Just Jayne

by Ripley Proserpina

  I had to be better at faking it.

  I took the lawyer’s advice and found an accountant. Over the phone, we decided to invest some money and put some in trust. There was so much, I was paralyzed by it for a while. That was why buying the house felt right. I was doing something good with the money, not just sitting on it.

  Spring turned to summer, and I began to feel more comfortable in the city. I made my way around on my own, visiting shops and historic sites in the little downtime I allowed myself.

  But the nights…

  Every night, I dreamed about the guys. I thought, maybe with the passing time, they’d appear less frequently, but the opposite seemed to happen. It was like I’d opened a door with that first dream, and now my fears and regrets were streaming in.

  In every single dream, the guys threw me into Bree’s room. I pounded on the door, begging them to let me out, but nobody came. When I woke up, breathless and covered in sweat and tears, I thought about Bree. And how she was living my nightmare.

  I started to struggle with that, and found myself asking questions about psychiatric care to Rivers.

  “Most paranoid schizophrenics end up hospitalized or institutionalized,” he told me one night, barely glancing up from his book. “It’s not a bad life, but not comfortable. Obviously, best-case scenario would be they’d take their meds regularly and could live on their own. But the truth is, most will start to feel better, stop taking them, and end up on the streets.”

  “Oh,” I replied.

  He lifted his head and raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

  “Someone I knew,” I said. “They were kept at home with a private doctor.”

  “Where they stabilized?” He put his book face down on his lap.

  I thought about the woman I’d met, and shook my head. “No,” I said. “She was medicated, but definitely not stable.”

  “But she was home.” He picked the book up again. “Pretty lucky, considering. That’s the thing about having money. You can do anything with it.”

  He didn’t mean me, but I still felt guilty.

  Maybe that was why the next day, I called my accountant and made him divide the money four ways, placing amounts in River’s, Ann’s, and Charlotte’s accounts. And then I set up a trust for Charlie.

  “What the hell did you do?” Rivers yelled, slamming the front door. He strode up the stairs into the living room and glared at me.

  I knew what he was talking about. “I can’t spend that much money. I don’t need that much money.”

  “I don’t need it either, Jayne,” he retorted.

  I fell back on a childish reason. “It’s mine and I can do what I want with it. Charlotte can pay for school, and Ann can go back to school if she wants. And you—you can do whatever you want. Travel the world. Donate it. Build your own hospital. I don’t care.”

  The anger melted off him and he sat on a chair. “I can’t believe you did this.”

  “I don’t need it, Rivers,’ I said. “And there’s no way for me to repay you for everything you and your sisters have done, but maybe I can make your life a little more comfortable.”

  “I never thought when I saw you at that train station that you’d become such an important part of our lives.”

  Ten’s voice echoed in my mind. To me, the moment you step into a room, the entire world disappears. All I see is you.

  Suddenly nervous, I stood from the sofa to go into my room, but Rivers stopped me. “Jayne, I want to talk to you about something,” he said.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and I saw Charlotte’s feet between the rails, but she must have heard him and backed up.

  Oh, no.

  “I want you to come with me. To Syria. To work beside me.” That wasn’t what I was expecting.

  “What? I can’t just go somewhere because you’re going. And I’ve read about Doctors without Borders. They’re very picky about who they accept.”

  He nodded. “I need to do good work, Jayne, meaningful work. This isn’t a Doctor’s without Borders mission. An opportunity arose to go to Syria, and I took it. But watching you these last couple of months with the kids, I think you could be a huge benefit to the mission as well. Look at everything you do around here, Jayne. You cook. You clean. You work. My sisters have never been happier, and you’ve made this place a real home.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “I’m so confused,” I said. “What are you saying?”

  “It’s dangerous work, in a dangerous place. And I’m selfish enough to admit that having you with me, working beside me the way we do now as a team, appeals to me.”

  “You don’t want to be alone.”

  He shook his head. “No.” Taking a deep breath, he reached for my hands again. “Come with me, Jayne. I’ve given this a lot of thought, so hear me out. I want you to marry me and then I want us to go.”

  My ears started to ring, and I stared at him, mute with shock. He held my hands, squeezing, and I sat back, withdrawing them. “But Rivers, I don’t love you.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “And you don’t love me.” I knew that for certain.

  “I don’t,” he said. “But people like you and me, we don’t need love. We’re stronger than that. We just need a task. A purpose. I’m not looking for love, but I am looking for a companion and I think we’d be good together.”

  I began to shake my head before he finished. “No…” I sat heavily on the sofa.

  “Don’t say no.” He sat next to me. “Just think about it. Will you do that? Think about it?”

  “I won’t change my mind,” I said.

  “Please.” He’d never asked anything of me, and all he wanted was time.

  It wouldn’t change my mind. I would never marry him, so I said it again. “I won’t change my mind. I’m sorry.”

  “But you’ll think about it?” It would be hard not to.

  The walls of the house felt like they were closing in around me, and I stood. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Jayne.” He stood as well, but I held up my hand.

  “I need to think.”

  Nodding quickly, he let me go. He probably thought I was going to be turning over his proposal but I wasn’t. My answer would stand.

  Hurrying out of the house, I jogged down the busy cobblestone streets. I didn’t really know where I was going. I turned and wove, ducked down alleyways, and hiked up ancient stairways.

  Rivers’ proposal had the guys’ voices echoing in my head. I remembered, word for word, what they’d said to me when they promised to love me forever.

  They’d broken my trust, and my heart, but I still loved them. The promises I’d made to them, I kept. Slowing, I crossed the street to a small cafe. The scent of roasting coffee filled my nose, but the bitter brew held no appeal for me. I found a chair next to a window and sat.

  I realized with a flash of clarity that I’d been fooling myself. I hadn’t moved on with my life. I hadn’t found purpose.

  I’d found distraction.

  Each time the memory of the people I loved threatened, I made myself work. I stayed as busy as possible, giving myself no opportunity to reflect on what had happened. On how I’d lost them.

  I’d run away.

  It was the most cowardly thing in the world, sneaking out the window in the middle of the night rather than buckle down and hash it out.

  This was what I got for pretending Rochester’s Pathos never happened.

  Tears that I hadn’t cried since the first week I’d lived with the Cynjins spilled from my eyes, and I wiped them away. I stared out the window and wished so hard for the guys again.

  I wished it all could have been different. I wished they’d never married Bree. I wished they hadn’t lied to me. I wished I’d been braver. I wished I’d been stronger.

  “Baby, I wish you’d come back to me/Maybe come back/You’ll see me waiting/Surrounded by a crowd of people, but I’m always alone.”

  Diego’s voice filled my ears, and I gasped, wiping the te
ars. The song playing through the speakers was one I’d never heard.

  Tennyson’s violin spilled like sunlight streaming through a window. It surrounded Diego’s voice, adding a sweet melancholy to the lyrics. I listened for the rest of them, tilting my head to the side as if I could catch every nuance.

  Lee’s voice joined Diego’s. “Everything is wrong without you/Jayne, come home/I’ll wait for you, year after year, but it’s all wrong/Jayne, come home.

  The mood changed from melancholy to dark and frenetic. Klaus’s drums split the music and Lee’s guitar screamed. It reminded me of how much my heart hurt; it was the musical manifestation of the pain I felt being away from them.

  “Fucking crazy song,” a guy next to me said to a girl across from him.

  “I know,” she replied. “Can you imagine being that girl? The one the song’s about? What the hell is wrong with her? Why wouldn’t she go back after everything that happened?”

  “What happened?” I asked, leaning toward her. I was being rude and didn’t care. “Did something happen to them?”

  “Yeah.” The guy widened his eyes and looked at the girl like I was an idiot. “The fire? Their wife? They haven’t put out anything since then. May never, if the rags are true.”

  My stomach dropped and I felt sick. “Fire?”

  “The crazy wife set the house on fire. Burned it to the ground.”

  “Was anyone hurt?” I asked as I stood and pushed my arms through my coat. “Their daughter? Are the guys okay?” The man stared at me like I was insane, and I was sure I appeared that way. When he didn’t answer right away, I slammed my hand on the counter. “Are they okay?”

  “Jesus!” The guy jumped. “No. The kid is fine. Was in Disneyland with the grandparents.” The short bubble of relief I felt disappeared as he continued. “I don’t fucking know about the band. No one has seen them. The wife is dead. That’s all I know. Crazy bitch.”

  I ran out of the coffee shop all the way home. I burst through the front door and Rivers stood. “Jayne? What happened?”

  “I have to go,” I said, grabbing my purse and shoving the things I’d need into it.

  “Go?” he asked. “I don’t understand. Go where?”

  “I have to go to England. To them.”

  “To your fiancé.” Rivers crossed his arms. “Jayne, you’re better than this.”

  “I’m not.” I didn’t have much time, but I stopped long enough to try to get him to understand. “It’s not an easy love. Things were harder than I ever imagined they could be, and I left when I should have stayed and fought. I should have figured out a way to make things right. But they need me now, and I’m going to go to them.”

  “Them?” Rivers sat on the edge of the chair.

  “Rivers, I’ll always be grateful for what you did. You saved me, you and your sisters. But I was never going to marry you. You don’t need me.”

  “And they, whoever the hell they are, they do?”

  I nodded, reached forward, and touched his arm. “I need them, too.”

  And with that, I was gone.

  49

  Jayne

  The trip back to Fairfax Manor seemed interminable, probably because I’d been sick and asleep for most of the train ride away.

  I didn’t bother with the train this time. I decided to use my wealth to hire a car to drive me directly to the guys. On the way, I did what I hadn’t done the entire time I was away.

  I looked them up.

  I devoured all the news I could about the fire, and white-knuckled my way through the videos.

  “Oh God,” I whispered. Grainy cell phone video showed Bree, balancing precariously on a ledge outside her window.

  “Bree!”

  Flames obscured the camera, but I knew the voice. It was Diego. The phone shook and there was a huge crash. The fire died for a moment, and Bree fell through the frame.

  I dropped my phone in my lap and covered my eyes. Oh God. Oh God.

  “You’re watching that video about Rochester’s Pathos, yeah?” the driver asked me.

  It was a moment before I could speak. “I didn’t know,” I said.

  “Real sad, that,” he replied. “No one’s seen them since the fire. There are some rumors about their injuries but nothing anyone knows for sure.”

  It was a month after I’d left. While I was lying on the Cynjins’ sofa, being cared for, feeling proud for cleaning a bathroom, their entire world blew up.

  When I didn’t answer, the driver didn’t press me. We made the four hour journey in silence. It wasn’t until we drove up to the manor road and stopped at the first guard house that the man turned around in his seat and eyed me nervously. “Who are you?” he asked.

  I opened the back window and leaned out to speak to the guard. “Jayne Burns.”

  “Jayne Burns.” The guard’s eyes widened. “Okay. I need to call this in, just hold on.” He ducked inside the house before sticking his head out again. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I won’t.”

  The driver still stared at me, I could feel him watching. “You’re Jayne?” he asked. “From the song?”

  I nodded, eyes on the booth. “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t know about any of this?”

  I shook my head.

  “Go on.” The guard waved us through. “No one will stop you. Go right up to the house. North wing. And be careful. There’s still a lot of debris.”

  That was all he said, though he opened his mouth as if there was more. The driver pressed the gas and we drove away.

  The sun was starting to go down, so at first, what I thought I was seeing were shadows falling across the ancient stone. But as we got closer, I realized the shadows were the skeletal remains of the south wing of the house. The place where I slept, and where Sophie slept, it was gone in a pile of timber and stone.

  “Here is fine,” I said to the driver, and he stopped. I gave him a handful of cash, not counting any of it, and jumped out of the car.

  “Do you want me to wait?” he called.

  “No!” I called back and rushed to the house. The front door was nailed shut, plywood boards across the frame. There was a back door, off the kitchen, and I was certain another door into the north wing where the band’s equipment was dropped off. I’d never been through that way, but I thought I remembered it.

  Debris littered the grounds, and my feet crunched through glass. There were no lights on this side of the manor. It occurred to me that they weren’t here, and I had no idea where to look for them.

  California?

  London?

  The lyrics of their song ran through my head. Come home. They were telling me where I could find them and where they’d be waiting for me. They had to be here. Fairfax Manor was home.

  The grass was wet with dew and the flowers were in bloom. Roses climbed the trellis along the side of the house, while hydrangeas, blue and white, puffed out around the corners of the stone. There were huge peonies with bright white and pink petals, and allium in shades of purple. All of the colors seemed muted in the twilight. It struck me, no matter what had been lost, there was still beauty here.

  I came around the back of the house and wished I was taller. The windows were above my head and the bushes too full for me to creep closer.

  This was the back of the house, and it was darker and cooler. The front of the house faced west, and the sun, though lowering to the horizon, shone enough that I could see where I was going.

  It was messier back here, too. There was a dumpster loaded with charred wood and broken furniture. A flash of gold caught my eye, and I moved closer.

  It was a gold record. I couldn’t see over the edge of it, it was too high up, but there was so much debris, it made a mound over the top.

  My heart ached, and I shut my eyes. Guilt flooded me at the knowledge that I had left them to this.

  They’d needed me, and I hadn’t come.

  Rusty hinges creaked, echoing across the cobblestone, and Mrs. Foster appe
ared, framed in the light.

  “Mrs. Foster.” I hurried to her, and she stepped back into the doorway, hand over her heart.

  “Jayne?” she asked. “Jayne Burns?”

  “It’s me,” I said. “I came as soon as I learned about it. Where are they? Are they all right.”

  “Jayne,” she repeated and rushed to me, enfolding me in her arms. “Oh, Jayne! You’re alive, thank god.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I repeated. It felt like all of this was my fault. “I’m sorry. Please, how are they?”

  Mrs. Foster stepped away, wiping tears off her face. She took my hand and led me inside to a makeshift kitchen. “It was so awful when you left,” she said. “I understood it and I was glad. They—they shouldn’t have lied, and I’m so sorry for not telling you about Bree. I should have.”

  She wasn’t answering my question and I peered around her to the darkened hall. If she wouldn’t tell me, I’d find them and see for myself. “Are they here?”

  “Yes.”

  I moved to leave but she stopped me.

  “You have to be prepared.”

  I locked my knees to stay standing. “Why?” I asked, voice hoarse.

  “They were injured, trying to save Bree. They’re not the same men you left.”

  A thousand imagined injuries rushed through my mind. “Mrs. Foster, please. Just say it. I can’t take it.”

  “Diego…” She bit her lip. “He was burned, across his face, and lost sight in one eye. The floor collapsed, and Lee, Klaus and Ten fell through. Klaus broke his leg, and Lee broke his arm. A burning timber fell on Klaus and Ten lifted it off. His hands were burned.”

  I nodded. All of those things—they were awful—and my heart ached for them, but they were alive. And injured, burned, partially blind. I didn’t care. It only made me love them more.

  “Where are they?” I asked.

  With a sigh, Mrs. Foster pointed down the hall. “I should announce you.”