Driving My Daughter and Wife, with Child...

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Driving My Daughter and Wife, With Child, To the Airport

By John Jeffrey

Of the drive, I remember

only the relentless futility

of the wipers.

The rain, too,

I remember the rain,

blinding flood-falls of rain.

And I remember the darkness,

darkness such that I could not see

the way, not the highway lines,

not the turns lying ahead of me.

What I don't remember is my wife,

crumpled and small, child-small,

smaller than I ever knew her, weeping

the entire trip from Bethel to JFK.

And I don't remember the sound

of that whispered-weeping,

or how I wanted to say something,

anything that might comfort her,

might quiet her,

but didn't.

Nor do I remember, after an hour

of tears, wanting to ask her

to stop, to tell her to stop,

Will you please just stop

but didn't.

I wasn't angry--

I was afraid,

afraid that her crying

would catch like a yawn

or a plague.

I don't remember any of that.

I do remember the wipers,

flopping back and forth, useless.

But I don't remember Jessie,

a month passed her first birthday,

("You are a terrible father. Heartless,"

my mother told me that happy day.)

Jessie in the back seat, babbling away,

singing, swinging, never once falling

asleep.

And I've forgotten how she wide-eyed

wondered at each passing streetlight,

how she pointed out the moon,

marveling anew each time she spotted it,

holding the vowels in astonished glee,

"Mooooooon!"

(It appeared and disappeared

behind trees and distant dull mountains

as I snaked down the highway)

"Yes, yes," Lisa or I would say

without looking. "That's the moon."

And Jessie would again cry,

"Mooooooon!"

A trip of wonders,

a journey of light.

I don't remember it.

I do remember the rain, though,

colorless, endless rain.

I don't remember seeing,

wandering the wet, dark

grass of the median strip, deer,

three of them, a mother

and two young, I supposed--

an analogy lost on me then.

Nor do I remember wondering

if I would find them blasted

into pieces across the Interstate

when I returned alone

home. All that is lost.

As is worrying what Lisa's weeping

would do to the unborn one inside,

if crying would become the music

of the child's life, if tears

would be her language--

or his.

A son.

My god, a son.

What have I done?

But I don't remember that.

To have memories is to be haunted.

I don't believe in ghosts.

Too, I don't remember

the small, dim, windowless room

in the terminal where we waited

for the plane, now delayed by this rain;

where Jessie, still awake, tottered

around, smiling at strangers,

bringing light and laughter

to a broken midnight.

"She's lovely," a woman said.

"Thank you." Lisa smiled,

not crying now, bowing

to the obligation of propriety

in public. "Yes, she is."

The weight of my own obligations--

to get to work the next day

as delayed hour moved to delayed hour

and today moved to tomorrow,

I've forgotten;

and how Lisa and I discussed

when it would be best for me to go

get some sleep: Can't lose

the job, we concluded.

That's important.

And of course I can't remember

leaving the two--the three--

of them in that gloomy room.

(Jessie's distracted kiss and wave.

"Bye, bye, Daddy. Bye, bye.")

Leaving them not knowing

if the plane would even arrive,

leaving them with strangers,

leaving them

leaving.

I remember the darkness,

the not being able to see.

But I don't remember driving back,

screaming and violent, beating

the seat, the dash, the steering wheel,

until something broke--

I've forgotten what--

angry at nothing,

afraid of everything,

of the blinding lights behind me,

of the unseen turns before,

of not being able to sleep

until I shut the door

to Jessie's room--

Once upon a time

and, even then, still

not being able to sleep;

or of finding on the highway

a deer, turned inside out,

its heart exposed, lying

beside it like a loose black stone;

of thinking, perhaps, if I stopped

to look closely that maybe

there was still some chance

at life.

I don't remember that.

Or when the crying came,

but it did, and that was the end of it,

the end of not crying.

It came even as I tried

to stop it, again and again,

to brush away tears

that blurred my vision

and made me close my eyes

too often and too long

for safe driving.

It's all forgotten,

all lost.

I only remember

the wipers,

and the rain,

and the blind,

obliterating

darkness.