She heard footfalls and turned to find Vincent approaching. “It’s all real,” she said, tears springing to her eyes. “It’s…you’re...”
He smiled, his own eyes brimming. “Yes,” he nodded. “We’re all real, Jane.”
She stared at him, unable…unwilling...to believe it was possible. “I have to be dreaming. I made this all up.”
“No. You pulled it from memory.”
“But what memory? I remember my whole life, and I know I was never here.”
“No, you remember from the time you were about two years old. Not your whole life.”
“I…” She looked around again, heading out of the sun room and into another room off to the right. It was, she knew, John Tanner’s study. She put her hand on the knob and twisted it open. It swung back slowly and she staggered against the door jamb.
They were there. All of them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“This can’t be happening.” She leaned back into Vincent as his arms steadied her. She wasn’t sure if it was because they’d slept together or some other reason, but even though Jane questioned him being Vincent versus being Trevor, she felt safe with him. Even here. Even now.
“This place, all of you – it’s from my books. This house,” she walked back out into the large living room area. “This house is exactly the way I described it, exactly the way I saw it. You,” she said, turning to face Vincent, “I can’t even explain how it feels, how familiar you seem and yet you say you aren’t the Trevor I grew up with.”
“No, I’m not, Jane. I’m not Trevor. But you do know me.”
“How?”
“Your past.”
Jane shook her head and watched as three men walked out of the study. Three men she knew as well as she knew herself, as well as Vincent. The eldest approached, a kind smile upon his face. His gray eyes were sympathetic, salt-and-pepper hair gave him an air of confidence, of a man used to wielding power. His lined face spoke of years of hard work and perhaps, hidden beneath, some years of sadness as well. Jane knew exactly what his history was, for she had created him. Created John Tanner the widower, the father, the billionaire.
“Hello, Jane,” he said, his voice deep and rumbling, but somehow soft as well. “It’s good to finally meet you in person like this.”
She took his hand and they shook firmly. Her mind was numb; she knew she had to be dreaming. Had to be.
“Mr. Tanner?”
“Call me John.”
She nodded, then shook her head, then nodded again. “I’m…I always wanted…”
Her voice trailed off as dark, wavy-haired Steve Tanner approached, deep blue eyes open and inviting. “Hi, Jane, good to meet you.” He, too, offered his hand, which she took. She felt that strange static feeling until their hands parted.
Jane looked up at Vincent, who smiled slightly as she turned to look at the third and final son. John, Jr. nodded and took her hand, bowing and kissing the back of it most gallantly. She laughed out loud. “Hi, Johnny.” She sobered, though, as she tried desperately to process what was happening. “How can you be here? How can I be here?”
“There’s someone else for you to meet first,” John said. “Then you will have all your questions answered. I promise.”
She turned toward where they were looking, a hall on the opposite side of the room. All four men came to stand behind her. Vincent’s hand was on her shoulder and she wondered at the odd protective nature of their stance as they surrounded her. A shadow appeared in the door, followed by a man she had already met.
“Ibrahim?”
He nodded and moved forward. She had a better look at him now and found a face weathered by years of guilt and grief. She got the idea he might begin to cry at any moment and wondered at the pervasive air of sadness that she felt here. She’d felt it from Vincent, too, earlier, when they were still on the streets of Darvon. Perhaps sadness wasn’t the right word. It was more like a combination of hopelessness and trepidation, as though the entire estate were perched on the edge of a precipice that could give way at any moment if just one of them breathed wrong.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Jane asked. “I want some answers; I’m getting sick of this dream proceeding against my wishes.”
“Very well,” John Tanner said, striding purposefully toward where she and Ibrahim now stood only a foot apart. “Jane, this is not a dream. None of this is a dream. This house is real. I am real. My sons are real. Ibrahim is real.”
“No,” she shook her head, logic telling her one thing even as her heart longed to wish the opposite true. “You are characters in my books. Period.”
“Where do you think the characters you dreamed up came from?” Steve asked as he crossed the room to join them.
“My imagination, where else?”
“You know better, Jane,” Vincent said, moving nearer. “What about Vasan?”
Jane’s face hardened. “What do you know of him?”
“We know what he did to you as a young lady barely into adulthood,” Ibrahim said softly. “I have never forgiven myself.”
“Forgiven yourself? How could you know what he did? And what could your role have been?”
“I should have been able to stop him,” was the murmured reply.
“What? But…” Jane turned to look at Johnny, who still hung back near the study door. “What about you?” she asked, walking over to him. “Haven’t you got anything to add?”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling as he reached out and touched her cheek briefly. “I don’t like how you handled me in the last scene of your new book. I’m sarcastic, but damn.”
She frowned and whirled on the rest of them. “This is some sort of trick. First Darvon looking like a ghost town after I know damn well it wasn’t when I arrived, then Trevor becoming Vincent, some strange door and now this. You’re all trying to trick me somehow.”
“But why?” John asked. “Why would anyone want to trick you?”
She had no answer for that. Nothing could be gained from putting on a ruse. She had no enemies to speak of, no one close enough to her that they would consider pulling a practical joke. She had to face the fact that she wasn’t really important enough for anyone to go to this much trouble just to “get” her.
“There has to be an answer,” she said, sinking down onto a nearby overstuffed chair. “I just have to think. There must be an answer!”
“There is,” John replied, moving to stand in front of her. When she looked up, she noticed he and Ibrahim were standing shoulder-to-shoulder. “There is an answer.”
Her eyes locked momentarily with John’s before she looked into Ibrahim’s. She felt a strange twinge inside, something that made her heart feel like it wanted to stop beating right then and there. Something that made her at once nauseous and whole. Jane rose to her feet and moved closer, unable to tear her eyes from his.
“I…” Fuzzy images began to fill her head. She was lying down; she could see a ceiling, and a man leaning over her. He was smiling; grinning…he was playing with her. She was young. And she saw herself playing outside, in the back yard of the parsonage. Sitting on the edge of the sandbox her father Tom had built with his own hands. Huge rectangles of wood with four triangular seats at each corner, filled with more sand than some beaches have.
She remembered sitting there with bare toes in the sand, a shovel in her hand, digging and being somewhat bored. And then someone had been there. It wasn’t any of her school friends and she wasn’t more than six years of age. It was a grown man. He was kind and gentle. His movements were slow, his voice was soft. She remembered thinking she should be afraid of a stranger like him, but knowing instantly there was nothing to fear.
They had talked for a long, long time that summer day. But of what? She heard their voices; she could see them, if only in vague shadows. What were they saying? She couldn’t remember. And then, as though fine tuning a radio station, the sound came in loud and clear.
“I wish I could bring
you back.”
“I can’t leave. My Mommy and Daddy will get mad at me.”
“I know, my child. Please know this.” The man reached down and cupped little Jane’s chin, forcing her to look up at him. “No matter what happens to you here, you are loved. Loved more than I can tell you.”
It faded. The sounds, the pictures, just gone. She looked at Ibrahim and recognized him as the man who’d come to her at the sandbox. Her special friend whom she’d seen several more times until she’d turned seven years old, and then he’d disappeared. She had missed him, but she’d never truly forgotten him until she’d become a teenager. Through everything she had experienced in her childhood, she had always felt a love, tenderness. It certainly hadn’t been from her father or stepmother. It had almost been like it was coming from inside her. She had used her imagination to retreat from reality, to find a safe place to live.
And in that fantasy world she had created a family. A father, brothers, people who cared for her, laughed with her, people who were always kind and gentle, who never spoke ill to her. These were the things she longed for. But she didn’t really know that her home wasn’t quite normal. Not until she turned thirteen and was, at last, allowed to go to a birthday party at a schoolmate’s house. She recalled clearly that her friend, Carolyn, had two older sisters and both her parents, and that the way they laughed and joked around, just the way they interacted with one another, was so different from what she was used to. It was at that moment she began wondering about other peoples’ families and houses.
What were they like? Were they all as friendly as Carolyn’s? She managed to get to her friend Sandy’s house three months later for a sleepover with her and their friend Denise. Once again, the interaction was so different to her. Sandy’s older sister and mother had been nice. Later, when she’d turned eighteen, after her Sunday School teacher found out she’d not had a party or gifts, was when the truth had finally been told to her.
She remembered Lisbeth Granger as a small, fiery, curly-haired woman who wasn’t quite as pious-acting as the rest of the churchgoers. She and her husband Joe had taught the Sunday School class she’d moved into as a mid-teen, and she found them different and refreshing. One Sunday they convinced her father and stepmother to let her come over for a belated birthday party. To her surprise, her folks agreed, and Lisbeth took Jane to their home. They’d had cake and ice cream and watched a movie, and after the festivities was when Lisbeth had taken her aside.
“Things aren’t normal in your house, Jane. The way you’re treated, the way you’re ignored. It’s not right. You need to know that it’s not okay what they do to you.”
This information had confused her, for although she had begun to witness that other homes were different, she still hadn’t really understood the fact that not only was her home dysfunctional, but that she was an abused child. It had never even occurred to her until Lisbeth uttered her next sentence.
“I can give you the number for an abuse hotline if you want it.”
Jane had nodded dumbly and Lisbeth had given her the number. Jane had never called. Why would Lisbeth think an abuse hotline was needed? She wasn’t abused, not in her mind. She was punished and yes, it seemed unfair quite a lot of the time, but it was the way she’d grown up. She’d never known anything different for herself, thus the vivid imagination she’d developed which kept her sane.
But now, as Ibrahim’s hands took hers and held them tight, she recognized it wasn’t only her fantasy lives that had kept her from turning into a monster or becoming a shy, scared adult. It was somehow Ibrahim as well. He felt so familiar. He felt good. Without quite knowing why, she had a strong urge to be as close to him as possible, and she stepped forward before she knew what she was doing.
He enfolded her in his arms, in his robes of dark green. His cheek rested on top of her head as he whispered words in what she knew to be Malay. He felt warm. Safe. “Why do I feel this way?” she mumbled into the fabric of his robe.
He backed away enough so she could see his face. “My child, I have spent so many years trying to bring you home. I have missed you so.”
“I don’t understand,” she replied, eyes filling with tears. “Who are you to me?”
Ibrahim’s mouth opened, but no sound emerged. He turned to look desperately at John, whose hand came up and squeezed Ibrahim’s arm. It was John who spoke. It was John who told her the one thing she never would have guessed. It was John who gave her the answer to every question she’d never asked.
He cleared his throat. “Jane.” He looked at the Malaysian man once more before continuing. “Ibrahim is your father.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“You are all absolutely insane!” Jane cried, backing away from them. She bumped into something and turned, only to find a large glass-covered case under which sat items she’d seen before. She looked up as Vincent approached. “These are Trevor’s models. How did you get them? I saw them in the china cabinet!”
“No, Jane. They’re our models. Not Trevor’s. Ours. It was…” Vincent turned and looked at his family, then back at Jane. “We felt it would give us a tangible connection, another way to make you feel comfortable around me.”
“Another way to lure me into your trick, you mean,” she seethed, eyes shooting daggers at him. She lowered her voice so only he could hear. “To get me to sleep with you.”
“No. That wasn’t a trick. Really, Jane, I—”
“Enough! I’ve heard enough! I want to go back home now.”
“Jane, please, if you would just listen—”
She whirled on John Tanner, who stopped in mid-stride along with his words. “Stay away from me. I won’t listen anymore. This is crazy. You’re all trying to make me crazy. I don’t know why. I can’t fathom it. But I won’t be made a fool of any longer. Do you hear me? Now take me home!”
Ibrahim turned away, Steve’s arm coming ‘round his shoulders. Vincent looked at his father, who nodded almost imperceptibly. He then reached out to Jane. “All right. Come on.”
“No. Don’t touch me. Just get me back home.”
“I have to touch you or you can’t return. Just take my hand.”
She hesitated before reaching out and grasping his hand. The jolt she’d been expecting did hit her, but she steadfastly ignored it, her face as hard as stone. “I don’t know who you really are, any of you, but so help me God if you ever screw with me again I’ll have you all arrested so fast your heads will spin!” She looked up at Vincent. “Well?”
He led her to a large painting that ran floor-to-ceiling. She gasped, having never noticed it before. It was an oil painting of Ibrahim. But he wasn’t alone. Seated on a chair in front of him was a woman Jane knew all too well. It was her own mother. And in her mother’s arms was an infant who couldn’t have been more than six months of age. She stopped and touched her mother’s face, staring at it in wonder. Then she looked at the baby and took a step back, fear evident on her face.
“Who painted this?” she whispered.
“I did, from memory,” Vincent replied quietly. “I’m the artist in the family.”
She looked into his eyes. She wanted to believe him. God, how she wanted to believe they were real, these characters. But it made no sense. It wasn’t logical. It couldn’t be possible and therefore it wouldn’t be, no matter how much she wanted it so. “Vincent, I want to go home.”
He nodded and pressed a spot in the golden frame of the picture. It slid slowly to the right, revealing a door much like the one she’d seen in the church basement. The golden frame served as its jamb, and the entry was filled with the bluish-white liquid. Together, they stepped into it, Jane never looking back.
“What are we going to do, Father?” John, Jr. asked as the men stood there staring after them. “Without her, we’ll die.”
“I don’t know, son,” John replied as Ibrahim’s tear-stained face appeared next to him. “I’m sorry, Ibrahim.”
“It cannot be helped. I only hope in time she will
see the truth of what you told her.”
“Time is one thing,” John replied grimly, “that we no longer have.” He put his arm around Ibrahim. “And neither does Jane.”
* * *
“Why did you do it?”
Vincent stood looking out the window at the church, arms folded over his chest. “Why did I do what?”
“Not just you, all of you. What could you possibly gain from this charade?”
“Life?”
“You’re not making any sense. You’re Trevor, you must be. You got work on the movie being made out of my book, making those models of yours, and that’s how you knew about me, about my characters.” He didn’t move a muscle. Her anger grew. “Damn you!” she cried, advancing on him and grabbing his arm. “Look at me!” She whirled him around.
Her face softened. For there were tears streaming down his cheeks. He looked at her, then up at the ceiling, blinking his eyes rapidly. “Why should I say anything?” he said softly, his voice trembling. “You won’t believe me anyway. And we’re all as good as dead.” With that, he headed for the bedroom door. “I never wanted to hurt you. I’ve loved you as long as I can remember, Jane.” He stopped and then turned to look at her again. “If you believe nothing else, believe that.”
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