A Family To Cherish

by Carole Gift Page

  “What about Janee?” Doug asked when she broached the subject later that evening. She had returned to her mending. He was stretched out on the couch, nearly asleep. He shook his head as if to diffuse his weariness. “What’s the problem?”

  “She can’t stay here any longer, Doug.” There! It was out. No beating around the bush. She had said the words before she lost her nerve.

  Her husband sat up startled and stared at her, his eyes narrowing. “What are you talking about? She’s here. There’s no question now.”

  Barbara moved over beside him on the couch. “Yes, there is,” she insisted. “You aren’t home enough to know how it’s been. You don’t know.”

  “All right. Tell me what’s the matter.” There was a troubled intensity in his smoky blue eyes.

  Barbara twisted her wedding ring. The gold band was loose on her finger; she had lost a few pounds lately. “Things with Janee are getting worse, Doug. I’ve tried. Honest I have. But she has nothing to do with me. She avoids me. She’s been here over a month and she’s still a stranger. Worse than a stranger.”

  Doug shook his head ponderously. “Barbie, Barbie, you have to give her time. She just lost her parents. She’s a baby. What do you want?”

  Barbara leaned forward and pressed her fingertips against her temples as if she might alleviate something swelling within her skull, a pressure, a nagging irritation. “I’m being a shrew about this, I know I am,” she said shakily. “I shouldn’t be this way, but I can’t help myself. I didn’t think I’d ever feel this way.”

  Doug lowered his head a little, looking her full in the face, and said, “All right, tell me. Just how do you feel?”

  Barbara’s voice was tremulous. “I—I feel caught, trapped, a prisoner in my own house. I can’t be myself. She watches me. She hates me. I feel it.”

  Doug scowled and slapped his knee. “That’s ridiculous! She’s a little girl. She doesn’t hate.”

  “Yes, she does, Doug. She told me so herself. Today.” In a halting, emotion-filled voice Barbara told him about the tricycle overturning and Janee’s scream. “It brought everything back, Doug. It was horrible. I found myself reliving Caitlin’s accident. I ran down the porch steps and grabbed Janee and held on to her for dear life. As if she were Caitlin. I said something about Mommy being there for her. And suddenly she stiffened and pulled away and told me she hated me. And I knew then, Doug. I knew I’d never win her over.”

  “You don’t know that, Barb. You’ve got to be patient with her.”

  “There’s more,” Barbara said shakily. “After the bicycle incident, Janee threw a terrible temper tantrum. She deliberately messed up Caitlin’s room. She went in and started throwing toys and dolls all over the floor and knocking things off shelves. She was like a person possessed. It was as if she hated Caitlin—a child she never even knew.”

  Doug shook his head, his brow furrowed. “Maybe she just wanted to play with Caitlin’s toys. God knows, you’ve kept that room like—like a mausoleum.”

  Barbara bristled defensively. “I have not. I’ve kept it the way Caitlin left it, as…as an honor to her memory.”

  Doug’s voice hardened. He raked his fingers through his thick ebony hair. “Let’s not get into that now, Barb. Janee was probably just angry because you wouldn’t let her play with Caitlin’s toys.”

  “It was more than that, Doug. She was willfully destructive. She didn’t want to play with the toys. She wanted to destroy them. She hates everything about us and this house.”

  Doug reached over and smoothed Barbara’s velvety blond hair. It was a tender, familiar gesture, but one he offered rarely these days. “Time, Barbie. Give her time. Time is the great healer.”

  Scalding tears flooded Barbara’s eyes. “Time? The great healer? How can you say that, Doug?” She couldn’t keep the searing words back. “It hasn’t healed anything for us. We’re still in the same place we were four years ago. Standing at Caitlin’s grave. Waiting for something to happen, waiting for things to get better. For Caitlin to come home.” The tears came with a convulsive shudder that shook her slender frame. “I can’t handle another child, Doug. I just can’t!”

  Doug reached over, put his arm around her and pulled her against his strapping chest. His touch should have been comforting, but she sensed that he was baffled and frustrated and only trying to placate her, as he might a recalcitrant child. “I don’t know what to say to you anymore, Barb. Maybe you should get something for your nerves. I could get you a prescription…”

  Still playing the detached, infuriatingly rational physician, she thought dismally. Didn’t Doug understand? What she needed couldn’t be solved with a tranquilizer. What she needed couldn’t even be put into words. She needed the tender, loving husband she once had, but he had buried himself behind the brusque, impenetrable facade of his profession. “I knew you’d think I was crazy,” she sighed, slumping back in defeat. “I think it myself.”

  “No, honey, I don’t think that. Come on. We’ll figure something out.”

  Barbara pulled away, turning her shoulders to face her husband. She steeled herself, summoning every modicum of courage she possessed. “Doug,” she began, inhaling sharply, “why couldn’t Janee stay with your sister Pam?” She rushed on before he could dismiss her suggestion. “I know we’ve talked about it and you don’t think it would work. But maybe we’re wrong. Since she and Benny don’t have any children, maybe they would—”

  Doug grunted and fixed his gaze on the fireplace across the room. After a moment he cleared his throat and said accusingly, “You know why Janee is with us and not with Pam.”

  “Because Nancy wanted it that way,” Barbara replied simply.

  “Because if anything ever happened to them, Nancy wanted Janee in a Christian home. On her deathbed she asked us to take Janee, Barb. You heard her. You said ‘okay.’ On her deathbed she asked us, for crying out loud. That’s why Janee’s here. That’s why she’s staying.”

  “But Pam and Benny—”

  “Pam and Benny would never take Janee to church,” Doug countered, his voice rising precariously. “They have no interest in God. They don’t have room in their lives for Janee. They don’t have room for anyone but themselves.”

  Barbara sat forward stiffly. She clasped her clammy hands together so that the bones of her knuckles stood out pearl-white under the thin flesh of her fingers. She wanted to shout back, You should talk, Doug. You don’t have room in your life for me anymore, nor for Janee. You’re hardly ever here, and even when you are here, the real you is locked away.

  But this wasn’t the time to rehash old, unresolved miseries. She needed her husband in her corner now, supporting her. “Doug,” she said, the words painfully tight in her throat, “what you’ve got to understand is that I’m no good for Janee, either. I can’t reach her. She’s unhappy here. She’s suffered so much already, I don’t want to cause her any more hurt. Don’t you see?”

  Doug stood up and walked across the room. He put his hand on the fireplace mantel and leaned heavily, as if he were not sure his legs would support his bulk. His dark brows crouched over dusky, solemn, deep azure eyes. Quietly, so that Barbara had to strain to hear, he said, “I believe God wants Janee here, Barbie. You pray and search your heart. You pray for God to show you what’s right. Give it some time. A few more days. Let’s say a week. Next Tuesday, okay? Then, if you still think we should contact Pam, we’ll talk to her and see what she has to say.”

  Barbara went to her husband and received his embrace, but somehow his strong arms offered little consolation. Twinges of guilt pricked at her heart. What would Doug say if he knew she had already phoned Pam and was waiting even now for her answer?

  “I don’t want to send Janee away,” Doug said as he absently nuzzled the top of her head with his chin. “But you’re my wife, Barbie. I love you. I have to consider you first.”

  Later that evening, as Barbara thought about the one-week deadline, she realized that setting a specific period
of time for their decision about Janee gave her a curious sense of relief. She was no longer facing an interminable road with the child. If things didn’t get better in the next week, and if Doug’s sister cooperated, Janee could stay with Pam and Benny.

  Then everything would be as it had been. Not perfect, but tolerable. Almost tolerable. Barbara would be alone again with her cherished memories of Caitlin. She and Doug still wouldn’t be close, of course. They would remain polite strangers in their own home, coming and going without quite touching, careful never to scratch the surface of their emotions.

  But perhaps it was better that way. Once one’s emotions were unleashed, old wounds had a way of becoming raw again. Doug must have sensed that. That’s why he had withdrawn after Caitlin’s death, shutting down emotionally until there were no feelings left to share.

  And hadn’t she done the same thing in her own way? Hadn’t she buried her emotions so deep that only a vague numbness remained? A torpor? A paralysis of the spirit that was better than the pain?

  That is, until Janee had burst into their lives, upsetting the emotional applecart and throwing their quiet, predictable lives into chaos.

  But, God willing, next Tuesday circumstances would improve dramatically for both Barbara and Janee.

  Chapter Eight

  Doug was home on time for dinner on Monday evening. It was a quiet, uneventful meal except for Janee slurping her spaghetti strands and Tabby me-owing under the table, begging for tidbits of meat-ball that Janee “secretly” fed her. Barbara said nothing about the decision she and Doug would make about Janee tomorrow.

  The evening passed slowly, the hours marked by an unsettling solitude. It was as if the entire earth were still, hushed, waiting. Or maybe the uneasy silence meant Doug was reflecting on the seriousness of their decision about Janee. Barbara knew he didn’t agree with her, but maybe he was even more opposed than she had suspected. Would he insist that Janee stay, after all?

  Janee sat quietly coloring with large wax crayons in a Donald Duck coloring book, looking the picture of innocence. Doug wasn’t home often enough to see how things really were. He had no idea how painful a child’s anger and animosity could be.

  “Time for bed, Janee,” Barbara said at last.

  Janee kept her gaze fixed on her coloring book. “I don’t want to.”

  “It’s time, Janee. Run along and get into your pajamas, and I’ll be up in a minute.”

  Janee shook her head.

  “Come on, Janee,” Doug broke in pleasantly. “Be a good girl for your Uncle Doug.”

  Reluctantly Janee left her coloring book on the sofa and trudged toward the stairs, her head lowered.

  Some minutes later Barbara followed her upstairs and quietly entered the small bedroom, expecting to see a pajama-clad Janee snugly under her covers. Instead, Janee sat crouched in a corner, her gaze reproachful. Still dressed in her dungarees and pullover shirt, she clutched her careworn bear Zowie and her Raggedy Ann doll in her arms. The bear’s frayed head hung limp and the stuffed arms and legs of the cloth doll stuck out crazily in all directions. The orange yarn hair was askew, and the painted face seemed to grin mockingly at Barbara.

  She forced her voice to remain calm. “I thought I told you to get ready for bed, Janee.”

  Janee rubbed her cheek against Raggedy Ann’s ropy head. “I’m not sleepy.”

  “But you will be in the morning. Come on, honey. Let’s go. Do as I say.”

  Janee jutted out her lower lip. “I don’t have to. You’re not my mommy!”

  Barbara’s cool composure evaporated. “No, I’m not your mommy, but you still must do as I say.” Swiftly she crossed the room, picked up the child and put her in bed fully clothed. She placed the doll on one side of her and the bear on the other, then tucked in the blankets with quick, efficient movements. Without another word she walked out of the room, flicking off the light switch with a decisiveness that left her trembling.

  Later, in her own room, lying in bed next to her slumbering husband, Barbara prayed silently, Dear God, what else can I do with Janee? She doesn’t listen to me. She defies me at every turn. I have nothing more to give.

  What about love? her conscience prodded.

  It was much easier to love people en masse—the homeless, the brave, the downtrodden, all the people of the world whom one could clump together and tie with labels. But to love a person on an intimate, one-to-one basis was something else, an ability that seemed to elude Barbara completely these days.

  “How do you love a child who doesn’t invite love? How do you love her?” she whispered, but her voice drifted off like a fine wisp of smoke in the night, and her thoughts were muffled at last by sleep.

  Early Tuesday morning, while it was still dark, Barbara felt herself jerked violently out of bed. One moment she had felt Doug’s warm shoulder and torso against her back. The next moment she found herself sitting sprawled on the carpeted floor beside the bed. A deafening noise enveloped the room—the sound of a freight train rumbling through the house, its vibration rattling the walls.

  Barbara stumbled blindly to her feet, then fell on her knees as the floor moved beneath her. She reached out desperately and clutched the downy comforter from her bed. She dragged it with her as the floor rippled and threw her against the massive bureau. A shooting drawer grazed her arm and spilled its contents on the floor. She scrambled out of the way as another drawer shot out and crashed against the bed. All around her the walls creaked and groaned and the windows rattled in their frames.

  “Doug!” She clasped the headboard desperately, her eyes frantically searching the darkness.

  “Over here.” He was across the room, swallowed by shadows.

  Glass shattered somewhere, followed by several loud crashes downstairs. Barbara held on tight. The floorboards beneath the carpet convulsed with quick, spasmodic jerks. The unseen ghost train rumbled through their room with a thunderous, guttural roar.

  “Earthquake!” Doug yelled, his voice harsh. “Get in the hallway, Barb. In the doorway.”

  “I can’t,” she gasped.

  Crashes echoed from another room—surely more drawers careening out of dressers; then another horrifying noise downstairs, and another. Barbara could imagine it: knickknacks sliding off tables, a lamp falling somewhere, paintings rattling against walls, books cascading off shelves.

  “Doug!” she rasped again, but her voice was swallowed up as she was by the jarring motion—the writhing of the splintered floor beneath her feet and the unearthly groan of plaster walls stretched beyond their limits.

  After a moment, the convulsive jolts subsided to a smooth rocking motion. From deep within the house came low doleful moanings, as if its very timbers had ruptured.

  The temblor seemed eternal—waves of an ocean going on and on, pervasive, ubiquitous. But gradually—actually within moments—the tremors ceased and the house was still again, except for Tabby’s woeful mewl somewhere downstairs.

  Barbara released the bedpost and straightened her body. Her muscles ached; she felt stiff. And yet she was trembling profoundly, every muscle of her body as weak and pliant as shifting sand.

  “Stay where you are,” warned Doug. “There’s glass everywhere.”

  “You be careful, too.”

  Her eyes were accustomed to the dark now. She could see Doug’s robust frame as he negotiated his way around the debris. “Barbara, are you okay?” He gathered her into his strong arms and held her close.

  “I think so. Nothing hurts, except my fingers from holding so tightly to the bed.”

  “Thank God!”

  She pressed her cheek against Doug’s muscled chest, its warmth reassuring, and marveled that everything had happened and was over in a minute. She couldn’t comprehend it. A minute—and yet forever had passed through that minute, absorbed it, absorbed everything, her strength, her senses. Her thoughts were out of focus, blurred. She couldn’t think.

  And then, abruptly, with a chilled shudder, she remembered Janee.


  “Janee! What about Janee?” she demanded.

  Doug looked at her blankly for a moment, his face masked in shadows, then exclaimed, “Great Scott! The poor kid’s all alone!”

  “We’ve got to get to her, Doug.” The words wrenched from Barbara’s lips. “Now! She could be hurt. Terrified.”

  Doug restrained her. “Wait, Barb. Put on your slippers. I’ll find a flashlight. We don’t know what we’re going to find.”

  “I’ll turn on the light,” she said, flipping the wall switch. “Nothing,” she sighed. “The power must be out.”

  “With that terrible jolt the whole Los Angeles basin could be without power. Man, if this wasn’t the quake’s epicenter, someplace else around here must be in a heap of rubble by now.”

  Barbara felt for her terry-cloth robe and pulled it around her shoulders, but the cold in her bones had nothing to do with the temperature. She could smell the dankness of must and plaster dust seeping from the fractured innards of the house. “There could be another quake on its heels, Doug. A bigger one.”

  “Let’s get to Janee.”

  Gingerly he pushed the clutter aside—piles of clothing, a toppled lamp, an overturned end table. Barbara was almost glad it was dark so that she didn’t have to see all the destruction. Doug took her hand and led her through the wreckage and down the hallway to Janee’s room. The first rays of dawn trickled through the shattered skylight overhead.

  “Janee!” Doug called as he reached for her door-knob. He tried the door but it wouldn’t open. He gave it a shove. “Something’s blocking the door.” He tried again, and this time the door gave.

  Barbara followed Doug inside, her eyes fixed on the moving circle of light as he panned the dusky room, surveying the damage. Toys and clothes were strewn everywhere. But Janee’s bed was empty.

  Barbara’s throat constricted. “Janee!”

  The bright oval of light fell on a tiny figure standing at the far wall, pressed fiercely against it. Janee’s sea-green eyes were round as saucers and vivid with alarm. She looked unreal somehow, the gesture of her tiny body seemingly frozen in a moment of time, as if she were a delicate piece of sculpture, not quite complete and terribly vulnerable.