Page 42 of Snowflakes Over Starr's Fall
17
“This turkey looks nice, Mom.” With a determined smile, Jack prodded the slice of rubbery turkey on his mother’s plate. “With a little cranberry sauce?” He speared a single, gelatinous cranberry and sawed off a bite of the turkey before proffering the fork hopefully at his mother, who stared at him without speaking, her expression vacant.
Today had not been a good day for her. With a sigh, Jack sat back in his seat and looked around the nursing home’s dining room, decorated in shades of bland beige and olive green, with cheerful, innocuous-looking prints of flowers interspersed on the walls. Other residents of the memory care unit were enjoying their Thanksgiving dinner—or not. Most of them had the same vacant stare as his mother’s, although one woman was eating with gusto. Jack would not have realized she had dementia save for when she leaned over to him, winking, and asked, “Hey, hon, do you know how much I have to tip in this joint?”
He’d almost laughed, except there was something so desperately sad about the calculating expression in her bright eyes. She obviously had no idea she was in a locked memory unit.
“I don’t think you need to tip here,” he’d told her with a small smile, and she’d beamed at him, delighted.
“Really, no tip? Wow.” She’d shaken her head. “Classy place.”
Indeed, Jack thought with a wry weariness. His mother had picked this nursing home back when she’d first been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years ago, and she’d still possessed the cognitive acumen to plan her own care. She’d grown up not too far away, in southern Massachusetts, and she’d wanted to be near her childhood home, never mind that nobody was still around from those days.
Back then, Jack had visited the home with her; to his shame he remembered checking his phone several times during the half-hour tour, jangling the keys in his pocket, and generally, he feared, acting like an ass. Looking back, his mother must have been both hugely shaken and afraid to be facing such an overwhelming challenge in life, and Jack knew he had not been there emotionally for her. At all.
He’d been impatient to focus on what he’d thoughtreallymattered… his latest investment, making money, the New York Stock Exchange. They’d been more important to him than his frail mother. He felt a deep shame that he’d been that man, and not even that long ago. It was, he reflected, hard to excuse.
“How about another bite, Mom?” he suggested gently as he handed her the fork. She took it listlessly, holding it in her hand without taking a bite, so a crimson droplet of cranberry sauce fell back onto her plate. “And pumpkin pie for dessert,” he told her jovially, like he was coaxing a child, and he was rewarded with a heartbreakingly small smile.
Jack sat back in his seat, a soft sigh escaping him. The last few days had been particularly jarring; they had been the first time he’d left Starr’s Fall for any appreciable length of time, and he’d found he missed the little town he’d once been so determined to avoid, which had surprised him, because he’d really been looking forward to a long weekend with old friends in New York—if friends was really the right term. Former business colleagues and friendly acquaintances might be a more accurate description, but when his old colleague Will Bryant had reached out, asking him to come to a last-minute house party, Jack had agreed more on principle than anything else. He was enough of a hermit as it was, so he really felt he should accept any invitation. And he’d been deeply curious as to whether he could slot back into his old life like he’d never left.
He’d got his answer to that question pretty quickly. He couldn’t. Not easily, anyway, even though he’d wanted to. All Will and his wife and their so-called friends seemed to want to talk about was money, or the trappings of money. Their new summer house, the trips to the Italian lakes or Dubai, the latest Wall Street gossip, every guy checking the NYSE on their phones every two seconds like he had a physical tic.No onehad seemed happy—the men restless, impatient and shifty-eyed, the women high-strung and nervous, braying with laughter at things that weren’t funny, and everyone drinking way too much, to anesthetize themselves in the midst of their smugly happy lives—Bloody Marys or mimosas at breakfast, a bottle of wine or three at lunch, whiskey and cocktails in the evening, another nightcap to round off the day. It was the way Jack had lived once upon a time, and happily so, but that weekend he discovered he’d wanted to leave about five minutes after he’d arrived.
Perhaps the worst part of the whole experience had been the way all these former friends had treated him—like he’d died, and they’d managed to resurrect his corpse. No one asked him about his new life, just disparaged having to live so far away from everything. Several people had assumed he’d be “back in the game” as soon as his doctor gave the all-clear, because of course that had to be what he wanted… right?
“We’re just waiting to see what you do next,” Will had said as he’d thrown back his single malt. “Don’t stay away too long, buddy, all right?” he added, clapping him on the shoulder. “We need your energy.”
“I’ll see,” Jack had murmured. There had been a complicated part of him that had so desperatelywantedto slot back into what everyone else was doing. Had longed for it to be that simple, that easy. He still missed the energy of his old life, the sense of purpose and power, the simplicity of skating over so much of life in order to completely focus on a job he knew he could do, and really well at that.
Actually living—being, relating—was a lot harder. Especially after the text he’d got from Jenna yesterday.
While his mom took another bite of turkey, Jack slid out his phone and stared at the message he still hadn’t replied to.
I’ve been thinking of you and wishing we could have continued our conversation from the other night. There was more I wanted to say.
It had been enough to make his whole body tingle, his heart leaping with both excitement and hope, because he knew it must have cost Jenna a lot to admit so much. She was one of the most emotionally cautious people he knew. And he’d been all ready to fire a “me too, when can we talk”-type response before he’d hesitated. Not out of reluctance, or even caution, but simply because when it came to Jenna he really didn’t want to mess this up.
She’d obviously been very badly hurt by the city schmuck who had messed with her heart years before. Jack didn’t want to do the same thing, by rushing in with possibilities or promises he couldn’t deliver on, because he didn’t have everything figured out—about Jenna, about their situation, about his own life or his own heart.
It had been his MO as a venture capitalist, never to take that leap before he knew everything about what he was getting into. He’d known some guys who liked to latch on to the latest hot thing and run with it wherever it took them, enjoying the leaps and dives, weathering the plunges and exulting in the highs. They’d thrived on the risk-taking, treating venture capitalism like an extreme sport, willing to sustain a few bruises and breaks in the process. Jack had always taken a more cautious, cool-headed approach. He observed, he researched, he considered all the angles and then, and only then, did he make a move. Fast. And he succeeded. Always.
He was emotionally astute enough, if, he acknowledged, if only just, to recognize that comparing an investment to a relationship might not be the healthiest thing to do, but thereweresimilarities. And Jack needed to figure out just what he wanted from Jenna, what he could offer her, before he promised or even told her anything. But he was conscious it had now been nearly twenty-four hours without a reply, and she was understandably most likely waiting for something from him.
“You’re a good boy, Jack.” His mother’s voice was soft, and Jack jerked up from his phone, feeling guilty for ignoring her, as she put down her fork and patted his hand. “A good boy.”
He so wasn’t. He’d seen his mommaybeonce a year before the Alzheimer’s diagnosis. After his dad died, Jack had actually had his assistant help with the arrangements, rather than doing it himself. He had a vivid and now extremely uncomfortable memory of asking his assistant to call his mother back about the message she’d left regarding what casket they should choose for his father, and whether he should be buried in his best suit. The memory of just how callous he’d been, and worse, without even realizing it, still made him cringe.
Funny how a life-threatening heart attack could put everything into startling perspective. And sitting here with his mom as she waited out her days… well, it made him want to jump on living his own life to the full.
But was that with Jenna?And was he crazy, thinking this way? Why not just have fun and see where it went? That’s what most men would do. But already Jack knew that wouldn’t work. Not with Jenna’s history and not the way he operated, and in any case, neither of them was getting any younger. Who wanted to waste time, especially if, on the fringes of his mind, he had some hazy ideas about marriage and children? Which maybewascrazy.
“Mom…” Jack asked suddenly, “how did you know that Dad was the one? For you, I mean?” His parents, Jack had always thought, had lived very humdrum, middle-class lives, and yet they’d been so very obviously happy together, in a quiet, uncomplicated way, and there was, he was coming to realize, nothing at all humdrum about that.
“Your father…” his mother replied, her voice wavering as her expression clouded. Jack’s heart lurched. Did his mom even remember his dad? The thought was heartbreaking.
Then her face cleared, and she gave him a beatific smile. “I knew he was the one because when he saw me his expression changed.” She let out a little, girlish laugh, so unlike the usual sounds she made—weary sighs, the occasional groan. “His eyes sparkled, and he looked sohappy.And I knew I wanted to be with someone who was always so pleased to see me.” His mother cocked her head, her vacant gaze, for a brief moment, turning both gentle and shrewd. “If you can’t put a spring in her step, Jack, then you’re looking in the wrong place.”
Did he put a spring in Jenna’s step? Jack realized he had no idea… but maybe he could find out. With a chuckle, he patted his mother’s hand. “Wise advice, Mom,” he told her. “Wise advice.”
