Whatever Happened to Janie? Page 13

“Good-bye, honey,” said her real mother. Her voice was barely audible. Her last three words were more breath than speech. “I love you.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  Stephen helped Jodie move the second bed out. Jodie could not stand to look at it, the bed her sister was supposed to be in. They hammered apart the railings and dismantled the headboard and footboard. Stephen yanked the cord to the disappearing attic stairs and with considerable difficulty hoisted each piece into the low-ceilinged heat trap. “She left her Jennie things,” said Jodie.

  “Her what?”

  “Her mug, her book bag, her headband, her key ring—all the stuff Mom and I bought for her that say JENNIE.”

  “You want to smash them or pack them?” said Stephen seriously.

  The violence had gone out of her. Jodie could think only of her mother, taking that terrible drive, meeting the Johnsons, having to leave and drive home alone. Would she make it? Could she manage that return trip? Why hadn’t they gotten that lawyer again, or else Reeve?

  But Mom had insisted. “I have to,” Mom had said, refusing to explain. “I have to take Janie there myself.”

  “Janie?” Jodie had repeated.

  “That’s who she is. She stopped being Jennie when she was three and a half.”

  Jodie looked at the JENNIE things. “We’ll take them to the Salvation Army. We’re not going to have a Jennie collection in the attic, the way the Johnsons saved Hannah. It’s too sick.”

  “It’s Hannah’s fault,” said Stephen. His eyes were bright with rage and hatred.

  Brother and sister thought of the suffering and fear and endless burden of worry their mother and father had borne. Every minute and every hour and most of all, every night, spent wondering: Is she all right? Is she hurt? Is she safe? Is she dead? Is she afraid?

  They thought of their mother’s sleepless excitement in December and January, when she knew she was getting her daughter back; their father’s desperate eagerness to hold his baby girl again.

  They thought of Janie Johnson: somebody else entirely, who chose to go back to another set of parents.

  “I’m going to get Hannah for this,” said Jodie, filled by an ancient primitive ache. Revenge sounded hot and rewarding.

  Her brother’s eyes narrowed while he considered it.

  “I want to hurt her back,” said Jodie. “The police aren’t really looking. It’s not a priority for them. They have murders happening this afternoon. Why would they bother with a twelve-year-old kidnapping where the kid is safely home again?”

  It was true. After the little flurry of activity, which in Mom’s opinion was just bald curiosity—greedy peeking into private lives—the investigation had dried up.

  “The FBI won’t do anything unless some local police force turns her up,” said Jodie. “We can look instead. Hannah was in New York two years ago. I bet she’s still there. I bet we can find her.”

  “But there are millions of people in New York,” said Stephen. “What are the odds of us finding the one person we want?”

  “What were the odds of Hannah Javensen finding a three-year-old from our family? If she could do it, we can do it.”

  New Jersey had excellent public transportation into Manhattan. Commuter trains and buses were frequent and easy to get. The trains went straight to Penn Station and the buses went straight to the Port Authority. Prime locations for lost souls.

  Stephen and Jodie were two of the most supervised teenagers in America. Getting into New York without parental permission was going to be a trick and a half. Could they possibly go with parental permission and fake it? Stephen cast his mind around for a good New York-visit excuse. Not once had the Spring children been allowed to go into the city without their parents. Stephen had even been refused permission to go on a school field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art because his mother was afraid a kidnapper would be lurking behind the pillars in the Egyptian Room.

  “Uncle Paul and Aunt Luellen talked Mom and Dad into taking a rest,” he said slowly to his sister. “They’re going to Williamsburg in a couple of weeks. The twins are staying with the McKennas.”

  “We have to stay with Uncle Paul and Aunt Luellen,” Jodie reminded him.

  “We could finesse them.” Stephen nodded. He lost himself in the daydream of getting into New York City without a chaperone. Dumping adults. Being a normal seventeen-year-old for once in his life! Everybody he knew could go into the city with their friends.

  “How will we start?” said Jodie, meaning Hannah, not escaping from Uncle Paul and Aunt Luellen.

  “We know a few things about her. We know she’s used to being in a group and taking orders. So she’d find some way to duplicate that. We know she’s used to having things provided for her, like meals. We know—”

  “She’d use a soup kitchen!” said Jodie. “She doesn’t know how to earn a living. Either the cult provides it for her or she has to beg or steal.” Or hook. “How many soup kitchens do you think New York has?”

  “There can’t be that many.”

  “How would we find out where they are?”

  They thought about it. “Janie found out about her kidnapping by looking it up in The New York Times” said Jodie. “So we can look up soup kitchens there. We’ll put together a list.”

  “Dad would kill us,” said Stephen. “Soup kitchens aren’t going to be in the best sections of town.”

  “But he won’t know. And we’ll be safe because we’ll be together, and it’s May, so it’ll stay light a long time. We can get into the city really early, and hit the soup kitchens at breakfast, lunch, and supper.”

  “We’ll have to get home by dark,” said Stephen. “Uncle Paul and Aunt Luellen aren’t going to fall for any excuse that keeps us away after dark.”

  “That’ll be easy. Soup kitchens serve supper early.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I bet a dollar the homeless don’t eat fashionably late,” said Jodie.

  They had the photograph of Hannah that the FBI had requested from Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. Hannah the limp but pretty teenager, with the straight, glossy white-blond hair. They could show the photograph around.

  The adult part of Stephen’s seventeen years knew the odds. Million to one that they could find Hannah Javensen. But the raging part of Stephen, the part he had carried through life, biting down on it, fighting it, trying to subdue it—that part rejoiced. He would have something to do. He could hit back. He could at least try.

  They could not get revenge through hurting Janie. She really was their sister, and they really had not been acting. They really had been glad to have her home.

  And they could not hurt the Johnsons, because Janie was back with them.

  But they could hurt Hannah. Draw and quarter her. Circle her throat. Tighten their grip.

  “Yes,” said Stephen. “Let’s get her.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  The tennis lesson was the flirtiest, silliest afternoon Janie had ever spent. She spun home. The kiss Reeve gave was soft and quick, like a brush of silk, or a promise. She and Reeve had been able to pick up exactly where they left off, as if there had been no nightmares, no second families, no Hannah, no school in New Jersey.

  But at home—oh, at home, it was different.

  They could not pick up where they had left off. She had never dreamed, in all her homesickness, that what she dreamed of would have changed so immensely.

  Her mother’s elegance and soul were frayed.

  Her father’s silver hair and courage had thinned.

  They were old, these parents of hers, and they were different. Now they were afraid.

  Life had hit them too many times, and too hard.

  When she had said to herself they need me, she had not dreamed how much. In fact, Janie was a month away from her sixteenth birthday, and was still a child. She had expected to be held and coddled and warmed. Instead, she had to do the holding, and coddling, and warming.

  But she had never l
oved them so much.

  Don’t be afraid, she thought. It will be all right. I will make it be all right. We’ve gotten past everything else and we’re going to get past this.

  It actually was like wedding vows. For Janie, they were parent vows. For better or for worse. For richer or for poorer. In sickness and in health. These are the parents I have chosen.

  If I had done this in New Jersey, Janie thought …

  But she had not. For better or for worse, she had not tried this hard in New Jersey.

  “Remember how we used to picnic at the beach?” said Janie.

  They’d had a favorite spot, a long long walk from the parking lots, through the high grasses and up on a bluff of wind-worn boulders. There they brought a hamper full of wonderful food and sat watching the sailboats on the horizon and the swimmers down below.

  She was rewarded with their smiles. Scared smiles, afraid that Janie would go again and the nightmare would endlessly recycle.

  “Remember the football cake I made?” said her mother.

  Cake decorating had turned out to be her mother’s one and only artsy-craftsy skill. But the way Janie remembered it, the football cake had been taken to a college game, not a beach picnic.

  Memory had turned on Janie so many times that she had lost faith in it. Had the hampers had really been full of wonderful food, or had they just brought sacks of peanut butter sandwiches? Where had they had that football cake?

  But details didn’t matter. What mattered was the warmth in the memory, and the warmth came from being a family, from the constancy of family love. “Let’s make a sheet cake tonight and decorate it, Mom.”

  Her mother beamed. “I haven’t decorated a cake since—” The once-confident voice faded and the once-certain eyes blinked nervously.

  “Since I left,” said Janie. “Well, now I’m home. What’ll we put on the cake? Do we have chocolate shots and silver balls?”

  Her mother looked around, as if trying to identify what those might be.

  “I think we keep cake-decorating stuff in the cupboard next to the canned goods,” said Janie, and she was right. She waved the sparkles like prizes. She convinced her mother to put on an apron and get out the white-cake recipe. She convinced her father to find the measuring cups and plug in the mixer.

  Where had Janie heard this cajoling voice she was using? Where had she seen somebody bend over lovingly in just this way? In whom had she seen this tilt of the head, this coaxing into cheery action?

  In Mrs. Spring. Her biological mother.

  Her hair prickled.

  I really am Jennie Spring.

  She had to turn away from the Johnsons, to hide the sudden chill that went from her palms to her shoulder blades.

  You can’t be both, she thought. You can’t be Jennie Spring as well as Janie Johnson. You’ve chosen Janie.

  Now be Janie.

  Be the best Janie there is, and never, never, never look back.

  “Dear Janie,” Stephen’s mother wrote. Her tears spattered on the paper, leaving little raised bubbles for Janie to see.

  Stephen hoped Janie cried, too.

  But he didn’t know if Janie worried about right and wrong the way Hannah had. He didn’t even really know what was right and wrong in this situation. He only knew that every move hurt. His mother had arthritis of the heart. She was aching in every joint of the soul.

  “Mrs. Johnson,” said Stephen, “never wrote to Hannah again.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Dad. Dad growled whenever the name Johnson came up. His beard actually bristled, like a cat’s back.

  “When Hannah left the baby with them,” said Stephen, “when they changed their name, and moved, to keep the cult from following, they never wrote to their daughter again. They never wrote on her birthday and they never wrote on Christmas. They never wrote!’

  “I doubt if Hannah minded,” said Mom.

  “Don’t write to Janie,” said Stephen.

  “I have to. I can’t let go. I can’t see how Frank and Miranda Johnson let go of Hannah.” His mother labored on, penning pointless sentences that Janie would not want to read, about the twins playing baseball and Stephen finding a summer job.

  Stephen thought of the trip to New York. We are going to get Hannah. She is going to pay.

  Janie lay in the bedroom for which she had so longed, actually missing the presence of Jodie. She listened for the sounds of Jodie breathing and turning, Jodie who was so noisy and demanding even in sleep.

  Jodie would understand what she was going through, trying to climb back into her old life. Jodie would cringe for her. Jodie would be nice, in her prickly way. After Jodie finished telling her off, Jodie would hug. We do love you, she would say.

  Janie had left the letter from Mrs. Spring untouched on her dresser. The handwriting on the return address bore an unexpected resemblance to her own. Now, slowly, she slid her finger under the flap and slowly drew the letter out of the envelope.

  Dear Janie,

  I need to write and hope my letters will not be a nuisance or a burden. We miss you but we respect your decision.

  The twins are playing baseball. There are two other sets of twins on their team!

  Stephen has his first job. He is a checker at Super Stop & Shop on Sundays. He is very proud of his paycheck.

  Jodie and Nicole dyed their hair blond. I was furious, but your father just laughed.

  Your father wants us to look for a bigger house now that we know where you are. So we’re house-hunting. I wish we were planning a bedroom for you, too. You know that you can always visit. Always.

  Please write and tell me how your life is going.

  With love,

  your New Jersey mother.

  Oh Mom! she thought, swamped in pain. Fire burned where her heart should be. Her tears spattered the paper on which other tears had fallen.

  Hannah, what you have done to us!

  Don’t do any more, Hannah.

  Stay lost.

  CHAPTER

  22

  New York City at its finest.

  The sun was yellow, the sky was clear, and a trillion windows in thousands of buildings glittered like diamonds.

  The streets were swept, Penn Station was clean, and the homeless, if there were any homeless, had gotten up off their sidewalks and joined the crowds. Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and it seemed that half America had decided to memorialize in Manhattan.

  Tourists from Europe and Japan and Long Island packed the intersections. Families holding children’s hands walked abreast. A school group wore matching T-shirts and stood in a double line, snaking after their teachers. Messengers were on bikes, kids were on roller blades, cops on horses. Blizzards of paper handouts were stuck in their faces. (They could get film developed readily in New York.) Foreign languages surrounded them briefly and vanished like a weak radio transmission. There were enough pigeons to supply the cities of the world. People who worked in midtown poured from their offices to eat lunch outside, smile at the wonderful weather, and rejoice that they were part of the Big Apple.

  It was not what Jodie had had in mind.

  She had expected dreary desolation. Wasted leftovers of humanity staggering through garbage-filled gutters. She had expected the bathroom in Penn Station to be so disgusting that she would gag. She had expected knots of terrifying gang members to accost them. She had expected to be filled with fear and trembling.

  Even the police were laughing, friendly-looking young men and women who resembled basketball or field-hockey coaches. They stood in pairs or trios, decorating street corners with their sharp uniforms, sauntering among the crowds.

  Yellow taxis spun close to the sidewalk. They slid down an endlessly refilled row, like marbles spurting from a toy …

  Stephen and Jodie stood outside Penn Station for several minutes, mesmerized, trying to adjust their thinking. Stephen said, “How many people do you think we can see from here?”

  Jodie shook her head. She was stunned by
the number of human beings passing before her. “Several hundred?”

  “And that’s just on one corner,” said Stephen. “How many corners are there in New York?”

  “Let’s walk all the way around Penn Station,” said Jodie. “Get oriented.” Get oriented to what? she thought. She had the soup-kitchen list in her purse, but if Hannah had any cash at all, finding Hannah where she ate was not going to be easy. Cheap eating abounded. Just from where they stood, they could see McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Roy Rogers, David’s Cookies, four sidewalk hot-dog vendors, three ice-cream vendors, and a Chinatown Express.

  The laminated folding map of Manhattan went less than halfway down into her jeans pocket. Jodie did not want to look like a tourist so she didn’t pull it out the rest of the way.

  They circled. On the other side of the vast railroad station was the largest and most beautiful post office Jodie had ever seen or imagined. The steps leading up to its many doors and its splendid columns were a block across. Hundreds of people sat licking ice-cream cones, nodding to music in their earphones, dozing in the sun. The massive stone steps might have been their own front porches. Insofar as people were dressed at all in this heat, they were dressed well.

  There were thousands and thousands of people just on these sidewalks! Jodie and Stephen were actually trying to identify one of them?

  I won’t lose heart, Jodie told herself. This will be like a term paper. One sentence at a time. The longest journey begins with a single step and so forth.

  Stephen refused to be overwhelmed. He had set himself a task and he was going to execute it. He looked into the masses, instead of around or through them. At first his eyes saw only a crowd: a black, white, and yellow blur of humanity. They were strangely alike, as if he were seeing a school of fish.

  You weren’t supposed to meet people’s eyes in New York, you were supposed to be careful of staring. But nobody Stephen saw could care less. Nobody was bothering to look back at Stephen.

  Slowly, among the hordes of ordinary and unthreatening people, he began to pick out others.

  A bag lady of indeterminate race pushed her belongings in a cart, on top of which she had balanced a broken-legged plastic chair and a bag full of returnable bottles she was plucking out of garbage cans. At one garbage can, she reached right between the legs of a black man who had draped himself like a corpse over the wire mesh. His snores blended into the throbbing from dozens of radios passing by on people’s shoulders. A tall, dramatic woman with remarkably high heels strode by, and as she passed, Stephen thought, That’s a man! He would have given this some consideration except that as they waited to cross the next street, he stood next to an unshaven and filthy white person, from whose toothless gums hung long yellow strands of some terrible food or disease.