“My mom, my dad, and then Nate,” she said, and the drawers were opened one at a time, the rubber pulled back to show only their faces. Julia registered shock. A voice inside me said, This is wrong; you shouldn’t have let her do this.
Yet Julia’s voice remained strong as she said, “Good-bye, Mom, I love you forever,” and that drawer shut. It clicked closed. She said the same thing to her dad, and I got a glimpse of the woman she would grow into. I saw strength. I saw Melissa and Jim in her and felt a surge of grief for everything. Nate was last. She leaned over him and whispered something I didn’t hear.
We walked out, back into bright heat and into the too-hot car, and she wept as we drove away, but also thanked me and told me she was glad we had gone. I put an arm around her as we parked and got out at the family house.
As we stood on the driveway, Julia said, “After the bomb I didn’t remember anything about the party. I still don’t.”
I nodded. Investigators were frustrated but hopeful her memory would return. They looked to me to make it happen.
“Uncle Paul, I had to see them. I had to know.”
“That they were really dead?”
“Yes.”
Though the family always entered through the back gate, Julia wanted to go in the front. She unlocked it with her key. Inside it was cool and dark, and Julia turned toward the kitchen as we stepped in, as if expecting Coal to come running, before remembering we were picking him up next. I moved into the kitchen and let her return to the house in her own way.
She seemed at a loss and sat down on a couch, then rose silently and walked into her brother’s room. I heard her break down there. Her wracking sobs brought a great wave of sadness up through me and I opened the door to the backyard. I stepped out, smelling the chlorine in the pool and the dusty heat of a summer morning, another day in Las Vegas. From the corner of my eye through the slider I saw her pass wraithlike, a shadow crossing the living room on her way to her parents’ bedroom.
Later, when I checked on her, I saw Jim’s air force dress coat and cap lying on the bed and Julia sitting at her mother’s makeup station with several photos alongside her. Her fingers traced the face of her dad. She trembled as tears dripped off her cheeks. I wanted to put my arm around her, but backed quietly out of the room instead. An hour later she came out into the backyard with two suitcases and sat down across from me.
“We’ll come back until you have everything you want,” I said.
“I don’t know what to do, Uncle Paul.” Through her tears she repeated, “What do I do?”
“You say good-bye and then you carry them forever. Can you remember their voices?”
“Yes.”
“Then talk to them.”
“Even though they’re not here?”
“Yes.”
We picked up Coal, who charged Julia and almost knocked her down. Coal hadn’t forgotten her at all. He was wondering who’d forgotten him. I made peace with Patricia and Charlie, thanking them for their kindnesses. From news reports they seemed to think I was a kind of hero, which wasn’t true at all. We left things in a good place and Coal nuzzled my hand with a sort of “Glad you also showed up, buddy, I guess you’re good for something” and then ran back to Julia. She wrapped her arms around him and he rode in the front seat with us as we drove away.
We share in grief and ritualize letting go and moving on, but at heart, all true grief is private. There was only so much I could do for Julia, yet I knew from watching her she’d find her way.
“Uncle Paul, do we have time for one more stop? I saw the flowers on TV.”
She didn’t have to say any more. I turned at the next corner and backtracked to the Alagara. As we got close, I had to tell her, “We won’t have long. There’s a press conference I have to be at.”
“I just need to see.”
I understood. At the Alagara there were people taking photos. I parked down the street and we walked back and caught a moment there when it was just us. There were many different types of flowers and maybe a thousand roses. The air was rich with their scent. Since I was last here, someone had made a peace sign in the lot with white roses. We stood for a little while, then I looked at her.
“Uncle Paul, is it okay if I take some flowers?”
“Take whatever you want, Julia.”
She knelt and sorted white roses until she had three she liked and laid them in her palm one on one on one with great tenderness. Then we walked away.
Jo was waiting when we got to my house. She and Julia would pack while I was at the press conference. I wore a dark blue suit and the white shirt the director liked. I stood alongside Venuti, who right down to the buff shine on his shoes looked dressed for an inauguration.