by Jodi Picoult
“So we can find Rebecca tonight. We’re going to be getting off the major highways really soon, and I barely know where to go. I can do it by feel but I couldn’t really direct you.” I shrug; it’s the truth. I want this to be over with as soon as possible, so that I can call Jane and hear her voice on the other end of the line. Hear her tell me to come home.
We reach Carroll, Hadley’s hometown, just after dinnertime. I’m driving, like I suggested. I take a couple of wrong turns, but I get us to the Slegg house. “Why, hello, Sam!” Mrs. Slegg says when she answers the door. “It sure is nice to see you. Hadley’s enjoying his vacation.” She gracefully sweeps her arm towards the hallway. “Won’t you come inside?”
“I’m afraid I can’t, Mrs. Slegg. This is my—this is Oliver Jones. We’re trying to find his daughter, and I think she may have come here to visit Hadley.”
Mrs. Slegg pulls her bathrobe tighter around her neck. “Hadley isn’t in some kind of trouble, is he?”
“Not at all.” I give my best happy-go-lucky smile. Hadley does it better, I think. “They’re just good friends, and well, we figure she came up this way.”
Mrs. Slegg flicks on the porch light from inside. “He’s not here now. He went out to a bar with a friend. Someone came to the door, I don’t think it was a girl but I can’t say for sure. And he said he was going out.”
Oliver steps in front of me. “Ma’am, do you mind if I take a look around? You can imagine what it’s like . . . your own child running away, wondering if she’s in some terrible danger.”
Mrs. Slegg nods with Oliver. “Oh, please, heavens, yes. I understand. Really I do.”
Oliver gives a quick grateful smile. “Do you know the names of the bars your son might frequent?”
“Oh,” Mrs. Slegg says, surprised. I’m not even watching Detective Jones anymore. “I don’t really know, exactly. I don’t get out much myself into town. Come to think of it, Sam, I don’t believe Hadley knows of any bars around here.” She turns to Oliver again. “You see, ever since I moved, Hadley’s been working with Sam back in Stow. I just came to live here after Mr. Slegg died; before that we had a farm too. Right near the Hansens, isn’t that right? Hadley comes up here but a couple of weekends a year, and at Christmastime, so he’s usually at home with his brother and me. He’s a quiet boy, you know, he’s not one of those rowdy types.”
Oliver nods. “He’s not at a bar,” he tells me.
“How do you know that?” I say, more to disagree with him than anything else. “Why would he lie to his own mother?”
“If you can’t answer that you’re more stupid than I thought. Check inside. See if there are any traces of him leaving, or of my daughter. I’m going into the backyard.”
Reluctantly, I trudge to the back end of the little ranch, to the room Hadley uses when he’s home. Mrs. Slegg stands behind me. “I’m sorry about intruding.’ We’ll be out of here very soon. And when Hadley gets home, maybe you can ask him to—” I stop, watching Mrs. Slegg run her hands over the bed.
“Isn’t this the strangest thing?” she says. “I gave Hadley an extra blanket just last night because it was so cold up here in the mountains. It was a really old one, from my grandma, and I told him to take good care of it because it’s an antique. And here it’s gone.”
I check under the bed, and in the closet and the empty drawers. Nothing. Running to the next room over, Hadley’s brother’s, Mrs. Slegg tells me the blanket’s missing on his bed too. “Oh, Sam,” she says, her voice wavering. “My boy’s not going to get hurt, now, is he? You’ve got to promise me that!”
She reaches out to me. I’ve known her all my life. How can I tell her that her son’s run away, with a minor, and we haven’t a clue where they are? “Nothing’s going to happen to Hadley. Trust me.” I kiss her lightly on the cheek and dash outside, to where Oliver is crouched near the rocky wall that abuts the backyard. It’s the bottom of a mountain, actually: Mount Deception. Hadley and I climbed it once when we came up here for a long camping weekend. I remember it being steep, with few places for good strong footholds. And beautiful. Once you get to the top, if you ever do make it, there’s quite a view.
Oliver dusts the edges of some of the rocks that make up the looming wall. “See this? Dirt. Mud. And it’s fresh. I’ll bet you ten-to-one Hadley and Rebecca have climbed up there.”
“There are two blankets missing from the house. I don’t know if that proves anything.”
Oliver cranes his neck. From this angle, right at the very bottom, it’s impossible to see to the top of Mount Deception. It hurts to just think about it. He anchors one leg in the crevice of the rocks. “Give me a lift up.”
“Oliver,” I tell him. “You can’t go climbing this mountain right now.” He is pulling himself up, and the remarkable thing is his agility, given the fact that he’s wearing street shoes instead of boots. “It’s getting dark, and you’re going to be stuck halfway up this mountain in the freezing cold. We’ll get a ranger; we’ll go first thing in the morning.”
“She’s going to be up there the whole night. God only knows what sort of shape she’s in, and how she got here.”
“I don’t like it any more than you do,” I say. And I don’t. I wasn’t planning on spending the night in the company of Oliver Jones. By now the sky has turned a milky color, like the background on blueprints. There are a few stars here and there. “Let’s go find a ranger. The sooner we get there the better.”
The nearest ranger station is at a campground about ten miles south of Hadley’s place. When we get there two rangers are inside the little log shack, cooking a can of Heinz beans.
Oliver just walks right in without being invited. He sits down at the kitchen table and starts to tell the rangers about Rebecca and Hadley. I interrupt him after about five minutes of extraneous background history. “Look, I know we can’t get up there tonight, but we’d really like to go there first thing in the morning. Maybe you can help us; a trail or something.”
The ranger who is just coming on duty takes out a relief map of the area and asks me to show him where the Sleggs live. I mention that I’ve hiked the mountain once with Hadley; I might remember things as we go.
We sleep on the floor of the cabin and when the sun comes up, we begin to pick our way through several trails. Oliver walks first, then the ranger, then me. From time to time Oliver slides on the worn soles of his loafers, knocking over the ranger and me like dominoes.
At a certain point it starts coming back to me. The cliff, the winding path and the little clump of trees in the distance. “We camped there,” I say. “Last time I hiked this mountain we camped in those trees. There’s a little clearing there, and you’re close to the water, so it makes a good site.”
We hike up the eastern edge, keeping the increasingly deep drop just an arm’s length away. We can hear the river splashing over the rocks. Oliver’s jaw tenses up when he sees the cliff. I know what he is thinking: What if she’s down there? We are all out of breath by the time the ground levels off in front of us. Straight ahead is the clearing, through the pine trees, and I think I can make out something blue. We tiptoe in through the maze of trunks, and there on a blanket are Hadley and Rebecca, wound around each other. They are still, so still I think maybe this was a suicide pact, but then I see Hadley’s chest rising and falling. He’s practically naked, except for his boxers, and Rebecca’s just wearing his shirt. The funny thing is, they look really peaceful. Like you say about angels. They’re holding each other so tight, even fast asleep, that it’s as if the rest of the world couldn’t possibly matter.
“Jesus, Hadley,” I say, more out of shock than anything else. In spite of what Jane has told me about him and Rebecca, in spite of the fact that I repeated the story myself to Oliver, I didn’t really believe he was carrying on with her. She looks about nine years old with her hair spread out in back of her like that, all skinny arms and legs. She certainly doesn’t look old enough to be wrapped in Hadley’s arms this way. I can tell
Oliver isn’t taking it too well, either. He is rasping, choking on everyday air.
Hadley sits up at the sound of my voice. He’s got an erection, for Christ’s sake. He blinks a few times and looks around like a captured animal. By now Rebecca is sitting up too. The thing I notice about her is that her eyes are all fuzzy, and she doesn’t seem to be surprised. “Hadley,” she says calmly, “this is my father.”
Hadley pulls a blanket over his lap and holds out his hand. Oliver doesn’t take it. Rebecca lies back down on the blanket. How far have they gone? I wonder. I stare at Hadley, but he’s not revealing anything. As Rebecca hits the ground heavily, he crawls to her side. So does the ranger, for that matter. Hadley holds his hand under Rebecca’s neck, incredibly tender.
“Get the hell away from her.” Oliver says, finally. “Don’t touch her.”
Seeing this may be harder for him than seeing me and Jane together. There’s a rotten, stale smell that’s hovering: disgrace. “Do it, Hadley. Just move away. It’s the best thing.”
Hadley turns to me and he looks like he’s been wounded. “What do you know?”
Oliver ignores what’s going on between Hadley and me. He takes a step towards his daughter, holding out his hand but not quite touching her. “Rebecca, are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
Hadley looks at me, as if to say: Don’t do this to me twice. Stand up for me, now. Please. Believe in me.
I keep eye contact with him, and he nods, just the slightest bit. I turn to Rebecca. There’s something wrong here, any fool could tell that from the way she’s just lying there. “Can you stand up?” I say, stepping close.
When Rebecca shakes her head, which looks like it takes up all her energy, Hadley moves back next to her. He props her up by her shoulders. “She came to me. She hitched. We were headed to your place today to work this all out.” He’s shouting, I wonder if he knows.
I look from Hadley’s face to Oliver’s. He’s got this look in his eyes that I didn’t see even yesterday morning. I have never seen it on a human. It’s the way raccoons get, when they’re rabid. They walk right up to you, even though normally they’re scared shitless of people, and they just attack, scratching and biting and clawing. It’s like they have no idea where they are, or how they got there. They’ve just absolutely gone crazy. “Hadley,” I say real slowly, trying not to set Oliver off, “I think you’d better let Rebecca come home with us. And I think you’d better stay here for a while.”
Hadley glares at him, a vein in his temple pulsing angrily. “You know me,” he says. “You’ve known me forever. I can’t believe . . . I cannot believe that you’d doubt me.” He walks towards me, so close I could reach out and just touch him, tell him it’s over. “You’re my friend, Sam,” he says. “You’re like my brother. I didn’t tell her to come here. I wouldn’t do that.” He swallows; I think he’s about to cry. In all the years, I’ve never seen him do that. “I’m not going to turn my back. I’m not going to let you take her away.” He looks at Rebecca. “Jesus, Sam, I love her.”
He takes a step backward, towards the chasm, and I lean forward, worried about his safety, but Rebecca lurches forward between us and throws her arms around Hadley’s knees. Hadley crouches, holding her and brushing back her hair.
It is at this moment that Oliver loses control. “Let go of her, you bastard!” I grab his arm and pull him back. “Let go of my daughter!”
I kneel, eye-level with Rebecca and Hadley. “Give her to us, Hadley,” I whisper. “Give her to us.”
Rebecca’s face is pressed into Hadley’s shoulder. He talks to her quietly, and from the words I catch over the calls of circling hawks, I think he is trying to convince her to come to us.
“You have to go with them,” Hadley says. He lifts her chin with her finger. “Don’t you want to make me happy? Don’t you see?”
I start to wonder if this is going to turn out all right. Oliver stands with his fists at his side, watching Rebecca as if there is a wall between them. I imagine it is next to impossible to see your child grow up; even harder when it comes in a matter of minutes.
Rebecca and Hadley are struggling. She clutches him, and Hadley is trying to push her away. Watching them, I have started to believe. I think I am on their side, now. In spite of Oliver, in spite of Jane. For the last time, Hadley looks at me, and he’s begging for just five minutes. Five lousy minutes.
Because I am looking into the sun to give them privacy, I don’t really know what happens next. All of a sudden, Rebecca and Hadley tear apart. In the effort to push her towards me, he falls. I see all this through blind orange sunspots, my own fault. And then Rebecca is in my arms, tiny and hot with sweat, reaching back towards the cliff as Hadley falls over the edge.
I will remember many things about that day in years to come, but the thing that will stick with me most vividly is Rebecca. Just that second her eyes clear, and she begins to scream. It isn’t a scream, though, not really; it’s the howling of an animal. I recognize it as the sound of death, and it never surprises me that it comes from her throat instead of Hadley’s. I will remember that noise, and the way Rebecca looks over the edge of the cliff when none of us have the nerve. She rips the shirt she is wearing at the buttons and rakes her nails over her chest. All three of us—three men—just stand there, not doing anything; not knowing what we are supposed to do. We are speechless. She tears at her flesh, scoring her legs and her arms. We all watch the blood from the marks she’s made seep into the earth.
67 JANE
They bring her back to me swathed in bandages. Her eyes are open but she isn’t looking at anything. Even when I stand right over her, she doesn’t see me. From time to time she says things about fire and lightning. She stood up during the second night, screamed at the top of her lungs, and got out of bed. She walked around the room, stepping over obstacles that were not there, touching her hand and shrieking from the burns. Then she sat on the floor, crouched, her head bent over her lap. When she looked up she was crying. She was calling for me.
Sam and Oliver drift in and out of the room at different times. They have both tried to get me to leave her side, but how could I do that? What if she chose that minute to regain consciousness, and I weren’t there?
When Sam comes in, he sits behind me and kneads my shoulders. We don’t say much to each other; he is just a presence for me, and that’s plenty. When Oliver comes in, he sits on the opposite side of the bed. He holds Rebecca’s other hand. As if she completes the circuit, when we are like this we can talk. I tell him what I feel for Sam, and it doesn’t hurt so much to reveal the truth. I tell him how it makes me feel to be in love like this. I do not apologize; it’s too late for that. And as for Oliver, I have to say he does not accuse. Instead he accepts what I have to say, and he weaves tales for me. He has become an expert storyteller. He reminds me of mishaps that occurred when we were dating; of escapades on our honeymoon to retrieve lost luggage, to find long-dormant hostels. He tells me together we can survive anything.
Oliver is in the room when she comes to. I have been tracing the hand-painted design on the edge of the walls, wondering what Sam’s mother is like, when Rebecca’s fingers move in my hand. Oliver looks up at me; he has felt it too. Rebecca opens her eyes, bloodshot and crusted, and coughs violently. “What’s the matter with her?” Oliver says. Anxious to do something, I press a towel against Rebecca’s forehead. Oliver holds tissues against Rebecca’s chin, catching the phlegm.
Finally, thankfully, Rebecca stops. She sighs—actually, it is more like she deflates. Oliver strokes her arm gently. “Baby,” he says, smiling down at her. “We’re going to go home. We’re getting out of here.” I do not say anything. I don’t care what he says. I will do anything—if Rebecca comes back whole.
Rebecca makes a motion to sit up, and I quickly stuff a pillow behind her back for support. “Tell me this,” she says. “Hadley’s dead?”
I don’t think Oliver has come to terms with this; with Rebecca’s ability to fall in love.
I would not have believed it either, but I was there to witness it. Oliver looks at me, and then he gets up and leaves the room.
I don’t know why she has asked. Does she know for sure? Is she just looking for a corroborating witness? “Yes,” I say, and just like that, all the light drains out of my daughter’s face. I am afraid I am going to lose her again. Once you make the decision you want to die, nothing can bring you back. I start to cry, and I apologize to her. I’m sorry for thinking she was too young. I’m sorry for sending Hadley away. I’m sorry, just sorry, that it had to come to this.
I bury my face in the quilt on top of my daughter, thinking: this is not the way I wanted it to be. I was hoping to be the strong one, the one who would be there to help her stand again. But Rebecca holds her hand against my cheek. “Tell me everything you know,” she says.
So I recount the horror of Hadley’s death, his broken neck, his bravery. I tell her he felt no pain. Not like you, I think. I do not tell her that under slightly different circumstances of fate, Hadley might have lived. The rangers said the drop was but one hundred feet—not far enough to ensure death. What killed Hadley was the spot where he happened to land, the rocks that severed his spine. I do not tell Rebecca that inches away was the forgiving cushion of water. I say that Hadley’s funeral is tomorrow. It took this long to raise his body from the narrow chasm.
“This long?” Rebecca asks. I tell her three days have gone by. “What have I been doing for three days?”
She has pneumonia and she has been sedated most of the time. “You were gone when your father first arrived here. He insisted on going with Sam to find you. He didn’t like the idea of Sam staying here with me.”
I help her lie back down and tell her she ought to rest. She fights me, struggling to sit up. “What does he mean, ‘We’re going home’?”
“Back to California. What did you think?”
She blinks many times, as if she is trying to clear her mind, or remember, or possibly both. “What have we been doing here?”