Reeve knew it well.
Her real smiles—her laughing, exuberant, I-love-you smiles—he hadn’t gotten those since last fall, when he’d been such a massive jerk that he was amazed anybody spoke to him now.
He also knew what she was doing.
If they all went to drop Mrs. Johnson at the hospital, they’d drive home together. Reeve would drift on into the Johnsons’ house with Janie and Brian. But Janie didn’t want Reeve around, so she’d drop him off first and then go on to the hospital.
It was that folder. She was going back into it when she had no witnesses.
Of course, she’d still have Brian. There was no place to drop Brian.
I could give Janie a present, thought Reeve. I could invite Brian to go to a movie with me. I could say, “Brian, let’s give Janie a rest, let’s let her have a night on her own.’” But I’m selfish. I don’t want to go to a movie with a fourteen-year-old. I want to go to a movie with Janie and sit in the back and make out. Or at least hold hands.
Not that Janie had allowed any of that since he’d been back from college.
Reeve Shields, he said to himself. Good Guy. “Janie,’” he said, “you want a rest from us, too? Brian and I could go see a movie.’”
Janie’s eyes filled. It annoyed her terribly. Was she never going to outgrow these sudden tears?
She knew that he knew something was up.
Reeve studied her all the time, trying to find a way back, trying to find the sentence or the gesture that would make them boyfriend and girlfriend again. “I’d like that,’” she said. She did not look at Reeve but got up carefully, as if she were worried about falling into the sea. An unexpected swim in salt water would be a pleasure compared to examining that folder at length, and the reason for her care was very different: to show her mother nothing.
I will never show either of my parents anything again, she thought. They had no right to do this. None.
Her mother said, “Janie darling, I know how hard this is on you. Seeing Daddy so collapsed and incapable. It’s terrible for all of us. It’s so hard to imagine the future. I’ve asked too much of you, making you go with me and sit by his bedside every night. All three of you must go see a movie. See a fun one. Lots of laughs. You need to laugh, Janie darling.’”
In the end, they all drove to the hospital, dropping Mrs. Johnson off with many kisses and assurances of love, and Janie promised a ten-thirty pickup instead of nine, leaving lots of time for the movie they would supposedly see.
Reeve shifted up to the front seat and Brian stayed in back.
Janie was wearing her hair loose. She had serious hair; more, said Sarah-Charlotte, than any three normal people.
Reeve laid claim to a single red curly strand, winding it around his finger. Her hair was long and his finger turned into a shining dark red cylinder.
Janie took the curl back without looking at him. Her hair sproinged out past her shoulders and it seemed to Reeve she could not possibly see the traffic; her view had to be blocked by a forest of autumn-red leaves: her own hair.
Janie did not get on the interstate, which was the only road that went to the twelve-screen theater. She drove home. Her house and Reeve’s were next door, which was convenient or maddening, however you felt at the moment.
Reeve did not have a car of his own this summer, but his family owned plenty of cars and one was always available; it was just a matter of begging and pleading and then promising to fill the gas tank.
Okay, fine, Reeve said to himself. Janie ignores me; I take her kid brother out instead.
He sighed but, not wanting to hurt Brian’s feelings, cut the sigh off. As cheerfully as he could, he said, “So, Bri, what do you want to see?’”
And Brian Spring said, “I want to see what was in that folder, Janie.’”
CHAPTER
TWO
When Stephen Spring went out West for college, he planned never to go home again. The day he arrived in Colorado and stood beneath that immense blue sky and faced that amazing leap of mountains, he knew he’d done the right thing.
Stephen understood every deserting father from a Civil War army who, when the war ended, walked west alone instead of home to his family. He understood every immigrant who ever crossed the sea, never again to visit the place of his birth.
You could love your family.
Stephen did.
You could love your hometown.
Stephen did.
And you could be so glad that you were gone. Thousands of miles between you and your history. Your past was over.
Stephen Spring was glad.
Early on, Stephen stopped using the telephone.
If he phoned home, Stephen was so attached to his mother’s anxieties that a tremor in her voice cut to the bone. He would close off any conversation too fast, hurting his mother’s feelings, saying, “Well, I’m really busy, Mom, I’ll call next week.’”
So now he e-mailed. Voices were too intense. Too much memory living in a voice. Too much pull. E-mail gave the impression of being connected, but nothing of Stephen was taken away.
He hated talking to his twin brothers. Brendan had abandoned Brian, and Stephen knew what pain Brian was in; knew that Brian had let himself get adopted by Janie and her kidnap family. Actual conversation with his little brothers was out. Stephen was furious with Bren for being a lousy twin, and more furious with Brian for becoming a Johnson.
As for his sister Jodie, she was wildly excited by her own freshman year at college, coming up so fast, and he was afraid of her questions; afraid he might actually say to her, You’ll love it! You’ll never go home again. He missed talking to Jodie. But he couldn’t betray his parents with such a conversation.
He knew in a dark place in his heart that his mother and father understood; had understood before he did; had expected nothing else.
Stephen had gone home for Thanksgiving: three days.
For Christmas: four days.
It was almost July and he hadn’t been back since. He had to take summer classes, he told his family. Needed the money from his summer job. Might not get home till next Thanksgiving.
Stephen liked the sound of his arguments. He repeated them to himself rather frequently. He was astonished, one day, to walk into a McDonald’s and nearly weep at the sight of a family.
They were a boring family, tired and grimy, clothes wrinkled, the mother without makeup, the father in need of a haircut.
The father held the two-year-old, who was whining. The mother held the baby, who had a runny nose. The four-year-old (Stephen, as the oldest of five, knew his toddler ages) was scrounging up french fries that had fallen to the floor and making a ketchup painting on his mound of filthy potatoes.
Stephen got in line to place his order. He had nothing but hamburger thoughts. When the bag of hot burgers and thick milk shake was in his hand, he took another look at the boring family.
Father and son were leaning across the ruined french fries, rubbing noses and laughing. The mother had hoisted the baby into the air over her face, and the baby’s giggle filled the room. The two-year-old had stuck his hand down into his father’s large soda to pull up ice chips, thrilled in a toddler way as ice melted between his little fingers.
In that moment, Stephen wanted his sister and his brothers and mother and father so fiercely it felt like a heart attack. Tightness in his chest, shortness of breath, clammy hands, genuine fear—classic symptoms of heart failure.
In spite of his best efforts, had he left his heart at home?
Stephen barely made it to the truck. It was safer inside the cab with the doors shut against the world. He occupied himself stripping the paper off his straw and squirting ketchup out of its packet.
He gagged on his first bite.
He thought: sister. I missed one sister.
But I have two of them.
The bike path crawled up the steep gritty slope of the mountain, curving in long slow S shapes to lessen the grade. Stephen and Kathleen had bee
n gasping for some time, and had finally given up and were walking their bikes.
Stephen was so surprised to find himself with a girlfriend.
His parents would adore Kathleen Marie Donnelly. She was an athlete and a scholar. She was beautiful, courteous and kind. She was Catholic.
In short, she was perfect.
Stephen told her this frequently.
Kathleen had a system in which Stephen earned kisses. Sometimes he could earn thousands of them. At this moment, he had a kiss debt so large he figured it would take years to work it off. Good years.
He had not told his parents about Kathleen.
He never mentioned that he and Kathleen did everything together, especially skiing. Stephen worked overtime to earn money for lift tickets, but his family didn’t even know he’d learned how to ski or that most of his friends were more ski bum than student.
When spring semester ended, Kathleen hadn’t gone home to California but had stayed on with Stephen, and when they weren’t in class or working, they hiked and biked and rented movies. Stephen was as paired with Kathleen as Stephen’s twin brothers had once been with one another. How he had envied his little brothers, always possessed of company and a best friend. Now he knew what it was like.
College and Kathleen were softening him.
Without his past to carry around, without explanations and media attention biting his ankles like mean little dogs, Stephen was becoming the person he would have been if the kidnapper had never driven into their lives.
His childhood had exhausted him. The pressure of staying safe, of not being the next one kidnapped, never letting his parents down, keeping his brothers and sister in sight—it was all the family time he could bear.
He was done with families.
Stephen knew girls well. In their tiny house in New Jersey, Jodie’s girlfriends were over all the time. Relentlessly they talked, and he could never get away from the steady drone of syllables and the trill of giggles. Stephen knew that girls moved into the future faster than a boy could shift gears in a truck.
Put one kiss on a girl’s lips, and she’d be drafting wedding invitations.
One more kiss, and she’d be choosing names for their children. Designing the living room in their first house.
Stephen figured if he never told Kathleen about his family, he’d be safe. He didn’t want a family of his own.
The bike path became even steeper. To his right, the mountain fell away in a rocky scree that looked as if it had recently suffered a rock slide. Sweat ran down Stephen’s body. He loved sweat.
He had a great sweaty job this summer. More than anything—more than Kathleen—he loved his job.
In New Jersey, if you wanted green grass, you just stood there. It grew; you mowed. But in Colorado, green was not a normal color. If you stood there and looked at your front yard, it would be parched and dusty. Around here, grass required an underground sprinkler system.
Stephen had gotten a job installing sprinklers. He loved the sun overhead and the bandanna he tied over his forehead to keep sweat out of his eyes. He loved his bare chest, and the deep tan he acquired, and the physical strength.
His locked-up childhood had given him inner strength, which was fine, and he understood why people the world over were hunting for inner strength, while Stephen had enough to go around twice—but it was outer strength Stephen craved. True muscle.
He had it.
Riding his bike, Stephen had thought only about the path beneath his tires. But on foot, he was taken by the loose rocks everywhere. Rocks demanded kicking. He kicked a pebble the size of a golf ball, and it ricocheted down the mountainside, pinging off other rocks.
He kicked a rock the size of a soccer ball. He didn’t expect it to move. He figured he’d dent his toes. But it was precariously balanced on gravel and tumbled instantly and loudly down the hill, and Stephen’s body, off center from the kick, began to follow.
His bike went first, and in that split second when he could have chosen to let go of the bike, he didn’t. He felt the skid of gravel under his sneakers, the greed of gravity stretching out for him; claiming him.
Gravity wanted everything, and wanted it fast, and wanted Stephen.
He had time to think: I never got my revenge.
And then he was out of time, and there was nothing but the fall itself.
Kathleen hurled her bike aside, leaped forward and grabbed at him. She missed, tried again and got the sleeve of his T-shirt. Now they both fell, scraping along the scree, hands and shoes flailing for a ledge. Ten feet down they found a grip.
“You jerk,’” said Kathleen.
His T-shirt sleeve had ripped off. It slid down his arm and hung around his wrist, a limp white cotton bracelet.
They crawled back to the path, trembling, kneecaps and elbows bleeding. “Staying alive is the first step, Stephen,’” said Kathleen.
He glanced down where they had fallen and had a strange vivid picture of himself pushing the kidnapper off this very ledge. How good it would feel to watch while the kidnapper screamed and broke and snapped. Stephen would kick stones after her—big ones; sharp ones—and they would crush her and—
He stopped himself. He accepted a swig from Kathleen’s water bottle. You’re a civilized person, he told himself. You don’t dream of hurling people off cliffs and clapping as they die.
Farther up was a level place where they could assess the damage to Stephen’s bike.
Stephen yanked the bill of his cap down, as if shading his eyes from the bright sun, but he was just hiding. Sometimes he felt like a car, choking on the exhaust of his childhood.
Five happy children in the Spring family.
And then there were four.
Skip the things that could have happened to the missing child.
What about the four who were left?
Stephen had been the jailer for Jodie and Brendan and Brian: the escort, the giver of permission, the fender-off of kidnappers. The oldest had to keep the others safe. The oldest did the head counts and checked the locks.
When they had found his baby sister, Jennie, and found that Jennie had become Janie; that the man and woman Janie lovingly called Daddy and Mommy were in fact the parents of the kidnapper, Stephen expected hideous things to happen to Frank and Miranda Johnson.
But nothing had happened to the Johnsons!
Having failed with their real daughter, Frank and Miranda got to keep their stolen kid. They were allowed to go on pretending that Jennie was their own. They even got to call her by the name they’d chosen, Janie, instead of her real name, Jennie. They were the ones who got a second chance. Not Stephen’s parents.
Maddeningly, everybody believed the Johnsons. (“Oh, we didn’t realize,’” insisted Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. “We thought she was Hannah’s little girl. We thought she was our granddaughter. We changed our names and disappeared and pretended to be Janie’s parents because the cult would come and get our little girl.’”)
Right.
Like that could possibly be the truth.
Yet the FBI, the New Jersey state police and the local police let this flimsy story pass. Even Stephen’s mother and father accepted this ludicrous version of why their little girl grew up as Janie Johnson. She’s happy, she’s safe, said Stephen’s parents, and we must rejoice to have her back at all.
Stephen hadn’t seen anything to rejoice about.
But revenge was out of fashion. You were supposed to feel people’s pain. Sympathize with their unfortunate choices. Make allowance for any vice they might accidentally have acquired.
Stephen was the only one who believed there had to be a prison somewhere that was just right for Frank and Miranda Johnson.
He slid a thin slab of rock between the bent frame and the front wheel and used it as a lever to force the frame back into shape. He shoved so hard it bent in the other direction.
“Calm down,’” said Kathleen. “You have enough adrenaline in you, you could probably reshape the bike with your tee
th.’”
Stephen pretended to laugh.
“I finally heard from my parents, by the way,’” said Kathleen. “They’re coming next weekend. I can’t wait for them to meet you.’” She tipped up the bill of his cap and kissed his eyelids. “They’ll love you, Stephen. We’re going to have dinner at the Boulderado. I want you to wear your khaki pants, I’m going to iron them, and your yellow shirt, I’ll iron that, too.’”
But Stephen dreaded the thought of another family. He had refused to become friends with Janie’s Connecticut family and he did not feel up to impressing Kathleen’s California family. One family in this world was plenty.
CHAPTER
THREE
“What folder?’” said Janie to her little brother. She tried to keep her voice breezy, but instead it broke.
She turned into her driveway. Small green bushes divided hers from Reeve’s. She suppressed the urge to drive over them and flatten them, just to be stronger than something. She parked by the side door. The Johnsons didn’t use their garage. It was full of stuff. Cars hadn’t fit for years.
She took the keys out of the ignition and put her hands up to protect her face. The instant she no longer had the task of driving, tears attacked.
The boys sat waiting for her to get control back. They weren’t going to open their car doors till she did and she didn’t want to leave the safe tidy enclosure of a vehicle.
“You give everything away, Janie,’” explained her brother. “Your face shows everything you’re thinking.’”
At that moment, Janie could have given them all away: every person related to her, and every person who pretended to be.
Pretending was fine when you were little and pretended with dolls or blocks or wooden trains. But to pretend forever? To find, once more, that her life was a fantasy spun by the people who supposedly loved her?
She stared at her home, a big old shingled house modernized with great slabs and chunks of window. So many lies hidden behind such clear glass. Her unshed tears were so hot she thought they might burn her eyes and leave her blind.