Page 119 of Jackie

The doctor gets small in his white coat when I say this. Down the hall, Dave Powers is raising his voice to someone—the medical examiner, who is saying the autopsy must be held here according to Texas law. Their voices bounce off the linoleum, Dave yelling now, saying the vice president is waiting at Love Field for Mrs. Kennedy, and Mrs. Kennedy is waiting for the president, and the autopsy can be held in Washington no matter what the stupid Texas law says about homicide and jurisdiction. None of it matters. They argue, then figure it out. It is almost time to go.Jack is leaving soon, and I will leave with him. At a certain point,the casket with the large handles glides out of Trauma Room1, and I know he is in it. I stand, and the casket is cool to the touch, and we walk outside to the white hearse. When Clint asks me to ride in the car behind, I have to explain, “No, Mr. Hill, I’m going to ride with the president.” I climb into the back of the hearse with Jack. Clint climbs in too, and we ride with our knees scrunched up to our chests.

Crusts of blood on my stockings. My left glove is missing. For a moment I wonder where I left it.

—

I should not have allowed you to come here.

I should have listened, seen it, known ahead of time or in the instant.

I should have pulled you down.

—

The casket won’t fit through the door of the plane. They try to wedge it in on an angle. I watch from the bottom of the steps; heat rising off the tarmac prickles my skin. I could tell them this won’t work. It will never fit. The men at the top with the casket exchange a few words, but from the base of the steps I can’t hear. Clint is with them. He glances back at me—a warning look, I realize, a moment before they break the handles off, that awful sound of metal ripped from wood. They jam the coffin through the door of the plane. I walk slowly up the stairs and follow it inside.

—

In the Presidential Cabin, someone has laid out a dress for me, a new jacket.

A light knock on the door. Lady Bird comes in.

“What if I hadn’t been there?” I say.

“Let’s get you changed,” Lady Bird says gently.

“No. I want them to see what they have done to Jack.”

She doesn’t seem to quite know how to answer that.

“Could you please send in Mr. Hill,” I say. “I need to give him a message for my mother and Miss Shaw. About the children.”

—

On the flight, I sit with Jack and the Irish in the rear of the plane. The crew has taken out the seats to make room for us. I do not take my hand off the coffin. Someone somewhere is eating soup. The smell makes me feel sick. They grumble about Johnson. Did he really need to take the oath of office in Dallas? Couldn’t he have waited? Johnson told them he talked to Bobby and that’s what Bobby told him to do, which Bobby never would have said. At one point, they break off, realizing I am watching them. There is blood on Dave Powers’s suit. For a moment I stare at it. I tell them about Abraham Lincoln’s funeral and the book in the White House library. I ask if one of them could please make sure Pam remembered to message J. B. West to find that book so we can use it to plan.

“We are going to have a funeral like Lincoln’s,” I say. “A riderless horse. I need to read again exactly what they did with that horse—the tack, how it was led. We will do that.”

—

The flight continues. They tell stories about Jack. They drink whiskey. They’ve insisted on pouring me a glass like I’m one of them now. They go on talking. I remember a late afternoon last summer. I was with the children, driving, just the three of us alone in the car. Up ahead was a bend in the road, and as the car took that turn, a slant of evening light shot through the green, the light like a portal; my heart kicked over, and I felt a sense of hurtling wind and speed, the future rushing through.

…

Moments after we touch down at Andrews Air Force Base and come to a stop, there’s a commotion at the front of the plane. Bobby. Pushing down the aisle, he blows right past Lyndon, Lady Bird, everyone, until he reaches me.

“Hey, Jackie. I’m here.”

His face is strange. Bright. Like someone who’s come through a desert. I just look at him, trying to catch up with that weird, ravaged distance in his face. He puts his arms around me, and I feel something deep inside dissolve.

There’s a helicopter, he says, waiting to take me to the children.

“Oh no,” I have to explain. “I am staying with Jack.”

—

Someone somewhere starts to cry.

—

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