Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. Degenerate Matter, their albums Vagabondage, Ultrarelativistic, WIMPs and MACHOs, Frozen Stars, the songs "Singularity," "Punchline,"and the lyrics contained therein copyright to the author of this story (username: MistyMountainHop, maker of Those '70s Comics).
Author's Note 1: Consider this whole story a trigger warning. It deals with heavy subject matter.
Author's Note 2: Follow or check out jackiestargazer on tumblr for story extras.
CHAPTER ONE
END STATE
May 28, 1994
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Hickory Lane Funeral Home and Cemetery
…
The Hickory Lane Funeral Home claimed to be the oldest and largest funeral home in Kenosha. That meant tens of thousands of dead had passed through here. Tens of thousands of ghosts circling the chandeliers, listening to the sorrow of those they'd left behind. Today, though, people came to mourn just one.
Hyde stood in a fourth-row pew, forcing life into his face. He was closer to the action than he would've preferred, but sitting farther back was a no-go. He'd earned his spot here, near the front. The chapel was crammed with bodies, each alive. Each searching for a way to deal with death, and pain rose from the pews like smoke. Hyde's instinct was to quit breathing, but he'd given up that right long ago.
His fingers twitched for a cigarette, but he sneaked a piece of gum into his mouth. The Kelso family had arrived first, filling the rows in front of him. They were clothed in black and grief, some more than others. John and his wife, Helen, were almost as pale as the kid they'd lost. Tissues were clutched in their hands and tears rimmed their red eyes. Five of their remaining kids stuck close by, talking to one another. But the sixth and youngest, Ax, circled the chapel. Had become a human comet.
Hyde didn't track his orbit. The man deserved some privacy, but the pews were growing crowded with attendees. The Forman family was among them. Quiet condolences were expressed to the Kelsos, barely audible three rows back, but Forman's voice reached Hyde clearly: "Kelso, man, I am so, so sorry."
The guilt on Forman's face was visible, too, even from where Hyde stood. Gaps between funeral attendees let him see the too-familiar expression. It stared at Hyde from the mirror every morning.
With the altar and open casket behind them, Kelso embraced Forman and whispered something in his ear. Forman patted Kelso's back before they separated, and the Formans made their way to Hyde's pew. They sat in the spots Hyde had been saving for them, and that should've been it. Sit down, get through the service, leave. That was all Hyde intended to do, but Kelso called him to the front row.
Hyde's jaw clamped down on his chewing gum. Sucking on a cigarette would've been better. He edged past the Formans, and his gaze dropped to the burgundy carpet. He followed Kelso's black shoes to the open casket, and Kelso said, "Have you seen her? This is my fault. Payback for—"
"Stop talking shit." Hyde raked his fingers through his hair, but they snagged on the rubber band tying it back. "Cosmos doesn't work that way, man. People do. Your sis was sick..." His gaze rose to the chapel's entryway. All of Kenosha County seemed to be attending this funeral. "She found help in the wrong places and refused help from the right ones. What the hell were you supposed to do?"
"But look at her." Kelso's body shifted beside Hyde's. He had to be staring into the casket, but Hyde would glance inside it only once, after the service was over. "She's not even..."
"Kelso—" Hyde grasped Kelso's wrist— "you gotta look at her." He directed Kelso's focus to the back of the chapel, to the last row of pews. Brooke and Betsy had arrived and were having some kind of argument. "Your kid, man. Give her what you think you didn't give your sis."
Kelso blew out a breath, and Hyde finally met his eyes. Thick-rimmed glasses covered a good portion of Kelso's face. They distracted from the damage; most people wouldn't notice his asymmetry through the lenses. Hyde, though, was intimately acquainted with it. The upper lid of Kelso's left eye drooped. The bridge of his nose curved, leading to his bonded front right tooth. A porcelain crown covered the front left tooth.
Hyde's left hand cupped the knuckles of his right. They were burning, and night crashed through the chapel's ceiling. Shadowed trees sprouted through the pews, and everyone vanished except for Kelso. Blood and dirt smeared Kelso's eyes, nose, and mouth. A shattered pile of bone lay where his face used to be, smashed by Hyde's fists over and over, like meteors battering the surface of the moon.
"Guess Betsy's gonna stay back there for the service," Kelso said, and his face reformed. The chapel surrounded them again. Hyde's memory was firmly in the present, but he swallowed his gum.
He hadn't had a flashback that bad in years. It left his heart pounding. Sweat coated his forehead.
The funeral was the trigger, the grief echoing off the walls. But Kelso kept talking, as if Hyde hadn't checked out. Not a surprise. Kelso had no memories of that night to carry around, just the shitty physical consequences.
Hyde moved his attention to Betsy, who sat in the last row of pews without her mom. Brooke was walking up the center aisle. She'd left Betsy in the charge of a blond woman Hyde didn't recognize, but Betsy didn't need a babysitter. Even at fourteen, his goddaughter was smarter and more level-headed than everyone in this joint.
Brooke waved at him when she was a row away from the Kelso family. She gestured subtly with her head back at Betsy, and Hyde nodded. She wanted him or Kelso to check on her. Hyde already planned on it, but Kelso had the right of first refusal.
"Do you...?" Hyde said to him.
"I don't wanna break down in front of her," Kelso said as Brooke approached his parents. "'Cause once I start crying, I can't stop." He inhaled audibly, and the next time he spoke, his voice cracked. "I know Betsy needs her dad, but she's got Kim's dimples. If I see them, I won't be Betsy's dad anymore. I'll be Kim's brother, and—and she needs me to be her dad."
"Yeah, I get it. I'll make sure she's cool."
"Thanks, man."
Hyde clasped Kelso's shoulder, though he didn't consider them friends. Kelso was an obligation, one he tried to interact with as little as possible. Brooke had given him an escape route from him, but he hesitated before leaving. Betsy was still talking with that blond woman.
"Who's Blondie?" he said by Kelso's ear. "You know her?" Because Hyde sure as hell didn't, and he knew most of Brooke's friends.
"That's Mrs. Corin," Kelso said. "Well, the ex-Mrs. Corin. Think she's going by her maiden name again."
"That tells me nothing."
"Come on, Hyde." Kelso slapped Hyde's chest with the back of his hand. "Don't you recognize your own ex when you see her?"
"Had a lot of exes."
"One we both dated?" Kelso said, and the woman touched Betsy's knee before standing. Her posture was rigor morits as she went up the aisle. The pews on Betsy's side of the chapel were full, but the walking stiff found an empty seat on the opposite side.
"Jackie?" The name felt alien to say, and her appearance was just as foreign. "No damn way."
"Whether you believe me or not, that's her." Kelso cleared his throat. "Listen, I've gotta sit with my family now." He pointed specifically to Ax, who'd rejoined the rest of the Kelsos. "See you after the service?"
"Yup."
Hyde kept his view forward as he jogged down the aisle. He'd give the Kelso family his condolences later. Right now, someone else needed him more. He scooted into Betsy's pew, and she leaned her head against his arm without a word.
"What's up, French fry?" he said quietly.
She glanced up at him. Unshed tears gleamed in her eyes, and she zipped her black hoodie to her neck, as if a blizzard had kicked up in the chapel. "Mom made me leave my Discman in the car."
"Figured she would." He slipped his hand inside his suit jacket and pulled out his Walkman. A pair of headphones was wrapped around it. "If she gives you any crap for this, tell her to talk to me."
Her mouth opened but no sound came out. She took the Walkman, and her ability to speak returned in force. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She gestured to the front of the chapel. "I just can't handle all this, you know? Never been to a funeral before. Well, one I can remember. Pop-Pop died when I was two—does this thing actually work?"
She examined his beat-up Walkman, ran her finger over its worn buttons, and when she reached the battery compartment, a smile crept over her lips. A Degenerate Matter sticker was keeping the batteries inside. Hyde had broken the plastic cover a few months back, but the sticker worked in a pinch. It depicted a spiral galaxy, one of the band's trademarks.
"Yeah, the outside's cool," he said, "but what's inside is even cooler, and it's yours."
"Nuh-uh." She opened the cassette compartment and pulled out the tape. She read what was written on the label: "DM, First Avenue, MN, 11.24.93," and a few tears escaped her wide eyes. "Oh, my God—this is the concert!"
"Taped directly off the soundboard. Goes with this." He removed a folded-up piece of paper from his slacks pocket.
"The setlist?" She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "This is freakin' amazing."
"Stash the Walkman inside your hoodie. If your mom comes by, hide the headphones under the hood."
She unzipped the hoodie, revealing the top of her black dress. The fabric was rip-free but had a lone safety pin stuck through it, almost invisibly. Always the secret rebel. "I hate lying to her."
He pointed to the quarter-inch stretch of metal glinting above her chest. "That ain't hurting her, and she doesn't know about it ... right?" She looked away from him, clearly embarrassed. " This lie won't hurt her, either," he said, tapping on the Walkman, "and it'll help you. So do it."
She zipped the hoodie over the Walkman and her dress. The headphones went around her neck, and she covered them with her long, brown hair. "It's times like this when I feel like an orphan," she said and read over the setlist. "Dad's a wreck, and Mom needs to go mother him because Grandma and Grandpa are too upset to do it."
Her shoulders hiked to her ears. "And I know I sound selfish, but I feel selfish..." She slid her butt to the edge of the pew and leaned back, making herself appear half-a-foot shorter. She was hiding herself from view, from everyone but him. "And I kind of hate myself right now."
"I get why you feel stranded," he said. "Nothing to hate yourself over, all right? Give yourself a break."
"But Dad's sister is in that coffin, and I'm back here whining about not getting enough attention."
"You're not whining, man. And you're not a whiner … mostly." His last word drew a soft laugh from her. That was good. She deserved some light in this gloom. "And you're not upset about attention. You're watching your parents—hell, your whole family—grieving over someone. That's rough, and you haven't experienced it before."
She nodded. "I didn't know Aunt Kim that well, but I'm, like, really sad for my dad."
"Yeah. Me, too." He scratched the back of his neck. Admitting that much to the kid was as far as he'd go. The rest of it would never reach her ears. "Went to my first funeral when I was eleven. My cousin."
She sat up straighter. "What was it like?"
"This, except no one was wearing a shirt."
"Ew."
"Yeah, it wasn't pretty. I was nine years younger than my cousin. Met him just a couple of times, so his death didn't mean much to me. Felt bad for my aunt, though. She couldn't quit cryin', and Edna—my ma—couldn't console her and pay attention to me. So I snuck out of the church and went somewhere to..."
Smoke, but he didn't want Betsy knowing that. He'd swiped some cigs from Edna's carton before his cousin's funeral. The habit was only a few months old back then, but his lungs had grown accustomed to it.
"Somewhere to what?" Betsy said.
"Listen to music. Had a small radio. Never left home without it, and I listened to the Doors, the Stones, and the Who. 'Riders on the Storm,' 'Brown Sugar,' and 'Won't Get Fooled Again'."
"You remember the songs? But that was, like, a hundred years ago."
"Twenty-three."
"Like I said, a hundred years ago."
He grinned. "Nice burn.
She giggled, louder than before, and slapped a hand over her mouth. "I can't believe I'm laughing at a funeral."
"'When you're drivin' up the steepest mountain,'" he said and put his arm around her shoulders, "'laughter's like headlights on the dark, twisty road.'"
She reached up and squeezed his hand. "'Keeps you from smashing into the rails and plunging to your end.'"
They were reciting lyrics from Degenerate Matter's first album, and he imitated the singer's unique vocal lilt. "'Don't end. Laugh. Life's a joke anyway.'"
"'Don't be its punchline,'" she said with a sigh. "I wish Aunt Kim had laughed instead of..."
Starved herself. That was what she couldn't bring herself to say, and he didn't say it either.
The funeral's many attendees were seated by now. The overall volume in the chapel had lowered, and Pastor Dave stood behind the altar. He didn't seem much different than Hyde remembered, just gray-haired and paunchy.
Betsy slipped on the headphones as the service started. She pushed play on the Walkman but stopped it a moment later. "Our first funerals aren't the same," she whispered.
"What?" he mouthed silently.
"You said your first funeral was like this, but you had no one." She slid her arm behind his back and pulled him into a hug. "I have you."
"Yeah." He wrapped his arms around her just as tightly. "You do."
Kimberly Kelso's embalmed body held Jackie's gaze for longer than she'd anticipated. The skeletal corpse was a testament to suffering, a slow decay leading nowhere but to death. Brooke had said Kim's electrolytes were imbalanced. That her organs eventually shut down and her heart gave out. Jackie's heart had given out, too, after years of injury, except she still lived.
Minutes ago, the Kelsos had eulogized their lost daughter and sister, using words that pierced Jackie's chest, but she shed no tears. Even when Ax broke down at the altar, Jackie didn't react. She understood their pain, but her body no longer processed feelings normally. Her emotional machinery had rusted and was missing parts.
Her uncrying eyes searched Kim's emaciated corpse for peace. For a way out, but she found only selfishness. Her own. Other people were in the viewing line, waiting patiently to pay their last respects, and she'd gotten lost in herself.
She hurried from the coffin and strode down the center aisle, past mourners and family supporters. Her Chanel purse swung at her side. It was a half-moon handbag, made from quilted black suede, and one of the last things her father bought her.
Most of the funeral attendees were out of the pews, lined up for the viewing or to offer the Kelsos condolences. Betsy, though, remained seated in the last row. A pair of headphones covered her ears, and her eyes were shut. Jackie had intended to duck outside for a few minutes, to wander the cemetery gardens, but she slid into the pew beside her goddaughter.
"Left the Discman at home, huh?" Jackie said.
Betsy opened her eyes and pulled off the headphones. A well-used Walkman was on her lap, not quite concealed by her black hoodie. "What? Didn't hear you."
Jackie twirled her finger in the air. "Why didn't you go for the vintage gold and bring your dad's old record player?"
"Oh. I really wanted to listen to this tape. There's no CD of it."
"Lame," Jackie said— because anything worth listening to was on CD nowadays—and Betsy laughed a little. "How are you holding up? Did you survive the service?"
"I couldn't listen to it. Just seeing my dad like that, my uncles, Grandma and Grandpa..." Betsy turned in the pew and faced Jackie. "The last few days have been pretty bad. Mom was on the phone with Dad a lot, and I heard him crying through the receiver. She gets so high-strung when Dad's upset. It's like she disappears, even though she's still around."
Jackie clutched her purse to her stomach. "My mom was the same way. Actually, she still is."
"Oh, God." Betsy's face paled. "Does that mean my mom's gonna be like this forever?"
"No, no. Unlike my mom, your mom doesn't seek help in a bottle. Brooke's working on it."
Betsy leaned her head back, as if she were emotionally exhausted. "Yeah, I know. "Therapy's helped her a lot. I just wish..." Her thumb traced over the bracelet on her left wrist. It was woven with colorful threads, like the ones Jackie used to make at summer camp.
"Hey, bunny," Jackie said softly, and Betsy looked at her, "you ever need someone to talk to, or take you on an impromptu shopping spree, you have my number. I'll fly out."
Betsy embraced Jackie sideways at the shoulders. Jackie stiffened at the contact, but Betsy thankfully didn't seem to notice. "Aunt Jackie, you're freakin' awesome … and I'm sorry for, like, kicking you out of the pew before." She let Jackie go. "Just needed some alone-time."
"Oh, I more than understand. Believe me." Jackie rubbed her forearms to relax herself, but her muscles remained taut. A hug from her goddaughter should've been a welcome gift. In her mind it was, but her body didn't agree. "So," she said, "what music's so good that you're willing to listen to it on tape?"
"Man, oh, man—" A grin shot across Betsy's face, and she flipped the Walkman onto its front. The battery compartment was missing its cover. A sticker of a galaxy kept the batteries in place, and she tapped it. "It's this band from Minneapolis called Degenerate Matter."
Jackie's nose wrinkled in disgust. "Degenerate Matter?" She might've seen one of their music videos on MTV, but she couldn't be sure. "It's not one of those bands full of screaming and feedback, is it?"
"They're influenced by punk and '70s rock like Zeppelin and the Who. It's so cool 'cause they have these really melodic, beautiful songs and these heavy-as-hell, badass songs. And, yeah, a few screaming feedback songs, but mostly it's just killer music."
Betsy's grin grew. Her happiness was refreshing, especially amid so much grief, but Jackie couldn't dwell on it. Her faulty emotional machinery might twist Betsy's joy into an ugly, seething thing, a monster Jackie couldn't escape. Instead, she studied the Walkman as Betsy continued to talk.
"The lyrics are ridiculously good. So much better than the crap that polluted the airways in the '80s." Betsy offered her the headphones. "Wanna listen?"
Jackie didn't, but she also wanted to keep Betsy's mood up. She accepted the headphones but didn't put them on. "I'm surprised your mom let you bring the Walkman here."
Betsy shrugged and glanced away.
"You smuggled it in?"
"No."
"Someone gave it to you."
"Come on, Aunt Jackie—" Betsy snatched the headphones placed them on Jackie's head. "Check this out."
Betsy pressed play on the Walkman, and the roar of a crowd hit Jackie first. "Is this a live recording?"
"Yeah, but you won't find it in stores."
Jackie's forehead creased. That meant it was a bootleg, an illegal recording, but thoughts faded as a lone guitar began to play. The riff was in a minor key, and a pinprick of emotion broke through her numb shell. It had to be a fluke.
The singer, a woman, sang the first words of the song: "Did she escape, or did she succumb to the world's delirium?" Her voice was powerful but restrained. It didn't overwhelm the guitar, but the question seized Jackie's heart and squeezed hard. "How rich is she? Full of gold and bullshit, or the things she gave away for free?"
A bass guitar heralded the whole band kicking in, and Jackie's eyes squeezed shut. "Did she escape?" the singer continued. "Or does she still dream that people won't leave her stranded upstream?"
Jackie's fingers laced together hard over her lap, like they did when she was at the dentist. The lyrics were scraping rust off her emotional machinery.
"Who'd she take in?" the singer said plaintively. "Burnouts and vagabonds? Please, love, ain't worth dyin' every night. Ain't worth dyin' every night."
The music shifted and grew more intense, along with the singer's voice: "I push down and push down my brain waves into booze. I push down and push down that life's worse than a bruise."
Jackie's throat grew tight. She should've ripped off the headphones, but she couldn't stop listening: "I push down and push down the whole truth when I choose..."
A feeling, like dynamite exploding in her chest, forced tears past her closed lashes. She almost missed the next lyrics, but she focused on the singer's voice. It had reached a crescendo, and Jackie's own grief was bleeding through the song: "I push down and push down the one loss I can't lose. The one loss I can't lose."
"I push down and push down the one loss I can't lose,"
the singer repeated, softly this time, and Jackie couldn't catch her breath. Her eyes were wet. Her cheeks were damp.
Impossible. She wasn't crying. Impossible.
Too many years had gone by. No song could oil her emotional machinery back into efficient, working order. But she pressed a hand to beating heart as the singer sang quietly, "She is never too far gone, no matter how far I've gone. She is never too far gone..."
"Aunt Jackie?" A pat on Jackie's arm slammed her out of the song. Betsy pulled the headphones off Jackie's ears. "You okay?"
Jackie had no tissues in her purse. She blotted her eyes with her long sleeves. "Yeah. That music—"
"Killer, right? Told you. What song is this?" Betsy put the headphones on herself. She rewound the tape a little and said, a little too loudly, "'Singularity'! Man, this is one of my faves. The end is so haunting." She began to sing. "'She is never too far gone, mo matter how far I've gone. She is never too far gone...' O. MacNeil writes the best lyrics."
"Is that the singer?" Jackie said, rubbing her throat. She was unaccustomed to the lump crying had created. It had been years. .
"No," Betsy said, but she was obviously distracted by the next song. Her head bobbed and swayed, and her legs bounced in rhythm. "No one knows who he is. But over half the lyrics on their second album and third are attributed to him. The singer's Ro Skirving."
Jackie wrinkled her nose again. Ro Skirving was a hideous name, but she had an incredible voice. "The band is Degenerate Matter?"
"Uh-huh."
"Are they an underground band?" Jackie said. "Is that why you have a bootleg?"
"They started out that way, but you can find them in Grooves or any music store."
"Oh."
"Their first album is Vagabondage," Betsy said. "Ultrarelativistic is the second, and WIMPs and MACHOs is the third." She raised the Walkman to Jackie's eye-level. "It's a soundboard recording—so fuckin' cool, right? Steven told me not to copy it, but you're family, so if you want..."
Steven. His name buzzed through Jackie's ribs and numbed her feelings. This was how her emotional machinery usually operated: vibrating with malfunction, shaking pieces off itself. Waste by-products included anxiety and panic and other hazardous materials. This time, the malfunction made her lightheaded.
She leaned back in the pew and sucked air into her lungs. The Formans she'd been prepared to see. She visited with Donna, Eric, and little Isabelle regularly. Had even spent last Christmas with them and Eric's parents. Seeing Fez here would've been a shock. He'd built his life as far from Wisconsin as he could, traveling the world as a master chocolatier. None of his friendships from Point Place survived what she'd barely survived herself in 1979.
Steven, though, was a total unknown. She had no reference points for him. His name never showed up in The Point Place High Chronicle, their high school alumni newsletter. People rarely spoke to her about him, not even Mrs. Forman, and Jackie never asked. Even Betsy only rarely slipped up. It must've been a standing order he'd given. A code of silence he'd sworn people to. Or maybe Jackie had unconsciously sent the message that she didn't want to know.
Her stomach grew sour with a question that had no good answer. "Steven Hyde is here?"
"Mm-hmm," Betsy said but gave no details. She'd escaped into her music.
Jackie sat up and surveyed the chapel. People were returning to the pews. The burial would happen soon, and she searched for Donna's red hair. Steven might be sitting with the Formans. Then again, he could be anywhere.
Or anyone. She had no idea what he looked like. The image frozen in her memory was of a nineteen-year-old, not a grown man.
She slumped back in the pew. The search was futile, and she couldn't settle on what she hoped to accomplish: avoiding Steven or approaching him. They had about fifteen years of distance between them, five times as many years apart as they'd had together. Seeing him again would be pointless.
"Oh, shit." Betsy scrambled beside her. She tore off the headphones and hid them with the Walkman inside her hoodie. "Mom," she whispered and nodded at the aisle.
Brooke rushed toward their pew. Her hair was pinned up in a bun, and she wore a conservative mourning dress, but time and experience hadn't deprived her of beauty. Her figure was athletically lean. Her skin was smooth with few wrinkles, but she didn't seem the type for plastic surgery. Sunscreen, moisturizer, and genetics were likely her benefactors.
She didn't have on much makeup,either. Just some translucent powder, a little blush. Jackie, in contrast, wore a full compliment of makeup, from mascara to lipstick. Nothing garish but enough to mask her natural features.
Brooke stopped beside their pew, slightly out of breath. She began to speak, but Betsy intercepted with a cheerful, "Hi, Mom!" Her bright tone was a clear giveaway. Brooke would probably figure out her secret, that she hadn't listened to the service. Someone needed to give the girl lessons in lying.
"Betsy, it's time for the cortege," Brooke said. "Your dad needs you now. So do Grandma and Grandpa—hi, Jackie." She flashed Jackie a warm smile. "Thanks so much for sitting with her. Betsy?"
"Give me a sec." Betsy clutched her rolled-up hoodie and stood. She turned her back toward Brooke, fumbled with getting the Walkman and headphones into the hoodie's pockets. Unfortunately, she'd inherited some of Michael's clumsiness, and the Walkman crashed to the pew seat.
"What is that?" Brooke said.
Betsy scooped up the Walkman. "Nothing."
"Elizabeth Victoria..."
"Fine." Betsy handed Brooke the Walkman.
Brooke glared at it. "Steven." She shook her head and passed the Walkman back to Betsy. "Keep this in your pocket. Do not listen to it during the funeral procession or burial."
"Yes, Mom."
Betsy eased her way past Jackie and left the pew. Brooke brushed hair from Betsy's face, tucked it behind Betsy's ears tenderly, and grasped Betsy's hand. "Are you okay, sweetheart?" Brooke said as they walked up the aisle together. "I'm sorry I..."
Her voice faded, but Jackie spotted Betsy squeezing Brooke's hand. They'd be fine. Brooke was a good mother, and she seemed awfully familiar with Steven. She'd known instantly that he'd given the Walkman to Betsy, whereas Jackie hadn't even considered that a possibility.
Melancholy organ music filled the chapel. The funeral procession was starting, and Jackie sidled down the pew, as far from the aisle as she could go. She scooted a little more than halfway in before bumping into another funeral attendee.
"Sorry," Jackie bowed her head but not out of shame. Michael, his brothers, and their father would be carrying Kim's coffin. Eric was an honorary pallbearer and would be standing beside Michael. Donna had told her of Eric's role but nothing of Steven's. He could be a pallbearer, too.
Jackie couldn't risk the chance of glimpsing him. He existed in her past, an unchanging fossil preserved by memory, and in her past he would stay.