Whatever Happened to Janie? (16 page)

But I hope we never find you, Hannah. I hope that all the police and all the FBI in all the world cannot track you down.

Mommy and Daddy can’t go through anything more. Do you understand that, out there in whatever hell you deserve?

Don’t be found.

There’s only one thing that you can do for the mother and father who gave birth to you.

Stay lost

And then it was three
A.M
.

And finally four
A.M
.

Mrs. Spring often sang hymns to herself when she did housework. They were not familiar to Janie, who had not been brought up on religious music. She had learned a few of them from Mrs. Spring. “Balm in Gilead.” “For the Beauty of the Earth.” But the one Mrs. Spring sang most was “Amazing Grace.”

“I once was lost,” went the last lines, “but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.”

At four in the morning, Janie found something. And could see.

She cried a little, but less than she would have expected. She felt certain, for the first time in so long. She also felt cruel.

When you do the right thing, thought Janie, it should be right all the way around. It shouldn’t leave harsh edges. Just being right should be enough. But it isn’t. I will be right, but I will be mean.

She was not sure what “grace” was, but she needed it, and the part of her that was a Spring prayed for it.

When Janie got up, after three hours of sleep, only Mrs. Spring was in the kitchen. “Good morning, Jennie,” said her mother, breaking into a wide smile.

“Good morning.”

Mrs. Spring boiled water for instant oatmeal and dealt bowls onto the table. She ripped the envelopes open, pouring Cinnamon Raisin in one, Apple Nut in another.

At home, Mommy would be making French toast. They always had French toast and bacon and eggs on Saturdays. That was why Reeve had breakfast with them. His own mother was sick of breakfast, having announced years ago that anybody who still wanted breakfast knew where the cereal boxes were.

Janie stirred her oatmeal until it thickened and became semi-real. She reviewed her four
A.M
. decision and it was still correct and still right … and still cruel.

I am sixteen—even if the calendar says I’m not.

I am Janie Johnson—even if the birth certificate says I’m Jennie Spring.

I am the daughter of Miranda Johnson—even if this nice woman is really my mother.

The world settled like a blanket on a bed, gently, filling in the dips and wrinkles. I am going to be like Hannah before me, thought Janie, crushing them in my fist as if they were aluminum foil. “Mom?”

Mrs. Spring beamed, so infrequently did she hear that word from this member of the family. “Yes, honey?”

Janie’s heart pounded. Her hand on the stainless-steel spoon became sweaty. Her head ached. Her clothes felt loose. Her tongue was thick. “Mom, I want to go home. For good. I’m sixteen today. Even
if that birthday is not true for you, it’s true for me. I tried. Stephen and Jodie are right, I didn’t try as hard as I could have, but I tried some. I’m sorry. I truly am. I’m getting to like all of you very much. But my mother and father need me. I love my parents, and they’re not you, and it’s time to go home.”

All her life she would carry with her the expression on this woman’s face. The moment in which Janie took away hope and light. The sagging of Mrs. Spring’s cheeks. The slow, stunned closing of her eyes.

This is my mother, thought Janie, and look what I’m doing to her.

Her real mother’s hands trembled. She had trouble finding the chair and she sat down heavily, too heavily, as if into a grave. Emotional pain was so
physical
You could never get away from your body.

“No,” whispered Mrs. Spring.

Look what I am doing to this woman who did not ask for it. She did not ask for it from Hannah and she did not ask for it from me. How could the world dish this out to her? thought Janie. But the world isn’t. I am.

She nearly said she was sorry, nearly said she didn’t mean it, she’d try harder, stick it out. But the words did not come. Her heart was elsewhere.

Or perhaps, thought Janie, I have no heart.

“You know the words in your hymn, ‘Amazing Grace’?
I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.”
Janie could hardly go on. “I see now which is my real family. The people who brought me up. The people who need me most.”

Janie’s voice broke when she used it again. But that did not stop her from using it again. “School is out in six weeks,” said Janie, “and I want to go back home then.”

J
odie and Stephen were stunned.

“I thought we were doing so well,” whispered Jodie.
It’s my fault
, she thought. I pushed too much. I demanded too much.

Jodie’s daydreams—the old ones when she wondered what a sister would be like—came back like a movie rented for the VCR. The daydreams had no more to do with reality than Hollywood. In daydreams, sisters laughed about boys, shared clothes, told stories into the night, were each other’s best friend.

She has a best friend, thought Jodie. Sarah-Charlotte. If that isn’t the most show-offy pretentious name I ever heard in my life. And a boyfriend.
Reeve.
Please. It’s not even a name. It’s just a syllable.

“I hate her,” said Jodie.

The family had sent Jennie to Uncle Paul’s for dinner so they could talk without her there. Now they held hands around the table, not to bless the meal, but once more for a missing child.

Jodie’s hand was held by Brendan on one side
and Brian on the other. The twins were just not very interested. They were consumed by their own lives. Jennie had not really entered into their thinking.

Jodie decided if you put your mind to it, you could hate everybody on earth for something. She already hated Jennie. She was perfectly willing to hate Brendan and Brian because they weren’t upset at what this was doing to the family. She certainly hated Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. If she ever met Sarah-Charlotte, she would be sure to hate her, too. Reeve—well, Reeve was too cute to hate.

“I refuse to share the same bedroom with Jennie for six more weeks,” said Jodie. “I might put a knife through her. Make her sleep on the couch.”

“Just let her go back to Connecticut now,” said Stephen. “What difference is six weeks of school?”

“Let her walk,” said Jodie. “She doesn’t even deserve a ride.”

“She’s your sister,” said their father with terrible sadness, “and my daughter. And we’re going to be nice to her up to the last minute no matter how we feel inside. I don’t care how much discipline it takes. Whatever memories of this family she carries away the second time around, they’re not going to be ugly or frightening.”

Instead of dipping into his chocolate pudding with the spoon he held in his right hand, he bent it, and went on bending it until it was entirely round. The twins were awestruck.

“Wow, Dad,” said Brian. “Do it with mine.”

Dad did it with Brian’s. He held up the now circular spoon. “That,” he said, “is what I would like to do with Hannah’s neck.”

Everybody giggled hysterically.

“What would you really do to Hannah if you found her, Dad?” said Jodie.

“I’d like to beat her to a pulp,” said their father gloomily, “but I suppose in reality, if we found Hannah she’d be a pathetic middle-aged mental case.”

“It’s nicer thinking of her as a teenager,” said Jodie. “Blond and dishwatery and Used Rag Doll. I’d tie her to the railroad tracks and watch the next train cut her in pieces.”

Everybody laughed again.

“This is sick,” said Mom. “Now we’re not going to talk like this again.”

“Why not?” said Stephen. “I think this is great. Look what Hannah did to us! Why can’t we cut her in pieces? In the Middle Ages they quartered people.”

“Quartered people?” said Brendan. “What does that mean?”

Stephen drew a stick figure on his paper napkin, tilted his chair back from the table to reach the utensil drawer, and pulled out the kitchen scissors. Carefully he cut the napkin into fourths, right through the stick figure’s waist. “They chopped ’em into four pieces back then,” said Stephen with considerable satisfaction.

“Eeeuuuhhhh! Did we do that in America, too?”

“There were no Middle Ages in America, dumb-o,” said his sister. “White people hadn’t gotten here yet. Only Europe had Middle Ages.”

“I hope they were alive when they got quartered,” said Stephen. “Can’t you just picture old
Hannah tied by the ankles and wrists while we take a long rusty dull saw, and divide her into quarters?”

“Yes,” said their father. “I can picture it and I like it.”

“Jonathan,” said their mother warningly.

“Okay, okay, I’d let the police come along and restrain me,” said Mr. Spring. “But I’d get in at least one good kick in the shins.”

“Have we heard anything from Mr. Mollison?” Jodie asked her parents. “What kind of progress are they making on finding Hannah?”

“None,” said her mother. “They never will. Most of those cults disbanded or threw their older members out on the streets. Discarded them like waste paper. Hannah won’t have left a trail.”

“Then why did the police make such a big deal of interrogating Jennie and opening the case up again?” cried Jodie. “Jennie going home is the police’s fault.” It had to be somebody’s fault. Preferably the fault of somebody within reach so she could hurt them back.

“Maybe for publicity,” said her mother. “Or curiosity. Or perhaps the law bound them. I think they were just fascinated and wanted to be part of the action again. Except there turned out to be no action on the Hannah front. Only on the family-collapse front. The police aren’t keeping track of that. It isn’t criminal. It’s just tragic.”

“I do not wish to talk about Hannah again,” said Dad. “Not now, not ever, not on this earth, not in hell.”

Brian grinned. “Sounds pretty final.” Brian began eating with his now-circular spoon. Brendan,
envious, handed his spoon to Dad to circularize. Dad bent it willingly.

Dad’s thinking of Hannah, Jodie thought, but the twins are thinking only of spoons. Jennie’s fading for them before she’s gone. “Is Jennie going to stay till school’s out?”

Mom was crying, the kind Jodie hated: tears sliding out on their own, from a bottomless pit of pain. Jodie wanted to drive back and forth over Jennie’s body in a truck with nail-studded tires. “Mom? Don’t you think Hannah must have known what she was doing?”

Her mother didn’t answer.

“The Johnsons and Jennie want to believe that Hannah was a sweet lost soul. A dear girl of a spiritual nature led astray by stronger minds. And she just happened to hold hands with the first friendly person she met, who just happened to be a three-year-old. I don’t believe that.”

Jodie’s mother shrugged. She took the photograph of little Jennie, the one they had given the newspapers twelve years ago and the one they had put on the milk carton last year. “I’m losing her again. My baby girl. I’m losing her twice.”

“I think,” said Jodie, “Hannah knew perfectly well she was kidnapping Jennie. If Hannah had really been a mental case, she wouldn’t have pretended Jennie was her own daughter. She wouldn’t have pretended it was their granddaughter. I don’t think Hannah was afraid of the cult. I think she was afraid of the police. Hannah ran away so her parents would be the ones who would get in trouble.”

“What difference does it make?” said her
mother. “We’re not going to have Jennie now, and the only improvement is that I don’t have to worry whether she’s safe or well or scared.” Mrs. Spring laughed in despair. “I only have to worry that she doesn’t want me, doesn’t love me, and needs to finish growing up with somebody else.”

Jodie, Stephen, and Dad watched the silent slide of tears.

Finally Dad said, “Stephen, I think you’re right. It would kill us to keep pretending. The only reason to stay is school, and she might just as well finish school up there.”

Jodie’s rage was so great it was a pit bull and had her by the throat.

“You are scum,” said Jodie in the dark, in the quiet, of their bedroom. She didn’t care what the parental instructions were. Mom and Dad didn’t have to undress in the same room with Jennie. They didn’t have to fall asleep listening to rotten worthless Jennie breathe.

“I know that,” said her sister. “I haven’t been a good daughter, and I haven’t been a good sister. I just want to go home. What happened, happened. That’s that. I’m not going to pretend anymore.”

“There wasn’t any pretending!” cried Jodie. “You really and truly are my sister! You really and truly are Mom and Dad’s daughter. That happened, too!”

The silence lasted. Jodie hoped that Jennie would have cardiac arrest from shame and badness.

“I don’t know if there is a right thing morally,”
said Jennie at last. “Every choice in this is second best. So I picked a second best. I’m going home.”

Jodie lay flat on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, keeping her hands stiff at her sides. She felt laid out, like a corpse. “We weren’t good enough for you, were we?” she said.

“You are good! This is a very good family! I’m the one who’s not good.”