Unbroken Threads

by Jennifer Klepper

  Jessica’s headlights lit up the SUV parked by the garage as she pulled into the driveway. The kids were probably already out. Mikey had a sleepover, but the other two had curfews, and Danny and Jessica would be up late waiting for them. Until then, though, they could have some much-needed alone time. They didn’t need Jujubes, just the tradition, the togetherness, and a movie to fill the space in which words weren’t working. If they could get that feeling back, she could work on the words later.

  Gracie met her at the door, and Jessica called out to announce, and apologize for, her late arrival. Blue light flickered in the darkness of the family room. Jessica hung her coat on the newel and set her bag next to the stairs. Danny must have run upstairs and left the TV on.

  She hollered up the stairs. “Hey, hon. I totally forgot to get the Jujubes. Do you think we can manage without them this one time?”

  She walked back to the kitchen to open a bottle of wine and jumped when she glanced at the couch. “Oh. Hi.”

  Danny wasn’t upstairs.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she continued. “I forgot to get the Jujubes. I’m so sorry. You wouldn’t have believed the traffic.”

  Danny set down his beer. “No worries.”

  “So, what are we watching?” The faces of Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant filled the screen. Danny was well into Notting Hill, a longtime favorite.

  Danny gestured toward the screen but said nothing.

  “Oh. You... started already? No problem. Just let me pour us each a glass.”

  Danny shrugged. “Wasn’t sure when you’d be home. Thought I’d go to bed early tonight, anyway.”

  He downed the rest of the bottle and flicked off the TV, leaving Jessica standing in the dark, holding a corkscrew and a bottle of cab.

  Her eyes strained to find his face in the dark. “But we always watch...”

  “Movie’s almost over.”

  She could make out his form but only saw the back of his head. “Can’t we just have a quiet night?”

  “Hard to do when you’re not here.”

  “When I’m not here?” She set the bottle on the table. The tension from traffic and being late and everything else found its way into her grip, and she didn’t let go of the neck. Tension also found its way into her rising voice. “I’m always here. That’s what I do—I’m here. You’re the one who’s been missing so much.”

  He turned to face her. “Is that a problem all of a sudden? I have a job, a company, employees. I support a family, put food on the table, a roof over our heads, give you the opportunity to do your volunteer work.” He gestured casually toward what she assumed was Baltimore and refugees.

  “Is that what this is about? That I’m not contributing enough? Or is it that I’m working with Amina? Or that I might just have a life of my own?” She was borderline screeching, which made Danny’s unwavering calm all the more disturbing.

  “No, Jessica. You didn’t think about how what you do affects others, and you lied about it. I’m done. I’m going to bed. You can watch the rest of the movie yourself.”

  Jessica released her grip on the bottle and felt warm blood surge into her fingers as Danny left the room. They had never had these arguments before this case began. She wondered if this was how Denise’s marriage had started to unravel. No, Denise’s husband had been cheating on her. Still, the tension between Jessica and Danny was not sustainable, and she didn’t know how to fix it.

  She poured a generous glass of wine and clicked on the TV but couldn’t stomach watching the happy ending of a romantic comedy. Instead, the national news was running tape of the refugees’ arrival. They appeared more fearful on the news than they had in real life. On the screen, their faces spoke of pain and exhaustion. Before she’d left for home earlier, those same faces had smiled in relief and gratitude, each one hugging Amina as though she represented both everything they’d left behind and everything they had to look forward to.

  It was anyone’s guess what those faces would look like after the glow of arrival wore off and they faced the onset of reality.

  She flicked off the TV and listened. Walking through the doorway, toward the front door, she strained to hear a word or a creak on the stairs but heard nothing. Danny wasn’t coming back down. Jessica ran her hand along the handrail then picked up her laptop bag from the bottom of the stairs.

  She hadn’t planned to finish her ReCross application until next weekend. But she wouldn’t be able to sleep until the kids got home safely, and she wasn’t going to lie in bed for the next couple of hours.

  Jessica set her wine glass on the trunk next to the laptop. After opening the computer, she curled up in the corner of the couch to watch the screen light up and the Wi-Fi connect.

  She logged into the ReCross application page to see where she had left off. Her work history was ancient, and leaving that huge “raising kids” gap in the résumé portion was a gut punch. But they knew they were hiring people who had been away from the law for a while.

  She’d completed the writing task and technology test already. That left just the personal statement. Bronwyn had told her this was the most important piece of the application. According to Bronwyn, H&C had started the ReCross program not out of charity but to leverage the skills of highly trained lawyers who were motivated to succeed. The program also served to add female leadership to a firm top-heavy with men in a business environment that mandated female faces. But they weren’t going to make it easy, and they only wanted the best.

  Jessica scrolled down and read the personal statement prompt. “Please describe your professional goals and your motivations for returning to the practice of law.” The text box was big. And empty.

  An email alert popped up, pulling her eyes to the corner of the screen. It was from her mom. The subject line read, “A memoir-y thing I wrote.”

  She clicked to open the email, which was blank except for a Word document titled, “Rocket Girl.” Jessica laughed with rueful commiseration. Her mom, the rocket girl wannabe, was stuck in Iowa, and she was stuck alone on New Year’s Eve. At least the two of them had one thing in common, though Jessica was surprised to feel that being stuck alone tonight was the worse of the two fates.

  Working at H&C had gotten Jessica out of Iowa, and it had been sexy and impressive and had made her feel as though the world wasn’t just passing her by. She’d been a part of it and had loved it... until events had conspired against her and she’d missed her last chance to see her father and be by her mother’s side. Perhaps she shouldn’t have blamed the situation on that deal that had had one problem after another and had demanded all of her attention. Perhaps she should have looked within and recognized that she’d made her own decisions. She clicked from the email back over to the application and the empty text box.

  Before she could move forward with ReCross, or any more personal pursuits for that matter, she needed to fix the things she had broken. She didn’t want to be stuck in place while the world passed by, leaving her in the rearview mirror, but she couldn’t leave anyone else behind, either.

  There was still one unopened box in the parlor, the one with her mom’s name marked in black Sharpie. She’d left it, a prickly bit of unfinished business that marred an otherwise back-to-normal room, thinking it shouldn’t have come to her in the first place. She had decided it would be intrusive to open it since she’d distanced herself from her mother most of all. But the box was there and would be until she did something about it. She closed the laptop. She would open her mother’s email after she finished with Oma’s boxes.

  Jessica knocked her wine glass against the metal edging on the trunk, producing a dull clang, and quietly gave a toast to a new year that would, hopefully, be better than the last.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Jessica lifted the cup, only to find it empty. She’d started using Oma’s coffee cups despite their daintiness and the fact that they predated the concept of venti-sized coffee mugs. Something about the bone china and memories of it coming out after big hol
iday meals at the farm kept her in the moment instead of her usual focus on what she needed to do next.

  In this New Year’s Day moment, categorizing receipts and bills wasn’t providing the fulfilling sense of accomplishment it had in years past. Scanning, shredding, and filing away the prior year in anticipation of the one ahead had always made Jessica feel as though she were moving forward. This year, though, even a sense of stasis would have been better than the feeling that she was regressing.

  Mikey poked his head through the dining room doorway, a phone held to his ear. “Mom, you wanna talk to Grams?”

  Jessica nodded and closed her laptop.

  “Bye, Grams. Happy New Year.” Mikey passed the phone to Jessica then called to Gracie and raced her out of the room and up the stairs.

  “What’s going on in Annapolis today? Mikey told me Conor and Cricket are still in bed.”

  Jessica snorted. “Yes, the life of a teenager. I expect Mikey will crash soon, himself. He was up all night at a sleepover.”

  “And Danny?”

  Her mom’s tone didn’t indicate that she knew of any marital discord, but Jessica bristled nonetheless. “Danny’s getting ready to head over to our neighbor’s man cave for football. And I’m doing paperwork.” She picked up her empty cup and stood. “I was doing paperwork.” She moved to the kitchen and refilled. “I read your essay.”

  Her mom let out a puff of air, as if she’d been holding her breath. “Jessica, when you sent me that photo... and we talked, I decided maybe I should write my stories down. Someone might be interested in them someday.”

  “It was really good, Mom. I especially liked the description of your old house, with Oma’s window boxes and Gramps’s tools in the yard. It’s like I was there.” The wood crackled in the fireplace as Jessica added a log.

  “Hush. I know it needs work. I even signed up for a class at the community college. Memoir writing. Two classes, actually. That and a technology class. You know, whenever I need computer help, I call Conor. Some rocket girl. Ha! I think I just need a boost to get caught up so I can figure out these things myself. But don’t tell Conor. I’ll still call him to ask for his advice.”

  Learning that her son and mother had maintained a strong relationship despite her own failings left Jessica disappointed in herself for not even knowing. “The classes sound great.”

  “I already have a title for my memoirs: The Girl Who Wanted to Go to Space but Went to the Kitchen Instead.”

  “Could be either a tragedy or a comedy, Mom.” Jessica picked at her fingernails. “Do you feel like you missed out on doing something big? Do you have any regrets?”

  “No.”

  Jessica envied her mom for being able to answer in the negative with such authority.

  “You know, when I was growing up, things were starting to change. Girls didn’t have the options boys did in Idaville, but I at least had the option to think about going into engineering. My mom, my grandmother, I doubt it ever would have occurred to them that they could do something other than be housewives. I just happened to be the transition generation. And then I got to watch you go past your dreams and into reality. If I’d wanted to go to law school, my math teacher would have said the same thing to me that he said when I wanted to be an engineer. But for you, it was so simple. You wanted to go. You worked hard. You went. You became a lawyer. I was so proud. We both were, your dad and me.”

  Jessica could almost feel her mom sitting next to her on the couch, each of them silently sipping coffee from Oma’s china. Even an uncomfortable quiet was tempting. There was no need to dredge up the past and taint the moment. But memories of getting news about her dad’s cancer and pushing them aside, leaving her mother to handle the sickness and the loss, and leaving her father to die without one last goodbye flooded her mind, disrupting any ease she might feel.

  She’d thought that surely he would make it through New Year’s, and then she would be free to make a trip back. She hadn’t understood how fast a killer pancreatic cancer was, but that was no excuse. Some end-of-the-year deal had closed before the ball dropped, and some nameless people had made millions, but her dad hadn’t made it past New Year’s that year.

  “I’m sorry... about Dad’s last Christmas.” Her voice cracked. “I should have been there for him. For you.”

  “That was a tough Christmas.” Jessica had to strain to hear her mom now. She didn’t sound so close anymore. “The next Christmas was harder. It eventually got easier. But I do wish you’d been back.”

  “I thought you were mad and...” She started to say she thought her mom didn’t want to see her or talk with her, but she knew that wasn’t the case. It was all Jessica. She didn’t want to feel uncomfortable about her choices and the fact that she had compounded the problem by choosing distance over connection.

  “No, never mad. But I’ve been lonely, and I think that might be worse. I’ve got your brothers and the grandkids, and Facebook and Instagram to keep up with everyone, but I felt abandoned by my little girl. I tried to convince myself it was because we were so successful in raising you, that you had too many important things going on.”

  “No, Mom, that’s not why. I mean, yes, you were successful in raising me. You were great parents. But I was selfish and blind to what was important. I think I believed staying home—in Idaville—would hold me back. That’s why I left, but then I got so caught up out here with work then my own family on top of that, and I thought I had really pulled off having it all. When Dad died, though, I knew right away I was wrong. That’s why I quit. I saw what I missed with you, with Dad. I was mortified thinking about what else I might have missed and what I would miss in the future. But I didn’t know how to fix what I’d already broken.”

  “I think you just did.”

  The new log settled into the pile, fresh embers from an old log pulsing as they fell beneath the grate. Jessica wasn’t feeling as forgiving of herself, at least not while there were other things to fix in her own home. “I wish I had another chance with Dad. He must have hated me when he died.”

  “Your dad loved you so much, Jessie.” Her mom’s tone had shifted, almost scolding her for disparaging her father. “The guys down at the lodge would throw pretzels at him as soon as your name came up. He bragged about you so much.”

  “And then I wasn’t even with him when he was sick. And I wasn’t there for you.”

  “Honey, you were always with him. And you are always with me.”

  The line went quiet again, but it wasn’t a distant quiet. This time, it really was more like they were sitting together, sharing a cup of coffee and watching the fire.

  Finally, her mom spoke. “You haven’t mentioned anything about Mom’s things for a while. How did that all end up?”

  “Not as planned, to be honest. I figured I would get things lined up for consignment after New Year’s, but I pretty much kept all of it. I’m not sure where it will all fit, but I just couldn’t get rid of things. If only I hadn’t been an attorney, Oma would have given the job to someone else and I wouldn’t need to find the space.”

  “Oh, honey. She didn’t ask you to handle her things because you’re an attorney.”

  Jessica frowned then laughed at herself. “That sounds about right. I guess she was a wily one. That suede skirt, by the way. The red one you got instead of a rocket. I have it.”

  “What!” The sudden increase in volume caused Jessica to pull the phone away from her ear.

  “Yes. It was in the last box I opened.”

  “How about the boots?”

  “No boots. But Oma left a note: ‘Tell your mom I knew she was the one who built the rocket.’”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  A whisper of cold slipped through the poorly sealed window in the kitchen. Jessica wrapped her hands more tightly around her coffee as she marveled at the view. A translucent layer of frost covered every surface in the backyard, turning each blade of grass into a tiny, alluring dagger.

  She glanced at the co
uch. “Can I get you a refill, hon?”

  Danny shook his head, not looking up from his Sunday paper. “I’m good.”

  Jessica wanted them to be good. After talking with her mom, Jessica had been emotionally spent. She hadn’t realized the guilt and anxiety she’d repressed over the years, but her mom’s forgiveness had started to wash it away. She had a new fullness that steeled her to do the same with Danny.

  Since the New Year’s Eve movie debacle three nights before, Jessica had set the stage for reconciliation, removing potential obstacles in hopes of creating the right moment, a sort of protective bubble around them. She hadn’t mentioned Amina or the refugees. She’d made sure Danny’s newspapers were on the kitchen table for him, and she had even gotten up early that morning to get the coffee started. She could do nothing about the lost government contract, though.

  Today was the day. The kids were likely to sleep in, a winter break bad habit that had fully taken hold, and if the draft from the window were any indication, no one would want to leave the house.

  Jessica flicked on the local news to check the weather forecast, just to be sure. An obnoxious mattress ad blared from the television speakers, garnering a cautionary frown from Danny.

  She wouldn’t let his attitude burst her bubble. “Sorry. Just watching for the weather.” Jessica adjusted the volume all the way down.

  “G’morning.” A yawning Conor stumbled into the room, his bedhead raging and mocking her for thinking he would still be buried in his blankets. His too-long flannel pajama bottoms were ragged at the hems, and he had no concerns about walking on them. Jessica had offered to shorten them, touting her minimal sewing skills, but had been rebuffed.

  “Morning. How was last night?” Jessica tried to act nonchalant about Conor going out again the night before. Conor had checked in—early, even—when he’d gotten home, then he’d gone straight to bed. She was glad he was finally being social again, but it did open up a world of potential landmines.