Page 122 of Jackie

I glance around the room—my mother, Hughdie, Ethel.

“When I start to tell them,” I say, “they shrink. It’s too much, I think.”

“To hell with them,” McNamara says. That makes me smile.

“Dr. Walsh says I should say it as often as I need to and try to get rid of it.”

He nods.

“You see, the whole front of his head jumped out. He went to reach for it, but it wasn’t there. Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes,” he says.

So I tell him the story. I tell it again, second by second, the way it happened, and McNamara just sits there listening, until I come to the end.

“I don’t think he should be buried in Brookline,” I say, “even though Patrick is there. What do you think?”

“We can work it all out,” he says.

“You’ll help me?”

“I will.”

He is sitting on the floor near my feet. I am on a low stool. Eight times since I came into this room, someone has asked if I would like to change my clothes. But Bob is not asking me this. He is just looking up at me with those clean wire-rim glasses, that arrow-neat part in his hair, and his eyes with their strength, their understanding of violence, decisions, consequence.

“Can I tell you again what happened?” I say.

—

Late now, after 1:00 a.m. Already Saturday. Everything is taking so long. Mr. West and Bill Walton have sent a message from the White House. They’ve found the Lincoln book. It wasn’t in the library, but they’ve found it and they have begun. And Bunny Mellon has arrived at the White House, Pam tells me. Lovely, generous Bunny. She flew through a tremendous thunderstorm, but she is there now, and she will do the flowers.

“Pam, please tell Bunny to use the blue vases.”

“Yes, that’s what you said.”

“Those large blue urns France gave us.”

“Yes.”

“Bunny will know what to do. Nothing too melancholy. It should be like spring.”

Pam looks down at her notebook and starts to cry, like these details have gotten the best of her. I put an arm around her. “Oh, Pam,” I say. “I’m so sorry. This is such a terrible thing for you.”

—

They keep telling me to rest.

I keep wishing you were here to tell them to shut the hell up.

They want me to rest, because they think that when I wake up, I will be like them again. I will see the world as they do. I will be able to fathom tomorrow. They do not understand that if I lie down, the dark will devour me.

—

“You should go home, Jackie,” Ethel says.

“I’m not leaving until Jack does,” I say.

—

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