All the emotion Bo had bottled up inside, burst out. He cried, covering his face in shame.
Jane waited several minutes while Bo contained himself. “I checked into the facility online. Did you know they sponsor
an outreach program for adult literacy? You should ask them about that, Bo.” Jane stood up, grabbed her satchel and headed to the door. “You know, you told me that when you take away everything, a man is left with two things…his integrity and his reputation. As far as I’m concerned, Bo, you’re walking out of here with both of those.”
Jane grabbed a bite of leftovers Sara had prepared for her and then headed to bed. Outside her window in the garden below, she heard the soft conversations between the Greens—Mollie and Jake. It took Jane five minutes to pack her clothes and wrap her mind around the fact that tomorrow was Thursday and the day she expected to hear back from the doctor. She lay her weary body in the honeymoon bed and watched the night swallow the light. Slumber overtook her and for the first night of many, she slept the sleep of the innocent.
As the morning light pierced the veil between the worlds, Jane hovered peacefully in that middle ground, aware of her surroundings but still floating where dreams and spirit dance. She heard no footsteps approach but she felt the gentle hand stroking her forehead in that familiar rhythmic motion that always soothed and calmed her as a child. Jane was aware of the presence suspended over her but she kept her eyes shut. She felt the cool breath come nearer and whisper in her ear.
“I had no choice. Now you know. Please forgive me.”
Jane opened her eyes. She saw no one there. But the room sparked with an electric buzz for several seconds before dissipating.
She got up and showered and dressed in the same shirt she showed up in six days before. Gathering together the clothes that Mollie loaned her, Jane started down the hallway when Weyler stepped out of his room.
“When are you leaving?” she asked him.
“About half an hour. That should give you enough time.”
“You know the drill, right?”
He put a reassuring hand on Jane’s arm. “Jane. I can handle this. I’ll call you when I’m heading back.”
She nodded and they walked downstairs. The kitchen was alive with laughter and conversation. Jake and Mollie sat at the table while Sara pulled a tray of blueberry muffins out of the oven and urged Jane and Weyler to have a seat. Jane set Mollie’s shirts on an empty chair.
“What are you doing?” Mollie asked.
“Thanks for the loan,” Jane replied, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“You keep those!” Mollie insisted. “It’ll give you a good start until you can buy a new wardrobe. Use that…” She motioned to Jane’s poplin shirt. “…to wash your car.”
Jane handed the kid her clothes, “I can’t take your clothes…”
“Don’t be a
yutzi
. You want to look like a
meeskite
?”
“Liora!” Sara exclaimed. “Don’t call her stupid and she’s certainly not unattractive! Jane’s a true
mensch
and a
hamish
person!” She turned back to her baked goods, suddenly realizing what she just said. Mollie looked at her mother in stunned silence. Sara recovered. “Eat your breakfast!”
Jane carried her cup of coffee outside into the backyard. She checked her cell phone, in case she’d missed the call from the doctor.
“Thank you,” Aaron said.
Jane turned. Aaron was seated on the bench with a writing pad. “You’re welcome. Working on your next sermon?”
“Yes…for Easter Sunday. I’m sorry you won’t be here to join us.”
Jane made a point to obviously look under the bench. “I don’t see your little red photo album of inspiration.”
“I don’t need it this week,” he said with a warm smile. “This is on the resurrection.”
“Ah, yes. I can relate. I’ve brought the dead back to life this week myself.”
He motioned for her to sit down next to him. “I always
found the idea of being reborn and discarding the old and dead ways so elegant. To have the chance to reinvent yourself and live a life that felt true and reflective of what you truly were inside… how could anyone not find power in that?”
“I get what you’re saying. But reinventing yourself and not acknowledging who you were is a halfway birth. It’s one thing to become someone new and another to hide who you came into this world as.”
He nodded. “I understand what you mean, Jane.”
“Will you give Jake a new life?”
“That’s his wish. We always looked on him as the son we never had.”
“You think his parents will fight you?”
“His father won’t. But Carol…she still needs contact.”
There was a moment of contemplation. “Maybe Carol could move in too,” Jane offered with a smile, patting Aaron’s shoulder. “I’m glad Jake has you and Sara. He could use a family that’s a little more secure and open.”
Aaron’s face tensed up. “Yes. Regarding that… Sara and I talked and we’re going to figure out a way to tell Mollie the truth.”
“Good.”
“I still have a lot of a fear, though.”
“I know about fear, Aaron. But it could be worse. You could be a recovering alcoholic, who’s desperately trying to quit smoking and who is terrified that she’s dying of cancer.” He looked at Jane with compassion, realizing the intent of her statement. “But every time I go there, I just say to myself, ‘I will be all right and one day I
will
die. I can believe the first part and it calms me to the inevitability of the second part.”
Jane pulled up to the Midas jail and waited. Weyler had called and let her know he was driving back into town. The front door opened and Jordan walked out, carrying the trash bag of his belongings. She honked the horn and he strolled to
her car. “Get in. I’m driving you home.”
“I can walk,” he assured her.
Jane leaned over and pushed open the passenger door. “Get in, Jordan.”
They drove in silence along the highway that led to his house. But about a quarter mile from the property, he turned to Jane with a questioning look on his face. “What’s happening?”
She glanced at him. “It’s okay, Jordan.”
He looked off into the distance. “No… it’s not…” His hand began to shake, gradually at first and then with profound movement. He looked at Jane, fear in his eyes. “Jane? What’s going on? Where are you taking me?”
“It’s all right, Jordan. You’re going home.”
Jordan looked at Jane. “Oh, God. It’s that something you have that I desperately need…you’re the one who can bring me my life…”
She turned left onto his road and crossed the bridge over the roaring river. Jordan grabbed his chest, as his breathing labored. “What’s happening, Jane?” he asked, struggling for breath.
Jane parked the Mustang twenty feet from the front door of the cabin. A rental car sat unoccupied next to the cabin. Jordan shook, canvassing the area around his house. Jane got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side. She opened the door and helped him out of the car. He stood there, staring at the front porch, his heart aching. The memory of a dream floated into his consciousness. But this was real. He turned to Jane, confused. “I feel like I’m in my dream.”
“You’re not,” Jane said. “But sometimes dreams come true.” She turned him around to face the front porch.
Weyler walked out onto the porch and held the front door open. There was a second of suspended time before a woman walked out and joined him. She was in her early eighties with a Creole complexion and dressed in an elegant suit and hat. Weyler helped her down the steps. Jordan stared in disbelief and
shock.
“Mama? Is that you?” he cried.
“Yes, baby. It’s me.” She walked to him and held him tightly. “I love you, child.”
They held each other for what seemed like forever, speaking from their hearts but saying no words. And then, Maureen pressed her lips against Jordan’s ear and whispered the words he’d already heard in his dream. “And in the quiet it comes. Not from a shout. But in a whisper.”
Later that day, when the timing was right, Jane would tell Jordan the truth that had been kept from him for over fifty years.
The truth was that Maureen only spent one brief night in the hospital after leaving the Copeland’s house fifty-one years ago. Jordan’s father had an immediate change of heart and arranged for Maureen to move into her own home in upstate New York, which he paid for outright, along with a generous monthly allowance.
The truth was that Maureen remarried a light-skinned black man several years later, suffered two miscarriages and divorced at age thirty-eight. Two and a half years later, Richard Copeland came back into her life. Unbeknownst to Jordan, his father suffered great guilt, believing he was responsible for his son’s felonious behavior by taking Maureen away from him. The Copelands separated and Richard continued his love affair with Maureen until his death twenty-two years later.
The truth was that Richard Copeland set up a multi-million-dollar trust for Maureen LaFond, administered by Edward Butterworth, that would continue until her death. At that point, the beneficiary would become Jordan Copeland.
Jordan would also learn that Maureen’s life almost ended the night of March 22
nd
when she suffered a heart attack. Somehow, through the feathers of consciousness, Jordan’s connection to his blood mother remained sentient and he absorbed what she was experiencing on the same stormy night that Jake was rescued from death by Sam.
And finally, Jordan would now understand why he could never contact his mother when he sought her on the other side. But it would take him longer to accept that his father was not the prefabricated scoundrel he imagined him to be and that, while Richard may have been unable to show his son affection, his devotion and love for Maureen was unending. Just as Jordan contended that Jake was too wrapped up in his ego to comprehend his situation on a broader scale, the same could be said for Jordan when it came to appreciating his own family’s private battles.
But all that would have to wait. Because at this moment, the world was stopping briefly so that a mother and son—separated for over four decades—could each find the elusive peace that had been missing from their lives. When they finally released from their embrace, Jordan looked at Jane with blue eyes of gratitude.
Maureen turned and walked over to Jane, who was leaning against the side of the Mustang. She stared into her eyes with a gaze that dove into Jane’s soul. Maureen clasped Jane’s hand with her two palms, never taking her eyes off her. A smile crept onto her face as she recognized Jane. “You?” she whispered. “It’s
you
.” She leaned closer to Jane. “Mwê ni èspwa pou la yonn kilès ki sa fè mwên tjè feb antyè ankò. I hope for the one who can make my tender heart whole again.” She pulled Jane toward her and held her tightly. “Thank you.”
Maureen moved her hand down Jane’s spine until it rested in the small of her back. Jane felt a shock of heat enter her body that burned into her bloodstream and exploded beneath her waist. There was a second of pain in her pelvis and then a cooling sensation that permeated her bones. When Maureen pulled back, there were tears welled in her eyes. “You’ll soon know what you have to do, Jane.”
CHAPTER 39
Jane and Weyler drove to the edge of Jordan’s property, each in their own vehicle. Weyler rolled his window down. “You still need that week off?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m still waiting for the call.”
“Let me know.” Jane nodded.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Bo asked me to give you this.” Weyler leaned outside his window and handed Jane several pieces of torn paper.
“What is it?”
“The speeding ticket he gave you.” Weyler started to drive away.
“Hey, wait a second.” Weyler stopped. “I gotta know. Your luggage says
M.E.W.
What’s the
E
stand for?”
“Oh, Jane. Some secrets are never revealed.” He rolled up his window and headed onto the road that led back to Denver.
Jane stared out the window—for the first time in a long time, feeling calm. She didn’t even jump when her cell phone rang. Checking the number, it was the doctor’s office.
“Hello, doc.”
“Hello, Jane. I have your results. Curiously, the pathology appears to be more likely a mild dysplasia. There must have been a false positive on your last test. These things can happen…although it’s rare. I want to take a wait-and-see approach. Come back in three months and we’ll do another test to be on the safe side.”
Jane could still feel Maureen’s hand in the small of her back. “Sure. But you won’t find anything in three months, doc.”
She could have headed back to Denver, but she turned back toward Midas. She called Hank and told him to meet her behind The Rabbit Hole. He was waiting when she arrived. Jane got out of the Mustang and walked over to him. “His name was Mark,” she said. “I was twenty-two. He was my first true love. He was an alcoholic and a drug addict. He shot himself sitting in a
wingback chair while he listened to Puccini’s “O Mio Babbino Caro.” He set it up so the song would repeat and that’s what I heard when I found him. He left me his car, his collection of Pavarotti CDs and his leather satchel. I live with the ghost of his memory and his regret. And I’m scared to death of loving someone like that again because when they go, part of me will die another death. And I’m afraid if that happens, I’ll be destroyed and I will spend the rest of my life in a daze and unable to function until I finally leave this world.”
Hank touched Jane’s cheek. “Oh, Chopper. All we have for sure is right now. This moment. We have this stupid illusion that we have control over the future. But that’s just an illusion. All we know is this second. Death is inevitable, sweetheart, but the life that leads up to it doesn’t have to be built on bricks of tears.” Jane listened to him for the first time. “You think that around every corner there’s a dark body lurking, waiting to strangle you. So, before you turn that corner, you’ve got your fists clenched, ready to strike. What I’m telling you is that around
this
corner here…there’s peace and whatever freedom you need. Around
this
corner, you don’t have to clench your fists because there’s no one to fight or fear.” He took her hand in his. “Maybe I understand you better than anyone else. I happen to think you need someone like me in your life. I’m not fresh out of the factory box. I’m road tested but I’m not road weary. The warranty isn’t up yet and the insurance hasn’t expired. I know there’s a bit of an age difference between us. But I think if you can have a little patience…you’ll be able to keep up with me.” He smiled. “Oh, hell, Jane. You need an older man. You’d weaken a younger one.” Hank leaned forward and kissed her. He looked into her eyes and grinned. “It’s really okay to be happy, you know?”