Matilda is thirteen. It is 1999. Flared jeans and baggy t-shirts are in. She is at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, on a seventh-grade school trip. The sharp, feline eyes of Mrs. Watson dart around, looking for one single hormone-driven, angsty, rebellious foot to step out of line. Before long, the chaperone spots her prey and pounces, with unexpected speed, on a squirmy boy with greying socks who has somehow breached the code of conduct. He has braces, bad skin, and a perpetually sad look of his face.
Matilda sighs, eager to be off Mrs. Watson's radar. She slumps her shoulders, attempting to make her curvy figure less noticeable. As a child, Matilda was what her mother called "solid." She envied her older, leaner brother who ran faster because his legs were so long. Her mother would pat her back and murmur comforting words in Albanian. Men like women who are small and compact. Her mother would rub her own growing abdomen, ripe with a third child, and pronounce the ease with which she could deliver her children. Wide hips means less pain! Matilda's mother was only partially correct with her hypothesis. While the delivery of her next child would take a mere twenty-two minutes, those twenty-two minutes would be filled with words that the devout Orthodox wife rarely uttered.
Matilda pressed her face against the glass and stared into the dark tank. Supposedly there was a dolphin here, but she was unable to see anything except oily residue from other visitors and a half-completed piece of vandalism scratched into the glass with someone's keys. F-U-C--. Matilda smiled and giggled.
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I always imagined Matilda was who Jenny would have become. The dark eyes. The olive skin. The slight accept. But no. Jenny was someone else. Jenny was scrawny, with thick curly brown hair. She liked legos and trucks, sometimes. Other times it was just Barbies. Pink. She wanted her hair to be crimpy. She was missing a tooth in the side of her mouth. You know, the canine tooth. It gave her this crazy mischievous look. Remember when we started the food fight at lunch, Jenny, and you had to sit with the principal every day for a month? We saved you a seat every day, in defiance, like some sort of vigil held for a prisoner of war. We we could see you over there, right across enemy lines, sitting next to the principal, eating your lunch while he tried to be a princi-PAL to you (he always thought that would make us students be less afraid of him). And you just grinned that crazy, gap-toothed grin at us as you had your head bowed, planning the next mashed potato war. We kept the seat saved for you. Our vigil while you were alive.
At recess, you challenged the boys in kickball, football, basketball. Those were the boy sports. We settled for the tetherball circles and four-square courts. That was the way things were. But you dragged us over anyways. You told the boys us girls WERE allowed to play. Your breath came out in tiny, angry puffs of condensation. I remember it. Your nose was running but you didn't wipe it.
(Later, your older brother would stand in this very spot, on this very playground. It would be March, the weather would still be cold, and the whole world would seem unable to move on from January. Your brother would be wearing an oversized coat and gloves. Leaning against a shovel, with so much weight to bear, planting a memory tree, with snot and tears running down his chin and neck, he would bear a striking resemblance to you.)
I never really liked football. I would have preferred to remain in the safe oasis of girls in neon windbreakers, playing house and sweeping up the fall leaves. I watched you from afar, Jenny. Its how I see you now. From afar. I asked myself today if I remember who you really were. I hope so.
You are more than just the last yearbook photo you ever took. You are more than a clipping in the paper. You are more than the tragic four minute long feature on the Channel Six news. you are more than just a memory. You are you.
The birthday party. You turned ten, remember? Your mother invited us all over to your family's apartment. As soon as I entered, I was greeted with the rich, warm, buttery smell of a different culture. Different foods, Different paintings on the wall (Orthodox Kristos, lit up with painful eyes and emaciated bodies. His eyes were dark, just like yours). Your mother kissed us all on the cheek. We blushed, painfully American.
There was cake, but nothing else familiar. Us girls politely nibbled off Dixie plates filled with mysterious, dark, bubbling foods. Your brother brooded from one room to the next, not pleased at the gaggle of ten-year-old girls present in his abode. He was somewhere in the vicinity of fourteen to thirty-four. We didn't know and didn't care. An adult boy. Gross. As we poked our food, your eyes were lit up with anticipation. Presents, streamers, your mother taking polaroids of the party guests decked out in turtlenecks and leggings (it was Fall, and it was 1995). Those pictures would be forgotten. Only the one of you would be treasured. But none of this mattered to you. You only wanted adventure. You only wanted the next best thing. You wanted to climb off the balcony into the tree.
We ran into the back bedroom, closely avoiding collision with your brother, who swerved off into the bathroom at the last moment as he recognized the small herd of girls headed his way. Jenny, I have this crazy memory of you, as you swung around and you announced your plan through your frizzy hair (the crimping didn't work) and we, not understanding fully, watched with eyes open as you seemingly - pop! - jumped out the window. For the tiniest slice of time, we understood what it was like for you to be taken away so suddenly and without explanation or warning. And then you popped your head back in the window and announced success. You could, it seemed, get to the tree by way of the balcony.
We all tried it - you had to take this terrifying jump to get to the thick, sturdy tree branch. You did it without hesitation. We all hesitated, some of us too long. Mary fell off the balcony, as half her body refused to comply with the short flight. She fell, broke her wrist, and the party was over. And then our mothers were there to pick us up, and you remained in that tree branch, sad that the adventures were over. Your mother appeared at the window, waving her hands impatiently and telling you something in Albanian. Probably telling you to get down and thank the guests for coming.
October third. Sixteen years ago. What else do I remember of you? Standing in line, waiting for lunch. Leaning against the wall, flicking your newly permed hair over your shoulder. You said a swear word! You dropped it so casually that we barely registered it, and then our skin prickled and our ears reddened at the sound. Eyes darting back and forth, we scanned for teachers. None. You were just standing there, with that insane crooked smile. The kids gathered around you, repeating the word, hoping for your approval. You smiled and threw your head bad and cackled. You accepted everyone, but never needed an ounce of affirmation. You were the epitome of confidence.
At this point in our lives, friend groups were just beginning to form and separate. Cliques, as they would become known as, in middle school. But you never made it that far. I wish you could be here now. I have so much to tell you. So many things have happened, Jenny.
Your cousin moved here, all the way from Albania. Her name is Matilda. She, along with her older brother Emilio and parents, moved into the apartment across the hall from me. It was May, and Spring was finally arriving; with red-rimmed eyes and hollow cheeks. The Winter had lasted too long. But it was hard to let go. I immediately was drawn to the warm, dark smell of my new neighbor's apartment. They invited me in, fed me more dark, bubbling food that I stared at and felt a strange absence in my gut. Like a photograph with the faces cut out. They introduced me to their daughter, who was just a year younger than me. A year younger than you. She had your same eyes. It hurt to look at, like looking at the television screen too closely. Her face was fuller, though, and her body so solid compared with your slight build. And she didn't speak a word of English. I wanted to talk to her, to gossip with her, to plan a food fight in the cafeteria. But she just got out her dolls and toys and babbled away to me in Albanian.
The months passed. I learned a bit of Albanian (its crazy how fast kids pick up languages) and she mastered the basics of English. One day, she painted my nails bright red. I told her my parents didn't let me paint my nails! But she smiled, grabbed my hands and painted them anyways. I could have said no, my parents told me sternly, later. I know I could have. I remembered the food fight, the balcony, the schemes. I wanted to be a rebel, like you, Jenny.
But Matilda was never fully you. I wanted her to be. I made her in my mind to be you. I pretended, stubbornly, as we went into middle school, that this girl, with her short, straight black hair and solid build (becoming increasingly curvy as we entered our teens), was you. At school, Matilda tried to blend in. Not like you, Jenny. You, with your bright clothes and permed hair, with your loud accented voice and constant gum-popping, stuck out like a sore thumb. The kids accepted you exactly as you were. The Albanian girl. Jenny. That gap-toothed smile was your trademark.
You never got to go on any of the Chicago field trips that we went on in the coming years. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry, the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum. Mrs. Levy, in a moment of forgetfulness, read your name aloud in the class roster as she checked attendance on the bus on the way back from Chicago. We dropped all fidgeting and became miniature adults with bowed heads and grieving minds. Our teacher stared off, sighing. The secretary needed to update those forms.
One such field trip, in late middle school, I observed Matilda once again. I had moved to a different house on the other side of town, and our across-the-hall play sessions had ceased. Matilda had become alarmingly American overnight, and attempted to blend in further. I saw her smoking once, in the alley, with other kids. She wore the basics of middle school survival in 1999 - flared jeans, white t-shirt, hair back in a scrunchie. She seemed forever uncomfortable with herself; her arms crossed over her chest, shoulders slumped, face worried. She passed by me and I smelled some perfume. What happened to the dark, bubbling smell of her apartment, her family, her culture? Our eyes briefly met and we looked away with a twin sense of adolescent embarrassment. We were strangers now, despite our afternoons of dolls and blended English and Albanian chatter. Even the one thing that had bonded us was distant in our minds.
I once asked Matilda about you. I asked her what it was like, losing you. She didn't understand the question fully, and answered my inquiry with basic facts. Matilda had still been in Albania when her family found out. She had been eight, almost nine. Her mother wailed, her grandmother wailed, a picture of you was promptly set on the main table surrounded by candles. To lose an adult relative is an ordeal but to lose a child of the family is catastrophic. In the chaos that ensued (Matilda's family decided to speed along their move to the United States. They dreamt of being able to attend the funeral but with Immigration it still took four months for all the paperwork to go through), no one remembered to inform Matilda. She saw the photo of her cousin, whom she hadn't seen in four years and could barely remembered, her mind registered the candles and the wailing and she concluded that, apparently, you were dead.
She didn't know how though. She didn't know the details. She wasn't there when it happened. She didn't know, for instance, that it was raining so hard that traffic was stopped and the ambulance couldn't get through. She didn't know that a helicopter landed in the main inner section of Cudahy and lifted your tiny, tiny body into the air. She didn't know that you had just gone to Toys 'R' Us with your mother and aunt. You were looking at the new figure skater Barbie. I know. We talked about it at school that day. You were going to beg your mom to go see it. I wanted you to tell me all about it. I had only seen the commercials.
Matilda didn't know that I was present in this scene. I was, Jenny. I was there, so close to you, but you didn't know it. I didn't know it either, at the time. I was waiting for Mary and her mom to pick me up, to take me to the YMCA. It was January 24th, 1999. They took too long to get to my house. I heard the car honk and bounded down the stairs, barely catching my curfew shouted at me, gym bag in hand, dreams of swimming around the warm pool at the 'Y'. I jumped in Mary's mom's car and we sang along to Alanis Morrisette. The traffic was so bad. Mary's mom gripped the steering wheel so hard. The rain was beating down. We were stuck in back of an ambulance. The sirens were on, and we turned the music up louder so we didn't have to hear. We couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't help you. I didn't know. I didn't know. We went to the pool. We swam and sang to more Alanis. We returned home to our beds, our hair smelling of chlorine. And in a hospital surgery room, at 1:10 in the morning on January 25, as our eyes twitched happily in their sockets during a REM cycle, they pronounced you dead.
Matilda didn't know all this. She only knew her cousin had died in a car accident and they were moving to America.
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Matilda was a good friend. I tried to make her someone she wasn't in my mind. There is probably some sort of psychological word for this, who knows. I would often call her by the wrong name. I called her Jenny. I didn't always immediately correct myself. We grew apart after a year or so, and maybe that's okay. People change. Friendships change. We grow up. Well, most of us.
I always wonder if we would have been friends. I remained friends with Ellie and Sandra. They still live next door to each other. Sandra went to college and got a real job! Ellie is going to art school. But college, jobs, adulthood.... what do they matter to you, Jenny? You are ten years old. There are no 'what ifs' for you. You will always be ten years old.
The teachers, robed in sagging vests of Crayola Crayons and too many years of small town education, sat us down on the morning of January 25. We already knew. We knew by the look in their eyes that someday, maybe in our forties over the morning paper, or in the midst of a drinking game at twenty-two, or while our grandchildren played in the sandbox, someday we would remember this moment. One teacher, in the style of a Greek tragedy, stepped forward in lamentation and told us. Her broken voice informed us of an accident, of it being a classmate, and of it being you, Jenny. I remember the collective gasp. The most horrible noise. Children are not supposed to hear this. Children are not supposed to have to grasp each other's sobbing bodies and have their heart ripped out of their chest. Those stages of grief, whatever they are, should not happen to fourth-graders.
But there we were, little adults in a world too big for us. I don't want to remember any more. I wrote a letter to your parents, Jenny. I don't know why. I suddenly needed to express my gratitude for inviting me over to your house on your birthday and also, P.S. (almost as an afterthought), I am sorry your daughter died. I never mailed it. I still have it.
I went to your funeral. I didn't even know what to wear. I didn't know you were supposed to wear black. I guess most people don't think to inform their children what to wear to funerals. You hope it doesn't come up. I just wore my school clothes from that day. A pink turtleneck and leggings. It was 1996, you know.
The funeral. it was like one of those scenes in a movie in which the camera is tilted slightly to the left, diagonally, so that you feel like you have to keep turning your head to stay upright. Your feet sway, and gravity laughs at you and disobeys the rules. The room was stretched too wide. So many black chairs. We walked in. A wail reached over the chairs and grabbed us with such force. It was your mother, Jenny. She had seen us, ran over, and grabbed us, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. I breathed in so sharply I can never get the smell of grief out of my nose. Your mother just kept hugging us and squeezing us. It seemed as though she considered the life in our young bodies to be unfair to the lack of life in her own daughter. She dragged us over to the front. She wanted us to say goodbye. To you, Jenny. because you were there, but not really. Your body was in this doll house colored casket, white and pink and frilly and disgusting. I was lifted up and almost thrown into the casket by someone. Your face. It wasn't fair. It's not fair. Your mother sobbing. You. Dead.
At this point I passed out. I don't know why. I remember your face turning grey but it was just my vision. I was sitting in a chair, facing the front while the mourners filed by, and the mother of the deceased wailed on. Ellie was standing next to me, crying softly, then louder. Her mother came forward, concerned about us. Funerals are no place for children, she said, perhaps ironically. We were taken away. We laid in Ellie's bed all day, with her mother bringing us macaroni and cheese. We rarely talked about Jenny again. About you.
I worried about you becoming the past tense. I want these memories to be alive as if they happened yesterday. That's the only way anyone ever survives. Stories.
Sometimes I change the story. In another version, you moved away. On January 24, your family packed up their little compact car (it is still in pristine shape here, not crushed between a pickup and an SUV) and moved to Virginia. You had to jump right into the middle of fourth grade, but you did just fine. Everyone always loved you. Ellie, Sandra and I wrote you letters for a while. You answered them, once, twice, but in the end, as do all pen-pal friendships, the letters fizzle out. We would bring your name up in conversation sometimes. We would laugh at the way you flung mashed potatoes and that weird salisbury steak - in chunks - while diving under the table. You were only one that got caught, but you never tattled on us. Our hero. We would remember your crazy hair-dos and mid-90's clothing (hey, its the 2000's by now. We can laugh). We would attempt to do your accent. We would build you up in our minds, as this heroine of J.E. Jones Elementary school. You would never change. You would always be ten years old. Perfect. Maybe this is the right story. Maybe this version will trump all others. Maybe this is what I will tell people, when they inevitably bring up the question, "Hey, what ever happened to that Jenny girl?"