See Jane Run Page 18

  “I remember,” Jane lied. No, she wasn’t lying—she was confabulating.

  “Dr. Whittaker’s office. No, I’m sorry, he’s with a patient right now. Oh, yes, hello, Mrs. Sommerville. What seems to be the problem?”

  Jane turned her attention from the farsighted receptionist to the little girl who sat whimpering on her mother’s lap.

  “It’ll be all right, Lisa,” the child’s mother was saying. “Dr. Whittaker just has to check and make sure everything’s all right. He isn’t going to hurt you.”

  “I don’t want to go.” The child’s voice gathered strength with each word.

  “We’ll be in and out in five minutes. No needles, I promise you. Here, why don’t you play with the building blocks for a while?” She reached into the large toy box beside her and pulled out a stack of wooden blocks. They promptly fell to the floor and scattered in all directions. Lisa squealed and jumped from her mother’s lap to retrieve them.

  The woman became aware of Jane’s steady gaze. “She doesn’t like anything to do with doctors. The other day my husband said he wanted to take a few pictures, and she started screaming. We finally figured out that she thought he was going to take X-rays! I mean, that’s what we always said when she had to go for X-rays, that she just had to have a few pictures taken, so she naturally started equating the two. Once we explained that they were two different things, we had no problem at all. She turned into a regular Cindy Crawford.”

  CINDY CRAWFORD.

  Jane looked at her hands, recalling the beautiful, confident face that had smiled up at her from the cover of the magazine moments before she discovered the front of her dress covered with blood.

  The memory caused Jane to leap from her chair. She bolted for the door without any thought as to where she might be going. It was only when she felt a sharp stab at her ankle that she stopped, looking down to see the wing of the toy airplane that had struck at her leg, like a snake in the grass. She reached down to pick it up, hearing voices rush to surround her.

  “Jane, are you all right? Where were you going?”

  “I’m sorry. Did I say something to upset you?”

  “I’m sure Ms. Marinelli will be back any second.”

  “Mommy, I want to go home.”

  Jane looked from the toy airplane in her hands to little Lisa on the floor, to the child’s mother, half-in, half-out of her chair, to Rosie Fitzgibbons, standing behind her desk, the phone still in her hands. “Maybe you should get rid of these things,” Jane said, indicating the model plane, thinking of what had happened to Michael. “They’re a menace.”

  “You have to be very careful where you walk around here,” Rosie agreed, returning the phone to its carnage, and sitting back down.

  Jane’s eyes traveled across the well-worn carpet. “You certainly did a good job of cleaning up the blood.”

  “Blood?”

  “Mommy!” Lisa quickly retreated to her mother’s lap at the mention of the word.

  “When that little boy threw the plane at Michael’s head. There must have been a great deal of blood to have required so many stitches.”

  Rosie Fitzgibbons looked totally perplexed. “I’m not sure I’m following you….”

  The door to Michael’s inner office opened and Stuart and his father (grandfather?) emerged. Almost simultaneously, Paula strode into the reception area, and Michael appeared at her side.

  “I’ll get home as soon as I can,” he whispered, then winked. “We’ll do lunch.”

  Jane smiled, her eyes lifting to his forehead, imagining the row of stitches hidden by his hair, convinced that in addition to her memory, she was now losing her mind.

  FIFTEEN

  OF course it was possible that the incident hadn’t occurred in the outer office at all, Jane told herself, vaguely mindful of the scenery rushing past. Paula was driving very quickly, as if to minimize the time wherein anything might go wrong with her car. Jane was anxious to get out of the aged automobile. Its sputtering made her nervous, her heart lurching in time with the engine. She would have preferred to get out and walk the rest of the way, but she knew Paula would never agree, even though they couldn’t be more than a few miles from her home. Maybe when they were safely back in her driveway, Paula would consent to a stroll around the neighborhood before lunch. She was feeling stronger. It was conceivable that her legs could carry her a few blocks.

  The more Jane thought about it, the more she was convinced that the fresh air would do her good—clear away the remaining cobwebs, give her thoughts, as well as her legs, some needed room to stretch. Right now, a million disparate ideas were crowding against the edges of her brain, straining against one another, pushing this way and that without ever really connecting, like children fighting in a playground. She needed to open the gates, let her thoughts run free, give some of these crazy theories the room they required to express themselves and then be gone.

  And just what were some of these theories? That her husband had lied when he told Paula he’d been hit in the head by a model airplane? That Paula had made the whole story up to protect Michael? That it was some sort of elaborate conspiracy? Or maybe Michael really had been struck in the head by a model airplane, exactly as he had said, except that the incident hadn’t taken place in his office, at least not the outer office—had he ever said it happened in the outer office?—but somewhere else.

  Where else? The outer office was where he kept his toy box. Of course one of the children could have carried the model plane into his inner office, let it loose in there. Except that there’d been no bloodstains on that carpet either. She would have noticed. She’d noticed everything else: the furniture; the books; the photographs. True, she hadn’t been thinking about his head wound at the time, but surely she would have noticed something as identifiable as a bloodstain. She was getting very good at recognizing blood.

  Or maybe the incident hadn’t taken place at all.

  Rosie Fitzgibbons didn’t seem to know anything about it. Her eyes had grown as wide as her glasses when Jane had brought the subject up. “I’m not following you,” she had said. Obviously, she knew nothing about any such incident. Unless, of course, she’d been away from her desk at the time. Or away that day. There was always that possibility. God knew, there were endless possibilities.

  And the worst of all possibilities—that she really was going crazy. That she had misinterpreted everything: the stitches, Paula’s explanation, Rosie’s response. It didn’t make sense. Nothing about her life made sense anymore. Had it ever?

  Why would Michael lie? What would be the point? Her mind raced in frantic circles searching for answers. There was only one possible explanation: If Michael had lied, he had lied to protect her. He knew what had happened, what she had done, and it was something so awful, so unforgivable, that she had to be protected from it. Had he been there? Tried to stop her? Was she the one responsible for the deep gash across his forehead that required almost forty stitches to close? Had it been Michael’s blood covering the front of her blue dress?

  She gasped, her body crumpling.

  “What’s the matter? Are you going to be sick?” The sound of Paula’s voice caused the unpleasant images to scatter.

  “What? Oh, no. No.” Jane pushed herself back into a more appropriate position, looking out the side window as the car turned onto Forest Street. “I was just stretching, trying to get some exercise.” She wasn’t lying, she told herself. She was confabulating. “Maybe we could go for a walk.”

  “I think you’ve done enough for one day.”

  “Just a short one.”

  Paula pulled the car into the driveway. “We really don’t have time. I have to make something special for lunch if Dr. Whittaker’s coming home.”

  “You don’t have to come with me. I’m sure I can manage.”

  “Just this morning you could barely make it out of bed.”

  “But I’m feeling much stronger now, and besides, I’ll only go around the block.”

  �
�And not be here when your husband comes all the way home for lunch just to be with you?”

  “I’d only be a few minutes,” Jane began, then stopped, recognizing a lost cause as easily as she recognized blood. She opened the car door and climbed out.

  She was heading for the front door when a strong male voice stopped her. “Jane!”

  She turned, expecting to see Michael, determined to run to him, plead with him to tell her the truth. All this second-guessing was making her crazy. She would tell him everything, about the money and the blood, as she should have done in the first place, and beg him to do the same. I don’t need protection, she would tell him. I need to know what really happened. But instead of Michael, she saw a nice-looking stranger with dark-brown hair and an easy smile waving to her from Carole’s front lawn. Was he someone she was supposed to know?

  Before Paula could stop her, Jane burst from her side and ran across the road, leaving Paula to stare helplessly after her. “Hi,” Jane called as the smiling figure advanced to greet her.

  “It’s nice to see you,” he said, getting closer, his smile freezing, his voice growing dark. “Are you all right? You don’t look very well.”

  Jane was grateful for his use of understatement, whoever he was. “I’ve been sick. But I’m getting better.”

  “I hope nothing serious.” His eyes told her he was afraid it was.

  “Just one of those mystery viruses,” Jane told him, remembering what Michael had told his receptionist. “I’m on the mend.” Who was she talking to? Who was this man and why did he care how she felt?

  “I guess you haven’t been doing much running lately.”

  “Running? No, I certainly haven’t felt much like running.” Running away, maybe, she thought, but didn’t say. “This is the first day in over a week that I’ve been up and around.”

  “Well, then I’m doubly lucky to have been here today. Actually, I haven’t been doing much running either,” he confessed, obviously trying to prolong the conversation. “Although I’m starting to get back into it again.” He looked at his feet. “I guess it’s always hard beginning again.”

  At last a statement with which she could identify!

  So, this must be her former jogging partner, Carole’s ex-husband, Daniel, she realized, looking at him with fresh perspective. Not just some charming stranger inquiring as to her health, but the man who had abandoned his wife and teenage children, not to mention his father-in-law and dog, for a permanent jog down the old Freedom Trail. A man with the courage to succeed where she had failed, the courage to create a whole new life. “So, how is everything working out for you … Daniel?”

  “Oh, no, you’re not going to go formal on me, are you?” He sounded almost despondent.

  “What?”

  “Well, I know that Carole prefers Daniel, and you’ve probably been talking to Carole a lot these days, but does that mean you have to call me Daniel too? Couldn’t you just call me Danny, like always?”

  Jane swallowed her mistake, then smiled. “Danny,” she repeated.

  “That’s better. I heard Daniel come out of your mouth, and I was afraid you’d started to hate me.”

  “I could never hate you.” Was that true? Somehow, she knew it was.

  “Well, I tell you, divorce sure lets you know who your friends are. I can’t tell you how many of our so-called friends totally deserted me after the split. People I thought I could count on, people I thought could somehow manage to find room in their lives for both Carole and me, but I guess I was expecting too much.”

  “It’s hard.” Was it?

  “I’ve felt very guilty about you, though,” he said, and Jane found herself trying to crawl inside his opaque blue eyes. “At the very least, I should have called to say good-bye.”

  Jane said nothing, afraid she would reveal her ignorance should she voice any opinion at all. Obviously, Carole had said nothing to him about her condition. She wondered if she should tell him.

  “I started to call you at least half a dozen times,” he continued without prompting, taking her silence as a sign to continue. “But I guess I felt we’d already said our goodbyes. All those mornings where I poured my heart out to you. All those times you listened to me moan about my life. You knew what I was going through.” He was silent for a moment. “And I knew you had a pretty good idea how I felt about you.” Another second’s silence. “What more was there to say?” He put his hands in the pockets of his casual pants, then immediately pulled them out again, reaching toward her, connecting, running his hands up and down her bare arms. “Still, I don’t think I ever told you how much you meant to me, how much you helped me. I know you didn’t approve of the way I ultimately handled things but at least you never judged me. And I appreciated that. And I still do.” He paused, as if carefully selecting what he was about to say next. “I’ve missed you,” he began. “I think about you a lot. I used to wonder if you still went running without me.” He looked at her closely, his face filling with concern. “I’m really sorry to hear that you haven’t been well.”

  “Actually, it’s a little bit more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jane shrugged, wondering where to begin, when out of the corner of her eye she saw the front door to Carole’s house open and Daniel’s son, Andrew, emerge from the house, one arm around a large rolled sleeping bag, the other weighted down with a large canvas overnight bag. Jane shook her head, deciding now was not the best time for true confessions. “Are you going somewhere with Andrew?” she asked instead.

  “I’m driving him to camp.” They both watched as Carole followed her son out the front door, then surrounded him with her body, pinning his arms helplessly to his sides.

  “She spends all day yelling at him, and then she can’t bear to let him go,” Daniel remarked, and Jane wasn’t sure whether he was talking about Andrew or himself.

  “What about Celine?”

  “She left on Saturday.”

  “They don’t go to the same camp?”

  “No. Celine goes to Manitou. Don’t you remember? You’re the one who recommended it.”

  Jane felt her body break into a sweat. “Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking about.”

  Daniel’s dark-blue eyes narrowed in concern, his hand returning to stroke her bare arm. “Are you all right? You went white as a ghost. Maybe you should get back into bed.”

  “No, I’m fine.” The last thing Jane wanted was to get back into bed. “I guess I’m still a little weak, that’s all.” She had to learn to say as little as possible during these encounters with strangers from her past. The quieter she was, the more they revealed, the more she learned, the fewer mistakes she could make.

  “Where should I put this stuff, Dad?” Andrew was already at his father’s car. “Hi, Mrs. Whittaker.”

  “Hello, Andrew,” Jane said softly.

  “I think there’s some room in the trunk. If not, lay them on the backseat.”

  “That’s your new philosophy on life, isn’t it?” Carole asked, joining Jane and Daniel on the lawn, her voice as sharp as a straight razor. “Laying them on the back seat?”

  Jane turned away, feeling embarrassed and even a little guilty, though she wasn’t sure why. She watched Andrew open the trunk and deposit his bags inside, his arms and legs in constant motion, as if he were more animated cartoon than real boy. Were all teenage boys so busy?

  “Do you think we could lay off the sarcasm for a few minutes?” Daniel’s voice was quieter than Carole’s, though no less angry.

  Jane had no wish to find herself in the middle of a family squabble. Maybe now was the right time to retreat. Maybe she could use a little rest before Michael came home. “I probably should get going….”

  “You’re not going to let a little spousal tension scare you away, are you?” Carole’s voice was a challenge.

  “Well, I’m still feeling a little weak …”

  “I know. You’ve been through so much.” There was a nasty under
tone to Carole’s voice that Jane had never heard before. It was as if her anger at Daniel extended to anything, and anyone, in the immediate vicinity. “It was so thoughtful of you to climb out of your sickbed to say hello. I bet you’ve been watching from the bedroom window all week, waiting for Daniel to turn up.”

  “Jane was just getting home as I was coming out the door,” Daniel explained.

  “How wonderfully convenient. But then, you’ve always managed to suit things to your convenience, haven’t you?”

  Jane wasn’t sure whether the question was directed at her or at Daniel.

  “Carole, is this really necessary?”

  “Oh, I’m just getting started. Stick around.”

  “Sounds delightful, but I have to drive our son to camp.”

  “Isn’t it nice always having somewhere to run off to?”

  “Look, Carole, I don’t know what set you off, but in another minute, I’ll be out of your hair, and you won’t have to see me again till the fall.”

  “Just as long as I see my monthly check.”

  Daniel’s shoulders slumped forward in defeat. Jane could feel the conflicting urges—to respond, to let it lie, to strike back, to smooth things over—vibrating through his body. He was about to speak when Andrew interrupted from the side of the car.

  “Come on, Dad, let’s get out of here.”

  “The voice of reason,” Daniel remarked, turning to Jane. “Take care of yourself.”

  “Oh, go on and kiss her, for God’s sake. Don’t let me inhibit you,” Carole spit out, pushing past them toward the car, where she locked her squirming son in one last embrace.

  “Call me if you need … anything,” Daniel said instead.

  “Thank you,” Jane began. “I might do that.”

  “I’m sure she will,” Carole interrupted, stepping away from the car. “Jane’s very needy these days, aren’t you, dear?”

  “Come on, Dad!”

  “Have a good time at camp, Andrew,” Jane called toward the young boy who sat fidgeting in the front seat. “Drive carefully,” she said to Daniel.