“You don’t know what I’ve beared. Borne. Whatever the word is.”
“No, I guess I don’t,” Jane said. “Because I can’t live here with you while you stay here, and so I can’t be around you, and you don’t care about me enough to even find out where I’m living.”
Laurel said, “That’s so unfair. You know I care. It’s your choice not to come home. This house was what I have left of your father and you—the you that you were.” Her voice trailed off. “I’m sorry, Jane. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I’ll go up to my room for a bit, then I’ll get out of your hair. Thanks for the sandwich.”
Her mother followed her up the stairs to the room, as if worried a memory might jump out and surprise her. She went into her room; it was clean, tidy, had been dusted, but was otherwise unchanged from when she had left it to go first to St. Michael’s, and then, when she flunked out and couldn’t bear living next to the Halls, out onto the streets. A stack of books at the bedside—last summer she had finally worked up the courage to read memoirs of people who had entirely lost their memories: a Texas housewife who had a ceiling fan fall on her head, an Arizona businessman who slipped in an office bathroom, and a Norwegian man who had fallen from a ladder. These seemed ludicrous ways to get a devastating amnesia, but they were heartbreakingly real. They never remembered anything from before their accidents. Sometimes their lives healed and their families stayed intact, other times they did not. She wondered how her story would end.
She sensed her mother follow her into the room. She nearly turned and asked her mother, Why do you have that note? Why didn’t you ever tell me? Do you know what kind of trouble David was in?
What if she knew and she had never told Jane? Why, to shield her? As if things could be worse. Laurel’s attempts to protect her—the lie about the deer running onto the road—had backfired badly.
“You see the room’s ready for you,” her mother said. “I want you to stay. Isn’t this a nicer option than a hospital? You can pretend the Halls aren’t next door. We’re all very good at avoiding each other.”
“I figured it out,” Jane said, turning to face her. “Something went out of you when Dad died. It died in you, too. And I guess you feel I’ve exceeded your amount of grief you expected to have in your life, and I’m sorry for that, but as much as I hate not having my life be what I thought it was going to be, I can’t stay here with you. I can’t live next door to the Halls. I’m sorry you’re choosing a house over me.” Burn it down, she thought. Burn the house down, then Mom would have to move. It was insane, but at times, the thought seemed to make perfect sense, and that frightened Jane.
She walked past her mother, and Laurel said, “I’ll give you money if you’ll go into that hospital. If you let them help you.”
“A hospital won’t fix me.”
“You’re depressed because you’re homeless,” Laurel said. “You won’t be homeless at a hospital. You could write your stories. I’d visit every day. You could get your life back on track.”
Jane pivoted the conversation. “You know what you could let me have? The Toyota.” It was a car she bought Jane when they were optimistic she would soon drive again. “I could use it right now.”
“For what?”
She didn’t want to explain herself or the Faceplace page. She didn’t want Mom looking at that.
“I thought, now that I have a place to stay, I might try to get a job. I would need a car.” The lie slipped out, so easy, so bold, and would surely be Laurel-approved.
“I sold the Toyota. We didn’t need it, what with you not driving and not living here.”
Great. Jane started down the stairs.
“You’re telling me a white lie, Jane. You’re not thinking about a job. Why do you need a car?”
Jane didn’t answer. She walked to the garage. Yes, there was only her mom’s aging red Volvo there.
“If you can’t get your head together, I’ll have to take action. Jane, I would have you committed rather than see you on the street.” Laurel said this to her back, iron in her voice.
Jane turned to face her. “You would really do that?”
“For your own good. No school will take you again until you’ve gotten your life back on track. What will you do without an education? You’re one hit off a crack pipe from turning into a street whore or a druggie or I don’t know what.” She stopped as if aware she’d taken a step too far.
“The vote of confidence is inspiring.” She went out the front door. She wanted the fresh air. Matteo Vasquez was gone, and she wondered for a moment if her mother had seen him, sitting in his car. She thought not. Mom would have mentioned it.
“Jane?” her mother called to her.
“What?”
“I love you. Please don’t go. Please.” But she didn’t step forward, she didn’t chase Jane down the driveway to embrace her. “Everything I’ve done. Or am doing. Is to protect you.”
Doing? “I love you, too, Mom, I really do,” she said. But she thought: I don’t trust you.
David’s note meant something. It had to, tucked away, protected, preserved. She wasn’t ready to tell her mother she had it. Perhaps it could be leverage with the people on her list. A passport, of sorts. David had been in trouble and she meant to find out what kind of trouble it was.
14
SHILOH ROOKE HAD finally picked out the ring. He’d stopped by the jewelry store three times, summoning his courage. Buying the ring was as good as asking Mimi if she would be his wife. It was a step you couldn’t take back. Once the ring was in his pocket, then soon it would be on her finger, and then it would be forever. One woman, forever. He liked the novelty of that.
He went inside, the saleswoman smiling at his now-familiar face. He bought the ring, put it into his pocket with a shaking hand.
“She’ll love it,” the saleswoman said. “You made a thoughtful choice.”
“Thoughtful.” It wasn’t a word applied a lot to Shiloh and he liked the sound of it. He didn’t even wink at the saleswoman, which would have once been his standard response. Marriage changed a man in the best way, his father had told him, and now Shiloh wanted to believe that. He stopped at a high-end grocery, where he never normally shopped, picked up the customized picnic lunch he’d ordered—Brie, flatbread crackers, peeled shrimp and remoulade, roast beef sandwiches with horseradish, potato chips that were somehow artisan, and a bottle of rosé wine that was pink but the catering lady promised it would be delicious and not sweet.
He and Mimi both worked crazy schedules, but they both had today and tonight off, so…Here goes. He drove over to Mimi’s apartment, knocked on her door.
She answered the door and he raised the basket over his face, then lowered it with an excited grin. She looked furious. Beyond furious. He tried a confused smile.
“Hi, babe,” he said. “Am I late?”
“You’re right on time,” she said, “for me to tell you to get the hell out of here. I never want to see you again.”
“Meems?”