Page 30 of To the Moon and Back
Even still she would tell Landon about the text tomorrow, maybe while they watched the Reds game on TV.
She’d laugh it off with Landon and tell him he was right. “The poor guy probably thinks I’m a lunatic.” She would utter a sad chuckle and she’d look straight at Landon. “Do you think I’m a little crazy?”
And Landon would give her an understanding smile and he would tease. “Ashley,” he would say, “I married you because you’re a little crazy. I like you that way.”
Yes, that was how it would go. The whole thing would be over and she could get back to life without obsessing over a stranger’s problems.
Ashley had barely finished writing the imaginary script for how tomorrow would play out, and had just turned off the lights when her phone dinged. She stared at it for a moment, plugged in by her bed. Then she picked it up. One new message. She pressed her thumb on the screen, and there it was.
A text from Brady Bradshaw.
Ashley’s heart quickened as she opened it, but at the same time her hopes fell. His reply held no clue as to what he thought about her message, no words as to whether he believed Ashley could be of any help. His text said just this:
I don’t know her last name.
9
T he anniversary of the bombing had a greater hold on Jenna this April. She wasn’t sure why, it just did. So on Friday after school when all her students were picked up and she’d finished her lesson plans for the next week, Jenna drove to Schiller Park.
The place had been one of her favorites since she’d moved to Columbus. Nicely kept with dozens of trees, all hundreds of years old. A path wound a little more than a mile around the perimeter, perfect for a walk. And today Jenna wanted nothing more.
She started near the statue of Friedrich von Schiller, the German poet. Clouds had gathered overhead, the air chilly for late April. She slipped her hands into the pockets of her rain jacket and stared straight ahead. Why was it so hard to move on? So hard to let go of what happened to her parents?
The answer was obvious. Healing was difficult. For nations and cities. But especially for people. She kept her eyes open, but gradually the images in front of her changed until she was no longer seeing trees and stretches of grass and park benches.
Rather she was seeing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. After the bombing. Of course, Jenna didn’t remember firsthand what it had looked like. Neither her grandmother nor she had ever driven by the ruins of what remained that spring. Her grandmother had been busy planning two funerals, and no one would’ve considered taking Jenna by the place where the building once stood.
It didn’t matter.
On the fourth anniversary, Jenna’s teacher presented a slide show of the devastation. Jenna must’ve seen pictures before then. But the photos that day were the first time she understood the scope of horror involved in the explosion. Watching the images, Jenna had started to cry, and when she couldn’t stand to see another, she had gotten up and run from the room. After that, her grandmother never sent her to school on the anniversary again.
Staying home kept her safe from having to see reminders of the terrible reality of that day. It assured she wouldn’t be sitting in class when a photo of her parents buried under rubble might randomly appear as part of a classroom discussion. But staying home left her with no one to talk to about that day. No one except her grandmother. And since her grandma had lost her daughter and son-in-law, the dear woman had no desire to speak about the tragedy.
Not with Jenna. Not with anyone.
Out of sight, out of mind. That was her grandmother’s way of thinking. Which was why—when Jenna was seventeen—her heart had been nearly exploding for the chance to talk to someone about the bombings. The year she met Brady.
Jenna kept walking, slower now. She didn’t think about Brady all the time anymore. Only around the anniversary. Sometimes not even then. There were years recently when she’d been so busy processing her miscarriage and then her divorce that she’d barely made time to find a quiet place to remember the anniversary at all.
The clouds overhead grew darker and the wind picked up. Jenna didn’t care. She needed this time too much to worry about the weather. Besides, her coat kept her warm enough. She lifted her eyes to the sky as she walked.
The day with Brady had happened a month after Jenna’s birthday. At first her plan had been to sleep in, get up around noon and get ahead on her homework.
But school had always come easily for Jenna, and she wasn’t one to sleep late. She woke around seven that morning, took a shower and got dressed. By eight-thirty she knew where she wanted to go. The place she hadn’t been to since her parents were killed.
The Oklahoma City National Memorial.
Once in a while she’d think about going there, heading through the gates and seeing the place dedicated to those killed. But Jenna had never seen any reason why she should go. Better to remember her parents as they were. Happy and in love, sitting with her at the end of her bed, reading to her. Love you to the moon and back, Jenna.
As she headed out, her grandma had stopped her. “Honey? You okay?”
Jenna’s answer was the same as always. “I’m fine.” Then she hugged her grandmother and looked into her eyes. “What about you?”
And her grandma’s tears had come. Just enough to wet her eyelashes. She shook her head, and her lips quivered. She put her hands alongside Jenna’s cheeks. Her words took time to come. “I miss them. That’s all, I just miss them.”
Jenna used to feel jealous of her grandmother for that reason alone. She had more memories of Jenna’s parents. For Jenna the memories were so distant, so dim that she was denied even that. The chance to miss them.
That day as she drove, Jenna hadn’t even been sure how to get to the memorial. She got lost a few times, but finally she found the place. For thirty minutes she sat in her car and just stared at the entrance. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected it to look like.
