Chapter Fifteen Jess
Chapter Fifteen
Jess
Maybe this Ren Faire silliness could grow on her. Out in the expansive field behind the Folk School, Jess loudly counted out eight paces then turned sharply, raising the longbow and aiming for the target Ned had placed in the middle of the field. Brian, an archer friend of Ned’s, mirrored her, raising his bow at the same time.
“Better,” Ned called out from a folding chair several yards away.
They’d been practicing for the better part of an hour, learning the first of three archery shows for the guests of the Faire. While Jess had initially turned her nose up at the idea of performing, it felt kind of nice to work in unison with fellow archers to create something that was technically and aesthetically pleasing.
“We said we’d fire on ‘ten,’ right?” Jess called to Brian.
“Yeah,” he called back. “More engaging for the patrons if they aren’t sure whose arrow pierced the sack first.”
Jess nodded. She stretched her neck and shoulders while shaking out her arms.
“Let’s do it again,” she said loudly, walking back to her original position in the routine.
“Nope,” Ned said, squinting at her. He slapped his thighs and stood. “Time for a break.”
Jess jogged to Ned while Brian waited for Keith, the third archer in the show, to come in from farther out in the field.
“I hope you don’t want to stop on my account,” she said to Ned. “I’m good.”
“I’m sure you are,” he said. “But no sense in overdoing it when you’re on a new bow. Can’t have you injuring yourself. I’d have to take your place in this brouhaha. That’ll be a cold day in hell.”
“Ned, you know I’ve shot longbow before,” she said.
Ned squinted again and sucked his teeth.
“Yes, you mentioned that. When was the last time?” he asked.
Jess squinted back. Once she answered his question, she’d prove his point. She hated it when that happened.
“About ten years,” she said.
Ned grunted.
“Like I said. New bow. Come on, slow pokes,” he said to Brian and Keith as they approached.
—
The coolness of the break room made Jess shiver a little, drawing attention to the fact that she’d gotten sweatier than she’d realized outside. She decided on a water out of the vending machine while the men settled in around the table. She’d agreed to that day as their first practice session a bit reluctantly. Mo and the other Faire blacksmiths had been getting together at the School to create the items to sell for the past few weeks. But that day Mo wasn’t participating—he had Maddie that weekend.
Their schedules hadn’t lined up very well to get together the past few weeks, but they’d made up for it with long phone calls, texting each other throughout the day, and video call dates. The video dates had been a good way to spend time together, but they’d only made her desire to touch him, to be physically with him, grow more and more.
Didn’t anticipate video calls being such an important part of my life.
“I think it’s going to come together nicely,” Brian said as Jess joined them. “This was a good idea, putting on a Faire to raise funds.”
“Kind of you all to help out,” Ned said.
Keith swatted away the praise.
“An opportunity to shoot in garb, dazzle some patrons, and slide into Ren Speak? Every Rennie’s dream.”
Jess blinked twice.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She looked at Brian. “You said patron earlier, which I gathered means a person who comes to the Faire. And I’ve heard garb before.” She looked at Keith. “But Ren Speak ? Rennie? Please help me out here.”
Keith smiled broadly.
“Ren Speak is the language we use at Faires. The manner of speaking. And Rennies are people who either work the Faires or go to them very, very regularly,” he said.
“Oh,” Jess said.
The men began discussing other things, but their voices faded away. Cassie must have been a Rennie, if that’s a term that refers to regular participants. Cassie went as often as she was able. The room dimmed, Jess’s throat got tight, and the muscles in her arms began screaming. She hadn’t known that Cassie was a Rennie, that there was a specific word for people into Faires. She probably had friends she enjoyed chatting with in Ren Speak. Jess wondered what else she didn’t know about her sister. She knew what she should have known—that she’d failed to see how abusive Cassie’s relationship had become and that she’d suffered because of it. How many other ways had she failed in truly knowing her sister?
“Right, Jess?”
Ned’s question shocked her back into the present.
“Uh…I missed that.” She sat up straight. “What?”
“Said we’re probably good for today. We’ve got a couple more sessions planned; let’s wrap it up,” he said.
“Yeah, sure,” she said, standing as the others did.
As Brian and Keith stepped into the hall, Ned caught her elbow.
“You all right?” he asked, his brows knitted.
Jess swallowed hard. She didn’t know how long she’d zoned out, and she did not like that Ned seemed to have noticed.
“Great,” she said.
Ned searched her face, frowning.
“?’Kay,” he said. “See you next week.”
—
The pain in her muscles had turned into a dull ache by the time she got home. But her stomach had declared rebellion. Rubbing it as she rushed to the medicine cabinet, she found the medication the doctor had prescribed and knocked back twice the dose. She leaned over the sink and took deep breaths. Steinem trilled behind her.
“Hey,” she said to him with her eyes closed. “I’m okay.”
He walked back and forth, rubbing his sides against her leg. She smiled.
“I am,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
He trilled again.
“I’m gonna take a shower,” she said to him. “I’m gross from today. Plus, it’ll help with the aches.”
After turning on the water to let it warm up, she started getting undressed. Steinem hopped on the counter and watched, squinting a little. She smiled at him.
“Thank you, Sty Sty,” she said, scratching behind his ear. “I promise I’m okay.”
But maybe she was lying to her cat. Her doctor’s office had called on Friday afternoon, and she still hadn’t checked the voicemail. Once she was out of the shower, she decided to be a grown-up about it and stop hiding. After a deep sigh, she grabbed her phone to listen to the message.
“Hello, Ms. Anderson, this is Dr. Williams’s office. Your blood work has come back, and she’d like to schedule an appointment with you to discuss the results and further tests. Please call us back at your earliest convenience.”
Sitting on her bed, still wrapped in a towel with her hair dripping, Jess hung up the phone. That was not information she’d wanted to hear. She didn’t want to be on an examining table again, did not want to talk about any test results, didn’t want to hear anything that could be…scary. She gulped, willing her heart to slow down. The instinct to message Alice and Stephanie cropped up. They could help her relax, to get perspective. But she didn’t want to worry them; they were so far away.
Mo is close by.
She could call him. She could even ask him to go with her to the appointment so she would feel less alone. But she didn’t want to put that on him. While things were going quite well, she didn’t…that would be a very deep form of vulnerability and Jess couldn’t show that. Even though she doubted that he would see her being vulnerable with him as a weakness.
He might appreciate it.
Tossing her phone on the bed, she stood, shaking her head hard.
No. I’m an adult. I can handle this on my own.
—
Hair dried and fresh pajamas on, she settled at her dining table to do some work for the coming week. She was in the middle of grading a fourth paper when her focus was shattered by her phone buzzing loudly with an incoming call. She reached to pick it up but knocked over the stack of papers she’d left near the edge of the table. Cursing, she tried to pick them up and answer at the same time. She did so without looking at the caller ID.
“Hi, Jess,” her mom said softly. “I…I was hoping we could talk.”
Jess stiffened at the sound of her mom’s voice but decided to stay polite. “What about?” she asked cautiously.
Her mom hesitated for a moment. “Um…it was wonderful seeing you when you came back. But that was months ago. We missed you so much while you were in England and were so happy that you’d be close by again,” she said before clearing her throat. “We’d love for you to come home for a visit.”
Jess was quiet at first. As usual, her mother was ignoring something that she didn’t want to see. Her last visit to pick up some things had not been wonderful . Her father’s habitual coldness had hardened into veiled hostility, and her mother’s clinginess had been suffocating. Jess hadn’t been able to breathe the whole time she was in the house. Alice had said that their behavior might have been due to grief, but Jess would not take responsibility for fixing that. They hadn’t even taken responsibility for ignoring the warning signs in Cassie’s relationship and for ignoring Jess’s concerns about it. Just that February, Jess had called their mother, worried because she was having more and more trouble reaching Cassie. Her mom had said she’d make the drive from Rockford to Detroit to see Cassie herself, since she wasn’t answering her calls, either. But she hadn’t. Then April rolled around, and it had been too late. Her parents had done nothing, and her sister was gone.
But bringing any of that up at the moment would just lead to an argument, one Jess simply did not have the energy for. Alice’s and Stephanie’s latest encouragements to see her parents came back to her. They’d said that doing so might help her. Jess wanted to brush aside the idea that it would, but her friends were wise. Jess seriously doubted that she was ready.
She sighed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said, trying to sound kind.
Her mom sighed, too, and tried again, pleadingly. “I know you’re mad at your dad,” she said. “But I can make sure he doesn’t get angry when you come home.”
Jess tensed up. There was no way her mother could keep him from getting angry. A dull ache blossomed in her shoulders and neck; her jaw felt locked shut. She forced herself to speak.
“He has no reason to be angry with me,” Jess spat out before taking another deep breath. Alice popped into her head again. “But I’ll think about it.”
Jess ended the call before any more could be said. Once she placed her phone on the table, her hands began visibly shaking, her chest got tight, and a headache slammed into her temples. But she wasn’t going to cry.
The thought of reaching out to Mo whispered across her mind, but she couldn’t. She was too raw; she couldn’t show that weakness. Her parents needed to stay in their box in her mind and feelings, Mo in his.
She pulled a file folder of student tests in front of her. Grabbing her pen, one tear tumbled onto her cheek. She swatted it away and opened the folder.
—
A wave of guilt was waiting for Jess when she crawled under the covers that night. She’d been fighting hard against guilt for months. Most of the time she won, but now, seeing how everything was moving on—life, the rest of the world, moving forward even though Cassie was gone—the guilt of living her life in a world without her sister was overtaking her. She was back here, in the States, in the city Cassie had moved to with her husband and that Jess had chosen so she could be with Cassie again. But her sister was no longer here, and time was forcing Jess to live each day getting further and further away from Cassie’s presence. Maybe she had gone to the restaurant Jess and Mo had, but now there was no way for Jess to know that, to know if her footsteps were falling in the same places Cassie’s had. Jess was going to participate in a Ren Faire. Be a Rennie. Something Cassie had apparently been but that Jess hadn’t known about. It was like she was taking the place Cassie had been torn from. Jess rolled onto her side, grabbing a pillow to press against her aching stomach. And it sounded like her parents were trying to move on, too, if they wanted to have a visit and play happy family with Jess as though Cassie’s sweet, conciliating temperament hadn’t been the only reason that Jess and her father had ever been able to sit down at a table together.
Think of something else. Or the crying will start and never stop.
She snatched her phone off the nightstand. Unlocking it, she saw the preview of a message from Mo. The tears burned her nose. How could she even think about having a relationship when her sister no longer had the possibility of experiencing a good one? She tried to whisk the notifications away but clicked on one instead. A Google photos reminder of This Day one year ago. She felt like she was being strangled. She and Cassie, when Jess had come home for a quick visit. She swiped fast at a tear that had fallen. It didn’t make sense; there had to be some mistake. A year couldn’t have already passed since the last day she and Cassie sat together, in the same place. They were both smiling, making silly faces. Jess wanted to stop breathing. Stop breathing and escape from the pain. Then she remembered that Cassie had teased her about starting a relationship that day. About Jess always restricting her emotions and not having fun in life. She’d told Jess that she wanted to see her happy with someone. Cassie needed to see it. Jess swallowed. She’d completely forgotten. Steinem came walking up her leg, onto her hip. He stretched himself out on top of her. She could hear and feel him purring.
My sister, my first friend, told me she needed to see me happy with someone. Maybe…
Out of all the photos she could have happened upon, out of all the memories, it had to be one in the dress she’d worn on her first date with Mo. The dress she’d put on, wondering if Cassie would like Mo, too. Jess wasn’t a believer in signs, but it felt like Cassie had just answered her question. Like she’d told Jess that she approved.
Steinem stretched and yawned. He looked at her with his “silly human” face.
I guess I should stop hesitating with Mo. Maybe it’s worth the risk to accelerate things with him, to truly let him in.
She slid her fingertip down her sister’s face on the screen.
Maybe I should listen to my sister.