Janie tugs Dorothea to her feet. “I said, come on. We have to catch the bus.”
“What about your car?” Dorothea asks. “That girl was driving it.”
Janie blinks and looks at her mother, dragging her along to the elevator. “Yeah, Ma. I sold it to her months ago, remember?”
“You never tell me—”
“Just . . .” Janie burns. I don’t tell you anything? Or you’re too drunk to remember? She takes a breath, lets it out slowly. “Just come on. And don’t embarrass me.”
“Yeah, well don’t you embarrass me, either.”
“Whatever.”
Janie gives a fleeting glance over her shoulder down the hallway where presumably her father lies, dead or alive, Janie doesn’t know.
Doesn’t really care.
Hopes he hurries up and dies so she doesn’t ever have to deal with him. Because from all Janie knows, parents are nothing but trouble.
2:10 a.m.
Dorothea fidgets like a junkie the entire way home on the bus. Janie, frustrated, wards off the dream of a homeless passenger and is just glad it’s a short ride.
When they get home, there on the front step is Janie’s suitcase. “Damn, Cabe,” she mutters.
“Why do you always have to be so fucking thoughtful?”
Janie’s mother makes a beeline to the kitchen, grabs a bottle of vodka from under the sink, and retreats to her bedroom without a word. Janie lets her go. There will be time tomorrow to figure out what’s going on with this Henry person once Dorothea is good and sloshed and halfway reasonable again.
Janie texts Cabel.
Home.
Cabe responds without delay, despite the hour.
Thx baby. Love. See you tomorrow?
Turns off her phone. “Yeah, about that,” Janie whispers. She sighs and sets the phone on her bedside table and her suitcase next to it, and falls into bed.
4:24 a.m.
Janie dreams.
There are rocks covering her bedroom floor and a suitcase on her bed. Each rock has something scribbled on it, but Janie can only read the rocks when she picks them up.
She picks one. “HELP ME,” it reads. “CABE,” reads another.
“DOROTHEA. CRIPPLED. SECRET. BLIND.”
When she puts them back on the floor, they grow bigger, heavier. Soon, she knows, she will run out of room on the floor to put the rocks, but she can’t stop picking them up, reading them. The floor is crowded, and Janie’s having trouble breathing. The rocks are sucking the air from the room.
Finally, Janie sets a rock in the suitcase. It shrinks to the size of a pebble.
Janie slowly, methodically, picks up all the rocks and puts them in the suitcase. The task seems endless. Finally, she picks up the last one, “ISOLATE.” Sets it down with the others. It becomes a pebble, and all the other pebbles disappear.
Janie stares at the suitcase. Knows what she has to do.
She closes it.
Picks it up.
And walks out.
FRIDAY
August 4, 2006, 9:15 a.m.
Janie lies awake, staring at the ceiling. Thinking about everything. About this one more thing.
The green notebook, the hearing, the gossip, college, her mother, and now this guy Henry.
What’s next? It’s too much already. A familiar wave of panic washes over her, captures her chest and squeezes it. Hard. Harder. Janie gulps for air and she can’t get enough. She rolls to her side in a ball.
“Chill,” she says, gasping. “Just chill the fuck out.”
It’s all too much.
She covers her mouth and nose with her hands, breathes into them, in and out, until she can get a good breath. She makes her mind go blank.
Focuses.
Breathes.
Just breathes.
9:29 a.m.
The door to Janie’s mother’s room remains closed.
Janie wanders aimlessly around the little house, wondering what the hell she’s supposed to do about Henry. She nibbles on a granola bar, sweating. It’s a scorcher already. She flips on the oscillating fan in the living room and props open the front door, begging for a breeze, and then she plops down on the couch.
Through the ripped screen door Janie sees Cabel pulling into the driveway, and her heart sinks.
He hops out of the car and takes long, smooth strides to the front door. Lets himself in, as usual.
He stops and lets his eyes adjust.