I suddenly remembered that this wasn’t only the field of green mutant cows—it was also the field where Grandma Irene had put on her Folk Williamsburg Festival. A story left out of most of Burgerville’s history books.
Another flash of lightning.
What we leave out shapes the truth, changes how we tell a story.
The rain came down even harder.
We can choose which sources to include. We can organize the chaos.
I got to my feet. Stood still as the rain and wind whipped at my neck, my face, my back. I planted my feet more firmly into the ground.
Even though our future was now only make-believe, our past was real. That’s where the answers were. If anyone could put together the pieces of Jane’s story in a way that made sense, it was me.
I sprinted back to the car, mud sloshing at my ankles as I swam through the wall of rain. A full moon shining overhead, only glimpsed in hazy light behind the clouds. I started the car, turned the windshield wipers on, and pressed play on Grandma Irene’s CD. I drove home, my clothes drenched, blaring folk music with a single purpose in mind.
That’s when I started compiling sources for The History of Jane Doe.
287 DAYS AFTER
ANGER
My sessions with Rich have become just one exercise after another.
“When you go home today, I want you to pick an object in your room. Any object.”
“You sound like a magician,” I say.
“And after you pick the object, I want you to write a paragraph about what it means to you.”
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“Okay,” Rich says, scrolling through his pad. “Then I want you to think about a memory with Jane and—”
“No,” I say.
Rich nods. I can see the wheels in his head spinning as he tries to figure out how to proceed.
“Any luck with the petition?”
“We’ve just reached double digits,” I say. “Another colossal waste of time.”
“You’re giving up,” he says.
“I’m giving up,” I repeat.
I begin to study the cracks in the ceiling to avoid Rich’s gaze.
“You’re not a quitter,” he says.
“And you’re not an exercise guru.”
“What would Jane want?”
“I don’t want to talk about what Jane would want,” I say, looking him straight in the eye.
“Why?”
“Because I have no clue what Jane wanted.”
“In my experience,” Rich says, “people with Jane’s type of depression are complicated.”
“Wait, are you—”
He holds up his hand, as if giving me a signal, a stop sign.
“It’s not about the people in their lives. Their boyfriends. Parents. Friends. It’s something inside. And that’s hard for people to get, because it doesn’t necessarily relate to anything going on in their lives—it’s just there. And sometimes, when people don’t get the help they need, it grows too strong.”
“So why didn’t you help her?” I ask.
Rich looks at me, then down at his notepad, before finally settling on the emoji clock on the opposite wall.
“I ask myself that question every day,” he says. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
“You should have known,” I say.
“Maybe,” Rich says. “But can I change it? No. Do I have to accept it? Not exactly. I can reframe it by—”
“Stop with the bullshit exercises,” I snap.
Rich recoils. The anger came so sudden and unexpected that I wonder if I’ve been momentarily possessed.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Stay with your anger,” he says.
“Fuck!” I yell.
“Good.”
“Fuck!” I yell louder.
“Great,” Rich says, “let it out.”
“Mother fuck fuck fuck fuck!”
“Who are you angry at?”
“You!”
“Good,” he says. “Tell me why.”
“’Cause you wear those fucking corduroys and you think you’re so fucking smart.”
“Keep going,” he says.
“And you said you could help me, but you can’t!”
“Who else are you angry at?”
“My mom,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because she’s dating Superman and he’s just as fucking one-dimensional as the comic book character.”
“Who else?”
“Tim. ’Cause I actually like him.”
Rich nods.
“Now my dad,” I say, completely unprompted. “Because he bailed and now wants to pretend like nothing happened. He’s the one who moved to Florida, not me.
“And you too, Simon,” I say to the chair that had once played Simon. “Fuck you for being able to move on!”
My hands are shaking, my eyes wet. “Fuck me for being dumb enough to think that I could actually figure things out.”
“More,” Rich says.
“And fuck you, Jane!” I scream at the ceiling. “You and your folk music, your depression, the Flying Possum of Williamsburg, your guilt, fuck it all.”
Rich lets his notepad fall to the floor. I must have been wrath-of-God angry; I imagine Rich with his eyes open wide, the ceiling chipping, tiles being blown apart, water pipes breaking, a green cow flying through the air. I’m a tornado.
“And most of all, Jane, fuck you for leaving me here alone. For showing me happiness and then taking it all away.”
And then the storm is spent. I collapse back into my chair. My legs go weak and I slither to the floor like a pile of clothes.
Rich kneels beside me. “I’m sorry,” he says, like a mad composer who has just knowingly conducted his symphony to the brink. “I’m sorry.”
“Why’s she gone?” I say.
Rich doesn’t respond.
“Why am I here and she’s not?”
“There’s no why,” Rich says.
“There’s only why,” I say. My head is pounding. I want to pull all my hair out just to release the pressure.
I can’t breathe. I just keep thinking of Jane. How I would never get an explanation. How I should have been there for her. I can’t get enough oxygen. I can’t breathe.
I close my eyes and that’s when everything goes black.
287 DAYS AFTER, CONT’D
THE HOSPITAL
I woke up in the hospital a couple of hours ago. The doctor told me he wants to run some tests just to be safe, make sure it’s nothing more serious than an anxiety attack. Which means I’m stuck in this room until tomorrow morning. The fluorescent lights are burning my eyes. Wheels screech over linoleum, an ominous sound, as if the nurses are coming to get me next.
I can hear my roommate snoring, almost like an engine running. A thin curtain separates us. From the sound of his snoring, I can predict with ninety percent accuracy that his nose has been broken multiple times and he’s divorced.
My mom’s passed out in the chair by the bed. She’s much more pleasant now than when she first got to the hospital. It almost felt like an interrogation. Why’d you pass out? Who do you think you are? I guess everyone’s a little on edge.
I hear a familiar voice and tense up.
“Where’s Raymond Green?” the voice asks.
“Room two twenty-three.”
I hear squeaky shoes and see a shadow passing the door, walking all the way to the end of the hall. Those shoes, that lack of direction, it can only mean one thing: Simon’s here.
Things have been weird ever since my fight with Simon. I guess we both needed some time to process everything that happened.
He walks into the room. The snoring has only gotten louder, almost as if we have our o
wn symphony, the swell of the snore rising with the anticipation of Simon and me coming face-to-face after a few weeks of not talking.
Something about him seems different. He looks older. More stylish. Like he’s living up to his role as the son of a politician. Then he takes a couple of steps and practically brings down half the machines in the room, and I know it’s the same old Simon.
“You’re not going to flatline on me now, are you?”
“I should be okay.” I hold up my arms, showing the lack of tubes.
“I think I found my calling,” he says.
“What’s that?”
“I’m becoming a doctor.”
“You’re inspired and you want to help people?” I ask.
“Something about the white uniforms and the smell of bleach. It reminds me of heaven.”
I laugh. It feels almost like old times.
“I’m sorry about—”
Simon puts his hand up before I can finish and accidentally knocks over a glass of water. “Water under the bridge,” he says. “I obviously did that on purpose.”
My mom moves a little.
“What happened?” Simon says, a serious tone to his voice.
“I passed out,” I say.
“I thought . . .” Simon doesn’t finish his sentence. “Can I have your Jell-O?” he asks.
“Sure. How’s Mary?”
“Good,” he says. “Sometimes I still can’t believe I have a girlfriend.”
He puts his hand over his mouth.
“Sorry,” he says. I’m used to this type of reaction, people editing themselves, afraid they’ll say the wrong thing, somehow remind me of Jane and what I lost—what Simon and I both lost.
“It’s okay.”
We sit for a minute. “Do you ever think about her?” I ask.
“All the time.”
The door creaks open. Both of us turn to the little sliver of light painted across the floor. It closes, darkening the room. I can tell Simon’s thinking the same thing as me.
“You still believe in ghosts?” I ask.
Simon nods as if the evidence is right in front of him.
“Do you have the Red Rocket?”
Simon pulls out his keychain. A miniature dog hangs off the ring.
“What do you say we take a ride?”
Simon hesitates. “Are you supposed to leave the hospital?”
“Your dad’s on the town council,” I say. “You make the rules.”
“At least put on some pants.”
I grab my pants off the chair, pull off my hospital dressing gown, and throw on a shirt and jacket. Simon slurps the last bit of Jell-O out of the cup. I write a note on the small whiteboard beside my bed, just in case my mom wakes up: Gone looking for green cows with Simon. Love, Ray.
We run down the hall, the two of us on the lookout for nurses.
Into the elevator and through the lobby, the fluorescent lights still stinging my eyes. The automatic doors open as we approach, like God himself condones our escape. We get some funny looks as we quicken our pace, the woman at the front desk picking up the phone as we exit the building.
We run across the parking lot, the Red Rocket lighting up like a spaceship. I jump into the front seat and recline back, a panoramic view of the night sky above me. Simon backs up. “We have liftoff,” I say.
Simon drives slowly through the parking lot.
“Light speed,” he says, jamming down on the accelerator as we reach the street.
I’m staring up at the sky, stars stretched out to infinity, the entire universe spread out before me.
“Faster,” I say.
Simon presses down on the accelerator, the minivan lumbering to keep up.
I close my eyes, feel the sensation of weightlessness—no gravity, finally nothing holding me down.
Simon slows down, giving the Red Rocket a break.
“I wish Jane were here,” I say.
“Me too,” Simon says.
We come to a stop at a traffic light. After a brief pause, Simon says, “Maybe she is here.”
“You think?”
“It’s not about thinking,” Simon says. “It’s a feeling.”
“I’d like to believe that,” I say.
“So what’s stopping you?”
Logic, the Scientific Revolution, the Big Bang Theory, the time I watched a TV psychic claim to speak to someone’s dead relative who wasn’t dead, but had in fact moved to Russia. “I don’t know,” I say.
Simon puts the car in park, revs the engine. “One more time?”
“Light speed, Scotty,” I say.
The light turns green. Simon presses down on the pedal. Green Cow Acres flashes by on our left. The grass cut, the mysteries scorched from the earth, not even a hint of the wild landscape Beddington attempted to tame. I remember standing in the middle of the field, shouting to Jane, finishing our tour of Burgerville on my own. An imaginary future and a confusing past. Is that all I have now?
We go faster and faster, until everything outside the window is just a blur.
I think back to that other piece of Burgerville’s history, the piece no amount of perspective or interpretation or research will ever help me understand: Jane waking up in the middle of the night, shaking. The thoughts attacking her: about her dad, about Ellie, about history . . . Or was there something else that set her off that night . . . A fight with her parents? An old picture? Something she took as a sign from a cruel universe? I shake my head. I’ll never know. Still, I walk with her to the medicine cabinet. Stand alongside her as she looks at her reflection in the mirror. Watch helplessly as she downs the bottle of pills. I collapse into bed with her too, unable to do anything as her world slowly fades to black.
I take a deep breath. The night closing in on me. The minivan twirling through space and time. Simon to my left. The history of Burgerville, the history of Jane surrounding us.
“You okay, Ray?”
I shake my head. Take another deep breath. “Faster,” I say.
“But the speed limit,” Simon says. “If I get a ticket . . .”
“What would Jane say?”
That settles the debate.
We approach a hill. Simon steadies his grip on the steering wheel. He turns to me, gives me a look, the type of expression a pilot might give their copilot when making a crash landing. He presses down on the accelerator. The minivan jolts forward, the gears shifting, wheels grinding . . .
“Is that all the Red Rocket’s got?”
Simon presses down even harder, his hand on the center console like he’s driving stick. The engine sounds like it’s about to give out. The jangle of metal makes me worry that the Red Rocket’s going to disintegrate mid-flight. I can smell rubber burning, mixing with the crisp spring air rushing in through the window. I keep my gaze focused on the sky, the shaking and rumbling bringing me closer to the moon, to the stars, to Jane. I hold my breath. Trying to break free of that final image of Jane. Her ending.
Almost to the top. A red light blinks on the dashboard, one of those early warning signs that either Simon needs an oil change or the van’s about to blow up. But just as I start to worry that we might need to hitchhike back to the hospital, the strangest thing happens.
We reach the top of the hill and miraculously take flight. It’s only a moment, but that moment stretches out . . .
And in those few seconds before the tires hit the road, I see the history of Jane Doe clearly. The history of Jane is alive, electric, coursing through the present, woven into every touch, every kiss, every moment we shared together, a delicate tapestry that stretches backward and forward. This moment connected with every moment that came before, with the entire History of Burgerville.
The truth is—and it hits me forcefully in the gut, almost like we’ve just broken free of the
atmosphere and are halfway to the moon—the truth is, the history of Jane can hardly be called history.
The Red Rocket comes crashing down, Simon and I lurching forward, the seat belts catching us as we land and come to a screeching halt in the middle of the road.
Neither one of us speaks. We sit in silence. The sound of crickets grows louder. The moon above—that same moon that’s watched history unfold for thousands of years—hangs precariously in the night sky, as if a slight breeze could send it tumbling to the ground.
“Holy shit,” Simon says. “Did you see that? I feel like we were at least fifty feet off the ground.”
Simon starts to laugh. I join in. He bangs on the steering wheel, honks the horn, and grabs my shoulder. And I swear I can hear Jane laughing too. Asking us to do it again. I close my eyes, try to hold on to that feeling. I imagine seeing her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her eyes gazing up through the moon roof at the sky.
We head back to the hospital. The engine sputters out with a pathetic whine as Simon coasts into the parking lot. He powers down the van, rubbing the top of the dashboard. “Atta girl.”
Simon reclines back, so now we’re both looking up at the sky.
“What are you thinking about?” Simon asks.
I could tell Simon I’m thinking about Jane. All of the different versions layered over all of the different times of Burgerville. How no matter what, history can never encapsulate a person. How I’m starting to realize that each what contains a multitude of whys. That history is only a word for academics; it surrounds us, all of the pieces floating in space, able to be built and rebuilt like a game of Jenga.
“I’m thinking about how lucky we are,” I say instead.
290 DAYS AFTER
ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT PIZZA AND DRIVE-IN MOVIE THEATERS
For the last year, I’ve dedicated myself to the why. When attempting to do my homework, eating, lying under my comforter wishing the world would disappear: Why? It attached itself to everything I did, everywhere I went, following me around like a shadow; and every time I turned around to chase it, it would disappear.
I can hear Tim and my mom downstairs in the kitchen now. The faint sound of laughter, the smell of chocolate chip cookies rising through the vent in my room. I imagine them huddled closely together, Tim’s arm around my mom’s shoulder—and I can honestly say that I’m happy for them.
The History of Jane Doe Page 21