A Masterpiece Gone

Chapter Six

While Jake had his arm around Jenny, who sporadically let out a sniffle, and Brendan warmly held Jessie's hand, all four of them each looked out his or her window in silence on the last leg of their long commute from the cemetery in Nassau County.  Even though Jake and Jenny gave them the comfy king size bed in the guest room of the second floor apartment of her parents, Jessie's quality of sleep had been rather low the past few days for obvious reasons making Jessie constantly question life-related things.  Due to the unknown circumstances of Lauren's death, her family's request to have an autopsy gave her and Brendan more time to find a flight to New York and drop Jackson off to her parents' house allowing them to actually make it for the very last session last night of Lauren's wake.  However, the image of Lauren wearing more make-up than she did in life dressed in a rather elegant, but uncomfortable evening gown as she lay in her solid brown copper casket could not be erased from her mind.

I literally just spoke to her and she was coming in just a few weeks, Jessie thought for the sixth time in half an hour, not to add to the total amount between the moment she got off the phone with Jenny several days ago and her flight from Heathrow. 

"How did she not know she was sick?" Jenny nearly whispered to break the silence.  While it was a question on everybody's mind, nobody had the courage to ask it aloud until now.

As all attention was directed towards Jenny, who maintained her stare through the window, Brendan sighed mournfully.  "You heard what her mother said last night," Jessie reminded her gently.  "It was a heart defect completely undetected.  There were no symptoms so there was no reason for Lauren to look into anything.  Besides, her wellness visits always went well."

Staying composed, Jenny just nodded and turned her direction towards her friends.  "I know.  I feel like if I keep asking that question perhaps I can make more sense out of all this," she admitted as she rubbed the smudged black eyeliner from under her eye.  "You hear all the time of elderly people going to sleep and never waking up and you say, 'That's the best way to go peacefully.'  Not somebody as young as Lauren."

A stray tear fell from Jessie's eye as she recalled hearing from a much more distressed Jenny that Lauren's brother knew something was very wrong when she never showed up for her work after the dentist appointment she was supposed to have.  The devastation in her family's eyes struck Jessie like a bolt of lightning through her veins and her funeral at the church certainly was not the ideal place for her to meet Carlos, who was even better than Lauren could have ever described and was very much in love with her. 

"I, too, am in complete shock," Brendan threw in giving Jessie's hand a squeeze.  "I wasn't as close with Lauren as I am with you, Jenny, but Lauren was a friend who I enjoyed getting to know better these past several years."

There was nothing any of them could say that was going to ease anybody's feelings on the matter; every similar statement to Brendan's was always met with silence.  "Will you at least stay for pizza?" Jenny suddenly asked in a tiny voice.

Although Jessie felt bad for lying about staying elsewhere as Jenny would never betray her trust, Jessie simply did not have the energy to explain a thing to her.  Given the circumstances, Brendan did not even question her decision to stay at a hotel for the remainder of their time in New York increasing Jessie's guilt level by the minute for lying.   Once he sees where we are headed, he will be too thrilled hopefully to care, she thought to herself. It can even be the bright light at the end of the tunnel for this unexpected trip.  And I'm sure someway somehow Jenny will figure it out without me saying a word.

Brendan and Jessie exchanged glances before nodding in unison.  "Of course," Jessie answered.  "But do let us pay as a thank you for taking us in."