Jumping Read online

Page 27


  “Then one night, not long after Rebecca's jump, your mother jumped,” she says, knowing I know that. She looks at me quickly. “But not into the Void, as everybody thinks. I don't think she could have jumped into the Void. It isn't a place of suicide, but also I don't think she felt good enough to follow Rebecca into that sacred space. She must have believed everything was her fault, that she deserved some punishing. She got herself into a place where she thought she was doing you and your brother a service by removing herself from your lives, or she would doom you like she'd doomed Rebecca. She couldn't trust herself not to.” She pauses a moment, cradling her mug in her two hands. She looks at me, and I know it's hard for her to do that. I know because it's hard for me to look at her.

  “She tied a rope around her neck and jumped from the tree on the north side of the house,” she says. “I'm so glad I found her and not any of you. I got the ladder and got her down. I did ceremony for her as best I could and cleaned and dressed her, burying her right away with what possessions I had of hers. She's buried a ways from here. I'll show you where.” She looks thoughtful. “It was like her to arrange her death outside so that we could still use the house.” She looks at me again. “For Navajo women, suicide isn't unheard of for women grieving the loss of a child, though suicide has always been rare for us. I think she felt cornered by her pain and killing herself was her only defense. Suicide is not so condemned by Navajos as it is by whites. But her rope goes with her.”

  That stops me, and I look at her. “That's what we believe,” she says. “Your weapon for getting there always goes with you to the other side.

  “Those were hard days for me,” she says. “You'll never know how much having the two of you with me helped. After Benny left, his parents asked if I'd care for you and your brother. They were getting older, and the alcohol was taking its toll. They were both diabetic and not able to get around as well. You two were a blessing to me.”

  “What do you know of why Rebecca jumped?” I ask, knowing she knows.

  “She did come to me in dreams for a while. She still will sometimes.” She moves the cookies around on the plate, not looking at me. “She tells me she thinks her mom would have jumped if she hadn't. ‘I just knew I was supposed to,’ she says.” She pushes the cookie plate away from her.

  “She thought one of the men might have killed the other, too. She just said she knew she was supposed to jump. She was at peace about it. More than at peace—I could tell that she never questioned that jumping was the right thing to do.” She looks up at me. “That's how I got any peace with it. From her.”

  Then she smiles at me. I'm startled by that unexpected brightness. “What?”

  “And from you and your brother.”

  “What do you mean?” I remember nothing of those things that happened when Jimmy Lynn and I were three. Both of us had no memory of either of our parents or Rebecca, even when shown pictures. I know we believed we loved them and they loved us, but that things had happened to carry us apart from each other. It probably helped that most kids we knew had lost family members and many didn't have either or both parents. It was the way things were. You were raised by whoever was handy, often one or both grandparents.

  “You two never said a word about any of it—your big sister gone, your mother gone, your father leaving shortly after, and moving from your grandparents. So I never talked of it either. You were the best-natured little things! You made me laugh a lot. I think having each other helped. I know it helped me. You two were pretty inseparable.”

  That made me think of what makes it possible for anyone to survive. I look back at Granny.

  “We were lucky you were there for us.”

  Granny has tears in her eyes, but they don't fall. “I think that's the hardest thing I ever learned from the Void.” She speaks slowly and deliberately. “You can't change the lives of others. You can only witness.” She looks at me and laughs a dry laugh. “It's still a hard lesson for an interfering old woman like me to learn! I do think I've gotten better, though, because there have been lots of lessons.”

  We're quiet for a few moments. I'm saying goodbye to my mother in a new way now, saying hello to my sister for the first time, and looking at what the Void holds differently now.

  Granny is still clearly in the mind-reading business. “So. Look who is jumping now. White people. Duncan Robert. Babe. Miles. Who's next.” It's not a question. She looks at me intently. I can't answer her, but not because I'm resisting the question. Something else has occurred to me.

  “They all come out.” I know this to be true. “I mean, Duncan Robert has. And I believe Babe and Miles will, too. I don't know about the ones before them.”

  We look at each other.

  “Where's Rebecca?”

  “I don't know,” Granny answers. “And I don't know about any of the others. If they came out, they didn't stay around here. Their stories end with their jumps.”

  We look at each other again.

  “I do know that the Void is changing itself,” Granny says, “to be of better service. It's not the only sacred spot that's changing in the world. I think they're all changing. But it takes people to change them. A hole in the ground, powerful as it is, can't do as much by itself.”

  She looks at me. I'm startled for a moment. Now I'm reading her mind! She's thinking me and my friends from Miles's class are going to be part of the change—we're going to jump. And she thinks it's good.

  I shake my head. All of this jumping in our family, and now I'm going to jump?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Students

  “THEY JUMPED. I SAW THEM. Without a sound, holding hands, they jumped.”

  I pause from the force of telling the five of them. I recover my breath as they stare at me. “I was at the Void this morning.”

  I look at them, and I know they're all going to jump, too. They just don't know it yet.

  Donal shifts his gaze to the window beyond me. “I would have, too.” He's remembering that night when we were all at the Void, when he wanted to jump with his little brother.

  “They're not back yet, but we know they will be. We just don't know how they might or might not be changed.”

  From the front of class, as I lean on Miles's desk, I survey them. Kevin gets up from his seat in the back of the room, to pace. Monica doodles in her notebook, head hung low over it. Nathan goes to stand at the window, hands in his pockets. Donal hasn't moved. Lonnie sits next to him, flipping his pencil in the air over and over.

  Spring break has just officially started this morning, but none of us plans to leave town. We all live in town or close by, and most of us will be working over spring break, not having some mad, all-out fling somewhere south and warm. We're sitting in the classroom where we always have our writing class with Miles, at the time we always have it. Everyone came. I texted them to be there if they could, and they all came, knowing it must be important.

  “How did you know they were going to do it?” Monica asks.

  “First, I just felt called to go to the Void. I woke up really early, and I just had to go. It was a clear, no-excuses kind of feeling. It started the day before and then just got stronger and stronger. I hardly slept.”

  I look at them and then can't help saying, with a little pride, “It's an Indian thing.” Then I blush. “My Granny knew, too.” They nod.

  “So, I walked over there this morning, early, just before dawn. I came through the field by my house and through the woods and stood at the edge of the trees, just back from the Void. And as I stood there, I knew. First, that someone was going to jump. Second, who it was. I was hot and cold, as if my blood pressure was up. I didn't know if I could watch, and if I did watch, if I would do something.”

  “Like what?” Kevin has stopped pacing, and beads of sweat line his forehead. He's half-nauseated by the thought of their jumping.

  “I don't know. Jump myself? Scream? Try to stop them?” I rub my hands together absent mindedly, like Granny somet
imes does. “But I didn't do any of those things, because I knew I couldn't interfere with their jump. This was their decision to make. My job was to keep it that way. They came just a few minutes later, together.”

  “How were they? Happy? Sad? Scared? Did they say anything?” Monica looks up at me, and I know she's seeing it as a love story, the kind of love story Monica would like to be part of someday. I guess I could see it that way, too, if I tried.

  “I'd say they were quietly happy. I saw no tension, no nervousness, no worry. They just went about their business. They said something to each other, but I couldn't hear it. They were very calm.”

  “Oh my god,” Lonnie says. He gets up from his chair and starts pacing in the front of the room, having left the back of the room to Kevin. “Oh my god. I can't believe it. I couldn't have stood watching them. I don't know if I can stand hearing about it now.”

  Lonnie is still feeling the after-effects of his recently departed fear of falling.

  “It wasn't for them what it would be for you. They'd planned it for quite a while. You could see that in their calmness. They came ready to do it. You all know that. You know how well they know the Void, how much they've studied it, what Duncan Robert told them. They were prepared. They were not afraid.”

  “But, why? Really?” Donal asks. “Why did they do it?”

  “You know that, too.”

  “What happens now?” Donal asks. “Do we do anything, notify anyone, get any help?”

  I look at them, wondering if I've been expecting too much of them, wondering if I shouldn't have told them. They look back.

  Then Nathan says, back to staring out the window, “No, there's nothing for us to do. Except wait.”

  I sigh with relief inside.

  “Well, I know of one more thing we can do.” We look at Kevin, surprised. “Think about it. What would he tell us to do?”

  Lonnie sighs and nods, thinking of Miles. “Write about it. While it's still fresh.”

  I wait, wondering.

  They look at each other.

  “We need to go there to do it, don't we?” Lonnie shivers.

  “Yes, we do.” Nathan, turning from the window, says it firmly.

  I feel a new tension in the room. This isn't about what somebody else did now. It's about what we'll do. They know it, too. They shift uncomfortably.

  “Well, okay,” Donal says, stepping up, as he always does. “Let's do it.”

  “Now?” A note of anxiety cracks Lonnie's voice.

  They break into a discussion of the reasons they can't do it now—too late to plan it, other responsibilities, no writing gear or any other gear, not ready to write. Only Nathan and I remain quiet.

  “Okay.” Donal stops their noise. “Tomorrow.”

  They quiet immediately, most of them looking down, at their hands or shoes or the floor.

  “Do you think they're dead?” Kevin breaks the silence again.

  “No, I don't,” Donal says, “but that's something you can write about—why you think they are.”

  “I don't think they are,” protests Kevin. “I just don't know what to think.”

  “I know.” Monica now has a catch in her voice. “Even though I didn't know them that well, I miss them.”

  “Me, too.” Nathan smiles and adds, “At least we've got each other,” in a fake-sincere voice, though I know he means it.

  They laugh. Kevin throws a wad of paper at him, which he easily catches and lobs back. It's a nice moment, and I'm grateful to Nathan.

  Donal gets them to talk about what time to go, where to meet, what to bring. They make their arrangements, gather up their things, and head for the exit.

  “I'm not going to sleep tonight!” Kevin says, as he goes to the door with Monica.

  “Come stay at my place. I'm not going to be sleeping, either. We can watch reality shows.” She moves through the door ahead of him.

  “Have you got room for one more?” Lonnie asks. “I'll spring for pizza. I don't want to be alone thinking about this.”

  “Sure.” The three of them go out into the hallway.

  “I've got to get home,” Donal says to me. He smiles. “Brogan's waiting for me to read to him.”

  He turns to me at the door. “You'll be there tomorrow, right?”

  “Yes, I'll be there. I wouldn't miss it. Thanks for doing the arranging.”

  “Thanks for telling us. I wouldn't miss it, either.” He lifts his hand as he goes out the door.

  Nathan moves from the window and comes up to the desk, where I'm still leaning. He stands in front of me and takes both my hands in his, surprising me. I look up at him, eyebrows raised.

  “You're an interesting woman, Carrie Jean.”

  I have to smile. “Am I?”

  “Yes, and I wouldn't miss it, either.” He smiles back at me.

  “I think you're the interesting one, Nathan. You've conversed with an angel.”

  “I think you have, too.”

  “Don't let my Granny hear you say I've been talking to angels. She'd think I abandoned my heritage for sure.” I laugh, and he laughs with me.

  He lets my hands go with a little squeeze. “I'll see you tomorrow night.”

  After he leaves, I sit for a moment, staring out the open door into the empty hallway in the quiet building, mostly deserted now. I'm glad the telling is over. I've done my part, delivering the message, without leading or directing anyone. And I think, overall, it didn't go too badly. They didn't run from it. The next time we see each other, we'll all be at the Void. I wonder how many of them know now that they're going to jump. I suspect they all do.

  About the Author

  Jane Peranteau has worked, written, and lectured in public health, community development, and communication for more than twenty-five years. Jane currently lives and works in Mountainair, New Mexico.

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