Page 31 of The Space Between

Jeanie nods as she breathes in and out a few times. "I understand that feeling. I watched my mom struggle after my dad died, and I think she felt utterly helpless sometimes. Like, if she'd done something different, maybe he would have lived. Which is--just as it is in your case--entirely untrue. Obviously my mother had no say over whether my father went to war and died there."

Bill is watching her now, so she leans her back against the bench, arms still folded.

"Can you tell me more about that?" Bill squints as the sun falls further in the sky, the light of it hitting his face directly. "If you don't want to talk about losing your dad, then that's okay, but I'd love to know more about your life. About you."

Jeanie blinks a few times; she's taken aback at his request. It's not often that she's asked to talk about herself. But she's also aware that maybe listening to her talk is a tactic of Bill's to get his mind off his own troubles.

"I'm from Chicago," she says. "Which you know. My mom, Melva, had me when she was twenty. She and my dad married young," Jeanie says, feeling the unexpected sensation of tears as she talks about her mother. "After he died, it was just us, and we didn't have much money. My mom didn't know, but I listened to her cry herself to sleep every night."

"Oh, Jeanie," Bill says. She can feel him watching her, but it's her turn to squint into the fading sunlight.

"It's fine. We were fine." Jeanie brushes her fingers against the end of her nose and keeps going. "I would sit outside her room as she cried, and then when she finally stopped, I'd go to sleep myself. I swore then that someday I'd get a really good job and make sure I could take care of my mom."

"I bet she appreciates that."

"Well, in the end, it seems that I'm working a great job just to look after myself. Unlike my mom," Jeanie says, trying to sound nonchalant, "love has never found me, so I'm just a girl out in the world on my own. My mom remarried when I was still young--to one of the teachers at my school--and then they had twins right away. That would be my brother, Patrick, who I've mentioned to you, and my sister Angela. I adore them." Jeanie's eyes soften and she smiles at the thought of them; she's so proud of her brother and sister, even if Patrick is going through a tough time.

"You did mention Patrick," Bill says. "Is he still getting up to mischief?"

"Nothing that will land him in jail, I hope," Jeanie says. "But he's definitely a teenage boy." She pauses, thinking of her sister. "But Angela is something else. She wants to be a teacher, just like her dad--my stepfather, Wendell Macklin--and she's been dating the same boy for two years. They'll probably end up getting married." Jeanie sighs. "Sometimes I wish it had been that easy for me: find a nice boy, settle down, be happy. But it hasn't worked out that way."

"Well, I hate to break this to you, but sometimes settling down doesn't equal automatic happiness."

Jeanie glances at Bill. "You weren't happy when you got married the first time?" She clamps her lips shut for a moment, then puts her fingertips to her lips. "I'm sorry. That's none of my business."

"Oh, heck no, Jeanie. You're sharing with me and being honest, and I'm going to return the favor." He thinks for a minute. "You know, I was happy when Margaret and I got married. We were young--so young--but it felt right. She'd always been the apple of my eye, but then we got married, and soon after that she was pregnant. I think the whole thing just went so quickly, and she was always prone to these...these moods, you know?"

Jeanie frowns. "Like she would get angry with you?"

"More than that," Bill says, shaking his head. "She would be raging one minute and then laughing the next. She was so unpredictable. And I never knew what might set her off. You have no idea how hard it is to maintain a balance when you don't know which version of your wife you're coming home to that day.”

“That sounds hard to navigate.”

“It was.” Bill puts his hands between his knees and hunches his back so that his shoulders are rounded; Jeanie has the urge to put an arm around him, but she doesn’t. “And I was so youngthat I don’t think I did it well.” He sighs. “After Violet came too early—Violet, that’s what we named our daughter—Margaret just checked out. Actually, it’s probably not even fair to say that, because I don’t think it was a choice, like, ‘Hey, I can’t do this anymore!’ but more like she just mentally couldn’t do it.”

“I can’t imagine how she must have felt.” Jeanie tries to put herself in the shoes of a woman who has lost a baby but can’t. Her heart can imagine the pain, but it feels like secondhand trauma; she has no personal basis for understanding the kind of love a mother feels for a child. “I’m so sorry, Bill,” she says quietly, finally reaching over and laying a hand on his shoulder gently for a moment. “For all of it.”

Bill blows out a long, loud breath and stands up forcefully. He walks a few steps over to where the water laps against the wooden dock. “It’s time for me to pack it all up and put it away, Jeanie, and I know that.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his gray work pants. “You can’t go on forever whining about things that happened in your past, and no one wants to be around someone who gets jumpy every time something reminds them of the bad stuff.”

There is real pain in Bill’s voice as he says this, and Jeanie wants to understand. She gets up from the bench, leaving her purse there, and walks over to stand next to him. “Do you think that’s you? Do you think you get jarred by reminders?” She dares a look up at him, and his eyes are steely and focused on the water again.

Bill is quiet for so long that Jeanie isn’t even sure he’s going to answer, but he finally speaks. “I have these spells, Jeanie.” He turns just his head and looks down into her eyes. “I have to shut myself away from everyone, and I never talk about them.”

A small and merciful breeze cuts through the humidity for a second, ruffling Jeanie’s hair and the edge of her skirt as she takes this in.

“Does Jo know how you feel?”

“I think so. She must. But we don’t discuss it.” He clears his throat. “It makes me feel weak, admitting that I can’t just handle everything. And it’s extremely dangerous to say it out loud, considering my job and the implications it would have if I cracked under pressure.”

There is a pleading look in his eyes, a look that’s begging Jeanie to understand that she needs to keep this to herself, and for a moment she remembers the way Vance was ready to prey on Bill’s weakness. She swallows, but doesn’t look away from him.

“I understand,” she says softly. “I get it.”

The water before them ripples and glitters with the light of the waning sun. Jeanie and Bill hold one another’s gaze. It feels like they’re standing on the edge of something—a precipice of sorts—and Jeanie doesn’t want to fall in. But Bill’s eyes…they’re so blue. And so questioning. He looks like a man who wants to be understood, to be heard, to be loved. Just like she’d wanted to wrap an arm around his shoulders, she desperately wants to reach up and put her hand to his cheek, brushing her fingers against the stubble he’s grown by the end of the work day. It takes all her willpower not to.

“Hey!” comes a loud, cheery voice from the parking lot. “Jeanie! Bill!”

They spin around in unison looking as guilty as two kids caught stealing fresh cookies straight out of the oven.

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