Page 5 of June: Jess' Story
A guttural sob, a cry, a battle roar escapes me and I fall to the asphalt.I knew. I fucking knew the moment it happened. I felt Tally go.
Ilet them go.
I watched them go.
I packed their car.
I did nothing to stop this and in doing so,Isealed their fate.
TWO
Jess
June 6, 2012
I let the last box fall on top of my twin bed and then plop down next to it, falling back. Laid out, staring up at the ceiling, I’m met by the warm eyes of Lance Bass staring back down at me.Fuck me.I laugh out loud. This is ridiculous.
No one ever tells you how shitty it feels to move out, go to college, spread your wings — just to move back home four years later. I know the point is to not move home, I understand that, but this is New York City. Free rent is better than any other kind of rent. Plus you’re in the city.Duh.
“May!” I call out through my open door.
“Yes, baby?” She comes to stand in the entryway of my bedroom with a fresh cup of tea in hand.
“Can you bring me the broom? I can’t sleep in here with this poster staring at me.” She laughs.
“You have no idea how many times your mother stoppedme from ripping that thing down over the years.” She sighs, gets a bit sad for a moment, then wanders back down the hall for the broom.
Mom let me indulge in all my boy band crazes. Well, I guess just boy craziness. Period. (One didn’t need to be in a band for me to be crazy about them.)
Once May is back with the broom, I stand on the bed and try to scrape it off.How the fuck did a five-foot-four thing like me even get this on my 12-foot ceiling?Actually, I do know how. Sheer determination, I imagine.
May leans against the doorframe of our NOHO loft, watching me. It’s not the apartment I grew up in, but we moved here after Mom made tenure at NYU. It was right before high school, which meant 13-year-old Jess got to decorate the shit out of her bedroom. And did she ever.
There’s hideous, psychedelic-inspired flowers painted on one wall. Jonas Brothers, Backstreet Boys, and Eminem posters are plastered on another. My twin bed is decked out in PB teen, and yeah, I think I may have been living the life straight out of some Mary-Kate and Ashley movie.
Except in this movie, I have two moms and a dad I don’t live with, a pet rat, and an insane obsession with Anna Wintour. (And I do mean 13-year-old-Jess, not current Jess.) So maybe not exactly like an Olsen twin movie.
“Current Jess” still has two moms, but only lives with one of them. And a dad who passed away after my freshman year of college. No more pet rats, no more obsession with Anna Wintour.Still obsessed with Vogue?Yes.But with Anna?No. But I guess I’m still living in 13-year-old-Jess’ bedroom…so there’s that.
The broom finally catches a corner of the poster, and I rip it off triumphantly. May still hasn’t moved.
“I’m going to visit Jules this afternoon. Probably pick up Thai on the way home. That work for you?” she asks. I give her a warm smile.
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
“You could come with me, if you want…”I don’t want. I don’t really have to say it because May already knows and she doesn’t wait for my response. “No, right. That’s okay. You go on your own time. I’ll be back around seven.” May moves like she might come in and hug me goodbye, but hesitates and walks out instead.
When May visits with mom, I’m sort of an afterthought. I think they forget I’m there sometimes. I know it’s not on purpose, of course, but if my mom is having a good day, she wants to bathe in May’s attention. It’s just better for everyone if I sit out. My feelings don’t get hurt, it doesn’t put May and I at odds with each other, and well, my mom likely won’t remember the encounter at all.
She lives in a care facility now, Jules does. One that assists with memory care. It’s for the best. May couldn’t be her full-time caregiver anymore, and they didn’t want the burden to fall on me. Not that my mom is a burden, they just wanted me to have a normal life. Always. They always tried to give me a “normal” life. And it was. Normal to me.
I grew up with three loving parents. Two I lived with full time, and one I saw during the summer and on holidays. But I never felt I lacked for love or anything at all, really. My dad might not have lived in the same house as me, but he called me all the time. Wrote me emails when he worked from the road. Bought me a souvenir from every college campus heever visited, and told me he loved me every chance he got. As far as parental relationships go, I feel like I got pretty lucky.
And then I lived with Jules and May full time. Julia is my mother, as in she gave birth to me, and May is my mom. I always describe it to people like this: Picture Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang, but they’re professors instead of doctors, and they’re also lesbians. That’s my moms in a nutshell.
I crumple up the poster and toss it in the trash. No offense, Lance, just light eyes and frosted tips don’t really do it for me anymore. I take a quick look around the space and take note of the few things I could change to make the space feel more grown up.Paint, new desk chair, new bedding, new lamps, new art – basically a whole new room.That’s alright, it’ll give me a project to focus on.
I didn’t come back to this apartment much once I started college. Summers were spent at my dad’s house, even after he passed. Then a lot of holidays, Julia and May would come to me. Don’t get me wrong, I missed the city (the city will always be home), but it wasn’t like I missed this place. Sometimes this place is just a reminder of when things started going south for Mom.