Chapter Twenty-Eight
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Joan packed two containers of Patty’s beef jerky to bring with her to see Jamie in the hospital. After Landstuhl in Germany, where the worst of his injuries were treated, he’d been transferred to Bethesda and then to California. Joan flew down to San Diego to meet him.
Jamie had a private room with butter-colored walls and wood chairs for visitors. When Joan arrived, he was seated in bed with the TV on.
“The jerky isn’t as good as before,” Jamie said, chewing. He muted the TV. “I think Patty used to make it spicier.”
“It tastes the same to me,” Joan said. The jerky was drier, but she would never admit this.
She had rehearsed what to do on the way in: how she would behave, the casual manner with which she would regard his injury.
In one smooth motion she lifted the blanket to reveal Jamie’s knee.
He had not walked in over three weeks at that point, and she quailed at the pale and twisted flesh.
To her it did not resemble a knee but rather something moldable, like clay.
Joan could feel Jamie watching and kept her face still.
“I’m starting physical therapy,” Jamie said.
“Good, good. Listen to everything the doctors tell you.”
“They said if I work hard, I could walk again.”
“Of course you will.”
“They’ll take me back, won’t they?” he burst forth. “They’ll let me deploy again?”
Why would you want to go anywhere for these people? Joan wanted to shout. Look what they’ve done to you!
After she returned to her hotel from the hospital, Joan sat on the bed with her hands clasped.
The entire half hour–long drive back she’d been disturbed—the tall palms, the neon sport utility vehicles, the distant glimpses of the ocean through traffic—all these shining colors had darkened in her consciousness and then hung there, a rolling storm cloud of unease.
But why? Jamie’s injury had been terrible, but ultimately it meant he had come home.
While not the best of scenarios, it was also not the worst, and the worst was what she’d so feared.
And yet there was a narrative neatness to the situation that Joan disliked.
She had felt, strongly, that something would happen to Jamie in Iraq.
That he had returned home with what was, in the end, a serious but not catastrophic injury, well—it felt to her as if the universe had taken something else instead.
Nick Bregman’s mother, of course, had been dealt a different narrative.
Joan had struggled with how to contact the woman, whom she had met only once, although it had been a nice once, at lunch after navy graduation.
Joan recalled how Jamie had been so nervous—he’d pulled her aside less than a block before they arrived at the restaurant.
“You have to behave,” he said.
“Behave?”
“Nick’s mom is more conservative than you might be used to. So you can’t do that thing you sometimes do.”
“ What thing?”
“You know. When you answer questions bluntly and pretend you don’t know it’s rude because English isn’t your first language.”
Joan had been indignant, and then just to prove him wrong, she’d had a lovely time at lunch, although she didn’t have to try—it really had been easy.
She and Carly discussed gardening and bonded over the fact that neither of their sons drank coffee.
“Nick won’t even chance decaf ,” Carly exclaimed, and the two laughed.
Joan understood from Jamie’s hints that Carly might not share her political views.
She and Carly were around the same age, however; they had each been married and then widowed.
They had more in common than Jamie realized.
Joan settled on writing Carly a letter expressing her condolences. Two weeks later, Carly called Joan. She remembered Joan from the lunch, she said, and how only the two of them drank coffee.
“That was one of the last times I saw Nick,” Carly said. “At that restaurant. You know what’s been bothering me is I can’t remember what he ate.”
“I could ask Jamie,” Joan said, and then she regretted her words, as she shouldn’t have mentioned her son was still alive.
“I keep thinking about God,” Carly said. “Guessing at what His plans might be. Nick’s father was Jewish, but after we divorced, I let that go. I visit another church now and I’ve come to see that it’s a blessing, what happened to Nick.”
“I understand,” Joan murmured, even though she didn’t, not at all. After they hung up she sat on the ground and cried, great gulping sobs.
Jamie was medically discharged from the navy and returned to the Bay Area. The apartment he found was two miles from the townhouse. Joan did not allow herself to go as far as to believe he deliberately meant to live near her.
“I’ll cover the deposit,” Joan said. “And rent until you’ve decided what you want to do next.”
“No, I have savings,” Jamie said. His right leg was weak, and he had a distinct limp as he helped unload the dishwasher.
Joan recalled how strong Jamie had been as a teenager, his fast running and beautiful form.
He had liked to watch nature documentaries after school and was quietly upset when the prey was eaten.
She observed him putting away glasses in a high cabinet and did not offer to help.
Jamie did not speak about his time in Iraq or his friend dying.
He would reference his injury, though not what caused it.
My knee is messed up, was what he’d say.
In a year his limp would go away, but it returned in cold weather.
Within a few months he started work at a technology company called Atom, which Joan recognized from the news. She added it to her stock tracker.
After Jamie’s injury, Joan became a quieter person.
It didn’t make much of a difference at the café—most customers were there to talk, not listen.
The staff were used to not just listening but also watching, and unbeknownst to Joan, they began to watch for her as well.
And so Joan too became a customer of sorts of the Satisfaction Café; Tracy learned to sit with her during quiet periods and tell stories about the customers; Patty knew Joan usually lost energy in the early afternoon and would bring over two mugs of black coffee and a plate of biscotti.
Gina, the chef, decided to study Chinese food; she learned to make Joan’s favorite dumplings, chopping and salting the cabbage just so.
Sometimes Jamie would visit after work. Joan bought big glass jars and filled them with all his favorite candies and snacks from childhood and displayed them behind the register.
They were ostensibly for customers, but really it was to tempt Jamie.
“What’s this?” he’d ask when he came in.
“Japanese rice crackers? Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Who’s going to eat all these?
” But he always helped himself to a scoop or two.
One afternoon Trevor Hall came in to see Joan.
He was older now—well, they were all older.
He appeared a tiny bit shorter as well, and his hair flashed mostly gray in the sun.
Joan had seen Trevor and Dina on occasion over the years, though their contact had lessened after Bill died, and then the Halls themselves divorced.
From Dina’s telling, Trevor had quickly moved on, to a young blonde named Stacey.
Joan learned this at lunch, to which she’d invited Dina several years back. They’d met at an Italian restaurant.
“Maybe we can do this again,” Joan had said once they were done with espresso.
In response, Dina grasped her arm across the table.
“We’re too old to pretend, aren’t we?” she asked, blinking her narrow blue eyes.
It was the rudest thing Dina had ever said to Joan, and yet the two women regarded each other with genuine warmth.
Outside the restaurant, they’d embraced for a moment and gone their separate ways.
Joan greeted Trevor and sat with him in a corner.
He told her about the divorce and his relationships after, and she told him about Jamie.
“I wish he’d never deployed,” she said. “He could have just stopped at the SEALs. It would have been enough for his résumé.” For some reason, maybe because he’d been an investment banker, Joan was under the impression that Jamie was extremely résumé-oriented.
“From what you describe, that wouldn’t have made him happy.”
“I don’t know if he wants to talk about it.
I try, and he just sits there.” Joan realized this had been her complaint about Bill as well—that he didn’t like to discuss emotions.
It felt strange to be saying it about her adult son; she had the sensation of vertigo, of falling into a hall of identical patterns.
“He’ll talk when he’s ready. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but certain topics, sons may not want to speak of with their mothers.”
Naturally it hurt her feelings, but Joan believed him. She wished Jamie still had Bill to talk to: a parent who had grown up in America, as Jamie had.
Trevor rose to leave. “Dentist appointment. But I’ll come see you again.”
“Yes. Sure.”
“No, I will. Soon.” He grabbed her hand, and it seemed to Joan exactly what he had done so many years earlier—it was as if she were finally getting to relive a dream, to summon it forth as she might open a favorite chapter of a book.
Joan curled her finger over his thumb to hold it there. “Do you think it’s a waste we didn’t do this earlier?” she asked, her heart jumping a little. “You could have come over and seen if we got along.”
“Well, you were married then. We both were. It would have been a mess.”
“It could have been fun,” Joan said lightly. Now that they were in the future, the suffering of a theoretical past seemed worth it, since it would be all over with by now.
“I should tell you,” Trevor said quietly, “that I’m seeing someone.”
Joan glanced at him, surprised he took her words so seriously, as if she were asking him to marry her.
She had thought they were only flirting, being a little silly, two old friends happy to see each other.
And now Trevor didn’t look rakish and handsome, as he had just moments earlier, but more like an old man past his prime and then that’s what he became: an old man.
Part of Joan wished she hadn’t seen this side of him; she wished he could have stayed as he was in her memory, a younger point of eternal possibility.
I suppose nothing stays as good as it might have been in your head, she thought. I should know that—half of the café’s customers are here because of precisely this problem.
But Trevor came back to visit, as he’d said he would, and then visited again, and again.
Because Joan still listened to an old-fashioned radio, the sort with a tape deck, he brought her a cassette, and Joan marveled at her first mix tape.
She listened to the songs, paying close attention to their lyrics, and imagined the messages they might contain for her.
Because Joan had never experienced it before, she didn’t know this was an activity for the young.
Joan took Trevor to the empty lot that was Falling House, filled with weeds and wildflowers, and they spoke of the memories they’d had there.
At some point he was no longer in a relationship, and they saw each other more.
On occasion they slept together, at either his home or hers, and it was easier than Joan had expected—he was considerate, and so was she.
Joan didn’t ask if he saw anyone else. Trevor didn’t ask either (Joan wasn’t seeing anyone else).
But not only this: over time she and Trevor became friends, and then good friends—she spoke to him about her business, and he gave advice.
He sent her long emails, thoughts he had after a thrilling concert, or just musings, and she would think about them and respond.
Some weeks they spoke constantly, multiple times a day, and then a week or more would pass when they didn’t speak at all.
It was fine. It flowed so easily. Sometimes there were people like this who might be a part of your life, who you wished could be a bigger part—but it wasn’t meant to be, and you had only that limited share.
Mostly when Joan thought about this she was accepting, but other times there was a hollowness inside.
At the idea of having been with Trevor when they were young, of having watched the ocean roll against the crest in Big Sur, of going to a concert and planning together for the vast life ahead.
Of all the things she would never experience because she was past that stage, and in such moments she would have to go and sit by herself for a while.