Jessica Z

by Shawn Klomparens

  “He cared for you so much.”

  “No. Mrs. Hadden, don’t. Please.”

  “He really did.”

  “No, really. Please.” I wipe the corner of my left eye with my fingertips and see that Greg has slipped back into the knot of Josh’s contemporaries. Among them, I see two familiar-looking, dark-complected men—are these the same ones from Josh’s studio?—but Mrs. Hadden pulls me away before I can look at them for very long.

  “Wait,” I say. “Those guys—”

  She doesn’t hear me. “I’d like you to meet my husband at some point,” she says, gesturing off toward the group of tall relatives. “He’s very happy you could come.”

  “I appreciate your help and everything, bringing me out.”

  “It’s nothing. He’s having a very hard time with this. And the investigators, whatever they are, they keep coming and coming, can’t they just leave us alone for a day?”

  “It must be hard.” What else can I say, really?

  “David was reading Josh’s letters last night.”

  “I was surprised to hear he was such a letter writer.”

  “I think he liked how it felt old-fashioned. I think he sent us one e-mail when he was a graduate student, and that was it. Always many letters, though.”

  “An anachronism.”

  “So many letters. Many letters from this summer. He talks about you in—”

  “Mrs. Hadden,” I say, and my stomach tightens so sharply I feel like I may puke at her feet. “I feel terrible saying this, now, right now, I know this must be the most impossible thing to deal with, today. But, there’s all this uncertainty, and…you need to know that my relationship with your son, I mean, he is, he was the most incredible person and so gifted and all that, but our relationship was not—”

  “Wasn’t the most stable thing?”

  “You could say it that way.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “He wrote many letters.”

  “About that?”

  “About everything. He was very excited about this project he did, with you, and the maps.”

  “It was,” I say, “unlike anything I’ve ever done before.”

  Alice Hadden smiles at this, a sad, tired smile.

  “Those prints, his last project, the ones of you, they’re beautiful,” she says. Then she turns and looks at her daughter. “Is everything going well at Emily’s house? She made it to the airport at the right time?”

  “Yes, and thanks for giving her the message.” Mrs. Hadden keeps looking toward Emily, and I say nothing for a moment. “You have cute grandsons,” I finally say.

  “They are good little boys. And you met Tim?”

  “We haven’t talked much.”

  “He’s not much of a talker. Did Josh ever tell you anything about Emily? Or Tim?”

  “I don’t think Josh liked your son-in-law very much.”

  “That is an understatement. I was a little surprised that Tim even came. If you hadn’t been staying with them, maybe he would have kept Emily home too.”

  “I know Josh loved your daughter,” I say.

  “He did.” Now Mrs. Hadden’s eyes fill. “Yes, he did. And I wish I knew, I wish I knew why they…Here, come with me. I want to show you something.” She takes me by the arm and guides me to a table covered with framed pictures, and she picks up one of the frames and holds it up between us. “Look at them. My babies.”

  I take the frame and look; the colors are washed out and there’s a crease in one of the corners of the print, but it’s of Josh and Emily as little blond children. They’re on some beach of rounded pebbles, right at the margin of the water and the shore, both of them smiling, and Emily is down on her haunches in a frilly pink one-piece, touching her hands to the ripples beneath her as Josh struggles, wide-eyed in his droopy green swimming trunks, under the weight of a big round stone he’s holding up under his chin.

  “My babies,” she says again. Then someone touches her on the shoulder and she blinks and says, “Oh! Jean. Thank you so much for coming,” before she turns back to me and says, “Excuse me, Jessica.”

  I nod and turn back to the table of pictures. A big mounted print, one of the wildflower lithographs, stands on an easel nearby, but all the rest are photographs. All the pictures feature Josh in some way, sometimes with his parents, sometimes alone, or with friends, or with Emily. There’s one of a group of people posing before a Ferris wheel, Josh at the center. It’s the ones with Emily that fascinate me the most, though. I pick one up, a tall picture in a heavy wooden frame of Josh in a graduation gown, smiling and talking to someone out of the frame as Emily stands at his side and looks up at him. Her arm is looped through his, and she leans into him, hanging on to him, listening to whatever it is he’s saying.

  In another, teenaged Emily is holding some sort of certificate, some sort of award. Josh stands next to her with a stern look, but he’s making rabbit ears behind her head.

  The last one I look at, the one I can’t put down, must have been taken up at the cabin Josh told me about. He and Emily are jumping from a tall dock, cannonball-style, into a deep lake below, and the big suspension bridge stands off in the haze at the horizon. Every wavelet reflects the setting sun with a flash, and I see the perfect arc they both make through the air into that lake of orange sparks. Emily holds her knees tightly up to her chest, looking terrified and exhilarated, and Josh, who has launched a little sooner, has let go, is opening up, preparing to slice into the electric water. His arms have spread wide and his mouth is open in a shout.

  I look at this photo and realize I’m waiting for both of them to hit the water. I know it won’t ever happen, but I keep looking, as if the picture is going to magically become a little movie in my hands and I’ll get to hear them scream as they finally splash into the lake.

  “Jess,” a voice says. Chiss. I turn and look up and there’s Gert with a brace on his hand, wearing a dark sport coat and possibly the saddest expression I’ve ever seen. His eyes are ringed in red and he’s got some stubble, and when I grab him to give him a hug, I pick up a general beery smell and the whiff of stale cigarette smoke.

  “Are you okay, Gert? Is Angie here?”

  “She’s back home. She sent some flowers. There is always the teaching.”

  “Gert?”

  “I’m not so good with all this, Jess.”

  “Have you been drinking?”

  “I was out with those guys”—he points to a group of people, and I can see Greg Murrant’s bald head in with them—“last night. Some of us just kept going.”

  “I want you to stay with me, Gert.”

  “I’m not doing so good with the doc’s funeral.”

  “I’ll take care of you, Gert.” This is good. Taking care of Gert will give me cover. And it would be the nice thing to do. So I slip my arm into his and gently pull him along, and in this gesture we take care of each other.

  “How is your hand?”

  “Painful. Therapy is painful. Did you know there are hand therapists?”

  I think for a moment that Gert is setting me up for one of his straight-faced jokes, but the fact that he looks like he’s going to fall apart at any moment makes this seem doubtful.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “There are. Mine is especially cruel. But she says the hand will work like it did before.”

  It is just at this moment that I realize we are standing next to Josh’s casket. People mill around it, paying no special attention. It’s as if it’s just another table for pictures or water bottles. There’s a spray of white flowers across the top, and I’m horrified to find myself wondering what he looks like in there. Is he resting, posed peacefully? Is he an approximation, reassembled from collected parts?

  Gert sighs. “I saw him, Jess. There, in the bus, after it happened.” He must be reading my mind.

  “Oh, Gert,” I say. “Wait, you were there?”

  “We were setting up, at the gallery. It was
only a block away, you know. And when we heard the boom, it was just something, something I know, I know exactly what happened.”

  I can’t say anything to this. I just look up at Gert as he stares at the casket.

  “So I run there, it’s not far, just follow the smoke. Stuff all over the ground. And the bus, you know, all the windows are gone, I go right up on there, and see him. He’s dead, the doctor is dead.”

  “Gert.”

  “He doesn’t look sad, or afraid. He doesn’t look in pain. He just looks, I guess he just looks surprised.”

  Now I feel tears on my cheeks, and I’m not sure if Gert’s holding me up or if I’m holding him.

  “Really surprised. Sort of calm. But not living. I check for his breathing, but it’s not there. I don’t look at anyone else. I can’t look. So I get out of the bus.”

  “Gert, do you think he…?”

  “No, Jess. No way.”

  A jowly man in a dark suit is silently ushering people to the rows of chairs. As he comes toward us, slowly waving his arms to herd us along, Gert reaches into his coat and takes out a folded piece of paper.

  “I don’t know if you saw this,” he says, and he hands me the paper. “But I wanted you to see if you hadn’t.” I unfold the paper and gasp: it’s a pair of photos, printed from some Web site, it looks like, of Gert picking me up from the sidewalk and carrying me away.

  “Did you take me home?” I ask.

  “I did. You were confused. You were talking nonsense. Just nonsense. Gibberish. Your sister’s name. Josh’s name. Nonsense. You didn’t know who I was.”

  “Gert,” I say.

  We go to some seats in one of the back rows, and I keep my arm in his as we sit down. “I picked you up, and you hung on to me like a baby.”

  “Thank you, Gert.”

  “You were shaking. I was shaking. Everything was so loud. There were sirens. People yelling. You kept saying something about your phone.”

  “I lost my phone.”

  “I lost my backpack. I saw it in there too.”

  “I’m so sorry, Gert.”

  “It’s just a backpack.”

  “No, I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry that you saw everything.”

  “Seeing it isn’t so bad, Jessica. I see it, and I know it’s real.”

  “I understand.”

  He looks at me with his bloodshot eyes. “Do you know that it’s real?”

  Do I?

  “It doesn’t seem real, sometimes. My back hurts, and that’s real. My ear hurts, and that’s real too.”

  “My hand hurts,” Gert says. He holds it out, encased in a blue fabric brace with Velcro straps, and I take it between my own hands. “It’s funny. I have a hard time remembering cutting my hand. Was that real?”

  “You were so calm.”

  “No, you were calm. That’s what kept me calm.”

  “See? You remember.” As I say this, I see Gert smile for the first time today.

  “We got to your place,” he tells me. “Somehow you tell me how to get there. I’m crying so much, you know, it’s too much, thinking about the doc. We climb the stairs, I’m dying on the stairs. You’re heavy for such a little girl. And when I get you in, it’s like, you go crazy, screaming, screaming, and I’m crying like a baby, saying, ‘Jess, Jess, calm down, you got to calm down.’”

  I’m biting my lip and closing my eyes as he tells me this.

  “You’re screaming, ‘Get out! Get out!’ You know, like crazy. I think I got to take care of you, but I think you are gonna hurt yourself screaming like that, or maybe hurt me. So I step outside your door, kind of hold it so it doesn’t latch, thinking maybe you will calm down, calm down, and I can come in and help you. But you run over and push the door to close it, you know, bam! I can hear the locks click click as you do them, and I’m saying, ‘No, Jess, no!’

  “So I don’t know what to do. No one is in your building, I knock at all the doors, no one. I’m going crazy. So I walk home, you know, people are just looking at this crazy tall guy in the street, walking and crying and pulling his hair. But then Angie, you know, she has some sense—”

  “Angie,” I say. “Angie was at my door. When they came in.”

  “Angie has some sense. She calms me down. She asks where you live, how to get in. Somehow I explain it.”

  “She was there.”

  “She was there. She calls me and lets me know she got in, someone let her in. She lets me know Jess is okay.”

  “Thank you, Gert.”

  “We all do the same.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  Now most of the people are seated, but I don’t see Emily and her family anywhere among them. Toward the front, though, a few rows ahead of us, I see two of the tall men helping a third to his seat. He’s sobbing and can barely stay up on his feet, and I’m pretty sure it’s Josh’s father. The men support him on either side—they must be brothers, Josh’s uncles—and when they sit down they put their arms around him. Josh’s mother follows, and one of the uncles moves over to give her his place.

  The jowly man stands before the seats and the people, just to the side of the coffin, and says some things I don’t listen to. He talks about Josh, his art, his life, but I don’t really hear him. I hold Gert’s injured hand while he says the words. A young cousin is introduced, and he gets up to say more words in a quiet voice. Another man gets up to speak, a friend, and another. Greg Murrant gets up, and talks, and even though I’m not listening to his words, I hear that he speaks in a strong and confident voice. He tells a story that makes everyone laugh, and even though I don’t understand what he’s saying I go ahead and laugh too to hide the fact that I’m lost in fog. Finally, one of the uncles gets up, the one who made room for Alice Hadden. He goes in front of everyone and speaks in a cracking voice, and I manage to understand that he’s telling a story about Josh, as a teenager, helping to build something at their cabin in Michigan. He was building a porch, Josh was, and hit his thumb with a hammer.

  I’m missing the significance of this, somehow.

  There’s a wail from in front of me, and heads turn discreetly and I look myself to see that Josh’s father has completely fallen apart; he’s slumped forward with his head hanging down and Mrs. Hadden is leaning in close to him and rubbing his trembling shoulders with her hand. The uncle standing up in front of us can’t speak anymore, and he rubs at his eyes with a handkerchief. Gert watches all of this too. And as we watch, wanting to see and not wanting to see, an elderly man rises from his seat in the front and walks to Josh’s father. His shoulders roll forward in a severe stoop and his face is wrinkled like a dried-up apple, but I can still see he has Josh’s eyes as he makes his way down the row.

  Everyone watches him.

  He stands in front of Josh’s father and puts his crooked old hands on the sobbing man’s shoulders, and he leans down and says something. He says something, and says it again; Josh’s father nods without looking up and the old man squeezes his shoulders. I can’t hear what he’s said but the look buried in his ancient lined face seems to say

  You will endure this.

  Josh’s father nods.

  You will.

  The man goes back to his seat and the uncle clears his throat, and I feel like I’ve been holding my breath the entire time.

  “You can understand,” the uncle finally says, “that my brother has had a very hard time today.”

  The uncle sits down and the jowly man begins to speak again, and as he does, I look over my shoulder past Gert and see that Emily has walked off with Caleb. She’s holding his hand as the little boy tugs at the bough of an old pine tree. She turns back and sees me watching her, and I feel for a moment that we are trying to say something to each other in our heads.

  We try, anyway. But I don’t know what it is exactly that we’re saying, and after a little while Emily turns back to her son and the pine tree.

  After the service, there’s some talk of a reception, but I don’t feel much
like going. Josh has been lowered into the ground. Gert and I mill back with everyone else to the line of parked cars, walking silently, arm in arm. Just in front of us a man—there’s something familiar about him—shuffles along in a tailored suit, shoulders stooped.

  “Joe?” I say. The man perks up and turns around to face us. It is Joe, but he hardly looks like I remember him; his hair is styled and he’s wearing expensive clothes. He has designer glasses on too, and his eyes are red and weepy under them.

  “Jess,” he says. “Jess. You’re here. I didn’t see you. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Joe. How are you? This is Gert Knickmann.”

  “I know Gert. How’s your hand?”

  Gert holds up his brace and nods his head from side to side, but doesn’t say anything. He looks like he’s about to cry, and he lets go of my arm and walks away.

  “This is hard for him,” I say.

  “I’m glad you’re okay, Jess,” Joe says. He grabs my hand and squeezes it, then starts to turn away, almost like he’s embarrassed.

  “Wait,” I say, holding on to him. “Joe, wait. You look great. You’re in Sacramento? Things are going well for you?”

  “I got my shit together, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “That’s not—”

  “I was a train wreck. I know it.”

  “Stop. Please. You’re doing fine now, right?”

  “You want to know something?” Joe looks back toward the casketless bier, now surrounded by empty chairs and a couple men with trash bags. “It was him,” Joe says, and I gasp.

  “What?”

  “It was him, Jess. He was the one who told me I was fucking up. He was the one who said it so I could hear it. And he was right. I was bottoming out. He made me…he made me get my head straight. So I…” Joe pauses and swallows hard, and then he reaches into his pocket for his phone. He flips the thing open and presses some buttons with his thumb, and then he waits for a moment before handing it to me. “Have you seen this? That’s the guy who did it.” His voice cracks as I stare at the picture and story on the tiny display. “That’s the fucker who killed him.”

  SF BUS BOMBER IDENTIFIED, the headline reads.