Now it was Before, During, After…
And just Beginning.
Jack…'
Jack looked up, distracted. As he did, he felt a slit of cold air slither across the back of his neck and he shivered.
'Jack?'
It took him a moment to focus, frustrated that he'd only managed to get a quarter of the way through the newspaper article he was reading. Sitting at the small, round wrought-iron table on the terrace of his penthouse apartment, he'd been startled to hear the soft voice calling his name. Something told him that he'd been called three or four times already.
'It's too cold to be sitting out there,' the voice said. 'Why don't you come in now?'
It was Mattie, the housekeeper who'd been with them for twelve years. Talking to him tenderly, the way a nanny speaks to a favorite but willful child. When Caroline was alive, the rail-thin black woman with the round glasses and silvery hair used to come every Tuesday and Friday, did the cleaning and shopping and any errands that needed doing. Since the shooting, she'd come in every day to look after him. He hadn't asked, she just appeared on a Monday and said, 'I changed my schedule.' Never asked him if he'd wanted her in more often, never asked about money. Just took over and added cooking to her other responsibilities. For the first two months, he had someone living with him. A male nurse named Willie. But that didn't matter. Mattie began showing up at nine every morning. When she realized that Jack had trouble sleeping through the night, that he almost always woke earlier, she showed up at eight or seven, sometimes as early as six, so she could prepare his breakfast and make coffee. She had a key to the apartment, could let herself in whenever she pleased. Jack had recently discovered that from time to time she returned in the middle of the night. He'd awakened at two o'clock one morning to find her sitting in the living room, watching television with the sound turned down so low it was barely audible. He hadn't gotten out of bed, just sensed that someone was in the apartment other than Willie. When he called out, an embarrassed Mattie came into his bedroom. She came once in a while, she told him, just to check up on him, to make sure he was all right because she knew he'd never call her that late, even if he needed something. She knew Willie could handle any emergency, but she didn't trust him to do the little things, she said. Dear, dear Mattie. Jack thought that she missed Caroline almost as much as he did. And she looked so frightened for him now, watching him from inside the living room. So sad.
'They say it's going to rain. Maybe sleet. Why don't you just come in where it's warm?'
'I'm all right, Mattie,' he said. But that didn't satisfy her. She stood, left hand on her hip, staring out at him, frowning through the halfway-open sliding glass door. 'I'll be in in a few minutes. How's that?'
'Are you telling me the truth?' Her voice was edgeless, in no way accusing, almost a singsong.
'I promise.'
'Five minutes?'
'Yes. No more than five minutes.'
She nodded, not a hundred-percent pleased but accepting the compromise as the best she was going to get.
As soon as she'd walked briskly back to the kitchen, Jack returned to the routine he'd kept every morning since getting home from the hospital. It was the first thing he did each day: sit on his balcony and read the Charlottesville newspaper's account of Caroline's murder.
The location was important to him. They had bought the apartment because of this terrace, with all that it symbolized, so it didn't matter what the weather was. If it was raining, he had Mattie put up the umbrella that Caroline had installed as a sunshade. If it was cold, he put on a sweater. When he thought about his marriage, when he thought about them, he pictured the two of them sitting at this wrought-iron table, set up as close to the ledge as he could bring himself to go – over the years, he had learned his limit; his seat was exactly eight feet from the edge – having a gracious and comfortable breakfast, their knees brushing against each other, her hand grazing the top of his as she reached for a piece of toast or a spoonful of jam.
Having lost his concentration as a result of Mattie's interruption, Jack started over at the beginning of the article, painstakingly reading every word from the first sentence to the last. As always, he tried desperately to find some sort of meaning or solace, even something as simple as order, in what he read. But, as always, by the time he reached the end of the article, he found only randomness and chaos and infinite sadness.
From the front page of the Charlottesville Constitution, April 2:
… It is not known whether the suspect attended the party for Jack's opening, so it is not known exactly how he gained entrance to the office. Police believe that after the shooting, the suspect did not descend into the main room of the restaurant but instead climbed out the office window and pulled himself up onto the roof of the building. From there, he likely lowered himself onto an adjoining garden balcony, from which he would have had easy access to Water Street, where there are several nearby parking areas and it would not have been difficult to have a car waiting.
Police say they are putting all local resources into finding the suspect and they expect an arrest shortly.
Jack carefully folded the newspaper back up and set it down on the heavy iron chair next to him. Leaning forward, he reached for the coffeepot, stretching toward the center of the table. As he did, he instinctively flinched, but it was too late. He had been lost in his own reflections, so he was not quite prepared for the bolt of agony that arrived, streaking down from his right hip and magically running across his body to thunder through the joint of his left knee. Jack closed his eyes, realized he had hold of the coffeepot and that his hand was shaking, sudden, jarring tremors, so he forced his eyes open again, put the coffee down as slowly as he could manage. He took a deep breath, waited a full thirty seconds, forced himself to focus on the ticking second hand, then he steeled himself, reached for the pot once more. The pain came again but he was fully prepared for it this time and held on to the coffee, even grabbed hold of his cup and poured himself a second helping. He managed to drink it, at least a couple of quick sips, before the tremors in his hand made him set the cup down.
He stayed motionless, still as could be, until the pain became manageable. As he sat, frozen, he realized that among the many things that had changed for him over the past months, the biggest change by far was the pain. Yes, he could deal with it. It was not the kind of excruciating, mind-numbing pain he'd faced at the beginning of his rehab, when the simple act of turning over in bed seemed impossible and the gentlest of steps felt as if a sledgehammer were shattering his bones and a drill boring into his nerve endings. Nor was it as absolutely omnipresent as it had been after the shooting. He now had moments of relief, long minutes when his body was calm and peaceful, and he could almost sleep through the night now. But still, the pain dominated his life as nothing else ever had. He made no movements without being aware of it. He rarely had a thought that was totally separate from it. And most of all, he realized that he was afraid of it. Afraid of how much it limited him. Afraid of how mortal it made him feel. And just plain fucking afraid of how much it hurt.
Now it had subsided to the point where he could gingerly reach for the second newspaper, perched on the chair to his right. It was a much easier movement for him. He picked it up, hesitated, waiting to see how bad the next wave would be; finding it to be relatively minor, he turned to the article he already knew by heart and went on to the next step of his daily routine.
From the front page of the
