Jane's Harmony (Jane's Melody #2) (22 page)

“But I don’t want to go there, Mom.”

“He’s your brother, Jane.”

“Yeah, for whatever that’s worth. It’s probably not even visiting hours.”

“What day is it?”

“It’s Friday.”

Her mother glanced at the wall clock. “Friday hours are five thirty to seven thirty. You can make it if you catch a cab.”

Her brother was waiting behind the glass when she walked into the visiting room. He looked as if he’d lost some weight, and his hair was cut short for once and he was clean shaven. She could tell he was nervous because he picked up the receiver from its cradle and held it to his ear before she had even sat down. She picked hers up too.

“Is she okay?” he asked.

Jane nodded. “She’ll be fine.”

He let out a huge sigh and looked up at the visiting room ceiling, mouthing, “Thank you.”

“They said it was a ministroke. A warning sign.”

“I was so scared, Jane. She was sitting right where you are now, lecturing me about politics or some shit, and she just went limp and dropped the phone. I went crazy in here. I mean, I was
pounding on the glass. Then the door. The guards finally came in and tried to cuff me, and I paid hell getting them to even look through the window to where she was slumped on the ground. I almost caught a new charge. You sure she’s okay?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Back to her usual old self as soon as she woke up. I’ll get her home and stay with her for a while. She needs to quit smoking and she needs to exercise.”

“Good luck on either of those,” he said.

“How are you?” Jane asked. “You look healthy.”

“Shit damn. It must be all these cold sausage disks and Cheerios they feed us in here. I’m telling you, Jane, they don’t fuck around at the King’s Motel. High-class all the way, as I’m sure you saw from the concierge who checked you in.”

He flashed a half smile. Then his expression turned serious and he adjusted his grip on the phone. “I’m sober, though, Jane. I am. And not just because I’m locked up either. You can score in here easy if you want to. But not me. I’m clean. No more blame game for me. And no more stinkin’ thinkin’ either. I’ve been doing step work, and we’ve got a Sunday meeting after service and everything. You’d be proud of me, sis. You would.”

“I am proud of you,” she said. “That’s all I ever wanted for you. You know that. You’re a good egg when you’re sober, Jon. You’re a rotten egg when you’re not.”

He looked down at the worn metal shelf in front of him and nodded. Then he took a deep breath and looked up again. “So, how are you, sis? How’s life in the South? Mom said you moved to Texas with your gardener.”

“He’s not my gardener. But yes, I moved to Texas and we’re great.” She held up her hand to the glass and showed him her ring. “We’re getting married.”

“Holy shit, sis. No way. Congratulations. Really. Ain’t that some shit? My big sister finally tying the knot. I guess Mom can
quit telling her church friends you’re a lesbian now. When are you doing it? I’d like to come if I’m not still in this damn cage.”

“We haven’t set a date yet. I’d love to have you there, Jon. But only if you’re still clean when you get out.”

“Shit, sis. I’ll be clean. Clean and sober. I’m not drinking again for the rest of my natural-born life. And that’s a fact. You can take that check to the bank and cash it right now.”

“Well, maybe just do it one day at a time,” Jane said.

She spent a few minutes telling him all about Austin, and he spent a few telling her all about the ninth floor of the King County Jail. Then a recorded voice came on to let them know that their visiting time was ending. They said their good-byes, and Jane promised to have their mother give him her number and her address so they could stay in touch about the wedding. She was about to hang up when he asked her the question she knew all along that he would ask.

“Sis, would you mind leaving a little money on my books? Mom was going to do it the other day but she had her thing, her ministroke, I guess . . . and . . . you know, it would really help me out. Maybe I’ll get a new A and A book or something when I order my personals.”

Jane smiled and said that she would. Although she knew damn well that the last thing he’d use it for was an Alcoholics Anonymous textbook.

Her mother’s house smelled of mothballs and bad memories. A kind of hopeless odor that hung in the air and clung to Jane’s clothes. They had hardly walked through the door when her mother went straight to her room and closed the door, leaving Jane to fend for herself.

She took her bag to her old bedroom and paused with her
hand on the knob. She had not been inside since she’d left home at seventeen. She took a deep breath, then opened the door, and was met by twenty-three years’ worth of boxes piled everywhere, even on top of the bed. It was as if her mother had used her room all this time as a dumping ground. A fitting idea, Jane thought, since all she ever did was dump on her.

She cleared the bed and stacked the boxes out of the way. Then she removed the bedding, shook it out in the hall, and remade the bed. When she finally lay down on the soft old mattress, she looked up at the popcorn ceiling and saw the same brown water stain that she had looked up at as a girl and tried to make into interesting shapes. Drifting continents and passing clouds. A dragon. A Cheshire cat. It had been her favorite pastime. Once she had even seen the face of God.

The stain was somewhat more faded, but there it was just the same. How long? Had there been a time before? Yes. She remembered the rainstorm that had brought it. She remembered waking up with water dripping on her face. She remembered running into her parents’ room, afraid. She remembered the booze on her father’s breath. She remembered his calling her a liar. She remembered her mother too, passed out on her wine. And she remembered creeping back into her room and sleeping in the closet on the floor, praying for the thunder and the lightning to pass. In the morning, the rain had stopped and the leak was gone, and she had begun to believe that maybe she had made it all up, that maybe she was just a scaredy-cat and a liar. But three days later, the stain had appeared.

Jane felt her stomach drop and knew she was going to be sick. She got up and hustled into the bathroom, lifted the toilet lid, and retched. She was kneeling on a shaggy sea-blue bath mat; the toilet seat lid had a matching blue shag cover and
the seat itself was padded. The bathroom smelled heavily of the perfumed decorative clamshell soaps that filled jars on the shelf above the toilet, and the odor made her even sicker. She retched again, losing the contents of her stomach, and flushed it away.

She was numb and light-headed when she finally stood up. She took her mother’s car keys, then left and drove to the nearest pharmacy. The lights were glaringly bright, the music too chipper for the depressing atmosphere. There were no other customers, and she was grateful for it.

She added some chips and some cotton balls to her basket, just to avoid being so embarrassed when she checked out. But she needn’t have bothered because the clerk seemed to be in a Thorazine stupor as he rung her up. He didn’t say hello or thank you, or even offer her a bag. She stuffed her purchase into her purse and left the chips and the cotton balls free for the taking on top of the trash can outside the pharmacy door.

Twenty minutes later, Jane was back in the blue perfumed bathroom, sitting on the padded toilet seat with her eyes closed and a prayer on her lips. She opened her eyes and saw a blue cross. It couldn’t be. She reached for another test and peed on it. She waited, and she watched. Another blue cross. She looked at the claim on the box.
Over 99% Accurate
. She took out the last tester, but she couldn’t pee again, and what was worse was that she knew she didn’t even need to. She threw the tester across the small bathroom.

“Fuck,” she said. “Not again.”

Her mind raced away from her across twenty years of heartbreak and pain to when she had first found out she was pregnant with Melody. If she’d known then what had been coming for them both, she never would have survived the pregnancy. She almost hadn’t survived losing her later.

She buried her face in her hands and cried. “Why? Why? Why?”

Later that night, she lay on her bed and looked up at the stain on her ceiling, trying desperately to shape it in her mind into some familiar face she might ask. Ask about the future; ask about the past. But her childhood faith had long since been lost in the real world, and all that remained in its place were bad memories and an old faded water stain.

PART THREE

Chapter 19

J
ane’s mother was late coming to the table for breakfast. When she did finally appear from her room, she was wearing her church clothes and smelled of Avon powder and perfume. She sat across from Jane, and Jane rose and retrieved hot water from the stove and poured her a cup of Earl Grey tea. Then she sat down again and watched as her mother selected a boiled egg from the bowl of them on the table, cracked it with her spoon, and peeled it, dropping the shell pieces onto her plate with tiny clinks that seemed to echo in the silence between them.

The clock ticked loudly on the mantel. The refrigerator began to whir. Jane sensed that they were both under some spell of speechlessness cast by the years’ worth of things unsaid, the resentments of a life of regret, and as much as a part of her wished for some way to break this spell, a larger part of her wished to let it be and just run.

When the egg was peeled, her mother cut the tip off with her knife and salted it. Then she held it up as if to inspect it in the gray light coming in through the kitchen window.

“The rosebush looks to be doing okay,” Jane said.

Her mother replied without looking away from the egg. “Marta’s taking me to church, if you care to come along.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Jane asked. “I mean so soon after—”

“I’m fine,” her mother snapped. “I had a little fainting spell and now I’m fine. And if the good Lord decides to take me, I hope he takes me at church, so that’s where I’m going to be. If you want to come, you’ll need to change.”

“I think I’ll pass. I was thinking of going to the island.”

Her mother nodded, but she didn’t look at Jane. Instead she picked up the shaker and salted her egg again, perhaps having forgotten that she had already salted it once.

“You may use the car,” she said simply. “Since Marta’s coming by to collect me, as I said.”

“Thank you, Mother. That’s very kind.”

Her mother winced and set the egg on her plate as if being called Mother had made it suddenly hot in her hand. She picked up her cup and sipped her tea.

Jane watched the steam rise and run up around her mother’s long nose. The mother she remembered was in there somewhere, hidden behind the mask of makeup and the thin skin and fine lines. Jane watched as she cradled her teacup with both hands, as if trying to absorb its warmth.

“I went once, you know.”

“Went where?” Jane asked.

“To the cemetery.”

“You did? To visit Melody?”

Her mother nodded. “It was a nice day and I just went. I brought pink scabiosas and pink tulips from Brenda Thompson’s old shop. I think she would have liked them.”

The thought of her mother visiting Melody’s grave on her own softened Jane’s heart. She was her grandmother, after all. Jane felt a lump in her throat, and she looked at the tablecloth in an attempt not to cry.

“Mother, there’s something I need to talk to you about. Something important. If you don’t mind.”

When there was no response, Jane looked up and saw that her mother was gazing past her out the kitchen window, her mind somewhere else. In the gray light, Jane could see her eyes clouded with advancing cataracts, and she almost appeared to be
already among the blind, seeing nothing but the past, and even that blurred by lies and by time.

“Mom, did you hear me? I need to tell you something.”

Jane watched for a response but there was none. Then a horn double-honked out on the street, and her mother rose from the table as if responding to some command.

“There’s Marta,” she said, pushing in her chair. “I had better not keep her waiting or else someone will get our seats.”

She disappeared down the hall, then reappeared wearing her big church hat. She paused at the door and turned back. “You don’t have to stay, you know. I’ll be fine.”

“Do you not want me here?” Jane asked.

Her mother took a long time to answer. “I appreciate you coming. I know it’s been a lot of trouble. But I just think you should get back to your own life.”

Jane looked away from her and nodded, but she didn’t say anything. Several quiet seconds passed, and she could feel her mother watching her from the door. She heard the door open, saw in her peripheral vision the wash of gray light, and then the door closed, snatching from her sight any and all hope of ever connecting with her mother in a meaningful way.

Jane sat and listened to the muffled thud of the car door shutting, followed by the purr of the car driving away. And she sat for a long time after, just listening to the dead quiet of the old house and staring at her mother’s uneaten egg.

Jane stood on the ferry deck and watched the island grow against the dark clouds stacked up on the horizon. It wasn’t raining, but everything was wet as if it had recently been. The cold air felt good against her face, and she closed her eyes to listen to the familiar hypnotic hum of the ferry’s engines, the quiet splash
of water against its bow, and the call of seagulls in its wake. She couldn’t tell if this felt more like a homecoming or a trip into the past, but either way she was happy to be alone for once. But she wasn’t alone, was she? She had another life deep inside her, pleading its case against her fears, against her doubts, against her choice.

The announcement came for passengers to return to their vehicles, pulling Jane from her private thoughts. Her hair was tangled from the wind and her eyes were watering from the cold. She tossed her half-finished coffee into the trash and went inside and down the stairs to the vehicle deck. She started her car and angled the vent to let the heat blow over her numb cheeks. It felt good.

The ferry docked and she disembarked, driving up and out of the terminal and onto an island that had not changed. No, the island had not changed, she thought. But she had. The wet streets seemed to suck the color from everything until only gray skies and dark trees remained, and the scene out her windshield matched her mood as she drove toward the cemetery with a foggy head and a heavy heart. She slowed at the cemetery entrance with her blinker on, speeding up at the last minute and passing it by. Not yet, she thought. I’ll go. I will. But not just yet.

The road led her around the island, providing peekaboo glimpses of the gray water through the trees, not unlike her fragmented memories flickering just beyond her conscious thoughts, always there like an old movie in her mind, despite her desire not to see them.

Jane found herself working her way slowly toward her old home. She feared it might already have been torn down; she feared that it hadn’t been. When she finally arrived on her old familiar street, she found her house much the same as she had
left it, other than a different car in the driveway and new curtains in the kitchen window.

She put the car in park and sat looking out her windshield at the house she had called home for fifteen years. What was this place, really? she wondered. Just four exterior walls and a roof. Just a rectangle of land on a big lonely planet, marked out with two-by-fours and plywood by some cunning carpenter, topped with composition shingles and skinned with slat siding painted blue. But it was more than this. It was the place she had raised her daughter, the place she had kept warm with hope and love and dreams. It was a place filled with memories. And then it had become the place she cried herself to sleep each night, wondering why her daughter had to die.

“Why, God, why?”

Caleb had come into her life here. And he had helped her to heal. Then she had left it all behind to make a new life with him. But now she wondered if perhaps she hadn’t been running from something when she followed him to Austin, running from a place that had become too painful for her to face. She knew now that you could never outrun your memories. The place might be the trigger, but the past lived in her heart and in her mind. Although perhaps a different future could live in her heart as well—a different ending to a similar story, another chance to make things right, a hope to someday heal.

Movement caught her eye, and she looked toward the door of her old house and saw a mother and her young son step out. As the mother turned to lock the door, the boy stood looking at Jane from the step. His hair was as fine and blond as corn silk, and he smiled innocently. The mother took his hand and led him toward their car in the driveway. She didn’t seem to notice Jane, but the boy never did look away. Even when he was buckled in and they were backing out, his little towhead turned to
keep her in sight. Then he raised one small hand to the glass and the car was gone, taking with it Jane’s nostalgia for this place.

It was someone else’s hopes and dreams that lived here now—someone else’s future, someone else’s memories. She had been curious to see if Caleb’s fountain remained in the backyard, but it no longer mattered. She put the car in drive and pulled away. She didn’t look in the mirror. Perhaps because she knew there was no longer anything there to see.

She was driving back toward the cemetery on the main road when she saw a sign for Island Crest Assisted Living. The arrow pointed to a winding road that led up the island’s central hill, and Jane slowed and took the turn.

What the hell, she thought, it was worth a shot.

The assisted living center was a sprawling single-level building built on top of a hill providing northwesterly views of the sound. The parking lot had a sprinkling of cars and several small buses with the center’s logo painted on their sides. The air smelled of wet blacktop and of pine. She walked up beneath the portico and through the automatic glass doors to the lobby inside. It smelled of lemon floor cleaner and just a hint of disinfectant. She crossed to a circular welcome desk and addressed a man idly flipping through a
Sunset
magazine.

“Hello. I’m here to visit one of your residents. If she’s here, of course. I’m not sure.”

“Name, please,” the man said, tossing the magazine and pulling his keyboard toward him.

“Mrs. Hawthorne. I’m not sure of her first—”

“Oh, her,” he said, pushing the keyboard away without bothering to look anything up. “She’s here, all right. Take a left there to the end of the hall. Then take a right. She’s in room twenty-three F. And if she’s not there, you’ll probably find her hassling the nurses at their station.”

Jane walked the long hall and turned as he had directed. The place was quiet and infused with fluorescent light, and it felt like a place where people came to say good-bye more than they did to visit. She passed open doors into rooms where she saw feet sticking out from blankets, pointing toward the soft blue glow of murmuring televisions. Talking heads lulling them toward death. She saw bulletin boards filled with cards and tables lined with flowers. She saw a man on the edge of his bed, rubbing lotion onto the stump where his leg had once been. She saw another man with his toothless mouth agape in dementia’s telltale silent and final scream. She wondered if her mother would someday be in such a state and in such a place. She wondered if she herself would be. Perhaps sooner than any of us care to admit, she thought.

She came upon 23F and stopped. A small placard outside the door read:
HAWTHORNE
. A woman was sitting in a wheelchair, her head silhouetted against the TV. Jane knocked on the open door, but Mrs. Hawthorne didn’t turn to look.

She reached up a hand dismissively and said, “Just leave it by the bed and I’ll take it later.”

Jane took a few steps into the room. “Hello, Mrs. Hawthorne. It’s me, Jane. Jane McKinney.”

The old lady placed her left hand on the wheelchair wheel and moved it backwards, then slowly turned the chair until she was facing Jane. She looked exactly the same, except maybe with a new touch of melancholy on her birdlike face. They looked at each other for a moment. Then the TV came on with a commercial for an upcoming documentary marking the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of JFK. Mrs. Hawthorne glanced at the screen and shook her head.

“I just absolutely hate it every time I see that man’s face on the television.”

“You didn’t like Kennedy?” Jane asked.

Mrs. Hawthorne dismissed the TV with a wave. “Oh, he was a fine president. Maybe one of the best. It’s his hair I hate. It drives me to a rage every time I see it.”

“You hate John F. Kennedy’s hair?”

“Well, of course. It almost bankrupted us.”

“And how did his hair manage that?” Jane asked.

“My second husband owned a chain of hat shops, and we couldn’t get inventory fast enough. Hats, hats, hats. All the men wore them. Very classy look, I say. Then along came JFK with his wavy locks and that charming smile, and I’ll be damned if every man in the union wasn’t running around with his head as naked as the day he was born. It nearly ruined the country, if you ask me.”

Jane had a hard time trying not to laugh. “Maybe you should name a goat after him.”

The old lady chuckled too. “I did name a cat after him once, but that’s a different story. How are you, dear? Come in, please. Sit down.”

Jane took the only chair in the room, and Mrs. Hawthorne rotated her wheelchair a bit more so that they were facing each other. The room was simple. A window with lace curtains. An adjustable power bed. A chair. The TV. There was a small, plain dresser, its top adorned with an antique lamp that Jane thought she recognized from Mrs. Hawthorne’s old house. Next to the lamp was a brass urn with a decorative lid.