Mrs. Jackson had been a small-time actress in Hollywood for a few years in the fifties. She had left Tennessee to move to Hollywood and was cast in a few movies, always as a beautiful woman, always a minor character. She moved back to Tennessee and married Hal’s father, Dr. Horton Jackson, a former OB/GYN who had become a U.S. senator and now worked for a lobbyist group. They were one of the richest families in Tennessee, and Mrs. Jackson, according to Hal, mostly planned fund-raisers for Republican candidates across the state. She was not, it was clear, a person who frequented barbecue joints.
Izzy stood over Mrs. Jackson who simply nodded toward the empty space on the picnic table next to her, not shaking Izzy’s hand or acknowledging her in any meaningful way. Izzy sat down and stared straight ahead, afraid to even look at Mrs. Jackson.
“Do you know who I am?” Mrs. Jackson asked Izzy, who nodded. “And you are Isabel Poole, correct?” Izzy again nodded, unable to speak.
“I came here today because I need to talk to you about something very important. I’m afraid I have terrible news and it’s very hard for me to do this, so I’m just going to say it. Hal died three days ago. He killed himself.”
Izzy felt every available breath of air in her body condense into something solid. She felt herself tearing up, even as she admitted that Mrs. Jackson’s news was an outcome that she had foreseen without admitting its possibility for as long as she had known Hal. She wanted some kind of comfort, the slightest touch, but saw that Mrs. Jackson was not offering any, which made Izzy feel embarrassed for her neediness.
“I’m so sorry,” Izzy finally said.
“It is very hard for any parent to lose their child,” Mrs. Jackson admitted. “Hal was a beautiful boy, but he had a difficult life. He was beset by demons and it seemed nothing my husband and I did for him ever quite helped him.”
“I feel sick,” Izzy admitted, realizing that she would never see Hal again, that she had been relying on the sliver of hope that he might come back to her at some point.
“He left a note and I’ve had a chance to read it. I’m sure you understood this when you saw me here, but I know about your relationship with Hal. And I know about the baby.”
Izzy didn’t know how to respond, what Mrs. Jackson wanted from her, and instead she simply blurted out, as if this were a surprise, “I’m having a baby.”
“I know, dear,” Mrs. Jackson replied. “And I know that the child is Hal’s. And I apologize for everything that has happened to you, but I am in a state of shock and so I may not be as graceful as I would like to be about all of this.”
“I’m sorry,” Izzy said, still unable to form any articulate sentences, no way to express the inexpressible feelings inside her.
“And I am sorry for what Hal put you through. He meant well, I’m sure, and from what I gather from the letter, you were very special to him. But I want to know about your intentions.”
“What do you mean?” Izzy asked, her brain so many steps behind this woman.
“I want to know what you intend to do with this baby,” said Mrs. Jackson, tapping her hand lightly on the table as she spoke.
“I want to have it,” Izzy said.
“I understand that, dear,” Mrs. Jackson said, her voice showing the slightest bit of impatience. “What I want to know is what you expected of Hal and, by extension, our family.”
“I don’t have any expectations, I guess,” Izzy responded. “I had hoped Hal would help me raise the child.”
“Financially, you mean?” Mrs. Jackson said, leaning toward Izzy; apparently Izzy was starting to interest her.
“No,” Izzy said, embarrassed. “I thought he would be a part of the child’s life, I guess. I thought he would physically be present. I hadn’t had a lot of time to think about it and Hal was in the hospital, so I didn’t know what to expect, really.”
“So you didn’t expect to ask for child support?”
Izzy felt herself growing angry, her emotions finally overpowering her shock. Why was Mrs. Jackson talking about this? “I hadn’t thought about it,” Izzy said. “Not as much as you have, I guess.”
“Dear, I am simply trying to figure out how to proceed. I have lost my youngest child, a child who was very important to me and caused me a great amount of emotional pain. And then I find out that he has impregnated a teenager, a student of his, and that she is going to have the baby. I did my best to help Hal, Isabel. But the Jacksons are an important family in Tennessee, with a legacy and a future that is greater than just one person. Do you understand why I would be concerned about this? I want to protect our family from any further embarrassment.”
“To you and your husband,” Izzy said, “I would be an embarrassment.”
“You are focusing on only a small portion of what I’m saying, dear,” Mrs. Jackson said. Each time she used the word dear, it felt like a tiny pin was being inserted into the webbing between Izzy’s fingers.