by Joy Fielding
Now tears formed in her own eyes. Not tears of grief but rather tears of frustration. How could she forget anything as profound as the death of her mother? How could she fail to be moved by the awful story her husband had just recounted?
And yet, as when he had told her of her father’s death, she felt no more than a modicum of sadness, the kind of sadness one feels upon hearing of the demise of a friend one lost touch with long ago. “Were we close?” she asked.
He nodded. “You were inconsolable after she died.”
Suddenly, Jane jumped to her feet. “Damnit! Why can’t I remember?!”
“You will, Jane,” he reassured her, trying to calm her. “When you’re ready….”
“You were afraid to tell me about this,” she stated, confronting him. “Why?”
“I was afraid it might upset you.”
“No, that’s not it. Please, tell me the truth.”
He looked toward the front hall, as if hoping Carole Bishop would reappear to help him out. “The accident,” he began, “it happened almost exactly a year ago.”
“So, what are you saying? That you think the anniversary of my mother’s death may have triggered my amnesia?”
“I think there’s that possibility, yes. You’d been very agitated; you hadn’t been sleeping; you were very upset. It was the reason I suggested you get away for a few days to visit your brother.”
She digested this information as best she could. It obviously made sense to Michael. The anniversary of her mother’s tragic death was upon them; she was upset, having trouble coping with the memory, ultimately deciding to lose it altogether. Perfect. Except that it didn’t explain how her dress came to be spray-painted with blood and her pockets lined with hundred-dollar bills. Still a few loose pieces to the puzzle, she concluded, feeling infinitely weary.
“I think you should get some rest,” Michael told her, once again reading her mind and coming to her rescue. “Come on,” he urged softly, “let me put you to bed.”
EIGHT
HE led her up the stairs toward their bedroom.
Underneath the giant skylight, she stopped and stared up at the still-sunny sky, then checked her watch. It was almost eight o’clock. It would be getting dark soon. The moon, now only a series of pale-white dots against a light-blue background, would fill out and grow bright, exercising its dominion over the night. Where had all the time gone?
“This way,” Michael said, directing her toward the bedroom at the left end of the hall.
“What are these other rooms?” She stopped in front of the first doorway to the right of the stairs.
“Why don’t we continue the tour in the morning?” His voice was light, but it bore traces of a more serious undertone, as if he felt there had been enough revelations for one night, that any more might adversely affect the delicate balance on which her sanity rested.
“I’d like to do it now,” she persisted. “Please.”
His voice was gentle. “Whatever you’d like.”
They stepped into the medium-sized, pale-green-and-yellow guest bedroom to the right of the stairs. A four-poster double bed was situated opposite a large antique dresser, over which hung a huge antique mirror. Jane patted the obviously old and valuable quilt that lay spread across the bed, avoided looking into the mirror, touching the antique chair in front of it for support as she walked toward the stained-glass window. A white unicorn was kicking up its hooves in the middle of a green-and-red field. Her eyes followed her fingers as they traced the black borders of the cut glass. The unicorn is a mythical beast, she thought, wondering if the same could be said about herself. Jane Whittaker is a mythical beast, she repeated silently, liking the metaphor.
She was pulled from her reverie by the sound of loud squeals. Her eyes traveled from the stained-glass window to the more ordinary window beside it, watching as two youths burst from the front door of Carole Bishop’s house in a display of teenage enthusiasm that seemed almost staged for her benefit.
“Andrew and Celine,” Michael told her, joining her at the window. “Andrew is fourteen, and I believe Celine will be sixteen in the fall. They used to baby-sit for us.”
“Used to?”
“It’s getting harder and harder to pin them down. You know teenagers. They think they deserve a life of their own.”
Jane smiled, leaning her forehead against the window-pane, feeling it cool against her skin. Just then, an old man in a pair of crumpled striped pajamas stumbled out the door, followed by a large, barking dog. They both jumped directly into the middle of a row of colorful petunias that ran along the side of the front walk. Carole Bishop was right behind them, grabbing at the dog’s collar, and pulling on the bottom of the old man’s pajama top when he tried to flee. Jane heard the frustration in Carole’s voice even through the glass. “Get back inside the house, Dad!” she shouted over the loud barking, while her children watched from the sidewalk, doubled over with laughter.
“He looks like a prisoner trying to escape,” Jane commented, her heart going out to the old man.
“That’s probably exactly how he feels,” Michael said. “It’s sad, really. Carole tries so hard. But sometimes, no matter what you do, it’s never enough.”
Jane wondered in that instant whether Michael was talking about Carole or himself.
“Get back in the house, Dad,” Carole was pleading loudly. “Come on, you’re ruining my flowers and creating a scene. Does the whole neighborhood have to see you?” As if she had been suddenly apprised of Jane’s surveillance, Carole’s eyes darted directly toward the second-story window where Jane stood. She immediately pulled back and away, feeling the crunch of Michael’s toes beneath her feet, the hardness of his chest at her back.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, feeling his heartbeat against her, wanting to lose herself in his strength, loath to pull away.
“No apologies necessary.”
Jane returned to the doorway, carefully avoiding her reflection in the antique mirror as she walked past.
“You don’t have to be afraid of mirrors, Jane,” Michael said softly, immediately at her side. “You do exist. You’re not some sort of vampire.”
She crossed into the room on the other side of the hall, taking with her the image of her teeth buried inside the skin of an exposed neck, the blood of her hapless victim spilling onto the front of her dress. “Your study?” she asked, trying to concentrate on the heavy oak desk by the window, the green leather sofa across from it, the bookshelves filled with medical texts.
“My office away from the office.”
Jane ran her hand across the fine wood grain of his desk. The latest in modern computers sat proudly to one side, its large blank screen staring at her like a face whose features had yet to be filled in, its keyboard all but hidden by sheets of looseleaf paper. A silver ballpoint pen protruded from underneath an opened medical textbook, its top nowhere in sight. “You’re working on something?”
“I’m delivering a paper at a medical convention in the fall. I’ve been trying to get my thoughts in some sort of order.”
“And I’m helping you by falling apart.”
“You help me by just being here.”
She tried to size up his reflection in the blank screen of the computer. “Are you always this nice?”
His image retreated from her line of vision. She felt his arm brush against her own, turned to see him standing beside her, staring out the window at the Bishops’ front lawn. “Oh, look. She managed to get him back in the house.”
Jane swiveled around in time to see Carole Bishop pushing both the dog and her father through her open front door, then pulling the door closed behind them. Her teenage children remained on the sidewalk, paralyzed into immobility by laughter. “That was a real question,” Jane told Michael, amused by the puzzled expression that appeared on his face.
“The question being …?”
“Are you always this nice?” she repeated, and waited for his reply.
His fac
e relaxed into a smile. “I have my moments.”
“You seem to have a great many of them.”
“You’re not a difficult person to be nice to,” he said simply.
“I hope that’s true.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
She pretended to be caught up in the sight of Andrew and Celine Bishop awaking from their paralysis to run circles around each other down the street. “Where’s Emily’s room?” she asked after the two had disappeared around a corner.
“Next to ours.”
She followed him down the hallway, past a cheery yellow-and-white bathroom toward two more rooms situated to the left of the stairs. “Did we have a decorator?” she asked casually, admiring the tasteful warmth that was everywhere in evidence.
“A great decorator,” he confirmed. “Her name is Jane Whittaker.”
Jane smiled, feeling foolishly proud of a job well done, even if she couldn’t remember having done it.
“This is Emily’s room,” he said, following her inside, then hanging back, clinging to the doorway.
“It’s perfect. A perfect room for a little girl. She must love it.”
Jane quickly absorbed the details of the room: the fresh white wallpaper dotted with blue and green flowers; the brass bed with its white lace bedspread; a laundry basket in the shape of a kangaroo, its pouch a basket for dirty clothes; stuffed animals and dolls everywhere; a miniature table and chairs by the window overlooking the backyard; a panel of stained glass similar to the one in the guest bedroom, the floor covered in the same mint-green carpeting as the rest of the house. On the wall opposite the bed, between the green-and-blue flowers of the wallpaper, was a series of Impressionist paintings, framed prints by Monet, Renoir, and Degas.
“And this is our room,” Michael said, ushering her so smoothly from their daughter’s room to their own that she was almost unaware she had been moved.
Jane stepped gingerly into the room, suddenly careful not to stand too close to the man whose bed she had shared for the past eleven years. The room was a soothing combination of the palest lilacs and greens, dominated by a kingsize canopied bed in the center. One wall was windows; the other was made up entirely of mirrored closets reflecting their backyard, bringing it inside. The illusion was of a room that recognized no boundaries, knew no limits.
Jane found it impossible to be in this room and not see her reflection. While she tried to concentrate on the Chagall lithographs that hung on the wall across from the giant bed, her focus kept returning to the wall of mirrors.
“What do you see?” Michael asked, catching her off guard. She watched herself jump.
“A frightened little girl,” she answered, trying to make sense of her reflection, giving up, and pulling open each of the closet doors in turn, ridding herself of her image once and for all.
The clothes of her past life confronted her. She examined the contents of the closet as if each item were a priceless artifact from another era, turning the various fabrics over in her hands, seeking traces of her history in each designer label. There were half a dozen dresses and probably double that number of blouses, as well as a smattering of skirts and slacks. Some of the outfits were very stylish; others looked more suited to an adolescent than to a woman in her thirties. She obviously had her good shopping days and her bad.
A built-in set of drawers divided her clothes from her husband’s. She opened each drawer in turn, examining the delicate satin and silk underwear, marveling at the intricate lace of her camisoles and teddies, self-consciously stuffing a black garter belt and stockings to the rear of the drawer before Michael took notice. Did she actually ever wear these things? she wondered, feeling flushed. She’d been wearing panty hose when she discovered herself wandering the streets of Boston. Maybe she preferred garter belts in the privacy of her bedroom. More probably, it was Michael who preferred them.
She dropped her gaze to the floor, counting twelve pair of shoes before feeling strong enough to face him. “I have a lot of nice things,” she said.
“I think so,” he agreed, “although I don’t recognize the clothes you’re wearing now.”
Jane looked down at the clothes she had purchased just that morning. “Neither do I,” she said, and he laughed.
“Are you tired?”
She nodded, wanting desperately to crawl into bed, not sure whether or not she wanted Michael to join her.
“You don’t have to worry, Jane,” he told her, once again reaching inside her brain to read her errant thoughts. “I’ll sleep in the guest room until you tell me otherwise.”
“I can sleep in the guest room,” she volunteered quickly.
“No,” he said forcefully. “This is your room.”
“Our room,” she corrected.
“It will be. I have faith.” He pulled a long white cotton nightgown off a hanger. “Your favorite,” he told her, throwing it gently on the bed. “Why don’t you get changed? There’s a bathroom right through that door.” He pointed past the jagged line of open closet doors. “In the meantime, I’ll go downstairs and make us some tea.”
He was gone before she had time to say, That would be nice.
Slowly she allowed her body to sink onto the bed, one hand gripping the tall post at the foot of the bed, the other reaching for the white cotton nightgown that lay beside her. She examined it closely, wondering how anyone who could prance around in a black garter belt and stockings could also buy anything as antiseptic and virginal as this. Her favorite! “Oh, well,” she said out loud, “at least it beats sleeping in my coat.”
In the next minute she was out of her clothes and into the floor-length cotton sheath. Removing her new shoes, she checked the sole of her right shoe and was relieved to find the key to her locker safe and secure in its hiding place. She quickly hung her new pants on a hanger, placed her new sweater in a drawer with a stack of others, and secreted her shoes at the very back of the closet, before hurrying into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth.
It wasn’t too difficult figuring out which toothbrush was hers—she doubted Michael would favor the pale-pink one—and she brushed her teeth vigorously, then scrubbed her face until it was as pink as her toothbrush. Lifting the hairbrush from the vanity table beside the double set of sinks, she brushed her hair until she felt her scalp tingle, all the while focusing on the large Jacuzzi bathtub, the double-sized shower stall, and the bidet. All the necessary conveniences, she thought, wondering if she really belonged here.
She returned to her bedroom and perched on the edge of the bed, wanting to crawl under the down-filled comforter, not knowing what to do with her hands. They moved restlessly from the stiff white cotton of her nightgown to the night table beside the bed, picking up the alarm clock and needlessly checking the time, pushing the ornate white-and-gold telephone to the rear of the table, then immediately returning it to its original position, rubbing the china base of the small lamp beside it as if she were expecting Aladdin to come popping out.
She thought she heard Michael on the stairs, but when she looked toward the door, she saw no one. She stood up, then sat back down again, returning her attention to the night table beside her. She thought of setting the alarm clock, turning on the lamp, using the phone, eventually settled for pulling open the top drawer of the small table instead, not looking for anything, just something to do with her hands.
She saw it immediately, didn’t have to wonder what it was. All telephone-address books looked vaguely alike. This one was medium-sized with a paisley cloth cover. She reached for it slowly, feeling like a nosy houseguest snooping where she didn’t belong. She brought it to her lap, where it remained unopened for several seconds before she found the courage to peek inside. Come on, she told herself impatiently. It’s yours. Open it. What’s the matter with you? What are you so afraid of? It’s just the alphabet, for God’s sake. Just a bunch of letters, a list of names. Names that mean nothing, she reminded herself, turning to the A’s. Lorraine Appleby, she read, remem
bering that Michael had described her as a girlfriend of fairly long standing. Arlington Private School was listed right below. Arlington Private School? Of course, the school Emily attended. See, this was easy, she told herself, growing bolder, flipping to the B’s, finding the name Diane Brewster, deciding that this must be her other friend, the Diane somebody-or-other that Michael had mentioned in the car. She quickly located the other names he had listed: David and Susan Carney; Janet and Ian Hart; Eve and Ross McDermott; Howard and Peggy Rose; Sarah and Peter Tanenbaum. All there in black and white and alphabetical order.
She found the listing for her brother, Tommy Lawrence, on Montgomery Street in San Diego, then felt her hands shake as she flipped back to the R’s.
She hadn’t seen it the first time, so why would she expect to find it when she looked again? Still, her eyes carefully perused the page from top to bottom, dismissing Howard and Peggy Rose, who, she remembered, were vacationing in France for the summer, not recognizing any of the other half-dozen names that were scribbled there, rechecking the Q’s and the S’s to make sure she hadn’t listed the name in the wrong place. But no. There was no Pat Rutherford anywhere. Whoever this Pat Rutherford was, he/she was no more than a casual acquaintance at best, not significant enough to rate even a mention in her private phone book.
She was still peering through the book when Michael returned.
“Find anything interesting?” he asked, depositing the tray with two cups of tea and some cookies on the small round table by the window.
Jane returned the book to the drawer and joined him at the window, sinking into one of the two round tub chairs that she hadn’t even noticed before were there. “Maybe I should call my brother,” she began, gratefully accepting a cup of tea from Michael and drawing the hot liquid into her mouth. “He’s probably worried.”
“I already called him and assured him that everything was under control. Why don’t you wait and call him in the morning?” he suggested, and she smiled, grateful because she didn’t feel ready to speak to anyone yet. What could she say, after all, to a brother she didn’t know, who lived on the other side of the country? “Having a great time—wish you were here?” Wish I knew who you were, would be closer to the truth. And wouldn’t that only cause him further worry when, she suspected, he’d already worried enough? No, she’d wait to call her brother when she could remember who he was. And if he phoned in the interim, then she’d just pretend to know him. She’d confabulate.