The Voice on the Radio (18 page)

Their mother said nothing. She just rocked and cuddled.

When Janie was done crying and had straightened up, and the Kleenex box had been passed, and Brian had gotten everybody another Coke, Mrs. Spring finger-combed Janie’s curls. “I’m proud of you, honey. You are protecting your mother and father. You know they can’t bear any more, so you won’t allow it to hit them. You are so strong, Janie. And I am so proud.”

The room was quiet. Brian felt the sun on his back. The Coke was cold in his hand. He could hear the tiny
ping
of its bubbles rising and breaking, like their hearts.

“But now what?” said Janie.

It was always the question.
Now what
?

“Janie, to go on in this world, you have to let painful things become history. History has a certain beauty. You can leave things there. Your kidnapping is history. Hannah is history. Those lost twelve years in our family, they’re history. I think it’s Reeve’s turn to be history.”

For a moment there, as he wolfed down his turkey on rye, Reeve’s life seemed okay again. He could get Janie back, he could—

No.

He could not get Janie back.

Hannah dead did not change that. His voice would still be a voice that hurt.

Janie wasn’t a thing that he could go over and get.

If only he could tell her all that he had learned!

But she was right not to let him, because he had learned on her, as if she were a computer program, with little graphics of large and small
J
’s.

He still had to stay away from WSCK. Maybe Vinnie was right; maybe he was addicted to the sound of his own voice and had to stay away from radio, like Hannah from the cult, or an alcoholic from bars.

Jamming his hands down into his pockets, Reeve walked into the deep backyard, which was heavy with pine trees; he stirred up cardinals and bluejays.

He wanted to share the great news with somebody:
It wasn’t Hannah
!

But nobody else had ever worried. And he had to quit sharing great news. That was what had got him here to start with. Too much sharing.

Jodie thought about history.

I’m letting Reeve and the radio station dictate to me. I’m letting him decide what college I go to, what city I live in. I have to make Reeve history. Make my own decisions without thinking of him.

She felt released. The future would work after all.

Brian thought about history. History for him was alive. The history of this family would live as long as they did. Could painful things be set aside? Should they? Shouldn’t you keep history alive, remembering the bad, not letting it happen again? Remembering the good, struggling to repeat it?

Janie thought about history. Hers included Reeve. She could not bear the thought of discarding him. Yet he, time and again, had discarded her. She knew the shape of the box in which memories of Reeve must be stored in the dark. But I still love him, she thought.

Janie’s mother thought of history. Her lost daughter had finally said
us. Mom. Dad
. This lost sister wanted to see Stephen at Christmas. This missing child had at last allowed her to be a mother, and to hug and rock and comfort and kiss.

My baby is home, thought her mother. I am through waiting. I have her back. Only for this weekend, not for this life, but at last, she came to
me
.

The daughter she hardly knew lifted a tear-stained face. “Oh, Mom, I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but part of me still loves Reeve.”

How beautiful was this child’s face. How precious. “Of course you do. He did love you, we all saw that, and you loved back. He gave you strength when you needed it.”

“And sold it,” Jodie reminded them. “Not because he needed to. Just to show off.”

I bet Jodie had tantrums once, thought Janie. I bet she kicked doors shut and ripped her Barbies’ heads off.

“Still,” said their mother, “you weigh that in. He was cruel to you, Janie, and to us, and it’s easy to hate him for that.”

Janie could see neither hate nor anger in her mother’s eyes, only an expression similar to her father’s hug, a let-my-breath-out-at-last look.

“But he was wonderful once,” Mrs. Spring said, “and I honor him for that.”

Janie touched her mother’s bare arm. While Janie liked a shirt and sweater in November, her mother still wore just a T-shirt. Her skin was warm and tan. Barbies are warm and tan and always the same, thought Janie, but real people are not always the same. They are always, relentlessly, somebody you didn’t know they would be.

It was not Reeve she was thinking of. It was herself.

I am Jennie Spring, she thought. I am this woman’s child.

“In math,” said Jodie darkly, “a plus and a minus equal a zero, so he’s a zero, so abandon the creep, Janie.”

“But in people,” said Janie, “plus and minus are always there. Nobody adds up.” In October, she and Sarah-Charlotte had had their usual wedding conversation, and it had passed through her mind that if she asked both her fathers to escort her, they’d do it for her—but at what cost?

At what cost, thought Janie, did this mother agree to call me by a different name? At what cost does she refer to the Johnsons as my parents?

Janie’s eyes filled again with tears, and Brian, seeing this, thought, She wants a way out. He watched his mother, knowing she would give Janie a way out.

“Or,” said Mom softly, “you could forgive him.”

“What?” shrieked Jodie. “Mom! The guy’s scum. We’re not forgiving Reeve.”

“Go, Jo!” said Brian, cheerleading.

“You want me to shrug off what he’s done,” said Janie in disbelief.

“You never shrug,” said Janie’s mother. “Shrugging means it doesn’t matter, and it matters. It matters so much. But forgive, Janie, and you move on.”

“Move on where?” cried Janie. “I don’t see the next place.”

Their mother sighed deeply, and suddenly Brian did not want to be here, did not want to be within miles of this place, wanted to be in good old Colorado with Stephen.

“I had a daughter once,” said Mrs. Spring, “who preferred another mother. I did not see how I could forgive a thing like that. Nobody hurt me more. Not even Hannah. But I loved that daughter. So I for-gave her.”

Jodie cringed.

Brian felt ill.

And Janie whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“I know you are. And maybe Reeve is.”

“How could I go on loving Reeve?”

“We went on loving you,” said her mother.

Brian felt he would really much rather watch television. Jodie went to change clothes before she and Janie set off for Connecticut.

Mrs. Spring and Janie were alone with the fading sun.

An afghan lay on the back of the sofa. Somebody with a poor color eye had crocheted it; the pinks were too purple and the blues were too turquoise. As Janie reached for it, her hand passed over her mother’s bare arms. It isn’t chilly in here, she thought, I’m not after warmth. Sarah-Charlotte knew the rule: Don’t hide, don’t run. But I can’t learn. Here I am, one more time, trying to wrap myself in a blanket and hide.

“Mom,” said Janie. It was a strange feeling, telling the truth. “A mother and a boyfriend are not the same. You can’t compare forgiving me with me forgiving Reeve.”

“No?”

“No. A mother is going to love her daughter no matter what year, or season, or failure, or trouble. Even if it takes a while.”

Her mother found the afghan, put it around both of them. When somebody else wraps a blanket around you, it isn’t hiding, it’s closeness.

Janie tiptoed near her own failure. “And a daughter,” she said shakily, “is going to love her mother no matter what, too. Even if it takes a long, long while. But a boyfriend…”

“Boyfriends come and go,” agreed her mother. “They aren’t blood, they aren’t family, they aren’t forever.”

What if she lived here, in this family, with this mother? Where parents stayed strong and problems had solutions?

“I wasn’t sure you
were
family,” said Janie. “Right up till this afternoon. When we came in from saying good-bye, all of a sudden, this room—it was my room; and you—you were my mother.” With great difficulty she added, “And I knew what I had done to you.”

“You came home,” said her mother. “That’s what you have done for me.”

And Janie knew then what she had in common with the Springs. It was not red hair. It was strength.

I’m sure of something, thought Janie.
I know who I am
.

Then her mother grinned and jabbed Janie with an elbow. In this family, the parents often behaved like kids themselves. This was a kid grin. “As for Reeve, if you see him again, and you hate his guts, and you want to light the match that will light the fuse that will blow him up in his car—then forgiveness probably isn’t for you.”

Janie almost laughed. Not quite, because the hurt was still present. “He’s too cute to blow up.”

“That’s undoubtedly part of the problem. He’s paid his way by being so cute. Now he knows he’s got a cute voice and a cute radio personality as well. It’s going to be hard for Reeve. It’s more fun to be cute than to have a conscience.”

“How come you’re not more mad at him?” said Janie. “I want to drive a spike through his heart.”

“I guess, having raised a son that age, I’m more able to forgive stupid, difficult teenage boys. Besides, Reeve may
have
a spike in his heart, even as we speak.”

“Good,” said Janie. “I hope it hurts.” Then she heard the middle of her mother’s thought. “What did you have to forgive Stephen for?”

Mom shook her head.

“Aren’t you going to tell me?”

“No.”

Janie wondered if Stephen could tell her; or if he didn’t even know, the way Reeve hadn’t known the extent of what he was doing. Maybe you had to get caught in order to know how rotten you were. Maybe sometimes your parents didn’t catch you on purpose. They didn’t want to know how rotten you were, either.

“Do you think that’s all that’s wrong with Reeve?” Janie asked. “He’s stupid and difficult and a teenager? Or do you think he’s worthless and disgusting and we should blow him up in his car?”

“I think we should save the car,” said Jodie, walking in.

They laughed, and Janie loved them, and she said, “I’m sorry I was such a brat last year.”

Her mother held her tight, kissing cheek and throat and hair, the way parents did when you weren’t run over by a train after all. She did not pretend that Janie had not been a brat. “Be strong for your parents,” she said softly. “Make me proud.”