I have a friend named Jerry. When she was young, her mother ran away with her to an English-speaking province to spite her neglectful lover. In the middle of the mountains, Jerry grew up in a French school and an English house. She must have spent time playing with girls but most of the time when speaking of her childhood, she remembers how she used to listen to records with James across the street, or how she loved sneaking up on Clayton or playing games with the Thomas brothers. She says she enjoyed cracking them gently, like a code. She also enjoys keeping us in the dark about what that means exactly and she will remind us of it when asking us not to be a “Clayton” or a “James.”

Jerry moved a lot during her formative years. I think she developed the art of being away while sitting among the traffic through her travels. She can be playing computer games and still be listening to the kitchen table conversation about how Annie forgot her dog in the car. She’ll keep watching the screen while blurting out “Annie might have been thinking about her mother instead.” just loud enough for the rest of us to hear. When Jerry gets tired of talking, she escapes to little villages or anywhere she believes she will be anonymous. If she can be invisible, she can dive into other people’s lives without wetting her hair.

There is nothing more interesting to her than pretending to be on a safari to observe humanity in its habitat. Maybe she is still looking for the life she wants. Marc says she needs to dedicate herself to something she loves, but she probably cannot choose just one of her passions. We often laugh at the fact that we cannot decide if she is a mess or a rare collected puzzle. I suppose she can be both. We never speak of it at length, by fear she will hear us through the clouds, her allies.

I miss her. I hope she knows where she is going.

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