Janie Face to Face

Janie Face to Face - By Caroline B. Cooney


THE FIRST PIECE OF THE KIDNAPPER’S PUZZLE

The woman who had once been Hannah barely remembered that day in New Jersey.

It was so many years ago, and anyway, it had been an accident.

It happened because she was driving east. There was no reason to head east. But when she stole the car and wanted to get out of the area quickly, she took the first interstate ramp she saw. It was eastbound.

She had never stolen a car before. It was as much fun as drugs. The excitement was so great that she had not needed sleep or rest or even meals.

Everybody else driving on the turnpike had experience and knew what they were doing. But although the woman once known as Hannah was thirty, she had done very little driving.

Back when she was a teenager and everybody else was learning to drive, her cruel parents had never bought her a car. They rarely let her drive the family car either. They said she was immature. And in the group she joined, only the leaders had cars.

She found the group during her freshman year at college. She hated college. She hated being away from home and she hated her parents for making her go to college. Even more, she hated admitting defeat.

The group had embraced Hannah. Inside the group, she did not have to succeed or fail. There were no decisions and no worries. She did not have to choose one of those frightening things called a career. Her parents—those people from her past—had always been on her case about her future. Always demanding that she consider her skills and abilities.

Hannah did not want to consider things.

She wanted other people to consider.

While she was still useful to the group, earning money and getting new converts, she kept the name they had given her. But time passed and the group disbanded. Its members ended up on the street. She found herself homeless and helpless, and she needed another name. For a while she called herself Tiffany. Then she tried Trixie.

In the years that followed, she made use of stolen paperwork. She was pretty good at lifting the wallets of careless college kids in coffee shops. They had too much anyway. They needed to share.

After many hours on that turnpike in that stolen car, Hannah was amazed by a sign reading WELCOME TO NEW JERSEY. She had crossed the entire country. If the road kept going, it would bump into the Atlantic Ocean. She stopped for gas. Now the signs gave directions for the Jersey Shore.

During her childhood in Connecticut, her family used to go to the beach. She didn’t mind the sand, but her parents always wanted her to learn how to swim. Swimming was scary, and she refused to try, but her parents were the kind of people who forced you to do scary things. She still hated them for it. The group had told her not to worry about her mother and father. Parents were nothing; the group was her family.

No. She would not go to the beach today, because it reminded her of things better forgotten.

She got back on the interstate. It was difficult to merge with traffic. She crept along the shoulder for a while until there was finally a space. She couldn’t seem to drive fast enough. People kept honking at her.

It occurred to her that she had not eaten in a long time. A billboard advertised a mall. She took the exit.

The mall was disgusting, full of American excess. People were shopping too much, eating too much, talking too much.

Her parents had been like that. They loved things. They always bought her things. They spoiled her. It was their fault that she had struggled later on.

She decided she wanted ice cream. At the food court, she was shocked by how much they charged and had to take another turn around the mall to walk off her fury. How dare they ask that much! American society was so greedy.

She took the escalator to the second floor. She was an excellent shoplifter, but she could not think of a way to shoplift ice cream. She would have to pay for it. Like the gas! She had had to pay for the gas, too!

A toddler was standing just outside a shoe shop.

Hannah did not care for small children, who were sticky and whiny. But this one was cute enough, with ringlets of red-gold hair. Hannah reached down, taking hold of those warm little fingers. The toddler gave her a beautiful smile.

The grown-ups with this child were probably only a few feet away. But they were not watching at that split second, or they would have come over. Hannah had possession. It was a hot, surging feel. A taunt-on-the-playground feel. I have something you don’t have, sang Hannah.

She and the little girl walked to the escalator. Hannah’s pulse was so fast she could have leapt off the steps and flown to the food court. Stealing a car had been much more fun than stealing a credit card. But stealing a toddler! Hannah had never felt so excited.

“What about Mommy?” said the little girl.

“She’ll be here in a minute,” said Hannah. And if she does come, thought Hannah, I’ll say I’m rescuing the kid. I’m the savior.

Hannah giggled to herself. She was the opposite of a savior.

At the ice cream kiosk, Hannah lifted the toddler onto a stool.

“How adorable your little girl is!” cried the server. “Daddy’s a redhead, huh?”

The toddler beamed.

Hannah did not.

How typical of American society that even a stupid ice cream server cared more about pretty red hair on some kid than about the suffering soul of a woman in need. The server turned to a second worker behind the counter, a skinny young man whose apron was spotted with chocolate and marshmallow. They helped each other with orders and they seemed happy.

Hannah had had a life once where people helped each other and seemed happy. But that life was gone now. The leader had been arrested, and when the group melted away, Hannah stumbled around the country, following various members, hoping they would include her in their lives again.

But they wouldn’t. Grow up, they said to her. Get a life.

Hannah could not seem to get a life. It was her parents’ fault. She had known that when she was a teenager. She had known that when she was in her twenties. And now she was thirty, and what did she have to show for it?

Nothing!

A stupid ice cream server had more of a life than she did!

She hated the server.

“What about Mommy?” said the little girl again. She wasn’t frightened, just puzzled.

Hannah hated the cute little girl now, with her cute little outfit and her cute little barrette in her cute curly red hair. She hated the way the little girl sat so happily among strangers, assuming everybody was a friend and life was good.

You’re wrong, thought the woman once known as Hannah. Nobody is a friend and life is bad.

I’ll prove it to you.





CHAPTER ONE




Janie Johnson wrote her college application essay.

PERSONAL STATEMENT

Please write an essay (750 words or fewer) that demonstrates your ability to develop and communicate your thoughts. Some ideas include: a person you admire; a life-changing experience; or your viewpoint on a particular current event. Please attach your response to the end of your application.

My legal name is Jennie Spring, but I am applying under my other name, Janie Johnson. My high school records and SAT scores will arrive under the name Janie Johnson. Janie Johnson is not my real name, but it is my real life.

A few years ago, in our high school cafeteria, I glanced down at a half-pint milk carton. The photograph of a missing child was printed on the side. I recognized that photograph. I was the child. But that was impossible. I had wonderful parents, whom I loved.

I did not know what to do. If I told anybody that I suspected my parents were actually my kidnappers, my family would be destroyed by the courts and the media. But I loved my family. I could not hurt them. However, if I did not tell, what about that other family, apparently my birth family, still out there worrying?

What does a good person do when there is no good thing to do? It is a problem I have faced more than once.

I now have two sets of parents: my biological mother and father (Donna and Jonathan Spring) and my other mother and father (Miranda and Frank Johnson). The media refers to the Johnsons as “the kidnap parents.” But the Johnsons did not kidnap me, and they did not know there had been a kidnapping.

Usually when people find out about my situation, they go online for details. I have friends who have kept scrapbooks about my life. Among the many reasons I hope to be accepted at your college is that I ache to escape the aftermath of my own kidnapping. It happened fifteen years ago, so it ought to be ancient history. But it isn’t. People do not leave it or me alone. It is not that distant crime they keep alive. It is my agony as I try to be loyal. “Honor thy father and mother” is a Bible commandment I have tried to live by. But if I honor one mother and father, I dishonor the other.

If I am accepted at a college in New York City, I can easily visit both sets of parents—taking a train out of Penn Station to visit my Spring family in New Jersey or a train out of Grand Central to visit my Johnson family in Connecticut. I need my families, but I don’t want to live at home, because then I would have to choose one over the other.

New York City is full of strangers. I don’t want to be afraid of strangers anymore. I want to be surrounded by strangers and enjoy them. It is tempting to go to school in Massachusetts, because I have relatives and a boyfriend there. But I would lean on them, and I want to stand alone. I’ve never done that. It sounds scary. But it is time to try.

I know my grades are not high enough. My situation meant that I went back and forth between two high schools. At my high school in Connecticut, where I grew up and knew everybody, people were riveted by what was happening to me. They were kind, but they wanted to be part of it, as if I were a celebrity instead of somebody in a terrible position trying to find the way out. At my high school in New Jersey, my classmates had all grown up with my New Jersey brothers and sister, and they knew about the crime in a very different way, and sometimes acted as if I meant to damage my real family. As a result, I didn’t study hard enough. I promise that I will study hard enough at college.

I am asking you to accept me as a freshman, but I have something even more important to ask. Whether you accept me or not, will you please not talk about me with your faculty, your student body, or your city? Thank you.

She was accepted.

The Spring parents (the real ones) and the Johnson parents (the other ones) argued with Janie about her decision to attend college in Manhattan. “It’s too much for you,” they said. “You can’t deal with the pressure. You’ll drop out. You need to be with people who know your whole history.”

No, thought Janie Johnson. I need to be with people who do not know one single thing.

The New York City dormitory to which she had been assigned held six hundred kids. She would be nobody. It was a lovely thought. She did worry that she might introduce herself (“Hi. My name is Janie Johnson”) and they would say, “Oh, you’re the one who went and found your birth family and then refused to live with them. You’re the one the court had to order to go home again. You’re the one who abandoned your birth family a second time and went back and lived with your kidnap parents after all.”

Outsiders made it sound easy. As if she could have said to the only mother and father she had ever known, “Hey—it’s been fun. Whatever. I’m out of here,” and then trotted away. As if she could have become a person named Jennie Spring over a weekend.

One reason the kidnap story was so often in the news was that Janie was photogenic. She had masses of bright auburn curls, and a smile that made people love her when she hadn’t said a word.

For college, she wanted to look different.

Her sister, Jodie (the one Janie hadn’t met until they were both teenagers), had identical hair, but Jodie trimmed hers into tight low curls. Janie had enough problems with this sister; imitating her hairstyle did not seem wise. So for college, Janie yanked her hair back, catching it in a thick round bun because it was too curly to fall into a ponytail.

Back when she’d first arrived at her birth family’s house, Janie had shared a bedroom with the new sister, Jodie, and a bathroom with all the rest of the Springs. There were so many of them—a new mother, a new father, an older brother Stephen, an older sister Jodie, and younger twin brothers Brian and Brendan. If there was a way to say or do the wrong things with any of these people, Janie found it.

Now, when she looked back—which wasn’t far; it had happened only three years ago—she saw a long string of goofs and stubbornness. If only I had been nicer! she sometimes said to herself.

But being nice in a kidnap situation is tough.

Janie’s college essay spilled more truth than she had ever given anybody but her former boyfriend, Reeve. Still, it omitted two other reasons for going to college.

She wanted to make lifelong girlfriends. Sarah-Charlotte would always be her best friend, but at some disturbing level, Janie wanted to be free of Sarah-Charlotte; free to go her own way, whatever that was, and at her own speed, whatever that was.

And she wanted to meet the man who would become her husband.

Janie still loved Reeve, of course. But the boy next door had hurt her more than anyone. Whenever he was home from college (he was three years ahead of her), Reeve would plead, “I was stupid, Janie. But I’m older and wiser.”

He was older, anyway. And still the cutest guy on earth. But wiser?

Janie didn’t think so.

Reeve was a boyfriend now only by habit. She and Reeve texted all the time, and she followed his Facebook page. She herself didn’t have a photograph or a single line of information on her own wall; she was on Facebook solely to see what other people were doing. She never posted.

Janie’s other mother, Miranda Johnson, was excited and worried for Janie. Miranda’s life had collapsed, and this year, she was living through Janie. Miranda was so eager to see Janie launched at the university. It was Miranda who drove Janie into the city on the day her college dorm opened.

Later, Janie learned that each of her Spring parents had arranged to take that day off from work so that they could bring her to college. But Janie said no to them, which she had pretty much said ever since they first spoke on the phone. (“Is it the only syllable you know?” her brother Stephen once demanded.)

On the first day of college, Janie and her mother took the dorm elevator to the fifth floor and found her room. The single window had a sliver view of the Hudson River. Janie could hardly wait for her mother to leave so she could begin her new life. She refused Miranda’s help unpacking and nudged her mother back into the hall, where Miranda burst into tears. “Oh, Janie, Janie! I’ll miss you so, Janie!”

Janie tried to stand firm against her mother’s grief. If she herself broke down, she might give up and go home.

The hall was packed with everybody else moving in, each freshman glaring silent warnings to their own parents: Don’t even think about crying like that woman.

“Good-bye, Janie!” cried her mother, inching backward. “I love you, Janie!”

At last the elevator doors closed and Janie was without a parent. She sagged against the wall. Had she done the right thing? Should she run after Miranda and somehow make this easier?

A friendly hand tapped her shoulder. “Hi. I’m Rachel. And you are definitely Janie!”

Everyone in the hall was smiling gently. In minutes, she knew Constance and Mikayla and Robin and Samantha. Nobody bothered with last names. I can skip my last names! thought Janie.

“I’m actually Jane,” she said. “Only my mother calls me Janie.” She had never been called Jane. She felt new and different and safe, hiding under the new syllable along with the new hair. “Jane” sounded sturdier than “Janie.” More adult.

Her actual roommate appeared so late that Janie had been thinking she might not even have a roommate. “Eve,” said the girl, who flung open the door around eleven o’clock that night. “Eve Eggs. I’ve heard every joke there is. Do not use my last name. You and I will be on a first-name basis only.”

“I’m with you,” said Janie.

Her new friends—girls who seemed so poised, and whose grades and SAT scores were so much higher than Janie’s—were nervous in the Big Apple. They thought Janie was the sophisticated one. Everybody she knew back home would think that was a riot.

Rachel loved ballet and wanted Janie to help her find Lincoln Center.

Constance wanted Janie to teach her how to use the subway.

Mikayla had planned to study fashion, but her parents said fashion was shallow and stupid, so Mikayla ended up here, and wanted Janie to take her to fabulous New York stores and fashion districts that dictated what women would wear.

Eve had a list of famous New York places, and wanted to see them with Janie.

She did it all. She even managed to alternate weekend visits with the Springs in New Jersey and the Johnsons in Connecticut. Every Sunday morning, she’d catch an early train and go for brunch with one family or the other.

When she met her academic advisor, the man did not seem to know her background. In fact, he kept glancing at his watch, resentful that thirty minutes of his precious time was being spent on her. She loved it. Maybe the sick celebrity of being a kidnap victim was over.

When her sister, Jodie, came into the city for a weekend visit, Janie primed her. “They know nothing. They don’t even know my last name! I’m just a girl named Jane. It’s so great. Like having my own invisibility cloak.”

Jodie was always prickly. “You enrolled here as a Johnson,” she snapped. “Which happens to be your kidnap name. If you really don’t want to be a kidnap victim, you would use your real name. You’d be Jennie Spring.”

It’s true, thought Janie. I’m the one extending the situation. I shouldn’t have changed my name from Janie to Jane. I should have changed my name to Jennie Spring.

And if she said that out loud, Jodie would point out that being Jennie Spring was not a name change. It was her name.

When their weekend came to a close, Jodie said, “I have to admit that I thought being away from your Connecticut home would destroy you. But you’re doing fine. You’re Miss Personality here.”

“I had plenty of personality before,” said Janie.

“Yes, but it was annoying.”

They giggled crazily, and suddenly Janie could hug Jodie the way she’d never been able to. “I was annoying,” she admitted. “I was worthless and rude.”

“Totally,” said Jodie. “But now you’re fun and rational. Who could have predicted that?”

Janie laughed. “I’m coming home for the summer,” she told her sister.

“Home?” Jodie was incredulous. “You mean, my house? That home?”

“If you want me.”

“Oh, Janie, we’ve always wanted you. You never wanted us!”

• • •

The wonderful weeks of freshman year flew by.

Eve began talking about Thanksgiving. Eve’s family had several hundred traditions, including who mashed the potatoes and who chopped the celery for the turkey stuffing. “I have the most wonderful new family here,” Eve said, “especially you, Jane, but I can hardly wait to get home to my real family.”

Even Eve, with whom Janie shared every inch of space and many hours a day and night, did not know that Janie Johnson had both a real family and another family. Like everybody else in the dorm, Eve vaguely assumed there had been a divorce and remarriage.

In contrast, Mikayla and Rachel acted as if they barely remembered home, family, and Thanksgiving. Janie could now see why parents might dread the departure for college: their beloved child could put away the last eighteen years like a sock in a drawer.

For Janie, the last eighteen years was more like clothing she had never been able to take off, never mind forget.

Janie telephoned her real mother. “Mom?” she said to Donna. It had taken her three years to use that word with Donna and just as much time to think of the Springs’ house as home. “May I come home for Thanksgiving?”

“Yes!” cried her real mother. “Everybody’s going to be here. Stephen’s coming from Colorado and Jodie’s coming from Boston! Brian promised not to study on Thanksgiving Day and Brendan promised not to have a ball game.”

The twins were still in high school. Brian was still academic and Brendan was still athletic. Brian was always part of the Sunday brunch when Janie came out to New Jersey, but Brendan never was. If he didn’t have a game, he went to somebody else’s.

Next, Janie planned the difficult call to her other mother.

A few years ago, her other father had had a serious stroke. Miranda was not strong enough to move and lift Frank. Over the summer, while Janie was preparing to move herself to a college dorm, she had also moved her parents into an assisted living institution, where Frank was much better off. For poor Miranda, it was prison. Miranda should have found herself her own apartment close to all her girlfriends and volunteer work and ladies’ lunches and golf. But she could not bear to live alone or to abandon Frank to loneliness.

Miranda would be counting on Janie’s presence for Thanksgiving.

Miranda did not know how to text and rarely emailed. She loved to hear Janie’s voice, so in this call, as in others, Janie started with gossip about Eve, Rachel, and Mikayla. Finally she came to the hard part. “For Thanksgiving, Mom?” Her throat tightened and her chest hurt. She hadn’t even said it yet and she was swamped by guilt. “I’m going to take the train to New Jersey on Wednesday and spend Thanksgiving Day and Friday with them.”

“New Jersey” was code for Janie’s birth family; “them” meant the Springs.

“Saturday morning I’ll get myself to Connecticut and stay until Sunday afternoon with you,” she added brightly. “Then you’ll drive me to the train station Sunday night so I can get back to the city.”

Miranda’s voice trembled. “What a good idea, darling. If you came here, we’d have to eat in the dining room with a hundred other families and the cranberry sauce would come out of a can.”

Normally, Janie caved when her mother’s voice trembled. But Jodie’s visit had been profound. The name change, and the soul change, could not be from Janie to Jane. It had to be from Janie to Jennie. All the vestiges of the kidnap, even the ones she cherished, needed to end. She wasn’t ready yet. But in her mental calendar of life, becoming Jennie Spring was not too many months away.

“I know it won’t be the perfect Thanksgiving for you, Mom,” Janie said, which was a ridiculous remark. It would be awful for Miranda. “But I’ll see you on Saturday, and that will be great. I love you.”

“Oh, honey. I love you too.”


Vacation by vacation, Janie slid out of the Johnson family and into the Spring family. The Springs rejoiced; the Johnsons suffered.

When freshman year ended, Janie divided her summer. She lived Monday through Friday with her birth family. She got a job at a fish fry restaurant. She came home with her hair smelling of onions and grease. Fridays, she worked through lunch, went home, shampooed the stink out of her hair, and caught the train from New Jersey into New York. From there, she took a subway to Grand Central, and another train out to Connecticut, where her mother picked her up at the station. Her father always knew her. Frank could smile with the half of his mouth that still turned up, and sometimes make a contribution to the conversation. But mostly, he just sat in his wheelchair.

A few years ago, when Frank suffered the first stroke, Miranda stayed at the hospital while Janie handled the household. Janie was struggling with bills when she stumbled onto a file in Frank’s office. To her horror, she found that Frank had always known where his daughter Hannah was and had sent her money every month. Of course, for twelve of those years, neither he nor anybody else dreamed that Hannah had kidnapped Janie. But when the face on the milk carton was produced and the truth came out, when the FBI and the police and the media and the court got involved, Frank Johnson knew exactly where the criminal was, and he never breathed a word. He had been writing a check to Janie’s kidnapper on the very day the FBI interrogated him.

It had been such a shock to learn that she was a kidnap victim. But Janie almost buckled when she understood that her father was aiding and abetting the kidnapper. Only to Reeve did Janie spill the secret. One of the comforts of Reeve was that he knew everything. It was always a relief to be with the one person who knew it all.

And then came another surprise: at college, she found out that it was more peaceful to be among people who knew nothing.

During freshman year, Janie saw Reeve only at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The summer after freshman year, Janie saw him only once, at the fabulous college graduation party his parents gave him. It was so much fun. Reeve had more friends than anybody, and they all came, and it was a high school reunion for his class. He and Janie were hardly alone for a minute. During that minute, he curled one of her red locks around a finger, begging her to come back to him.

She didn’t trust herself to speak. She shook her head and kissed his cheek.

He didn’t know why she couldn’t forgive him. She didn’t know either.

The following day, Reeve left for good. He had landed a dream job in the South and had to say good-bye to her in front of people. His departure was stilted and formal. She said things like “Good luck” and he said things like “Take care of yourself.” And then it was over: the boy next door had become a man with a career.

Her heart broke. But she wanted a man she could trust, and she only half trusted Reeve. It was so painful to imagine him lost to her, living a thousand miles away and leading a life about which she knew nothing. She kept herself as busy as she could. One good thing about her parents’ move to the Harbor was that they no longer lived next door to Reeve’s family: she no longer used the driveway on which she and Reeve learned to back up; no longer saw the yard on which they raked leaves; no longer ran into Reeve’s mother and got the updates she both yearned for and was hurt by, because she wasn’t part of them.

By July that summer, Janie was not visiting her Connecticut parents until Saturday mornings. By August, she was borrowing her real mother’s car, driving up for lunch on Saturdays, and driving home to New Jersey the same night. As her visits dwindled, so did her Connecticut mother. Miranda became frail and gray.

Is it my fault? thought Janie. Or is it just life? Am I responsible for keeping my other mother happy? Or is Miranda responsible for starting up new friendships and figuring out how to be happy again? I’m eighteen. Do I get to have my own life on my own terms? Or do I compromise because my mother is struggling?

The only person with whom she could share this confusion was Reeve. But she had decided not to share with him again.





THE SECOND PIECE OF THE KIDNAPPER’S PUZZLE




The food court had its own exit to the parking lot.

The woman formerly known as Hannah took the little girl’s hand again. “Let’s go for a ride.” If anybody stopped them, she’d say she was trying to find the parents.

“What about Mommy?” said the little girl again.

The silly question annoyed Hannah. “She’s meeting us,” said Hannah. They had to cross a wide stretch of parking lot. The little girl’s red hair blew in the wind like a flag: here we are!

But nobody stopped them.

It was so exciting.

Way better than stealing a car.

The little girl looked around. Still not afraid—just looking for Mommy.

“You know what?” said Hannah. “You can sit in front!”

The front seat was a privilege forbidden to small children. The little girl was thrilled. She climbed right in, so small she was hardly visible. It did not occur to Hannah to fasten the toddler’s seat belt. The little girl even asked her to, but Hannah didn’t have time for that kind of thing.

The mall was wrapped in parking lots. Hannah circled. She did not immediately see an exit to the main road. Racing toward her was a Jeep with a twirling light on its roof and a slap-on magnetic sign that read MALL SECURITY.

Hannah felt a wonderful thrill of fear, deep and cold and exciting. But the driver of the Jeep did not look at Hannah and could not see the small passenger in her front seat.

Hannah giggled. Guess what. Your mall is not secure.

“But what about Mommy?” said the child.

It was a stupid sentence. Hannah was sick of it. “She’s taking a nap,” snapped Hannah. “When we get there, Mommy will be awake.” In moments, she was back at the interstate, choosing her direction by the usual method: whichever entrance came first. It happened to be northbound. Hannah changed the subject. “What’s your name?”

Her name was Janie and she loved her shoes and she loved her doggy back home and basically she loved everything. Hannah quickly tired of this kid’s happiness. “Put your head down,” she said. “Take a nap.”

Obediently, the little girl tipped over and curled up on the seat, and shortly the rhythm and purr of the car really did put her to sleep.

In less than an hour, they had reached New York City.

Hannah disliked paying attention to traffic, but now she had no choice. She really disliked paying a toll, but she had no choice about that either. Hannah hated things where she had no choice. It was typical of society that they were always shoving themselves down your throat.

Hannah’s goal in life was to be free.

She emerged from the tangle of roads and traffic, merging lanes and shoving trucks; that was New York. The turnpike widened and she could breathe. Her eye was caught by a pile of red hair on the seat next to her. She had forgotten about the stupid little girl. She could not remember what her plans had been. What was she supposed to do with this burden?

Hannah hated responsibility. A kid! Next she’d have a utility bill and a factory job. She had to offload this kid.

A large sign loomed by the side of the road. NEW ENGLAND AND POINTS NORTH, it said.

Connecticut was the first Point North.

Hannah would dump the kid on her parents. She hadn’t seen them in years, not since they tried to wrench her out of her group, which they viciously called a cult. It was her parents’ assault on the leader that eventually led to his arrest and the end of the group. Hannah had never dreamed that she could avenge this.

I know! she thought, giggling. I’ll pretend this is my kid!

“Wake up!” she said roughly. She had to jab the kid to wake her. The kid was confused and puffy-faced and tearful and Hannah had to sweet-talk her into a fun game. “A let’s-pretend game!” she cried. “Let’s pretend I’m the mommy and you’re the little girl! And guess what! We’re going to meet a whole new grandma and grandpa. It’ll be so much fun!”

And it was.

The mother and father Hannah hadn’t seen or communicated with in years kissed and hugged her. For a fraction of a second, Hannah remembered what love was. But then they centered their attention on the kid.

“This beautiful little redhead is our granddaughter?” they cried.

Now they really kissed and hugged. They rushed the little girl to the bathroom and cleaned up the sticky mess of the ice cream and fixed her a butter and jam sandwich with the crusts cut off, and found a cute little plastic glass with mermaids on it and poured an inch of milk in it and cooed proudly when she drank without spilling.

These people had not seen Hannah in years, and already, she came in second.

Hannah hated them.

They sang songs with the kid, and danced in circles, and rocked her to sleep.

Every now and then the little girl was puzzled and asked for her mommy and wanted to know when they were going home.

Hannah had mastered the art of lying. She explained to her parents that since they had lived in a communal situation, baby Janie had more than one mommy, and lots of brothers and sisters.

The new grandma and grandpa asked awkward questions. About, for example, the daddy. Hannah spun a long story about how a mate had been chosen for her by the group, and how the man’s identity meant nothing, because no one had ownership over a child.

This was a pleasant thought. If nobody had ownership over a child, then New Jersey was not a problem. Besides, the actions of the day had fallen so easily into place. In the group, the leaders had often explained that some things were just “meant” to happen. There was a power out there. It ordained things and you had to go with the flow.

Hannah had simply gone with the flow.

The police would have another opinion. Police were like some kind of organized disease. They infected society. You could not lead your own life with them around.

She reached into her mind for more lies and came up with a one-night solution. She told her parents that baby Janie was not allowed to watch television. It wasn’t good for children, said Hannah firmly, and she wasn’t bringing up her daughter to find solace in silly television shows.

And so nobody turned on the TV and nobody saw the horrifying news of a kidnapping at a mall in New Jersey. And when the little girl Janie asked about her mommy, the Connecticut people thought she meant Hannah, and came up with excuses and explanations, and whisked Janie into another activity, and the weeks passed, and became months, and Janie didn’t remember that mommy anymore.