Gone (4 page)

Janie’s jaw drops. “A martyr!”

“Ahh, yeah. Slightly.”

“Please. You can’t be
slightly
a martyr. You either are, or you aren’t. It’s like
unique
.”

Cabel laughs softly, the corners of his eyes crinkling. And then he just gazes at her, smiling the crooked smile that Janie remembers from the awkward skateboard days.

But right now, Janie can’t seem to smile back.

“Um, about this little adventure,” she begins. “This is really mortifying, Cabe. I’m . . . I’m so embarrassed about it, and I have a lot on my mind, and I can hardly stand how nice you are being. I hate that I’m ruining your time too, instead of just my own. So, really, please. It would make me feel better if you’d just, you know . . .” Janie gives him a helpless look.

Cabel blinks.

His forehead crinkles and he looks earnestly at her.

“Ahh,” he says. “You really do want me to go home.
When you say this is embarrassing, you mean it’s embarrassing to you for
me
to know this stuff too?”

Janie looks at the floor, giving him the answer.

“Oh.” Cabel measures his words, stung. “I’m sorry, Janers. I didn’t pick up on that.” He gets up quickly. Walks to the door. Janie follows him to the hallway by the elevators. “I’ll . . . I’ll see you around, I guess,” he says. “Call me when—whenever.”

“I will,” Janie says, staring at the big
CELL PHONES MUST BE TURNED OFF
sign on the wall. “I’ll text you later. This is just really something I’d rather handle alone at the moment, okay? I love you.”

“Yeah. Okay. Love you, too.” Cabel swivels on his flips and waves an uncertain hand at her. He looks over his shoulder. “Hey? Bus doesn’t run between two and five a.m., you know that, right?”

Janie smiles. “I know.”

“Don’t get sucked into any dreams, okay?”

“Okay. Shh.” Janie says, hoping no one else heard that.

Before he can think of anything else, Janie slips back inside the waiting room to sit and think.

Alone.

1:12 a.m.

She dozes in the waiting room chair.

Suddenly feels someone watching her. Startles and sits up, awake.

At least her mother is wearing clothes and not the nightgown Carrie mentioned.

“Hey,” Janie says. She stands. Walks over to her mother and stops, feeling awkward. Not sure what to do. Hug? That’s what they do on TV. Weirdness.

Dorothea Hannagan is sweating profusely. Shaking. Janie doesn’t want to touch her. This whole scene is so foreign it’s almost otherworldly.

And then.

Madness.

“Where were you?” Janie’s mother crumples and she starts crying. Yelling too loud. “You don’t tell me nothing about where you are, you just disappear. That strange girl from next door has to drive me here—” Her hands are shaking and her shifty eyes dart from the floor back up to Janie’s, accusing, angry. “You don’t care about your mother now, is that it? You just running around wild with that boy?”

Janie steps back, stunned, not just at the sheer record number of words uttered by her mother in one day, but even more by the tone. “Oh, my God.”

“Don’t you talk back to me.” Dorothea’s shaking hands rip open her ragged vinyl purse and she rifles through it, dumping wrappers and papers onto the waiting room
chairs. It becomes painfully obvious that what she’s looking for is not there. Dorothea gives up and slumps in a chair.

Janie, standing, watches.

She’s shaking a little bit too.

Wondering how to handle this. And why she has to.
Haven’t you given me enough shit to deal with already?
she says to no one. Or maybe to God. She doesn’t know. But she does know one thing. She’ll be glad to be away from this mess.

Janie picks up the scattered objects from the waiting room, shoves them into the purse, and takes her mother by the arm. “Come on. You’ve got some at the house, right?”

Janie tugs Dorothea to her feet. “I said, come on. We have to catch the bus.”

“What about your car?” Dorothea asks. “That girl was driving it.”

Janie blinks and looks at her mother, dragging her along to the elevator. “Yeah, Ma. I sold it to her months ago, remember?”

“You never tell me—”

“Just . . .” Janie burns.
I don’t tell you anything? Or you’re too drunk to remember?
She takes a breath, lets it out slowly. “Just come on. And don’t embarrass me.”

“Yeah, well don’t you embarrass me, either.”

“Whatever.”

Janie gives a fleeting glance over her shoulder down the hallway where presumably her father lies, dead or alive, Janie doesn’t know.

Doesn’t really care.

Hopes he hurries up and dies so she doesn’t ever have to deal with him. Because from all Janie knows, parents are nothing but trouble.

2:10 a.m.

Dorothea fidgets like a junkie the entire way home on the bus. Janie, frustrated, wards off the dream of a homeless passenger and is just glad it’s a short ride.

When they get home, there on the front step is Janie’s suitcase. “Damn, Cabe,” she mutters. “Why do you always have to be so fucking thoughtful?”

Janie’s mother makes a beeline to the kitchen, grabs a bottle of vodka from under the sink, and retreats to her bedroom without a word. Janie lets her go. There will be time tomorrow to figure out what’s going on with this Henry person once Dorothea is good and sloshed and halfway reasonable again.

Janie texts Cabel.

Home
.

Cabe responds without delay, despite the hour.

Thx baby. Love. See you tomorrow?

Turns off her phone. “Yeah, about that,” Janie whispers. She sighs and sets the phone on her bedside table and her suitcase next to it, and falls into bed.

4:24 a.m.

Janie dreams.

There are rocks covering her bedroom floor and a suitcase on her bed. Each rock has something scribbled on it, but Janie can only read the rocks when she picks them up
.

She picks one.
“HELP ME,”
it reads.
“CABE,”
reads another
.

“DOROTHEA. CRIPPLED. SECRET. BLIND.”

When she puts them back on the floor, they grow bigger, heavier. Soon, she knows, she will run out of room on the floor to put the rocks, but she can’t stop picking them up, reading them. The floor is crowded, and Janie’s having trouble breathing. The rocks are sucking the air from the room
.

Finally, Janie sets a rock in the suitcase. It shrinks to the size of a pebble
.

Janie slowly, methodically, picks up all the rocks and puts them in the suitcase. The task seems endless. Finally, she picks up the last one,
“ISOLATE.”
Sets it down with the others. It becomes a pebble, and all the other pebbles disappear
.

Janie stares at the suitcase. Knows what she has to do
.

She closes it
.

Picks it up
.

And walks out
.

August 4, 2006, 9:15 a.m.

Janie lies awake, staring at the ceiling. Thinking about everything. About this one more thing. The green notebook, the hearing, the gossip, college, her mother, and now this guy Henry. What’s next? It’s too much already. A familiar wave of panic washes over her, captures her chest and squeezes it. Hard. Harder. Janie gulps for air and she can’t get enough. She rolls to her side in a ball.

“Chill,” she says, gasping. “Just chill the fuck out.”

It’s all too much.

She covers her mouth and nose with her hands, breathes into them, in and out, until she can get a good breath. She makes her mind go blank.

Focuses.

Breathes.

Just breathes.

9:29 a.m.

The door to Janie’s mother’s room remains closed.

Janie wanders aimlessly around the little house, wondering what the hell she’s supposed to do about Henry. She nibbles on a granola bar, sweating. It’s a scorcher already. She flips on the oscillating fan in the living room and props open the front door, begging for a breeze, and then she plops down on the couch.

Through the ripped screen door Janie sees Cabel pulling into the driveway, and her heart sinks. He hops out of the car and takes long, smooth strides to the front door. Lets himself in, as usual. He stops and lets his eyes adjust.

Smiles a crooked smile. “Hey,” he says.

She pats the worn couch cushion next to her. “I haven’t brushed my teeth yet,” she says as Cabel leans in. “Your nose is peeling.”

“Don’t care, and don’t care.” Cabel leans in and kisses her. Then he plops down on the couch. “You okay that I’m here . . . and stuff?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Janie slides her hand on his thigh and squeezes.
“Last night . . . I just didn’t know what to expect. I wasn’t sure about my mom, you know? Wasn’t sure what she’d do.”

“What
did
she do?” He looks around nervously.

“Not much. She was a little obnoxious. Not impossible. But she didn’t say a word about Henry and I didn’t dare ask. God, she can’t even go twelve hours without a drink. And if she doesn’t have one, she gets mean.” Janie drops her chin. “It’s embarrassing, you know?”

“My dad was like that too. Only he was mean with or without. At least he was consistent.” Cabel grins wryly.

Janie snorts. “I guess I’m lucky.” She glances sidelong at Cabel.

Considers.

Finally says, “Did you ever wish your dad was dead? I mean, before he hurt you? Just so you could, like, not have to deal with him anymore?”

Cabel narrows his eyes. “Every. Damn. Day.”

Janie bites her lip. “So, are you glad he died in jail?”

Cabel is quiet for a long time. Then he shrugs. When he speaks, his voice is measured, almost clinical, as if he is talking to a shrink. “It was the best possible outcome, under the circumstances.”

The fan blows a knee-level path from the TV to the coffee table, catching the two pairs of bare legs on the couch in the middle of its run. Janie shivers slightly when the air hits her sweat-dampened skin. She thinks of Henry
Feingold, the stranger, presumably her father. Dying. And for the third time in twenty-four hours, Janie wishes it were someone else.

She leans her head against Cabel’s shoulder and slips her arm behind his. He turns, slides her onto his lap, and they hold on tightly to each other.

Because there’s no one else.

She’s so conflicted.

Janie imagines life without people. Without him. Broken heart, loneliness, but able to see, to feel. To live. To be, in peace. Not always looking over her shoulder for the next dream attack.

And she imagines life with him. Blind, gnarled, but loved . . . at least while things are still good. And always knowing what struggles he’s dealing with through his dreams. Does she really want to see that, as years go by? Does she really want to be this incredible burden to such an awesome guy?

She still doesn’t know which scenario wins.

But she’s thinking.

Maybe broken hearts can mend more easily than broken hands and eyes.

9:41 a.m.

It’s too hot to sit like that for long.

Cabe stretches. “You going to wake her up? Head down to the hospital again?”

“God, I hope not.”

“Janie.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“At least it’s air-conditioned there.”

“So’s your car. Wanna go make out in the driveway instead?”

Cabel laughs. “Maybe after dark. In fact, hell yes, after dark. But seriously, Janie. I think you need to talk to your mom.”

Janie sighs and rolls her eyes. “I suppose.”

9:49 a.m.

She taps softly on her mother’s bedroom door.

Glances at Cabel.

To Janie, this room doesn’t feel like a part of the house. It’s more just a door to another world, a portal to sorrow, from which Dorothea appears and disappears at random. Rarely does she even catch a glimpse inside unless her mother is coming or going.

She waits. Enters, bracing herself against a possible dream. But Janie’s mother isn’t dreaming at the moment. Janie lets out a breath and looks around.

Filtered sunlight squeezes into the room through the worn patches of the window drape. The furnishings are
spare but what’s there is messy. Paper plates, bottles, and glasses are on the floor next to the bed. It’s hot and stuffy. Stale.

In the bed, Janie’s mother sleeps on her back, the thin nightgown gripping her bony figure.

“Mom,” Janie whispers.

There’s no response.

Janie feels self-conscious. She shifts on the balls of her feet. The floor creaks. “Mother,” she says, louder this time.

Janie’s mother grunts and looks up, squinting. Hoists herself with effort on her elbow. “Issit the phone?” she mumbles.

“No, I . . . it’s almost ten o’clock and I was just wondering—”

“Don’t you got school?”

Janie’s jaw drops.
You’ve got to be kidding me
. She takes a deep breath, considers blowing up at her mother, reminding her of the graduation she didn’t attend, and the fact that it’s summer, but decides now is not the time. The words rush out before Dorothea can interrupt again. “No, ah, no school today. I’m wondering what the deal is with Henry and if you have to go to the hospital again or what. I don’t want to—”

At the mention of Henry, Janie’s mother sucks in a loud breath. “Oh, my God,” she says, moaning, as if she
just remembered what happened. She rolls over and shakily gets to her feet. Shuffles past Janie, out of the bedroom. Janie follows.

“Mom?” Janie doesn’t know what to do. As they turn toward the kitchen, Janie gives Cabel a helpless look and he shrugs. “Mother.”

Dorothea pulls orange juice from the fridge, ice and vodka from the freezer, and pours herself some breakfast. “What?” she asks, sniffling.

“Is this Henry guy my father?”

“Of course he’s your father. I’m no whore.”

Cabel makes a muffled noise from the other room.

“Okay, so he’s dying?”

Janie’s mother takes a long drink from the glass. “That’s what they say.”

“Well, was he in an accident or is it a disease or what?”

Dorothea shrugs and waves her hand loosely. “His brain exploded. Or a tumor. Something.”