by Joy Fielding
The reception she would get from those two would be decidedly lukewarm. Possibly even hostile.
Jane breathed a sigh of relief once she hit the highway. She had made it this far, surely she would make it the rest of the way. The traffic was good, moving at a steady clip. She determined to go no faster than the designated speed, preferring to arrive a little late than chance not arriving at all. For once in her life, she would have to be patient.
And what of her own parents? she wondered.
She remembered her father as a not very tall, rather round man, with a soft voice that still managed to resonate authority. He was the principal of a high school in Hartford, a dedicated man who joined his teachers on the picket line to show his support when they went on strike against the school board, and refused all his life to buy anything from Germany, against which he had spent almost two years fighting in the Second World War. When he died suddenly of a heart attack at age forty-four, Jane had put her own grief aside to comfort her mother, who tended toward hysteria even in the best of times.
Her mother had a quick wit and a quicker temper. She was flighty and demanding and exasperating, and it wasn’t until Jane was safely out of her teen years that she was finally able to accept her mother in spite of her many faults, or maybe because of them. At the time of her death, the two were probably closer than they had ever been. When she died, Jane had cried for both her mother and her father, letting her grief overwhelm her for several days and then quietly pushing it to the back of her mind.
How dared Michael use this tragedy to further his own ends!
Jane allowed her anger to fuel her just enough to stay alert. Had Michael really expected to get away with his plan to discredit her? Had he really expected to convince everyone, herself included, that she was crazy and needed to be put away for her own protection? Or had he been hoping that she would spare him the trouble and simply kill herself? Had he ever really loved her at all?
Strangely enough, she believed he had, that, in fact, he still did. His expressions of love were genuine, she understood, just that his instinct for self-preservation was greater. He couldn’t possibly allow her to make her accusations public, just as he couldn’t allow her to limit his access to his child, who was, after all, an extension of himself. No boundaries.
He had come very close to succeeding, she realized with a gasp, reading the sign at the side of the highway that indicated Sagamore was sixty-two miles away. After Sagamore, it would be another twenty miles to Falmouth, and then only a few more miles to Woods Hole. She had to concentrate. Concentrate on the road ahead. She couldn’t allow her thoughts to distract her.
Still, she wondered, what had gone through Michael’s head after she’d taken off? Where had he thought she’d gone? And when she hadn’t come back, when she hadn’t tried to contact him, when she’d made no moves to find out where Emily might be, what had he thought then? Had he assumed he had frightened her away? That his threats, combined with her attack, an attack that had sliced his head open and required almost forty stitches to close, forty stitches with which to impress the hell out of any judge in a custody dispute, had sent her scrambling? Had he thought, as Carole had suggested, that she would come back after she calmed down? After she had time to think it over and admit the error of her ways?
And what must he have thought when the police called, told him that his wife was sitting on an examining table at the Boston City Hospital and seemed to have no memory? Is that when he had started cooking up his diabolical scheme? Buying time with the lie that she was visiting her brother, formulating his plan, kicking it into action, so easy to fool everyone with his reputation and his bag of doctor’s tricks. So easy to substitute one medication for another. Using her mother’s death and her own quick temper to his advantage. Letting the pieces fall naturally into place.
How long would it have worked? How long before her brother came to visit, saw what was going on, and rescued her? Jane scoffed. By the time Tommy hit town, she would have been weaving baskets in some private hellhole, too strung out on drugs to even acknowledge his presence. He would have expressed concern, even dismay, but Michael would have soon managed to persuade him, as he would have undoubtedly persuaded all their friends, that it was better for him to go back to his own life, that he would continue to look out for Jane’s best interests, that he would keep in touch.
And Emily? What would Michael have told her? That her mother had run off, abandoned them? That it was only the two of them now, that they had to stick together? Would he stress loyalty, the importance of keeping certain things secret? Would he continue to dry her after her baths and comfort her when she missed her mother by crawling into her bed at night to hold her? Would he suggest that she might be more comfortable in his bed? Would he tell her how beautiful she was, that it was her fault for being so beautiful that it made him want to do these things to her? These vile things! Jane thought, realizing when she saw a police car on the side of the road that she had been accelerating, and pumping on the brakes in an effort to slow the car down before she was caught in a radar trap.
She glanced at the police car through her rearview mirror, sighing with satisfaction when she saw he was letting her pass. She’d have to be more careful. She’d have to concentrate on her driving.
Jane looked to the side of the highway, noting that the scenery was changing as she headed down the Cape. Normally, it was a drive she cherished, leaving the city, anticipating the country air. Woods Hole was a tiny village at the tip of Cape Cod, sparsely populated and largely overlooked by tourists and cottage owners for the more fashionable islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Most people thought of Woods Hole as the place where you either got on or off the ferry. They paid Woods Hole little attention, which was just fine with the Whittakers, who had never been very comfortable with crowds. In truth, Jane had always loved the small cottage that was secluded behind a gathering of tall trees, not far from the water’s edge.
She rubbed her eyes, forcing them wide open, her thoughts returning to Michael’s scheme. What if she had regained her memory? What then? She knew the answer to that one only too well. It would be her word against his, and who was going to take very seriously the ravings of a woman who couldn’t keep track of her own identity? If her memory hadn’t returned until after she was safely locked away, then even had she eventually been released, it would be too late. Too many years would have passed. Too many fresh crimes would have been committed. Emily would be lost to her.
Had Michael molested other children as well? Was it possible that he used his position of power and trust to abuse other children?
Jane recalled the afternoon she had burst into Michael’s office, had cooled her heels in the waiting room until Michael was free to see her. She remembered the little girl who sat whimpering on her mother’s lap, crying that she wanted to go home. How quick they had been to dismiss her cries. How deaf they had been to her pain.
Had she been as insensitive to her own child?
She had tried to be the perfect mother, just as she had striven all her life to be the perfect little girl, the perfect student, the perfect employee. She had taken an active part in Emily’s education, gone so far as to attend classes in effective parenting. But while she might have been an effective parent, Michael was the one who had very early captured Emily’s heart. Jane had found herself occasionally jealous of the easy rapport they shared, the natural warmth and ease that Michael brought to fatherhood. She always considered herself a good mother, but Michael was a natural father. When had natural become unnatural?
Jane made the transition onto Highway 28 with a minimum of drama. A simple lane change eliciting a few palpitations of the heart and it was done. FALMOUTH, 20 MILES, the sign read, and she clutched the wheel tighter, and picked up her speed just a little. The next half an hour seemed to pass as slowly as the days of “The Young and the Useless.” Every second was an hour; every minute was a day. And then suddenly there was the turnoff for Woods Hole, and
Jane looked around to find herself in the middle of the country.
She could see the water of Buzzards Bay, wondered whether Emily would be swimming when she arrived. Or would she already be gone? Would Carole have succeeded in contacting Michael? Would he have managed to reach his parents? Had they already taken off for parts unknown? Perhaps she had even passed them on the highway, going in the opposite direction. Perhaps it was already too late.
“Please don’t let it be too late,” she prayed, turning the car down a small dirt road, the trees surrounding her, allowing her to approach the cottage in relative anonymity. Jane pulled the car into a makeshift driveway of small white stones several cottages away from the unvarnished wooden cottage that was the Whittakers’. She had always thought the Whittaker place the perfect cottage. Not a country home by any stretch of the imagination but a real cottage, small and basic and smelling of the woods. Not too fancy, nothing elaborate. The Whittaker cottage had running water and an indoor toilet, but that was about it in terms of modern amenities. Jane smiled when she thought of all the happy times she had spent here, recalling the photograph of her and Michael cavorting on the beach that Michael had brought with him to the hospital. The smile froze on her lips as she quietly opened the car door and stepped outside.
As soon as her legs touched the ground, her knees gave way, and she collapsed onto the blanket of hard white stones, one hand still clinging to the door handle. She stayed in this position for several seconds, unable to gather enough strength to pull herself up. Just a minute to catch my breath, she told herself, forcing her eyes to stay open, to look around, to assess her situation.
She was alone. No one seemed to be watching. Probably because it was a weekday, not as many cottagers were around, although she heard human voices in the distance, the sound of children’s laughter. Her child?
The image of Emily splashing about merrily in the water only yards from where she stood propelled Jane to her feet. The country air will hold me up, she determined, letting it fill her lungs, taking a few tentative steps forward.
She kept to the stones, avoiding the grass at the side of the road, on guard against the garter snakes that liked to sleep in the sun. She remembered one afternoon when they had all been here together, three generations of Whittakers, she the only real outsider, and she had forgone a dip in the bay in favor of a lawn chair and a good book. She had been on the verge of nodding off when she saw movement by the side of her chair. Knowing it was a snake without having to look, she had screamed and jumped up, both feet planted not so firmly in the middle of the lawn chair. She expected the snake to simply slither away, more afraid of her than she was of it, at least that’s what the Whittakers kept telling her. But the snake, an ordinary black garter snake with a yellow stripe down its thin back, had stopped and lifted itself up to almost its full height, staring right at her, as if mesmerized by the sound of her screaming.
Snakes are deaf, Michael subsequently informed her, after racing from the waterfront to her side to see what all the screaming was about. By that time, the snake had taken off. It must have been a frog, Michael insisted at the dinner table. No, it was a snake, Jane told him. I know a snake when I see one. And Michael’s parents had chuckled and exchanged knowing glances. No question about whom they believed.
Jane lowered her head and crept toward the Whittaker cottage. There was no car in the driveway. What did that mean? That they were out? That they’d gone visiting for the day? That their son had already managed to get in touch with them and told them to take Emily and clear out? Please no, anything but that, Jane pleaded, glancing to either side, then running up the several steps to the cottage’s front porch.
The cottage was quiet. Standing outside, cautiously approaching the window, Jane heard no sounds emanating from the interior. Holding her breath, she peeked in the window into the still living area.
The room looked as she had always remembered it, its interior walls the same as the exterior, its furniture colonial except for the ultramodern thirty-inch television set to the right of the central fireplace, the living room opening into the dining and kitchen areas, no doors except to the three small bedrooms and single bathroom at the rear of the cottage. Gentle folk art lined the walls: two peasant women gossiping in the sun, children fighting at their feet; men playing poker on an old barrel top, cigarette smoke wafting from between stained teeth; an old woman in a rocking chair, surrounded by a variety of cats. Everything still, as if patiently waiting for something to happen.
Could they have already left? Was she too late?
Jane peered inside, spying fresh fruit in a wicker basket on the dining room table. That didn’t necessarily mean that they were still there, she realized. Surely, if Michael had phoned, they would have just left everything.
She had to get inside; she had to find out for herself.
She tried the door, was unsurprised to find it locked. The Whittakers always locked the door, even when they were only going to the beach. You could never be too careful; you never knew who might be trying to break in, grab that thirty-inch TV.
Jane crept around the side of the cottage to the back where the three bedrooms were huddled together. The windows were open, protected by screens. Jane searched the grass for a thick branch, finally locating one and ramming it against the screen in the master bedroom until she succeeded in pushing it out of its frame. She looked around, praying no one had seen her, then pushed the window up and crawled inside.
She landed on the queensize bed just as she heard the alarm go off. Oh, no, good God, no! she thought, feeling faint, wanting only to sink inside the well-made bed. Then the alarm stopped, only to start again, and she realized it wasn’t an alarm at all, but the telephone.
The telephone was ringing.
She made no move to answer it. Was it Michael? Had Carole reached him? Had he returned Paula’s earlier message? Was he calling to warn his parents of her impending arrival? Or was it simply a friend calling from the city, someone who felt like visiting for a few days? Or maybe a neighbor, calling to report a suspicious-looking person lurking around. Whoever it was, the party being paged wasn’t home. Had they cleared out before her arrival?
Jane jumped across the bed and pulled out the drawers of the small dresser on the opposite wall, silently counting each ring of the telephone. Five rings … six … seven. The dresser was filled with clothing, as was the closet. Still, the Whittakers might have left everything behind, reasoning they could always come back later.
Jane took several giant steps into the bedroom that Emily usually occupied, finding a number of her clothes hanging neatly in the closet, a few toys lined in orderly fashion across the top of the bureau. Ten rings … eleven … twelve. Emily’s pajamas were under her pillow, and a small stuffed bunny rabbit sat perched on the top.
Jane moved about the cottage. A child’s still-damp bathing suit hung over the side of the tub in the bathroom, and the refrigerator, while far from full, hadn’t been emptied. It was possible they were still here.
The phone stopped after twenty rings. Someone was obviously very anxious to reach the Whittakers. Jane checked her watch. It was almost noon. Where could they be? She walked into the living area, letting her body collapse into an oversized orange-and-brown-striped wing chair. Despite the heat, the cottage felt cool, soothing. She leaned her head back, feeling the cushion support her tired head and wondering how long she would have to wait.
In the next minute, she was asleep.
THIRTY
SHE awoke to the sound of the phone ringing.
Jane jumped to her feet, her head spinning, her heart pounding. She checked her watch, noting with alarm that almost twenty minutes had passed since she had unwittingly closed her eyes. How stupid she was! How unbelievably careless. To have come this far only to fall asleep! Had the Whittakers returned from their outing only to find a real-life Goldilocks asleep in their chair? Had they bundled up their grandchild and fled the scene?
The phone continued to ri
ng. Three rings … four. Then another sound, the sound of a car door slamming. A woman’s voice: “Is that the phone, Bert?”
Jane stared at the phone, debating whether to yank it out of the wall, running into the kitchen instead and flinging open one of the drawers beneath the counter where she remembered Michael’s mother kept a large pair of scissors. “Be there,” she cried, and they were. Grabbing the scissors and brandishing them before her like a weapon, she returned to the living room and cut the phone wire in the middle of the sixth ring.
“I don’t hear anything,” a man’s voice said from somewhere outside the cottage door.
“Well, you’re so slow, they probably hung up. Where are you going, young lady?” the woman admonished. “You have to give your grandfather a hand with the groceries. Give her that little bag, Bert,” Doris Whittaker said clearly, her voice reaching into the dark recesses of the living room, where Jane stood frozen to the spot.
“There you go, Emmy,” a man’s voice said. “Think you can manage that one?”
“Oh, Grandpa. It’s not heavy at all.”
Jane clutched tightly to the scissors in her right hand, realizing she had left the kitchen drawer open, but knowing she didn’t have enough time to close it, ducking behind the tall wing chair in the far corner of the room as she heard the key turn in the door. The sun streaked across the floor and up the wall behind her head as the door opened. How long before they noticed the phone wires had been cut? How long before they noticed the open kitchen drawer and the missing pair of scissors? How long before she could grab her child and flee?
“Where should I put it, Grandma?”
“Put everything on the kitchen table,” Doris Whittaker called as Jane heard Emily skip across the room.