SHE SPEAKS
4:01 p.m.
Janie takes a few deep breaths, filling herself with confidence that’s not quite there. But she’ll take what she can get. She grabs a can of beer from the fridge stash and pops it open, taking a bitter sip. She hasn’t had any alcohol since the night at Durbin’s, so this feels a little creepy.
She waits on the couch, hoping her mother will come out on her own.
4:46 p.m.
Still waiting. Beer gone.
Grabs another beer. Turns on the TV and watches Judge Judy.
Switches the channel to a game show—judges conjure up too many bad memories.
5:39 p.m.
Where the hell is she? Figures she’s got to go after her.
Right after she pees.
5:43 p.m.
Janie opens her mother’s door, two cans of beer in hand. One as an offering. Or maybe a bribe. But then Janie falls to the floor unceremoniously, dropping the cans, sucked into a dream. She hears a pop and a fizzing sound and knows at least one can broke open.
The noise isn’t even enough to rouse Dorothea Hannagan from her drunken stupor. Damn it, Janie thinks. Dreams plus booze equals not cool.
Janie’s head spins as she tries and fails to pull out of the dream.
They are in a line outside a building, Dorothea jiggling a crying baby. Janie knows she is the baby—who else would it be? They move slowly but the building moves too, farther away, making the wait endless. It’s a shelter, or maybe a food bank. Janie stands in the road, watching her mother, trying to get her attention. Maybe this time, Janie can help change it. “Look at me,” Janie thinks, trying to concentrate. “Look at me.”
But Janie’s sensibilities are off, not strong enough at the moment, and Dorothea merely glances at Janie and then looks away. She grows more impatient as she waits in line. Finally, Janie pulls her gaze away from her mother and looks to the front of the line, to the building. There are two windows.
Above the windows, a giant sign.
“Babies for Food.”
That’s what the sign says.
Janie watches people deposit their babies in one window and take a box of food from the other.
With all her might, Janie wants to scream, but she can’t. She pulls her strength together and crawls blindly across the floor to the bed, butting her head up against it, flailing her numb arms on top of the mattress, not even sure if she’s hitting her mother, trying to wake her. Trying to get out of this nightmare.
Finally, everything goes black.
At the same time, from both yelling mouths:
“What is wrong with you?”
Janie still can’t see. She’s feeling wet, soaked by the beer can that exploded. Dorothea shoves Janie. “What the hell are you doing?”
Janie pretends she can see. Her eyes are open, after all. “I—I tripped.”
“Get outa here, you good for nothing—”
“Stop it!” Janie is half-drunk, confused, and blind. But she’s done with this. “Stop talking to me like that! Don’t give me that ‘good for nothing’ bullshit. Without me, you’d be on the street and you know it, so just shut your damn mouth!”
Janie’s mother is stunned.
Janie is shocked by her own words.
Thus, the silence.
As the world comes back into view for Janie and she can move once again, she gets unsteadily to her feet and picks up the cans. “What a freaking mess,” she mutters. “I’ll be right back.”
Janie returns with dishcloths and starts wiping it up. “You know, Mother, it wouldn’t kill you to help me.”
After a minute, Janie’s mother eases her way to the floor and helps. “You been drinking?” Dorothea grunts.
“So what? Why should you care?” Janie’s still pissed off and a little freaked out by the nightmare. “Why do you hate me so much?”
Janie’s mother leans over to reach a wet spot on the floor. When she speaks, her voice is softer. “I don’t hate you.”
Janie’s frustrated. “What’s going on? What’s the deal with this Henry guy? I think I deserve to know what happened.”
Dorothea looks away. Shrugs. “He’s your father.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that. What, do I have to ask specific questions here or can you just tell me about him? Sheesh!”
Dorothea frowns. “His name’s Henry Feingold. We met in Chicago when I was sixteen. He was a student at U of M, but home for the summer. Working over at Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria in Lincolnwood. I worked there too, waitressing.”
Janie tries to imagine her mother actually working. “And then what? He got you pregnant and took off? He’s an a*shole? How did you end up here in Fieldridge?”
“Forget it. I’m not talking about this.”
“Come on, Mother. Where does he live?”
“No idea. Around here somewheres. I quit school. Followed him here. We lived together for a while and then he took off and I never saw him again. There. Happy?”
“Did he know you were pregnant?”
“No. None of his business.”
“But—but—how did you know he was in the hospital?”
Janie’s mother has a vacant look in her eyes, now. “He had one of them legal papers—gave it to the paramedics. He had me down as the person to contact. It says he don’t want any heroic measures. That’s what the nurse told me.”
Janie is silent.
Dorothea continues, softer. “I think maybe I oughta have one of them papers too. So you don’t have to keep me hanging on when my liver rots out.”
Janie looks away and sighs.
Feels like she’s supposed to protest.
But who is she kidding? “Yeah,” she says. “Maybe.”
Dorothea lies down on the bed again. Turns away. “I mean it. I don’t want to talk no more about this. I’m done with it.”
After a moment of quiet, Janie gets up, unsteadily walks to the bathroom, throws up a few cans worth of cheap beer, and then some. “Never again,” she echoes.
Then she crawls into her room, closes the door, climbs into bed and sleeps.
2:12 a.m.
Janie’s running.
And running.
All night long.
She never gets there.