Chapter 2
TWO
Jess
June 6, 2012
I let the last box fall on top of my twin bed and then plop down next to it, falling back. Laid out, staring up at the ceiling, I’m met by the warm eyes of Lance Bass staring back down at me. Fuck me. I laugh out loud. This is ridiculous.
No one ever tells you how shitty it feels to move out, go to college, spread your wings — just to move back home four years later. I know the point is to not move home, I understand that, but this is New York City. Free rent is better than any other kind of rent. Plus you’re in the city. Duh.
“May!” I call out through my open door.
“Yes, baby?” She comes to stand in the entryway of my bedroom with a fresh cup of tea in hand.
“Can you bring me the broom? I can’t sleep in here with this poster staring at me.” She laughs.
“You have no idea how many times your mother stopped me from ripping that thing down over the years.” She sighs, gets a bit sad for a moment, then wanders back down the hall for the broom.
Mom let me indulge in all my boy band crazes. Well, I guess just boy craziness. Period. (One didn’t need to be in a band for me to be crazy about them.)
Once May is back with the broom, I stand on the bed and try to scrape it off. How the fuck did a five-foot-four thing like me even get this on my 12-foot ceiling? Actually, I do know how. Sheer determination, I imagine.
May leans against the doorframe of our NOHO loft, watching me. It’s not the apartment I grew up in, but we moved here after Mom made tenure at NYU. It was right before high school, which meant 13-year-old Jess got to decorate the shit out of her bedroom. And did she ever.
There’s hideous, psychedelic-inspired flowers painted on one wall. Jonas Brothers, Backstreet Boys, and Eminem posters are plastered on another. My twin bed is decked out in PB teen, and yeah, I think I may have been living the life straight out of some Mary-Kate and Ashley movie.
Except in this movie, I have two moms and a dad I don’t live with, a pet rat, and an insane obsession with Anna Wintour. (And I do mean 13-year-old-Jess, not current Jess.) So maybe not exactly like an Olsen twin movie.
“Current Jess” still has two moms, but only lives with one of them. And a dad who passed away after my freshman year of college. No more pet rats, no more obsession with Anna Wintour. Still obsessed with Vogue? Yes. But with Anna? No. But I guess I’m still living in 13-year-old-Jess’ bedroom…so there’s that .
The broom finally catches a corner of the poster, and I rip it off triumphantly. May still hasn’t moved.
“I’m going to visit Jules this afternoon. Probably pick up Thai on the way home. That work for you?” she asks. I give her a warm smile.
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
“You could come with me, if you want…” I don’t want . I don’t really have to say it because May already knows and she doesn’t wait for my response. “No, right. That’s okay. You go on your own time. I’ll be back around seven.” May moves like she might come in and hug me goodbye, but hesitates and walks out instead.
When May visits with mom, I’m sort of an afterthought. I think they forget I’m there sometimes. I know it’s not on purpose, of course, but if my mom is having a good day, she wants to bathe in May’s attention. It’s just better for everyone if I sit out. My feelings don’t get hurt, it doesn’t put May and I at odds with each other, and well, my mom likely won’t remember the encounter at all.
She lives in a care facility now, Jules does. One that assists with memory care. It’s for the best. May couldn’t be her full-time caregiver anymore, and they didn’t want the burden to fall on me. Not that my mom is a burden, they just wanted me to have a normal life. Always. They always tried to give me a “normal” life. And it was. Normal to me.
I grew up with three loving parents. Two I lived with full time, and one I saw during the summer and on holidays. But I never felt I lacked for love or anything at all, really. My dad might not have lived in the same house as me, but he called me all the time. Wrote me emails when he worked from the road. Bought me a souvenir from every college campus he ever visited, and told me he loved me every chance he got. As far as parental relationships go, I feel like I got pretty lucky.
And then I lived with Jules and May full time. Julia is my mother, as in she gave birth to me, and May is my mom. I always describe it to people like this: Picture Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang, but they’re professors instead of doctors, and they’re also lesbians. That’s my moms in a nutshell.
I crumple up the poster and toss it in the trash. No offense, Lance, just light eyes and frosted tips don’t really do it for me anymore. I take a quick look around the space and take note of the few things I could change to make the space feel more grown up. Paint, new desk chair, new bedding, new lamps, new art – basically a whole new room. That’s alright, it’ll give me a project to focus on.
I didn’t come back to this apartment much once I started college. Summers were spent at my dad’s house, even after he passed. Then a lot of holidays, Julia and May would come to me. Don’t get me wrong, I missed the city (the city will always be home), but it wasn’t like I missed this place. Sometimes this place is just a reminder of when things started going south for Mom.
Things like finding her keys in the freezer. Or waking up in the middle of the night to see the front door left wide open. It was little oopsies like that that started adding up until eventually, one day, Julia forgot…me.
I walked into the apartment like I did every day senior year. Just praying to get to the end of the semester. Once I graduate, it’s peace out NYC, hello college campus.
My mom was in the kitchen, so I went to say hi and grab a glass of water.
The look on her face when she saw me should have told me right away something was wrong. She looked crazed. She had eyes that went too wide, mid bite into a sandwich just hanging halfway to her face.
“What are you doing in here?” She asked me in a voice that sounded so unlike her normal, calming lilt.
“Uh, getting a glass of water?” I posed it back at her. I couldn’t piece together what was happening at the time. It’s just not something you ever really think about, you know? You don’t expect to come home one day, and find that your parent just…forgot who you are.
“This is my house, you need to leave!” Mom said back to me in a raised voice. It hurt. I was confused. She was confused. It sucked.
I immediately called May thinking maybe I’d missed something. Are they kicking me out? Did they find out about the rave I went to and I’m in trouble? Let’s be honest, no, they wouldn’t kick me out over that. May and Jules are hippies at their core, and partying was kind of their thing in the 70s. Maybe they know I had sex with David (pronounced Da-veed)? First off, of course they know. They know everything about me, and they certainly wouldn’t fault me seeing as May started slipping fresh condoms in my dresser every few years starting at the age of 13.
I stepped outside the front door, tears rolling down my face silently. Thankfully, May picked up after the first ring. Sort of like she anticipated this call.
“May?” I kind of cried out.
“Oh, JJ, what happened?” May asked.
“Is it something I did? I came home, and Mom told me to leave, that this was her house.” I was still crying, but May was silent .
“Can you come to my office? I have a meeting I can’t miss, but then I’ll meet you there and we can talk? And JJ, I promise you haven’t done anything wrong. Jules is…well, I’ll explain when I see you.”
“Yup.” It came out sniffly.
I walked the four blocks to the NYU campus. I waited an hour for May, and when she came back, she told me that Mom had early onset Alzheimer’s. And then we cried and held each other for a long time.
After that, things changed for us. May took her sabbatical, and so did Jules. May shielded me from my Mom’s worst days and brought me in with them on the good, but still it was a struggle. I think when I left for school it was a relief all around.
I went to college where my dad was the long-standing men's lacrosse coach. He’d worked there my whole life. A small university in Kentucky, near Louisville, and I loved it. It wasn’t New York, but for the first time in my life, that was a perk, not a deterrent.
I was undoubtedly a city girl through and through, but something about the city darkened my last few years there. Just like if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around. Well, if Jules couldn’t remember my childhood, the latest Broadway show we saw, our memories, did they really happen?
The first year at college was great. Spending time with Dad, making new friends, hooking up with new guys, parties — it was college. Then for spring break, Jules and May came to visit. They stayed with Dad and me, and it was like seeing a new side of each parent.
The second day in, Jules had a bad day. She couldn’t remember May, but she remembered my dad and it was heartbreaking. For each of them. I never realized until that day how much my dad still loved my mom, how my mom might have once loved my dad, and how it killed May to see this alternate reality play out before her. I felt for each one of them, but probably no one more than my dad.
He might have dated after my mom. I wouldn’t know, it’s not something I thought to ask, but he never introduced me to anyone, talked about anyone, nothing. I don’t remember anything from my childhood that would suggest there were other women, or men (no discrimination), or love, period.
What I will remember is the way my dad stroked Jules’ cheek when she embraced him that day. The way you’d embrace a lover. He looked into her hazel eyes, and I could see it written all over him. There hadn’t been another for him because of her.
He brushed his thumb across her cheek, held her chin in his hand and Jules looked at him adoringly. All while May and I stood by and watched. That’s not something I’d wish for anybody to see, least of all May.
May might not have birthed me, but she was my mom. My protector, my nurturer, my ally, and I watched that day crush her soul.
I don’t know exactly what happened between Jules, May, and my dad back then. I just know my mom moved to Kentucky in the late 80’s, but was back in NYC for my birth in 1990. That’s it. Just one big gray area of time I’m not privy to in my parents’ lives. And seeing the three of them that day, it made sense. The whole situation reeked of pain.
All these years later, I still haven’t gotten the nerve to ask May what happened. She’s really the only one left I could ask, and she’d only be able to tell her part of the story, which might be the reason why.
I take a seat at my small desk with a pinboard hung above it. It’s littered with photos of Jules, May, and me. There’s a photo of Dad and I decked out in scarlet for one of his playoff games. A few photos of old friends from prom, and a few from past vacations.
It’s the photo of my dad and his sister with me and my cousin that gives me pause, though. I was never super close with that side of my family. It was a bit weird if I’m honest, but I was close with Amy. I always loved her. She was like the big sister I never had. God, I haven’t talked to her in ages. I think last I heard she had a baby and a husband, but that was like three years ago, and okay, I’m an asshole. Sure, my dad passed away, but I could’ve called.
She could’ve called, too, but like having a baby is distracting. I get that.
I don’t know whether it’s the nostalgia of today, the longing for something to feel familiar, or the need to hear a friendly voice, but I pick up my phone and hit Amy’s contact.
On the third ring, a gruff voice answers. “Hello?”
“Hi, uh…is Amy there?” I ask, a bit confused.
“Who is this?” The deep voice, that is decidedly male, asks back.
“This is Jess Butera. I-uh thought I called Amy Ketterman, well used to be Amy Ketterman, not sure what her married name is.” I sort of laugh at that, a bit nervous. Why? Because the gruff deep voice is making me feel that way.
“Amy’s dead.” No pomp, no circumstance, no compassion, just a blatant fact. My stomach plummets. I suck in a little gasp, but stay silent. He’s silent, too. Then I think for a minute, how do I know this is someone Amy knows? What if she changed her number and this is just some asshole tired of getting wrong number calls for an “Amy?”
“And how do you know this?” I ask, my tone accusing.
“Because I’m her husband. I was her husband.” Oh . His tone is cold if not flat-out rude. Makes sense. though. I’m the asshole now.
“Oh,” I say, quietly.
“Yeah, so is there something you need?” He pushes to get me off the phone, but all I can think is: dick . This guy’s being a dick. I feel bad that Amy married an ass.
“I was just trying to talk to my cousin. I guess, is there an obituary or is there somewhere I could send flowers? I’d look it up, but I don’t know her married name.”
“There’s nowhere to send flowers to. Don’t need your flowers, don’t need your sympathies.” Click.
He fucking hung up on me. My blood boils a bit. Fucking dickhead. I sit back in my desk chair, still holding the phone and think about what just happened. And all I’m left with is questions.
How did she die? When? What happened to her baby? What was the baby’s name? Started with a T or a G maybe? Does she live with her dad? Was that him I just talked to? Is that poor babe stuck with that asshole? How didn’t I hear about this? Obviously, with Dad gone, I wouldn’t have heard, but my aunt Sally could've let me know. But she didn’t, and why? I think I know why. It’s because she’s a “bigot.” (May’s word for her, not mine). I can’t really prove Sally didn’t like us for that reason. It could have been because my mom broke my dad’s heart and it’s as simple as that. But who knows ?
Ugh . I can’t let this go. I tap Amy’s name in my contacts again. On the fourth ring, he answers. “Yes?”
“Hi. First, that was rude. And second, Amy was my family. And I may not have been around much, but I adored her, and I need to know that her daughter is alright.” There’s silence on his end for a little.
“Her daughter died, too.” What the fuck? There’s a slight softening of his tone when he says this. Then he clears his throat. “Tallulah died, too.” I can hear the pain, practically feel it. And a lone tear streaks down my cheek. Alright, maybe he’s allowed to act like an asshole. I’d be an asshole, too.
“How?” I ask, my voice quiet. He’s quiet on his end for more than a moment.
“You’re not going to let this go until you know, are you?” Nope.
“You’re right, I’ll just keep calling.” I’m not trying to sound annoying, it’s just the truth.
“Car accident. They think she unbuckled her seatbelt to pick up a pacifier in the backseat during a torrential downpour, and they collided with an 18-wheeler. Both of them gone, instantly.” No. I touch my fingers to my lips absentmindedly because there are no words that could come out of my mouth to make anything he just said better.
I try, though. “I-I’m very sad for your loss. I’m sad for Amy and I’m sad for Tallulah, and I’m sad for you.” There’s a choked, gruff mumble that comes through the phone. It’s a bit of an affirming sound.
“Okay. I-I’ll let you go then,” I say, not entirely sure he’s still on the line after some time has passed.
“Okay,” is all he says, then hangs up. I set my phone down on my desk and spend the rest of the afternoon thinking about life and how precarious it is. How transient and heartbreaking the world can be. How I’m homesick even though I’m sitting in my childhood home. I’m thinking how…I should be with Jules and May right now.
I grab my purse and head towards Mom’s care facility with purpose in my stride.