No You Didn't

Five: Church Hats

 Jenny and I sat on her front porch the morning after Eddie showed up. Even now, I always ran to the other half of the Montgomery family when I needed someone to talk to.

She sat in her rocker like an old lady–hair tied in a bun, hands folded over a crocheted blanket tucked around her lap to ward off the early morning nip.

I had made us a cup of coffee while Jenny's mother, Dianne, tried to reprimand me for giving her caffeine.

Dianne was a good woman (so people kept telling me). I didn't like her, but I trusted her to keep Jenny's best interest at heart. She was controlling and meticulous, which was undoubtedly a nightmare for teenage Jenny. But since Jenny was now in need of a controlling and meticulous caregiver, I guess it worked out in the end.

Dianne tried her best to give us space but kept coming onto the porch every five minutes to check on Jenny.

Jenny was quiet today, not like she was a few days ago during dinner, but that was okay.

Jenny had three types of days: quiet days, normal days, and manic days. The latter was the scariest of them all and had only happened a handful of times since the children were killed. Generally, Jenny stayed in a distant state that left people wondering if she even knew her kids were gone forever. I believed she did, deep down, but her mind tried to protect her from such a horrid reality.

Her physician, Doctor Hathaway, said this was normal when people experienced massive trauma.

"I didn't even recognize Eddie at first," I said, tracing the pad of my thumb around the rim of my orange clay mug.

"I was so angry," I continued. "It actually surprised me. I hated him when he left, of course. But in the time since, life's moved on. I thought I had, too. But when I saw him standing there..." I shook my head. "It was like I was seventeen again, standing on Fanny's porch, asking if Eddie was home when he'd already boarded the train out of town three hours before."

Jenny reached over and patted my hand. The blue veins snaking through her hand were like rivers on the map of her paper-thin skin.

She didn't say anything else, but she didn't need to. The gentleness in which Jenny operated was enough to comfort me. It always had been.

And I think Jenny knew this, too. To whatever capacity her brain operated, she knew she was helping me.

After I'd cleared all the cobwebs from my thoughts, the issue of Eddie Carson didn't seem as world-ending as it had just moments before.

In fact, after what happened last night, I doubted Eddie even stayed in town. He was probably on the train for New York after I'd refused to hear what he'd come to say.

"Alright," I said, unfolding my legs and standing up. My cream-colored church dress was already wrinkled and had a single drop of coffee stained at the collar (I was two for two of the warnings Mama gave me before I left that morning).

I held out my hand and Jenny took it.

"Let's get you ready for church," I said.

Sunday mornings were my and Jenny's special time together. Dianne didn't go to church, so she allowed me to dress Jenny and do her makeup before we rode over to the chapel.

I picked out a simple blush-colored dress for Jenny that had brown buttons going down the back, paired with a matching hat. I didn't know if this was typical anywhere else, but the ladies of our church had a strange penchant for fascinators.

It was like the Kentucky Derby every Sunday, an event that I usually opted out of and my mother usually embraced wholeheartedly. I guess there was just something about looking like deranged peacocks that church women thought pleased the Lord.