Finding Tranquility

by Laura Heffernan

  Unlike our parents, neither of us were religious. But we’d both gotten a kick out of the website that went through the darker parts of the Bible, and Brett found “Thou shalt eat your babies” to be particularly funny. He’d love to know we read it at his funeral. Except for the part where he was dead.

  Mom sighed heavily. “I know this is hard for you, Jess…”

  “Do you? How many times did your husband die?” She flinched, and I sorta recognized that I should feel bad. But worrying about how my grief affected people around me just wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t know how to act, what to do. No one prepared you for this. Especially not at twenty-two. I wasn’t ready to be an adult yet.

  When Mom spoke again, her voice was softer. “I can do this on my own if you want.”

  “Sure,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Nothing mattered.

  ∞ ♡ ∞

  A few months ago, when I’d stepped into this church for our wedding, I assumed it be the last time, at least until one of my parents died. I wouldn’t miss the red walls, the hard pews, the kneelers that dug into my knees week after week growing up. Never did I think I’d be back in this church so soon, for this reason. The stained-glass windows were beautiful, and as a child, I’d loved to watch the colors play across the congregation, but today, I hated them for reminding me of the beautiful, sunny world outside.

  Acquaintances flocked to the church. When we got married, perhaps a hundred people scattered throughout the building, and we’d invited half our graduating high school class. Today, at least a thousand mourners crammed themselves into the rows. Everyone I’d ever met, everyone Brett had ever met, neighbors, every teacher, everyone who’d been at school with us or Brad. Everyone who’d played football against us or cheered for the opposing school. Not just from Lancaster, but the neighboring towns, too. Apparently, being murdered by terrorists brings everyone you ever knew—and plenty of people you didn’t—out of the woodwork to mourn your passing. To be glad it wasn’t them; their brothers, their sons, their cousins, classmates, friends. I hated them all for coming. I’d have traded all of them to get Brett back.

  The thought of having to talk to all of those near-strangers made me hyperventilate. I couldn’t do this. But the time for socializing was after, and I already had a plan for escape, so I bit the inside of my lip, squeezed Mom’s hand, and lowered my head to at least pretend to listen.

  At the front of the church, Father Thomas droned. “We gather today to honor the memory of Brett Cooper, a man taken from this world much too soon.”

  The sermon nauseated me. Or maybe it was the nasty coffee Mom tried to make me drink before we started. Either way, I felt like shit. Delaying the ceremony two months didn’t make me feel any better when we finally held it.

  As the priest spoke, I tried not to listen, to focus on other things, anything to keep from having a breakdown in the first row. I imagined Mom’s reaction if I’d managed to talk the priest into using some bizarre Bible reading instead of the usual “better place” crap. How was Brett in a better place? What place was better than here, with me? With his family and friends? What place was worse than being obliterated into a billion subatomic particles?

  For some reason, they put a coffin at the front of the room, draped with the American flag. I didn't know if my mom or Brett’s mom asked for it, and I didn’t care. A “Never forget” banner hung on the back wall. I wanted to scream and rip it down. That’s the stupidest fucking slogan I’ve ever heard. No one with a soul was ever going to forget the day more than two thousand innocent lives were taken by terrorists.

  Brett’s parents sat in the pew across the aisle. His mother sobbed into a handkerchief, loud gulping weeps that would’ve been comical if not for the fact that she was crying over the murder of my husband. I wanted to wail with her, but I was all cried out.

  Father Thomas finished his sermon and asked if anyone wanted to come up and share their memories of Brett. Mom and I had talked about this; no way in hell could I stand up in front of two hundred people and talk about how this felt. Anyone who couldn’t imagine what I was feeling right now could fuck off. I didn’t want to tell them, I wanted to go home.

  But my mom stood up, walked to the front, head held high. “I’ve known Brett for eight years, and I loved him like my own son. From the day they met, he and my Jess were inseparable. I still remember the first time he came over, when they were only fourteen years old. He dropped by to ask if Jess was home, but she was at Bible study, wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours. He asked if there was anything he could do around the house to help out while he waited.” She paused, smiled at the memory, and continued. “I told him that I was making Jess’s confirmation dress. At the time, he and Jess were about the same height. That boy, bless his heart, stood there and wore that dress while I sewed the hem all around him. Didn’t complain or anything. Just quietly waited for Jess to come home so he could see her. I knew then, he was a keeper.”

  A chuckle went through the crowd. Brett always hung out with my mom, helping her sew or cook or whatever she was doing. At first, I thought he was just sucking up to her so we could hang out without a chaperone, but I realized after a few months that he really enjoyed their time together. It wasn’t uncommon for me to leave Brett chopping vegetables while I quizzed him on French words or read to him from our English assignments.

  When we got married, I’d dreamt that one day, our children would help him in the kitchen the same way he helped my mom.

  Stupid dreams. Just like my husband, they were gone in an instant.

  Brett would never teach our child to cook, never change a diaper, never grow old with me. Never learn my mother’s top-secret cake recipe that she always promised to teach him when he was older (the “magic” ingredient was probably butter), never start a 401(k), never hold my hand again, never kiss me. And there was nothing I could do to make any of it right again.

  Forgetting about everyone else in the church, finally, I lowered my head and let the tears flow.

  Chapter 9

  September 2019

  Eighteen years ago today, my husband died.

  Everyone said, “But you’re so young to be a widow!” as if tragedy only happens to the elderly. As if the fact that we were newlyweds meant Brett couldn’t be dead, that my loss never happened. Like I’d imagined it.

  If only that were true. That Brett could’ve been instantly restored to me because I was too young to have lost my husband, we were too newly married.

  I wasn’t the only person who lost a loved one that day, not even close. That stupid mantra, “never forget,” plastered everywhere like that helped. I hated seeing those reminders even more now than I did in 2001. The phrase was such an obvious overstatement that it had no meaning to me at all.

  Of course we’ll never forget. What are we, robots? Even after almost twenty years, I thought about Brett every day. Especially on the anniversary.

  When I got in my car and pressed the ignition button, pop music blared, making me jump. I turned it down and flipped the dial, glad to get to pick my own music for once. The radio turned to an “oldies” station (how could my high school days be “oldies?”), and a familiar song filled the car.

  As I drove, I tapped my fingers on the wheel, matching the music’s rhythm, automatically singing along. “I’m too sexy for my shirt…” A song I hadn’t listened to in years, probably because it was the song playing on the football field when Brett and I met for the first time.

  I’d been headed to my first cheerleading practice, weeks before my freshman year. I hadn’t really been all that excited about being a cheerleader, but I liked handstands and cartwheels, and my friends talked me into the rest.

  “It’ll be fun,” they said. “Something we can all do together!”

  Personally, I thought going to classes and studying and watching Swan’s Crossing tapes on the VCR was something we could all do together, but my mom swore high school was ab
out pushing your boundaries and trying new things or whatever.

  Going to a high school three times the size of my junior high was scary enough; I didn’t want to imagine what it would be like if all my friends made the squad and I didn’t. So, I tried out. I was both surprised and relieved when they announced the results.

  That day, the other girls were meeting half an hour before practice to watch the football players warm up. I’d dragged my feet as much as I could, but there was no use in stalling. I’d made my bed, and it was time to lie in it. So, I got out of Mom’s car when she dropped me off and squinted into the sun. Across the field, my friends were already lined up along the bleachers in their shorts and sports bras peeking out from under their tank tops. The boom box beside them blared, blasting Right Said Fred across the field. I didn’t see the fourteen-year-old future quarterback trotting toward me.

  He slammed into me with a crunch. The impact sent me teetering. I tried to catch myself, rolled my ankle, and landed on my ass.

  Awesome. Way to be coordinated, Jess. You’ll make a terrific cheerleader.

  “Oh, shit!” the guy said. “I’m so sorry!”

  Shading my eyes with one hand, I peered up at him. Dark hair, cut short on the sides, a little longer on top. Brown eyes. Perfect straight nose, not like my stupid snub nose. No freckles, also unlike me. He was cute. Very cute. Much too cute to want to talk to me once he finished apologizing. At least he could be bothered to say sorry, not like some of the jerks at my old school.

  My butt hurt from slamming into the ground, but I smiled at him, anyway. “S’okay. I should’ve been looking where I was going instead of at my friends over there.”

  He reached one hand down to pull me up. “You a cheerleader?”

  “Yeah.”

  When I stepped on my left foot, a flare of pain shot up my leg. I tried to cover it up, but I’m not that great an actress.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I lied. I took another step, but my ankle buckled, and I instinctively reached out for support.

  He caught me around the waist and pulled me toward him. He felt solid. If you have to get mowed down by some guy before the first day of school, it’s wise to run into one who’s strong enough to carry you.

  “Here. Let me help you across the field,” he said.

  When we got closer to the field, the football coach spotted us and yelled. “Cooper! Nice of you to—What’s this?”

  Coach Wall spotted us at the same time. She fussed over me for a moment before picking me up and trotting toward the bleachers, muttering about ice. I looked back at Brett over my shoulder, thinking that this moment would be a zillion times better if he’d been the one to lift me into his arms.

  Then I shook my head, cursing myself for being such a hopeless romantic. High school wasn’t really like Say Anything or Sixteen Candles. This wasn’t the ‘80s.

  When you’re fourteen, you never really know how good-looking you are. When Brett approached me for the second time, I assumed he wanted to talk to my friend Sue. After all, she was tiny. Short, adorable, great at tumbling. Or maybe he wanted to apologize again. I had no idea he’d be into me. I’d gone from gangly to pretty practically overnight, and the change in how boys reacted took me by surprise.

  From early on, we were inseparable. We both had overbearing parents who put a lot of pressure on us to be who they thought we should be. We both dreamed of leaving our small town and moving to the big city, both loved Seinfeld and My So-Called Life, and were fascinated by the human body. He even watched Swan’s Crossing with me. In ninth grade, that’s more than enough to form a lasting bond.

  Until the day he died, I never dated anyone else. When I was fourteen, Brett gave me my first kiss. We were each other’s first loves, the golden couple, crowned Prom Queen and King. When we announced our engagement after college, people were surprised we’d waited so long.

  Some days, I still couldn’t believe he was gone. In the back of my mind, part of me always expected to run into him, everywhere I went. Even when I started dating again, I waited for Brett to show up and ask me what the heck I was doing. And on the rare occasions I allowed myself to ponder the afterlife, I expected to see my husband there, waiting for me at the pearly gates, holding one hand out to me.

  For the most part, I didn’t believe in Heaven, but losing Brett made me want it to exist with a desperate need.

  The song’s chorus brought me back to reality, and with a shake of my head, I switched the radio off. The nineties music I’d once enjoyed brought me no pleasure anymore. And on this day of all days, listening to the news was out of the question.

  So much time had passed, most of my employees didn’t even know about Brett. I’d taken the day off after bin Laden was killed, unable to explain to everyone why that news didn’t make me happy. Of course it didn’t. More death wasn’t better. Killing the enemy didn’t bring my husband back.

  If it stopped more killing, great, but it didn’t fill the void inside me.

  Even after all this time, I couldn’t face going to work on this day. Listening to the news on the TVs in the waiting room all day. I never planned to take the day off, but when the sun rose on September 11, I always found myself making the same call.

  “Quincy Orthopedics,” a man said.

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s me. I’m taking a vacation day.”

  Teddy’s voice exhibited zero surprise. “Of course you are. Take care of yourself, Jess. Do what you need to do. Are you taking Ethan out of school?”

  “No. It’s just another day for him. The school won’t make a big deal out of it.”

  “In that case, you should call my friend Steve and see if he wants to spend the day with you,” Teddy said. “It would do you both some good.”

  Not for the first time, I mentally shook my head at my partner’s interest in my personal life. I pictured Steve’s friendly smile, neatly trimmed goatee, and kind eyes. The image raised no emotions within me whatsoever. A nice enough guy, but not for me. “No. I don’t think that’s going to work out after all.”

  Teddy clucked his tongue into the phone. “You’ve got to put yourself out there. It’s been, what, ten years since you last had a serious relationship?”

  Eighteen, but who was counting? Other than my mother, my friends…I’d been on a few dates here and there, but Teddy’s quiet gasp on the other end of the phone told me he realized his faux pas. “I’m sorry, Jess. I didn’t mean…”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s okay. You know I like to take things slow. Running a practice and raising a child by myself doesn’t leave a lot of time for making friends. This isn’t the right time for me to get involved with someone. It’ll happen.”

  “What will be the right time?” he asked softly.

  “Once Ethan leaves for college?”

  Teddy sighed. “Okay, I see your point. I’m sorry.”

  “Anyway, I’m headed to a resort in the mountains outside Montreal. It’s too early for snow, but I can hike and practice my college French and go to a spa and not worry that I’ll burst into tears while explaining to a patient how to take care of himself after we repair his rotator cuff.”

  “I approve,” Teddy said. “You haven’t taken a vacation day in almost a year. Take as long as you need. I don’t want to see you back here for at least two weeks.”

  “But what about—?”

  “There are plenty of doctors here. We’ll reschedule. Your patients will manage. Doctor, heal thyself.”

  “Fine,” I grumbled. But when I put the phone down, I was smiling.

  Maybe if I took some time off to clear my head, I’d be ready to give dating more of a shot when I got back. Steve wasn’t too bad, even if he spit whenever he said the letter S. An unfortunate name, really. Too bad his parents couldn’t have known before they named him Steven Samuel Schmidt II. Poor guy. And yes, that was an immature reason for not going out with him. The fact that I was looking for st
upid reasons to reject poor Steve spoke volumes about my interest level.

  Maybe when I got back I’d meet someone that gave me butterflies in my stomach, would make me stop rolling my eyes at the romantic comedies offered on Netflix. Someone I couldn’t wait to bring home to meet my friends and family. One day, I might even be able to watch a Nicholas Sparks movie without throwing pillows at the TV.

  An hour after hanging up the phone, I was on my way, headed west on the Mass Pike in my Nissan crossover SUV. In early September, the leaves weren’t yet turning colors. The lush green landscape promised a new life. Or else I was trying way too hard to be optimistic about sitting in a hotel room by myself, mourning the husband I’d never be able to replace.

  No matter how many online profiles I read, how many blind dates people arranged for me, no one else seemed good enough for me. After all, Brett and I built up a lifetime of memories before we even became adults. No one else knew all my little quirks and secrets, got jokes that stemmed from watching the same TV shows over and over, could read my moods and my silences.

  Mom’s voice echoed in my ear. “Replacing Brett in your life doesn’t mean replacing him in your heart. There’s always room inside a person for more love.”

  She was probably right, but what did she know? She stayed with my father for thirty-five years, letting him tell her how to act, who to be friends with, what to wear, what to believe, how to think. Since he died of cancer, she’d finally found herself, blossoming into a new person. No one had been surprised when she started dating a couple of weeks after the service.

  How sad that my sixty-year-old mother had a more exciting sex life than I did.

  Only seven more hours until I could get to the resort, pour a glass of wine, and lose myself in a long, hot bath before starting a reality show marathon. I’d make a quick call to check in, and then I was on my own to grieve in silence. My family mourned Brett, too, but it wasn’t the same. For one day each year, I needed to be alone to deal with the feelings inside me.