Whatever Happened to Janie?

by Caroline B. Cooney

  How romantic it had seemed that first week. Real family emerges from shadowy past! Girl discovers bizarre kidnapping, unknown even to the kidnappers!

  But it was not romantic. It was the brutal collapse of the woman and man she called Mommy and Daddy.

  Janie’s friends had long ago stopped calling their parents by baby names. Mother and Dad, or Mom and Pop, were what other people said. For Janie, her parents were still Mommy and Daddy.

  And what had happened to Mommy and Daddy?

  Her mother stumbled through their lovely home as if the floor, like life, had come out from under her. Her handsome silver-haired father, who coached school sports during slow seasons in his accounting practice, had become silent and stunned.

  It was Janie’s fault. She had had choices. She could have said nothing. She could have done nothing. Could have let it go. Let it stay a mystery. She could have chosen to forget the hundred strange things that did not add up.

  Janie’s head rang with “if only’s.” If only she had not taken Sarah-Charlotte’s milk carton at lunch. She had been given a milk allergy for an important reason: so she would never lay eyes on the photograph of the missing child featured on the milk carton. But one fine autumn day, in the school cafeteria, Janie snitched Sarah-Charlotte’s milk.

  If only she had tossed that milk carton into the garbage.

  If only she had not researched newspaper clippings!

  If only she had not told Reeve.

  If only Reeve had not told his lawyer sister Lizzie.

  And yet … the Springs were right. Morally. Weren’t they? Wasn’t she their child? Didn’t she belong with them?

  It was too terrifying to think about. Tomorrow she would get in a car and drive across two state lines and belong to another family. Another family that included three brothers and a sister she had never met. In the midst of overwhelming media attention, she would start classes at a new high school. She could not believe she had to handle so much at once.

  How would Mommy and Daddy manage without her?

  Downstairs Janie’s friends were gathered. It was supposed to be a party. It was a disaster. Sarah-Charlotte had insisted there had to be a good-bye party. It’s a big event, Sarah-Charlotte pointed out, which was certainly true. But an event to celebrate? Not at this end, it wasn’t.

  Janie had no idea, absolutely none at all, how they felt at the other end. The New Jersey end.

  She saw New Jersey through a tunnel of fear. She felt as if she were being poured down some evil tube, and she could land in almost anything, and there would be no way out, because she no longer had parents.

  Remaining calm was the most important thing. People kept saying to each other, Now stay calm. For a while, the Johnsons were all so calm that Reeve wanted to know if they were making night trips to a mortuary and getting embalmed.

  Janie’s heart softened, thinking of Reeve, who was still funny. But I’ve lost him, too, she thought. My first boyfriend. My only boyfriend. I can’t talk to him either. That’s part of the deal. Not talking.

  Sunshine filled Janie’s bedroom. It was January, and very cold. Ice clung to streets and the branches of trees, but the room was warm and gold.

  Janie extended her fingertips. Fearfully, as if choosing to be burned by a hot iron, she touched her mother’s shoulder. She broke through. For a moment, touch erased truth.

  Mother and daughter hugged, and rocked, and felt each other.

  Love, pain, rage, hope, fear—every emotion lost during these last few weeks filled both of them. We weren’t calm! Janie thought. We flattened ourselves, so we could fit through this. “Mommy,” she whispered, “please don’t be mad.”

  Her mother covered Janie’s face with kisses, slowly, as if her lips were memorizing Janie. “I’m not mad at you, honey,” said her mother. “How can I be mad at you? I love you. You are my life. I’m mad at Hannah! She did this to us. Twice she’s ruined us.”

  Hannah. The part of the equation nobody knew, nobody understood, nobody would ever find.

  “And most of all, I’m mad at the—” Her mother broke off.

  I’m mad at the Springs. That was the sentence. Neither of her parents had said it out loud. Neither had broken down and screamed, How dare they want you back? You are ours. You are Janie Johnson, not Jennie Spring.

  I’m maddest, Janie realized. I am so mad at the Springs. They kept looking. They put that photograph of their missing daughter on the milk carton. I saw it. And now they’re taking me back.

  There had not really been any threats. Nobody had said, Jennie comes to live with us or you go to prison! It was simply clear, once the facts were known, that this girl was not a Johnson. She was a Spring. She belonged with her birth family.

  If Jennie comes back to us, said the Springs through their lawyer, it will not be necessary for us to find Hannah. We will not prosecute her.

  For Hannah it must have been a single silly afternoon, probably long forgotten, in which she stole a car and then a kid. But the aftereffects of Hannah’s deed rippled on through all their lives. Frank and Miranda Johnson would not survive the criminal trial of their real daughter. They were barely surviving this.

  Whoever and whatever Hannah was now, it was imperative that nobody find her.

  So Janie had to leave when her parents needed her most, and go to live with strangers. Will they feel like strangers? thought Janie. Will I walk in the door and know that I am home? Will I remember them once we sit down together?

  Downstairs the failed party continued.

  This was not going away to college, or heading to Europe for the summer. This was not your parents getting terrific promotions and moving to worthy places like California or Texas, so everybody would want to visit you and get letters from you and be envious because you weren’t stuck in plain old small-town New England anymore.

  This was a party for the end of a person. The name Janie Johnson would vanish into the history of her life. Janie Johnson would drive away, but when she opened that car door in New Jersey, she’d be a girl named Jennie Spring. A girl who had not existed for twelve years.

  It was so ironic. In elementary and middle school Janie had detested her name—dull as a phone-book entry. The younger Janie had constantly revised it. Changed Johnson to Jonstone. Changed Janie to Jayyne. Jayyne Jonstone. A name with possibilities, as opposed to the real name, which was lumpy and forgettable.

  Well, she had gotten her wish for a different name. And it had more possibilities than any fantasy anyone could have had.

  For the mother she was embracing, there might as well be a gravestone with Janie Johnson on it.

  And that other mother, that biological mother? What was she thinking? That father … those new brothers and the sister. Who were they? What was going to happen?

  Janie released her mother and walked to the window. She did not know why she had done that—ended the most precious hug of her life. There would not be another one. That intensity, that depth of agony and love—they couldn’t bear it again. The next hug, the final good-bye, would be the faked calm they were all so good at now.

  There was a knock on the bedroom door. It was not Sarah-Charlotte, because she was downstairs commanding the party. Who else would have the nerve to come upstairs and interrupt Janie and Mrs. Johnson? Janie opened the bedroom door.

  Reeve, of course. Who had rescued her from so much, but who could not rescue her from this. She gave him a tight smile. He’ll still have my mother, thought Janie. I’ll lose Mommy forever, but for Reeve, she’ll still be the lady next door. This’ll still be the house where he ate half his meals back when his own family was driving him crazy.

  Janie was actually jealous. Reeve’s parents were really his parents; Reeve’s town would still be this town; Reeve’s name would still be Reeve.

  “People are leaving,” said Reeve. He always did that—offering facts, not suggesting an action. Even when Janie confessed that she was the missing child on the milk carton, Reeve had not forced action upon h
er. He had let her talk, and talk, and talk, when what he wanted was to kiss, and kiss, and kiss.

  “Janie!” shouted Sarah-Charlotte up the stairs.

  “Coming!” shouted Janie. She marveled at the cheery light in her voice. She took Reeve’s hand. She turned her back on the woman standing in the sunny bedroom and went downstairs to rescue the party.

  How, thought Janie Johnson, do I go on being happy, when it turns out I enjoyed being kidnapped? How do I face my birth family, when it turns out I cooperated in my own kidnapping? How do the parents I love go on loving me, when I’m the one who turned them in?

  CHAPTER

  3

  Mr and Mrs. Johnson could not make a long drive on the interstate, fighting traffic, paying tolls, remembering street directions. Not when the journey would end the family.

  So one of the lawyers was taking Janie.

  Reeve leaned against the dining-room wall, staring out the window, waiting for the lawyer’s car to arrive and his mother’s permission to go outside and say good-bye. His mother had refused to let him interrupt the Johnsons this morning. Reeve had spent half his life interrupting the Johnsons and was one hundred percent sure of his welcome. He obeyed his mother, but not without a thousand arguments.

  Reeve had not slept very well. But he was pretty sure he had slept better than any of the Johnsons.

  He loved Janie. Technically she loved him too, but she was divorced from the world right now, and that included Reeve. He had always thought of her as a dizzy redhead, but the word “dizzy” had been a compliment. He thought of Janie as light and airy, like hope and joy. Now “dizzy” meant stumbling and scared, her head swimming with fear.

  He thought the promises made by Janie and her parents were wrong, and he thought the Springs were wrong to have asked for them. The promise of silence was terrible. How could Janie not telephone home? Not write? Not visit?

  But the Springs wanted their daughter—it was still weird to realize that Janie was somebody else’s daughter—to go cold turkey, like giving up cigarettes or booze. Except Janie had to give up her family. As if Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were nothing but an addiction, and three months off would take care of any foolish lingering love.

  “It’s not as bad as you’re making it sound,” said Mrs. Shields. She had baked for the occasion. This was how she faced change. She baked for funerals and weddings, she baked for newcomers to the block and friends retiring to Florida. Reeve often wondered about women, but he wondered about his mother most. Why, when Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were saying good-bye to their only child, had his mother made them a chicken, linguini, and olive casserole? Why, when Janie was turning into Jennie, had his mother made her four dozen double-chocolate-chip cookies?

  “It is so as bad,” said Reeve. His breath had fogged up the window. He rubbed it off with his sweater sleeve.

  “If I were the Springs,” said his mother, “which thank God I am not, can you imagine wondering where your daughter was for twelve years? I mean, I was crazy when Lizzie disappeared for that one night, do you remember that one terrible night? And Lizzie was eighteen, and still I called the police, but—”

  Reeve’s mother rarely got to the point. He felt himself losing patience with her, and forced himself to stay motionless. He was supposed to carry the casserole over to the Johnsons, because his mother felt awkward about it. How does she think I feel? thought Reeve.

  “—it’s really the only way to put something behind you. You have to focus on the new, not the old. So I think it probably is the right way for Janie to make adjustments.”

  Reeve did not want to be an “adjustment” that Janie had to put behind her. He wanted to be her boyfriend. It was his senior year. He had actually given some thought to senior events, like the prom and graduation dinner.

  What were the Springs like? Would they have a sense of humor? Could he call them up and ask if Janie could have a weekend prison pass for the senior prom?

  No, he could not call them up. His marching orders, like Janie’s, were No Communication.

  He thought it would be easier for Janie than for him. She was a little frozen, as if the blizzard of worries had iced her funny laugh and soft skin and adorable smile and—

  Oh, well. Reeve blinked away his fantasies of the rest of her. He had not gotten the rest of her; all plans go astray when somebody turns out to be a kidnap victim.

  A long, low American four-door, black paint job, shaded windows, pulled up the Johnsons’ driveway. Janie might as well be leaving in a hearse.

  I should have made her something, thought Reeve. She doesn’t have anything of me to take with her.

  When I’m finally allowed to call, will I have to call her Jennie? thought Reeve.

  He was suddenly not eager to go outside. He didn’t want to go through this either.

  “Hold the casserole carefully,” instructed his mother. “Tell Janie she’ll want to share the cookies with her new family. Now don’t drop anything. Latch the door so the wind doesn’t get in the house.”

  Sometimes Reeve couldn’t stand women. They were so practical. How could his mother think of drafts and utility bills at a time like this? He turned to tell her for once and for all that he was not going to say good-bye to Janie with a chicken casserole in one hand.

  His mother was weeping.

  It was like a yawn. He caught it; his own tears fell.

  Oh, God, thought Reeve, not a chicken casserole and tears.

  “Come with me, Mom,” he said. He realized as soon as he said it that he needed her. Not to carry her dumb casserole, but to carry some of the horror of this. A mother and father were burying their lives. A girl Reeve loved was driving off into the horizon to God knew what.

  Reeve and Mrs. Shields went out of their house and over to the car.

  Janie and Mr. and Mrs. Johnson came out at the same moment.

  Reeve was so pleased to see that the Johnsons looked good. They must have made a monumental effort for Janie. Mrs. Johnson looked lovely in her scarlet suit, with her gold earrings and chains, her hair nicely curled. Mr. Johnson had shaved for the first time in days, and was in a good pair of cords and a new sweater, with a crisp shirt collar sticking up.

  Janie was wearing a heavy coat, hiding her choice of clothing. Janie and Sarah-Charlotte had spent many hours in Janie’s closet, discussing what she should wear to greet the Springs. “What do you think, Reeve?” Janie had asked at last.

  “Clothes,” Reeve had recommended.

  Janie looked beautiful. The chaotic mass of red curls was partially tamed by a hairband. One of the things Reeve had to admit he loved about Janie was that he was so big next to her. Reeve had had but one goal through most of his life: to top six feet. Having made that, he yearned for muscles. Having acquired those, he had at last been willing to consider studying. He was not going to get into the best college in the world, but he looked great.

  “You look great,” whispered Janie.

  She had done a lot of whispering lately. He thought: the Springs will be the next people to hear her laugh. He hoped she would be able to laugh. He hoped she would be all right. He hoped she would remember him and not adjust him away.

  He hugged her. Very unsatisfying. It was a neighborly hug, when what Reeve wanted was—well, forget it. He wasn’t getting that.

  Everybody said good-bye. Everybody was calm. The lawyer shook hands all around. The lawyer opened the passenger door for Janie. Janie looked at the seat as if most people who sat there got electrocuted.

  “Mommy?” said Janie.

  Her mother seized her, hugging ferociously.

  They both kept from crying.

  Mrs. Johnson drew a shaky breath and said, one word stumbling slowly after another, “Be our good girl. Make us proud. Show them we were good parents to you.”

  Just drive away, thought Reeve. This is enough. Get going.

  Janie hugged her father one last time. Her father said nothing, just kissed his beloved daughter. A single tear came down his cheek, takin
g its time, finding every wrinkle and crack.

  Janie got in; the lawyer started the engine and reversed out the driveway. If Janie waved, you could not see through the dark glass.

  The lawyer shifted into Drive and accelerated down the road. Away to New Jersey.

  Mrs. Johnson started to fall.

  Her husband and Reeve caught her.

  “Don’t let Janie see,” she whispered.

  The black car disappeared. Janie had not seen.

  “You’ll love this casserole,” said Mrs. Shields. “Come on. It’s January and we’re standing around out here. Let’s go in.” She shepherded the Johnsons inside their house.

  Reeve stood in the driveway a long time. After a while he noticed that he had never given Janie the double-chocolate-chip cookies.

  Three months of silence, he thought. It’s good I have the cookies. I’m going to need chocolate to last that long.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Stephen was afraid of his own fury.

  If he felt like running, he could run off the rage that lived inside him. But he was not an athlete like his younger brothers. Sports annoyed and bored him. Sporadically he went out for a team and found it difficult to get through the season.

  Yet his rage settled to the bottom only when he was physically exhausted. Sophomore year he’d made swim team. They had been required to work out in the weight room five mornings a week and swim five afternoons a week. That season, there had been no anger.

  But he didn’t stay with the swim team. Stephen had never stayed with anything.

  Along with the rage was a restlessness.

  Stephen disliked being a teenager. He yearned to be gone, to be away from this confining house and these demanding parents.

  He never allowed himself to scream at his mother and father. All the self-discipline Stephen had was poured into allowing his parents to live the way they had to live: in fear.

  From the day that his sister Jennie disappeared, when Stephen was only six years old, the Spring household had been ruled by fear.