Without Jenny

by Mark Gunther

  Partners, joined at the hip by the shared space that should have been Jenny.

  One Thursday morning her empty house was too damn quiet. She couldn’t settle down. Her office looked like a prison, and she didn’t have any phone calls or immediate deadlines. Joy’s tried-and-true solution to this kind of unrest was to get really, really tired. Fortunately I have a way to do that. She got on her bike with a vague plan to head north over the bridge and ride a long damn way.

  Ninety minutes later she rolled up next to a rider at Claus Drive in Fairfax, waiting to turn onto Sir Francis Drake.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey. Beautiful morning.”

  “Supposed to get even warmer tomorrow,” she replied. “But you look prepared for anything.”

  His bike carried fenders, a pair of small but fully packed panniers, three water bottles, a tool kit, pump, spare tire, and lights. A jacket and wind vest were bungeed to his rear rack. He looked tantalizingly familiar to her, but older guys in helmets and sunglasses with two days of graying growth were not uncommon out on the road.

  “You never know what could happen. I’m out touring for a few days. Guerneville, Fort Bragg, Lakeport, Calistoga. You?”

  “Those are hundred-mile days. Good for you. I’m out for the day, the big loop to Tomales or Valley Ford. Family’s away.”

  “Either one of those is a longer day than mine. You have kids at home?”

  “Yeah, a ten-year-old boy. And a husband,” she said pointedly, thinking, at least in name.

  “I’m one of those myself.” He held up his left hand to show his ring. “My wife’s in New York, visiting her sister. Our youngest is thirty-two. We lost our oldest long ago.”

  Joy stopped pedaling and reached out to touch his arm.

  “I’m so sorry. My daughter was killed almost five years ago.”

  “Ah.” They stopped in the middle of the bike path, by the 7-Eleven about a mile out Sir Francis Drake. They rolled their bikes to the curb. She took off her helmet. He did too.

  “I know you. You’re Benny. We came to a Compassionate Friends meeting.”

  “I remember,” he said. “Joy. You never came back.”

  “No,” she said, pausing, then, “are you still doing it?”

  “Passed it on,” he said. “To that Illinois couple, actually. They had a baby.”

  “That’s nice.” She plowed on. “Your son was sixteen?”

  “Yes. Jason,” he said.

  “Jason,” she said. “Jenny.”

  “Jenny. I remember,” he said. “Scaffolding. You were there.”

  She nodded. “Still am.”

  His face went through a set of expressive transformations. “Didn’t make any difference, being there?”

  “Nope. Couldn’t do a thing, anyway.”

  He looked frustrated. “Jason was going to take the bus, but I made all these arrangements so he could take the car instead. I thought I was doing him a favor.”

  “I was just getting her a bottle of water.” She showed him her helplessness, too. Benny shrugged and angled his head toward the road, raising an eyebrow; she had always liked guys who could raise one eyebrow. She buckled her helmet. They headed up the road.

  “I didn’t know you rode,” she said. “Maybe I would have come back.”

  “I did it a lot when I was younger. I started again when Jason got interested, in my forties. Since he died, quite a bit.”

  “Your wife?”

  “Not riding. She walks and does yoga.”

  “Danny says he’ll tour with me next summer.”

  “Is he fit enough?”

  “He has a decent enough base, but fifty-mile days probably will be enough for him.”

  “I’m sure you can find some bonus miles, if you want. Maybe you should ride a tandem.” In unconscious rhythm, they stood to power over the little rise after Lefty Gomez Park. “I’m getting a crush on you,” he said. “Beautiful, bereaved, and on the bike.”

  “Charming. Maybe you need to add bummed-out and bitter.”

  “Borrring! Not today. Not out here.”

  They followed the tilt of the road up White’s Hill. The elastic stretched as she pulled ahead of him on the steeper parts in the middle of the climb. Over the top first, she was going thirty when he caught her wheel on the descent. She slowed a bit and they rode side by side.

  “It’s been fifteen years for you,” she said. “What do you tell people now?”

  “Eighteen, actually. I tell them when they ask how many kids I have, but not any details.”

  “I’ve never met a bereaved parent out here before,” she said. “But I’ve had a lot of talks about religion. Or their other bike.”

  “Yeah,” he snorted, “it’s so exclusive, we can have our jerseys handmade. The Dead Child Cycling Club.”

  “Ride with the club that no one wants to join.”

  “Very funny,” he said. “You still want to see her?”

  “Every damn day. Maybe when I die, but I can’t say that I believe it. Who knows?”

  “What Dreams May Come. It only happens in the movies,” he said. “I still have such a longing for things to be different.”

  “And you’re eighteen years out. Okay.”

  “It’s just unacceptable. Always unacceptable.”

  “Yeah.” That never was going to go away then. They rode fast for a while, then made the right turn uphill onto Nicasio Valley Road.

  “You’ve got some nonstandard chainrings there,” she said.

  “Forty-six/thirty. I’ve got an eleven in the back. Jason wanted to push a big gear all the time, but I haven’t raced since we lost him. These chainrings are plenty big for touring. And I had enough to catch you on the descent.”

  She was really glad he had, but she pushed back. “That’s only because you’re so heavy.”

  “If I get too slow you can push me.”

  She pulled ahead again, but then slowed up and got behind him. He made some kind of a breathy gibe, and she said she thought she should be behind the old guy, you know, just in case. The little climb of Cecy’s Hill was enough to shut them up. Benny spun his bulky bike up the grade, his upper body quiet and relaxed, head steady, legs strong and fast. On the wide shoulder out by the reservoir they were side-by-side again. His line was super steady, and she felt confident enough in him to drift her bike closer. They were inches apart. She glanced at him and he was smiling, but his eyes were fixed down the road.

  “You ever wonder why you never rode your bike off the mountain?” he asked.

  “Wasn’t my turn, I guess. And my son needed a mom. Needs a mom. He was six.”

  “He’s ten now? Doing okay?”

  “I hope so. He’s been really mad at me, but it might be getting better.”

  “Damn kids really have minds of their own, don’t they?”

  Joy laughed. “I sure did.”

  “Touché,” he said. “Our daughter Sam was fourteen when her brother was killed. She had a few hard years, but now she’s got a career and a serious boyfriend and they come over for dinner every week.”

  “Sounds like you won the jackpot.”

  “Yeah, so far. Deborah is ready for a grandchild.”

  They made the right on Shoreline, up toward Tomales. She slipped behind him again, pacing easily on his wheel; everything felt peaceful and right, there in his draft. This is how I used to feel, she thought, when we were perfect. Then he flicked his elbow. Sighing, Joy went past and took a turn in the front—can’t ride in the draft forever. He said something that she needed repeated.

  “My wife was amazing. She didn’t blame me for one second.”

  “Danny went down there the next day. Stood where I stood. I was so grateful to him, but I was pretty self-involved. He just went back to work. I thought he was avoiding his grief, but that’s how he could manage it. All I could do was walk. And cry.”

  “At first I couldn’t do much for either of them. Sam made me do stuff with her. Deborah just waited. Pr
etty nice of her.”

  “I remember her being a beautiful woman.”

  “She is that. In many ways.”

  Clicking up and down the cogset, Joy was in and out of the saddle as the road bobbed and weaved along Tomales Bay. The tide was rolling into the narrow bay in a wave.

  “Don’t see that too often,” he said.

  Joy had never seen it. Something inside her shifted and clicked into place.

  “You find out you don’t have as many friends as you thought,” he said. “And then the people you meet after—”

  “If you don’t talk about it, it becomes this big secret,” Joy said. “Your child is dead. It’s like the only thing that ever happened to you. Then people want to help, and they’re almost always wrong. We don’t have as many friends as we used to.”

  “Thank God for the bike.”

  “Amen to that, brother.”

  Joy and Benny rode the last of the whoop-de-do’s, up past Miller Park, and descended to Tomales Creek. Settled in again, he asked, “How old are you? How long have you been married?”

  “I’m forty-five, almost. We’ve been married eighteen years.”

  “I’m sixty-three. Thirty-five years with Deb.”

  “Wow, sixty-three. You’re a really strong rider.”

  “In a way. My muscles are all slow twitch, all the time!”

  Joy laughed. “Well, that’s good for bereaved parenting. It is a slow twitch sport.”

  She didn’t at all feel angry with Danny about anything, out here. She loved him.

  “You were young enough when she died. Did you think about having another one?”

  “We did think about it, but decided it wouldn’t be fair to Jake.”

  “Deb got a dog after a couple years. Sweet dog, but I wouldn’t have.”

  “I thought about that for Jake. I never really thought about it for me.”

  “It would have been your dog anyway.”

  “True enough.”

  They stopped in Tomales for a sandwich and to refill their water bottles. They sat at a tacky plastic table in the window of the deli, catching glimpses of the grocery store across the highway through the steady stream of northbound RVs.

  “You keep trying to figure it out,” he said. “We must have twenty or thirty dead child books, but there’s nothing to know. It was chance. An accident.”

  “The dead child industry suffers from a lot of twenty-twenty hindsight, but it’s hard to accept that it was so capricious,” Joy said. “Our rabbi kept saying there’s only one reality. All of life led to that one moment and all the rest of life is its consequence. I guess that was advice, but what do you do with it?”

  “The death is meaningless,” Benny said, “but their lives had meaning. And what we do after.”

  “Hard to separate that out,” Joy said. “Don’t think I’ve done it yet.”

  They were back on their bikes. Joy had lunch legs and dragged up the hill out of town. She still was ahead of him though. She freewheeled down the other side to let him catch up. Some more minutes went by.

  He asked, “How do you handle the triad thing? I couldn’t do it for a long time. When Deb and Sam were together I would check out, even if I was in the same room as them.”

  “Me too. I was a zombie. I could read to Jake, but Danny and my Dad had to think of stuff to do. Dad still sees Jake a lot.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “It is, but I thought I should be able to do it all. Felt like shit that I couldn’t.”

  “You probably did, before. Supermom.”

  “True enough,” she said. “If I only knew.”

  “Who would? Can’t be super when your kid is dead.”

  “Convince me! I needed my daddy. Jake saved himself, though—he got into baseball, of all things. He’s been gone all month. I won’t even see him for a couple more weeks. I miss him.”

  Danny isn’t sleeping at home tonight, either, she thought. They rode below Whitaker Bluff. The pawls inside her freewheel stuttered when she coasted. Cows looked up, listening to them pass.

  “It had to be chance!” The words burst out of her. “What reason would any God have to take her? I like to think He welcomed her, but was surprised. And sorrowful.”

  He said. “Faith is such a crapshoot. The first night a rabbi came, and when she read the vidui, the confessional prayer, Jason’s spirit or God or something holy reached inside my body and slapped my heart with a force I could feel. I just exploded with light from the inside out. God existed. I’m not such a cynic anymore.”

  “It probably was your son—who else would even care?”

  “I thought that, too, but—”

  She squeezed his shoulder, then patted it.

  “Whatever works, man. Grief is a but-free zone.” Her hand was back on the handlebar. “I was so desperate at first. Then I kept refusing to let her be dead and that took up all my time. But she is, and my business is doing great, I’m riding long days again.”

  “Glad you’ve gotten it together, Joy.”

  She had to let that stand as they stood to push over the top of Middle Road. Bombing the descent they rolled to a stop at the Valley Ford Market.

  “I guess you have to turn around here,” he said. “I don’t want to say goodbye.”

  “Me neither. This is the best time I’ve had in months. I don’t have any deadlines tomorrow. My house is empty. Tell you what, if it’s all right, maybe I’ll come to Guerneville, find a room, and ride back tomorrow.”

  “That would be great,” he said. “My room has two beds, if you’re okay with that.”

  “Sure, that works.” Honor existed among cyclists. She had shared rooms with unknown men on other overnight rides.

  They rode the rollers down to Bodega Bay and up the coast to the river against the permanent headwind. She told him about the Other World and Dead Jenny and going to shul and what she used to do at the cemetery and in Jenny’s room. He told her about Deb and teaching sociology and about things he wrote in his journals and how he and Deb had gotten involved with Compassionate Friends and then left it behind. But there wasn’t much to say about Jenny or Jason. Turning inland onto the flats of River Road was its usual relief, and they traded pulls, hammering the final ten miles to Guerneville.

  When they got there they had a beer. The bank thermometer read ninety-seven degrees. At a store he waited while she bought a top and a skirt and a toothbrush and a pair of rubber sandals. In the room she took the bathroom first to wash out her bike clothes and shower. She dressed while he was showering. Danny didn’t call her, but if he had, she would have kept a secret. Her travel-team-permitted weekly call with Jake wasn’t till Sunday. He would be in Salt Lake City then.

  They found dinner at a cowboy-inspired Mexican diner that served arugula tostadas and line-caught fish tacos. A two-piece band played “Corazon, Corazon” at their table. She was tired and a little sore but after eight hours in the saddle every part of her body felt soft and easy. She drank two margaritas. They talked about everything again, and then about everything else. He paid the check, which she accepted after only the weakest quibble. She would get breakfast, she said. He took her hand as they left and she intertwined her fingers with his. Neither of them spoke. He held the door for her when she entered their room. He closed the door, then leaned down and kissed her.

  She saw the question in his eyes.

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

  She put the whole of her body up against his, then pulled back just a bit, reached up, and touched his face. He blushed. She felt his body soften and mold to hers. They kissed slowly, sharing lips and tongues. He held her with firm and careful strength, as if he were handling a large crystal vase. She felt safe. Regarded. She leaned back into his embrace, smiling, and raised her arms over her head. He took the suggestion and peeled her top off. His shirt followed.

  “You are a beautiful woman, Joy. Danny should be spending more time with you.”

  She had forgotten so much.


  “I haven’t been very encouraging to him, I guess.”

  “I’m feeling encouraged,” he said, thumb lightly tweaking a nipple.

  “This is good,” she said. Help me remember.

  She left any guilt on the floor with her shirt as he led her to the couch. She felt her blood reddening, leavened by his rising desire, illuminating memories in its dull glow, split-second images of intimacies past, of Danny, dressing or shaving or sleeping. She felt her skin open, a generous physicality that softened the ossified edges of her grief. She remembered standing on the back patio, her arm wrapped around Danny, watching their children play, remembered yielding to the sweetness of her babies’ need for her, the unconstrained joyfulness of infinitely loving them.

  “I want to bring this home again,” she said.

  “You seem like people who work things out. Did something happen?”

  “He took me to dinner on his birthday. I got all dressed up and we had just the loveliest evening, but when we went home I got anxious and he got selfish and it got really fucked up really fast. We’d never had sex where he didn’t care how I felt.”

  “That sounds hard.” He caressed her head.

  “I was mad as hell. We kind of made up the next day, but not really. I’m avoiding him. I hate it. I want my marriage back.”

  His hand explored her face. She lightly kissed his fingers as they trailed past her lips.

  “After Jason died, touching just seemed irrelevant. Then something changed and for about five years in there we were like kids again. I was in heaven. That’s passed now and I don’t really get why. I still want her.”

  He fondled Joy’s breasts.

  “Not right now, it seems.”

  “Now as much as ever. More, actually. Just like you, I suspect.”

  He was right. She tugged at his shorts. “I want these off.”

  He was semi-soft. She lifted him up, cradled him, held the weight in her hand, let him harden under her touch.

  “That feels nice,” he said. “Can I do anything for you?”

  “Later,” she said.

  They sat together, his arm firmly around her, her head on his shoulder, her hand encouraging his changing shape. He planted soft kisses on the parts of her body he could reach. She stood, slipped out of her skirt, and reached a hand to him. “We’ll have to be a bit careful. It’s near my fertile time.”