by Suzie Carr
Brooke saw a scared woman unsure about her ability to nurture and mold the curious and naïve daughter who depended on her.
“She’s going to be alright,” Brooke reassured in a whisper.
“I hope so,” Jacky murmured back as Sophie entered the room carrying two steaming mugs on a tray.
“Where’s yours?” Brooke asked.
She placed the tray down on the wooden coffee table. “I’ve got ideas and feelings to put down on paper from today’s time with the bees.” She swiped her hands on her jeans. “No time for tea. You two enjoy.” She swept toward the staircase. “I’ll see you next weekend!”
They watched her jolt up the stairs, and Rosy clumsily following.
A moment later, they sat in silence.
“You know, we used to get along so well.” Jacky’s lips cradled the edge of her mug. “She’d fill the dining room with her voice, sometimes never letting me or Drew sneak a word in. She had so much energy, always animated and full of stories. She’d have fascinating ones, and when she’d talk her eyes would get big and bright. She’d speak with her hands and forget to eat dinner. I’d have to tap her plate to remind her to scoop a mouthful of mashed potatoes in between her sentences.”
She paused for a brief moment, and Brooke saw the bittersweet longing the loss created.
Jacky collected herself and continued. “She always talked so candidly. She even told us about her first kiss with a guy named Billy. She beamed with pride because he was the hottest guy in school.” Jacky laughed at the memory. “He surprised Sophie one day by walking up to her and asking her if she wanted to go on a walk. They kissed on a park bench near a smelly pond. She couldn’t picture his face after that without remembering that smell.”
Brooke giggled.
“I miss those times.”
“She’ll come around, if you keep supporting her as you do.”
“I just want to get back to our talks and laughter. I’m just not sure how.”
“If she hangs around the bees long enough, maybe they’ll rub off on her. They’re excellent communicators. The masters of dialogue and constructive debate.”
Jacky beamed. “Oh really?”
Ah, she blooms. “Yup. They’re intense communicators.”
“How so?”
“They excel at exchanging information. No secrets. No lies.”
“Oh come on. No one can be that angelic.”
“They’re truly selfless. Everything they do, they do for the hive. They trust each other completely. Trust is all they know. They have no idea how to withhold information from each other. That’s what keeps them alive and healthy, that intimate trust, honesty, and connectivity. Without it, they’d die.”
“Die from a lie?”
“Their entire survival depends on their ability to discern and dispel information in a timely, and more importantly, accurate means.”
“How exactly do they do this?”
“They dance.”
Jacky’s eyes twinkled. “Fascinating.”
“They dance, sometimes competitively, to get their point across.” Brooke tapped her fingers along the edge of the couch. “The more vibrations and intensity in the dance, the more the hive pays attention to them over another bee trying to communicate her field reports.”
“A whole different world.” Jacky sipped the tea. Her lips trembled around the rim of the mug.
Why did her lips tremble?
Was she uncomfortable to have a woman sitting on her living room couch? Brooke massaged the soft, plaid cloth. She imagined the blonde woman in the picture curled up next to Jacky each night to watch the evening news and play Scrabble, a roaring fire crackling in the background.
Was she questioning the early birth of their potential friendship? How did one know the customary time to form new friendships and get on with life after losing one’s soulmate?
Brooke looked around the space some more. Picture after picture of Jacky and the beautiful blonde with piercing green eyes warmed the room. The pictures ranged from wedding portraits to tennis matches, to pool scenes, to ones of the three of them posing with Rosy in front of wooden bridges and waterfalls.
Brooke tiptoed over the idea of asking her about Drew. She wanted to know how she died. Was it tragic? A disease? Did Jacky spend the last two years crying herself to sleep? Did she suffer alone? Did she have someone to talk with about her feelings?
Okay possibly too creepy and forward.
Under the pressure of the questions parading in her mind, she let an innocuous one loose. “You loved your wife a lot, didn’t you?”
Jacky looked at a picture of them in front of a sign that read Charlie’s Seafood Shack. They wore bright yellow raingear and pointed at each other. What a beautiful family.
“I sure did. I mean, I still do. So much.” A taint of ache shadowed her face.
“I can tell. Just the way you stare at the pictures tells me you adored her.”
“I truly did.”
“That’s so beautiful and rare.” Brooke lifted her mug to sip. The scent of mango green tea drifted in as she inhaled. She wondered if someone would ever love her the way this woman loved her wife. “Tell me about her.” Brooke pulled her feet in under her. “Tell me something fun and quirky.”
Jacky’s face lightened. “Oh she had plenty of quirky habits. I could go on for hours.”
Seeing the happy upturn to her cheeks, Brooke urged her to keep the momentum. “Choose one.”
Jacky picked up a coaster and twirled it. She leaned her head back and stared up at the ceiling as she talked. “She had this habit of breaking into hysterical laughter at something that happened months before, and the more she tried to explain her laughter, the more she couldn’t stop.”
Jacky lowered her head. “She’d turn this bright shade of fire engine red.” She chuckled, bringing her hand up to under her chin. “A few times I’d worry she’d never pull through the fits of laughter. Then, she’d come to an amazing stop, like someone pulled the cork on it and it ran out. A few cackles would release like an engine sputtering. Then, she’d try to explain the laughter again, and she’d fire into another laughing rage.” She laughed and placed her hands in her lap, still fingering the coaster between her fingers. “She was a nut.”
“Tell me another.”
Jacky lingered on her gaze, sending a warm rush through Brooke.
“She used to do this thing every night before bed where she’d tuck herself into the sheets out of fear that something would come up and grab her in the middle of the night. It was adorable. And of course, I got to shine as a result because I’d let her fall asleep first. She could relax, which opened up some wiggle room between the sheets.”
“Wiggle room.” Brooke glanced down at her tea, suddenly overcome with a sense of shyness. “That’s good. Wiggle room is always a good thing.”
She could feel Jacky’s gaze and the heat rise on her face.
Jacky tossed the coaster at Brooke’s folded legs.
Brooke picked up the coaster and dragged her finger around its smooth edge, enjoying the friendly tease.
They sat in comfortable quietness for a few moments longer, then Jacky offered more. “Drew loved attention. She knew how to embrace it.”
“How so?”
Jacky’s face softened into a reflective stretch. “She would’ve loved the attention her car accident brought her with all the people flooding into that funeral home to pay their respects. She would’ve taken it all in, watching as people shared stories about her in those intimate corners of the parlor where tissue boxes hid.”
Car accident.
Brooke inhaled, bracing for a serious talk.
“She would’ve ripped a few of the eulogies apart, though.” She shrugged and bowed her head, clenching her jaw. Her hand trembled as she lifted her mug to her lips again, but they trembled too much. Without taking a sip, she placed it back down again. “Have you ever had anyone close to you die in a tragic accident?”
“No
,” Brooke whispered, suddenly feeling inadequate to be the sounding board for such an important and personal conversation. She felt like an intruder eavesdropping, as if she’d happened upon two people at the water cooler and she had nowhere else to go except the spot she occupied. The most devastating life event she experienced was when her parents moved to New York City in her freshman year of college.
“I can’t imagine what you went through.”
“Death is one of life’s most known facts. Yet, it’s hard to accept. Even now, over two years later, I have a hard time swallowing it.”
“I’m glad you and Sophie had each other through it all.”
“Hmm.” Jacky looked away toward the front window. “We had a lot of support from friends. We ate more casseroles in the first month than most people eat in eighty years.” She laughed to herself. “And the cards. My God, every day a dozen or so of them would arrive. Then one day,” she paused, “they just stopped. All of it stopped, the casseroles, the cards, the check-in calls and emails from friends just stopped. Everyone got back to normal life.”
The room closed in on them, growing too warm.
Brooke didn’t know what to say, so she just waited to listen.
“That nudge back to reality hurt me the most. I had to carry on, buy groceries, cook meals, go back to work, drive Sophie to school, take out the garbage, and clean the shower. All those simple, mundane tasks take on a sharp, biting edge in the wake of death.”
“I would imagine they do.” Brooke cautioned on her inhale, afraid to disturb Jacky’s flow.
Jacky shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m saying all of this to you.”
Brooke leaned in a little. “It’s okay. Sometimes it’s easier to talk with someone outside the big picture.”
She looked up at her. “You’re easy to talk with.”
Sometimes shedding pain onto someone unbiased and unrooted simplified telling the truth.
“I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to talk with me about it.”
Jacky reflected on the yellow raincoat picture again. Her chin quivered and her cheeks clenched.
“I used to sit on the park bench and get angry when I saw people walking their dogs or pushing their baby strollers. I used to think they were the lucky ones who escaped. They didn’t dread leaving that park and heading home to an empty house. They weren’t thinking that they had to cook one less potato and chicken leg than usual now that their loved one died. They didn’t have to worry about opening up the mailbox each day and finding a statement from a credit card with their deceased loved one’s name on it. They didn’t have to worry about settling the affairs and masquerading as a parent to a child who didn’t want them around anymore than they wanted that dreadful death to slip into their lives and destroy it.”
Brooke cupped her hand around Jacky’s wrist.
Jacky continued with little pause. “They didn’t have to look at Facebook and see an old post pop up with their loved one’s picture in it, and contemplate turning off that Facebook account for good. But if they did, they’d worry they’d never have access to the delightful surprise of seeing them captured in a happy moment in time. They still got to worry about things like whether they should cook out on the grill or say fuck it and go eat at McDonald’s.”
Jacky bit her lip. “When I’d see people jogging on a ninety degree day in the park at the height of sunlight, I wanted to scream at them, hey you, just splurge and eat an ice-cream cone for God’s sakes. Go and eat a cheeseburger and stop fretting about the two pounds you gained last week. Who cares? You’re going to die one day anyway. Enjoy yourself. Don’t aim for obese, but, lighten up. It’s an ice-cream cone, not a deadly disease.”
Brooke placed her mug down. She studied the pain etched on Jacky’s forehead as she unloaded feelings she’d probably kept hidden even from herself all that time.
“I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to lose her.” Brooke shifted her weight forward.
Jacky blew out a sharp breath. “I’ve never experienced anything more difficult.” She pointed her eyes at Brooke. “I have moments where I get angry with her for dying on me. How silly is that, right?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a normal reaction.”
“We were supposed to have a long life together. We had so many plans. We were going to take cooking lessons in Italy, learn to sail, and travel to South America and hire a guide to take us through the Amazon jungle. There were so many things that we wanted to do and now we can’t.”
She swallowed hard. “She broke my heart when she died.”
Tears began to roll down her cheek as the sadness pooled. “I’m sorry to be getting so emotional like this.” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry.” Jacky swiped the tears as they fell, flinging them from her face.
Brooke cupped her hand around Jacky’s wrist again, taking on her pain. “Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t ever say you’re sorry about loving your wife as much as you do.”
Jacky stared at Brooke’s hand around her arm. A trace of something peaceful rested on the softness of her cheeks. Finally, she looked back up at her. “Thank you for saying that.”
Brooke squeezed her wrist for reassurance, and Jacky’s face relaxed even more.
Brooke let her hand slip from Jacky’s wrist. They sat in comfortable peace, sipping their tea.
“Uno?” Jacky asked, breaking the silence after a while.
“Uno?”
Jacky bent forward and grabbed the game Uno from the bottom shelf of her coffee table. “Want to play?” She held the card game box up to her face and offered a cheeky smile.
Grateful for the refreshing segue, she reached for the box. “I haven’t played this game in forever.”
Jacky opened the box, and they happily dove into the lighthearted journey of matching colors and numbers. Brooke enjoyed watching Jacky relax. Her eyes took on an even lighter shade of blue when she smiled.
They played a full round, and Brooke won. Of course, she delighted in her victory over Jacky with a few fist pumps and a quick jump to her feet to break into a happy dance.
Jacky eased back, folding her arms over her chest. “What would you be like at a casino?”
Brooke laughed and plopped back onto the couch, breathless. “A total fool, that’s what.”
Their eyes met, and they hung onto a gaze. Brooke tucked her knees underneath her.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Jacky whispered.
Brooke nodded.
An earnest playfulness spread across her face. “You irritated me when I first met you.”
“Oh really?” Brooke swung her legs out from underneath her. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“Well, hold on.” Jacky played with a sardonic grin. “You didn’t let me finish.”
“You don’t have to. I already know you are the queen of timely quirkiness.”
“Well, you were very late.”
“Ten minutes.” Brooke stood her ground on a tease.
“Fifteen minutes, thirty-two seconds.”
“You are so rigid.” Brooke nudged her.
“I have a bit of a thing about time.”
“A bit?”
“Something I may need to work on,” Jacky took a deep, restorative breath.
“May?”
Jacky sat up and bumped Brooke’s shoulder. “Okay, more like definitely.”
Brooke picked up her mug and sipped some more. “Spend some time with the bees and you’ll learn to look at time in a totally different way.”
Finally, Jacky indulged in a long sip of her tea too. “How so?”
“I can’t explain. You’ll have to have that experience for yourself.”
“I may just do that, then.”
Oh, please do. “Good. I may just enjoy that.”
“May?” Jacky’s warmth pulled at her.
“Okay, I definitely will enjoy that.”
They exchanged a look that gripped Brooke’s heart.
“So,” Jacky
began, “in the spirit of keeping things balanced, you now have to tell me something about yourself so when you walk out of here tonight I don’t feel like I’m tipping over. I need balance. I need a quirky habit here.”
Brooke loved the shift to humor. It suited Jacky, for sure. “Okay.” She searched her brain for something quirky and interesting. Jacky already knew she loved bees, lived in her grandparent’s carriage house, and had dark curly, crazy hair. What more could she say?
“Tell me about this clingy date you were trying to ditch the other day.”
“Janet?”
Jacky dipped her head. “Janet. Yes. Tell me about Janet. Not your style?”
“I have no idea if she is. I haven’t met her yet. I can tell by her profile that she’s looking for a soulmate.”
“A profile?” Jacky twisted into a crooked smile. “So she’s looking for her soulmate on an online dating site?”
“Yeah.”
“Like she’s shopping on EBay?”
Brooke rolled her eyes. “Exactly.”
“Kind of takes the romance out of it.”
“I haven’t had much luck with it.”
Laughter filled Jacky’s spirit. “The dating scene. No thank you.”
“The dating scene,” Brooke repeated. “The land filled of crazies and the desperate ones looking in all the wrong places for all the wrong people. At least that’s how it feels. I just want dinners at fancy restaurants, the ones where they serve balls of sorbet in between dinner courses to clear the palette, followed by a night of dancing at some dark and sexy nightclub.”
“Of course.” Jacky played out a serious expression.
“Wine and dine, and then say goodbye.”
“So why the apprehension of getting serious?” Jacky asked.
“Oh, going right for the personal jugular!” Brooke playfully kicked Jacky’s leg and Jacky grabbed it.
“Tell me and you might get your foot back.”
“Well, alright then.” Brooke cocked her head to the side. How should she answer that question without looking like a loser for having a girlfriend walk out on her? “I’m taking a nice long break from relationships. I was stuck in one for quite a while with someone who changed over time and withdrew.”
“Withdrew?”
