2/21/1923
Another week has gone by. No letter from Josephine, only a letter from Cora. The devil works hard, and so does heaven, but Cora Pavlov works harder.
She has no right to say any of that. She's no better than I. Cora's a bitch, a trickster. A little harlot that finds her prey, and kills. Even back when we were friends, she was still so..so much. So much for one person to handle. Of course, my parents adored her, she was what they envisioned for a perfect child. A girl who didn't scream, who didn't fight back, who just shut up and did as she was told. That wasn't the Cora I knew. The Cora I knew was a girl who was loud, who'd yell things from the rooftops. Who fought back with everything. She lost that, I think, when she got older. She became..quieter. She felt things, and that ruined her. She had a soul of ice, for the longest time, and then it..melted. It melted, and she felt things, and I believe that was what ruined her. I don't know why she felt. It was easier for me, for her, for us, to stay unfeeling, then it was to melt and realize we felt things that we shouldn't.
I never asked what they did to her. I never had the chance, and, knowing what they did to me..I didn't want to know how they hurt her. She disappeared, for a while, after I got married. She got into a relationship with someone, but then he died, and she came back to me. We kept in touch, for a while, after that. She started working with the gang. Jonathan, in equal parts, loved and hated her. I never asked about the two of them, for I feared I already knew the answer. At that point, I don't think I could've taken much else without reaching a point where I would break.
We fell apart. She became busier, dealing with..whatever it was she did. I gave birth to Thomas, then Anna died..and I was alone, more distracted. But Cora was still always there.
She knew about Josephine! That was what irked me the most. She knew about Josephine, about how much I..loved her...which couldn't have been possible. Cora didn't know about Josephine, all she knew was the alias Jo had given us. And yet she knew that she went by Josephine Banfield-or Josephine Densmore, depending on who asked. That was a problem. A very big problem. I wouldn't put it past Cora Pavlov to use Josephine against me..she had her ways, and I didn't want Jo to get hurt, not at all..
Cora was brutal. She was a murderess, and a cruel one, at that. When she was 15, and I was only at the tender age of 13, she murdered a girl named Katherine, just because she had cut too close to her ear during target practice. And..and I have a feeling there was more behind that. Katherine was the girl who I had grown up with, we had learned how to shoot a gun at the same time. She was the one who I thought, over and over again, about how it'd feel to kiss her. She had a temper like fire, and I think that was what I loved, when I was younger. We were about 10, when we learned about guns, together. When I got my white gloves, she was there with me. She was one of my favourite people, besides Cora. I had always been afraid that...that I had something to do with why Cora killed her. Katherine was a dear friend, and so was Cora, but I had always guessed that it was an accident..but upon thinking, now, I wonder..was Cora jealous of Katherine?
I musn't be thinking such things. Silly me. Cora wouldn't have murdered someone so dear to me just because she was jealous. She was better than that. And she wouldn't hurt Josephine, if she ever..ever came back.
Josephine...I must admit, I haven't given her a lot of thought this past week. What with Cora, and schooling Thomas, and the recent police activity...I hadn't been able to give her space in my mind. Now I might as well..I must confess I dream of her. Of her lips, of how it'd feel to kiss them again..if only I had been able to tell her. I wish I had. We could be, I don't know, halfway across the country by now. We could have a home. Her and I, and Thomas..she always loved Thomas. We could be somewhere else, by now, far away from this world that condems us simply for our sex.
That is a fantasy, though. As much as I hate to admit that, the fact is Josephine very likely hates me. Sending that letter was foolish of me, I wish I had just kept it with the rest of the letters under my bed. Those letters, at least those I know she will never find. For that, she would have to come here, and I know she would never do that. Josephine is smart, yes, and sometimes brave, but she also has the tendancies of a coward. She is fearful, often, as I remember. A small, fearful girl, and yet she is one of the Pinkertons. That is one of the things I find to be the most ironic. She's small-all of the Pinkertons I've ever met have been tall, or big-, fearful-a Pinkerton had to be brave, in their line of work-, and a girl-no, a woman-while all the Pinkertons I had ever met, before her, had been men. I respected that. Besides that, she had always been my favourite, out of all the ones they had sent to discover us. Most of the men, well, it was easy. Invite them over for tea. Slip a little bit of posion in their cup, and they're dead the second after they take their first sip. Josephine, though, she had been different. She had been quiet, illusive. She was the mysterious one out of the two of them. Her brother, Ben, however, was the one who had been more..pushy. He was louder, more interested in how we ran things. Sometimes, if I cared enough, him and I would go up on to the rooftop, and smoke together. Josephine only occasionally joined us. She was never one for smoking. She loved the smell of it, sure, but she hated how Ben and I smoked. Once Josephine and I became..involved, I stopped going to the rooftop as much as I usually did. I don't know why. I must have been afraid, was always my idea. I was in bed with his sister, I guess I was..afraid, of him. I had been terrified of him finding out, of him telling someone. Of him telling Jonathan. If Jonathan knew, Josephine would have been killed as quick as I could snap. And I would have been so lucky as to be killed, for I know what he would have done. I would have gotten away with much worse of a sentence, if Ben ever found out about Josephine and I. If Ben found out, he would've told Jonathan. I would've been dead.
Josephine was always silent. I could never figure out why she was, though. She was always quiet. She always seemed to be calculating her next move, I believe. Until I knew who she truly was, I don't think I would have ever come to that conclusion. It is amazing, truly, how having a true perception of someone changes how you think of how they do, even down to how they move. If I had known, truly, who she was, before we had begun our..affair, I think that would have changed..a lot.
Truly, I think, I was in the middle before I even knew I had begun. There are so many things that happen at the beginning. First meet, first dance, first kiss. None of that happened. We went from barely being acquaintances to what we had been, what we were, before Ben's death. If things had been different, if we lived at a different time, if, if, if. I rely so much on the ifs, on the what ifs, of the world. It was the hope I relied on, the dream I dreamed whenever things didn't go the way I wanted them to.
Tonights dream, I think, will have to be a what if. I have nothing else to dream of, to think of, to hope for. No new news, no good news. Nothing good for me, at least.
Lizzie's been coming over more often. I can't figure out why. She spends more time here than she does at her own home, I believe. Jonathan wouldn't hurt me with her there, so it's been better. She talks business, mostly. Jonathan joins in, sometimes, if only to ask where Jackson was.
Jonathan is, as always, a staunch believer that women shouldn't go anywhere without their husbands. He'll let me go wherever, of course. I do have meetings he can't go to. However, with Lizzie..he always questions where Jackson is. I find it to be rather absurd, she doesn't need permission from Jackson to go places. Jackson's the more civil of the two, anyways, which is ironic. He's a math person. Personally, I believe math people are some of the people that are the best at being civil, for they must always think of the answer using specific, pre-determined ways. Jackson is a sweetheart. He's older than me, by a few years, but him and I are very similar. More similar than Jonathan and I ever will. Sometimes, I think about what might have happened if Jonathan and Lizzie ended up married, and if Jackson and I ended up married. Jonathan would never dare lay a hand on Lizzie. She's a reputable killer, and she'd be able to slice him in half before he even thinks about laying a hand on her. And Jackson..well, him and I would have made a much better couple, I believe. We're each other's friends. Lizzie and him married because they were friends. Friendship is a truly unbelievable power, I must assume.
What am I meaning by assuming? I know it is. Cora and I were friends, and look where that got us. Friendship is an unbelieveable power, and so one must be careful with it.
Well. I've got an early morning meeting, so I had best be off to bed. Goodnight.
-I.A.C.
ns 15.158.61.21da2
