Jakob

My boy is 1 when we move into our first house, bought together so our babe, who is newly walking, has a backyard to play in and neighbors to play with. Jakob knocks on our door the day after the moving trucks leave. He is 9. Lanky with sandy hair, a sweet smile, and glasses. He hands me a picture. Drawn on lined paper with a pencil. It’s a sketch of a car, and it’s good. I tell him so, and he denies it. “No, it isn’t, but I’m trying to get better.” His voice is tentative. “I’ll bring you more,” he promises. He runs back home, next door.

Jakob continues to deliver drawings. Each better than the last, and they fill the front of our refrigerator, next to the baby photos and scribbles by my son. He is a gifted artist. Sometimes he invites us over to his backyard with the trampoline and swings. Sometimes we watch his dog and cat when he and his family are away. When we do that, my son plays with his nerf guns and studies Jakob’s bedroom walls, covered in his drawings. Jakob gets older and he stops bringing us drawings, but my son watches in awe as he practices soccer in his backyard. “Can I teach him some soccer moves?” Jakob asks. He shows my son how to dribble the ball, and how to pass with the inside of his foot. My toddler wanders to the trampoline. He picks up sticks wants to sword fight. The soccer lessons are cut short, but Jakob doesn’t mind. There has never been a more patient preteen.

Jakob gives my son his old Lego sets. He gives him his wooden blocks. He gives him paints and markers, and fancy chalk. I don’t know how to repay this generosity. When I say this to Jakob, he responds, “It’s what I’m supposed to do. He will enjoy them.”

Jakob is starting high school. He’s so tall now, and his smile remains the same. His birthday is at the end of the summer. His parents rent a huge bouncy water slide for their backyard, and he invites my 5 year old to join the birthday party. They play loud music, and he and his friends take turns cheering on my small boy as he splashes, slides, and bounces with them. Jakob cuts him the biggest piece of cake.

In high school Jakob joins the swim team. We talk about our favorite events. We both love 100m and 200m backstroke. By his sophomore year, Jakob’s PRs swim circles around my high school times. In the spring of his junior year Jakob is setting state records. He is planning to practice with the university team this fall.

And then the pandemic hits. And Jakob’s father has cancer. Jakob’s sister comes home from graduate school to be with their family. Jakob spends a lot of time with his girlfriend. We don’t see each other very much, and in passing, he mentions that his sister is depressed. That his dad isn’t doing well. I can’t hug him. We need to keep 6 feet apart. I drop off smoothies and cookies, and my son draws pictures for Jakob. On lined paper with a pencil. Not cars, but animals and big leafy trees.

Fall arrives and school starts online. I rarely see Jakob, but his mother and I text about online learning and the new cancer treatment for Jakob’s father. This pandemic is so hard on everyone. Each of us fighting our own battles and trying to do what’s best with little guidance and information. The times when everyone in my small family of three are simultaneously happy is rare. When it happens, I notice. Is it the same for other families? Will things ever go back to the way they were?

In the middle of the night my husband and I wake to a loud bang. And then another. How many? It sounds like the lid of our garbage can repeatedly slamming hard. Raccoons? In my sleepiness I don’t remember that it isn’t garbage day. We go back to sleep.

Midmorning we see a police car in our neighbor’s driveway. Then another. And an ambulance. And another. A policeman knocks on our door and asks us about our neighbors. I put on my mask and stand back. I share what Jacob told me. His sister is depressed. His father is sick. The banging didn’t sound like gunfire. How do I even know what gunfire sounds like? I don’t ask if everyone is okay. I am afraid. I take my son and leave. We go to the zoo an hour away. I walk around in a haze, while my husband stays home and sends me updates. Yellow hazard tape. Neighbors loitering in our front yard looking at our neighbor’s house. The ambulances have left.

We buy lemonade by the flamingos and my husband calls. He texts me an article. The banging sounds we heard were not racoons. They were four gun shots. First Jakob, then his sister, then his mother, and then his father, killing himself.

Every time I look out my north window I think of Jakob and his family. Sometimes I walk myself through the horror of that night. Other times, I make a note to rake their yard. At the first snow I shovel Jakob’s walkway, just as he did for us, so many times. I collect FedEx packages from their front door and drop them at the attorney’s office. I think about how Jakob would feel about the immense void his death has left. He would be modest, and a little embarrassed.

Jakob would be starting college this fall. Maybe swimming for IU, the team that sent 12 athletes to the Olympics this year. Maybe something else. We would be talking about the US team’s performance in Tokyo. My boy would share his drawings with Jakob, pencil on lined paper. Dragons and cats these days.