The History of Jane Doe

by Michael Belanger

  I assumed she’d gone insane. Then I realized what she was doing. She was telling Ellie’s story. Writing a history that could never actually be.

  “After discovering a gigantic species of kangaroo,” I continued, “she was awarded the Australian Nobel Peace Prize.”

  “But she donated all the money to charity.”

  “Her favorite charity,” I added, “an organization focused on fighting the scourge that is awkward conversations with people in elevators.”

  “That’s when she met her husband, a prince from some small country in Europe with a lot of syllables.”

  “At a fundraiser?”

  “In the elevator,” Jane said, “while doing fieldwork. And the wedding wasn’t one of those super-stuffy ceremonies where the bride and groom profess their love to each other in front of a hundred strangers. They got married . . .” Jane scrunched up her forehead. “In Burgerville. In front of Earl Beddington himself. God, Ellie would have loved Burgerville.”

  I hugged her. Kissed her. Tried to make her forget, or remember, I wasn’t sure which. We sat there for a while, the many possibilities of Ellie’s life hovering over us, each of those futures now nothing more than wishes.

  8 DAYS–1 DAY BEFORE

  THE LAST DAY

  After that day, things changed pretty quickly. I can roughly sketch the outline, the facts, the what, but I still can’t put them together in a way that makes sense.

  I imagine Jane in her room, staring at the ceiling while the phone rang, while her parents knocked on the door, while I spoke to them at the bottom of the stairs in hushed whispers, Mr. Doe and Mrs. Doe trying to remain upbeat, like they had everything under control. She was trying a new medicine, seeing her therapist twice a week, doing yoga once in a while, even considering taking up folk guitar.

  I’d wake up panicked in the middle of the night, thinking about her wrist, the raised skin, rough to the touch.

  “You have to respect her space,” my mom told me when I asked her for advice.

  “I don’t want her to think I forgot about her,” I said.

  “Jane needs more than a boyfriend right now,” she said.

  So I started researching how I could help, even read through all of McCallen’s therapy techniques, before realizing they’d probably been updated, as most of them involved a padded cell.

  I ransacked my mom’s library for self-help books, trying to find clues and ideas. I became a walking encyclopedia of breathing techniques, mantras, relationship advice.

  I’d drop off books, talk to her parents, call Jane up and ask her if she tried various breathing techniques.

  “Have you tried the three-two-one breathing release?”

  “Yup.”

  “And?”

  “I’m a little out of breath.”

  Or visualization:

  “You’re flying through space surrounded by light.”

  “I’m in my bed under the covers.”

  “You’re missing the point.”

  Or even the law of attraction:

  “Why don’t you cut out pictures of various things you want to achieve? Places you want to go.”

  “You want me to make a fucking collage?” she said.

  “Fine, how about this. Think about . . .” I tried to come up with something good, but everything I thought of seemed stupid. A dog with lobster claws? More variations on Mr. Parker in strange and somewhat disturbing outfits? Mythical creatures doing everyday household activities? “Just think about a platypus,” I finally said. “Nature’s own random image.”

  “It’s not working,” she said. She sounded withdrawn. Like she was talking from another dimension.

  I continued calling, but she’d always have an excuse. “I’m tired,” she’d say, or “It’s getting late,” or “I just need to sleep it off.”

  No matter the strategy, Jane didn’t seem to respond. She stayed in her room, listening to folk records while the rest of the world marched on.

  * * *

  • • •

  After an entire week of Jane refusing to see me, she showed up unexpectedly at my house, just like her first appearance all those months ago for our Never Have I Ever game.

  The Jane that stood at the bottom of the steps wasn’t the Jane of the Burgerville Spring Festival. Her mouth curled almost imperceptibly when she saw me, the sinister smile struggling to assert itself. She had on sweatpants and a T-shirt Simon had made for her that said Burgerville Jill. It looked too big for her, like she was drowning in Burgerville apparel.

  “Hi,” she said when I reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Ta-da.” I wanted to hug her, hold her tighter and tighter.

  “I’ve been so worried about you.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be sorry.” She kind of fell into me, like she couldn’t hold herself up. “I’ve got a bunch of new activities for you to try,” I said.

  She sighed. “Please no more imagining myself in a pool of cheese.”

  We walked upstairs and went to my room, the floor littered with my mom’s self-help books, McCallen’s biography, other history volumes from our tour of Burgerville scattered in between.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been such a bummer lately,” she said.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said.

  “I miss you too.”

  She looked down at her hands. No color on her nails. The bracelets were gone. The scar on full display. “I’m just trying to figure things out.”

  “If you want to be happy, be happy,” I said, channeling Grandma Irene, trying to cheer Jane up.

  “I wish things were that simple,” she said. “There’s something in my head. I mean, it sounds like I’m saying I’m possessed or something, but that’s how it feels. I get sad. Then I get mad at myself for being sad. And then I get mad at myself for getting mad at myself. It’s just so much noise.”

  “Try this,” I said. I turned on Grandma Irene’s mix CD, featuring unknown classics like “Peace, Love, and Cows” and “Hippie History.”

  The soft acoustic played in the background, Grandma Irene practically whispering through the speakers.

  “I swear, sometimes I think she’s talking to me,” Jane said.

  We sat on the edge of my bed holding hands, just listening, letting the music work its magic. After a few songs, I heard my mom’s car pull into the driveway. Jane instinctively got up from the bed and made her way to the window.

  “You don’t have to sneak out,” I said.

  Jane was already undoing the locks. “Okay.” She sat back down on the edge of the bed. Grandma Irene’s gentle strumming continued playing in the background as she sang about a world filled with happiness. Before Burgerville had cast her out. Before her depression had taken over.

  My mom appeared outside the doorway with Tim by her side.

  At first she looked like she was going to get mad. But her expression softened when she saw Jane, who I realized barely looked like herself.

  “Jane’s here,” I said.

  “I can see that,” my mom said.

  “Hi, Mrs. Green,” Jane said. “Hi, Tim. I was just on a walk, so I thought I’d stop by.”

  “All the way from the New York Strip?” my mom asked.

  “It helps clear my head,” Jane said.

  “Tim’s making his famous chili,” my mom said.

  “It’s not famous,” Tim said. “A little bit of press in the food blogs, but—”

  “Do you want to stay for Tim’s doomed-to-obscurity chili?” I asked.

  “That’s not a bad name,” Tim said.

  “I’d like to, but I think I should be getting home,” Jane said.

  “You’re always welcome,” my mom said. She looked at me. Concern, a slight tilt of her head toward Jane.
I shrugged.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Green, that means a lot.” She appeared to be on the verge of crying, but something stopped her from letting go.

  Tim and my mom went downstairs.

  “So you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Jane said.

  “Jane?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Can I bring you home?”

  “I feel like walking,” she said. “I’m meeting my mom in town.”

  “Let me take you home,” I said.

  “I need to walk,” she said.

  She got up and opened the window. “Look at the moon,” she said.

  I joined her at the window. The moon looked like it was on the verge of falling from the sky, a gigantic glowing orb.

  “I’ve explained Roger Lutz’s theory about full moons, haven’t I?”

  “A few times,” she said. The slightest hint of a smile.

  “And?”

  “It makes just as much sense as anything else.”

  “I guess it is a little ridiculous.”

  “No,” Jane said. “It’s not. We need people like you and Roger Lutz to look for answers.”

  “Kind of like a superhero historian?”

  “Sort of,” Jane said. “If that’s what you want to tell yourself.”

  She kissed me and stepped out of the window onto the tree, so only her torso was visible.

  “I’m having déjà vu,” I said.

  I thought back to the night of our Never Have I Ever game, how Jane had called me over to the window right before Simon threw up milk and cookies all over my rug. Were we meant to kiss that night? Were we meant to be, period?

  I moved closer to the window.

  “I just want you to know that you make me feel normal,” Jane said. She kissed me. “Scrabble-on-a-Saturday-night normal.”

  I hugged her, my body half inside, half outside.

  “Me too,” I said. “Arguing-over-who-lost-the-remote-control normal.”

  A dark shadow moved across the yard. We both turned our attention outside just in time to see the trees at the edge of my lawn begin to sway.

  “The Flying Possum of Williamsburg,” I said.

  Jane laughed. The last time I ever heard her laugh. “Why not?” she said.

  She climbed down the tree and, hanging from a branch, lowered herself to the ground. I watched as she walked through my yard, zigzagging across the grass. I waved good-bye, even though I knew she couldn’t see me.

  Later, I called her to make sure she was okay. She said she was tired, she needed some rest, she was fine.

  “I’ll come over if you need me,” I said.

  “Ray, I’m fine.”

  “Fine as in fine? Or fine as in I-don’t-feel-like-talking-about-my-problems fine?”

  “Fine as in we’re-all-spinning-a-thousand-miles-an-hour-on-a-piece-of-rock-in-the-middle-of-space-and-we’re-on-our-own fine.”

  “Okay.”

  I wish there was more of an ending. An explanation. Something to point at and say aha! That’s the reason why. I wish I’d called her parents that night. I wish I hadn’t believed her when she said she was fine. I wish I’d made some grand gesture to the universe, a string quartet outside of her window, something better than normal. But in life, there’s no genies, no do-overs, no second chances, no one answering your prayers. We said good night. I studied for a history test I had the next day. And sometime in the middle of the night, everything I thought I knew about Jane and the world changed.

  0 DAYS BEFORE

  THE UNKNOWABLE WHY

  Early the next morning, my phone rang and I picked up, expecting to hear Jane on the other line.

  Instead, it was her mom. “Ray?” A deep sob. Voices in the background. Quick bursts of breath.

  “Mrs. Doe?” I felt my own breathing go shallow as a million thoughts raced through my head, all of them ending in the same dark place.

  “Jane’s gone, Ray,” Mrs. Doe said in a quiet whisper.

  “What are you talking about? She’s back in the city?”

  “Is that Ray?” Mr. Doe asked, his voice sounding far away. I heard him begin yelling, asking to speak to me.

  “She’s with her grandma Irene,” Mrs. Doe said. She began wailing with a haunting intensity. I heard Mr. Doe’s motor rumble in the background as he made his way over to her.

  At that point, my knees buckled and I collapsed to the floor. I could hear the faint sound of Mr. and Mrs. Doe’s voices, the words no longer registering.

  It was then that I realized how stupid I was to believe in wishing wells and Simon’s Law, a world where history doesn’t weigh you down but somehow sets you free.

  Because sometime in the middle of the night, Jane decided it made more sense to leave than to stay. She swallowed a bottle of pills and never woke up.

  1 DAY–6 DAYS AFTER

  GREEN COW ACRES

  I can only remember fragments of the next few days. I remember going to the wake and seeing Jane’s body lying in the casket. Placing the list of Burgerville sites in her hand, almost losing it when I noticed someone had painted her nails red. The funeral, where the priest assured everyone Jane was happy now, that she was with her grandma Irene. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Just like Jane would have. Awkward conversations with the Does, where we hovered over the question of why, and for the first time talked about Jane in the past tense, as if she was now just another piece of Burgerville’s history.

  Everyone wanted to talk about it with me.

  My mom: “I’m here for you.”

  Tim: “You can talk to me, Bud.”

  Simon: “I didn’t realize something could hurt this much.”

  And then there were the accusing glances at school, as if I had played a part in her suicide. I needed to be alone, away from everyone, away from myself, if possible.

  A few days after the funeral, I even called Roger Lutz, hoping he could give me perspective.

  “Mr. Lutz moved to Florida,” the woman at the Burgerville Historical Association said. “He wanted to be closer to his family.”

  “Do you have his number?”

  “Mr. Lutz isn’t taking calls anymore.”

  “Is he still working on his new book?”

  “Sadly, no. He’s . . .” She paused. It must have been too hard to talk about his Alzheimer’s. “His biography of Earl Beddington is on hold for the time being.”

  I put down the phone. Even Roger Lutz had abandoned me.

  That night, I drove out to Green Cow Acres, the last spot on our list. It felt like an obligation to finish our tour of Burgerville, even if it meant finishing it alone. I parked my mom’s car on the side of the road, stepped over the No Trespassing sign, and ran to the middle of the field.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. If I’d be eaten by a green cow or get some sort of message from Jane. I was fine with either.

  The grass had been cut recently, part of the town council’s attempt to turn Green Cow Acres into a park. After all these years, they still couldn’t figure out what to do with it.

  I sat down in the grass. Imagined Earl Beddington with his ragtag mob, attempting to capture or kill the mutant cows supposedly terrorizing Burgerville. Holding his pitchfork as he waited to meet his fate. If you thought something long enough, could you trick yourself into believing it?

  I asked the question that needed answering, the question I’d been taught to look for as a historian.

  “Why?” I said.

  The wind rustled the grass. Dark clouds moved in from the horizon.

  “Why?” I shouted at the sky.

  But no answers came. In that moment, I finally understood how Jane felt about Ellie. No matter what people said, nothing would change the fact that Jane was gone. Words were meaningless. When someone was gone, they were really go
ne.

  “You took up the guitar,” I found myself saying, head tilted to the sky.

  The silence expanded. I could hear the faint sound of crickets, a steady buzzing, as if the world’s gears were turning.

  “You wrote songs like your grandma. About being happy. Moving on. The joys of a good condiment.”

  My eyes began to tear up, the many possibilities of Jane collapsed into a few sentences.

  “After your first platinum album, we settled down in Burgerville.” My voice grew quiet, like I was whispering in Jane’s ear. “I finished writing Roger Lutz’s history of Earl Beddington and you took some time off to . . .” I thought about Jane showing up at Beddington’s statue for our first date. How grateful I was to have that memory. How grateful I was to have every memory with Jane. “You took some time off to prove the existence of Beddington’s green cows,” I said.

  I could almost hear Jane laugh.

  “We got married.” I felt the words catch, as if someone had poured sand down my throat. “Simon wanted to jump out of the cake, but we had to tell him no. And it wasn’t all happily ever after, but we made it work. We made our own happiness.”

  I stared up at the sky, not a star in sight, waiting for a response I knew would never come.

  The darkness grew even darker. Thunder echoed in the distance. I knew I should walk back to my car, but there was something exhilarating about being out there.

  It started to rain. Just a few drops at first, then a full-on downpour. Still, I didn’t budge. It was like the universe was testing me or something, and I wasn’t going to let it win.

  After a while, I almost forgot it was raining. It was like I was sitting at the bottom of the ocean floor. Fuzzy shapes in the distance. Lightning flashing across the sky. The rain, how a bunch of tiny droplets can create a single sound, a motor powered by a collective purposelessness. Cars whooshed by in the distance, their headlights barely a dent in the thick cover of night.