Without Jenny

by Mark Gunther

  Like now.

  “It was an accident, Honey,” Hiram said. “Please accept that.”

  “No. There’s no accepting this.”

  She could see him getting that look in his eye and she knew he was thinking about their family crossing Siberia to get to America the long way, on and off the train for weeks, and how many people died. She was relieved when Danny came in.

  “Hey, Hiram.” He gave his father-in-law’s shoulder a squeeze.

  “Where’s Jake?” she asked.

  “In the bathtub with his boats. I’ll go back up in a minute.”

  “While I’ve got you both here,” Hiram said, “did you have life insurance for Jenny?”

  “For a ten-year-old?” Danny said.

  “It’s possible,” Hiram said carefully, “to file a claim with the insurance companies for the construction and scaffolding firms. With insurance, your company would do it for you.”

  “We haven’t thought about it yet,” Danny said.

  “Why?” asked Joy.

  “Money, Joy,” Hiram said. “Maybe a lot of money.”

  “Daddy, I can’t get paid enough to make up for this.”

  “Of course not. But you could ensure Jake’s future. And his kids even.”

  “We don’t need insurance money to do that,” Danny said.

  “I don’t mean to insult you, Danny,” said Hiram. “You don’t need to decide this right away. But it should be done.”

  “Grandpa!” Jake was calling from upstairs. Hiram looked to Danny.

  “Go on. He must have heard you come in,” Danny said.

  Hiram went up.

  Maybe he can fill some of Jake’s Jenny-space.

  “How much money, do you think?”

  “Maybe a couple million,” Danny said.

  “That’s a lot. But fuck me for thinking it.” She paused. “Is it just some paperwork?”

  “You’d probably get deposed. If it went to trial, you’d testify.”

  “I don’t want to,” she said.

  Parade my shame in a courtroom in front of everyone?

  “Unlikely it would go to trial. You know your dad, though. He won’t let it go.”

  “I’m his daughter,” she said.

  “The irresistible force and the immovable object. Jake and I’ll hide in the basement.”

  She smiled at that, and felt something like sweetness before the billowing dust and silent screaming took her attention again.

  9.

  SHLOSHIM MEANS THIRTY in Hebrew. Ritually Shloshim, thirty days, marks the time the bereaved once again take up the yoke of the world. Joy sat with Danny on their bed cross-legged, facing him.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  Danny said, “Life goes on, I guess. I need to get back to work or go to the asylum. I can try to make some days shorter. . . .”

  “Do what you need to do. Jake is home until January. That’ll keep me busy for a while.”

  “You could go back to work now.”

  Her voice quavered, like the high strings on a prepared piano. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think I can be very creative,” she said. “That’s what I get paid for.”

  But what she was worried about was being out—dressing, gabbing, appointment-making, and presenting and invoicing and hassling with printers who couldn’t match a color to save their life—out, in public, bereaved. How? Joy pulled her knees to her chest. Her husband lay on his back, arms clasped together hard across his chest, legs reflexively kicking, as if he could force their disaster away from them. They lay there for a long time, she a rock, he a stick, flotsam thrown haphazardly against the ruined banks of their once peaceful life. Danny fell asleep. Joy let go of her knees, eventually. And lay there, staring at the ceiling, until it was time to do something else.

  Some number of days later, Joy toted three bags full of Tupperware, finely stacked, with every matching top, to the Goodwill truck in the Marina Safeway parking lot. They wouldn’t take it, so she lugged it to the back of the store and threw it in the dumpster.

  The grocery store used to be a social experience. She’d always see someone she knew. When she went back for the first time she went at five in the morning. Gary the produce man wasn’t even there yet, just Joy and the homeless guys with their few dollars that bought them a license to be inside for a while. Her selection had been haphazard at first, but recently she’d gotten better at it. This morning she asked Danny and Jake what they wanted and she told them she would get it and wrote it on a list. She remembered to bring the list to the store. All the things on the list were in her cart. Pretty damned competent, she thought.

  Joy was comparing cauliflowers, and thinking she just might have preserved her anonymity, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Lila was a taut bundle of seemingly fat-free muscle wrapped around a tiny frame, packaged neatly in fully coordinated size zero workout clothes. Joy had never seen her wear anything else. Her shopping cart overflowed with leafy green vegetables. She and Joy had sweated together in the gym, been naked in the sauna. Before, Joy would have said they were friends, but Lila hadn’t been to the house, or sent a note. When Joy looked at her today all she saw was a big empty hole with a nonstop mouth. The conversation was over quickly.

  The cauliflower, on the other hand, wasn’t demanding anything. Very empathetic. She decided to take it home. On the way to the cash register she saw a fresh mozzarella. She put it in her cart because it made her think of caprese. She went back for some basil.

  Huh, a spontaneous creative idea. Maybe I can think about going back to work now.

  Joy rolled her cart to the front of the store and scanned the checkout lines, picking one where she was hidden from the rest of the store by a portable product display. Joy’s food went up on the conveyor and through the scanner. The cashier treated her just like everyone else. Joy felt as if she was concealing a great secret.

  “Mommy, Mommy, look what I won!” Jake was laughing and talking loudly, exactly like a normal boy.

  “Wow, Jakey, look at that!” Joy said. He is normal. I’m not normal. “What did you play?”

  Lizzie had flown down yet again and brought Amanda back with her. Jake needs me, Mandy told her mother, just like Aunt Joy needs you. Lizzie had taken Jake and Amanda to Pier 39, to play in the arcade and eat crappy food.

  “I played Pac-Man and Star Wars and Skeeball and then Mandy helped me play pinball and then she won a huge amount of tickets at Skeeball, more than Aunt Lizzie, and then she gave them all to me, and Aunt Lizzie gave me hers too, and then I got this car that was a thousand tickets! Look!”

  The car was a flywheel-driven Monster Truck. He spun it up and it leaped across the kitchen floor, heading out the door toward parts unknown. Jake went racing after it, and she could hear him spinning it up again. Amanda followed him. Jenny and Amanda had bonded as babies, as if the lifelong love of their mothers had been transferred through some kind of spiritual Lamarckism. Amanda seemed to be transferring it, in turn, to Jake. Joy heard them run up the stairs.

  “I don’t think Jake’s laughed like that since the last time you were here,” Joy said. She couldn’t deny the life that came pouring out of him.

  “We had fun. Mandy really loves him. Maybe she’ll wait for him. Wouldn’t that be a kick?”

  “Kind of weird, I think.”

  “I guess. Almost like incest,” Lizzie said. “Where’s Danny?”

  “Reading.” She pointed upstairs.

  “How was the morning?”

  “Okay, I guess. Danny’s ramping it up at work now. Then Jake goes back to school and I’ll be alone.”

  Lizzie didn’t say anything. Joy’s hands were clasped on the table. Her eyes dropped from Lizzie’s and her forehead followed the eyes, settling on her hands.

  “I can’t believe it’s only been thirty days. Danny’s doing what he does. What do I do?”

  “Wait. At least you have each other.”

  Do I? Wi
ll I?

  “I hope so,” Joy said. “Can I tell you something really secret?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ve been having these visions. Danny isn’t a part of them.”

  Joy told Lizzie about the Other World, about how surprising it was, how it felt true, how Jenny might be there, and how she felt called by its power. “Why would I be seeing this if there wasn’t a reason? Am I supposed to do something?”

  “Like what?” Lizzie asked. “Go on a vision quest? Sit in a cave? It’s only been a month, Joy. I see what you mean about not telling Danny, though. He’d worry. Take some time.”

  “All I have is time. One second at a time.”

  Joy heard the scraping as Lizzie pulled her chair close. She wrapped both arms around Joy’s shoulders.

  “Oh honey, I get it. It’s just so unbelievable she’s gone.”

  Joy burst into tears. Lizzie kissed her ears, her forehead, rubbed her back, whispering words Joy couldn’t hear and didn’t need to know. She lost her bones, melting into Lizzie’s lap and the hard kitchen chairs. Danny appeared, pixilated through crosshatched eyelashes. He lifted her. Joy found her feet and the three of them went to the den, huddling on the couch, Danny’s head on Lizzie’s shoulder and Joy curled in both of their laps: a pièta. She wished she could stay that way forever, but the children came downstairs so they got up and Lizzie made everyone dinner instead.

  10.

  “ARE YOU SURE you want to do this today?” Danny asked her.

  “A field trip to the Academy of Sciences? I’ve done it every year. I don’t have to drive with them. Getting there can be my walk today.”

  “Lot of people,” he said. “Lot of sympathy. Lot of eyeballs.”

  Joy shrugged. “How hard can it be? I’m a freak already.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t think about yourself like that.”

  She took his hand. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  “Sorry. I’m going to work. Only predictable surprises for me.”

  The sun shone in the south-facing window and lit his profile, elongating his nose and shortening his forehead like a goblin.

  Couldn’t you give me today, just today?

  But instead of making a scene she said, “Jenny liked it there. Maybe I’ll remember something.”

  “Just what I’m afraid of,” Danny said. “Good luck.” He went upstairs.

  She checked the clock and started to make Jake’s lunch.

  Jake came downstairs still wearing his Star Wars pajamas. Teddy was dangling from his left hand. He leaned against her side, tentatively touching her.

  “Jake, you need to get dressed. Time for school.”

  “Help me,” he said. She wrapped the curve of his shoulder with her palm. Jenny used to be there to help, right in the room next door.

  “Okay,” she said. She kept her hand on his shoulder. The stairs seemed to go on forever. She was sure they were running late and she kept glancing at her watch. No hurry at all. He’s such a little boy, she thought, and her heart broke. She cried for the third time that morning. She picked out his clothes. He got dressed. When he went to the bathroom she went downstairs again.

  Quick Danny footsteps echoed down the stairwell, followed by squeals and giggles and running and bouncing noises. They were playing.

  Maybe this was normal, on Danny’s mornings, before, back when Joy used to ride her bike. Or maybe Jenny got him up. But did she on my mornings, before?

  She was still trying to remember when the boys came downstairs and they all had breakfast. Then she said goodbye to Danny and kissed Jake, telling him that she would see him later, at the museum. Then she cleaned up and then she put on her fleece and her sneakers and ran a brush through her hair and started to walk.

  She got to the Academy early and wandered downstairs to the aquariums, which Jenny had loved. Under muted lighting each aquarium reflected the Other World in the clouds of fish and bubbles of water and waving fronds of seaweed. Not now, she prayed, can’t I just be here now, the kids aren’t even here yet. She remembered when time was rich and compliant.

  Upstairs there were hundreds of kids and lots of noise. The barely controlled vigor of their living frightened her, but she found Jake’s group and formed a rictus of a smile. The other moms were uniformly glad to see her, but when they talked about all the things she used to talk about with them, the crush descended on her heart and she grew silent. That life was no longer hers.

  Time pressed down, thickening the air around her. Danny was right, she thought, I’m going to lose it. But Jake grabbed her hand and said, “Look at this, Mommy.” God bless him, Joy thought, and damn me for making him for keeping me in the world.

  The morning was completely normal for everyone, lively kids, smiling mothers, organized teachers, uniformed curators telling big stories about small animals. But for Joy, each act became less comprehensible as time twisted around her. She finally lost it in the African Hall, live people surrounded by dozens of stuffed, dead animals. Her skin dissolved and she was bones in the desert with the wildebeest and Thompson’s gazelles, the lions returned to their diorama after having devoured them all. Her eyebrows were melting into her cheeks. The boundaries of her body began to grow indistinct and her hands clenched and released.

  Time to go.

  She somehow was able to check out with the teacher and mumble a goodbye to Jake. She felt his eyes on her back as she fled the hall. She covered her mouth with her forearm and bit down hard on the fleece jacket, then twisted her arm with the sleeve in her teeth so her hand covered her whole face and she screamed “Jenny, Jenny, Jenny” silently into her arm.

  She kept moving, and after some time she heard some things and felt the stones of the path pressing up against the bottoms of her feet; she was near the carousel. She thought she might have a chance to catch up to present time and maybe even go back to the museum, but instead she just kept slowing and slowing until taking each step was like lifting an iron boot up and down. Just before things ground to a complete halt she found a bench and sat in the sun and wind. Across from her was a tight grove of tall, green trees and a thick spread of bushes with red berries and little white flowers. Her back was pressed against the bench slats. Her feet were flat on the ground. Her knees were touching each other. Her hands lay unmoving on her thighs.

  The feeling on her cheek, she remembered, was called warmth. Something physiological was happening. Photons struck her cheek and some chemistry in her brain reacted, like the touch of oh-so-tiny Jenny brushing her cheek with sweet little baby fingers. Wind tousled her hair, her split ends tickling her cheek like baby Jenny’s perfect little fingers on the distended skin of her lactating breast. She saw herself from afar, a statue of a woman in fleece and a ball cap, leaves eddying in the wind, collecting at her feet. Alone, in the park, nothing to hold, framed by the daytime, pressed against the bench by the weight of air. Time forced her shadow slowly across the ground. It was heavy, this piling, pressing time, diabolical, indifferent.

  Before, time was a framework, a reference, a scorecard. Mother of two, wife, lover, daughter, cyclist, artist, designer, businesswoman, school volunteer, purposefully moving from appointment to chore to meeting; fit, smart, attractive, potent, passionate, committed, blooming with glorious maturity. Now she was a twisted scarecrow, skin hanging loosely on her own skeleton, pecked by crows as artifacts of memory piled up in the house along with Jenny’s third-grade notebooks, torn jeans, and old Halloween costumes.

  I even have to flee the life of children.

  When Jenny first met Jake she ran into the room and sat right next to Joy on the birthing bed. She put Jake in Jenny’s lap, and she held him with the most careful gentleness. Danny took Joy’s hand and put his other hand on Jenny’s head and they basked. A mother, a father, a daughter, a son, a wife, a husband, a brother, a sister; in that moment, all Joy had ever wanted.

  Today she had wanted to go on the field trip, to be normal, to let the kids pull her back to the Common
World—but that world no longer was hers. Only in the Other World was purpose alive, to fall through those clouds and embrace the quest that was her calling, to scheme and seduce and battle to win back the life that no longer was hers.

  And the Joy she was now, on the bench, on this day, was ready to fall.

  She closed her eyes and let herself go. The wind rushed and the clouds roiled and she was at the altar, in the dress, armor glistening, sword in her hand, balanced on two feet, and oh, so ready to fight . . . but then there was barking, a bounding ball, and the bench pressed her thighs.

  Her heart pulsed against her ribs, and the breath she had been holding escaped in a whoosh. Her sword hand was throbbing, the shadow weapon suddenly amputated, a tool irrelevant to the Common World. How tenuous is this world we all are so invested in, that we love so much: Only a fantasy, built on artifice, bound together only by the thinnest threads of agreement woven between the unsuspecting. Why settle, when she had a chance or a right or a mandate to end her complicity, to step into the Other World and live the quest—battle, starvation, slavery, rape—any sacrifice worth it for the chance of seeing Jenny again.

  Reluctantly, she began naming the intruding sounds—clanking collars, bouncing balls, occasional barks and snarls followed by raised voices as some canine disagreement got settled. Dogs. Loving, loyal, and living. Dog people—a community, of a sort. She could become a dog person. None of the other dog people would know. She just needed a dog. The right dog. Cute, smart, hypoallergenic, a dog she could waste all her time taking care of and walking and cleaning up its drool in the house and its shit in the yard. Then it dies when Jake’s in high school and the world crashes down around his ears once again. No.

  Rabbi escorted her to a leather easy chair beside a low, round Formica coffee table, opposite his desk. He was wearing an old brown corduroy suit and a soft yellow shirt with tie loosened, cuffs unbuttoned. The jacket was on a hook behind his desk. The office was lined with inexpensive walnut-stained pine bookcases, and packed to the gills with books. Her eyes drifted over some of the titles, recognizing Maimonides, Spinoza, Wiesel, Kushner. The shelves behind his desk held dozens of large books with Hebrew lettering on the spines. Talmud?