ON TIPTOES Melissa stood to whisper to her mother—“Don’t make us move, Mommy! I will want to die.”
This disturbing plea, Jenna pretended not to hear. Not entirely.
“Of course we’re not moving again, Melissa. Anyway—not so soon.”
Bizarre to hear the word die on the lips of a seven-year-old. Even if Melissa was a precocious child.
Knowledge of dying, death seemed to be trickling down to ever-younger children. Jenna and Gus had been stunned to hear that the sixteen-year-old son of friends in Ann Arbor had committed suicide by hanging himself in his room, on the night of the first day of school in September—no note, no (evident) warning, a total surprise to high school friends as to the family. They’d known the boy since he’d been an infant and could only say to each other numbly—But Mikey had always seemed so normal . . .
Jenna communicated best with her youngest child by hugs and kisses, she thought. Words were supplemental.
After an interlude of (evident) misery and resentment Darren had begun at last to make friends at St. Croix High School. (Jenna had had glimpses of these “friends”—she wasn’t sure what she thought of the sulky-faced boys who barely mumbled H’lo Mz V’rhees when Darren had no alternative but to introduce them. Involuntarily came the cruel adolescent term—losers.) Darren had grown lanky-limbed and evasive, with ironic eyes, prone to moods; quick to lash out to hurt (his mother, his sister Naomi) at the slightest provocation. If his grades at the St. Croix school were high, he shrugged in adolescent embarrassment; if his grades were less than high, he was stricken with adolescent shame. He’d been dismayed and angered by his father’s decision to work in Ohio but he’d seemed to blame Jenna as well, which she understood: for Darren was one to blame.
There’d been talk of Darren going to visit Gus. But no weekend had been quite ideal for a visit, so far.
Perversely, as if to confound Jenna, Darren had said that he’d be willing for the family to move to Ohio, anytime. Saying with a smirk, “How much worse can cruddy-rural Ohio be than cruddy-rural Michigan?”—and Jenna said, “Ohio is a death-penalty state. Michigan has never executed in its history.”
Darren stared at her, startled by this rejoinder.
What did that mean? Why had she told him?
But he’d understood. Ohio was a more conservative state than Michigan. As a young child Darren had learned to narrow his eyes at the sight or sound of the word “conservative.”
Anti-black. Anti-women’s rights. Anti-equality. Anti-liberal. Anti-abortion.
The enemy.
“Ohio has yet to repeal the death penalty. Their legislature is not persuadable by rational argument. By contrast, Wisconsin executed just one person in its history, long ago; and capital punishment was banished in Minnesota in 1911. And Michigan has the most remarkable history of any state: not one execution.”
How passionately Jenna spoke! These little speeches she would make to her children from time to time, often startling them. You were made to realize (if you were a child of Jenna Matheson) that she cared deeply for things about which you knew very little, and that this suggested a Jenna Matheson who wasn’t only just Mom.
Meanly Darren said, “But Daddy is leaving anyway. So, who cares?” and Jenna said, stung, “Obviously, I care. And you should, also.”
IF YOU LOVED ME . . .
Of course I love you, darling. It isn’t that simple.
But—is love simple?
Don’t speak in riddles, Jenna. You know we have our work to do.
She wondered: was his departure a prelude to formal separation, divorce? Gus would not be the one to make such a suggestion but, if Jenna broached it, he might agree, with alacrity. She’d known men who had goaded their anxious wives/lovers into such rash suggestions . . . Emotional outbursts that can’t be retracted.
Since Gus had departed Jenna found herself in the habit of glancing out windows in the farmhouse, toward the road. Any movement she saw on the Salt Hill Road, or thought she saw, any glimpse of a random passing vehicle, stirred a childlike sort of anticipation: would the vehicle turn into the driveway? Was it Gus, coming home unexpectedly?
Darling, I’ve changed my mind.
It was a crazy idea. It was sheer hubris. You were right . . .
But she wasn’t right, she supposed. It was small-minded of her, it was craven and cowardly, to expect of her husband that he think of her and the children before thinking of his work that effected so many desperate women and girls.