When I Was Jane

by Theresa Mieczkowski

  “Thomas knew about this?” I’m surprised to hear that. I’d thought he was more loyal to me than to keep something like that secret.

  “I only told him two days ago. He said if I didn’t start explaining myself to you, things were going to get weird.”

  My cheeks grow hot. In Thomas’s mind, “things getting weird” probably involved me inviting him to stay with me all night.

  Jason studies my face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I assume there’s more to the story, though. Do you think Audrey knew about you and Leslie and was upset?”

  “No. Audrey would have understood that better than most people. She was incredibly open-minded about relationships and the reasons we all have for doing things. I’m not as compassionate as she is. I think what I did was completely wrong.”

  “Then why was she was acting so distant before the accident?”

  “We shouldn’t discuss that right now. Even Patel agrees that certain things could affect your healing.”

  “And Dr. Patel knows these certain things?”

  Jason nods. “He does. Think you can trust me for now?”

  “I guess so. It’s just hard for me to blindly accept what’s handed to me.”

  “And that’s why I’m not handing it to you all at once,” he says.

  I believe his story about Leslie; I doubt he could be this good an actor. His eyes are watery and bloodshot, and he looked like he was going to be sick when he told me he didn’t stop a woman from kissing him—and I’m not even the wife he cheated on, not that I even consider what he did to be cheating. But if Dr. Patel knows there are incidents in our history and felt it was safe to send me home with the same man he once called a hothead, maybe things aren’t as bad as I thought.

  Jason takes my hand. “Can we try to start over? Get to know each other as we are now? Without you feeling like you have to be Audrey.”

  “But I don’t. That’s the whole point. I just pretend for everyone else.”

  “Don’t worry about my parents. My mother will take you in any form; she’ll understand this. And my father just follows along with what she does. He takes all emotional cues and parenting advice from her anyway.” He spins my wedding band around my finger. “And I want to spend more time with you, quality time, when I’m relaxed and not constantly worried about your safety. I know I didn’t behave like someone you’d want to know, but I nearly lost everything. And still could…”

  I’m back to feeling sorry for him. Every time I’m alone with this man, I’m either suspicious of him or feeling terrible for having been. There has to be a way to settle in to a normal routine of getting to know him. I have a feeling I’ll need to know myself first, and that’s hard to do when you’re two completely different people. At least that’s one thing Jason and I have in common.

  ~14~

  Vivienne Barteau-Gilbert sits on a kitchen stool with one leg tucked beneath her and the other dangling towards the floor like a teenager, her designer sandals lying lazily on the tile below. Daisy is nestled in her lap, cutting pieces of dough into triangles for the chocolate croissants we’re making. So far I’ve remembered and replicated two of the dishes I learned from Vivienne as her apprentice.

  After spending the entire afternoon with her, I’ve decided I’d follow her in just about any subject. Everything she does fascinates me; every gesture, every look, the way she holds herself. The best word I’ve come up with to describe her is statuesque, but I need to find a new one because that implies something made of stone. In contrast, she’s so full of life, so warm and lovely I’d be perfectly content just to sit and bask in her glow.

  It feels odd to be so enamored of Jason’s mother when I haven’t yet been able to warm up fully to him, but there are just so many things preventing us from moving forward. Things I can’t see or touch but I know are there. Sometimes he looks at me, and I sense he’s holding back, resenting me for not being Audrey, trying to read my thoughts to see if anything is coming back to me. He seems to be walking on eggshells, treating me like a guest in his home. Even if I remind myself that his intentions might be good, I still sense his uncertainty and it escalates my own.

  Daisy holds up a mangled piece of dough. “Regardez ce que j’ai fait, Mamère.” Look what I made, my mother.

  “C’est marvellieux,” Vivienne says. “It is marvelous, my sweet.” She repeats everything she says to Daisy in English after she says it in French, which is probably how she taught her to speak fluently. It’s probably how she taught Audrey as well.

  “It’s so sweet that she calls you ‘my mother,’” I say. Apparently Daisy couldn’t say grandmother in French and made up her own version of the word.

  Daisy throws her dough to the dog, who gobbles it up and waits for more.

  “But the poor thing will have a stomach ache, ma bichette,” Vivienne says for the third time. She looks at me knowingly; Otis has devoured several chunks of dough already, and I realize that’s my cue to say something as the mother.

  “Daisy, please don’t feed the dog any more dough. He’ll get sick, silly. And then we’ll need to take him to the doctor.”

  Daisy pushes out her lower lip. “Can Patel give him a look?”

  I laugh. “No, I don’t think so. But it may make Otis feel better to go outside and run around for a while in the grass.”

  “Is that what makes you feel better, Mommy?”

  “Oui.” I tickle her under the chin. “Just as soon as I get this thing off my leg.” Though most of my injuries are healing, I’m still burdened by my bulky cast. I’m feeling better since I was ventilated at the hospital. Luckily, the process didn’t take longer than a day, and now I’m back home under Dottie’s careful observation.

  Daisy runs out to the yard with Otis, and I’m selfishly happy to have my mother-in-law to myself.

  “You are doing well,” Vivienne says as she flattens the mounds of dough that Daisy handled.

  I carefully lay the croissants on a cookie sheet. “I can’t believe I remember how to make everything.”

  “No, my darling, I mean with Daisy.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling incredibly stupid for thinking she was talking about food. “Do you think so?” I’ve been trying to act as Audrey-like as I can for my daughter.

  She smiles. “It is amazing the instinct that kicks in for us, is it not? Though you have no memory of being her mother, you are able to mother her well.”

  “Thank you. I just hope she sees me as her mother.”

  “I think she realizes you are a bit different after being in the hospital, but she understands it is because you were injured and are trying to get better.”

  “I hope so.” I’m disappointed to hear that Daisy may notice I’m a bit different. I so badly want to ask Vivienne what she means by that—different as in not as good as the old Audrey, or different as in better?

  Vivienne moves from her stool and floats across the floor to me. She holds my cheeks in her hands. “You are worrying for nothing, chérie. I did not mean to offend.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d been so transparent. “Oh, I…”

  “I know, my sweet daughter.” She kisses each of my cheeks. “I know how your face falls when you are sad. I know you worry about what we are thinking of you at every moment.”

  “Was Audrey that way, too?” I ask.

  “Sometimes.” She breaks a corner from a cooling croissant and pops it into her mouth. “Mmm…perfection.”

  “You two were very close, weren’t you?” I glance at my reflection on the oven door and push my hair over to the side to cover the patch that is now growing straight out in a lump. Standing next to Vivienne makes me feel like a toad.

  “Yes we were, and we will be still,” she says.

  “But doesn’t it bother you that I forgot who I am? That I forgot who your son is? That I lost all my memories?”

  She returns to her stool. “Of course it bothers me. But what does that knowledge do for you? Having you know that I am bothe
red for my son and for you, does that help you to feel better?”

  “I guess not. I just feel bad that any of this is happening.”

  “Of course you do, but it is not your fault. You did not ask for this.”

  I open my mouth to counter, but she holds up her hand.

  “Even if you are going to tell me that you could have caused the accident or that you are responsible somehow for your condition, I will still say that you did not, with malice, intend to hurt anyone around you by hitting your head too hard. And that is all I need to know.”

  Part of me wonders if she’s just saying these things because she wants to excuse Jason of something. “But then no one is ever accountable for anything,” I say.

  She tries to hide a smile. “I do not know if that is completely true. But I decided long ago that I can move in only one direction, and that is forward. I cannot go back and say, ‘what if Audrey didn’t get in the car that night,’ or ‘why did my son die at a baseball game,’ because I will spend the rest of my days waiting for answers that will never come. I will miss the laughter of my granddaughter because I will be distracted thinking about the answers. I will miss the way my husband still looks at me, even though we have been married nearly as long as you have been alive,” she says with a wink. “I will miss the smell of my favorite foods, the sight of the flowers in front of me, and then what do I have? Nothing at all. I can ruin my chances at making new memories if I am giving my attention to things that are over with.

  “You want to be Jane because you do not remember Audrey? So that is fine for now if it gets you through the sadness of not remembering.” She stands up and puts her hand on my chest. “But you have her heart; you have her spirit. I feel it when I look at you. I hear it in your voice.

  “And look at the honor she has given you. You have been left in charge of her family. Perhaps you are here for a purpose. Have you ever thought of that? Perhaps Audrey called you in to help her in some way, to help one of us, to make some sort of difference that would not happen otherwise.”

  “Is that what you think? That Audrey couldn’t handle her life and fled?” I ask.

  “Not exactly. Let us not judge Audrey any more than we would judge you. I just think that maybe you can try to see your time with us as something that we can all grow and learn from instead of a curse set upon you.”

  I think about her words. I have felt cursed. “But how does someone just let it all go?”

  Vivienne stares out at the yard. “When I was faced with my son’s death, these ideas did not come to me so easily. I was tormented by grief and nearly driven mad with anger for a long, long time. But then one day my other son said to me, ‘Maman, we have all died but only James was allowed up to Heaven.’ And I realized that in his eyes I was dead. I needed to try to find a way to live, to not miss out on what was in front of me or deprive Jason of a life.

  “And so I asked myself, ‘Can I put this heavy thing down for a day? Just one day so I can show Jason how to live again?’ And then I asked myself that same question the next day and the next. And then one day I asked myself if I could put it down for a week, and then two weeks, and then a month. And sooner or later I realized that I had not asked myself that question in a long time.”

  I blot my eyes on my apron. “Is that what I should do? Take one day at a time and enjoy whatever that day brings me?”

  “Every day does not always bring joy, my daughter. I would be a fool to tell you that. There are many things to be noticed and experienced without searching for joy all the time. As for what you should do, it is not for me to say. I would very much like to see you learn to live again. To keep your heart open for others to enter it again. I think the answers you seek will come to you when you are ready for them.”

  I lean on the counter and take a deep breath to compose myself.

  Vivienne folds her long arms around me. “Oh, chérie, I am sorry; I did not mean to make you cry.”

  “I feel so sad,” I whisper. “Audrey was sad, I know she was. Daisy told me Audrey cried a lot. Is that why I feel sad? Because it’s who I was? Or do I feel sad for myself, the person I am now? I don’t even know.”

  Vivienne grasps my chin in her hand and stares into my eyes. “Audrey, who I still believe is you, was sad sometimes. Audrey forgot who she was once in a different way than you. Like many women, she started to lose herself in her life. When there were ups and downs, she did not remember who to call on for strength.

  “I sat with her in this very kitchen and she cried into my lap, and I told her what I am going to tell you now. Who you are depends entirely on who you want to be. The grass is not greener anywhere but the place you decide to water it. We all get sad, we all cry, and we all pick ourselves up and move on. We are not men.” She laughs and hugs me tight, guiding my head onto her shoulder. “But there is nothing, nothing that can take your strength away from you unless you let it. I know that Audrey was strong when she needed to be, and I would love to see how strong Jane can be if you let her.”

  What am I to say to this? I feel like an ant standing in front of a giant. She’s so firm and wise and elegant in her beliefs. And all I want is to believe I can become what she is. “What would you do if you were me?” I ask.

  “My dearest, you forget you are asking this question to a French woman. I would put on something lovely and lacy and make passionate love to the person who prayed to every saint he knows for…”

  She looks at me, startled, and her eyes fill with tears. “Mon Dieu, I just thought of something beautiful. My boy prayed for his love to return to him, and it was you who came. Perhaps you should think about that.”

  “Audrey, it’s me,” Jason says, pinning me down by my shoulders.

  Dottie holds a mask over my face. The air makes its way up my nose and down into my throat and lungs. I look around the room, trying to remember where I am. Trying to see if the floor is covered in blood.

  “Jane, it’s OK. You’re home and I’m here,” Jason says. He’s slept on the sofa bed next to me for the last two nights, and each time I’ve woken up screaming and fighting. “This is getting ridiculous,” he says to Dottie. “Get Patel out here in the morning.”

  She nods and looks at me with concern. “You OK, honey?”

  I nod my head under the mask.

  Jason sticks his tongue in his lower lip to show me a cut. “You got me good. Classic right hook.”

  “I’m sorry.” I slide the mask from my face and hand it to him. “I don’t need this anymore.”

  Jason looks down at me, and for a moment our eyes meet. He reaches out to touch my cheek, then pulls his hand back and turns his head. We’re back in our dance of not knowing who to be or how to act. As long as I’m a patient, he knows what to do with me. Otherwise, we’re strangers bound together by a daughter and a history that only one of us understands.

  “We’re looking good, Dottie,” he says. “Why don’t you go back to bed? Daisy will probably be getting you up early.”

  “You’re gonna be OK, sweet thing,” Dottie says as she walks towards her room. I imagine she’s overjoyed that he’s here with me now instead of Thomas.

  Jason sits on the side of my bed. “Was it the dream with the blood on the floor?”

  I nod. “But it wasn’t a tile floor anymore; it was a wooden floor, like a deck. What do you think that means?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

  “I feel like Audrey’s trying to tell me something.”

  “It’s probably post-traumatic stress from the accident. You lost a ton of blood.”

  “In a bathroom? On a wooden deck?”

  Jason runs his tongue over his fat lip. “Who knows what the unconscious mind holds on to. God, now I sound like Patel.” He gets up and reclaims his spot on the sofa. “Think you’ll be able to go back to sleep?”

  “No.” I roll over to my side and stuff my body pillow under me to support my leg. Part of me wants him to stay in my bed like Thomas did, but another part keeps
me from asking. With Thomas, things are easy; he’s a trusted friend. But if I ask Jason to come into bed with me, it will set a precedent for future nights. It will imply I’m ready to act like a wife. I sigh in frustration, forgetting he’s next to me.

  “What is it?” he asks through the darkness.

  “Headache,” I say, because I can’t tell the truth.

  “You’re still nursing one hell of a concussion.”

  “Startling diagnosis. I guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks.”

  “Was that a joke?” His voice lifts slightly in amusement.

  “I think they call it sarcasm.”

  “Huh.”

  I turn towards him. “What’s huh?”

  “Nothing. You’re kind of funny, that’s all.”

  “Am I not supposed to be funny? Was Au—” I stop myself; we promised not to do that to one another. We’re trying to get to know each other as we are now so I don’t always think he’s looking for Audrey and he doesn’t always wonder if I’m pretending to be her.

  We lie in the darkness listening to each other breathe, and I decide he must be thinking the same thing I am. He has to be wondering how we’re ever going to make this work. What becomes of two people when everything that bound them together has been washed away?

  “Can you tell me a story, Jason?” Once I’ve said it, I can’t imagine what prompted me to ask.

  “What kind of story?”

  “I don’t know. Tell me a story from your life. Tell me how you met Audrey.”

  “OK …since I’m not going to be getting much sleep anyway.” He stands up, walks over to the bar, and opens the fridge. “Want anything?”

  “No,” I say, covering my eyes. “God that light is blinding. You better watch out going through the dark now.”

  He grabs a soda off the shelf and makes his way back to the couch, stubbing his toe on the coffee table. “Damn it!” he says as he doubles over.

  I have no idea why it’s so funny, but I can’t stop myself from laughing.

  “Shit, that hurt. Why do women always think it’s so funny when a man hurts himself?”