I'll See You Again

by Jackie Hance

  A few months later, the cardinal landed in a tattoo on his other arm—with branches that held the letters E, A, K.

  “Do you like it?” he asked, showing off his cardinal.

  “I do,” I said. “But I think you’ve got to stop with the tattoos.”

  One Friday evening Warren came home from working in the city unexpectedly late. The next morning, he came downstairs without a shirt and walked around the kitchen, as if trying to get me to notice him. Warren rarely strutted around shirtless, but I must have been too absorbed in worrying about my own expanding baby tummy to pay attention to him. He bumped into me a few times, and when I still didn’t say anything, he came very close and thrust his biceps in my direction.

  “Are you ever going to notice?” he asked.

  “What?” I asked.

  He pointed to the cardinal tattoo. It had now sprouted a new branch with a K on it for Kasey. And on the other arm was a brand-new tattoo: Emma, Alyson, Katie, and Kasey were all written in cursive script, with a peace sign.

  I touched the K and all four girls’ names gently. Never once in all the years I’d known him had Warren talked about a tattoo, yet now he couldn’t stop. “Are you going to be one of those guys with tattoos all over your body?” I asked, teasing him gently.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  The body art gave me a new insight into my husband. Sometimes I didn’t think he thought about the girls or the tragedy or the changed circumstances of our life. But then he did something like emblazon their names across his body, and I realized that he was as desperate to hold on to them as I was.

  Twenty-four

  On Emma’s eleventh birthday, two years after she was gone, I went to the cemetery to deliver the gifts I had bought for her. I sat down by the stone and told my eldest daughter about Kasey Rose, her baby sister who would be coming soon. I explained that I hoped to love Kasey unreservedly, but that didn’t mean I would ever love her any less. Love is not a finite product that you need to carefully allocate and divide. Just like when Alyson had joined our family and then Katie, the love I had to give would simply grow and expand.

  What I said made perfect sense, and Emma, always a smart girl, would surely understand. The bigger question remained whether or not I could convince myself. Right now, Kasey seemed a lot less real than Emma, Alyson, and Katie.

  After coming back from the cemetery, I fell apart. Yes, I was pregnant and everyone was happy for me—but when would we all acknowledge the elephant in the room? I was having this baby only because three other children were dead.

  As often happened when grief overwhelmed me, Warren and I began fighting. Even as we fought that weekend, I could see that I was wearing him out.

  “I’m having a panic attack,” I said at one point in the middle of the night. “I can hardly breathe.”

  Our months of therapy paid off as he tried to offer some empathy. “Jackie, if I were feeling the way you are, what would you tell me to do?”

  “I’d tell you to take a Xanax and an Ambien and go to sleep,” I snapped. “But I’m pregnant, so I can’t take either.”

  “Then what else can I do for you?” he asked.

  I looked at him, tears rolling down my face. For so long now, I had wanted my husband to take care of me again, yearned for the man who wasn’t himself broken by grief and pain. I needed him to hold me and let his strength seep through my pores and revive me. I didn’t need a husband—I needed Superman.

  “What can I do for you right now?” Warren asked again, practically.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe a hug.”

  “A hug?” Warren looked at me with some combination of surprise and contempt. “A hug? Really, Jackie? I’ve been asking you to hug me for a year. And now that’s what you want?”

  I kept sobbing, and Warren left the room. He was right. He had been asking me to hug him for months and months, but my heart was too cold and broken to do it. Now that I finally wanted his embrace, could it be that his heart had grown too cold? I had been hurtful for so long that maybe neither of us could get what we wanted.

  A few minutes later, I heard footsteps on the stairs, and Laura came in.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Warren called me to come over and help,” she said.

  “It’s the middle of the night and I don’t want him to call you,” I said. “I want him to take care of me.”

  “You haven’t let him do that in a long time,” Laura said reasonably.

  “I asked him to hug me,” I said.

  Laura gave a little smile. “Well, maybe that’s a start. You both just have to learn how to do that again.”

  • • •

  With each of my previous pregnancies, I had gained forty or fifty pounds and delighted in my round, fecund shape. But as I moved into the last trimester with Kasey, I had gained only fifteen pounds. I never felt hungry, and having a hard time accepting the pregnancy, maybe I resisted letting my body grow. I tried to eat healthy foods and kept exercising, but I never called the doctor to ask any questions. Why worry when I didn’t believe this baby would ever be real? It seemed too much to hope that she was growing and healthy.

  Wherever I went, people came up to me with big smiles on their faces to offer congratulations.

  “Oh, I’m so happy for you!” a woman I barely knew said when she saw me in a store one day.

  “Thank you,” I said, uncertainly.

  “A new baby is just what you deserve!” she said eagerly. “Are you feeling good?”

  “Yes, fine,” I said with a wary smile as I walked quickly away. I felt the usual stabs of guilt. Is this what would happen now? Would everyone forget about Emma, Alyson, and Katie and want to talk only about the new baby?

  Warren anticipated the end of the pregnancy with great hope and expectation, and he started talking about a baby shower for me.

  “I don’t want a shower,” I said. “The girls can’t have a party, so why should the baby?”

  “Everyone wants to congratulate you. You might as well get it all over with at once.”

  Warren made plans for a ladies’ lunch. I figured it would be like a birthday dinner they’d had for me—a small group of women gathered to celebrate quietly, which had been perfect. For the shower, Warren would pay for the food, and we would use Melissa’s house.

  But as the party got closer, I started to balk. I didn’t feel deserving of a party and I didn’t want friends doing anything more for me. People had done too much already. I told Melissa and Isabelle I wanted to cancel.

  “We can’t really do that,” Isabelle admitted.

  “Why not? We’ll save Melissa a lot of trouble.”

  Reluctantly, she admitted that Warren hadn’t planned a small gathering, after all. He had rented a catering hall—the same one where we’d had Alyson’s Communion party—and more than a hundred people had been invited.

  “Are you kidding?” I asked.

  “It’s too late to get out of it,” Isabelle said. “It’s a luncheon. Everyone’s looking forward to it. Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine.”

  He had invited everybody.

  I felt nothing but anxiety at the thought of a party, and late at night, I wondered, Why can’t he do what I want?

  I tried not to get angry at Warren. Deep in my heart, I knew that his motives were good. He wanted to feel as buoyant and eager as any father-to-be. Throwing a baby shower for his wife, he could feel normal. We had always liked parties and celebrations, and this was his way of saying that the baby was worth celebrating. He hoped the baby would bring the end of sadness, and he was announcing that the world could stop feeling sorry for us—we had embarked on a good and happy time. The party was his promise to every friend who had suffered through our sadness that glimmers of sunshine were again peeking through the clouds.

  But, of course, he didn’t say any of that.

  • • •

  The day before the party, I got my hair blown out and Isabelle came over
to help me decide what to wear. I pulled out a sparkly minidress I had bought a few months earlier. I’d probably bought it in too large a size, and I’d never worn it, because it had just hung on me.

  “This one makes me look like a circus tent,” I said, holding it up.

  “Try it,” she said.

  I pulled it on and with my slightly bigger belly, the dress swung gracefully. Isabelle grinned. “That’s the one. Wear it.”

  So I did my makeup carefully and put on the sparkly minidress and a pair of stiletto heels.

  “You look really good,” Warren said, smiling at me with a twinkle in his eye when I came downstairs.

  “I’m eight months pregnant.”

  “And you look really good,” he repeated.

  I smiled. The genuine compliment from my husband made me feel unexpectedly good. However much I had trampled on our marriage since the accident, the love and deep connection were still there.

  Warren drove me over to the hall and promised that he would come to the women-only luncheon only at the very end. I gave him a kiss and went inside. The room was filled with women I knew from every part of my life—neighbors and close friends, women from my prayer group and my bowling group, relatives from both sides of the family, even some of the nurses from Dr. Rosenwaks’s office. I introduced people to one another and the conversation never stopped. Everyone sipped colorful drinks and ate hors d’oeuvres, and the pile of beautiful gifts on a side table grew higher.

  “You look radiant,” said the mother of a friend. “It’s so good to see you smiling.”

  “Don’t worry, the smile is fake,” I said with a laugh.

  But with all the people around, I giggled and talked and accepted compliments. At one point, I glanced at my watch. I’d made it through the first hour. I slipped out to the ladies’ room. Fortunately, it was empty, and I closed the door of a stall, sat down, and cried for five minutes.

  I cried for Emma, Alyson, and Katie, and for the life with them that I had lost. Even in the midst of a party, I couldn’t forsake them. I wondered if everybody in the room understood the subtext of the party. Probably. But it is hard to be sad and hopeful at the same time, so everyone but me would be trying hard to put the girls out of their minds.

  I dried my eyes, fixed my makeup in the mirror, and went back to the party. All these people had come to celebrate with me, and I wouldn’t ruin the mood. The room swirled with good spirits and goodwill that I wanted to appreciate. A group of women gathered around me and I heard myself laughing happily with them, faking it to make it through.

  At the end of the party, Isabelle, Jeannine, and Melissa came back to the house, bringing all the gifts with them. It was overwhelming. On the invitation, Warren had asked that everyone bring presents unwrapped so that I didn’t have to cope with opening packages. He knew that would be painful. People had been generous and creative, putting baby gifts in beautiful baskets with clear plastic and colorful ribbons. Now, as my friends untied the bows, I couldn’t bring myself to ooh and aah at the darling pink outfits that fluttered forth, or at the crocheted blankets and knit sweaters and tulle-skirted dresses that would make any baby (and mom) happy. Melissa took all the clothes to wash, and all the bigger items that we didn’t need right now we put in the garage.

  Exhausted by the draining day, I went off to lie down, and when I came back, the three of them were still opening and organizing and arranging. Unexpectedly, Warren’s mother, Eileen, appeared at the house.

  What are you doing here? I thought as she puttered around, trying to be helpful.

  I’d been shocked that Warren had invited her to the shower, given that they hadn’t had a relationship in years. When I asked him why he’d been so generous and welcoming, he looked pensive.

  “I don’t want to hurt anybody,” he said. “There’s enough hurt going on around here. I can’t be the cause of any more.”

  I was in awe that he been able to forgive the mother who had walked out of his life when he was a young teenager. Now, seeing his mother in our house—ironically, the house where she had grown up—I wondered if she’d watched the HBO documentary over the summer, or heard the interviews with the executive producer who theorized about the psychological damage that Diane might have suffered when her mother left the family. The anger had percolated in Warren for so long that I marveled at his ability to be so forgiving now. Diane, the youngest, had probably been hit even harder. We would never know if Eileen’s decision to walk away from her family as a young mother had indelibly harmed Diane—and led to our pain.

  Jeannine, Isabelle, and Melissa tried to keep Warren’s mother occupied as I walked out of the room. Seeing the presents being opened was making me sad. I’m a big proponent of thank-you notes, and I’d written a generic one that was already printed up. But the three of them kept careful lists so I could add personal thanks to each one.

  The after-party lasted longer than the party, and I tried to be as forgiving as Warren had been to his mother.

  Later that week, Warren sent an email to Isabelle, Jeannine, and Melissa:

  Thank you for everything last Sunday. Your complete unselfishness was special. I see the sadness, joy, and hope in all of your eyes as you start this journey right alongside of us. Jackie and I could not do it without you.

  I was always amazed how Emma, Aly, and Katie could be so different when they all came from the same place. You three and Jackie are different women from completely different places getting along like sisters—loving, hating, fighting, and making up. Sunday had it all. But mostly it had what I miss the most—the feeling and sounds you can only get in a family. So no matter what life gives us, I hope the four of you never forget the sisterly bond you have. Always remember what’s important in life . . . friends, family, and friends who are family.

  • • •

  He was right.

  I would remember.

  Twenty-five

  Just when I thought the coast was clear, the paparazzi showed up again. In mid-September, a couple of mornings after the shower, friends started calling and texting to make sure I wasn’t upset by the picture in the newspaper.

  “What picture?” I asked.

  I frantically went online to the New York Post website. Print newspapers may only be good for wrapping fish (as the old saying goes), but their websites last forever. And there it was—an article headlined “Taconic Mom’s Baby Joy,” with a photo of me walking across my lawn.

  “She has gone from bearing an unspeakable burden to bearing a brand-new life,” the article began.

  In the picture, I had on pajama bottoms, my hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and my hand rested on my belly. I knew exactly when the picture must have been taken, when I walked over to see a neighbor the previous week. I seemed to have a smile on my face, which fit into the theme of the story. But if anybody had asked, I could have explained that at that particular moment, the look on my face was really a grimace of pain, which also explained why I was holding my side.

  “Jackie Hance . . . was spotted outside her Long Island home last week, noticeably pregnant as she smiled and chatted with a neighbor. Hance declined to comment.”

  Declined to comment? Actually, nobody had asked me a thing. No reporter had approached me and, most disturbing, I hadn’t even seen the photographer on the street. If I had known someone was stalking me, I wouldn’t have been outside in pajamas.

  The article quoted an unnamed “pal” as saying, “We’re all there for Jackie right now. It’s such a special time. We just want this to turn out OK . . . They deserve some joy.”

  Nice sentiment, but once again, I’d have bet my baby’s first bottle that the comment was a figment of some reporter’s imagination.

  Everyone thought it was sweet and positive, but oddly enough, the idea of people thinking I was happy infuriated me. It took nerve for a reporter to suggest that I could be happy when my kids weren’t here. And the headline made me equally furious.

  “I’m not the Taconic Mom,” I
said to Warren. “Your sister is the Taconic Mom. Not me.”

  I resented it deeply whenever I heard that label, but for once, I decided to let it all go. There was nothing I could do and I wasn’t going to let a tabloid drive me crazy.

  • • •

  A few days later, I was out with Karen and Isabelle at the mall when I started getting terrible pains.

  “Are you okay?” Karen asked.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said. “I just need to sit down.” But I must have looked terrible, because Karen insisted we leave.

  I knew I wasn’t in labor because those pains are intermittent and this pain was constant. When we got back to Floral Park, Isabelle wanted to stay with me or take me to the hospital, but I insisted she leave.

  “I just need to lie down,” I said.

  But the moment Isabelle left, I called the doctor and described my symptoms.

  “Sounds like it may be kidney stones,” the doctor said. “Get yourself over to the hospital.”

  I decided I could handle this myself and not bother anyone, so I punched in the number for a cab. Warren pulled up before it arrived. “Get in the car,” he said, shaking his head at my decision to be self-sufficient at a time like this. “I’ll drive you.”

  When we got to the hospital admitting desk, the nurse couldn’t find my name in the system. We eventually figured out that the obstetrician had been trying to preserve my privacy and protect us from prying reporters. In my hospital room, a lovely nurse named Rachel appeared to take care of me. She suggested that I should register under an alias.

  “Any idea what name you’d like to use?” she asked.

  I shrugged and, changing the subject, complimented her on her beautiful necklace.

  “The gold is so pretty,” I said effusively. “I don’t wear much gold but that’s beautiful. I love it.”

  We talked for a few minutes and then she repeated that I needed that alias.

  “You pick it,” I said, collapsing onto my pillow. I certainly didn’t feel like myself—but I didn’t have a name for whoever was lying in this bed.