“Is she still alive?” The voice from the receiver had asked, calmly, impatiently. “Place your index and middle finger on her neck, in the hollow between the windpipe and the large muscle below her ear. Miss? ...Miss? I need you to check if she’s still alive.”
Jessica was embarrassed about it now, it was painful to admit that she had not been able to touch her, she had not been able to check. But she’d known she was dead. She’s gone, she’d shouted, over and over again for what felt like hours, until people in uniform had come rushing in from the door she had left open, men dragging her off the bathroom floor, taking her downstairs in the kitchen, people walking upstairs, downstairs, around the house, her sister’s body being taken away in a bag on a stretcher, neighbours standing outside their doors, looking, shaking their heads.
“I don’t understand,” she’d told the middle-aged police officer who had shaken her hand in the kitchen. “Why? I don’t understand. We had plans.”
“Is there anyone you could stay with?” The officer had asked, “Anyone we can call for you?”
There wasn’t anyone. Nobody else. She couldn’t think.
“You will need some time to get over this shock,” he had told her matter-of-factly. “I will be in touch in a few days and we can talk then.”
Charles Brown. The card with his ridiculous name printed on it was still on the kitchen table, where she had left it that afternoon.
Jessica watched the dark oak coffin being lowered in its hole in the ground, its golden bolts, the yellow lilies trembling on its lid, the purple scarf around the priest’s neck, his curly grey hair, the red rimmed pages of the bible in his hands, everything so vivid she had to close her eyes, everything so real she thought she would go insane.
Everything she had done with her sister over the past few months had been for the last time. Twenty-four years with her, everyday, every single day of her life and then nothing. Her best friend, her only friend, her confessor, her teacher, and then nothing. Gone. The tone of her voice, her loud laughter, the freckles on her nose and on her cheekbones, the way her hair fell completely straight around her face, the scent of her skin, the tingling of the ever present bracelets around her wrists, the way her feet pointed inward whenever she sat down, the way her lips twitched a little when she was upset, the way her forehead creased when she concentrated on a painting, her eyes... Everything replaced in Jessica’s memory by the image of a mutilated body in the bath.
The coffin disappeared at the bottom of the hole and she felt her knees buckle underneath her. She looked around: a dozen faces framed in black, against black. And Lisa, the only one she really recognised. All the people around her were Kaitlyn’s friends, all the ones she could find going through her filofax; people who had expressed their grief over phone a few days earlier while she tried to organise the funeral. Some of them she had met before, drank with before, had had over for dinner, always with Kaitlyn, never by herself... People she knew through her, because of her... What were they doing here? Would she ever see them again when the only link between her and them lay at the bottom of the hole in front of her?
She couldn’t stay here. It was absurd. She was out in the open and she couldn’t breathe. She had to be alone. So she turned away and ran, ran towards the cemetery gates faster and faster, until she reached the main road. She stopped on the edge of the pavement panting, bent, hands on her knees, little white puffs coming out of her mouth, her eyes shut. All she could see now was darkness, no more colours, no more flowers, no more bibles, coffins, tombstones. No more silence. She could hear cars driving by, a dog barking in the distance, footsteps hurrying behind her.
“Jessy, wait!” Lisa ran towards her, her long permed blond hair flapping beyond her shoulders, a silk black scarf hiding her chin. “Wait a second!”
She stopped by her side placing a hand on her forearm, panting at her same pace and Jessica opened her eyes then, staring at the grey stone slabs underneath her feet.
“I can’t stay Lisa. I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t... I can’t... I can’t believe this is happening.” She looked up at her friend, imploring, “why is this happening?”
“I don’t know...” Lisa shook her head looking down at her, trying to look in her eyes through the hair falling over her face. “And I know how you must feel, but...”
“You know how I feel?” She snarled pushing her friend’s and away, the look in her eyes so angry Lisa took two steps away from her. “You mean you think you know. You’re a happy woman Lisa, aren’t you? You’re happily married and it’s not your sister they’re burying out there. You don’t even have a sister for God’s sake, how the fuck would you know how I’m feeling?”
Oh, yes. Hurt. Attack. Hurting somebody could somehow, hopefully, make her feel better. Hurt, hurt. Hurt not to hurt anymore. Shout, kick and scream and punch until all the anger drips out of your pores.
She breathed hard, like a bull ready to charge, but Lisa was standing limply in front of her, motionless, defenseless, make-up smeared under her eyes, and she couldn’t hurt her. “She was my friend,” she heard her mumble, and she couldn’t hurt her anymore. It wasn’t her fault, nobody’s fault.
She just wanted to disappear.
Jessica crossed the street without saying a word and got in the car —Kaitlyn’s car— watching her friend walking away in the rearview mirror. She locked the doors, locked herself in, locked herself away from what was happening outside, tried to block it out.
Her head was bursting, her insides burned as if she had swallowed a pint of gasoline and thrown a lit match down her throat after the last drop. She screamed at her reflection in the mirror, hit the steering wheel with the palms of both hands, punched the window, kicked and elbowed until all her limbs started throbbing, until the pain seemed intense enough to fill the hole her sister had carved inside her by leaving.
THE PHONE rang later that evening, once twice, three times, then the answering machine clicked and Jessica heard the hideous sound of her own voice. You’re through to Jessica Lynch. Sorry, I can’t take your call right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
“Jessy, it’s me, Lisa... Uhm... Just callin’ to check on you... Give me a call tomorrow sometimes if you feel like it. Bobby’s away, so... Call me. Ok? Good night.”
Jessica was crouched on her sofa, shivering despite the heavy blanket wrapped around her shoulders, in her arms a dark blue cushion, in her hand the invitation from the Jefferson Company, the one on expensive thick cream paper. They were inviting her to the thirtieth anniversary party of the company’s foundation, two weeks time, looking forward to seeing you. She had been staring at it for hours trying to imagine what it would be like to be there, to be part of something she had been fantasising about for years, being in the same room with some of the best writers of all times... Jane Ashley... Stephen Sharp... Ian McKey... Surely they had received an invitation on thick cream paper. Surely. She should have been jumping up and down on the sofa, instead she was sitting on it, a blanket around her shoulder and a pair of thick socks on her feet like an old woman. She couldn’t feel anything, not a hint of joy, not a hint of excitement, just an absence of feeling, an absurd emptiness that could only turn into sadness and guilt.
She sneered at the rich irony that she should feel so fragmented just months after she had stopped seeing her therapist. She tried to imagine what she would say about all this. Would she have any advice? Would she be able to help her move on? She had done once, Lorna, with her questions, with her prodding and digging, she had helped her analyse, understand and move on from the beginning of a life her parents had marked so badly.
Jessica had started seeing a therapist the year after her mother had died, exactly seven years after her father had left, when for some inexplicable reason she had started bursting into tears every time his name was mentioned, every time she thought of him, ev
ery time she watched a movie with a male figure even remotely similar to Stuart Lynch. It was almost as if, without her mother around to remind her that they were both to blame for a relationship obviously based on hatred and disrespect, Jessica had started feeling responsible for the shitty life her father had decided to lead and ended up with.
“We all have a blueprint”, she could still hear Lorna say. “You can’t change the way you were brought up, but you can move on from it. You can do that Jessica, you just need to look at it in a different light.”
At the end of the three-and-a-half years spent with Lorna, Jessica had moved away from her childhood so much that she was able to recall it as if it had happened to someone else, as if she was an outsider looking in from a floating space in mid-air. From up there she could see things she had chosen to forget, things she had convinced herself she had never heard or seen, things a child couldn’t possibly understand, everything so clear she had been able to describe her father, his movements, his thoughts and his expressions with the precision that had turned her novel into a bestseller.
But that was the past and this was the present. Dealing with alcohol and abuse didn’t seem as terrifying as having to deal with the loss of the one person that had been through it with her.
Jessica stared at the phone sitting in its cradle by the side of the sofa. She knew that calling Lisa back would have been the decent thing to do, but she already knew it was not going to happen. The thought of listening to her voice tomorrow or even in a few days even was nothing short of unbearable.
She had been staying at Lisa’s until a couple of days before the funeral and it had not taken her long to realise that —like many other things— being with her wasn’t the same now, was never going to be the same again, it had lost its meaning. And her arrogant, ignorant, idiotic husband’s presence had not helped things at all.
Lisa had always been Kaitlyn’s friend. Jessica knew she had grown into their friendship vicariously, being Lisa’s friend simply by being Kaitlyn’s sister. The three of them had spent crazy nights together, they had thrown more parties than she cared to remember, danced nights away and spent long mornings nursing each other’s hangovers, they had watched countless movies laughing and crying, shared embarrassing moments, secrets, joys. But none of it would have happened had Lisa and Kaitlyn not been friends and now Kaitlyn was not here anymore, Lisa was just a person, alien, nothing more than a mask without a face staring through the eyeholes. The moments they had shared seemed to belong to another lifetime. It was all too insignificant now, trite. Not important. Yet, Lisa was still the only person left she could go to, and it was infuriating.
While staying at her house, Jessica had ended up avoiding Lisa, hiding behind the door of the room she had set up for her, feeling lost and out of place, wanting to leave and knowing how hard returning home would be.
And now she was back, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t function.
So many things needed dealing with. Clothes in Kaitlyn’s wardrobe, which ones to keep, which ones to give away, her paintings, her photographs, all the furniture stored in the tiny garage, her car, her bank details; she needed to close her bank account, but what to do with the money? Did she write a will? How would she find out? So many things to take care of, yet all she could do was sit on the sofa and hug one of the scatter cushions from Kaitlyn’s bed, a dark blue one, the only one that still carried her scent. She just sat there, for hours, days it seemed.
She had called their lawyer, Mr. Clamer. He knew both of them well, he had been their mother’s lawyer before their own, he had helped have their father put away.
Clamer was a good man, he would sort things out for her, help her deal with Kaitlyn’s share of the art gallery downtown, help her give it away.
“Unless you wish to keep it, Jessica.”
Keep it, yes.
Kaitlyn had taken her there many times, shown her the paintings, tried to make her look at them the way she could, tried to make her see harmony, rapture, anguish and devotion, confusion, serenity, through the colours and the brush-strokes of every artist she admired.
The Galleria.
After leaving her own flat, tired to put up with the drug dealers on her doorstep, Kaitlyn had decided to start looking for a place closer to it, move out of the outskirts, take on more responsibilities at the gallery. “You and me sis, we don’t belong to this area.” She had half joked a few times. “We should be out there, in Nob Hill, looking down on all the losers around here.” She had even started thinking about a website to market her own paintings, all she needed was some more cash to start up the project, maybe double up on the art classes she taught. Next year, it was going to be her year, she’d said.
How could anyone make projects for the future while contemplating suicide? How could Kaitlyn appear so normal and cheerful on the outside when inside her life was falling apart? Did Clamer know? Did he really know her? Had she told him things she had kept from everybody else? Did Kaitlyn write a will? A message? A note? An explanation? Did he know why she’d killed herself?
Outside, a bitterly cold autumn wind howled and whistled, Jessica wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders and started crying again, dazed, angry, hurt, then the phone rang again and again she let the answering machine pick up the call.
“Miss Lynch? It’s Charles Brown, from San Francisco’s police department. I would like to speak to you about a couple of things if...”
“Yes?” She picked up the receiver, quickly wiped the tears from her eyes trying to calm herself down.
“Miss Lynch? I wasn’t expecting you to pick up the phone... I’m sorry...”
“It’s ok... I wasn’t gong to speak to anyone but...”
“Right. I understand. Well, Miss Lynch, I was just wondering if you could come to see me at the station tomorrow morning. There’s a few things I would like to go over with you about your sister’s case.”
Jessica sat up. “My sister’s case? I don’t understand... What case?”
“Yes, you see, the law requires us to investigate every suicide. So, as I said, I would like you to come and see me, review a few details in person if possible. Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s fine.”
“Great. The station is the Ingleside District Station, in Young Lane. The details are on the business card I left with you. Do you still have it?”
She tried to remember if the card was still laying face up on the kitchen table. “I think so.”
“I should be at the station all morning. Just ask for me. If I’m not there, please wait. Thank you. Good evening.”
Jessica lay on the sofa for several minutes after the phone call feeling inexplicably thrilled. Her mind started racing through the last few days again, wondering which details Brown intended to discuss, but she was tired and soon memories became muddled with weird dreamlike sequences, the way it always happened when she slowly fell asleep.
Tired. She was so tired...
UNTIL THE age of twenty-two, a couple of years after she had started therapy, every single one of Jessica’s dreams was acted out in the house she grew up in. If she dreamt about being at a party, the party would be held in her old house; if she dreamt about having a new job, she would be working out of her old bedroom; if she needed to go to the toilet while walking in the street, the public toilet she’d walk into would suddenly become her old family bathroom.
Lorna had suggested that the house represented a jail, her jail, a place she could not simply walk out of, a place she couldn’t leave even though she didn’t live there anymore.
She hadn’t dreamt of the house in about two years now; she could remember every detail but hardly ever thought about it. Yet entering through the front door at that precise moment didn’t feel strange or disturbing. She knew she had to go. Kaitlyn was still in there, she knew she was.
Jessica wa
lked through the hallway, past the kitchen, past the sitting room, calling her name.
“Kaitlyn? I’m here now. Kaitlyn? I’m back.”
She walked up to their bedroom door, suddenly afraid of what she would find on the other side.
“Kaitlyn?”
Inside the room, the beds and the wardrobe had disappeared, the magnolia on the walls, the Nirvana posters, everything replaced by the old fashioned bathroom of her current apartment, its goldenrod walls and its dripping tap.
Kaitlyn was in here, sitting in pink bathwater, her back weirdly straight and her arms limp by the side of her naked body. And when she opened her mouth to speak it wasn’t her voice that came out, but a weird distortion, something that might have belonged to a frail old woman.
“Jessica, you believe me don’t you? It wasn’t me. I didn’t do this. I’ll tidy up. Please don’t tell mother.”
27 October 2000
THE ROOM in which Jessica sat after the detective greeted her and asked her if he could offer her a coffee was gloomy, the air stale. The barred windows didn’t look as if they had been opened or washed any time recently.
The wooden table between her and Brown was old, the varnish greasy, scribbled in places.
She had imagined herself sitting in an immaculate white questioning room with large mirrors, like the ones she always saw on the big screen; now she felt more like a character in an episode of a gritty TV cops series.
Brown looked tired and somehow untidy, much older than she remembered him, probably in his late sixties. His shirt wasn’t properly ironed and he wasn’t wearing a tie; his hair, balding at the top and too long at the back could have done with a good brushing. He didn’t look out of place in the shabby room but he seemed kind and caring and she felt at ease.
He opened a yellow folder on the table in front of him and took out a few sheets of printed paper. Jessica was looking at him expectantly, unsure of what they were about to discuss.
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