A Crossing

Nancy LaMar Rodgers Word Count: 2560

A Crossing

June’s mother left a note behind. “Going over to the river now,” was all it said.

“She used to go down there in the afternoons, once we were all in school. She told me that it brought her a sense of peace,” June said.

I didn’t know what to say.

“We went together a couple times, and we’d just sit on the shore and stare out at the Hudson. She’d talk about the bridge and how it made her feel—connected in a way to the other side. Never knew what she meant, really.”

I didn’t know what to say.

***

When June and I met, we were both looking for off-campus housing in our college town. It was an instant connection as we realized we came from the same place. The youngest girl of a large Irish Catholic family, both of us with five brothers, and both of us sent out into the world with an abundance of apologies and an endless supply of guilt.

Four years later, in the apartment we shared, as daybreak filtered through the pane, June stared out the bay window, her eyes and nerves raw.

“Do you think the car will make it?” she asked.

“I think it will be fine.”

The call had come at 3:30 in the morning. Together we were headed back to June’s childhood home, and the 1979 Pontiac was not my only concern. As I packed our bags, she wandered through the apartment, picking up random items and then placing them back down. I managed to get her into the shower then sat in the dawn filled kitchen, hunched over a cup of black coffee and listened to the sound of the water beating down on my friend.

***

One of the first stories she told me about her mother was how she would chomp down on her arm when the kids or life got to be too much. “You could hear her in the back room,” she said. “She’d just slip away to the study and close the door. It was so strange. First, there was this deep moan, like someone in mourning, then a sort of muffled sound.” June had been drinking the night she told me this and I remember how she shrunk into herself as if she wanted to disappear or at least rid her body of the memory. “One time I snuck down the hallway, opened the door quietly and then watched my saintly mother pace in circles like a rabid dog with its’ jaw clamped down on some unsuspecting rodent. She had her forearm inserted between her teeth, biting so hard I thought she would break the bone and tear her own arm off.” June told me that she didn’t recognize the creature with the wild trembling eyes and that she never peeked again but knew exactly where mom was headed when she shuffled down the linoleum hallway to the back study—a dark paneled room filled mostly with books, boxes of old photos and an orange-brown shag rug. “She’d come back out, maybe five minutes later, a bit flushed, and then move right back into her job, washing dishes, picking up laundry, making lunches, whatever she needed to do.”

Her sister, Leah, told June she was crazy, and she had better not tell anyone such a horrible lie about their mother. But it was the minutes behind the door that June wanted so desperately to ask her mother about. Instead, she put it aside with all the other childhood memories that haunted her and kept it locked, never breathed a word and wandered into adulthood, as wounded and confused as the rabid animal behind the study door.

***

The New York State Thruway was an incessant humming pavement. June sat with her head against the passenger window, staring absently past the farms, silent except for when a song came on the radio that she liked. She’d hum, too exhausted to form the words. I struggled to hear her voice, and for a moment my chest was too heavy for breath. A single tear made its’ way down my cheek.

“You ok?” She asked without turning her head.

“Yes, fine. Why?”

“I thought you might be upset.”

She pulled her legs up and settled into a sitting fetal position.

“I’m going to try and take a nap,” she said, “if you need me to drive…,”.

“Go to sleep” I told her.

I prayed the whirring white noise of the road would lull her. I didn’t know what I would do once I got her home. There were no thoughts or reactions to prepare for; nothing in our life’s experience would make this bearable. I thought about June’s sister Leah. She’s probably running around organizing a fundraiser already, to benefit adult children of bridge jumpers, I thought, then looked over at June as she twitched in her seat. I prayed she wouldn’t dream. Three eighteen wheelers in a row blew past the old Pontiac, rattling its sides and sending a shiver up my back.

With no alternate routes to getting her back home I cringed at the thought of crossing the river.The check engine light blinked on. I couldn’t do anything about it and begged that if we broke down, it would not be on the bridge. June’s fear of bridges was brutal. She never knew where the phobia came from—just always been scared of them, even as a kid, she told me. I knew that today’s crossing could drown her and prayed that she’d sleep the whole way.

***

The sign said two miles. June had tossed and turned for hours and instinctually her eyes snapped open soon as we hit the westbound approach to the bridge.

“How long have I been sleeping? I can’t believe we’re here already. Did you get pulled over?”

“No, I think the cops take pity when they see this car. We’ve been driving for four hours.

“I’m sorry” she apologized.

I was pushing 60mph now across the expansion, hoping to keep her distracted, with idle talk. She looked over past the steering wheel.

“Why is that light on?” She asked.

“It’s fine, it goes on all the time.” I lied.

We were midway across when she white knuckled the dashboard, hung her head forward, like she was about to get sick, and stared at the floor mat. We didn’t know exactly where on the bridge it had happened and I dreaded having those details for the ride back. The tension eased slowly as we circled around the exit ramp onto Route 9W.

“Cigarettes. I need them. There’s a deli up on the right,” she said.

June came out with two bottles of Diet Coke, her Virginia Slims, a bag of Lays and a copy of The Journal News. She handed me a bottle, pushed the lighter in and thumbed through the paper while she waited for the heating coil to turn orange. I pulled the Pontiac back out onto Rt 9 while she lit her cigarette and began reading.

A local woman jumped from the Tappan Zee Bridge Tuesday night. She was 64 years old. The incident occurred at approximately 1:00am. Other motorists saw the woman stop on the side of the bridge and put her hazards on. She emerged from the vehicle and walked right over to the side. “I didn’t know what she was doing”, said one witness. The woman climbed over the side, stood up and jumped off. According to another witness, she didn’t hesitate for a minute. The witness who saw her jump stopped another motorist and asked her to find help.

According to Ramsey’s Sgt. Ward, who headed up the rescue effort, the impact from the fall may have been fatal but they would know more after an examination of the body. Her identity is being withheld.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s really nothing to say, is there, I mean they have just deduced my mother to a woman who jumped off a bridge. There will probably be a follow up article about how insane she was all her life and how it was only a matter of time till it all caught up to her and she did something like this. Jesus Christ, they could have said something about her life, something about the fact that she raised seven kids practically by herself and had dinner on the table every night and took care of the old man when he came home bombed and put up with his king of the castle bullshit. No mention of that though—no, she’s just some crazy old lady who threw herself off the T.Z.”

She pushed a cassette in, threw the paper into the back seat, flicked her cigarette out the window as I turned the Pontiac onto Haven Court.

Her father was standing in the open door of the garage. He didn’t even flinch as the Pontiac sputtered along the winding gravel driveway. He just stared; past the neighbor’s house across the road, past the field beyond, past the reservoir, for miles past everything he knew. June eased out of the car. I busied myself with the bags as she entered the garage and settled her arms around her father’s neck.

***

Like a memorial, the back study looked precisely how June had described.“Jesus, it’s exactly the same,” she said as we both walked in. “Nothing has changed. Those boxes over there have never even been moved. Jesus Christ. Even the ugly rug is still this sickly brown orange, except now it’s flat. I bet if we moved some boxes, it would be a different color underneath.” She slumped down in the desk chair, dropped her head into her knees and sobbed. I rubbed her back and wondered how much time her mother had spent in there after the kids were out of the house. When did it finally fail her, I thought.

For the next two days, I was a fly on the wall. June’s extended family gathered in large and small groups. There was the closed casket wake, the funeral and the after funeral gathering.On the last night, she came in to sit with me, intoxicated, half-smiling, bleary eyed. She lit a cigarette, flopped down on the bed and lay sprawled.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Do you think that anywhere, a woman such as mom gets a hero’s burial?” She asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Do you think she could have been that miserable?”

“I think she could have been that tired.”

“I don’t understand how you give forty years of your life for others and then when it’s your turn to reap the benefits you check out and in such an insane way.” She grabbed a tissue and wiped her eyes. “I mean she waits till she’s fifty to learn how to drive and then fourteen years later musters up enough courage to throw herself off a bridge. Why didn’t she just take pills or something? Why does she jump off a bridge?” She pulled at the frayed edge of the patchwork quilt. “It just seems absurd to me that this saintly woman who went to church every Sunday, volunteered at our schools, helped every neighbor, just surrenders like this. She was finally getting to sit back, enjoy her life. She even had clubs to go to; a sewing one and a bible one, and dad, he’s been better since he gave up the booze and they’ve been doing things together and getting along—no fighting, nothing, and then this.” She put the cigarette out in the empty Diet Coke can on the nightstand. “I just want someone to explain it to me. I want to know why.”

I had no answers for her. I listened while she talked. I held her while she cried and put a blanket over her when she passed out.

***

The alarm woke us both at 6am. June wanted to get a head start and not deal with long goodbyes. We washed up, threw on sweats and tee shirts, eager to sneak out before any other family members arose. June’s father tapped slightly on the door. He held in his hand a shoebox.

“I want you to have this,” he told her and then closed the door behind him.

“Do you want to open it?” I asked.

June shook it a bit and then dropped it on the bed.She pulled off the top and looked down into a stack of papers. She pulled out a few and then tucked them quickly back in, put the top back on and gave me a look that said, just get me out of here.

***

By 7:00a.m the tollbooths were swarming as we pulled into the far-right lane and waited.

“Guess we forgot about traffic,” she said, her voice still groggy.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

“Yes.”

It had been four days since we came across. The Pontiac inched tediously forward. June held the box firmly on her lap. Both of us silent, I prayed that once past the gate we would sail. I pushed a tape in to dispel some of the anxiety as we moved a few more car lengths. As we neared the toll, I watched for her hand on the doorknob, but it sat dormant in her lap.

“That light is still on, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I think it will be fine. It’s been on for four days and we haven’t had a problem yet.”

“It’s been parked.” She laughed. And then, “It would be okay if we broke down on the bridge.”

I turned toward her.

“I mean, I would be ok, I think.”

I searched her face for signs. There were none, just an apparent calm or resolve. The Pontiac moved a few more car lengths. She remained still and stared straight out over the bridge. We both knew now from the police report, exactly where her mother jumped. Halfway across the bridge, where, on a clear day you can see the outline of New York traced against the sky, she turned to me.

“They really are quite amazing; these massive bridges, I mean. Aren’t they? I don’t think I’ve ever really appreciated this one.”

Both hands were still on top of the box.

“I’ve always loved this one, especially right here in the middle, where you can see the city,” I said.

She pulled the lever on the side and tilted her seat back, staring up at the enormous, cross-stitched metal structure. “Maybe her whole life she just wanted to go somewhere else? Maybe she figured she’d done what she was supposed to, and it would be ok if she left. It’s funny you know, all these years I’ve been petrified, thinking I’d be the one going over the side.”

At the booth now, I threw the money in the basket and like a jockey at Belmont, when the gate swung up, I gunned the Pontiac.

Comforted by her own explanation and a new-found fearlessness; she turned her head and gazed once more at the bridge’s gleaming trusses. Then she rolled the window down, closed her eyes, laid her hand on top of the box, inhaled the river, and waved goodbye to the splendid span of steel that connected us to the other side.