Seeing Jerry by Susan R. Weinstein

When Drea’s mother called to ask if she could take her to see Jerry, Drea clenched her fists without realizing it and dropped the phone.

“What happened?” Drea’s mother asked.

“Nothing,” Drea said loudly as she squatted to pick up the phone. She sat down hard on the floor and tried to breathe slowly, in for four and out for six, as her therapist had suggested she do when triggered.

Drea couldn’t say no after her mother told her Jerry was in a home recovering from a stroke. It was a 40-minute drive, and her mother could only drive short distances now. But Drea didn’t want to go.

“Mom, it’s been a while since you’ve seen him.” Drea paused to inhale slowly. “Why now all of a sudden?”

“All those years your father was sick, Jerry visited him from Queens, sat by his bed, watched the ballgame, cheered him up, such a good friend.”

“Yeah, what a friend.” Drea couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice, but it went past her mother as she knew it would. Her mother kept talking.

“I haven’t seen him in years, since his grandson Theo was born, when you couldn’t come because of that awful food poisoning.” She paused and Drea could feel her mother’s annoyance in her silence.  “You haven’t seen him since your high school graduation party, 20 years ago!”

And there it was. The guilt.

Drea didn’t need a reminder of when she’d last seen Jerry. But suddenly, she started to think it might be good to go. She unclenched her fists.

“Fine, I’ll take you.”  

“Oh, thank you honey.” Her mother said cheerfully. “Poor thing, divorced forever.” Her mother was using that whiny empathetic tone, the one meant to make Drea feel something she didn’t feel. “And his only child, Tom, lives in California.” 

Drea was sure it was Tom who called and asked her mother to visit his father. She barely remembered Tom since he’d spent most of his time with his mother after she’d divorced Jerry.

The car ride was uneventful, other than her mother’s annoying insistence on how happy Jerry was going to be to see Drea. “You were always one of his favorites.”

Drea stared at the road and clutched the steering wheel tightly, trying to focus on James Taylor’s voice on SiriusXM’s Coffee House channel. James usually calmed her, but she couldn’t help being drawn back to the night of her cousin Seth’s Bar Mitzvah.

Drea was eleven and excited about the purple velvet minidress her mother allowed her to buy, even though she’d sniffed it was too tight, more for an older girl, a teenager.  Drea’s father’s friend Jerry, always the life of the party, movie star handsome with his dark wavy hair, dimpled smile and piercing blue eyes, grabbed her hand, pulling her onto the dance floor. He was such a good dancer, and she felt honored that he picked her as his dance partner. It was oddly thrilling to see Jerry’s stylish girlfriend of the month in her sexy black dress slit up to her thigh sitting at the table, annoyed, sipping her martini and watching them dance.

Drea had smiled up at Jerry, her favorite of her father’s friends. The only one who never treated her like a little kid and was always interested in what she had to say. She felt let down when the song ended and he grabbed her arm to steer her off the dance floor. One of her cousin Seth’s friends, two years older than Drea, walked by wearing Drea’s prized purple dress! She was blonde and skinny; she looked like a model. That’s how the dress should fit, Drea thought miserably, wishing the floor would swallow her up. She was embarrassed that the dress was tight across her shorter, rounder body, a body that had started maturing before she was ready. She crossed her arms to cover the dress, to make herself invisible.

Jerry stepped close behind Drea and whispered in her ear, “She doesn’t look as good as you because you’re much curvier and fill it out better.” As he talked, he slid his hand up her side from her hip, along her waist, stopping to rest just under her arm, close to her breast. 

Eeww, Drea thought to herself as she quickly moved away and walked back to the cousins’ table. She tried to put it out of her mind because she knew all the adults were drinking too much and Jerry was always a touchy-feely kind of person. After that day, she tried to stay away from him, but he’d find her at family gatherings, in the hallways at restaurants when she’d go to the ladies’ room and somehow, he always had to go at the same time. And stuff would happen, no matter how hard she tried to stay away.            

Three years after Seth’s Bar Mitzvah, when Drea was fourteen, she asked if she could put a lock on her bedroom door.

“You’re ridiculous,” her mother had laughed. “No.”  

Drea’s mother didn’t know it was because when Jerry came over to visit her father, he’d always use the bathroom upstairs so he could come to Drea’s room where she was hiding, doing homework, anywhere but downstairs in the room with him. He’d ask questions she didn’t feel like answering.

“I bet you’re popular with the boys at school.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

And within a minute or two, he’d tell her how pretty she was and grab her and kiss her. He was so handsome and had so many girlfriends and he smelled so good. Drea imagined he was in love with her. She somehow knew that was wrong, but didn’t know why. Back then no one talked about that stuff. There was no such thing as “inappropriate behavior” if it was a family friend. There was no Internet, no one Drea could ask. She just knew she cringed when he grabbed her and kissed her “just a goodbye kiss as I’m leaving so soon,” as he pressed his mouth against hers, rubbing his hand along her back. She’d try and squirm away, but he was stronger.

She never told anyone. It’s not like he pulled her clothes off or tried to rape her, she’d tell herself, trying to convince herself she was making too much of it. After all, she did wear her jeans super tight, and all that eye makeup made her look older. What could she say, anyway? He liked her? He smiled too much? He kissed her on the mouth? Drea’s mother already thought she was boy-obsessed. She worried her mother would think she was making stuff up. And then what would happen? She’d be humiliated. And her father was so sick with cancer by then that she just couldn’t pile more on. Jerry had always been such a good friend of her father’s since they were boys at the Jersey Shore together, and especially now that he was sick. So, she kept silent.

“There’s the sign for Forest Green Home!” her mother said, interrupting Drea’s internal rehashing of her childhood. Startled, Drea swerved off the highway, making her mother yelp, and drove the last mile into the parking lot. She stopped the car and let go of the steering wheel, sitting quietly and staring ahead at the nondescript building, trying to figure out how she felt. She wasn’t sweating and her fists were no longer clenched. She felt anticipation. Drea realized she was glad to be there.

A plan she’d been fantasizing about since she’d agreed to this visit, maybe since she was eleven, immediately crystallized. She’d send her mother to the cafeteria to get coffee and then, alone, she’d confront Jerry and remind him that when she was fifteen and he’d been at their house to pay a Shiva call, he told her how nice her legs looked in those stockings. And how he’d rubbed her knee when he said it, sitting too close to her on the couch. And he’d wiped a drop of whipped cream off her lip with his finger, making her face tingle but also making her stomach clench. That her father had just died and had always been such a gentleman made Drea wonder if it even crossed Jerry’s mind how her father would have reacted to Jerry’s touching and the things he said to her.

“Drea!” her mother said sharply. She was out of the car, had refreshed her lipstick and was impatiently peering in the window. “What are you daydreaming about? Let’s go!”

Walking down the stone path, signing in at the front desk, and then striding down the hall to Jerry’s room, Drea was giddy, excited for the confrontation that she was sure would give her the satisfaction and closure she craved. She would reduce Jerry to rubble.

“Slow down,” her mother said, trying to keep up with Drea. “First you don’t want to go and now you can’t wait to see him?”

Drea ignored her mother as she pushed open the door to room 157.

Jerry was sitting in a chair by the window when they entered, and he slowly turned at the loud haunted house-like squeak the door made.

His wavy black hair was gone, replaced by grey wisps. His stylish clothes were also gone, exchanged for a stained, baggy grey sweat suit. He stared at them, his blue eyes still piercing, and despite how frail he seemed, so small in that big chair with an Afghan covering his lap, Drea still felt a twinge of the same fear in the pit of her stomach. 

Her mother spoke first, gently. “Jerry? It’s Arlene, Jack’s wife.” At the sound of her father’s name, Jerry smiled faintly,

“Jack? Has he come to visit?” Jerry asked.

Her mother looked at Drea with wide eyes before turning back to Jerry.

“Jerry, Jack died a long time ago. But it’s Arlene, and I’ve brought Drea with me.” She poked her arm, but Drea remained silent, staring at this feeble man, surprised at how much older than his 68 years he looked. At the mention of her name, Jerry turned to Drea and stared, with no recognition.

“Mom, why don’t you get us some coffee?”

Her mother nodded and whispered, “Tom could have at least given us a heads up!” Her face registered shock that Jerry didn’t know them.

Drea was determined to make him remember. She slid the guest chair so it faced him, far enough away that he couldn’t reach her. She sat, took a breath, and began.

“Jerry, do you remember my high school graduation party? When you told me I was finally legal and then laughed and asked if I wanted to meet you for dinner?” Her voice was louder than she’d intended, and it startled Jerry. His head shot up. She said quietly, “I’m Drea.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know you.” Jerry rubbed his forehead in confusion. “Are you my granddaughter?” Then, a spark of recognition in those blue eyes. “Dee, the new nurse?”

“NO!” she practically shouted. “Drea!”

 Jerry’s head snapped back. “I’m tired,” he said. “Is it time for dinner?”  

Drea watched his hand tremble as he tried to grasp a cup of water just out of reach on a nearby table. She didn’t help him.

Of all the scenarios she’d played out in her head while imagining the confrontation if she ever saw him again, this one was not on the list. It was frustrating. This feeble, confused man who had been the cause of so much torment, so much self-doubt, was no longer capable of being accountable. Was she glad he was sick? A little. Was she sorry she’d missed the opportunity for a satisfying altercation? Perhaps. The Jerry she’d lived in fear of for so long was gone. The man she’d dreamed about confronting, and raged about in so many therapy sessions, had been chiseled down to this pathetic shell.

But Drea suddenly realized she was no longer that scared pre-teen or teenager who couldn’t find a way to say no. And she was surprised she was no longer angry. The pit in her stomach was gone. And it wasn’t any kind of karma satisfaction. People often say that time heals all, but Drea didn’t believe that. She’d never stopped missing her father. All it took was the Giants winning a game, the smell of a cigar or watching her daughter take her first steps, and she’d feel that sharp pain. Lamenting all he had missed. Time gives you the distance for the pain to slow down and dull; sometimes without you being aware it’s happening. But people change. Drea hadn’t realized what a different person she’d become until the minute she saw what had become of him. She exhaled.

When her mother returned to the room with coffee and stale doughnuts, Drea was handing the cup of water to Jerry. She looked up at her mother.

 “Sad to end up like this,” Drea said, feeling nothing.

Her mother set the cups on the metal dresser and handed Drea a doughnut. She gave one to Jerry, but he dropped it.

“No one deserves this,” her mother said.

Drea took a bite, tasting cinnamon and sugar, and wondered if that was true.

Susan R. Weinstein

Image: donuts. One with chocolate and one with caramel icing. From pixabay.com