Jane Was Here

by Sarah Kernochan

  “Don’t bother to come back.”

  “You’re—you’re firing me?”

  “I’m downsizing.”

  On the drive home Pearl rages, “The old bitch. I hope she clocks out for good.”

  Sending her mother to bed, Pearl brings her a bowl of chips and a cold beer on a tray. “Want your vibrator, too?”

  Though Marly knows Pearl is just trying to make her laugh, nothing can stem the tide of anguish flooding her body.

  Things could be worse.

  And now they are.

  “If they cut this thing out, I’m going to look like a monster.”

  “Mom, you have to do it.”

  Marly turns her face to the pillow. “I’m so ashamed.”

  “For what?”

  “Pearl…” She brings her eyes back to her daughter. “Honey, I’m a whore.”

  “So?” Pearl shifts nervously, reaching for her mother’s untouched beer. “Like, what’s your point?”

  “I am a bad person.”

  “Mom!”

  “Why else would God be punishing me?”

  Pearl rolls her eyes. “Shut up with that religious crap.”

  “I’ve tried to bear up my whole life the best I could. But He has it in for me.” Marly starts to cry. “It must be for something bad I did.”

  “You mean, like having me?” Rising from the mattress, Pearl snatches back the tray. “God’s a crock. Your life sucks, that’s all.” She stomps out of the room.

  There must be someone else Marly can talk to.

  Reverend Crowley would be unsympathetic.

  Her lovers? Face it, there’s no love there.

  What about Hoyt?

  She has been thinking a lot about Hoyt lately. Every time she puts her hand in the drawer for a pair of undies, her fingers encounter the cool metal of his gun. And every day she waits for the mail to bring the results of the DNA test she sent for, using Hoyt’s pubic hair and a hair from Pearl’s comb.

  Once she proves Hoyt is Pearl’s father, he’ll have a change of heart. He’ll beg her forgiveness, embrace his daughter, take his place as the head of the family, get his act together to support them, have the front of her car repaired. No more toting her cross alone. This is the one hope that hasn’t died with Marly’s former optimism.

  Like the sermon used to go: “For the Lord is a God of Justice.” So her luck is way overdue to turn around. It’s only fair.

  FIGHTING THE EFFECTS of four days without sleep, Hoyt has been lying in wait for the intruder’s return when, at 6 p.m., the electricity goes off in his house.

  He duels with the fuse box, in vain. Then he realizes he hasn’t paid the electric bill in a while. He picks up the phone handset to call the utilities company.

  No dial tone: the phone base is dead.

  His cell phone battery is out of juice. He could charge it in his truck, but he’d have to remove all the tree branches covering the vehicle. He’s too tired; the sleep he has resisted for so long threatens to capsize him. He reaches for a bottle of whiskey.

  Moonrise finds him passed out on the couch, shirt unbuttoned to his belt, sweaty chest rising and falling, the neck of the Dewar’s nestled in his open hand, when something wakes him.

  A sound. Not the usual wall creaks, or Pete barging through the doggie door after a night of hunting. It’s the sound of something alien, inside the house.

  By the time Hoyt breaks through layers of drunken sleep to consciousness, the house is quiet again. His scotch-addled brain decides the sound was in a dream, though he can’t recall dreaming anything.

  His mouth is open and dry; he wets his lips with a nervous swipe of the tongue. His bladder is about to pop. Padding into the bathroom in the dark, he lifts the toilet lid. The rocketing stream of urine meets the water in the bowl, waking his senses.

  Then he hears the noise again. Coming from somewhere in the house.

  The scrape of a chair, the faint rattle of silverware.

  Someone’s in the kitchen.

  The trespasser is back.

  Hoyt tucks his dick back in his jeans, then steals to the bedroom; training an ear toward the kitchen, he reaches into the closet for his .22.

  He knows the intruder couldn’t have come through the front door; he tripwired it: a blast of pepper spray would blind anyone entering. No, the guy used the kitchen door, where another kind of trap awaits.

  Hoyt grins. The cupcake on the table is a bit stale by now, but the bright pink frosting still beckons to a hungry soul, and the blue sprinkles on top—pellets from a box of D-Con mouse poison—should give the guy one bitch of a stomach ache.

  Hoyt releases the safety on the rifle and begins his silent trek through the shadows of the living room. The sounds of his guest heedlessly moving around the kitchen reach his ear curiously amplified, hyper real.

  His rage building, he nears the kitchen doorway. There’s a vague glow within: the light of the half-moon shining through the window.

  Hoyt peers carefully around the doorframe to see the indistinct shadow of his guest, bent over the sink.

  He expected someone taller.

  He raises his rifle and points it at the intruder. Before he can growl, “Don’t move,” the figure suddenly wheels around and dives toward him.

  Without thinking, Hoyt squeezes the trigger.

  In the echo of the gun’s blast, he realizes the intruder wasn’t attacking him, but rather collapsing to the floor.

  The form at his feet moans softly. Hoyt grabs a flashlight off the shelf beside the door and shines it on his prey.

  A thin young woman is jackknifed on the linoleum tiles, vomiting. Blood spurts from the bullet entry in her upper arm, drenching the fabric of her shirt and pooling into the vomit. Raising a face whiter than the half-moon, she gazes at him with the same meek acceptance as the animals in his traps.

  She’s not much more than a child.

  Appalled, Hoyt flicks back the safety and hurls the gun aside, sinking to his knees beside her. “Oh shit—oh fuck— I’m sorry—”

  Her eyes roll back. In an instant, she is unconscious, her head lolling on the floor.

  She must be in shock. Grabbing a roll of paper towels, he rips off handfuls, wadding them into the bullet wound. After twisting a dishtowel around her upper arm as a tourniquet, he jumps to his feet.

  “Stay there,” he says, unnecessarily. “I’ll be right back.”

  As he dashes to the kitchen door, he nearly stumbles over the girl’s battery lantern lying on the floor. He kicks it aside. He sprints down the driveway in the moonlight, his legs pumping robotically, the grainy circle from his flashlight jiggling on the dust ahead.

  He tears apart the tangle of branches heaped over his truck for camouflage, parks the pickup with headlights aimed at the kitchen door, and rushes in to gather the girl in his arms. Kicking the screen door open, he carries her to the truck, her body pressed ardently to his chest. Her blond hair drifts over his arm; her legs sway limply.

  She is light and delicate, a puzzle of bird bones.

  Just a kid. An innocent kid, a runaway, harmless, hungry.

  Propping her in the passenger seat, he fastens the seat belt over her. She sags to one side. Blood seeps through the paper towels wrapped around her arm.

  You fucking idiot, Hoyt, you fucking failure. Worthless son of a bitch.

  He drives one-handed, steadying the girl as the truck bounces over the ruts on Upper Old Spruce Road. By the time he hits the hardtop on Rabbit Glen, he’s babbling, “Are you okay, honey? That’s a good girl. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Then, later: “Please, please, don’t die.”

  The Quikabukket Hospital is twenty-five minutes away; if he defies speed limits, he might make it in half the time.

  Speeding through red lights, he steals quick glances at her. In the passing light of street lamps, her profile looks carved from a seashell, like an old-fashioned cameo.

  “We’re almost there. Hang in there.” If I’ve k
illed her, dear God, never forgive me.

  He spots the blue sign with the big ‘H’ for Hospital and a left arrow. He can’t chance running the red light, with the Quikabukket police station on the corner. He rolls to a stop.

  Turning to the girl, he lays his hand gingerly on her head and smoothes her hair back from her temple with his thumb. Remorse floods his heart, suffusing his tissues, his bones.

  Her lips part. A bubble forms. She vomits on her lap, and Hoyt notices the white foam at the corner of her mouth.

  Oh God. She ate the fucking cupcake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “It was an accident. Somehow the gun went off.” He repeats this to the emergency room receptionist, then the aide, then the intern on duty. They mostly ignore him. Locked in their professional ballet, they rush the unconscious girl into a curtained cubicle, barking orders, paging personnel who dash in, wheeling machines. They undo the purple anorak tied around her waist and cut her bloody shirt away. Hoyt watches, transfixed, as her fragile white torso comes into view.

  “Sir!” An officious nurse notices Hoyt. “You can’t stay here unless you’re a family member.”

  “I’m her uncle,” Hoyt blurts. “She also needs her stomach pumped. I think she ate some mouse poison.”

  The intern glances up, one eyebrow lifting.

  “Just a few pellets of D-Con,” Hoyt adds. “She didn’t mean to. She thought they were—it was an accident.”

  The intern and the nurse checking the girl’s blood pressure exchange a look. “Another accident?”

  When the stomach pump arrives, the nurse steers Hoyt firmly from the cubicle. “Go outside to reception.” Her tone forbids protest. “You’ve got to check in.”

  Hoyt retreats.

  A weary-looking receptionist poises black-enameled fingernails over the computer keyboard. “Patient’s name?”

  Hoyt squirms in the molded plastic chair beside her desk, casting about for a name to give. Jane Doe.

  The woman looks up from the screen, annoyed. “Patient’s name, please.”

  “Jane,” he stammers.

  “Last name?”

  “Jane Eddy. E-D-D-Y. She’s—my niece.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have that on me.”

  “Do you know her social?”

  “Not offhand.”

  “Does she have insurance?”

  “I don’t know. Her parents are away. In Africa. Can’t be reached.”

  “Who is the responsible party?”

  His tormented brain hears: who is the guilty party? “I am,” he confesses. “Don’t worry about insurance, I’ll pay everything in cash.”

  A uniformed police officer approaches alongside a grim-faced nurse, who lifts her hand to point at Hoyt.

  “WHAT IS THE NATURE of your relationship to the victim?”

  Sitting in a private corner of the emergency waiting room with the police lieutenant, Hoyt tries not to get rattled. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘relationship.’ She’s my brother’s kid. I already said that.” It’s too late to back away from the lies he has told.

  “Have you contacted them?”

  “They can’t be reached. They’re in Africa, on safari.”

  Hoyt knows how he appears to the cop: unkempt hair, twitchy eyes, filthy work shirt and jeans, unlaced boots, dirt under his nails, pickled breath.

  “What year was she born?” The officer’s tone is neutral, his expression neither friendly nor accusing. He jots notes on his pad.

  “I’m not sure.” The nurse must have called the Quikabukket police station, interpreting the “accidental” shooting and poisoning as possible signs of child abuse. The lieutenant must be angling to find out if the girl is a minor. “She’s around 22 is my guess. She just graduated from university— St. Andrews in Scotland. She was going to bum around Europe this summer, but I guess she decided to come home early without telling anyone. She’s impulsive that way.”

  His imagination gallops ahead of his mouth as he embellishes the life of young Miss Jane Doe Eddy.

  Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Jane was a troubled adolescent. Abused drugs and alcohol; a couple of times she tried to kill herself, once using rat poison. His brother sent her to live with Hoyt, who succeeded in straightening her out. (This is the least credible segment of his story; stinking of liquor, Hoyt hardly looks the part of a savior.)

  Uncle and niece became very close through the worst of times, and now he is so proud of her: a college graduate, clean and sober, sweetest girl you ever want to meet.

  “I didn’t even know Jane was back in the country. I guess she decided to surprise me. Or maybe she tried to reach me but my phone was busy. The dog knocks it off the hook sometimes.”

  She must have hitched a ride from Boston, gotten in late, seen all the lights off, and, not wanting to wake her beloved Uncle Hoyt, she slipped in the unlocked kitchen door to look for something to eat. Hoyt heard noises, couldn’t turn on the lights with the electricity out. He’s been robbed once before, so he always keeps a loaded gun handy. He saw a movement in the kitchen, fired into the darkness…

  “I would never hurt Jane.” Hoyt remembers the slight weight of the girl in his arms, the half-moon’s shimmer on her face. “I mean, I love her.”

  He glances at the lieutenant’s pad. The guy has the lid flipped up so Hoyt can’t read his notes.

  “The admitting nurse told me there was no ID on her person. I assume her identification is back at your house?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t know what she brought with her. There was no time to look, I had to get her to the hospital as fast as I could.”

  “Mr. Eddy, do you have a license for your gun?”

  “Yes, officer. It’s at home.”

  “Do you own more than one gun?”

  “Yes, sir. All licensed.”

  “I can check that. Would you object to my accompanying you to your home? I’d like to see your niece’s ID.”

  Hoyt laughs harshly, his deference evaporating. “You can do anything you want. If you get a warrant.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t want to cooperate.”

  “You’re intruding on my grief.”

  “I apologize.” The lieutenant rises, closing his pad. “I will have to ask you to come with me into the parking lot to take a breathalyzer test.”

  “Happy to oblige.” Hoyt stands. “I consumed half a quart of scotch nine hours ago, I was fully sober by the time the accident occurred six hours later, and I doubt I would blow over .02 now.”

  “Mister Hoyt Eddy,” comes a voice over the loudspeaker, “please report to emergency reception immediately.”

  Excusing himself, Hoyt leaves the frustrated cop and heads to reception, where an aide waits to escort him into the ICU.

  The trauma unit doctor stands in the corridor outside Jane’s room.

  “What’s happening?” Hoyt is shivering with dread. “Is she going to make it?”

  “The bullet went through the lateral deltoid, just missing the bone. She’s fortunate no nerves or artery was involved, though she’s lost a lot of blood. We’re hydrating her to keep her pressure up, and she’s on an antibiotic feed in case of infection.”

  “Can I see her? Is she awake?”

  No, Hoyt will have to come back in the morning.

  WHEN HOYT COMES out of the hospital, the lieutenant is waiting with the breathalyzer kit. Hoyt comes within a tenth of a point off his prediction, measuring a blood-alcohol content of .01.

  Disgruntled, the cop follows Hoyt’s truck for a few miles, then turns off at the Quikabukket police station.

  Hoyt drives through darkened streets.

  He almost took an innocent life. What does his own amount to? He imagines chomping down on the muzzle of his .22, the gun wedged between his knees, the eager obedience of the trigger. His pointless life bleeding out through the back of his head: a life precious to no one, least of all himself.

  A mys
terious, knowing voice echoes in his mind: See what you’ve done to your soul.

  At that moment, he’s passing by the First Calvary of Innocents. It’s three a.m., but the Pentecostal church’s lights are still on. First Cavalry is popular with Graynier’s meth addicts, who can repent and save souls all night long until the drugs wear off. The windows are open, releasing the holy-roller throb of bass, drums and tambourines into the night.

  Hoyt himself has refused to go near a church since his mother deserted him for her faith. Now he wonders, could he be born again? Is it possible a laying on of hands could remove his sin, cast his devils out? What if he turns the wheel, pulls a U-ey, walks into the tabernacle and gives himself to Jesus?

  And if he backslides to his old ways, what then? Could he be born all over again? And again and again?

  No way, the knowing voice tells him. There’s a limit to the Lamb’s patience, and you have exceeded it.

  It’s time to pay.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  As his father pores over dusty volumes in the museum’s reading room, Collin follows Elsa Graynier through the door marked “THE HISTORY OF GRAYNIER GLASS.”

  They enter a gallery of framed photos, documents and engravings, lit by low-hanging glass chandeliers and glass sconces. With all the lights on and no air conditioning, the room is as hot as the tropics. Beads of sweat trickle from Elsa’s hairline, damp patches spreading across the back of her blouse; her lipstick is smudged.

  “So, young man! You’re here to learn all about Graynier!”

  Collin grunts. He’s here because his dad made him come.

  She ignores his disinterest. “My great-great grandfather Philip founded Graynier Glass in 1828. The Graynier family were wealthy plantation owners in Louisiana. But Philip wanted to try his hand at industry. He came north, bought land to build the factory and to house his workers. He began with two furnaces, twenty-five cutting mills and a pressing machine…”

  If Collin were at Gita’s, they could be figuring out a plan soon, before Jane—She Who Is He—decamps from the hunting blind.