Page 123 of Jackie

At least they have finally stopped asking me to change my clothes.

—

After two in the morning, I think of it again. I’d thought of it earlier, then pushed the thought away. It was harder than any other thought. I go to find Bobby.

“What about your father?” I say.

“Teddy and Eunice have flown to Hyannis Port.”

I nod. I feel suddenly very cold, very still, like a hinge has snapped.

“Is there anything you need, Jackie? Anything I can get you?”

I shake my head. There’s a chair nearby. I suddenly have to sit down.

Blank, I want to say. What I need is to be empty, unbroken, blank.

Like the ceiling or the sky.

…

Four a.m. The motorcade winds through the wet city night. A light rain has begun. Bobby and I are with Jack again in the back of the ambulance. We should take a different turn, I almost say. The three of us. Take a turn and drive off.

“How much do you think they’ve done so far on the East Room?” I say instead.

“I’m sure they’re taking care of it,” Bobby says.

A pressure in my chest. I’m on the verge of starting to tell him again what happened, but I don’t. And I don’t explain that when I am not thinking about what happened, I am thinking about how an asymptote is a line that continually approaches an axis but never meets it.

The word asymptote comes from the Greek, not falling together.

In the back of the ambulance, Bobby pulls me to him. It is sudden and clumsy, his grief. My mouth faces into his jacket, my cheek near his chest; I can feel the thud of his heart, the rise and fall of his breath.

“I’m planning to walk,” I say.

“That might not work,” he says. “But we can talk about it later.” He is trying to calm me. His voice is kind and soft, and I wish I could let go and lie down in it.

—

In my head, I’ve begun to make a list of readings. No dull sermon. No Twenty-third Psalm. Jack never liked that. I want to find words he would love. I remember a coda he once made up to the chapter in Ecclesiastes: “There’s a time to fish and a time to cut bait.” We’d all laughed. “And now it’s time for a swim,” he’d said, standing up, strolling out the door.

—

In the car now, I want to keep driving. I don’t want the car to turn into the northwest gate.

The honor guard is there to meet us, young Marines in formation, their faces rinsed with rain. Beyond them, the drive is lit with flaming pots.

“We’d just begun to figure everything out,” I say to Bobby.

—

Inside, the staff is lined up. I cannot look at them as I walk by. I start to, then it’s too much.

Mr. West steps forward.

“Where are the children?” I say.

“Safe in their rooms, Mrs. Kennedy.”

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