Jean

“Men are, that they might have joy.” - The Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 2:27

Her house is filled with dream catchers I used to think were beautiful. They are emerald green with hanging eagle feathers, soft blue with ivory beads, blood red with gold ribbons and black twine, lavender with translucent green ribbon curled lightly, sunset orange that faded into yellow and pink near the top, mustard yellow with gray feathers and tendrils of bark, and they hang on her doors, walls, banisters, and tree limbs—they are even stowed away with the cutlery. Walking into her suburban home is like walking into a flea market shop.

Jean says she makes them whenever she can't sleep. With the sheer number of dream catchers present, that must be every night. Since I have been her neighbor all these years, I guess it fell to me to be the one to look after her. Take her with me to get groceries, drop her off at the salon to get her hair done, that sort of thing. That is what neighbors are for, after all.

Her husband's name was Paul, and he had loved to garden and go fishing. They used to get up early every Saturday to go fishing down at Utah Lake, but then he got sick and, well. She never did the fishing herself, anyway.

It's been fourteen months now, and those dream catchers are still showing up everywhere.

In the spring, I was pulling some weeds out from behind my roses (Lord, help me) and saw her step out of her front door, dream catcher in hand, and start spinning slow circles in the middle of her yard, looking for a spot.

This dream catcher was woven so it looked like it was a framed doily. There were no beads or feathers this time, but she had hung a mass of ribbons from it. So many, in fact, that it made me wonder if she was cleaning out her whole drawer.

When she caught me staring, she waved her free hand and called out, "Morning, Ellen! Your front swing is looking nice, did you repaint it?"

I glanced over at the swing. It was 30 years old and hadn't seen a fresh coat in 35. "You need to get your eyes checked!" I said, shaking my head at her. "That bench is the same as it's always been, except maybe for a fresh coat of dust!"

She smiled wide, walked over to her trellis, and somehow found a way to snug her creation in there along with the overgrown hollyhock plant. "I thought it looked a shade more gray!" she said, then waved again before going into her house.

"A shade more gray, my butt," I'd said to myself, but I was smiling. It was a good day. The sun was shining, the neighborhood was coming alive, and I was wearing the new sun bonnet I had bought just the Wednesday before.

I made pancakes for breakfast and thought I'd bring some over for Jean. Who knows whether that woman ever feeds herself enough. She was organizing photos when I knocked on the screen door and let myself in. They were spread all across the dining room table, some in shoe boxes, some in piles and some sitting next to frames.

"Which do you think would go better over the stairs?" she asked, holding up two photos for me to see. One was of her and Paul next to the New York City Christmas tree, and the other showed them next to the house, probably just after they bought it.

"I think pancakes," I said, putting a couple photo piles onto a chair so I would have room to set the plate down.

“Oh, I already had breakfast. Thank you, though,” she said, moving around the table to consider another photo.

“What did you eat?”

“Corn flakes.”

“No, that’s what you ate yesterday.”

“A person can eat the same cereal two days in a row, you know. It’s actually quite normal.”

I looked over at her sink and saw no dishes in it. She does this sometimes, forgets that she forgot to eat. She could make millions if she could just bottle that forgetfulness. It’s annoying as all get out.

“Jean, I made these pancakes especially for you, and if you don’t eat them, I’m throwing them on your driveway.”

“Can they wait until lunch?” she said, holding a photo at arm’s length and cocking her head to one side. After a moment, she turned it around for my approval. It was a photo of an elephant. I shook my head and she tossed it back on the table.

We negotiated for brunch, settled on a photo of the two of them in a fishing boat in Alaska, and I stayed to help her organize pictures for a minute before returning to my house to do a couple more chores then head off to my book club.

Mornings were just a matter of making sure she ate. Easy. Nights, though; not good.

Jean would go out on the front porch and play the cello. She had no sheet music to speak of, so it was all just whatever came out of her head. The tunes were okay, just sad. Hard to go to sleep when you hear dismal melodies through the night. It nearly made me want to take up dream catcher-ing.

After trying to sleep for, I don't know, an hour, I'd bundle up in a robe and head over to her house.

About a week after the photos and pancakes morning, I shuffled over there to sit on her front steps and watch the night. She kept on playing, giving me a nod, but not much more.

"Stars are pretty tonight," I said, just to open conversation.

"Yes," she said, and played for a few more minutes without saying more. Then she set her cello down on its side and came to sit by me on the step (hers were freshly painted). She didn't say a word, I didn't say a word, but I put my arm around her and she cried.

The next morning, she was knocking on my door and asking whether I wanted some tulips, because she had bought too many for the space she had allotted them in her garden. I accepted, of course, and thanked her with some bacon and eggs. Then she got busy, as she always was, and I had to spend time reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln for my book club.

Maybe I should have quit the book club and started reading books I actually enjoyed, like Dr. Seuss. But you can’t beat the company, and it's hard to take care of your best friend so much sometimes.

Her cello that night sounded like something out of "Phantom of the Opera." Maybe that's what it was, I don't know. Jean used to be in a symphony somewhere and maybe they played it once. Either way, it only took a half hour before I gave up on sleep and went to sit on her front step.

She had just finished a lingering note, something she put a slowing vibrato to, when she stopped and said, so quietly I almost didn't catch it over the crickets, "What's the point?"

I turned toward her. "Of?"

"All of it."

"To be happy."

"Ah." She let out a breath and put down her cello.

I looked at her and it was hard to read her face by the light of the street lamp, so I squeezed her hand and suggested she go to bed. With a nod, she did just that, and the next time I saw her, she was hanging up another dream catcher, a sky blue one with matching feathers and golden beads. This one was hung from the tree that hangs over our property line. I was sure she'd run out of places soon, but hey, Jean's pretty creative.

That night's music sounded a bit more Celtic. Not being a fan of that genre, I didn't even try to sleep, just went straight over to convince her to go to bed.

But she looked a mess and I just didn't have the heart. So I sat in my familiar place, braced my back against the railing, and tried to like Celtic music.

We didn’t talk except to say good night when she was through. I am not a talkative person after 10 o’clock. Decent people are in bed and sleeping at that hour, unless they have a cello-playing neighbor who is still grieving over losing her husband. Then they sit on porches and try to act civil.

I shouldn't complain, though, because one night, she didn't play her cello at all. I was lying in bed, waiting for my bedtime serenade, and it didn't come. Didn't come, didn't come, so of course I had to go check on her.

She was kneeling on her kitchen floor, using a rag to mop it. It was 11:00 o’clock at night. "Jean?" I said.

"Mmm?"

"Why are you doing chores in the middle of the night?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd be productive."

"Why don't you make another dream catcher?"

"I ran out of string today," she said, swiping at a stray hair.

I kept standing in the kitchen doorway. "Or what about your cello?"

"The bridge is broken." She jerked her head toward the counter and I saw a pile of splinters that must have been the bridge at some point.

There was a moment of silence, then, "Anything I can do?"

"No, thank you. Get some sleep."

I patted her shoulder and went home. Breaking things was a new symptom, and I wondered again about calling in a psychiatrist. Jean had adamantly refused before, though, so I knew she would refuse now. She was a grown woman and could figure herself out, I was sure.

I bought her a new bridge, but the cello-playing never recommenced. Might have been that crisper weather was moving in. The dream catchers kept coming, at least. The property line tree starting reminding me of Christmas, with all the dream catchers she was hanging from it.

Question: If the point is to be happy, and a person isn't ...?

It was morning again, and I was back on duty. Slippers on, hair still drying from my shower, I shuffled across the yard and let myself in the back door.

Jean was curled up on her couch under an old Navajo blanket. The ceiling fan was whirring that night’s almost-completed dream catcher’s cream beads against the wooden couch feet.

Jean is a morning person. I didn’t bother being quiet as I pulled out a pot and set some water to boiling on the stove for poached eggs. Somewhere in the clanging, she woke up. I expected to see her in the kitchen, but she didn’t come over. I could tell she was up, though, because the bead-ticking had ended.

I stuck my head into the living room. She was still under the blanket, the dream catcher now on the glass-topped coffee table.

“Would you like your eggs hard or soft?” I said.

“Either.”

Then, belatedly, “Thank you, Ellen.”

I nodded and returned to the stove, cracking four eggs into the pot, then covering them with a lid and turning down the heat. I waited four minutes as the eggs cooked. The house was silent except for that fan. Photos still covered every available space on the table, their haphazard piles unmoved from months ago. When I was through with waiting, I scooped up the eggs, divided them into bowls, added salt, pepper, and spoons, and then carried them into the living room.

Jean sat up slightly to take hers from me, thanking me again in a soft undertone.

“Are you doing alright?” I said as I sat down opposite her. I said a quick mental prayer to the Lord in gratitude for the meal while I waited for her response.

“I’m just so tired,” Jean said. “I didn’t get much sleep.”

I glanced at the dream catcher, and it really was an intricate one. She had somehow contrived the yellow thread into flowers, creating a bouquet in the center of her loop. Beneath it hung cream beads and the fabric petals of a lei.

Jean wasn’t eating her eggs. The bowl was resting in her lap, losing steam and becoming less delicious by the moment. I lobbed a couch pillow at her legs to get her moving.

She smiled as it landed and bounced to the floor, then cut into one of her eggs and took a bite. “It needs toast,” she said, then pulled herself upright and off the couch. She disappeared into the kitchen and I heard her press the toaster down.

Only a couple weeks after that, she lost her appetite altogether, eating only when I was there to feed her. I started seeing a therapist when she continued to refuse one.

But even more than her broken cello and lost appetite, what made me most concerned was when Jean stopped making dream catchers. Her supply drawer was full, but she didn’t have the drive, or the energy, to make another. The ones in her home and yard began to look listless.

And then—oh, I was so scared.

I was standing in my kitchen, wearing an old “kiss the cook” apron and wishing I knew where my slippers were, cutting chicken breasts into strips for fajitas. My sliding glass door opened, and Jean ghosted in, leaving it open behind her and letting in the chill fall air.

When she looked at me, there was nothing in her blue eyes. And I mean nothing—no soul looked out.

She stood there, emptiness staring at me, with no emotions on her face at all. Straight back, wearing a lavender sweater and no shoes on, though it must have been below 40 outside.

“Ready for dinner?” I said. I tried to smile.

She did not respond, just stood there. I washed the juices off my hands, came around the counter, and shut the door before leading her to the table and sitting her down with a hug. Then I walked back to the cutting board.

A moment later, Jean was standing behind me in the kitchen.

“Did you want a glass of water?”

“Ellen,” she said, so quietly she nearly whispered. “Please kill me.”

I felt silence.

“Chicken should be ready in just a few minutes, if you’ll wait,” I said. “How was your day? What did you do?”

“Please, Ellen.”

“No.”

I half-turned from the cutting board to look at her. “It will all be okay tomorrow, you’ll see.”

She laughed a laugh that wasn't. “No, it won’t.”

“But someday it will be, and maybe that day is tomorrow.”

“Use one of your knives. Here,” she said, unbuttoning her sweater and folding it over a nearby bar stool. She pulled her shirt to bare the skin above her heart, then came to stand beside me again. “Right here,” she said, picking up my hand to guide the knife toward the spot. Then, “Please. I can’t do this anymore.”

I pulled the knife back, trembling slightly, and placed it on the counter, then tried to get around her and pick up the phone. But she stopped me, her cold hands pulling on one of mine to keep me away from it. “No,” she said, sounding angry, which actually gave me a measure of hope. Anger is better than nothing.

“You can get help, Jean! Just let me get the phone,” I said.

“I don’t want help. I want to stop.”

And I—

It was only the knowledge that suicide was the wrong way to go that helped me wrench my hand away, pick up the phone, and dial 9-1-1.

She has since apologized to me, over the phone from Portland, where she was sent for help. It felt ridiculous and wrong and I nearly yelled at her for even thinking of it. You just don't apologize for that sort of thing.

She’s home again now, making dream catchers. Today’s was midnight blue with maroon beads and jet black ribbons. Small silver beads in the loop allude to stars—or rather, happiness.