Without Jenny

by Mark Gunther

  Jake came thundering down the stairs.

  “Hi, Mom, whatcha doin’?”

  “Sorting out photos. Want to see?”

  He saw the trash bag.

  “Are you throwing them away?” Jake’s voice rose, his anxiety apparent.

  She pulled up a chair and he sat down. She wrapped an arm around him.

  “I only get rid of the bad ones so the albums aren’t boring. Let’s look at this batch together so you can see what I’m doing.”

  He was antsy, squirming, holding on to the arm she had around him. Joy put down the packet she was working on and picked up the first one.

  “It’s your fourth birthday party. Here’s you and your two grandpas. Here’s me and Daddy. Here’s me bringing in the cake. Here’s Jenny cutting the cake.”

  She paused. Jake held the picture of Jenny for just a moment, then turned it over.

  “Cool photo, Mom.”

  Joy breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Work on these with me for a while?”

  She opened the next set. Jenny’s fourth birthday, with the snake. She showed Jake the picture, and he thought Jenny looked real funny. Jake’s sixth was in the next envelope, the last one Jenny was at. She held it for a second, but Jake took the batch right out of her hands.

  “Look at this. Jenny and her friends are all dressed up in your clothes! That was so funny. I remember when they came down the stairs like a fashion show!”

  “That’s a nice memory, Jake, but you got mad at her.”

  “I did? Why?”

  “Maybe you felt she shouldn’t be the star of your birthday.”

  Jake studied the picture for quite a while. He leafed through a few of the other ones. Joy couldn’t contain herself. She touched him on the arm.

  “Jake, it’s okay to feel that way.”

  He stopped shuffling the photos but kept them in his hands. “Don’t worry, Mom. It’s just something that I don’t remember. I don’t want to think about being mad at her, but I guess I’m still mad at her for not being here anymore.”

  “That’s a hard thing to say. Do you talk about that with Annie? I’m mad at myself for her not being here anymore.”

  “I’m not mad at you. You didn’t make the thing fall down. I’m not really mad at her either, but sometimes I just get mad anyway.”

  “Jacob, it’s so not fair that you have to deal with this. I’m so sorry.”

  “Mom, it’s bad for everyone.”

  They looked at the rest of the pictures of the party. Jake agreed that a bunch could be thrown away.

  The front door opened and closed. “Hello!”

  “In here, Danny!”

  He came into the room. Neither Joy nor Jake looked up.

  “Wow, you guys. Wow. What brought this on?”

  He tousled Jake’s hair, but Jake stayed firmly planted.

  “It just seemed like the right time to do it and it’s actually kind of fun,” Joy said. “Wanna help?”

  “Yeah, Dad, sometimes there are some sad parts. Remember this?”

  He showed Danny the picture of Jenny and her friends.

  Danny took it. “I do remember that, Jacob. That was a real fun party.”

  Joy smiled and patted his hand. “Today was the best day in a long time, right, Jake?”

  “Right, Mom. You didn’t make me mad once.”

  Danny pulled a chair close to them. They went through everything. Jenny’s tenth birthday. Jenny’s ninth birthday. Jake’s fifth birthday. Their family vacation to Maui, with Hiram and his then-girlfriend. Joy and Lizzie’s shared fortieth birthday, just a few months before Jenny died. The purimspiel when Jenny was seven and played Esther. The PG-rated shots from their anniversary trip. Jerry and Elaine moving to Calistoga. They got everything sorted back into the envelopes and in chronological order.

  While Joy scrounged some dinner out of the refrigerator, Danny and Jake went out to Chestnut Street and bought some more photo albums. They ate in the kitchen. After dinner they divided the photos up by years, then helped each other fill the books. Joy went to her workstation and made labels for the binders. Jake stuck them on, and Danny put the completed albums on the shelf in the den with all the other ones, right next to the binder with Jenny’s work in it. Then they sat on the couch and looked at the shelf. Things felt, to Joy, impossibly normal.

  33.

  WHEN JAKE CAME home from school on Tuesday, his eleventh birthday, Joy was busy in the kitchen. It was Indian Summer. She was wearing her Hawaii sundress and singing. The house smelled like freshly baked cake; it sat cooling on a shelf above the stove.

  “Hi, honey!” She reached out for a hug. He high-fived her.

  “Hi, Mom. Hey, you look pretty today.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart! Did they do a party for you at school?”

  “Did you have to make cupcakes? That stops in the fifth grade. I’m in middle school now.”

  He made it up those stairs that Jenny didn’t.

  Jake opened the refrigerator and grabbed a cheese stick and a juice box. He sat down at the kitchen table and watched her.

  “You seem really happy, Mom.”

  “It’s your birthday, and it’s a beautiful day today, and I got paid for a couple of projects, and Grandpa’s coming for dinner.”

  She realized he was becoming aware of her as a woman. She forgave him when he just said, “That’s cool. I’m gonna go do some homework now.”

  She watched him go without an ounce of regret. She heard a key in the door and looked at the clock. A little early for Danny. Hiram.

  “In here, Daddy!” she called.

  “That sounded cheerful!” He came into the kitchen. “Wow, look at you. Hot stuff.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve turned over a new leaf. Pollyanna.”

  “Sounds real good to me. If you stop worrying so much then I can die happy.”

  She gave him a hug. “Not tomorrow, I hope. I’m still getting over the last one.”

  Joy made a wonderful dinner to go with the cake. After Hiram left, Danny went upstairs and Jake helped her clean up the kitchen before vanishing into his room.

  A little later Joy came into Danny’s office and sat down. “I have another thing to tell you. Last year, when things were really bad? I slept with someone, just once, one night.”

  “With Benny? In Guerneville, maybe?”

  “Shit. That’s embarrassing. Yes. How did you know?”

  “I didn’t really until just now, but it made sense. I’ve been able to practice forgiving you, though. I slept with Janine.”

  First she felt shocked, but then a gigantic wave of relief made her laugh.

  “Janine?” Long ago, he and Janine had taken each other’s virginity.

  She was afraid to ask him. “For a while?”

  “Just one time,” he said. He looked like he wanted to smile.

  Phew, she thought. “How’d it happen? I thought she was in Boston.”

  “Conference in Sacramento. She called me for dinner, and we talked, and she came to the apartment for a nightcap, and it happened. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, Danny.” She leaned forward and took hold of his knees. “I don’t even have the right to forgive you.”

  He reached over and they got tangled up in each other.

  When they got untangled she leaned back in her chair and gave him her best deadpan look. “I never got to see that apartment.”

  “Probably for the best,” he said.

  “That can be your special place.”

  He winced.

  “So is this, uh, like an annual conference?”

  Suddenly, he looked very unsure of himself. “Rotating. Every few years.”

  Joy waited two beats. She trembled out, “Uh oh.”

  Danny’s relief was written all over his face. “But I don’t have an apartment.”

  “Well, okay then.”

  “And she’s married again.”

  They had a good laugh over that one.

  “Thank you, Danny.
Benny’s become a good friend.”

  “Better than I thought, evidently.”

  She whacked him a good one on the arm.

  “Ow! I get it. We were deranged.”

  “Look what can happen when people are nice to you,” Joy said. “He kept seeing Deb and I kept seeing you. By the time I got home I just wanted you. Us. When I called you I was still in my bike clothes.”

  “That call changed my life.”

  “Thank God. Just imagine—”

  “Nope. Don’t want to. I like how it’s turning out.”

  “Me too.”

  They each looked at the wall for a while.

  “So it was good?” he asked her.

  She felt her face flushing. She sort of squeaked out a yes.

  “Just once?”

  He wanted to know.

  She wanted to swallow her own tongue. “Well, the night and the next morning.”

  He sighed. “Okay. Me too. Like that. But after breakfast, too.”

  “Three times?” she asked.

  “It just seemed like once.” He was completely red-faced.

  “It’s okay,” she said. She was having a little trouble with her breathing.

  “You do everything?” he asked.

  “Not everything everything,” she said. “A lot, though.”

  She thought she didn’t need to ask him.

  “Okay.” He sighed again and held her hand.

  They were quiet for a while, staring at the bookcase.

  “Do you think Deborah knows?” he said.

  “Now that you know, he’ll want to tell her, if he hasn’t already. You get a pass if she needs you.”

  “I decline,” he said. “But you, I accept.”

  She took a breath and thought this exact moment was the most precious thing in the whole world. They walked together to the bedroom. Before he had even closed the door she was on him with lips and limbs and tongue. Clothes melted away. She became wide as the sky and he was the moonrise and they got lost together for a long time. After, she crawled into his embrace.

  “We have got to do more of this,” he said.

  “Okay,” Joy said. “Okay.”

  The dried sweat on his skin stuck to her body. She smelled him, sexual, overpowering, intense. A few tears slid gently down her cheeks and splashed on his chest. He lay motionless, the hand on her bare hip holding her just so, in the way she knew was him. Peace. An eon passed. A night.

  In the morning Joy dreamed of Jenny, the ageless child, eyes bright and shining, running across a field, skirt flying, embracing her mother, and flying off into the clouds, gone again. Grief had no end, yet love was there, next to her, in her bed. She kissed Danny’s shoulder and his neck and she followed her own sensation down his chest, his belly, her lips wrapping him up, growing his stiffness, for his pleasure. She felt him wake; she held his eyes, sucking and rubbing until he filled her mouth. His hand found her chin; she swallowed and let him bring her up to him, kissing, tasting, breathing. They fell, side by side, flat onto their backs.

  Danny said, “Wow. You can wake me like this every morning.”

  “Unlikely,” she said.

  “Darn.” He turned to his side and propped his head on his hand. He saw her face. “You’re crying.”

  “I saw her, Danny, in a dream. I love her. Right now.”

  His face twisted and melted.

  “Thanks,” he said. He kissed her tears.

  After a while, he said, “It’s going to be a hot day. How about I stay home? You busy?”

  “Nothing that won’t keep. Don’t have to train. Jake has school.”

  He levered himself out of the bed and put on his bathrobe. She heard him open Jake’s door, and the slight creak of the springs as he sat down on the bed. In the shower, the warm water slid off her back as she reached to the ceiling, opening her chest, pulling the shoulder blades together, arching her back to stretch the front of her hips. She turned off the water.

  The dust billowed; the scream echoed; the pain was quilted through her heart. Dear sweet Jenny, she thought, banging her clenched fist repeatedly against the wall of the shower.

  She heard her boys walk down the stairs. Joy dug around in her closet and found the short denim skirt Danny had liked so much, pairing it with a camisole top. A light blouse and sandals completed the ensemble. She caught herself in the mirror, stopped for a minute. An old friend stared back at her. Where is the crone now?

  She shook her head. Her hair settled easily around her face.

  This is a gift. Ride it as long as it lasts.

  Joy went downstairs to find her family.

  34.

  EIGHTEEN YEARS PASSED, and there was another girl. Jake’s girl. Her name was Evelyn, but everyone called her Ev. Her Hebrew name was Chava. She was twenty-seven, grew up in New Jersey, and worked in project management for one of the biotech companies down in Mission Bay. Jake had met her on a research rotation at med school. When he brought her home the first time, toward the end of the evening she had embraced Joy when they were alone in the kitchen and said thank you, thank you for your son. I hope he marries me. From that moment, Joy could only love this vivacious, self-confident, sweet-hearted girl with the open shoulders and runner’s legs and wonderfully thick, black, curly hair, just like Jenny’s.

  After a few months the four of them went to Calistoga for the weekend to spend time with the recently widowed, ninety-two-year-old Elaine, who still was a crackerjack despite being alone in that gigantic house. On Shabbat morning, after Joy rode her bike, Ev came to her and they took a long walk up past the geyser, talking about stuff at work and movies and the news, to a rock Joy knew, overlooking the Valley.

  “It’s beautiful here,” Ev said.

  “I spent a lot of time sitting on this rock after Jenny died.”

  “I guess. I’d walk here every day, if I could.” Ev paused. She put a soft hand on Joy’s knee. “Jake has talked so much about you and Jenny. He told me he was mad at you for a long time. It had to be so hard.”

  Joy heard no echoes, no voices, no dialogues; time did not stop; the air was not heavy; the accident played only quietly; loss and regret were layered with what had come since.

  “It was,” Joy said. “I did the best I could, but I was pretty messed up. People were wonderful to me. But I believed I was going to lose everything—it took years to find a new normal.”

  Ev’s voice cracked. “It’s scary, what you had to do.”

  “In some ways,” Joy said, “it’s harder now. The ripples of her death just keep expanding. My friends are becoming grandparents. Their kids are great people, and Jenny just isn’t. I’m so grateful Jake met you.”

  “Jake’s love can be so fierce. We went away one time and . . . well.” She stopped herself, blushing. “I guess he learned that from you.”

  “That is so sweet.” Joy put her arm around the younger woman. She remembered how it was for her, before, that arrogant confidence she had, that cracked into a million pieces. Evelyn was not like that. I wish I had known that when I was her age. Joy wondered if she should, but asked, “He’s told me you’ve had your struggles too?”

  “What did he say?”

  “Only that. No secrets.”

  “He’s so honorable!” Ev giggled, then took two breaths. “I was bulimic in high school and into my sophomore year. I hid it pretty well. It got pretty bad. At one point I only weighed a hundred pounds. I cut myself once.” She held up her wrist. Joy could see the faint scar. “My parents saved me, but I took a long time to really stop.” She paused. “Giving that dependency up hurt a lot. Becoming real instead . . . but I know I could go back there, if things go south . . . ”

  Tears dappled her eyelids. Her lips pursed and drew into a line. Joy watched her struggle with it and let it go. Ev relaxed and smiled. “Jake helps me so much. We even make jokes about it.”

  Joy’s heart burst with pride and she wanted this girl to be her daughter in the worst way.

  “I was afraid
to tell you,” Ev said. “But I had to.”

  “Thank you, honey,” Joy said, “for telling me. I believe you. It can’t be easy.”

  “It’s got to be easier than what you lived with.”

  “No one wins that contest. You just work at it every day.” Joy took her hands. “I know this—I love my boys,” she said, “and they love me. I love Jenny. I have good, good friends. I enjoy my work. I have a strong body.” She paused again. “And I love you, Chavaleh.”

  Joy squeezed her tight. She felt rooted, peaceful, at home. Ev sighed and rested her head on Joy’s shoulder. Arms and fingers intertwined, the women, old and young, yielded to the time that passed silently over them. When the shadows started to lengthen across the vineyards Joy looked at her watch; helping each other up they walked back to town while having a long and extremely discursive discussion about what to make for dinner. Joy roasted some local trout that came right out of the tank at the market, and Ev did something with quinoa that was really, really good.

  When Jake and Ev came downstairs the next morning, Elaine’s ring was on Ev’s finger.

  35.

  THE BALLROOM WAS awash in color and light. Joy was wearing a long blue dress slit halfway up her thigh, good for dancing, with a bit of décolletage and a rather dramatic cut-out back. Her hair was up. Hesitating at the door, she had a fleeting feeling that reminded her of a way she used to feel, long ago, when both her children were alive. She took the arm of her tuxedo-clad husband. You never knew what could happen. She might step on the hem of her dress, she might walk into the wrong ballroom, she might get maudlin in the face of her son’s happiness, she might find so much grief pouring out of her that she would break the wedding. But Danny put his other hand on hers. She forgave herself and they glided into the room when the music played, right on time.