After Jo Died

Jenna Stufko was dreading Monday, which was the start of deer hunting season in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Most years, the season manifested itself subtly: Uncle Eli and her dad smoking cigars in the den, talking in low, drawling voices about the new Ruger American .308 Bolt-Action Rifle Uncle Eli had spent most of his last paycheck on (much to Aunt Evelyn’s dismay), a slight swagger in the walk of the boys at Cumberland Valley who had just bagged their first eight-point, and the sign above Jimmy’s Sporting Co-op that said “Hnting Permits Here” (the “u” in “hunting” was missing, or perhaps had never been added at all.) Jenna was neither fond of nor disgusted by hunting; she had never thought very deeply about it, at least, until this past month.

The small, pine-furnished bedroom she was occupying at her aunt and uncle’s house faced the backyard, which was bordered by thin, scrubby woods on two sides. In the early evenings, she would lie on her bed, trying to ignore the irritating scratchiness of the striped wool coverlet, reading The Old Man and the Sea. Past the orangey glow from the deck lights, Jenna could see a solitary deer, a buck, chewing the browning grass near the azalea bushes. And every evening, she could hear it, speaking to her in a hoarse, whispering voice.

“Can you smell the grass?” it said. “Can you smell it?”

“Christ, you’re battier than I am,” her older sister, Josephine, whom everyone called Jo, would have said, if she hadn’t swallowed the contents of a bottle of Tylenol a month and a half ago. If Jenna had kept going to Miss Cindy, the school counselor (Jenna stopped after the first, obligatory meeting), Ms. Cindy would have smoothed her perfectly pressed skirt, and said that grief manifests itself in many ways, and that with time things would go back to normal. Jenna had never heard the phrase, “with time,” more frequently than in the past month and a half. Everyone, from Ms. Cindy to her parents to Pastor Rick, said “with time.” With time, she would be able to hold a conversation, any conversation, in school or at church or with her aunt at the grocery store, as they picked out bone-in chicken breasts and russet potatoes for dinner. With time, she would start thinking about winter break and junior prom and football games, instead of her sister’s blue lips and the ugly yellow flowers at her funeral, and the broccoli casserole their neighbor Ms. Pat had made for the reception. With time, she wouldn’t answer the question, “How are you?” with the automatic, “I’m fine.” And, if anyone knew, they would say with time, she would stop hearing the deer speak to her. But “with time” meant more time than “before tomorrow morning,” so Jenna knew that she would hear it. Growing up, a teacher had remarked to her mother that she was “a fanciful child.” Her mother had shrugged.

“Reads a lot,” she had said. “Revs her imagination. Ten years old and still has imaginary friends.”

Sunday nights were for youth group in the basement of St. Matthew’s, where they would play foosball and flirt and listen to Mr. Jeff talk about God and not doing drugs. When they were finally shooed out at nine-thirty, a few of the seniors would sit on the green metal dumpsters behind the church and smoke cigarettes in the glow of the streetlamps, flicking used stubs onto the blacktop which never seemed to get cleaned up. Her sister had been a part of that crowd, not Jenna. Jo had been the one who had gotten blue streaks in her hair; Jo was the one who had a habit of shouting her enthusiasm and played her music as loud as possible, the one who had come home far past midnight, smelling of Wild Turkey. But once Jo had killed herself they absorbed Jenna into the group, without any discussion or struggle. Jo was replaced with Jenna, one girl for another. She could sit, gently drumming her fingers on the lid of the dumpster for as long as she wanted, while everyone around her complained about school and parents (Sam Davies had been grounded for the third time in two months, youth group being the only exception) or gossiped about high school melodramas (a topless photo of Stephanie Karlin had been taped to the front of her locker, likely left by her ex-boyfriend, Jason Delano.) To Jenna’s relief, no one ever asked her how she was doing. Rob, Jo’s former boyfriend, would give her a few drags off of his cigarette and tell her about the new music he had just downloaded onto his never-ending iPod. Jenna didn’t know much of anything about music, but his voice had a deep resonance that, combined with the nicotine from the cigarette, made her head buzz pleasurably.

“It feels like metal, but technically it’s symphonic metal, or operatic metal. The lead singer was classically trained in opera and everything. There are some awesome instrumentals. You might even like the lyrics...they’re all based on myths and shit. It’s pretty epic.”

Jenna looked up at Rob from under her lashes, the way Jo would have.

“Hmm, cool,” she said. Rob’s friend, Tommy, dropped his cigarette, stamping it out with a worn red Converse.

“You’re not going to get laid talking about that crap, Rob,” he said.

Rob tossed an empty cola can at him. Sam, Tommy’s girlfriend, smacked Tommy playfully on the shoulder.

“Come on, she’s just a kid, look, you’re making her blush,” she said.

Jenna felt her face get warm. She had never blushed around Rob when Jo was still alive. Jenna could remember the piggy-back rides he gave her when she was little, and the way he’d muss her hair when he passed her in the hallways at school. If Jenna was around, Rob ensured it was Rob and Jo and Jenna, and not just Rob and Jo. Before Jo died, Jenna had never noticed the muscles in his arms, or his perfectly straight teeth, or how big his hands were. She didn’t want to think about how Jo must be watching, from Heaven or somewhere else, as her younger sister got goony-eyed over her boyfriend.

Tommy picked the can up off the pavement and tossed it back at Rob. “Let’s get out of here. John’s got that bonfire tonight, right? I could use a beer. Come on,” he said, grabbing Sam’s wrist and pulling her towards the parking lot.
Rob hopped from the dumpster, putting his hand out to help Jenna. “Yeah. We can ride in my truck. Jenna, you want shotgun?”

She nodded. She hadn’t even known about the bonfire. Her aunt was expecting her home by ten-thirty, although the expectation was a loose one. Jenna had been staying with them for a month, and they still seemed uncertain of how to ride the line of discipline and understanding. She could remember sitting on the top stair at her parents house, listening to her dad on the landline in the kitchen as he talked to her aunt.

“She needs to be somewhere else, Ev. Somewhere that doesn’t remind her of Jo. We don’t know what to do. She won’t talk about it. She says she’s fine, but she’s not. I don’t think she knows how to be Jenna without Jo.”

There was a long pause. She had imagined her aunt, in her gentle, polite way, saying she wasn’t sure she could do any better. After all, she had never had any children.

“She’s always liked you. Really. Just for a little while. Maybe once the holidays get here she’ll feel better. And we’re right down the road if something comes up.”

Eventually, her aunt had given in. The day after Jenna moved into their guest bedroom was the first day she heard the buck talking to her. She had been unpacking a box of books, things like Grapes of Wrath and Anna Karenina, setting them up on the shelf above the bed. At first, she thought her aunt or uncle had walked into the room, but no one was there. She turned towards the window, and saw the buck, several yards away. It was a six-point, with a chink in one ear. She felt her forearms break out in goosebumps.

“Do you smell the grass, Jenna?” it asked again. She had never heard it say anything else. It always asked about the grass. But then again, Jenna thought, a buck wouldn’t have much else to say. Until deer hunting season, of course.
Jenna pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her frayed jeans and typed a text to her aunt. She mentioned her friend Nicky and a last-minute sleepover. If Jenna was honest with herself, she knew her aunt didn’t have the heart to discipline her. She would be upset Jenna hadn’t said anything sooner, but it would manifest as no more than a long stare and a loaded, “Did you have fun?” tomorrow morning. Jenna followed the others to Rob’s pickup truck.

The bonfire was erected on the north face of the abandoned barn off Harper’s Creek Road. Sitting on a log next to Rob and a guy with a face full of hair everyone called Jag, Jenna sipped cheap beer, screwing up her face at the taste but continuing to drink. They had been there for a few hours already. Jenna knew she was drunk if she could bite down on her lip and not feel anything. That had happened an hour ago. She felt a tapping at her shoulder, and turned. It was Crystal Marrs, from Spanish class. She grinned in the wide, toothy way that drunk girls did, and dropped down to her knees.

“Oh good, it is you Jenna. Wouldn’t it be so awkward if I tapped on someone’s shoulder thinking it was you and it wasn’t? So I’m glad it’s you. Who’re you here with? I came with Landry, she’s with Dave right now, can you believe it? Dave Reynolds. I told her Elena would murder her if she found out, but Landry’s nuts for him. Hey, you’re going to join the Spanish club, right? Remember how I said you should join? You’re so good at Spanish. Like, so good. Muy bien.” Crystal giggled, and took another sip from a blue plastic cup.

“We even get to go on a trip to Mexico, isn’t that cool? At the beginning of May. It’s five whole days. I’ve never even been further than Philadelphia. It’s going to be so much fun, seriously, come to the meeting this week. It’s on Thursday, you’ll come, won’t you?” Crystal said, hardly taking a single breath.

Jenna smiled feebly and nodded, trying and failing to process the barrage of words. Crystal got back to her feet with a slight wobble.

“I should probably find Landry before she does something crazy, I mean, Dave, really? She has a death wish. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Don’t forget about Spanish club. Have fun,” she said, and tottered away in the direction of the barn.

Jenna turned back to Rob and Jag. Jag, who had become more and more animated as the night and beer wore on, was talking to Rob about peyote.

“You feel like you’re transcending time and space. Everything becomes so immaterial, you know? Like nothing matters. You’re in tune with the whole world. Everything. I heard the Earth talking to me. I mean, actually talking to me. How awesome is that? You’ve got to try it. Seriously, it’ll change your fucking life,” Jag said. He took a long sip of beer and swished it around his mouth, swallowing with a dramatic gulp. Rob nodded, wiping beer foam from his lip. To Jenna, it looked like he was trying to hide a laugh.

“Yeah, sounds pretty crazy. I think that shit can really fuck you up though.”

Jag threw out a hand, and took another swig of beer. “It’s medicinal. The Indians used it to treat people. Like for colds and shit. Seriously, look it up. Forget popping Tylenol, give me peyote any day.”

Rob looked at Jenna, gauging her reaction. She ran a finger around the lip of her beer bottle as she stared at her boots. They were rimed with dust and dirt.

“This fire’s getting way too hot. Want to go for a walk, Jenna?” Rob asked.

Jenna nodded. They got up, skirting around groups of laughing teenagers and empty beer bottles, and walked toward the rows of cars, which were parked against the tree line. The wind had picked up, and even with all the alcohol running through her, Jenna shivered. Setting his beer on the ground, Rob took off his coat, brown suede and fleece lined, and threw it over her shoulders.

“Here. I don’t need it. How’re you doing?” he asked. Jenna pulled the jacket around her and inhaled the smell: cigarettes, bonfire, and something like the incense they burned at the Catholic mass she used to go to with her grandmother.

“Fine,” she said. Silence ensued. After a while, Rob spoke.

“It’s alright, you know. You don’t have to talk about it. Or you can. Whatever. I’m here, if you need to talk. If we can talk. I’m here for you,” he said. Jenna gave him the same smile she had given people who offered her their condolences at the reception, the smile that gave them what they wanted from you.

They threaded their way between rusted pickups and old-model sedans. She could hear the crunch of leaf litter and pine cones under her feet. Jenna felt that not speaking was a therapy in itself. Creating words for feelings seemed to cheapen feelings.

The woods swallowed them up as they walked further. There was a full moon, an orangey harvest moon, which gave the light filtering through the trees a strange glow. Rob finished his beer and tossed it away. Jenna could hear the clank of glass hitting rock.

“We used to play Capture the Flag somewhere around here. You, and me, and Jo. Some kids from the neighborhood. Do you remember? Jo was so damn fast. You too,” Rob said. Jenna almost felt sorry that he was trying so hard to engage. He went on.

“I think we lost a flag one time. Whoever hid it couldn’t remember where they put it. Or maybe it blew away. We all gave up playing and just started looking for that one fucking flag. I think we stayed out here until dinner. Jo had to find the damn thing. Insisted, even after everyone started heading home. Or maybe that didn’t happen. Maybe I made that up. Do you remember? I think I’m a little drunk. I just like thinking about her as a kid, you know? But it sounds like something that would have happened.” Rob stopped suddenly and grabbed Jenna’s arm, making her jump.

“So much has changed. Going to bonfires and walking around in the woods drunk? It’s something I’d do with Jo. If Jo was still alive,” he said. He paused and ran a hand through his hair. “Shit, I’m sorry Jenna, I’m being an ass. I like being here with you. I mean, I want to be here with her, but I like this with you too. Christ, yeah I’m talking out of my ass now…” he looked at her sheepishly.

Jenna couldn’t say with certainty who started kissing who, but she became aware of tree bark pressing into her back and Rob’s hands firmly planted on her waist. The alcohol left her body feeling soft, malleable; the pressure of Rob pushed against her was either holding her together or flattening her into nothing.

“Jo,” Rob murmured into her ear as he kissed her neck roughly. Jenna froze. She became aware that Rob’s mouth on her neck was the same mouth that used to call Jo “babydoll;” that Rob’s hands on her waist were the same hands that used to tickle Jo until she squealed. Jenna could recall afternoons spent at Wendy’s, or the park, or the mall, before their parents had put Jo in Hershey Hospital, watching Jo and Rob holding hands and kissing and messing with each other good-naturedly, the way young couples would. Rob’s tongue began probing her lips, trying to push through like spring seedlings from dirt. If he was aware of what he had said, it didn’t seem to register. Jenna felt dizzy from booze and memory.

“No,” she said, pushing at his chest. He looked her in the eye, seeming uncertain of who she was or what was happening. He dropped his hands from her waist as a look of recognition came about him.

“God. Jenna, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” he started, and Jenna rose silently. She began walking further into the trees.
“Where are you going? Come on, let’s just go back. I can drive you home. Jenna.”

She continued walking, and when she heard the crunch of his boots behind her, she began to run, a haphazard dash, just missing trees she almost couldn’t see. Jenna got to the point where she couldn’t hear anything, and stopped, slowing her run to a walk. She hoped Rob would turn back.

For over an hour she walked. She would move, placing one foot firmly down before raising the next, not wanting to run into the rocks and foliage that seemed to materialize out of the murky dark. A few times she saw a glimpse of street lights or heard the sound of cars, and turned her direction. It wasn’t long before she was lost, and this made her movement more erratic and uncertain. Her limbs felt loose and tingly. It reminded Jenna of the haunted house she and Jo had gone to, last October after Jo had come home from the hospital. Jo, who had always been daring, had developed what her parents thought of as an obsessive fascination with the macabre. She loved all things gruesome and strange, and when she saw the sign for The Grim House, she couldn’t resist checking it out. They had stumbled about in the dark, jumping at the touch of a wispy cobweb or cold, plastic wire. Actors would leap from the shadows to shout and gesticulate wildly in their faces. Jenna had a scream that could remove paint from a barnside, but Jo was gleeful and giggling, whooping and hollering and dragging Jenna through the darkness to each new hallway and room.

Afterwards, walking back to the car, Jo had said, “That was awesome. Cheap thrills. Sometimes you just want the shit scared out of you, don’t you? Like, on purpose. By something that isn’t real life.” Jenna had never understood what she meant. By January, Jo was back at Hershey, but when she returned the second time there were no haunted houses; there was no mirth. Jo returned with bovine eyes, dulled by Paxil, and spent a lot of time sleeping and staring. And then, one day in early summer the orange prescription bottles were gone, and Jo was doing backflips with Rob off the bridge over Foster Creek and stealing wine from the convenience store on PA 641.

In the early fall, Jo’s manic energy bottomed out. She seemed used up, like a tube of Colgate after all the toothpaste has been squeezed out. She complained of headaches, and fatigue. Jenna got into the habit of waking Jo up in the mornings for school, until one night when Jo came to her room with the explicit purpose of asking Jenna not to wake her the next morning. Jenna was already in bed. She rolled over so she was facing the bedroom door, squinting her eyes at the light shining in from the hallway.

“Hey, I’m not going anywhere tomorrow. I need to sleep. Okay? Sorry. Goodnight sis,” she said. But she didn’t move. She had stood there, framed by the light, her skinny legs jutting from a pair of men’s athletic shorts.

“You okay?’ Jenna had asked, her voice thick with disturbed sleep.

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Love you. See ya.”

Not long after, all that was left was an empty bedroom and Jo’s possessions hidden away in the basement, and a soft, holey Black Sabbath t-shirt that Jenna had stolen from Jo before she was gone and had been wearing to sleep ever since.

Jenna reached a copse, and stopped. The moon illuminated the scene, providing more light now that there was a break in the trees. The grass under her feet was rough and unkempt. Out of the corner of her eye, Jenna caught a glint. She turned, and saw a scrap of something red and shiny, wedged between two branches partway up an old oak. She let herself pretend it was the flag, the one Rob said Jo had been searching for that day as kids.

“We found it, Jo,” Jenna said aloud. “You said we would.”

She walked to the base of the tree. A few dried leaves clung to its branches, but otherwise it was bare, creating dark tentacles against the sky. There were branches low enough that she was able to hoist herself up. When they were little, she and Jo had spent entire summers scaling trees. Jo was always better than her. But Jenna had improved after spending years trailing her sister to the uppermost boughs. She sat on a limb, wrapping her thighs around it the way kids would straddle the miniature ponies at the County Fair. With one hand gripping tight, she reached out to grab the object. It was a deflated Mylar balloon, the kind you could buy from the drugstore. It crinkled as she pulled it away, bringing with it dead leaves that gently fell onto her head. Smoothing it flat, she read “Congratulations!” on one side in white cursive font. She stared at it for a moment, and giggled. She tried to stop, but giggled again, louder, and kept giggling and giggling until it turned to tears, and then she was crying in loud, heaving sobs, tears and snot dripping down her face.

“Can you smell the grass, Jenna?” said a voice from halfway across the copse.

So startled was Jenna that she nearly fell from her perch in the tree. The balloon dropped from her hands, coming to rest at the base of the oak. She hadn’t noticed the buck emerge from the woods to graze in the copse. There it was, staring right in her direction. It was hard to see, but she knew somehow that it was the same one from her aunt and uncle’s backyard.

“Can you?” it repeated, sounding more urgent.

In all the time Jenna had been hearing the buck speak, not once had she responded. There had been something almost humorous--absurd, even--about the question when she had first been asked. After awhile it had become a clinical question, like asking someone their date of birth. Now, it seemed menacing, connected to an answer loaded with consequence, like asking someone after a serious concussion if they could remember their name, or what day it was. It didn’t feel like a question about which she could lie. It wasn’t even a question she wanted to acknowledge, for this meant acknowledging the answer, and its implications. She was silent for what felt like a long time.

“I don’t...I can’t. I don’t think I can,” she said aloud, her voice thick with tears.

Her body felt clammy. The buck walked forward, tail twitching. It continued, until it was directly below Jenna and bent its neck, nosing at the balloon. After a few moments, which felt like minutes to her, it lifted its neck and stalked off, almost elegant, headed for the far end of the copse.

Jenna watched it go. It disappeared into the trees on the far end, the patch of white on its tail reflecting the moonlight. She continued to sit, watching the group of trees it disappeared into, until her eyelids began to droop. Shaking her head, she extricated the phone from her pocket and checked the time. It was almost five in the morning, and Jenna felt a tiredness of dipping levels of adrenaline and mental fatigue but also of having done something that seemed far too difficult but was now mostly completed.

She made her way down the tree slowly, the blood and feeling circulating back through her legs. When she reached the ground, she stooped down and picked up the deflated balloon, folding it into quarters. She stuffed it into one of the pockets of Rob’s jacket, and continued walking in the direction the buck had gone. The morning slowly became lighter, and after awhile she came to a stretch of road. Jenna began following the road downhill, figuring that eventually someone from town would pass her, or that she would see something familiar.

It was chilly, and Jenna pulled Rob’s jacket tighter about her. She thought about what Crystal had said, about the trip to Mexico that the Spanish club was going to take. Jenna had never been to Mexico, didn’t know anyone who had been to Mexico, couldn't even imagine Mexico. She wondered if she would be able to take slow, dusty mid-day walks, and sit on long, quiet beaches finishing Brave New World.

From far away, back in the direction from which she had come, she could just make out the sound of a rifle shot. She stopped, waiting for a second round, but there wasn’t one; there was nothing but the steady sound of her own breathing.