This is written as less of a journal and more of a short story with journal like elements.

Boston #

The clattering of hooves on cobblestone and the clattering of the wheels of the carriage made for a wash of noise as Max sat in silence. The carriage weaved its way through the bustle of Boston’s congested streets. Sat across from Max, sitting facing the rear, a young woman watched Max intently as he stared silently out of the window lost in thought.

“You’ve barely said a word since you arrived back home, Max” The young woman remarked, watching Max’s otherwise expressionless face for any signs of reaction.

Max remained silent, only dimly aware of her voice. His mind was back to the frontier. How he left Jez and the overwhelming sadness that came with having to do that.

“Max!” The young woman snapped, “Are you even listening?”

Max’s mind snapped back to the carriage. His eyes slowly panned to the front of the carriage and then to her. After a moment, Max finally spoke, his voice soft but tense;

“What do you want me to say, Genevieve?” Max asked rhetorically. “I get a letter, a week late, told to rush back to this hellhole, only to find I was too late.”

Max’s voice became more strained with each word.

“My father is gone. My mother is gone.” Max extended a gloved hand and was raising a finger for each point; “I might have lost the woman I love because I effectively had to leave her suddenly to come home not knowing if or when I could come back. Now the family expects me to take over my Father’s business. A business I never wanted any part of.”

Max’s eyes seethed with frustration and grief. He glared at Genevieve. Her eyes held his gaze and then wavered, she looked toward the floor of the wagon.

“It’s not my fault.” She mumbled. Before looking back up at him. Tears in her own eyes, “She was my Aunt too, you know. I had to be by her bedside as she died. You have no idea the pain she was in when your father was lost.”

Her face darkened as she became more angry.

“You left, Max. You were not here like you should have been to begin with. Had you been here, working the business, none of this would have happened.”

Max stared at her again. “I actually do understand the loss, Genevieve. More than you know.”

Max sat in silence a while longer.

“I’m sorry.” He started. “I know this is difficult, and I am not helping. But you of all people should have known why I left. Hell, you were there when that fight happened between father and I. Those things he said…”

Max trailed off, for a moment. Letting the statement remain unsaid.

Genevieve looked out the window at the rain drops spattering the glass as they rode.

“What now?” She asked, her voice almost a whisper. “Now that you’re here, what are you planning?”

With almost a rehearsed unemotional tone, he listed off his plans for the business and the remaining assets that had to be dispersed.

Much later on that evening #

Max settled back into the worn armchair in his Father’s study in his parent’s home in Boston. The eerie silence of the large home, broken only by rain smattering the window behind him and the rhythmic tick of the grandfather clock that sat in the corner of the mahogany trimmed room.

Max opened his journal and rested on an empty page. After some time to collect his thoughts, started writing.

Journal – Tuesday Jul 22 #

I arrived in Boston today. It’s incredible that I can travel from my home back here faster than a letter can, but I suppose that is the marvel of modern transportation, or perhaps the inefficiency of modern postal services. I am not sure.

As I feared, I was too late. Mother had passed the night before I arrived. Genevieve, my cousin on my Mother’s side, met me at the train station with a carriage and a driver. 

We went first to the solicitors to open the will left by my father. As expected, He left mostly everything to me. The sad thing is I want none of it. I never have. The only thing I want is to go back home to Jez. To my life back there.

I hate this place. And everything in it.

I am at least going to be smart about things. The house will be put up for sale and liquidated. The business I will set up a trustee board to run. My name will be on the paperwork, but I will have limited day to day involvement. I may hate it, but My father employed a great number of people, and I could not see them all have their livelihoods ruined because of me. 

Once this has been taken care of, I will be leaving and going back home to Jez. I hope never to have to return.

As soon as I got off the train, I sent back home a letter to Jez. I hope it doesn’t take a week, like the last letter home did. I want her to know that I am okay, I am safe, and that I want nothing more than to be back home to her.

I love you, my sweet Jez. I hope to be home to you soon.

Tears slid down Max’s face as he closed the journal. He leaned back and closed his eyes. His mind raced back home to Jez wondering how she was wishing he was by her side. He fell asleep in the chair, dreaming of home.