When I Was Jane

by Theresa Mieczkowski

  She puts a hand on her hip. “What trouble? The trouble of me goin’ to the door or the trouble I’m gonna get in for whatever’s in this box.”

  “I can explain.”

  She grabs a letter opener to slice the top open. “I’m listening.”

  I lunge for the box. “Dottie, let me—”

  “It’s my mail, isn’t it?” She yanks the top open. “What in the name of mercy! Luminol? Are you crazy? Honey, you must’ve watched too much CSI. What’re you gonna do? Sprinkle this all over the bathroom and see if the whole place glows blue from the blood you keep dreamin’ about?”

  “Yes, actually that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Thank you for explaining it so well.” I grab the supplies and line them up on the counter. Rubber gloves, safety goggles, spray bottles and containers of Luminol. All I need to add is peroxide, which we have plenty of down in the solarium, thanks to my injury.

  “You know, when I took this job I thought I’d be nursing somebody tryin’ to recover from an accident. Not be the accomplice to a paranoid lunatic tryin’ to squeeze a mystery out of something simple,” Dottie says.

  She’s trying to make herself look angry, I can tell. She has to because she’s employed by Jason’s family. Otherwise she might actually be enjoying this.

  I point a finger at her. “How’s this for simple? I dream about a strange bathroom and see it fill with blood every night. Then it turns out it’s my bathroom. My daughter tells me that not only did Audrey cry every day, but that Jason was angry a lot. Furious, if you could have seen the face she made imitating him. And he apparently told her before my accident that if they no longer had a mommy, things would be OK.”

  “You mean you sent me outta here last night so you could get information from a baby?” She grabs the box and tosses all my purchases back inside.

  I look away from her. “Well, no. It just happened to come up. I didn’t try to get her to talk. We were having fun together.” I realize it sounds terrible.

  “So your motives are good, but Dr. Gilbert’s aren’t? Do you hear what you’re saying? I’m sure he has his reasons for everything, too.”

  “Well, I’m not hearing any explanations from him. Or from anyone else for that matter. I’ll tell you what,” I say as persuasively as I can. “If you let me do this—this one stupid CSI project—and it looks like I have nothing to worry about, then I’ll drop it. I’ll even let him call me Audrey again.”

  Dottie pauses to consider it. I can only hope the soap opera fan in her is intrigued.

  “This house is as old as dirt,” she says. “You know how many people could’ve bled in that bathroom up there?”

  “The blood needs to be recent within the last few years to make the chemical glow. The more blood and the more recent it is, the brighter the glow.”

  “And what kind of weirdo is selling this stuff online anyway?” she asks.

  “I read that it’s used for kids’ forensic science fair projects. Also, realtors use it sometimes before they sell a house.”

  Dottie purses her lips. “Mm hmm. You read all of this?”

  “Surprise!” I say, realizing I’ve just confessed to doing something else I’m not supposed to. “No convulsions! I think my head is healed.”

  “I think your head is screwed on backwards, that’s what I think. You have to be the worst behaved patient I’ve ever had, and honey, that’s sayin’ a lot.”

  “Really?” I try not to let my disappointment show. I’d always assumed that Dottie truly cares for me and she just likes to talk tough. But there are times like this when I’m not so sure.

  “Oh, I’m just kidding. You don’t follow directions too well, but I like you. You’re a good egg, I can tell. Just a little too mischievous for your own good.” She shrugs. “Fun, though.”

  I give her my giant doe-eyed Audrey look. “So fun that you think you’ll help me?”

  “Fine. But remember your promise. When it turns out to be nothing, you’re gonna forget all about this nonsense.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “And when I say turns out to be nothing, I mean we aren’t goin’ crazy over a little spot of blood left by somebody cuttin’ their leg shaving.”

  I salute her. “No going crazy. Got it.”

  Dottie folds her arms in front of her chest. “And how the heck did you even sign in to my Amazon account?”

  “I’ve heard you say your email address a hundred times for one reason or another. And when we called the hospital in Davenport, you told me you use Charlotte Baker as your password for everything.”

  “Is there one dang thing you don’t pick up on like Sherlock freakin’ Holmes?”

  “It’s amazing the things your mind can do when it isn’t full of anything else.”

  Dottie clicks her tongue at me. “You scare me, lady.”

  “I scare myself. You can’t imagine the things I’ve considered.”

  We wave goodbye to Daisy. Lucky for me, her weekly sleepover with her grandparents happens to be the night I need for our project. As soon as the car is out of sight, I lay out the supplies in the kitchen and anxiously wait for the sun go down so the bathroom skylight won’t hinder our progress. The room needs to be completely dark.

  I open the spray bottles. “We have to mix the chemicals and use them quickly. Once the solution reacts, it’ll only glow blue for thirty seconds before it fades.”

  “You mean if it reacts,” Dottie says.

  “Right. Of course.”

  “Wait a second,” Dottie says slowly. “It says here on the bottle that other things can cause the blue glow. Copper, horseradish—”

  “Well then, let’s hope no one was bathing themselves in horseradish,” I say with a smirk.

  “And bleach. How about that one?”

  “I read that. And I already looked in the housekeeper’s closet. No bleach, only products that contain it. If the Luminol reacts to a cleanser that contains bleach, the glow will be evenly distributed throughout the bathroom on faucets, toilets and counters, and it won’t be as bright. But if someone poured straight bleach onto the floor, to clean up blood maybe, then it would be concentrated in one area.”

  I mix the Luminol solution with the peroxide and swirl it around in the container. Then I pour the solution into the spray bottle and hand it to her. “Let’s get to work.”

  I hadn’t accounted for how long it takes me to get up the stairs. By the time I get to the top, I’m completely winded and stop to catch my breath. Sweat drips down the side of my face.

  Dottie narrows an eye at me. “I better see this same effort from you when your physical therapist gets here next week.”

  We continue to the bathroom and start at the front of the tub. We work side by side, walking backwards towards the door so we don’t step on the chemicals. I spray the solution as evenly as I can, following the directions about proper coverage.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  She rolls her eyes. “Ready. And try not to sound so excited.”

  I slam the door and flip the light switch.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Dottie whispers.

  Neon blue illuminates the room, glowing from a large puddle that runs parallel to the entire length of the tub. Stretching out from that, a vibrant stripe about eight inches wide travels towards the door, smudged in spots with what looks like the imprint of a shoe. I hobble quickly to the vanity and spray the sink, the faucet, and the floor in front of the shower in case Dottie tries to use the bleach argument. Nothing. I spray in front of the toilets. Nothing. By then, the illumination from the tub to the door is vanishing.

  “Did you see that?” I whisper to Dottie in the dark.

  “I’m about to pee my pants I’m so scared,” she says softly.

  I turn the light on and look at her. “Now do you understand how I feel?”

  “Uh-huh. I get you now,” she says.

  The sight of the Luminol jolts us into action, and we race to work in the bedroom. “See if you can find anything,” I whisper, ev
en though we’re the only people in the house.

  Dottie searches the inside the TV cabinet over the mantle, and I look through the nightstand drawers on either side of the bed. When I enter Audrey’s dressing room, I nearly choke. “Oh my God, look at all these shoes!” I say as I peek behind tidy rows of hanging clothes, sections of formal dresses, small shoe cubbies that go on forever, shelves of bags and scarves. “I can’t wait to try this stuff on.”

  Dottie turns to look at me in the mirror disapprovingly. “Are we looking for clues or playing dress up here?”

  I move to the vanity in the center of the room, a large antique dressing table with bottles of perfume and cosmetics set out on top and little drawers lining each side of the lower half. I quickly open the drawers and rifle through. Toiletries, small cosmetic bags, a sewing kit. Loose photographs and birthday cards from when Daisy was a baby. Stationery, hair ties, bobby pins. I pull a long drawer from its spot in the center of the vanity and there it is, sitting on top of a pile of papers.

  “Bingo. She kept a journal.” I sit on the vanity stool and flip through the pages.

  We went to the store today. You’re practicing talking to strangers. I asked you to choose somebody who you thought looked kind. You walked up to him and said, “Excuse me sir, my name is Daisy Gilbert, and I’m named for my great-grandmother who was a French flower.” It was the cutest thing ever. We ate ice cream and discussed how you felt talking to someone you don’t know. I hope when you get older you’ll be able to judge for yourself who is worth your attention and who is not. For now I can only teach you to be confident in yourself and not afraid of the world.

  “Letters to Daisy,” I say with a sigh. One after another after another. Little notations about what they did together or memories Audrey wanted to save. She documented the things Daisy said.

  March 13th, 4 years old

  You still say valinna instead of vanilla, and we don’t correct you because it’s so cute.

  I want these memories for myself, but I don’t have the time to keep reading. Jason could be home at any moment if he gets a break from the patients in the bus accident, or he could end up sleeping at the hospital for days—I really have no idea. I push the drawer back in, planning to come back to it later.

  “There has to be another one here. If she kept a journal for her daughter, she probably kept one for herself.”

  Dottie shakes her head. “This feels wrong.”

  I point to Jason’s dresser. “Go through those drawers.”

  “Uh-uh. No way.”

  “Fine. Look under the bed then. I can’t get down that far anyway.” I open Jason’s dresser drawers and feel around inside under the clothes. I find a few postcards and a bag of golf tees, and I imagine him taking them from his pocket at night and carelessly tossing them in.

  Dottie hurries over to the bed. “Oh, I can’t believe I’m doin’ this. I’m in a doctor’s house. This is just askin’ to get fired now.” She lowers herself to the floor carefully, her face growing red as she balances on her stomach and reaches under the bed. “I have got to get into shape,” she says with a groan. “Got something.”

  When she finally gets back up, she places a rectangular hat box in the middle of the bed. We stare at it for a moment and then look at one another. Before she can come up with a reason for me not to, I snatch the lid from the top and toss it aside.

  “Jackpot!” I say. This could be exactly what I’ve needed. Inside the box are at least a dozen journals. I flip through the first one in the stack, noticing right away there are sections missing. Audrey wrote a lot; the pages left intact are filled completely, front and back. I set the journal down and take another and find the same thing. Every so often a page has been torn from each one. I look up to see if Dottie is as confused as I am.

  She puts her hands on her hips. “Now why would she be rippin’ pages out of her own diaries?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t the one who did it. Maybe Jason doesn’t want me to find something.”

  “Then wouldn’t he just burn them? Why keep them at all?”

  “I don’t know. His memories are in here, too. Maybe he wants to save them.”

  “But he could’ve just hidden them someplace,” she says. “Why would he rip the pages out and then put the diaries under the bed where anyone could find them?”

  “I’m not supposed to be up here yet, remember?” I flip through the pages of the journals. Audrey wrote about lunches with Vivienne, how grateful she is for her life, her husband, and her daughter. She wrote positive affirmations about letting go of negativity and living in the present. I feel voyeuristic reading it. “I don’t understand. What could be in the missing pages? We need to keep looking.”

  Dottie gets up off the bed. “You know, there could be a perfectly good explanation for all this. Don’t you think we oughta give him a chance before we go pokin’ through their things tryin’ to find proof of somethin’ that we don’t even know happened?”

  I slam one of the journals down on the bedside table, startling her. “There’s evidence in there that someone bled. A lot. And did you see those trail marks? It looked like someone was dragged through the bathroom. Jason had already told Daisy that they’d be OK without a mommy in their house before Audrey’s accident. What if—”

  She shakes her head. “Don’t say it.”

  “What if he couldn’t divorce her because of his family or the publicity and he tried to murder her and make it look like a car accident?”

  “That’s crazy. I was in the hospital that day, you know. When they flew you in. I’m tellin’ you that man was completely out of his mind. Do you know it took Dr. Charles and three other doctors to physically restrain him while they were revivin’ you after surgery?”

  I stop what I’m doing. “I was revived after surgery?”

  Dottie puts a hand to her mouth and averts her eyes. “Well, see this is part of that ‘lettin’ you recall things in time’ idea. They’ll tell you all of it when you’re good and healed and ready.”

  “So I really did die. Huh.” I take a moment to see if this revelation brings up any emotion in me, but it doesn’t.

  “Can we at least agree that something here is very suspicious?” I say.

  She cuts her eyes towards the box of journals. “Mm hmm. Yeah, somethin’ here is suspicious. But you can’t go guessin’ and fillin’ in the blanks because that’ll just cause more trouble. You need to wait and see.”

  “Wait and see if I’m really married to an attempted murderer?”

  “That seems a little far-fetched. The man saves lives for a livin’.”

  “I think we need to look for more evidence.” I drop the box of journals to the floor and slide it under the bed with my crutch.

  Dottie follows me into the study, though I’m sure it’s only because she’s afraid to be left alone with the memory of the bathroom. We each survey the room and wait for the other to start, reluctant to touch anything. Beneath the back window, Jason's large wooden desk is piled high with papers. A mahogany armoire covers the opposite wall, its open doors revealing an inside cabinet stuffed with yearbooks, old pictures, and binders full of baseball cards.

  I slide open a closet door and find long, wooden shelves holding massive jars of loose change, file folders full of papers, collections of old movie posters, sports memorabilia, and several boxes stacked on top of one another marked Jason-childhood, Jason-high school, Jason-college.

  Dottie hesitates in the corner, spinning a giant globe held up from the floor by an antique wooden frame. “This boy is a pack rat. You’re not gonna find anything in here.”

  “But where’s all her stuff?”

  “Did you see her dressing room? She’s got tons of stuff in there. There must be a pair of shoes for every day of her life,” she says.

  “I mean from her childhood. Yearbooks, mementos. Just by looking at his armoire, I know where he went to college, where he went to medical school. There’s a box of his treasures from middle school. Pict
ures of him and James. Where’s Audrey’s history?”

  Dottie shrugs. “She probably didn’t keep things like that clutterin’ up her dressing area. It doesn’t go with the room.”

  “Exactly! She must have kept her stuff somewhere else. The storage unit off the solarium?”

  Dottie waves me off. “You need to be goin’ through all of that stuff with Dr. Gilbert. I don’t feel right about this anymore. We need to just wait and see about all that bathroom nonsense.”

  “Dottie, come on…”

  “I mean it. I don’t know about all of this; it makes me nervous.”

  “Fine. I don’t know what I’m looking for anyway.” I don’t even know what I’m doing or what I want to do, not that I’m going to tell her that.

  I fall into Jason’s big leather chair and stare at his workspace. I pick up a framed picture of him and Audrey embracing under a trellis of flowers. His arms are wrapped tightly around her waist, dipping her backwards as he kisses the side of her neck. She’s laughing, carefree and playful. I feel such love when I look at it, so much that I need to look away. I slam it back to the desk harder than I intend, and it comes apart in my hand.

  “Don’t break anything.” Dottie looks nervously over her shoulder to the door.

  As I slide the back of the frame into place, I notice a ripped-off note taped to the back of the photo.

  I owe you my life. Xo, your Audrey.

  Dottie reads it over my shoulder. “Was she his patient?”

  “No, they met on a church retreat.”

  “Maybe she meant it metaphorically,” she says.

  “I don’t know; I’m so tired of this. I’m sick of trying to live up to perfect little Audrey and everyone’s memories of her.” Tears burn my eyes. I want to look through the storage spaces to see what I can find about her, but at the same time, I don’t. I don’t want to know everything she was that I’m not. I don’t want to see how in love they were, knowing that I can’t feel that for him and he doesn’t feel it for me.