Stories We Never Told

by Sonja Yoerg

  He holds her at arm’s length and smiles. “Jackie. So great to see you.”

  “You too. Though I couldn’t be more surprised.”

  “Didn’t mean to blindside you. I’m here for a business meeting. Before I left, I happened to see the announcement for your talk in the information from the university. I messaged you on Facebook, but I’m guessing you don’t go on there much.”

  “Hardly ever.”

  He nods. “I get it. When I got here yesterday I left a message at the Psychology Department, but still managed to surprise you.” He shrugs in apology. “I had to come say hello.”

  “I’m glad you did.” She is being polite. Jackie isn’t at all sure how she feels about Jeff’s appearance.

  “I worried I might throw you off your game, but you’re obviously a pro.”

  Jackie laughs. “Is that a nice way of saying I was always good at talking?”

  “Yup.” His smile is confiding and a little sly. Jackie worries that she shouldn’t have referenced their past without knowing what his situation is. Too late. “Hey, I don’t suppose you have some free time? Coffee? Or something stronger?”

  “Now?” What an idiot. He’s not talking about next week.

  “If you can. I’ve got no plans.”

  Jackie sorts through a list of reasons she should beg off. She’s sleep deprived. She has work to do and has to find time to get her lab straightened out. Her life is an unmitigated disaster, and she hardly needs any possible further complication.

  Jeff is watching her, his quizzical expression making it plain that it should not take this long to figure out whether she has time for a drink. He doesn’t say anything, though. He was always patient.

  “To be honest, you’ve arrived in the middle of a shitstorm.”

  “Let me distract you from it, then.”

  Suddenly it seems like exactly what she needs, a short break with someone she knows—or used to. “Would you, please?” She pulls on her coat and picks up her bag. “But I’m buying. As I’m sure you remember, I dumped you, so I owe you.” She flashes him a smile to let him know she is aware the debt will not be so easily repaid.

  “If you insist. Where’s a good bar?”

  “If by ‘good’ you mean ‘nearest,’ the University Hotel is a ten-minute walk.”

  “How convenient.” He grins. “That’s where I’m staying.”

  He’s not flirting, Jackie tells herself. He’s just being factual.

  CHAPTER 20

  June 2002

  Jackie had sold or given away everything she owned except what could fit in the back seat of Jeff’s Subaru Forester. His stuff was in the back, with his bicycle and ski gear taking up most of the space. They were spending their last night in Lewiston on the sofa bed he was leaving behind for the next tenant. Jackie sat on the bare floor, hugging her knees and drinking cheap cabernet while Jeff patched the last of the picture-hook holes.

  He held the can of Spackle in one hand and pointed to his handiwork. “It’s the thought that counts, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Jeff came over, his steps echoing in the empty room, and bent to kiss her. The taste of him was one part of her billowing happiness, a sensation that had been growing, becoming rounder and larger inside her as the day of their departure for California approached. If she weren’t tethered to Jeff, she might float away on the feeling, like a kite tugging at the hands of a child. She felt good, like she had goodness in her and around her, like goodness was at her back and in front of her. She’d never experienced this before. They, she and Jeff, were traveling together into their future—he straight into a tech start-up and she into grad school. They’d managed the hard part, finagling the next steps in their careers in the same city. It was all working out. Ever since she’d realized she trusted Jeff, Jackie had been terrified she’d lose him. Earlier on, she’d tried to sabotage their relationship, being casually cruel to him, testing him for all the faults her mother had assured her were endemic to men. He had been hurt, but he had persevered. He saw something in her, he had said.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You,” he said. “The real Jackie, not the bullshit one.”

  Now he lowered himself to sit beside her, shoulders touching. She passed him the jelly jar serving as a wineglass.

  He raised it. “Cheers.”

  She thought they’d make love soon, their last time in Maine, at least for now.

  Her phone warbled on the sofa bed. She scrambled onto her knees and checked the screen.

  Jackie turned to Jeff. “It’s my mom. I’ll make it quick, okay?”

  He nodded. His parents were the steadiest, most normal people in the continental United States, and sometimes he had a hard time understanding why she often didn’t want to speak to hers.

  “Jackie. It’s your mother.”

  Her mother never had a singsong voice, but it was dead serious now. Jackie sat on the bed. “Is everything okay?”

  “I’m afraid I have unfortunate news. Your father has had a stroke—a serious one.”

  The bottom fell out of Jackie’s stomach. “Serious? How serious?”

  “You should go see him, dear. He’s at Augusta Health.”

  “What about Grace? Did you call her?”

  “She’s on her way there. Don’t call her while she’s driving.”

  Jeff had moved onto the bed and reached for her hand.

  “Where are you, Mom?”

  “Me? Oh, I’m at home. I’ll be right here if you need me.” She paused. “He did this to himself, you know.”

  Jackie was so awash in emotion that she hardly registered the comment. Later, however, she would recall how her mother valued blame above all else.

  Jeff’s new job gave him no leeway, so he drove across the country without her. Jackie moved in with her mother and Grace, living out of the suitcase she had hurriedly stuffed with a random assortment of belongings from the back seat of Jeff’s car. She visited her father every day, taking the bus if her mother needed the car. Grace came most days, too, despite working sixty hours a week as a nanny. It was more time than Jackie had spent with her father since he had moved out so many years before. He lay unresponsive in the bed, the tan on his forearms fading by the day, the skin on his upper arms almost transparent, as if the layer that kept him whole was disappearing. The breathing tube attached to his face seemed like a parasite, sucking out each breath rather than making each one possible. Keep talking to him, the nurses said. And she did sometimes, just to do the right thing. Grace read to him from the newspaper, adding commentary as if they were across the breakfast table from each other, making their way through a platter of pancakes. None of it would matter, Jackie knew. Grace knew, too, although they did not discuss it. The father who had left was really leaving this time. It was hard to know what to make of the pain. The flavor of it was so familiar, and yet distinct, because it meant to stay. At night, when the house was quiet, Jackie saw the pain for what it was: the dousing of the tiny flame of hope she had not known she was carrying.

  Her mother was incensed by her daughters’ attention to their father. “You don’t have to go every day, Jackie. He doesn’t know you’re there.”

  “How do you know? Besides, I don’t have much else to do.” She hated herself for putting it this way, but her mother wouldn’t relent otherwise. Her mother needed confirmation that Samuel Strelitz didn’t matter, not just to her, but to everyone.

  Days passed, then a week, two. Jackie’s mother dropped reminders of the shortcomings of Samuel Strelitz like a child might drop a LEGO piece that ends up underfoot. Jackie couldn’t avoid them. She couldn’t move out—she had no money—and much of what her mother said was true. Her father had failed all of them, abundantly and repeatedly. He was not going to be romanticized, not if Cheryl had any say in the matter.

  Jackie came home from a hospital visit. Two weeks and no change in his condition.

  Cheryl gave her a hug and stroked her hair. “You’ll miss h
im less if you remember him accurately.”

  Jackie could not argue the point. She began to think she should book a flight to California, although she wasn’t required to start graduate school for another six weeks. Jeff was hard to reach. She was used to talking to him whenever she felt like it; now, between his work and the time difference, she was lucky to catch him once every few days.

  One day her call rolled to voice mail and a panic built inside her.

  Finally he picked up.

  “Where have you been?” She didn’t care if she sounded accusatory. He was supposed to want to talk to her.

  “Work and more work. Everyone’s putting in killer days.”

  “You don’t have time for a phone call?”

  An enormous sigh. “Honestly, sometimes I don’t have the energy for it. I want to talk to you, but I’m just wrecked.”

  “I hate this.”

  “Me too. How’s your dad?”

  She wished he hadn’t put it that way, so casually. She wasn’t sure how he should put it, but not like that. “The same.”

  “You sound bored.”

  “Bored and stressed. It’s perfect.”

  There was no joy in this conversation, or other recent ones, and Jackie wondered if Jeff was morphing into someone else, or if she had been mistaken about him, or about them, their happiness. Maybe happiness wasn’t durable or portable. Maybe it was something you could have in only one place, at one time, of fixed duration. Her chest ached as her thoughts turned in this direction. Jeff was her guy, the one she had finally let in close. How could such a short separation make her question it?

  She was fickle; it was her fault. Or his. How could she know? She was singularly ill equipped.

  “Jackie? Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” It was too much to explain on the phone, even if the phone was all they had. “I should let you go. It’s late out there.”

  “Sorry I’m not better company.”

  “You’re fine. I’m not much better. Good night, Jeff.”

  “Good night, sweet girl. I really am sorry.”

  After she hung up, Jackie let the tears fall. Her mother had told her too many times about men who say they are sorry. It’s the cheapest deal they can make, costing them exactly nothing, and they’ll make it again and again and again. “The only question,” Cheryl would say with her eyebrows raised, “is how long you’re dumb enough to believe it.”

  Jackie didn’t resolve to break up with Jeff that night. The next time they spoke she told a funny story about a nurse, and Jeff’s laughter reminded her of her fondness for him. The phone call after that was short, perfunctory, and then they didn’t speak again for three days, during which time Jackie stopped going to the hospital and spent all her time in her room, pretending to her mother and sister she was ill.

  She did feel ill. She had been infected, yet again, by the idea that men were faithless and therefore useless. She fought it as best she could, writing out lists of her father’s and Jeff’s positive qualities. The lists bore certain similarities—both men were gentle and soft-spoken, manly in unassuming ways—and this worried her anew. Her mother had, after all, once loved her father enough to marry him. Here Jackie was at twenty-two, poised to fly across the country and move in with Jeff. What did she know about living together? What did he? They’d never discussed it; it was the next natural step in the progression of their relationship. They could hardly move to California and not live together. Even if they could afford it, what would that say?

  On her childhood bed with the white ruffled coverlet, Jackie allowed one day to lapse into the next and came to recognize everything she lacked to make her relationship with Jeff work. She lacked the courage to act without dwelling on each potential pitfall. She lacked the strength to be different from her mother. Most of all, she lacked faith in her partner and in partnership generally.

  When the blood vessel in her father’s brain exploded, neurons died en masse, starved of oxygen. The blood spread and pooled and congealed, poisoning more brain cells, too many to compensate for, too many to regrow. He would remain as he was, silently awaiting complications that might never kill him. Regardless of the endgame, the damage was done.

  Jackie couldn’t predict whether she would ever acquire what she needed to make a relationship work. If she had to bet, she’d put the odds at three to one against. But her mother was alive, vibrant even, and her father lay unfeeling, awaiting complications. As she had throughout her teens, Jackie threw her lot in with her mother. She allowed things to cool off with Jeff and, as busy as he was, she could assign a portion of the blame to him. Jackie contacted Stanford University, explained about her father, and said she had been in touch with the University of Pennsylvania, her second-choice school and much closer to home. They understood. Everyone understood.

  In the hotel bar, Jeff leans his elbows on the small table and gestures with his hands, telling Jackie about his company, an innovator in 3-D printing based in Seattle. She sips her martini, thinking how every promise he showed as a young man was fulfilled, in his professional life anyway. He isn’t wearing a wedding ring, which tells her exactly nothing about his personal life. She isn’t going to ask, at least not yet. Listening to him talk and feeling the gin melt the kinks in her neck is plenty.

  “I’m boring you.”

  “Not a chance. I love hearing what you’re doing. And you had to listen to me for a full forty minutes.”

  He smiles. “You should be very proud of what you do.”

  His comment catches her off guard, and she takes another sip of her drink to ease the clog in her throat. It’s been weeks since she felt anything about her work other than panic. “Thank you,” she manages.

  They sit in silence for a few moments. Jeff points to her left hand. “I see you’re married.”

  “Almost two years.” She tells him about Miles and asks Jeff if he is married.

  “Divorced five years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah.” He strokes his beard, and his voice takes on a somber tone. “We lost our daughter when she was four. She had a rare leukemia. We couldn’t get past it.”

  “Oh, Jeff.” Without thinking, Jackie reaches for his hand, but he has leaned back in his chair, and her hand dangles in the air. She returns it to her lap. “I can’t imagine.”

  He had looked away, but now meets her gaze. “It truly is the worst.” He finishes the last of his bourbon. “I’m up for another one. Join me?”

  “You bet. But let’s get some food, too, okay?”

  They order another round of drinks plus calamari and sliders. The conversation takes a lighter turn to the disposition of mutual friends, movies (they are both longtime film buffs), and what life is like in DC under the current administration.

  “Everyone is drinking Mad Men–style,” Jackie says, sipping her martini.

  They stay for another hour. Jackie pays, as promised, and they say goodbye in the lobby. Jeff enters Jackie’s number into his phone.

  “You’re here till Friday?” she asks.

  “Yeah, then up to Connecticut to see my folks until after Christmas.”

  When they were dating, Jackie visited the Toshacks’ home near Storrs several times. She visualizes snow falling around the beautiful old farmhouse, the blue spruce in front lit with old-fashioned bulbs, a candle shining in each window. Regret rises inside her, a sickening ache, and she pushes it down. “I’ll bet they’re thrilled. Please tell them hello from me.”

  “I will. But I’m hoping we’ll see each other before then.”

  “I can’t promise, but I’ll try.”

  “I get it. The shitstorm.”

  Jackie smiles. “Yes. The shitstorm.”

  He slides his phone into his jacket pocket. His face is pensive. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is your husband part of it, the shitstorm?” Jackie bli
nks at him. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “No, it’s fine.” A man enters the lobby, and a chilling breeze sweeps in. She adjusts her bag on her shoulder. “It’s complicated.” She gives him a lighthearted grin that she hopes will end his questions. Drinks with Jeff was a welcome reprieve from her problems, and the last thing she wants to discuss with him is her marriage.

  He studies her, uncertain what to say, then hugs her briefly. “I’ll text you.”

  “Bye, Jeff. I’m glad you came to my talk.”

  He nods as he backs away. “Me too.”

  Jackie buttons the collar of her coat and waves to him as she exits the building. As she heads to her car, she checks for messages. A missed call and a text from Miles, the text from an hour ago. Antonio’s staying with Larry in Foggy Bottom. Took two finals today. One more Thu. Sounds ok. xx M.

  Great news, Jackie texts back. Call me later?

  She doesn’t expect to hear from him soon, given he’s in California, where it’s just past five, but she’s relieved that concerns about Antonio won’t dominate their conversation. As Jackie arrives at her car and gets inside, she wonders if she should say anything to Miles about the chance appearance of Jeff. He knows about Jeff—an abbreviated version, anyway—and their relationship ended so long ago it’s unlikely Miles would feel threatened, not that he is the jealous sort. But Jackie’s attention to—okay, obsession with—Harlan’s love life has altered the dynamic. For that she is sorry, because secrets really aren’t her thing. Right now, however, she has to admit that Jeff is a tiny bright spot in an otherwise bleak time. She doesn’t want their innocent encounter to be tainted by recent events, even if some of those have been of her own making.

  She won’t lie to Miles about Jeff, and she won’t avoid telling him if it comes up, but she can’t think of a reason to throw more fuel on the bonfire of her life. Not a single one.

  CHAPTER 21

  HARLAN