The end of Rudy’s journal entry.
I was not Superman.
The bus blew.
Raw. Unrelenting. Incomplete. I tossed the covers off, froze, pulled them over me again. I reread the end. I was not Superman. The bus blew. God, Rudy. There were a million mega-moments and micro-moments that happened between those lines. One of them was with me.
Mom was now silhouetted in the hallway light, and I thought about how beautiful she was and how I never told her and how I probably should because sometimes your life was I was not Superman and the bus blew and you weren’t one of the four who survived. I curled around my pillow and chewed the corner of the fabric.
She set two cookies and a glass of milk beside my bedside lamp, and said, “I thought I heard you crying.”
“I wasn’t crying.”
When faced with my dry cheeks, she cocked her head to the side and dropped onto the edge of my bed. “Honey, what you did today—”
I assumed she meant my suspension. “I’m not sorry.”
“I’m proud of you.”
“You are?”
“Baby.”
“Stop with the baby, Mom.” She looked weary and beaten by my request, the glow of last night long gone. Tell her you love her, a voice said. “Okay, you can still call me baby,” I said instead.
She tried smiling. “I wish you wouldn’t sit in a dark room on your computer. And I wish you wouldn’t dam your emotions. And I wish I knew how to help you.”
I tapped the plate of cookies. “You help.”
“Did you talk to Chan about the bomb threat?”
“I tried.”
“Keep trying. Sometimes we don’t know what we need.”
I need you, I thought, but the words weren’t there. Sometimes we can’t say what we need either.
On her way from my room, Mom touched the edge of a framed photo. The New York skyline. Taken from the plane with my phone. I got out of bed, walked across the room to shut the door, and traced the plastic frame with my finger. The night wasn’t over. I was hours from sleep. Staring at those blue-gray clouds and skyscrapers, I wrote my own moment.
a micro-story by Golden Jennings
John William Jennings came through Ellis Island on June 16, 1907. He was my granddad’s grandpapa. He bought the nine hundred acres I call home. John Jennings also bought the camera that I would shoot my first photo with—a No. 3 Kodak with a velvet red bellows and brown leather case. “Eight turns,” my granddad would say. We’d crank the camera key together, counting each turn aloud. Have you ever heard film winding? It’s a beautiful sound.
In the summers, when I was still young enough to nap and small enough for Gran to crowd my twin bed, she rubbed my back and chronicled family details until I fell asleep. Her grandparents were from Ireland. Granddad’s were from England. She stocked me with marvelous stories, further feeding my obsession. In elementary school, I drew the Statue of Liberty; I sent my spit to Ancestry.com for my eighth birthday; I googled photos of Ellis Island. Whatever I could scrounge. None of the photos I googled were as awesome as the two from our family. The first of Great-Great-Grandpapa John and his family. The second of Gran and Granddad, shot with the same No. 3 Kodak, in the same pose at Ellis Island.
“Why didn’t Mom and Dad do one?” I asked. I must have been about ten. “Oh, honey, they’re not as cool as us,” Gran said with a wink. Even then, I understood my parents weren’t into traveling beyond our farm or town. It could have been the cost too.
Gran will never go back to New York. Her arthritis and crumbling discs make long car trips painful, and her thoughts on planes are “If God gives me wings tomorrow, I’ll be there. Until then, I’m grounded.” But, in her heart of hearts, she wanted the two of us to go. For me to continue the family tradition and take a new photo. “You’re my little wanderer,” she told me when I was a little girl. “My greatest hope.” I never forgot that. Despite her spunk, she’s slowing down, and I feel the clock screaming, “You’d better do this soon if you want her to be alive to enjoy it.”
For her seventy-fifth birthday, Chan and I planned the gift: I would get that third-generation photo on Ellis Island, shot with the same Kodak Grandpapa John had worn around his neck. Chan had sold two nativities, working day and night, to make the trip happen.
That’s why I was in New York.
When I finished, I shared with Rudy.
Three minutes later, he pinged me back.
I assume you were going for the June 16 anniversary of when your great-great-grandpa came through? How did you end up heading to Ellis Island on the 15th instead?
I typed three responses:
Chandler got a one-day permit to cut logs on the Weymeyers’ land. We had to leave the city early to go back to Kentucky.
They were calling for rain the next day.
You and I met in the Down Yonder bathroom.
I erased them and wrote back a totally uncomplicated truth.
Golden: I decided the date didn’t matter.
Rudy: Did you ever get your photo?
Golden: No.
Rudy: I hope you get it someday.
Golden: How about Sunday?
He didn’t answer before I fell asleep.
I woke at 4:47. He’d written: If only I had a ride.
That’s when I decided I was going back. With or without Chan.