Page 86 of 28 Summers
Survived by a son, a daughter, and a grandson, it says in the last line.
Ursula’s hands are ice-cold. The exercise bike is in the basement of their condo unit, and as Ursula climbs the stairs to the second floor, where the bedrooms are, she wonders how to break the news to Jake.
She’ll wake him up gently, she decides, then hand him his reading glasses and let him see for himself.
She eases onto his side of the bed and studies his face. His hair is more gray than brown now. When did that happen? She realizes that although she sees him every day, she never reallylooksat him. Long marriages have peaks and valleys, she knows, and while Ursula’s career has been one peak after another, their marriage is surviving solely because of Jake’s steadfastness and his unflappable demeanor. Anyone else would have left her long ago.
When she touches the side of his face, he startles awake. It’s true that she never wakes him this way.
“What is it?” he says.
“I have bad news,” she says. “Here.” She offers him his glasses and points to the headline on the iPad.
Jake accepts the glasses and takes the iPad; Ursula watches his eyes scan the screen. He sucks in his breath and recoils. He drops the iPad, falls back into his pillows. “Oh God.”
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Ursula says. “At first, I thought it was Cooper, our Cooper, who died.”
“It’s Senior,” he whispers. “And Kitty.”
“Were you…close to them?” It embarrasses Ursula that she doesn’t know the answer to this. “I mean, obviously I know they’re Coop’s parents and we’ve been to all those weddings. But did you have a relationship with them beyond that?”
Jake shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Ursula,” he says. “Can you please give me a minute?”
He’s in shock, he needs to process this; Ursula gets that. Unfortunately, she has a Judiciary Committee hearing at nine so she needs to skedaddle. She goes the extra mile by bringing Jake his coffee while he’s in the shower.
“I’ll be home around seven, seven thirty,” she says. “Maybe in time for us to go to Jaleo tonight?”
Jake says, “Not tonight.”
“Oh,” Ursula says. “Okay.” She knows she shouldn’t feel rebuffed, but she does. “I love you.”
Jake doesn’t respond. Ursula can see him through the steam of the shower just standing there, letting the water pummel the back of his head. “I love you, Jacob.”
“Okay,” he says. “Thank you. Thanks.”
For reasons that Ursula cannot fathom, Jake doesn’t want to go to the Blessings’ funeral.
“Cooper is your friend,” Ursula says. “You go away with him every year. You’ve known him forever. You’ve stood up at three of his four weddings. You knew his parents. Why do you not want to go pay your respects?”
“It’s going to be a circus,” Jake says. “There will be hundreds of people there. You, Ursula, are a major distraction. I don’t want to create a…sideshow.”
“Asideshow?”
“People will hound you, they’ll ask to take your picture, they will whisper. You attract attention in line at Starbucks. I don’t think it’s fair to inflict ourselves on the Blessings in their time of mourning.”
“So you would go if it weren’t for me,” Ursula says. “You go, then, go alone.”
“I don’t think I can,” Jake says. “It would be tough, emotionally, but also I’m supposed to be in Atlanta on Tuesday. Overnight. I’m meeting with the guy from the CDC. That meeting took me three months to get.”
“Right,” Ursula says. “But this is your best friend’s parents. And it’s not like just one parent who was sick for a long time. This is both at once, suddenly. This is tragic. This demands your attention.”
“I’ll call Coop today and set something up for week after next,” Jake says. “Once the crowds have thinned. You remember what it was like when your dad passed, Sully.”Sully;Jake hasn’t used that nickname indecades,not since they were in high school. He’s trying to butter her up. But why? “You wouldn’t have noticed if one person was missing.”
“Still…” Ursula says. Something about this feels off.
“It will mean more to Coop when it’s one-on-one,” Jake says. “I know I’m right about this.”
Ursula disagrees—so much so that, after Jake leaves for Atlanta, she clears her schedule the afternoon of the funeral and drives to Baltimore.
