The Wake Trilogy: Gone Part 8

"Oh, really?" Cabe laughs softly.

"Some great vacation week, huh?"

Cabel snorts. "Yeah. Seems like forever since we were lazing around in the sun."

Janie's quiet, thinking about her mother, her father, and everything else. Cabel, and her own stupid problems, as Cabel calls them. And now, she wonders, Who's going to pay this hospital bill? She hopes like h.e.l.l Henry has money, but by the looks of him, he's homeless. "No insurance," she groans aloud. Bangs her head against Cabel's chest. "Ay yi yi."

"It's not your problem."

Janie sighs deeply. "Why do I feel so responsible for it then?"

Cabel's quiet.

Janie looks up at him. "What?"

"You want me to a.n.a.lyze you?"

She laughs. "Sure."

"I'll probably regret saying anything. But it's like this. You're so used to playing the responsible one with your mother. Now you see this dysfunctional guy, somebody tells you he's your father and boom, your instinct is to be responsible for him, too, since he appears to be even more f.u.c.ked-up than your mother. G.o.d knows we never thought that was possible."

Janie sighs. "I'm just trying to get through it all, you know? Get through the messes one by one, hoping each time it's the last one, and then I look beyond it and realize, c.r.a.p, there's one more. Just hoping that someday, finally, I'll be free." Janie looks over at Henry and walks over to the side of the bed. "But it never happens," she says. Looks at her father for a long moment.

Thinking.

Thinking.

Maybe it's time to change.

Time to be responsible for just one person.

"Come on," she finally says to Cabel. "I don't think there's anything we can do for him. Let's just go. Wait for them to call my mother when he's . . . when it's over."

"Okay, sweets." Cabel follows Janie out of the room. He nods to Miguel at the desk and Miguel offers a sympathetic smile.

"Now what?" Cabel says, grabbing Janie's hand as they walk out to his car. "Food?"

"I think I'd rather you just drive me home, will you? I need some process time. Better check on my mother, too."

"Ah. Okay." Cabel doesn't sound thrilled. "Tonight?"

"Yeah . . ." Janie says, distracted. "That would be good."

1:15 p.m.

Janie flops onto her bed. Sinks her face into her pillow. Her fan full blast and blowing on her, window and shade closed to keep the heat out. It's hot in the house, but Janie doesn't care. She's still recuperating from last night. She falls hard into an afternoon sleep. Her dreams are jumbled and random, flitting from a creepy, hairy homeless man chasing her to her mother stumbling around drunk in the front yard naked, to Mr. Durbin threatening to kill her, to a parade with all the people from the Hill lined up along the street, watching. Pointing and laughing at Janie the narc girl.

Then she dreams a horrible dream about Miss Stubin dying, and even though she's already dead, it still hurts. In the dream, Janie cries. When she wakes, her eyes are wet.

So is the rest of her. She's sweating so hard her sheets are damp.

And she feels like somebody beat the c.r.a.p out of her.

Janie hates naps like that.

4:22 p.m.

She slips on her running shoes, stretches, and heads out the door, water bottle in hand. Thinks maybe this is what she needs. She hasn't worked out all week.

She walks down the driveway, feet crunching the gravel, and eases into a jog. Pounds the tar-patched pavement, her shoes making dents in the black blobs that are made even softer by the sun. Sweat pours down her back, between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her legs are tired but she keeps going, waiting for that rush to hit. She runs all the way to Heather Home without realizing where she's going. The rhythmic step, the measured breathing, both slamming bad thoughts and memories through her head, trying to pound them out.

Not really succeeding.

Up the drive and into the cement parking lot she runs and then she stops. Stands in a parking s.p.a.ce whose lines look tired from years of wear and lack of paint. Looks up to the sky, above the enormous maples, picturing that night a few summers ago when she sat out here with three of the Heather Home residents for the Fourth of July fireworks. They oohed and ahhed over the display, even though one of them was blind.

Blind, like Janie will be.

Oh, Miss Stubin.

Janie, breathing hard, lowers herself to the hot cement and the tears spill out freely, the pain of being eighteen and in love with a guy who can't talk about what's happening to her, and feeling this huge weight pressing into her chest, smas.h.i.+ng her down, holding her back, keeping her from really living like a teenage girl should be living, and she wonders, not for the first time, why all this s.h.i.+t is happening to her. Thinks that she made a horrible mistake, taking the job with Captain and accelerating her own blindness for the benefit of others. Wonders what it would be like if all of it had never happened to her, if she'd never read that d.a.m.n green notebook, if she'd never ridden that train where it all started when she was eight. If she could actually be in control of her life, just once.

Wonders if she should really do what she's been afraid to do all this time.

Save herself and screw the rest.

"Give me a f.u.c.king break!" she shouts up to the fireworks that are no longer there. "What the f.u.c.k do I have to do to just be normal? What did I ever do to deserve this c.r.a.p? Why?" She sobs. "Why?"

Also, not for the first time, there is no answer.

5:35 p.m.

Janie picks herself up.

Wipes the dirt from her shorts.

Starts jogging home.

6:09 p.m.

She slips into the back door of Cabel's house. Exhausted and empty.

He looks up from the kitchen where's he's fixing a sandwich and blinks at her.

"Hi," she says. Stands there, her tear-stained cheeks streaked with summer road dust and sweat.

Cabel's nose twitches. "Wow. You smell disgusting," he says. "Come with me."

And then he leads her to the bathroom. Turns on the shower. Kneels down to take off her shoes and socks as she sets her gla.s.ses on the counter and takes out her ponytail. Helps her out of her sodden clothes. And then he holds the curtain aside for her. "Go on," he says. She steps in.

He watches her, admiring her curves. Reluctantly turns to go.

And then he stops.

Thinks Janie might need some extra pampering.

He slips off his T-s.h.i.+rt and shorts. Boxers, too. And joins her.

6:42 p.m.

"Hey, Cabe?" she says, drying her hair, feeling refreshed. Grinning. Putting all thoughts but one aside for the moment. "You wanna go get Jimmy a raincoat and we'll take care of you?"

Cabel looks at her.

Turns his head and narrows his eyes.

"Who the h.e.l.l is Jimmy?"

11:21 p.m.

In the cool dark bas.e.m.e.nt, she whispers, "It's not Ralph, is it?"

Cabel's quiet for a moment, as if he's thinking. "You mean like Forever Ralph? Uh, no."

"You've read Forever?" Janie is incredulous.

"There wasn't much to choose from on the hospital library cart, and Deenie was always checked out," Cabel says sarcastically.

"Did you like it?"

Cabel laughs softly. "Um . . . well, it wasn't the wisest thing to read for a fourteen-year-old guy with fresh skin grafts in the general area down there, if you know what I mean."

Janie stifles a sympathetic laugh and buries her face in his T-s.h.i.+rt. Holds him close. Feels him breathing. After a few minutes, she says, "So what, then? Pete? Clyde?"

Cabel rolls over, pretending to sleep.

"It's Fred, isn't it."

"Janie. Stop."

"You named your thing Janie?" She giggles.

Cabel groans deeply. "Go to sleep."

11:41 p.m.

She sleeps. It's delicious.

For a while.

3:03 a.m.

He dreams.

They are in Cabel's house, the two of them, snuggling up together on a couch, playing Halo, eating pizza. Having fun. There is a m.u.f.fled noise in the background, someone calling out for help from the kitchen, but the two ignore ita"they are too busy enjoying each other's company.

The cries for help grow louder.

"Quiet!" Cabel yells. But the calls only grow more intense. He yells again, but nothing changes. Finally he goes into the kitchen. Janie is compelled to follow.

He yells out. "Just shut up about your stupid problems! I can't take it anymore!"

There, lying in a white hospital bed in the middle of the kitchen, is a woman.

She's contorted, crippled.

Blind and emaciated.

Hideous.

It's old Janie.

The young Janie on the couch is gone.

Cabel turns to Janie in the dream. "Help me," he says.

Janie stares. Gives a slight shake of her head, even though she is compelled to try to help him. "I can't."

"Please, Janie. Help me."

She looks at him. Speechless. Shudders, and holds back the tears.

Whispers, "Maybe you should just say good-bye."

Cabel stares at her. And then he turns to the old Janie.

Reaches out with two fingers.

Closes her eyelids.

Janie struggles and pulls out of the dream.

Frozen.

Panting.

The world closing in around her again. She struggles to move. To breathe.

When she is able, Janie stumbles on numb toes across Cabe's bas.e.m.e.nt floor and up the steps, out the door. Across the yards and to her tiny, stifling prison.