18. Jori (V)
Jori felt numb. Absolutely numb. Like a patient high on morphine, she had
drifted through the last few days in a sort of trance, unfeeling and hardly
aware of what was happening around her.
She knew that her baby was
dead. They had taken Lucy away in an
ambulance to the hospital, then the morgue, and finally, the funeral home.
Jori had not seen her.
She knew that AJ had been
on the phone constantly, making arrangements, telling family, accepting
condolences from their friends.
Jori had not listened to
the conversations.
She knew that people had
been stopping by with meals, knowing she wouldn’t be up to cooking.
Jori had not tasted their
food.
She knew that family and
friends had come from out of town to attend the services. They had stood in line at the visitation to
hug her and offer their sympathy.
Jori had hardly felt their
embraces.
She knew that the minister
had said lovely things about Lucy at the funeral, sharing anecdotes from her
three months of life that AJ had written down for him. But Reverend McKenzie had not known Lucy
personally; she had not even been christened.
The funeral service he gave was standard.
Jori had hardly heard his
words.
After the service, she had
slipped away, wandering down the street to the liquor store, where she bought a
bottle of vodka that she carried in a brown paper bag back to the apartment
building. Upstairs, friends and family
had gathered to offer support and sympathy.
They’d brought food, and her mother had tried to get her to eat, but
Jori wasn’t hungry. All she wanted was a
drink. She sat downstairs, sipping
straight from the bottle in the back room of AJ’s store. It was closed for the day so that he and his
employees could attend the funeral, and Jori figured she could hide out there
for awhile before anyone found her. She
wished she could disappear completely.
As a teenager, she had
taken pills to numb her pain. Her
parents didn’t drink and had never kept liquor in the house, so it wasn’t until
college that she’d experienced the anesthetizing effects of alcohol. This discovery had sent her down the dark
path that had led her to AJ, and together, they’d journeyed through the depths
of depression and addiction and found the light again.
Lucy was that light. Lucy in the sky with diamonds, shining her
light into their lives as if she were their sun. They’d both stopped drinking after finding
out Jori was pregnant. They hadn’t
brought any alcohol into the apartment since Lucy’s birth. But with her death, the sun had burnt out,
plunging them back into darkness, and Jori could no longer abstain from
drinking. She sat in the dark, slowly
drinking herself to death.
With every drop, she felt
closer to her daughter – or closer to forgetting her daughter had ever existed.
She wasn’t sure which she wanted
more. Only her love for AJ had kept her
from taking her own life the day that Lucy had died. He was the only one in the world she still
cared about, and she knew it would destroy him if she died, too. He loved her more than she had ever loved
herself.
He didn’t blame her for
Lucy’s death. He kept reassuring her
that she’d done nothing wrong. The
investigators who had interviewed them both apologized for their many
questions, promising them it was just a part of their protocol. The doctor said it was likely SIDS, pointing
out that incidences were highest in sleeping babies between two and four months
old.
Still, Jori blamed
herself.
She took another swig from
the bottle. The liquor barely burned as
it went down, for even her throat had gone numb. A dizzy sort of daze had dulled her senses
and settled her thoughts. Light-headed,
she lowered her chin to AJ’s desk and closed her eyes, her grip loosening
around the bottle of vodka. She started
to drift off, welcoming the impending unconsciousness.
“Jori?!”
AJ’s voice brought her
back to her senses. She jerked awake,
just as he appeared in the doorway.
“Jori! What the hell are you doing down here all by
yourself?”
Apparently, he had been
looking for her. She shrugged, not
bothering to hide the liquor bottle. If
he hadn’t already seen it, he would surely smell it on her breath when he came
closer.
“Drinking?” he asked,
looking down at her in disgust.
“Alone?” He took the bottle from
her and turned it around to see the label.
“Straight vodka? Fuck, Jori, are
you trying to kill yourself??”
“Maybe,” she mumbled,
laying her head back down on the desk.
“God damnit.” He stomped off, his footsteps fading as he
disappeared with her liquor. She heard a
gurgling noise as he poured it into the bathroom sink, followed by the sound of
running water as he washed it down the drain.
When he came back, he grabbed her chin roughly between his fingers and
wrenched her head up off the desk.
“Ow!” Jori whined, trying
to twist out of his grasp.
He held on, forcing her to
look at him. “Don’t you do this to me,
Jori. Don’t you dare do this to me. I need
you here; do you understand me? I’ve
already lost Lucy. I can’t lose you
too. Don’t make me. I know this is hard, but you have to be
strong. You have to be strong and stay
here with me.”
His fingers were digging
into her flesh, but it was a different kind of pain that made her eyes well
with tears. “I can’t,” she whimpered,
the tears spilling over. “I can’t live
like this.”
“Yes you can,” he said
fiercely. “You and I had a life before
Lucy, and we’ll have a life afterwards.
It won’t be easy, but we’ll keep living, and eventually, it’ll get
better. You’ll see. We can still get married… have more kids…”
“No!” said Jori, yanking
her chin out of his hand. His face
blurred before her as she glared at him through watery eyes. “I don’t wanna have another baby! You think I wanna go through this again?!”
“Okay… okay!” AJ backed off, holding up his hands in
defense. “I didn’t mean anytime
soon. I just meant… sometime. When we’re both ready.”
Jori sniffed, shaking her
head. “I’ll never be ready.”
“Okay. That’s okay.
And if you still feel that way in a few years, it’ll be okay then
too. Whatever you do, just please don’t
give up on us. I need you, baby. Promise you won’t give up.” He looked at her with pleading eyes, waiting
for a response.
“I won’t,” whispered Jori,
though she wasn’t sure it was a promise she could keep.
“Thank you.” He sat down on the edge of the desk and heaved
a sigh, his shoulders slumping. “I know
things will never be the same, but I want you to know, I still love you,
Jor. I’ll never stop loving you.”
She knew he meant to
comfort her, but it hurt Jori to hear the words, knowing how his feelings could
change in a heartbeat. Lucy had cemented
their love for each other. Without her,
what was left to keep them together?
Still, she echoed, “I love you, too,” because she knew it was what he
needed to hear.
He kissed her tenderly and
took her hand, dragging her to her feet.
“C’mon, let’s get you up to bed so you can sleep it off. Things will be better when you wake up.”
But Jori awoke hours later
with a hangover and a horrible, hollow feeling inside. The only thing heavier than her head was her
heart, which felt like it was breaking with every beat. The numbness had worn off with the alcohol,
leaving behind only pain. Inescapable,
unbearable pain.
She longed to feel numb
again.
***