Saving Jane Doe

by Carolyn Purcell

  “Jessie, these are beautiful,” I said. “I’m going to go try them on.”

  When I came out to model them, I said, “They fit perfectly, unlike most of my pants, which are nearly always baggy in the butt.”

  “I could tell you were hard to fit,” Jessie said.

  “Thank you. They’re perfect. I don’t know when you found time to make them.”

  “It cut into our Scrabble time,” Uncle Henry lamented.

  “Here, open yours.” I had gotten Jessie a hat, scarf, leather gloves, and boots that matched a coat of Aunt Edna’s she had altered. Uncle Henry gave her a leather Bible with her name on it. It simply said “Jessie.” She ran her finger lovingly over that name as big tears spilled from her eyes.

  “It’s mine, whoever I am,” she said.

  After Christmas, I invited Jessie to go to the movies or out to dinner often, but she usually refused. One Friday during the Scrabble game, both Uncle Henry and I nagged her about going out.

  Uncle Henry used all his letters and scored 87. “You’re a beautiful young woman. It’s not right for you to spend all your time with an old geezer like me.”

  “You’re not an old geezer, and I like spending my time with you.”

  “Uncle Henry’s right, Jessie. Don’t you want to have some fun?”

  “I appreciate what you’re saying, but I don’t really think I should go out and have fun. I’m a married woman. Do you remember that tan line on my left hand where a wedding ring would have been? It has almost faded now, but I still know it’s there. And I left my children. Are they having fun?” Jessie placed the word S-O-N on the board and did not even pluralize a word with the S.

  “I’m sorry, Jessie. I hear what you’re saying, but you’re never going to see anyone or be anyplace that might trigger your memories if you stay in this house all the time. Don’t you remember what Dr. Whyte said? You’re not likely to regain your memory without some help.”

  “You’re right. I’d forgotten that. I’ll get out more when I get my Social Security number and driver’s license.

  “In the meantime, you could go out with me. Let’s see a movie tomorrow. I’m off this weekend.”

  She agreed to go.

  “The Academy Award nominations just came out. I saw them in the paper at the hospital.”

  “What got nominated? We could see one of those,” she said without much enthusiasm.

  A paper lay on the table beside Uncle Henry’s recliner. I looked up the article about the awards. “Let’s see. For best picture, it’s Cabaret, Deliverance, The Emigrants, The Godfather, and Sounder. Do you know anything about any of them?”

  “George said Deliverance was really scary. He read the book.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “What did you say?”

  “I said . . . uh . . . George said Deliverance was really scary.”

  “Who is George? Is he your husband?”

  “I don’t know.” Jessie’s color blanched; her eyes grew wide and she started to tremble. I had hoped this would be the breakthrough that would trigger the return of her memory, but it was not to be. She remembered nothing more of George and that was the end of the search for a movie.

  On the first day of February, I was paged to call Ms. Long, the social worker. “Is Jessie still with your uncle?” she asked when I returned her call.

  “Yes. Is anything wrong?”

  “I just wanted to follow up with her. Has she remembered anything?”

  “We think her husband’s first name, but that’s all.”

  “So she still needs her Social Security number.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve had a terrible time trying to get it without a birth certificate. I even tried to see if I could get it through the State Department, as if she were an alien. You’d think she dropped in from Mars with as much trouble as they have given me. I hoped she would have remembered by now.”

  “So did I, but she doesn’t go out much, so there is not really anything to trigger her memories. I can’t say she is happy, but she seems to feel safe at Uncle Henry’s.”

  “That’s a blessing.”

  “Thank you for all this effort, Ms. Long.”

  “Tell Jessie I’ll keep trying. It seems she has no choice but to try to build a new life and identity.”

  Days and weeks passed. Spring came and brought with it awareness of another passion that Uncle Henry, Jessie, and I shared. We all loved vegetable gardening. Uncle Henry lived on a large lot, a section of which he plowed up for vegetables. Not until Jessie did either of us realize how much you could plant in the area he plowed. She put green beans in with the corn so the vines could climb up the cornstalks. She put cucumbers and zucchini in cages like we had used for tomatoes so they grew up as well. Uncle Henry and I had never tried zucchini, so we were fascinated to see a small zucchini in the morning overgrown by evening. She also grew yellow tomatoes. Neither Uncle Henry nor I had realized how different and delicious they tasted. In addition to the vegetables, Jessie insisted on planting marigolds.

  “My grandmother said they help to keep some of the bugs away,” she said one day as we worked.

  “And what was your grandmother’s name?” I asked, nonchalantly.

  “Mollie.” Jessie’s eyes widened, but this time she smiled, as if she could see her grandmother. “Her name was Mollie.”

  “What was her last name?”

  She frowned as she thought about it. “I don’t remember. I just feel like she loved me. What a nice feeling.” No further memory was forthcoming.

  When I told Jessie about the Social Security number, she didn’t seem to mind as much as I would have thought.

  “I don’t want you to leave me anyway,” Uncle Henry said.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “This isn’t much of a life for a young woman. A Social Security number would give you options.”

  “It’s enough for me until I know who I am, but I am supposed to get my driver’s license and become your chauffeur as well as your housekeeper, remember?”

  “That would be right. There’s one other thing I want you to do too.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to get your GED. You will need some documented education if you want to get another job or go to school. I won’t live forever, you know.”

  “I hope you do.”

  “So do I.” I squeezed his muddy hand.

  Jessie took Uncle Henry’s advice and asked me to find out from Ms. Long how she should go about studying for and taking the high school equivalency exam. Within the month, they were working in the garden again when I brought the mail.

  “Here’s a letter for you, Jessie.”

  “It’s my GED results. Cross your fingers.”

  “No need to cross fingers, I already prayed about it,” Uncle Henry said.

  Jessie’s hands trembled as she opened the letter. “I passed,” she said with a smile. She made a dirty fingerprint on her letter as she twirled around and around in the yard.

  “That’s great, Jessie. I knew you would pass,” I said. “Let me see your letter. You got it dirty. I can’t believe it, fingerprints! Why didn’t I think of this before? Come on, Jessie, we’re going to the police station. They can fingerprint you and see if you they have a record of who you are.”

  “Jessie won’t have a record,” Uncle Henry said.

  “People get fingerprinted for a lot of reasons other than arrests. It’s at least worth a try.”

  The police were very accommodating but not hopeful. They printed all ten of Jessie’s fingers and then the left and right hand fingers together. We left Jessie’s address and phone number, and they agreed to call when they knew something. They told us it would be months before we would hear, but they would let us know either way. Both Jessie and I moped during dinner that Friday. We had hoped we could know something quickly, but this was twenty years before automated fingerprinting. Uncle Henry, who did not expect the fingerprinting to help anyway, told us
about his plan.

  “Now we need to get you enrolled in the university,” he said.

  “What?” Jessie and I said together.

  “Jessie, dear, you are bright. You need to be educated. What do you think you would like to study?”

  “I don’t have money to go to school.”

  “I intend to send you.”

  “I’ll have to think about this.”

  “Don’t think too long. My friend in the College of Arts and Sciences will only hold the spot so long.”

  We were both stunned. He obviously had been planning this for a while. Jessie walked over and hugged Uncle Henry—just as I have countless times through the years.

  The next day a catalog of University of Kentucky classes arrived in the mail, addressed to Ms. Jessie Ferguson. By the next Friday evening, Jessie said, “I have an announcement to make. I’ve decided that I want to go to nursing school. I think I have to do two years in Arts and Sciences and then apply for Nursing. I may be forty before I finish.”

  “That’s okay. Who knows? Maybe someday we can work together.”

  “That would be nice.”

  Uncle Henry nodded. “Good choice. I might need a nurse as well as a housekeeper someday.” His words were prophetic.

  It was late June 1972 when I got a page to call Uncle Henry’s home. I was working on the fourth floor; my last third-year rotation was Pediatrics.

  “Cara, you need to meet me at the emergency room,” Jessie said when she answered the phone. “I’ve just called the ambulance for Mr. Henry. I think he’s having a stroke.”

  I was waiting in the ER when the ambulance arrived. Uncle Henry was conscious, but he had a headache, some right-side weakness, and a lopsided smile. Fortunately, his speech and swallowing seemed to not be affected. I thought Jessie’s diagnosis was right.

  “Jessie made me come,” Uncle Henry said when he saw me. “Waste of time if you ask me.”

  “I guess we won’t be asking you. At least you’re still feisty.”

  “He didn’t argue with me,” Jessie said.

  “It’s the fault of that fool that nearly hit me.”

  “What fool would that be, Uncle Henry?”

  “We were at the grocery store, and a man nearly hit us when Mr. Henry pulled out of the parking lot,” Jessie explained.

  “I told you I wanted you to drive me. I’m ready to quit it.”

  “And I said I would see if I can get around no Social Security number, get the book this week, and take the test. Don’t go getting upset about that again.”

  “Give me your insurance card. I’ll go get you registered,” I said.

  When I got back, the nurse had taken Uncle Henry’s blood pressure and immediately left to get the doctor. “Two-twenty over one-seventy,” the intern said when he came into the room. “It’s a good thing you came on in. If you ladies wouldn’t mind, step out into the hall. I need to do an exam.”

  The intern agreed with our diagnosis, and Uncle Henry was admitted. The hospital was full, but I wanted Uncle Henry to have a private room. I thought he would sleep better.

  “No, no,” he said. “I would rather have a roommate, gives me somebody to talk to when you and Jessie are working.” So it was that Henry Land, one of the wealthiest men in Lexington, was admitted to a four-bed ward on the sixth floor.

  With bed rest and blood pressure medicine, he improved and had very little residual weakness.

  “You are a lucky man, Henry,” the neurologist said when he came to discharge Uncle Henry. “It’s a good thing you came when you did. You might have died or been paralyzed for the rest of your life if you had waited.”

  “I have Jessie to thank for that.” Uncle Henry grinned at me as I waited to take him home.

  “The nurse will bring you a prescription for blood pressure medicine. Take it twice a day. Make an appointment to see me in a month. You can leave after you get the prescription.”

  “Okay, doc, whatever you say. I don’t want to come back here.”

  By the time Uncle Henry was discharged, Jessie had looked into getting her driver’s license. She found it required a birth certificate and a Social Security number as we thought, and they were not willing to accept a letter from her doctor or Uncle Henry to get around that requirement. Since the driver’s license served as government issued ID, they said she would have to take it up with the Social Security office and she knew Ms. Long had already been working on that.

  Uncle Henry insisted that Jessie start school in August, though both of us were hesitant to leave him alone for hours at a time. He said he could hire a nurse or “elder sitter” if necessary, but he wanted Jessie in school. About that same time, Jessie got a letter from the police stating that they did not find a fingerprint match. With her identity still in question, she saw the wisdom in accepting Uncle Henry’s offer to send her to school. She rode the bus and began classes on August 16, the day I started my last year of medical school with an acting internship in Neonatal Intensive Care.

  In early September, Jessie excused herself from one of our Friday evening Scrabble games. She had to write a paper for English. Uncle Henry used the opportunity for a private talk with me.

  “Cara, I want to talk to you about my will.”

  “Uncle Henry, is something wrong?” I was concerned.

  “No, dear. I’m fine. I believe you know that you are to receive the bulk of my estate. My other great nieces and nephews will receive only enough to keep them from contesting my will.”

  “So you’ve told me.”

  “I need to know how you feel about this house.”

  Now he had my curiosity. “What about it?”

  “Do you want it? I mean do you have any attachment to it? You’ll soon be a doctor and will inherit a lot of money. You could buy something closer to the hospital and perhaps more suitable for a young single doctor. This house is huge and a lot to take care of.”

  “Uncle Henry, I love to come here. I always have, but the attraction has always been you and Aunt Edna, not the house. If you want to do something with the house, by all means do it. It’s yours to do with as you please.”

  “I want to know what you would think about my leaving the house to Jessie. She may still need a place when I’m gone.”

  “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

  “So you would be all right with it.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I would leave her enough money that she could take care of the house. She may not discover who she is, but even if she does, she may still need a home. It’s large enough that she could take boarders if she needs more money.”

  “Uncle Henry, have you told Jessie?”

  “No, I don’t think I will.”

  Jessie’s classes ended on December 8, with final exams the next week. When it was all over she had fifteen college hours and a 3.8 grade point average. She and Uncle Henry studied Luke again. This time I promised to read it with them. I wasn’t there to read the whole book each day, but I read a chapter a day. There are twenty-four chapters, so I finished by Christmas Eve.

  When I came to celebrate Christmas Eve, we read the whole book again in the King James translation. “This is my favorite translation of the Christmas story,” I said. Both Uncle Henry and Jessie agreed.

  “I want to ask you girls a question,” Uncle Henry said at the end of our reading. “Chapter 22 talks about Peter denying that he knows Jesus. Verse 61 says, ‘The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.’ My question is what do you think Peter saw in his eyes?”

  Both Jessie and I were familiar with the story. One of Jesus’ closest disciples, Peter, had promised that he would remain faithful even if the other disciples deserted him. Then within hours he denied he knew Jesus three times.

  “I guess it would be disappointment,” I said.

  Jessie frowned as she did when she was thinking. “I think he would look hurt. His friend had denied he knew him.”

  “Ah,” said Uncle Henry, “you’re thin
king about what you would feel. Remember, this is Jesus looking at Peter. When you really get the Christmas story, you will know that Jesus looked at Peter with love in his eyes.” The Bible says Peter went outside and wept. So did Jessie.

  After dinner we went to the Christmas Eve service. On Christmas Day we exchanged simple gifts. Our unlikely family seemed to have developed Christmas traditions of our own.

  During my time off school for Christmas break I had a few dates with one of my classmates. He had a friend who wanted to meet Jessie, but she still refused to go out. Though the tan line on her left hand had long since faded, her commitment to that relationship had not.

  CHAPTER 3

  In January of 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in the Roe v. Wade case and abortion became legal. On the good side, Betty the Butcher was out of business. On the bad side, millions of unborn babies would die and their mothers would live with the guilt and shame of it.

  Saturday, January 13, dawned a beautiful, sunny winter day. Jessie and I decided to visit some antique shops in Washington, a small historic town about an hour-and-a-half-drive from Lexington. Jessie wanted an antique desk, and while I did not share her interest in antiques, I thought it would be a good way to get her out and into a new place. I was still feeling disappointed that her exposure to the university had not triggered any new memories.

  We visited a number of antique shops on the main street of the charming little town. Jessie found desks she liked but none that she could afford. Her favorite was semicircular, made of wood and leather in a style designed by Thomas Jefferson. After a morning of frustration with the prices, we decided to have lunch and head home. One shop owner recommended a historic inn at the edge of town.

  Built of logs in the year Kentucky became a state, 1792, the inn had been restored and renovated with electricity and running water. The owner and cook served soups, salads, and sandwiches at lunchtime and a full menu in the evening. We had finished eating and paid the bill when a couple came in.