Page 124 of Jackie

What an odd word to use. Safe.

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They carry Jack into the East Room. Swags of black crepe. The catafalque identical to the one used for Lincoln. Just as I asked.

It is only a few steps from the doorway to where they’ve set him down. I kneel, my forehead pressed against the wood. I kiss the edge of the flag and pray to a god that has ceased to exist, and when I stand up again, I am like light rising; I’ve left everything behind—hope, faith, rage, sorrow, even fear. My body is smoke. Beyond the doorway is the hall that leads upstairs to the bedroom where I will not sleep and the desk in the West Sitting Hall where I will sit and write thousands of words over the next few days. Lists of names to be invited. Lists of readings and music and hymns. There will be cross-outs and carets, the tip of my pen working into the page.

There is only one way this can be done, and that is how it will be done. I will walk next to Jack. It will not be Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, where Patrick is buried. It will be Arlington.

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Later someone will write: She bore the grief of a nation.

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I didn’t do it for them. I was never that good or that generous. I did it so the children would have something noble to hold on to. I did it for you.

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In the doorway of the East Room, I pause. Jack is on the catafalque behind us. Bobby is beside me. What will happen to you? I start to ask him. That same thing I’ve been asking each of them in turn. It bursts then, the wall in my heart giving way. I don’t realize I’m falling until he steps in to catch me. He pulls me against him, an arm around my waist, his face filled with a pain I don’t want to see. Somewhere in the room, someone is crying again, then someone else starts. Together, Bobby and I walk past the crying and out of the room.

—

Provi is waiting upstairs. I take off my clothes and lay the suit on the bed.

“Fold it, please, Provi,” I say. “Put it in a bag, the shoes and hat as well, even the stockings. Find the box Chez Ninon sent with it. Don’t let anything be cleaned. Just put it in the bag and put the bag in the box. Make sure my mother gets it.”

Provi takes a white towel and lays the stockings carefully into it. Bits of dark stuff flake out onto the white.

I run a bath. When the tub is full, I step into it.

…

I lie down on Jack’s side of the bed, that awful mattress like concrete. I do not sleep. It grows light outside. Raining. The wet shines on the windowpane.

I get up and write out a list of names to be invited.

The Bartletts

The Bradlees

Bill Walton

Aristotle Socrates Onassis

The Ormsby-Gores

On a separate sheet of paper, another list:

- Caparisoned horse

- Cadets from Ireland

- Black Watch Highlander regiment

—

Because you loved it when they came to play, you sat with me and the children on the South Portico to listen. There is a photograph of the four of us there, our backs to the camera, four heads, two light, two dark—Caroline’s small white gloved hand resting on your shoulder.

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