s fascination with the Confederacy, something she wanted to learn more about.
We navigated the muddy driveway to Todd’s, passing burnt sienna horses munching in the fields. Mike Hickey, another reenactment buddy, was there too. Both looked like men from another era in their cowboy hats, vests, and bandannas tied around their necks, their facial hair unfussy. I hadn’t seen either man since Jay’s funeral.
“She looks just like her father,” Todd said, gazing upon Carrie, who smiled shyly.
Todd opened a wooden trunk, releasing a musty aroma. We picked carefully through the items, taking them out one by one: a tin plate, a drinking cup, a two-pronged fork and a weathered knife tucked in a canvas pouch. A wooden comb. A toothbrush with yellowed bristles. A leather holster. Gauntlet-like riding gloves in butter-colored leather. Two flasks—one with the faint, oaky smell of bourbon; we pictured Jay taking a swig while camped out on a chilly night. The other was brass, designed to hold gunpowder. The items had been kept in a grain sack stenciled CSA—CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.
At the bottom of the trunk was a long, waxed-canvas riding coat that Jay would have used in inclement weather. Fishing around in the pockets, Todd found half a roll of Tums, the white tablets crumbling, now 20 years old.
Tums—with which Jay self-medicated before his cancer diagnosis.
“An artifact within an artifact,” Carrie said.
Todd told Carrie about how he’d met her father in the early ’90s. One day at Hupp’s Hill Civil War Park, where Todd was the curator, Jay wandered in. They started talking and quickly realized they shared many interests. Todd invited Jay to the next reenactment.
Almost immediately, Todd recalled, her father got swept up in the scene—scores of men in historically correct uniforms, aiming their muskets at the enemy across the field, unflinchingly in character. But Jay noticed that one thing was missing—a bugler. He volunteered to fill the role.