Unbroken Threads

by Jennifer Klepper

  “No, that’s my mom.” Jessica directed Cricket’s finger to the little girl in the photo. “That’s me. Grandma is standing behind me. This was the Idaville Centennial Parade.” She chuckled, closing her eyes and feeling the laughter low in her belly. “The men in town had grown their beards out for a year to celebrate the centennial. When I saw them leading the parade, I didn’t know that. I thought they all had been there for a hundred years, which seemed like a million to me. I was convinced I was going to look like that someday.”

  Cricket joined in the laughter. “Good thing you left, huh?”

  JESSICA ATTACHED THE scanned photos to the email, hit Send, then dialed her mom.

  Her mom picked up on the second ring and immediately expressed surprise at the call. Jessica hadn’t been the one to reach out for some time, which aggravated her existing guilt over the distance between them. Her guilt felt like interest accumulating on interest to the point that what may have started out as a small debt seemed impossible to repay.

  “How is it going with Oma’s things?” her mother asked.

  It didn’t sound like an accusation, but Jessica was embarrassed there were still stacks of boxes in her parlor. “I’ve been busy and got sidetracked with some other things.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I don’t expect you to be done already. Have you found anything interesting?”

  “That’s why I called. Cricket and I were going through Oma’s photo albums yesterday, and I just emailed you some pictures I scanned.”

  “Hold on.” Her mom’s voice sounded like it was in a tunnel. She’d switched to speaker mode as she checked her email. “Oh my. What a blast from the past. No pun intended! Ha! The rocket one... I had forgotten about that. Oh my goodness, I had so much fun with the rockets. Blew up the garage once, even.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” That had escalated quickly. “What are you talking about?”

  Her mom switched back to receiver mode. “You sure you have time?”

  Jessica winced. “Yes, of course.” She closed her laptop and moved to the couch. “I’d like to hear about the rocket. And the garage.”

  “The space program was all anybody could talk about back then, and rockets fascinated me. It was so exciting! Then one year, your uncle Robert got a rocket set for Christmas. I, on the other hand, got red cowboy boots and a matching red-fringed suede skirt because... well, I don’t know why. I guess cowboys and westerns were a big deal, too. Gunsmoke and all that. Oh boy, was I jealous when he opened that rocket set.”

  Jessica could almost see her mom crinkling up her nose that way she did whenever something didn’t go her way. As a teen, Jessica dreaded that expression of disapproval and dissatisfaction, but now she wished she hadn’t been away from it for so long.

  “But as soon as Bobby realized he actually had to build the rocket? That it wasn’t just a toy? Ha! I promised him he could launch it if he let me build it. We didn’t tell Daddy. That’s why that photo you sent shows me standing by as Bobby sets the launch.”

  “Did you let Uncle Robert wear your red cowboy boots and skirt?”

  “No, but I would have if he’d asked!”

  Jessica could envision that, remembering how her uncle used to sneak on a long, curly blond wig to try to convince her that eating bread crusts turned hair curly. She had diligently cut off her bread crusts for a year, hoping her hair would straighten, but it never did.

  “I’m surprised you couldn’t tell Gramps you liked rockets.” Being Gramps’s “lucky charm,” Jessica had always believed she could do anything.

  “At the time, you know, girls weren’t supposed to be interested in that kind of thing. It wasn’t a big deal. That’s just the way it was. But I was good at math and took all the science classes. We didn’t have physics or engineering at school, so I checked out books from the library. Can you believe that?”

  “You could have been an astronaut, Mom.” Her upbringing would have been unrecognizable, possibly even glamorous, had her mom gone into the space program. Of course, Jessica probably wouldn’t even have existed in that alternate universe.

  “Well, that was never going to happen. Not back then. Astronaut’s wife, maybe. Ha! That would have been something! I was at the top of the class in all of my math and science classes. I went to my math teacher to see if he could help me find a good college for aerospace engineering. But he laughed and said girls don’t get into those programs. He advised me to take secretarial classes in case I didn’t get married right away. Didn’t I tell you about this back in high school? I would have thought I did. Hmm. Well, anyway, as it turned out, your dad got drafted, we got married right after I graduated, I got pregnant, and that was that! Ha! But you knew that part.”

  Jessica couldn’t reconcile her mother’s lighthearted storytelling with being completely shut out of a promising future, even if it would have been a future that excluded Jessica.

  “But you wanted to know about the garage.” Her mom laughed. “That’s where I was building the rocket. I knew the expected range of Bobby’s rocket, and it wasn’t going to go much higher than the house. How many chances was I going to get to set off a rocket? I decided to experiment. I took apart some mag bullets to extract the gunpowder.”

  “Wait—what?” Rockets and gunpowder experiments did not go along with Jessica’s memories of her rather conventional small-town mom.

  “Pish! It was nothing. You just use pliers to pry out the slug from the bullet, then you can get at the powder. I put the powder in an empty coffee can. I heard Daddy’s car pulling into the driveway, so I shoved the empty shells in my pocket and stashed the can by a stool. You know how your Gramps smoked cigars?”

  “Oh God, Mom. I don’t like where this is going.”

  “Well, he used to smoke cigarettes. He started in the war. Lucky Strikes. That day, he parked his car in front of the garage and went in to get something. I don’t know what. I was on my bike, near the garage at this point. He waved to me as he pulled out a cigarette and a matchbox before he walked into the garage. I’m sure my eyes were the size of saucers as he lit that match. He flicked it behind him. Jessie, can I take a moment to say that in my defense, who flicks a match in a garage?”

  “Indeed. Objection sustained.”

  “And that was that.”

  “That’s it? Boom? No casualties?”

  “Daddy, thank the good Lord, was uninjured. Well, he did burn himself with his cigarette when he hit the deck. There wasn’t any structural damage, just some shrapnel and a blackened corner of the garage. He thought the match landed in motor oil. He even quit smoking for a while. When he started back up, he stuck with cigars.”

  “And did you stop experimenting with explosives?”

  “Heck no! In that photo you sent me, Bobby’s rocket went three times as high as the box said it was supposed to go. Daddy just knew Bobby was a genius. Poor Bobby got science kits and erector sets for a couple more years. Ha! Daddy was really confused when Bobby became an insurance salesman.”

  And you got married. And then you got pregnant. And that was that. Ha.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The drive into DC for the second time in less than a month served as a reminder that Jessica had stopped taking advantage of being so close to the Capitol.

  When the kids were young, she had only just left Highland & Cross, so she’d still been in the habit of heading into the District. With Danny working so much, she would often take the kids to the Museum of Natural History to see the giant dinosaur and play with the archaeology tools in the children’s interactive zone. She’d taught them to fly kites on the Mall, and they’d visited the National Zoo in the summer. Eventually, though, the pull of school, local volunteer obligations, and to be honest, complacency shrank Jessica’s daily orbit, and out-of-town excursions ceased.

  Now, though, she had a purpose. Amina’s newfound openness inspired her, and she wanted to know how much time she had to take advantage of it while preparing for the asylum interview. The al
phabet soup of lawyers at her old firm just might have some inside information from their government connections that Rosalie couldn’t access. It seemed auspicious that Jessica’s former law school classmate and H&C colleague, Bronwyn, was free to meet for lunch that week.

  Checking the mirror before she left, Jessica recognized that she had subconsciously switched into the mindset of her earlier life, putting on dark slacks, chunky heels, and a conservative blouse. It wasn’t quite a client-meeting power outfit, but it was far from the boots, miniskirt, and cropped jacket she might have worn had she been meeting up with friends for their regular ladies’ lunch.

  Jessica’s heart leapt when the pinnacle of the Washington Monument, sunlight gleaming off the white marble, appeared in the distance. Getting into the city required driving through some rough areas full of abandoned shops, boarded-up row homes, and a monotone of futility. But the stately marble of Capitol Hill spoke of America’s promise.

  Jessica knew not to expect to find a street spot without circling for an hour, so she parked in a garage and took a leisurely walk to the restaurant. Adopting a stride she hoped pegged her as a local and not a tourist, she nonetheless felt like an outsider.

  Entering Pho 909, Jessica tried to pick Bronwyn out of the crowd of K Streeters and lawyers jockeying for a table. The place hadn’t changed a bit. The decor was still humble with its chrome diner-style chairs and tables and unflattering lighting. And the lunch crowds were still big.

  “Jessica Walter Donnelly!”

  Jessica turned toward the commanding Southern accent that somehow found more than three syllables in her first name.

  Bronwyn, whose charcoal suit was drowned out by a bold geometric scarf flowing around her neck—she never had let convention win completely—approached from behind a table near the kitchen and threw her arms around Jessica. “I’m a brunette now, so I figured you might not recognize me.”

  Jessica couldn’t suppress a laugh. Bronwyn was Bronwyn, blond or brunette. Crow’s feet graced her hazel eyes, and she had probably added fifteen pounds since they were associates together, but she had an ease of self that radiated confidence, just as she had when they’d met as first-year law students.

  At first-year orientation, Jessica had finally—finally—escaped flyover country to get her degree from one of the nation’s top law schools. As the fifteen aspiring lawyers in her small section had taken turns telling everyone something about themselves, Jessica could feel her spine compressing, vertebra by vertebra, a feeling of insecure panic welling up to obliterate her naïve excitement.

  Jessica had never felt so unaccomplished as she had that day when she’d had to introduce herself as Jessica Walter from Iowa. “I majored in political science and came straight through,” she’d said. She couldn’t talk about experience in the Peace Corps, start-up businesses, military service, or advanced degrees like some of the others. She was just a girl from Iowa. But none of them had ever met anyone from Iowa, which had made her at least somewhat interesting, if a little mortified.

  Bronwyn had also gone straight through from college to law school, but what had seemed pathetic for Jessica painted Bronwyn as a woman on a mission. Law school had been a necessary road bump on Bronwyn’s way from Smoky Mountain county fair queen to university student body president to big firm success.

  Bronwyn’s huge personality, together with her story of leaving the rural South, had a gravitational pull that soon yanked Jessica out of her self-consciousness. Going from study partners to first-year associates at H&C had seemed only natural, and Jessica’s admiration for Bronwyn had never faltered.

  Always in control of her words and disarming with her drawl and trademark belly laugh, Bronwyn was unfailingly ready for anything. No one who met her wanted to leave her orbit.

  Which reminded Jessica. “By the way, congratulations on being named managing partner. I saw it in the Journal Law Blog.” That was just what she would have expected of her old friend—having a goal and achieving it.

  Bronwyn smirked.

  “Yes, Bronwyn, I read the Law Blog like a troll.” Jessica looked around the brightly lit diner. Framed posters had faded into shadows from years of sunlight, and a scattering of replacement floor tiles didn’t quite match the originals. “I suppose we should have met somewhere fancier than the Pho. I just thought ‘old times’ and all.”

  Bronwyn waved a hand, launching the glittery bangles on her wrist into a jangling melody. “Honey, I love the Pho. I still bring new associates here and tell them about those old times, fax machines, the birth of email, researching without the Internet. It’s all changed. But the Pho remains the same.”

  A waitress approached the table, and both women placed their orders without opening the menu.

  Jessica stopped the waitress before she walked away. “Does Mr. Pham still own the restaurant?”

  “No. My grandfather died last year, shortly after my grandmother passed.” She nodded toward a framed photo hanging behind the counter.

  The young Vietnamese man in the photo resembled the older Mr. Pham, who used to greet them at the door. The petite woman standing next to him in the photo clasped his left hand tightly with both of her hands. The restaurant storefront behind them dwarfed the couple.

  “My mother and father now run the restaurant.” The waitress nodded softly as Jessica mumbled her sympathies.

  After their server scurried toward the kitchen with their order, the women smiled sadly at each other.

  “I loved Mr. Pham,” Jessica said. “He was so mean to us.”

  “And boy, did we deserve it!” Bronwyn’s belly laugh brought back memories.

  “Tough love from Mr. Pham. He just didn’t want us believing we were the hot shits we thought we were. But he did always make sure the H&C crew got a table.”

  “Ain’t that the truth!”

  After a respectful moment of silence, the two women fell into the conversational flow that somehow came easily to old friends whose jobs and kids and husbands and lives simply got in the way of staying in touch.

  “Did you see the most recent alumni magazine? Shawn finally got his plane crash.” Jessica shuddered, thinking about their old law school classmate. He had grand plans to make it rich, proclaiming, “All I need is one plane crash.” Shawn had just won the second-largest damages award in the history of Florida for the families of the victims of an Everglades plane crash.

  “And Jeremy—”

  “CEO of a dating app!” They both blurted together. Jeremy was the creepiest—but possibly the smartest—guy in their graduating class. He’d made advances on just about every girl in law school, including Jessica and Bronwyn, on the same night, no less, and was rejected by all. Now he captained a company about to go public and make him a Silicon Valley billionaire.

  Jessica continued. “I’m most excited about Amy. Dean of Stanford Law. Isn’t that incredible? I always did want her in my study group. I was clearly onto something.”

  Jessica had been wait-listed when she’d applied to Stanford Law School. She had always attributed that to her grades from her ridiculous—and unsuccessful—attempt to minor in economics, but maybe Stanford had had some way of knowing that someday she would quit the law and just be a stay-at-home mom. She was sure that wasn’t what a top law school wanted to see from its graduates. Maybe Jessica should have known she was a lightweight, too. Meeting her classmates her first year, she had felt completely out of her league. She wasn’t sure she’d ever found her league.

  “What have you been up to?” Bronwyn squeezed lime into one of the sparkling waters that had appeared on the table while they’d gossiped.

  “Conor’s a junior. He’s driving now—can you believe it? Cricket’s a sophomore, and I don’t know how she does it, but she seems to be able to avoid all of the crazy teen drama that I remember from high school. Apparently she has a boyfriend, though I have yet to meet him. Mikey is in sixth grade, my little chatterbox. And Danny’s company is doing some really exciting work in encryption. H
e’s working on landing a huge contract with Defense.”

  “Yes, but what about you?” Bronwyn tapped her manicured fingernails on the Formica tabletop. “Why the call out of the blue? I’m always glad to hear from you, but what brings us together at the Pho today?” The tapping stopped.

  “Oh yes, why I’m here. I’m doing some volunteer work. I’m sure you remember Rosalie Townsend? After she came back from that human rights thing in Thailand, she got into working with refugees, and now she heads up an immigration nonprofit in Baltimore. I ran into her at an alumni event, and somehow I ended up becoming a pro bono asylum attorney.” She shook her head, still in disbelief. “I have one client. It’s been quite an education.”

  “Good for you! They’re lucky to have you, Jessica, and I think it’s fantastic you took on something new.”

  “You know, me too,” Jessica said. And she meant it, though she hadn’t admitted it to herself until now. “I hadn’t really thought I missed it. Between the kids and carpooling and taking care of the house and everything else, time passed more quickly than I would have expected. But those things have slowed down. And I have to admit that it is quite a relief to learn that my brain still works after all those years of being soft.”

  Bronwyn nodded slowly, as though she knew something Jessica hadn’t figured out yet.

  Jessica picked up a cocktail napkin half-soaked from condensation. “I thought that maybe you have someone at H&C who still has connections with the Department of Homeland Security. My client has been waiting for her interview notice, and we have no sense of timing. She’s... she’s from Syria.” Jessica checked Bronwyn for a reaction. Bronwyn’s open expression invited her to continue. “And with the way politics are going, I figure the sooner the better, before she loses her chance altogether. Maybe someone can get me some information about timing? Not for her specifically, just for the Arlington office in general.”

  Bronwyn tapped her nails again. “Is that all? C’mon, now. You can make those calls yourself.” She eyed Jessica cagily. “I’ll see what I can find out. I have to say that I was hoping maybe you were looking to get back in the game.” She raised her right eyebrow, challenging the lawyer seated across from her.