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“She was a natural, she would have understood this job.”
“Where’s your mother now?”
“She died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay.”
-West Wing 5.18, Access
She is small, young enough that she doesn’t know if this is a memory or a dream. Her mother lies in her bed, arms enveloping her body in a secure hug. She is surrounded by the smell of her mom’s lotion, and tear tracks left behind by a nightmare streak her cheeks. A clear, strong voice breaks the haze of half-sleep, singing “My Favorite Things,” the song a surefire way to help the little girl calm down. Leaning against her mother’s stomach, she falls back asleep before they reach the end of the song.
*************************
She wakes up, the ringing coming from the living room jarring against the dawn light. The clock reads 6:04 and she groans at the lost hours of Sunday morning sleep. She stumbles from her bedroom to the living room, hoping her roommate had slept through the noise.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Claudia Jean, is that you?”
It takes her a few seconds, but she recognizes her brother’s voice. “Tom? It’s barely morning, why are you calling me now?” Her pulse quickens, but she reassures herself that there must be a benign explanation for the call.
“Mom, well, um, Mom died. She -- she had a heart attack, Jeanie. I’m so sorry.”
“What?” She feels like her brain is stuttering, like her throat is closing, like her ears must be failing her -- he can’t have said what she thinks he’s just said.
“Jeanie, I’m sorry, she was gone before the paramedics arrived. It was really, really fast.”
“Okay.”
“We need to talk about how you’re going to get to Dayton. I was thinking --”
There’s some noise that’s making it hard to hear what Tom is saying. With a start, CJ realizes it’s coming from her, jagged sobs clawing their way out of her throat. Her body is somehow reacting to the news her brain refuses to process.
Tom notices through the phone that she isn’t processing what he’s saying. “Claudia Jean, is Andy there? Can you put her on the phone?”
CJ looks to the doorframe and sees her roommate, concern etched across the redhead’s face. For a moment she wonders what could have woken the other woman, and she feels guilty, thinking that it was the phone. Then again, it’s just as likely in their small apartment that the crying woke her. Andy crosses their small living room in a few steps and sits gingerly beside her on the couch.
Still in a haze, she hands the receiver to Andy.
*************************
She is standing in her bedroom, zipped into a dark green velvet dress. All that stands between her family and the Christmas mass is CJ putting on her tights and loafers. “Pat and Tom don’t have to wear tights, it’s not fair.” She pouts and crosses her arms.
Marie Cregg gives her a look that is half irritated and half amused. “Claudia Jean, it’s freezing cold outside. Your brothers don’t have to wear tights because they are wearing trousers. You need the tights to keep your legs warm,” she says, attempting to reason with a four-year-old.
“You aren’t wearing pants, are you wearing tights?” CJ looks at her mom, eyes wide and imploring.
“I do have some on, see?” She nods, satisfied that this strange clothing rule applies to them both, and takes her mother’s hand.
*************************
She sits on her bed, the window letting in the cool morning air. Something about the chill makes her feel like she can breathe more easily, like it loosens a vise clamped around her lungs. She knows she has to do things, that there are many steps between this bed and her parents’ home, but even turning her head from the window to her dresser feels impossible.
Andy appears in the open door, still in her pajamas. “I was able to get you a seat on a flight to Cincinnati, and Tom said he could pick you up there and take you home. He said Patrick and Amy were driving over with the kids, they should get there before you land.”
CJ nods, looking at the suitcase resting on her floor, empty save for a black dress, tights, and flats. She threw the tights in after she realized the dress ended at her knees, unsure what the weather will be like in Dayton in May. “I don’t know what else to pack. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
Andy nods and tries to figure out what she can do to help her friend. She and CJ have known each other for a while now, but the toughest thing they’ve faced in that time was a nasty breakup. Then CJ had alternated between despair and a steely resolve to move on with her life. This is different, this is bigger, Andy knows, but packing is one concrete thing she knows how to do.
“Let’s get some pajamas in there at least. And you’ll probably need at least two pairs of underwear.” This elicits a soft laugh from her roommate, so Andy keeps going, sitting down on the bed with her. “Maybe plan to pack for a week? You can always do laundry there.”
“Yeah, yeah I can,” CJ says, trailing off before snapping to attention. “I need to tell someone from work, I can’t just not show up tomorrow.”
“I can call your boss, if you give me her number?”
“Yeah, Majorie at the agency. Also the guy from the campaign I’m assigned on — Toby, Toby Ziegler. I’ve got both numbers in my address book. But are you sure, you don’t have to, I can do it.”
Andy sighs, tilting her head against the other woman’s. Of course CJ doesn’t want to be a burden. “CJ, it’s no big deal for me to call your boss. I know you’d do the same thing if it were me,” Andy says, laying a hand on her shoulder. When she feels quaking beneath her palm, she draws CJ in for a hug. She racks her brain for what to say. But what can she say? She can’t say it’s okay, since it’s definitely not okay. She can’t say she knows how it feels, since her parents are both back home in Maryland, alive and well.
She squeezes CJ tight and whispers, “I know. I know. I’m here.”
*************************
She is in the car, sent home from school early with a fever.
Her mom rests a hand on her knee, keeping the other on the steering wheel. “Sweetheart, you have to tell someone if you’re not feeling well. Your teacher cannot read your mind.”
She kicks, staring out the window and sniffling. First her teacher chastised her and now her mom is angry, and on top of that she feels crummy. “I thought I’d get in trouble. I thought she’d think I was faking.”
“Claudia Jean, why would she think that?”
“Sometimes kids lie so they don’t have to be in school. But I wouldn’t do that, I love school.” She practices counting the seconds at the streetlight, earnestly shaking her head. “It doesn’t feel good when people don’t believe me.”
Her mother squeezes her leg, “I know. No one likes that feeling.”
*************************
She sits in a window seat, unable to remember the cab ride to the airport or the exact process by which she got on the plane. Her bag, mostly packed by Andy, is below her somewhere and she holds a book she has no intention of reading in her lap. The man seated beside her had tried to make conversation but her one-word answers put him off quickly enough. Half of her wanted to shock him by answering “What’s bringing you out to Cincinnati?” with “My mother is dead,” but that would have involved saying it out loud. She hadn’t said it out loud yet, but she couldn’t stop thinking it. My mother is dead. My mother died. My mother has died. My mother died. My mother is dead. It’s shocking that people can’t tell just from looking at her that her world is imploding.
The Allegheny Plateau stretches out below her, and she takes a deep breath. She’s nearly home.
*************************
She is slumped in her favorite black chair in the living room, arms knitted across her chest. She is furious and frustrated, knees scraped up and hair a mess. Her brothers, both teenagers, have just left her behind after tearing away on their bicycles to go to the park with their friends. “They leave me out of everything. Is it because I’m a girl?”
Her mom dabs rubbing alcohol into the cuts on her legs, and the sting brings on more tears. “No, Claudia Jean, I don’t think it’s because you’re a girl. It could have something to do with you being a bit younger. Sometimes your brothers want to play with their friends without their kid sister tagging along, and that’s hard, but you have to learn to be okay with it.”
“They’re growing up without me. It’s not fair.” She swipes away a stray tear from her cheek.
Marie cups CJ’s chin in her hand. “They’ll always be your big brothers, no matter how grown-up they seem. And one day, a long time from now, you’ll all be grown up together, like Mommy and Aunt Colette.”
CJ bites her tongue, doing mental math. “She’s even more older than you than Pat is older than me.”
“Yes, twelve years versus nine,” Marie says with a chuckle. “Here’s an idea. Let’s do something fun, just you and me, how about that?”
CJ perks up, excited to be on the inside. “What are we gonna do?”
Her mother checks her watch, thinks for a beat, then offers, “We could make some chocolate chip cookies, I think we have what we need for those in the kitchen.”
“Really?” CJ hops up, skinned knees forgotten, and grabs her mother’s hand.
Marie nods, walking towards the kitchen, clearly relieved that the tantrum has passed.
“Can we share some with Tom and Pat when they get back?”
*************************
She stands outside the terminal, suitcase in hand. She has flown into the Cincinnati airport many times over the last twenty-five years, coming home from visiting family or jobs around the country. This time, though, instead of her father behind the wheel, Thomas is driving the family car. He looks exhausted, but he pulls her in for a hug after he heaves her bag into the trunk. “The flight okay?”
“Yeah, pretty quiet. Did Pat and Amy get here already?”
“They were pulling in as I was headed out. One of Dad’s cousins was at the house too.”
CJ nods, doing up her seat belt and taking in the familiar sights of the highway. She knew the rhythm of the road -- first they’d go through Kentucky farmland, then they’d cross the Ohio, spending a few miles in Indiana before the rest of the ride through the rural stretch between Cincinnati and Dayton.
She tries to read her brother’s face. Thomas had learned early on to hide his thoughts from his family, and he took great pains not to let his emotions show. The two of them had become close when she was in college, with him living just across the bay in San Francisco. It had been difficult to stay in frequent contact when she moved to New York, with the cost of regular long-distance calls and the time difference working against them, and at some point in the past three years the walls between them had reappeared. He looks thin, dark circles under his eyes and hollows in his cheeks. His hands shake, knuckles white on the steering wheel, and he stares at the road like the broken white lines are all that exists in the world. CJ knows he’s been under a lot of pressure at work recently, and the last time they’d talked he and his boyfriend had been fighting again. Mom must be worried about him , she thinks, before correcting herself: Mom must have been worried about him .
“Tom, how are you doing?”
“Well, all things considered,” he says, pausing, “I’ve had better days.”
He turns to her, taking his eyes off the road. For a moment they make eye contact, then, suddenly, they both start to laugh, an unstoppable wave spurred by the absurdity of both the question and its answer. Tom maneuvers the car onto the shoulder. A minute passes while CJ gets control of her laughter, and realizes that her brother’s has turned into racking sobs. She pulls him towards her, and he leans into her chest, as his bawling fades to silent shaking.
*************************
She is lying on her bed, fresh from a fight with her dad over some silly thing. Her ears are still ringing from the slam of her bedroom door when her mother knocks softly. CJ braces herself for another reprimand.
“Claudia Jean, can I come in?” Marie always asks before entering.
“Yes.” The door cracks open, then shuts softly, her mother now in the room.
“He’s just upset, Claudia Jean. It isn’t anything you did.” CJ is surprised that there’s no edge to her mother’s words, that it seems they are on the same side. She sits up, drawing her knees to her chest.
“Then why did he yell at me if I didn’t do anything?”
“He had a bad day. Something at work didn’t happen the way he wanted it to.”
“Why can’t he just say that then, why do you always have to soften up what he’s said when he’s mad?” She is indignant, feeling her own temper start to flare in her chest.
Marie sighs and looks into CJ’s eyes. “I’ve known your father for a long time, Claudia Jean. He’s not the best when it comes to difficult feelings, his own or someone else’s. Sometimes he doesn’t even know what he’s feeling, and it comes out as anger instead of sadness or disappointment. That doesn’t mean it’s okay for him to lash out, but I hope it helps you understand why he does it.”
“Don’t you wish he was different?” CJ asks, as her mother joins her on the edge of the bed.
Her mother purses her lips. “I think there are so many great things about your father -- he’s a wonderful cook, he’s a patient teacher, he loves you and your brothers deeply. For me, those things make up for nights like tonight. It’s a trade-off.”
CJ leans against her mother, not understanding why she couldn’t have the weekend fishing trips and Reds games without the unpredictable, frightening bursts of anger.
*************************
She sits down on the black chair she’s sat on her entire life, exhausted from this endless day. Since she and Tom got in from the airport, CJ had barely had a moment to catch her breath. Her eldest brother’s three children had been relatively subdued, but his youngest, Hogan, still talked a mile a minute and clung to her aunt’s side at every opportunity. Mostly she talked about the car ride and the things she was learning in preschool, or she tried to recount the details of her favorite movie, the Little Mermaid. CJ wasn’t sure how much the little girl understood about what was happening, but after a while Hogan looked at her seriously and said, “Daddy says a bunch of grown-ups are going to be really sad about grandma. Are you very sad, Aunt CJ?” She stood shocked into silence, before squeezing Hogan into a hug and saying, “Yeah, sweet girl, I am.”
Now, though, Patrick and his family have gone to his in-law’s house to spend the night, and Tom has stepped out to buy ingredients to make Manhattans, their mother’s favorite drink. This leaves CJ and Talmidge alone in the house echoing with Marie’s absence. He sits on the piano bench, absently working through an aria. CJ watches him, recalling that he once explained how music and mathematics are siblings, how by understanding one you can uncover the secrets of the other. She wants to talk to him, but she knows this is his first moment of peace too. Everyone who came by the house wanted to clasp his hands, wanted to see how they could help him, and he just stood by the front door looking lost.
Even when the deacon came to discuss the funeral, he barely reacted, letting his daughter take notes and make suggestions for the readings. His strict sense of decorum and precise attention to detail, present all her life, seemed to disappear. Now, though, he seemed reanimated by the music, or maybe by the silent house. As much as CJ wanted to talk to him, or even as much as she needed to talk to him, she didn’t dare disturb his playing.
Her parents’ cat, an orange just-past-kitten named Archimedes, makes his way onto her lap and she scratches behind his head, looking into his pale brown eyes. They had gotten a cat for the first time when Patrick left for college, but Pythagoras had died a few years ago. Until now CJ had thought Archimedes didn’t like her, that he viewed her as an intruder in his house. The music stops. She looks up and sees her father staring at her.
“Daddy?”
He turns back around to face the piano. “You know, Claudia Jean, you look just like your mother.”
*************************
She is standing in front of the mirror in her bedroom, watching her mother pace behind her holding a box. Impatient to get downstairs for her birthday dinner, CJ asks, “What’s in the box, Mom?”
Marie takes a thin chain out of the case, laying the container on the bed. “Claudia Jean, you’re thirteen years old today. This is a necklace my mother gave me when I was your age.”
CJ turned around to look at what her mother was holding. It was a simple silver chain with a small, teardrop-shaped jewel strung on it. “Mom, it’s so pretty.”
“I, um, well, I know you never met my mother. She died just before you were born—that’s why you’re Claudia Jean, Jean is for her, Claudia for your other grandmother. I think about her every day. You two are so similar, I know she’d want you to have it.” She swallows, taking a moment to compose herself. “Turn around now, let me put it on you.”
The necklace is cool against her skin, a contrast to her mother’s warm hands carefully clasping it at the nape of her neck. The gem falls right in the divot of her collarbone, and she watches her mother’s face in the mirror in front of them. She cannot remember many times where her mom showed her feelings so openly.
The clasp secure, CJ turns to see her mother wiping a tear from her eye.
“There we go,” Marie says, holding out a hand to her daughter. “Let’s go eat, shall we?”
*************************
She sits on a worn pew in the church her family had attended every week of her childhood. While Patrick gives a reading, she fingers the thin silver chain around her neck, worrying the stone with one hand while the other holds a prayer card. She and her brothers had gone back and forth for an hour trying to decide which photo of their mother should be on it, finally settling on one of her at the piano from the year before, a slight smile on her face. Light from the window behind the choir stand stains the floor blue and green, and CJ catches her mind wandering, lost in memories of first communions and holiday services.
Every other time she had been in this building, her mother had sat beside her. She had mimicked her, learning when to kneel by example and copying the words to the different prayers and creeds. Now, when she needed her guidance the most, her mother was gone. How had she dealt with losing her own mother? CJ had never asked, and now she never could.
Hogan kicks her legs out, bringing her aunt back to the present. She is trying to behave, and knows if she gets in trouble she wouldn’t be allowed to sit with CJ anymore. The mass is not as interesting as the wake was, and she can’t read the Bible to pass the time like her brothers do.
CJ lets go of her necklace and holds out her hand to the four-year-old, who takes it with a smile.
*************************
She is at the dining room table, trying to focus on writing the outline for her English paper. Her eyes are still sore from crying in the bathroom at the end of the school day, an action she tried to hide by splashing water on her face and avoiding eye contact with anyone on the walk home.
Her mother pokes her head in from the kitchen, where she’s making vegetable soup for dinner. “Penny for your thoughts, Miss Claudia Jean? Looks like you’ve had quite the day.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it, I have a lot of homework to do.” Her voice breaks towards the end of the sentence, and she thinks dammit, not right now not right now .
Her mother sits down across from her, concerned etched across her face. “What happened today at school?”
“It’s not a big deal. Just this stupid Valentine’s Day fundraiser.” She looks up from her lap, and sees her mother tacitly begging her to share. “It’s, um, people could buy each other flowers and they would get taped to your locker. And all my friends got them, and I was the only one who didn’t.”
She can see her mother’s heart breaking and is humiliated all over again. It’s bad enough the whole school knows she’s an unlovable loser, but to have her own mother know? “Oh Claudia Jean, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not a big deal. It’s just, I don’t know why I have to spend the rest of my life staring at the phone hoping some guy will call me.” This isn’t entirely true: she has a lot of ideas about why they don’t ask her out—she’s too tall, she’s too smart, she’s too funny, she’s not pretty enough, she’s not demure enough.
“I wish I had an answer for why all those boys are so clueless, but I don’t. One thing I can tell you is that once you leave this town behind, they will be lining up for you, and you’ll have all the flowers you could possibly want.”
CJ nods, not really believing her mother’s words.
*************************
She nudges open the front door of her apartment, suitcase hoisted in both her hands. Half of her wants Andy to be home, wants the apartment not to be empty, wants someone to process the last week with. The other half wants more than anything to be alone, wants to hide from the memories, wants to fall asleep uninterrupted.
The shower is running and she can hear her roommate singing along to some Bonnie Raitt song. There’s a stack of envelopes addressed to variations on Claudia Jean Cregg on the kitchen table, and a list of names in Andy’s neat cursive. CJ assumes these are people who have called to speak with her — an assumption confirmed when she sees the addendum “answering machine nearly full” at the bottom. There are a few vases of flowers, and after setting down her bag she investigates. One arrangement from her group at the PR firm, a very traditional all-white situation; one from the campaign team, signed by everyone but she has a feeling put together by one of the high school volunteers who’s fond of her, this one is just lilies; and one from Andy, sweet Andy, who got a dozen orange roses, her mother’s favorite.
She’s not sure how much time has passed with her drinking in the sight of the peach-colored flowers when she hears the floorboard creak behind her.
“You’re back.”
“Yeah, my flight got in a little early.”
“The fridge is stocked with all sorts of stuff -- I made lasagna and this chicken-and-rice thing from the Times, plus there’s a few salads and fruit and yogurt. Help yourself, it’s on your shelf.”
“You didn’t have to cook for me.”
“CJ.” Andy tilts her head and looks at her roommate, silently imploring her to let herself be cared for.
The kindness in Andy’s eyes makes something break in CJ’s chest, and she starts to cry. The truth is she hadn’t thought at all about food and couldn’t remember if she’d even eaten anything that day.
Once more, Andy finds herself holding her friend, standing together in their tiny kitchen. She supports CJ’s weight, and she knows that’s all that stands between the taller woman and collapse.
*************************
She is standing outside her apartment, the golden afternoon light illuminating the highlights in her hair. A light breeze blows through her graduation dress, and her mother stands beside her as Talmidge and Thomas put her last box in the back of the van. In a few minutes, her college years will be over, and she will be headed straight to New York and a job in public relations.
“You know, Claudia Jean, I’m so proud of you.” Marie has tears in her eyes, and CJ gives a light laugh.
“Mom, I think you’ve said that a hundred times today.” She acts exasperated, but a wave of relief washes over her. When she went to school so far away, and chose a field so foreign to them, she knew they had worried what her future would look like.
“That doesn’t make it any less true. You’re going to take the world by storm,” her mother says, pulling her in for a hug.
*************************
She sits at her crowded desk in the campaign office, reading over the latest numbers from the northwest counties. It’sher third day back at work. There had been team meetings and strategy discussions all morning, and she is struggling to remember what her action items are. It doesn’t look like the candidate has much chance of winning the primary, but at least the numbers are marginally better than the last set. She reads the same data over and over again, the figures blurring together before her eyes. Her coffee has long gone cold, but she chokes it down anyway.
Leaving for work that morning her hands had been shaking too badly to get her contacts in, and the glasses she’s wearing are an old prescription. She takes them off and rubs her eyes, wishing the caffeine would work faster to make up for a series of sleepless nights. When she puts them back on, Toby is standing beside her desk.
“Can you come to my office for a minute?” His eyes dart back and forth, and he sweeps his hand over his mouth before resting it on his hip.
She rises from behind the desk, following him into the nearby room.
He gestures for her to sit on a folding chair, and leans against his desk. “Maybe you should take a week, go back to Ohio.”
“I don’t want to go back to Ohio.” She does not want to be back in that house, with Talmidge avoiding her and women from the church “popping in” to see if he needs anything.
“You don’t have to go to Ohio, you could just take the week and stay in the city. I’m just not sure this is the right place for you to be right now.”
“I’ll be fine.” The phone just outside the office rings, and Toby can see her shoulders tense ever so slightly.
He considers how to phrase his next point. “There are some things falling through the cracks.”
“Like what?”
“Little stuff. The press release with the candidate’s statement on the chemical weapons pact, which I can take care of, you just have to tell me.”
“I’ll do it.” She needs to end the conversation, needs him and his sad eyes to leave her alone.
He thinks of the volunteer she’d snapped at earlier in the day, a college student who started the week before. This is a different woman than the one who joined the campaign, excited for her first solo contracting project. “Listen, when you lose somebody like that, with no warning --”
“Can we not do this, please?”
“Give yourself some time to process.”
“I don’t want time to process,” she whispers. “All I do is try to process what happened, all I do is think about her. Every spare moment I’m wondering what she was feeling, whether she was scared, what was going through her head, was she in pain, was she afraid.” She lets out a sob. “I’m not -- I’m not interested in processing any more.”
He lays a hand on her knee. “Do you want me to get you some water?”
She shakes her head, a hand covering her mouth.
“Do you want me to step out?”
She looks up at him, shaking her head and choking out, “No.”
*************************
She is sitting on the green second-hand couch in the living room of her New York apartment, the phone held to her left ear. It’s Mother’s Day and Marie is describing the festivities in detail.
“Sounds like a lovely day, Mom. You’ve been saying you and Dad were trying to get a reservation there for ages.” She twirls the cord around her right index finger.
“Your brother is visiting next weekend, is there any way I can get you to join him? Weather’s supposed to be nice, and you know your father has a lull in grading before finals period starts.”
She grits her teeth, trying to keep her frustration in check. “I’m not sure when I’ll be able to come visit, Mom, things are getting busy with the campaign I’m working on. I should be able to make it to Dayton after the primary, at least for a few days.”
“I know you’re busy, Claudia Jean. The end of June, we can go to that special exhibition at the art museum.”
“That sounds great. I can’t wait to see you again.”