The suicide note also meant people might well slam doors in her face. People weren’t just going to open up to her after two years. The case was closed. She would have to think about how to find out what she wanted.
She finished making her list of people to talk to: witnesses like Trevor Blinn; the lawyer for the Halls, Kip Evander; and his investigator, Randy Franklin. Maybe they could help her. They would likely say no, but she had a sudden urge for action.
She paged through the rest of the file. There were mostly printed e-mails from her mother’s lawyer, strategizing before the Halls surprisingly dropped their case. At the back of the file was a plastic bag, taped to the inside of the heavy manila cardboard of the file. She froze: It looked like there was blood along the edge of the paper. Brownish now, not red, folded so she couldn’t read what was on the paper. She pulled it free of the file and carefully unfolded it. It was very fine, thin paper torn along one edge, but not from a spiral notebook:
Meet me after school in the main parking lot. Don’t tell anyone. I need your help but it concerns us both. I’m in bad trouble. Will you help me?
It was in a plain, blocky, noncursive handwriting; like most kids their age, Jane and David hadn’t learned cursive, because they were on keyboards and screens so much, and his printing wasn’t so different from the penmanship of their earlier school days. Or hers, for a matter of fact.
I’m in bad trouble.
For a moment she stared at the note as if it was a bizarre artifact. The note David had passed to her in class? It must be. And it had blood on it…from the crash? Her blood?
How did her mother have this and why had she never shown it to her? Or to anyone?
It concerns us both. What did that mean? It was formal, but that was how David talked even when they were little, pleading his case to a teacher or coach. He was serious, thoughtful.
Jane folded the note back into the plastic sheeting.
She heard the garage door opening. Mom, home. She quickly tucked the plastic bag, with the note inside, into her front pocket and stuffed the file back into the drawer. She folded her time line and stuck it into her other front pocket.
She called, “Mom, I’m here,” as she walked from the office into the kitchen.
“Sweetheart!” Laurel Norton stood at the sink, tentatively sipping a glass of water. She was dressed in a stylish blouse and blazer and a pair of slacks, her hair immaculate, her makeup perfect. She set down the glass and hurried to Jane and gave her a gentle hug. Jane could hear the soft sniff of her mother, checking her for odor.
“I wanted to see you. Where were you?”
“I had a meeting for my charity. If you had called on that phone I pay for, I would have canceled it to be here.” Laurel intensified the hug, presumably to take the sting out of her words.
“Sorry,” Jane said. Laurel released her and studied her daughter’s face.
“Well,” Laurel said. “Are you here to stay?” She could hardly keep the tension, and the hope, out of her voice.
If Jane confronted her mother about this note, she might not get the car. And she needed the car. She wanted to ask, but she decided to play out the moment, see what happened, see if they could have a normal conversation. This would be good practice, she thought, for interrogating her witnesses.
“I told you I would call you if I didn’t have a safe place to sleep at night. But I do. OK?”
“OK. You appear to have a relationship with soap and shampoo, so I believe you.” Laurel ran a hand through her daughter’s hair.
“I agreed to help a psych grad student who is studying memory loss. He’s trying a more direct approach with me than the first therapists. I had a memory. One that I didn’t have before, of David and me walking home from high school. Maybe I’m starting to remember.” That was overselling it a bit, but there might be an advantage to her mother thinking she was getting better.
“Oh, honey.” Laurel sighed. “That’s wonderful.”
“That is not permission for you to write about it.”
Laurel managed to look hurt. “Baby, I’m taking a break from the blog. Who is this student?”
“His name is Kevin Ngota.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“He’s from England.”
“If you’re back in therapy, why not get an actual doctor instead of a student?”
“This is free. He’s writing a paper.”
“Just what we need, more articles written about you.” The irony was lost on the blogger. “But I hope he helps. Are you hungry?”
She was always hungry but a contrary tug in her chest made her say, “No.”
“You look skinny. Have you had lunch?”
“No.”
“Well, at least have a peanut butter sandwich.” Laurel turned to get the fixings from the pantry, not waiting for Jane to say yes or no to her offer.
“I can make my sandwich. I can make you one, too,” Jane said. It would be a nice thing to do, what with the lying she was doing right now.
“I’ll do it,” Laurel said. “Let Mama take care of you.”
Jane sat down. Laurel set down the sandwich and a glass of iced tea. Jane ate, and Laurel watched.
The price of the sandwich became clearer. “If you’re in therapy, then maybe you should consider, you know, a more permanent situation. With an assortment of actual doctors. And being off the street.”
“I don’t need a psychiatric hospital, Mom.”
“It’s not just the amnesia. It’s the depression. It’s the self-destructiveness.” Laurel raised a finger for each malady. Then she closed her hands and put them over Jane’s. “You could come home, be off the streets, or wherever on South Congress you are”—she had been monitoring the rideshares. “They could give you the help you need.” Jane waited for her to mention taking rideshares to the cemetery and High Oaks, but for once her mother decided not to say anything.
“I’m staying with a friend and you don’t need to worry about me.”
“Of course I worry. I want you home and safe, where I can watch you.”
The unsaid words: because you’re broken, damaged, aimless. Jane finished the sandwich. “You know my price.”
Laurel’s mouth twitched. “This is my home, our home, Jane, and I’m not selling it. The Halls can sell.” Jane could see her mother’s jaw shift into a teeth-gritting position.
There was nothing more to say. So Jane finished her sandwich. “When I was unconscious after the wreck and you were staying in the room with me, did I ever say anything, you know, while I was not conscious or asleep or anything?”
“Other than mentioning the deer?” The lie her mother would not let go of, even now.
“Anything about David being in danger?”
A pause. Laurel Norton’s mouth quivered slightly, then settled. “No, you said nothing more. Why do you ask?”
“For the new therapist. He asked me.” Little white lie number one.
“Well, I’m not sure what a good idea this grad-student therapy is.” Laurel air-quoted “grad student” and then folded her hands. “I want you to come home, please.”
I see a therapist, I make progress maybe, and suddenly she wants me home. Jane felt a shifting inside her chest.
“Mom. No. I can’t live next door to them. I don’t know how you bear it.”