See Jane Run

by Joy Fielding

  “Diane,” Michael interrupted, this time allowing a hint of impatience to creep into his voice, “I don’t think now’s the time to go into that.”

  Diane was instantly apologetic. “I just thought that maybe I might be able to jar her memory….”

  “Don’t you think we’ve been trying to do that night and day for the past month? I don’t know. Maybe we’ve been putting too much pressure on her to remember. I think the kindest thing we can do for her now is to leave her alone and just let her work through it.”

  “But look at her, Michael. Do you think she’ll be able to work through it on her own?”

  Michael stared at the floor. “I don’t know. I really don’t know what to do anymore. I’m not even sure it’s a good idea to go on treating her at home.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Come on,” Michael said, ignoring the question and helping Diane to her feet. “Paula made a fresh pot of coffee and she’ll be insulted if you don’t at least have a taste of her blueberry pie.”

  “Michael, what are you saying?”

  “I’ve been doing some investigating, making some preliminary inquiries….”

  “About what?”

  “About putting Jane in a psychiatric hospital.”

  “Oh, my God, Michael. Jane, institutionalized?!”

  “It’s not like The Snake Pit, for Christ’s sake. Goddamnit, Diane. Are you trying to make me feel guilty? Don’t you think that I’ve tried everything else? That I wouldn’t even be considering this if I weren’t so concerned, so frustrated. Look at her, for God’s sake! She’s no better than a vegetable. And she’s deteriorating every day.”

  “Maybe it’s the medication she’s receiving….”

  “Without the medication, she’s violent and delusional. At least this way she’s not doing herself, or anybody else, any harm. Her mind has a chance to rest and hopefully recover. Look, these places aren’t like in the movies, there’s no Nurse Ratched hiding under the beds. There are many fine institutions where Jane would get the help she needs.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, Michael. It’s just that I’m having a hard time coming to grips with all this.”

  Diane stared down at Jane, as if trying to will her to her feet. Jane read the expression in her face. Get up, it said. Get up and defend yourself. Show this man that you are all right, that you don’t need to be committed to any institution. Get up, damn you! Diane’s eyes screamed.

  Jane felt a tingling sensation in her legs, pinpricks at the bottom of her feet, and knew that she wanted to comply, that she wanted to jump to her feet and hug this woman who was her friend, even though the past they shared was gone, and tell her that she would get better, that everything would be all right again.

  Except that how could anything ever be all right again? She had caused the deaths of her mother and child, cheated on her husband, almost killed him, betrayed her neighbor, and maybe even some of her friends. She was getting exactly what she deserved.

  “I’ll come back again, Jane,” Diane was saying, leaning forward to wipe a line of drool from Jane’s mouth, then kissing her cheek. “You were going to fix me up with that guy you met at one of your environmental meetings, remember? I’m counting on you, Jane. My mother is counting on you.” She paused, tears dropping from her eyes onto Jane’s blanket. “I love you.”

  Jane felt herself enveloped in Diane’s arms. She made no move to either return her embrace or to push her away. I don’t deserve your love, she thought, watching Michael lead Diane through the door to the kitchen, imagining Paula pouring them each a cup of coffee as they settled in comfortably around the kitchen table, admiring Paula’s fresh blueberry pie.

  Life would go on quite nicely without her, she knew, immediately conjuring up many such domestic scenes. Maybe Michael would eventually marry Diane, make Diane’s mother really happy, or maybe Michael would marry Paula, move her and her small handicapped daughter into the house, an instant family to replace the one he had lost, the one she had taken from him. And Michael would be happy again. And Jane would be—what? In an institution or in the ground. What difference would it make? Ultimately it amounted to the same thing.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THEY were sitting in Michael’s car in a parking lot on St. James Avenue, around the corner from the Greyhound Bus Terminal. “Are you all right, Jane? Are you sure you’re strong enough to do this?”

  Why was he asking her that? It hadn’t been her idea to get out of bed and drive into Boston on some stupid treasure hunt. It was Michael’s plan. It was Michael who had inquired casually as he was tucking her into bed the previous night—had it been last night or some other night?—as to what had happened to the ten thousand dollars she had taken from their joint checking account.

  At first she could barely remember what he was talking about—it all seemed to have happened to someone else a very long time ago—but after some careful prodding, she managed to spit out where she had sequestered the money. He smiled at her ingenuity, especially when she told him that she had hidden the key to the locker inside the sole of one of her shoes. She couldn’t remember which pair and so he had taken them all apart.

  She hadn’t expected to have to accompany him, but then she hadn’t realized it was Saturday and Paula had weekends off. Both Sarah and Diane had phoned that morning and suggested dropping over, and he had told them both the same thing, that he was taking Jane into Boston to finally buy her that diamond wedding band he’d been talking about for so long, and yes, he was hoping that would cheer her up, he’d call them later and tell them Jane’s reaction. He didn’t mention anything about the Greyhound Bus Terminal, which, she supposed, wasn’t too surprising. What could he say? That he was going to retrieve the money she had stolen from their account just before she’d lost her mind? There was only so much even good friends wanted to hear.

  “Can I just wait in the car?” Jane asked Michael, the sound of each word alien, as if she were speaking an unfamiliar tongue. Where was she finding the strength to speak at all? she wondered, wanting only to curl into the soft leather of the car seat and go to sleep.

  “You need some exercise,” Michael was saying. “Come on, Jane. The walk will be good for you. You can’t just sit around all day, day after day. You have to get out more. You have to start doing things again.”

  Why? she wondered but didn’t bother to ask. It was ironic that when she had wanted to be taken out, Michael had refused, and now, when she wanted only to be left alone in her bed, he insisted on taking her for walks and rides in the car. When she had been desperate to see her friends, talk to them on the phone, he had told her it wasn’t a good idea, and yet in the past few days, when she was too weak and sick to even look at them, she was on constant display. Where was the fairness in that? Where was the logic?

  “Come on,” he said again, this time getting out of the car and coming around to her side, pulling open her door. She knew that he wouldn’t leave her alone in the car because he was afraid she might bolt, run off again and leave him. Why couldn’t he understand that this was undoubtedly the best solution to all their problems?

  So, here she was, being helped—no, pulled—from her husband’s car, clad in a pair of navy trousers and a white middy blouse that looked like something you’d put on a twelve-year-old, and her hair had been neatly brushed and secured in a high ponytail, and Michael was smiling at her and coaxing her onto the sidewalk, telling her that she could do it, he knew she could do it, and they were walking, actually walking, although she had no sensation of her feet actually touching the ground, around the corner toward the Greyhound Bus Terminal.

  The sun was shining. The temperature was a pleasant seventy-eight degrees, if you believed the man on the radio. She didn’t. It seemed hotter. Definitely stickier. She felt the sun beating down on the top of her head, like the neighborhood bully holding a kid’s head under water, and she wanted to scream, thrash her hands wildly about, dislodge and discount its power over her. B
ut the sun only tightened its grip, extended its grasp, and she knew that to protest would be a waste of valuable energy. She opened her mouth gingerly, like a fish, trying to transmit oxygen to her lungs, but swallowed only heat, as if she had been standing over a steaming kettle. She felt her tongue burn and her eyes sting.

  “Are you all right? Do you want to stop and rest a few minutes?”

  She shook her head. What was the point in stopping to rest? They’d only have to start up again. The whole escapade would take that much longer. No, the sooner they retrieved the money she had hidden, the sooner they’d be able to return to the car, the sooner they’d get back to the house, her bed, her medication, those blessed drugs that provided her with the fog of oblivion that carried her through each day. To think that she had once fought against them.

  “Careful now. Watch your step.”

  Jane lowered her head to her feet, watching one foot cross in front of the other through the terminal’s front doors. She was immediately surrounded by a crowd of people, some rushing for buses, others thrilled to have been released, as oblivious to her presence as they had been the first time she had come here. The invisible woman, she thought, feeling Michael pull her along beside him.

  In the next instant, she was leaning against several rows of lockers, sweating profusely, and watching absently as Michael and the station employee fitted their respective keys into the appropriate locks. She watched Michael pull open the locker door, his smile widening as he reached inside for the plastic laundry bag from the Lennox Hotel. As the employee returned to her place behind the counter to work out the balance owed, Michael peeked inside the bag, and Jane caught the look of dismay that crept across his face when he saw her crumpled, blood-stained blue dress. In that second, she decided that in addition to all her other psychological problems, she was something of a fashion schizophrenic. How could the same woman wear sophisticated Anne Klein dresses one minute and coy little sailor suits the next?

  How could she even be thinking such inane—insane?—thoughts? she wondered, watching as Michael paid the balance owing, and then carefully removed the dress from the bag and, pulling her along beside him, dropped it into the nearest trashcan. He then folded the bag filled with the thousands of dollars she had stolen from him into a neat package, which he placed casually under his arm, as if he were used to transporting large amounts of cash this way. And then they were politely pushing their way through the crowds again, Michael nodding at various passersby, smiling at a policeman who wandered past, holding the door open for an elderly woman weighted down with suitcases.

  Once out on the street, she assumed that Michael would guide them back toward the parking lot, locate their car with the same ease with which he seemed to accomplish everything, and then drive her home. But instead of turning onto St. James Avenue, he continued past Boylston and onto Newbury.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, trying to keep up with his pace.

  “I promised to take my wife shopping.”

  “Oh, Michael, I don’t think I can.”

  If he heard her, he pretended not to, and minutes later, she found herself shuffling along the fashionable downtown street, Michael whistling a tune beside her, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort, although she knew he was not, that he was only trying to cajole her out of her lethargy. “I’m really not in the mood to shop,” she said, wondering at the absurdity of the situation as they walked briskly past the dizzying array of expensive shops.

  The street was busy with people, many of whom were already loaded down with shopping bags. Jane wondered if any of the bags were filled with hundred-dollar bills, and looked toward Michael, who was waving at a woman across the street. The woman returned his greeting, before crossing over to say hello.

  “Michael, how are you?”

  “Just great. How have you been?”

  “Wonderful. Couldn’t be happier actually. Give me private practice any day.”

  The woman glanced at Jane, and Jane recognized the look of someone who has seen something unpleasant but is loath to acknowledge it.

  “Forgive me,” Michael said immediately. “Thea Reynolds, this is my wife, Jane.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Thea Reynolds said. Jane said nothing, wondering if her lips had formed the smile she’d intended.

  “Thea is a specialist in eating disorders. She left the hospital last year to open her own clinic.”

  Jane nodded, but they had already turned their attention back to one another and no more of her was required. That was good, Jane thought, balancing first on one leg, then the other, pulling at Michael’s arm to keep from tipping over like a child whose feet are tired and needs to be supported. She found Thea Reynolds intimidating, with her perfect black hair elegantly coiffed and oblivious to the heat, her broad confident smile filled with teeth, her crisp way of dressing, every accessory perfectly chosen, her nails manicured, the skin around her cuticles smooth and unbitten. Thea Reynolds spoke with authority, with the kind of self-assurance that went hand in hand with a deep sense of self, a sense of security Jane wondered if she had ever possessed. Had she always found women like Thea Reynolds intimidating? Or had she once possessed this kind of effortless confidence herself?

  She must have had some of it, she reasoned, remembering that her quick temper and unhesitancy to shoot her mouth off had almost gotten her into a lot of trouble on numerous occasions. So where had all that self-confidence gone?

  It was dead, she realized, catching the eye of a woman passerby. Mangled beyond all recognition in a two-car collision, another casualty of her carelessness.

  The woman passerby continued to stare at her as she walked past. Jane turned slightly to watch her as the woman continued down the street. There she stopped, hesitated, then went on her way. She probably wanted to compliment me on my wardrobe, Jane thought, watching Thea Reynolds lean forward to kiss Michael’s cheek. More likely, it was Michael she was looking at, Michael she thought she recognized, for that was the look Jane realized she had caught in the woman’s eyes, a look that said I think I know you, but I’m not sure, help me out.

  “It’s been nice meeting you,” Thea Reynolds was saying, not even bothering to sound sincere, so Jane knew she was speaking to her.

  “You too,” Jane mumbled, focusing on the woman’s bright-red lips. Jane watched her recross the street and disappear into the American Bar and Grill. Her walk was as definite as the rest of her, the kind where the shoulders mimic the movement of the feet, sometimes preceding them.

  “She’s a nice woman,” Michael said, resuming their walk, pulling Jane along beside him.

  The remark required no comment, and Jane offered none.

  “And an excellent doctor,” he added, obviously not needing her participation in the conversation. “She started taking eating disorders seriously when most doctors were dismissing them as just another female indulgence.”

  Just another female indulgence, Jane thought, smarting at the phrase, realizing they had stopped again.

  “I thought we’d go in here for a few minutes,” Michael was saying.

  Jane looked up a large flight of stairs to a curved expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows, trying to zero in on the large black lettering that identified the name of the store. OLIVER’S, the letters proclaimed, then in smaller print she was barely able to make out because it kept jumping up and down, FINE JEWELERS FOR OVER FIFTY YEARS. What the hell were they doing here? “Michael, I can’t.” She felt his hand on her arm, pulling her up the stairs. “I’m too tired. I can’t do it. I just want to lie down.”

  “Just a few more steps.”

  “I don’t think I can make it.”

  “We’re almost at the top. Atta girl.”

  Her feet found the top of the final step, although the muscles in her legs continued their climb, cramping and uncramping to the rhythm he had established. “What are we doing here?” she asked, too tired to separate the words, so that they emerged as one—wharewedoinher?

  “
I told your friends I was going to buy you a new wedding band, and that’s just what I’m going to do,” he said, tapping the bag of money under his arm. “I just happen to have a few dollars with me.”

  “Michael, no, you shouldn’t. It’s not right,” she protested, wondering why he didn’t just simply divorce her and be done with it.

  “I promised you diamonds, and I always keep my promises.”

  “Diamonds?” What possible use had she for diamonds? Hadn’t he been talking, as recently as last night, about putting her in an institution? And hadn’t she been giving serious thought as to sparing him the trouble?

  Suicide, she thought, hearing the word echo in her brain. Suicidesuicidesuicidesuicidesuicide. When had the thought first occurred to her? When had it begun to feel like the obvious solution to all their problems?

  It was becoming increasingly clear to her that Michael would never abandon her. Even if he had her committed, he would continue to visit her regularly, continue to call her his wife. Even now, he was directing her toward the jeweler’s counter, determined to buy her a new wedding band, as if reinforcing his commitment to her. Was it fair that they should both be committed? she wondered, and almost laughed.

  No, as long as she remained alive, Michael would never be free of her. He would still live in hope that one day she would recover, that their marriage would be saved. The only way he would be free, the only way he would be forced to go on with his life would be if she were dead. It was that simple. It was the least she could do.