When Oliver hugs Jane like that, Sam stirs next to me. I brace my arm, so he doesn’t step forward and do anything stupid. He takes three slow measured breaths that rock his whole frame. Then he pushes past me. “Let’s go,” he says.
We’ve decided that since we know where Hadley’s gone, we have a good chance of finding Rebecca there. If we get a start this early, we’ll be there by lunch time. “I’m going with you,” Oliver says. He lets go of Jane and she sags against the post of the bed. I think she might pass out, from the looks of things.
“Oliver.” You have to feel bad for the guy. This isn’t what he expected to find in Massachusetts, after all. “It won’t do you any good to come with us. Someone has to stay here with Jane, anyway.”
“This is not a question. I am telling you: I’m going with you to New Hampshire.”
Sam takes a step forward. I can see Oliver’s face change as he drinks in the tone of Sam’s voice. “You know where Hadley’s mom lives. You two go. I’ll wait here in case she comes home.”
“Like hell you will,” Oliver says. It’s about to come to blows again, so I step in between them. “I’m not leaving you here with my wife.”
“You can’t go by yourself,” Sam says. “Half the roads there aren’t marked.”
Oliver leans toward Sam. “I can find places that are totally unmarked, you asshole. I do it for a living.”
“This isn’t the ocean.”
Jane puts her hand on Oliver’s arm. “He’s right, Oliver. You can’t go up there alone.”
“Okay,” Oliver says, pacing. He wheels around and points to Sam. “You. You go with me. Joley stays here with Jane.”
“What a goddamned pleasure,” Sam mutters.
“What did you say?” Oliver grabs the collar of his shirt, but Sam, now awake and probably ten times stronger than Oliver, shoves him with such force Oliver crashes into the door.
“I said it would be my pleasure.” Sam walks over to Jane, who is crying again. He leans his forehead against hers, and puts his hand on her shoulder. He whispers something only she can hear, and she starts to smile a little.
“We can check the grounds but I don’t think we’ll find her. We’ll take my truck,” Sam says, and Oliver shakes his head.
“We’ll take my car,” Oliver says.
After we hear the car drive away, Jane sinks down to the floor and pulls her knees up to her chest. “You win, Joley. You were right.”
“Nobody’s won anything. They’re going to find her.”
Jane shakes her head. “I should have said something to her. I should have told her about Sam, and above all else I should have tried to understand what was going on with Hadley.” She pulls herself upright, and walks into Rebecca’s empty room.
I hear all the air rush out of her, like she’s been punched hard. She touches Rebecca’s bathing suit, her hairbrush. “The room smells like her, doesn’t it?”
She picks up Rebecca’s bra. “We bought this in North Dakota,” she says, smiling. “She was so excited because it had a cup size.” She winds the bra around her waist, snapping the elastic. “I have been so selfish.”
“You didn’t know this would happen.” I sit next to her on Rebecca’s bed.
“If she’s hurt,” Jane says. “I’ll die. I’ll never be able to forgive myself. If she’s hurt, it will kill me.”
Jane lies down on the bed. I rub her back. “She’s fine. She’s going to be fine.”
“You don’t know that,” Jane says. “You don’t understand how I feel. I’m her mother . I’m supposed to protect her. I should be with her now. I should be with her.” Jane rolls over and stares at the ceiling. There is a water mark that has spread in the shape of a lamb, and another in the form of a zinnia. She sits up. “Drive after them. I want to be there when they find her.”
“We can’t do that. What if she comes back home? Someone has to be here. You have to be here.”
Jane sinks back down on the bed. She crawls under the covers,and turns onto her side. “She sleeps like this,” Jane says. “With her mouth open and her hand curled up on the side. She even slept like this as a baby, when all the other infants in the hospital were on their stomachs with their rear ends sticking in the air. You know when they brought her to me, after I had her, I was terrified. I didn’t think I’d know how to hold a baby. But she was the one who let me off the hook. She was this little wiggling mess of arms and legs,” Jane says, smiling. “But Rebecca looked up at me, and she seemed to be saying, Relax. We’ve got a long way to go. ”
I do my best to listen, because I know that’s what she needs.
Jane suddenly sits up very straight. “Rebecca was my tradeoff,” she says. “I didn’t meet Sam earlier; or marry him, even though I was meant to. Don’t you see? It was one or the other.”
“I’m not following you.”
“She’s my daughter . As much as I say Sam is a part of me, so is she. She knows me just as well. She loves me just as much, in a different way.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t have Sam my whole life. Instead, I was given Rebecca.”
I am going to hate myself for saying this, I know. I look out the window, to where the field hands are gathering near the barn. Someone has to tell them what to do today. “If you didn’t have Oliver,” I point out, “you wouldn’t have had Rebecca. She’s part of him, too.”
Jane follows my gaze out the window. In the distance the lambs are bleating. There are all these things to do. “Oliver,” she says. “That’s true.”