JANE
I do not go home.
I should go home, back to East Somerville. I should take an Uber to Provincetown, hop a ferry to Boston, and slog my way through the T to our tiny apartment. I should ask our downstairs neighbor for the spare and let myself in. I should toss all of Erik’s belongings—including his precious Klipsch speakers—out the window, where they will smash onto the hard alleyway below. Then I should call a locksmith, change the locks, and inform Erik by singing telegram that we’re through.
Instead, I bike down to the ocean and, like a pathetic character from a sappy Lifetime movie, sit on the barren dune, hugging my knees as the drizzle picks up and turns to rain, the wind whipping my skin raw red. I want to boldly recalibrate where I am right now—at the end of the earth, confronting the maw of a great and fearsome, unforgiving ocean.
I want a good, racking cry.
Erik is—was—my best friend, who I believed in my heart truly loved me for me. He’s the only one I get to call my own. My mother’s dead and my sister’s been gone so long I barely remember her laugh. Erik is all I have of a family. Without him, I am cut adrift, bobbing on the sea of life like a fragile piece of driftwood.
“Hey there, snuggle bunny. Time to rise and shine!” That’s Erik’s dorky and lovable morning greeting. How can a man who calls you snuggle bunny drive a knife into your back? I never imagined he’d be capable of such deceit.
Our initial encounter in the fluorescent-lit basement of Whipley Hall eons ago was anything but romantic. Erik’s windowless office reeked of raw garlic and anchovies thanks to his unwise lunch choice of a Caesar salad with extra dressing. He was furiously wrapping up the remains when I entered, taking a step back for a breath of fresh air. Erik was big and bearded with glasses that were so thick they reminded me of my grandmother’s coasters.
But he was nice. Really nice.
“Thank you, so, so much for volunteering,” he said, bumping his head on an overhead pipe when he stood from his desk too quickly. “You did it to me again!” He scolded the pipe with a wag of his finger. Later, he would confess that, taken aback by my beauty, he’d forgotten to duck.
I sat opposite him while he administered a baseline test, and then every two weeks I returned to his office glad to find it had been improved with a few green plants and a hidden air freshener. Mostly, Erik had me studying pictures of crowds and a photo series of similar individuals within those crowds to determine if the forensic analysis course I was simultaneously taking had enhanced my rare abilities. Whenever I matched pairs of the same people who appeared on the surface to be very different, Erik would respond with an automatic “Hmm, good.” And then he’d flip to the next set.
I liked how he greeted me with a friendly smile tucked in his golden-red beard. I liked how he was painfully polite, offering me coffee with cream and, once, chocolate chip cookies he’d baked using his Minnesotan mother’s recipe. I even liked his style—a worn flannel shirt over a gray, white, or navy tee—and how, despite the orchid and lavender room spray, he still smelled of smoked fish and garlic. I was sad when the research study was over and he shook my hand and said it’d been a pleasure. I thought about asking him out and decided that was probably inappropriate.
A year and a half later we ran into each other on Mass Ave. At first, he couldn’t place me. I’d let my hair grow to shoulder length and had lost about thirty pounds due to a new diet and exercise program I’d undertaken to limit my anxiety and keep me out of the hospital. Of course, I recognized him and made a crack about how nice it was to see that he didn’t wear flannel in the summer, a joke that went right over his head.
He’d gotten into biking and had also toned up since our Whipley Hall days. He wondered if I had a bike and, if so, if I’d like to go out to Mystic Lakes that following Sunday. He moved into my apartment at the end of the month and we’ve been together ever since. Occasionally, when he’s feeling particularly sentimental, he mentions marriage and kids. Not lately though. Not since the incident at Logan, and now I know why.
He thinks I’m insane.
And maybe I am. Because right here, right now, I am seriously debating ending it all. I could walk into that frigid water and power against the waves until the vast ocean swallows me whole. It’d be scary, terrifying, and my body would struggle with all its might to survive, but then it’d give in. My conscious brain would shut down, taking the autonomous system with it. There’d be a cold dark peace. A forever silence.
Erik would feel guilty he hadn’t had me admitted sooner on a Section 12, the Massachusetts law that allows for a three-day involuntary committal of someone who is considered to be a danger “to themselves or others.” As a psychiatrist who’s consulted on several such cases, he’s convinced involuntary committal, while difficult, has saved distraught and depressed patients from tragic suicide. So, I know that if he—or Dave or Sheila—thought I was at risk, that’s the route they’d take.
But I wonder if, deep down inside, he’d be relieved if I killed myself. No paranoid, obsessed girlfriend to console. No more embarrassing social media rumors or raised eyebrows among his priggish Ivy colleagues judging in their ivory towers. No more worries that I might tarnish his stellar academic reputation.
Yes, that’d be best for all.
I get up and pad down to the cold water’s edge, the waves crashing and beckoning. Small stones roll over my bare toes. The fog from the rain is so dense it blankets the dunes. Just the sea and me—if I want it. If I have the courage. The guts.
And that’s when I feel a buzzing in the pocket of my raincoat. The number on my phone’s screen is absurdly long and I stare at it, debating what to do. Normally, we talk by text, so an actual call is alarming.
“Stan?”
He sputters a bit, obviously astonished that I’ve answered. “B-B . . . Bumble! Finally. What a delight to speak to my little girl at last.”
I have to smile, though I feel a bit weepy. Maybe there’s something to the old saw that blood harkens to blood because right now, cold and wet and alone and abandoned, it occurs to me that I’m not entirely without family. I do have a father, even if he’s a world away.
“What time is it there?” I ask, starting off with the safe option.
“Oh, it’s . . . well, I just had my breakfast. It’s tomorrow!” He lets out a hearty chuckle. “What’re you up to?”
“Hanging at the beach.” I turn away from the water, toward the stairs, my bare feet sinking into the damp sand. “How are the lambs?”
“Getting bigger every day. Listen, I just want to know, why are you there, darling? Why’d you really go back to the Cape?”
He sounds so distressed, I can’t possibly tell him the truth. “Like I said, we got a good deal on a rental.” Hah! “And I was feeling a bit homesick. Needed to get my fix of the ocean. I feel bad I didn’t tell you sooner.”
“Ah, I figured that was the case, missing your mum and all. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You always are.”
He’s being solicitous, but he’s not calling to talk about the weather or breakfast. “Hey, Stan, lemme ask you something.” I get to the top of the wooden stairs and lean over the railing, sticking my finger in my right ear to mute the roar of the ocean. “Has Erik been calling you?”
There’s a long pause that has nothing to do with him being in New Zealand. “He hasn’t been calling me,” my father says. “I’ve been calling him.”
He doesn’t have to explain why. I know. Ever since the incident at Logan, Stan’s been afraid that I haven’t been taking my meds. That I’m unwell again. I push back a strand of soaked hair. “You don’t have to worry. Really, I’m okay.”
“Are you, Bumble? You’ve gone through a helluva lot alone. If your mother were alive, that’d be one thing, but you don’t have any close family around to support you. I don’t like it.”
“I have Erik,” I say, half-heartedly.
Another pause. “Erik isn’t family. Not yet. I wish you’d let me buy you a ticket to Christchurch. You can stay as long as you want. We have plenty of room and Delilah is dying to meet you. We have all these lovely newborn lambs to play with.”
Delilah is Stan’s new wife and by “new” I mean for the past quarter century. “I dunno, there’s work and . . .”
“Please let me take care of you. I owe you that much.”
There is a choke in my throat. I’m on the verge of sobbing. How did he know these were the words I so needed to hear? Come home. Even if this place where he lives is something I’ve only seen in Lord of the Rings movies and in those tons of photos he’s constantly sending, home is not where you grew up, but where those who love you live.
Sniffing back tears, I say, “I’ll think about it.”
“Truly? Oh, that’s awesome, Jane. My heart is soaring. Pick a date and I’ll make the reservation. When?”
“Soon. First, I have to tie up some loose ends here.”
“All right,” he replies, hesitantly. “But you have to promise. And you can’t go back on a promise you make to your old man.”
It goes unsaid that he’s gone back on plenty of promises he made to my mother, Kit, and me. But that’s all water under the bridge. Anyone who pledges a new start out of love deserves a second chance. That’s what Kit would say.
“I promise.”
“Atta girl.”
“Oh, and St—” I stop and correct myself, “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“Back atcha, Bumble, times a million.”
I click off and wipe away the tears, inhaling and exhaling a deep cleansing breath of moist sea air. The next day, the next hours, are going to be tough, far harder than I anticipated when I assumed Erik had my back. But I’m strong and I’m determined and I have a plan. When I get on that plane to New Zealand I will know, once and for all, what happened to my sister.
Even if it means burning every last bridge in my wake. Even if it means burning everything to ashes.
* * *
“Jane!” Mabel screams, melting and breaking my heart as I let myself in the front door. “We were about to call the peace pals.”
She wraps her arms around my legs tightly as her mother rounds the corner from the kitchen. “Oh, my goodness, you’re soaked. Let me get you a towel.”
I look beyond her to Erik standing in the living room, the cell pasted to his ear, my blood turning to ice at the sight of his feigned joy. “She just walked in,” he says. “False alarm.”
If they were about to call the police, as Mabel said, then who’s he talking to? Skip it. It’s all a sham.
Erik hangs up, tosses the cell on the couch, and opens his arms. “Oh, man. You had us so worried.” He comes toward me and I let myself fall into him, fighting my knee-jerk craving to forgive.
“Sorry,” I say. “My phone died and believe it or not, I actually got lost out there in the woods.”
He kisses my forehead. Chaste. Platonic. “That’s exactly what I figured though, shit, you were gone for hours, Janie.”
Hours?
“Is it late?” I take the towel from Sheila and beam at her gratefully, really laying it on. “I had no idea. When your watch is your phone and your phone doesn’t even come on, you’re kind of clueless.” I pray none of them will ask to charge it because, before I turned it off, the battery was at fifty percent.
Dave saunters in, saying nothing. A look passes between us and I can tell he’s skeptical, jotting down mental notes for his psychiatrist’s report.
“I rode all over the place looking for my laptop, in dumpsters, ditches, garbage cans. No luck.” I rub the towel over my hair with such fury it tangles in twists. Then I stick out my tongue at Mabel and go, “Boo!”
She lets out a screech. “Don’t! You look scary.”
“That’s because I’m a Gorgon.” I pull on the strands until they stand up on end, thick with sticky seawater. “Do you know about Medusa? She had snakes on her head and turned men to stone.”
Sheila gently brings her daughter to her, the alarm in her taut jaw confirming my hunch that, truth be told, she does think I’m slightly dangerous. “Oh, sweetie, are you okay?”
“Exhausted and famished. That’s all.” A quick, nonchalant shrug. “What’d the Realtor say when you called?”
Dave points to the table. “Saved some oysters for you.”
“The Realtor saved me oysters?” I laugh and secretly delight in the way each fink reveals his or her tell. Erik scratches the right side of his beard. Sheila tugs one of Mabel’s curls. Dave clears his throat.
“We saved you oysters. I didn’t want to hear you complain again.” Erik pulls out a chair for me. “Want some cranberry juice?”
“Ice water would be fine. I’m way thirsty after that ride.” I shake out a napkin and help myself.
Sheila refills her glass with wine and sits opposite, watching me, her eyes fiery, like she’s solving a mystery. “You’ll be happy to know Mabel found your laptop.”
Naturally. The child’s a genius.
“No! You little rock star!” I pat cocktail sauce from my lips and wave over Mabel, who happily crawls into my wet lap. She grins up at me much the same way she did at Pekky earlier in the day when she confessed about playing along with her mother’s fib.
That fib has a whole new meaning in light of Sheila and Dave’s potential relationship to Will Pease and Bella Valencia. I have yet to fully process Sheila’s role in this charade, but I have deduced this much: she lured me into a sense of trust and sucked out the details of my memory of Kit’s last night like a spiny starfish wrapping its legs around an oyster and then drilling through its shell for a precious pearl. She is so good at mental manipulation, she even managed to turn my recollections topsy-turvy, twisting and distorting them until I was convinced I’d misremembered the order of events, that Bella was calling for help because Kit was overdosing.
Lies. All lies.
“We let Mabel stay up late to tell you,” Sheila says, mouthing, She was so excited!
“Right. So where was it?” I ask Mabel, running my fingers through her soft ringlets.
“Under the back porch. I peeked down and there it was.”
“Fortunately, it was under the grill so it didn’t get any water damage,” Sheila rushes to explain.
Uh-huh. I bounce Mabel on my knee, ignoring her conniving mother. “What a silly place for it to be. What was it doing there?”
Mabel throws up her arms. “I dunno! Maybe a bunny took it.”
“You know. I bet a bunny did take it.” I bop her on her button nose. “Maybe the bunny wanted to watch Bugs Bunny.”
Mabel squirms, basking in the attention. Putting her lips to my ear, she whispers, “What about the ice cream?”
“Shhh.” I give her a wink. “When the rain stops.”
“When the rain stops,” she repeats solemnly, the logic of ice cream being suitable only on dry evenings acceptable to her child brain.
“All right, time for bed.” Dave lifts her off my lap. “We’re gonna need to change your PJs. Aunt Jane got you wet, too.” He throws her over his shoulder and carries her up the stairs to the loft. In any other situation, the scene would be painfully lovable.
“You should have kids. You’re a natural,” says Sheila. “What about it, Erik?”
“Has to get tenure first,” I answer for him, snatching the last oyster. I avoid his gaze because I’m afraid if I see simpering love pooling in those baby blues I might drive this fork into his pupils. “Or maybe we should just go for it.”
Erik blushes as red as his beard. “I’m game if you are.”
Sheila wiggles her brows. “Good thing we’re on our way out, then, so you two can get busy.”
A flash of horror. Despite days of counting the minutes until they can leave us in peace, I now need them to stay. They have to. My plan depends upon it. “Oh, no. You’re leaving? When?”
“Saturday morning.” She makes a pouty face.
So it’s true. They’re going to the wedding after all. “That’s too bad. How come?”
“Our friends whose kids had measles were just given the all clear by their doctor so we’ll spend the weekend with them. Mabel and their girl are besties.”
“What’s her name?” I take a sip of water.
Sheila falters for a nanosecond and then rallies. “Oh, uhh, Amelia. By the way, your laptop’s over there on the end table, charging. We got it inside before it really started raining. Dave thinks maybe you left it on the deck table and it fell between the cracks.”
I go over to my laptop, unplug it, and bring it back to the table, typing in the password 0330, Kit’s birthday. Boots up right away. “Or maybe someone broke into it and downloaded all my searches.” I giggle as if this is ridiculous.
For the briefest of seconds, Sheila and Erik exchange glances, validating their conspiracy. “I don’t know,” she says with a faltering lilt. “We didn’t try.”
“To log in,” Erik clarifies.
“I don’t care,” I say, closing the cover and sliding it across the table. “Who needs a computer on vacation anyway? After this storm blows over, I’m doing nothing but biking, swimming, and sunning. There’s been too much reliving the past. From now on, I’m having fun!”
To prove it, I reach over, grab Sheila’s wine bottle, and pour some chardonnay into my water glass. Unthinkable. I never drink.
“Atta girl.” Erik lifts his chin in approval. He’d probably like it if I went on a three-day bender and woke up after the nuptials were over. How would Bella and Will reward him then? A nicely funded chair at Harvard might do.
“We were thinking of doing a whale watch tomorrow. Our treat,” Sheila says. “We need to pay you back. You guys have been soooooo gracious sharing your vacation house with us.”
Correction. Your vacation house. I turn to Erik, who is flicking sand off his toenail. If I needed any confirmation of his role in this scam, there it is.
“How lovely,” I say. “What a great idea!” To put me on a boat where they can keep me under total guard. As if. I hoist my glass. “A toast to friendship.”
“To friendship!” they concur, glass clinking against glass. We each take our sips, Erik and Sheila frowning as I begin to grimace in discomfort.
“Oooh,” I say, clutching my middle. “Maybe that oyster wasn’t such a bright idea.”
Sheila shoots a look at her husband. “See? I told you we shouldn’t be eating these at the height of summer.”
She’s right. If I know food poisoning, I’ll be puking up those “Argust” oysters by morning, praying for the bliss of death.