When I Was Jane

by Theresa Mieczkowski

“He threw the first punch, Audrey, I swear it,” Jason says quietly. “I just fought back.”

  I close my eyes and force myself to remember.

  I climb the ladder and see them rolling around on the deck punching each other. I scream for them to stop, distracting Jason momentarily. Wyatt takes the advantage and pins him on the edge of the railing with a length of anchor rope stretched between his hands. He forces it around Jason's throat.

  I suck in my breath. “He was hurting you? But you must have gotten away somehow.” My hopeful innocence is back but now, deep down, I know better.

  Jason puts his arm around me and pulls my head onto his shoulder. “Are you sure you're ready for this?”

  “I was afraid he was going to kill you,” I say through tears, the pressure building in my chest. The truth is coming; I can feel it, like a painful splinter that has to be dug out in order to relieve the pain.

  “Stop it, stop it!” I scream, but Wyatt doesn’t stop.

  I see the opened bottle of champagne near the rail, and I pick it up; it’s cold and full. Wyatt must have opened it when he heard Jason's car, expecting it was me. I swing it like a baseball bat towards the back of his head and a sickening crack echoes in my ears.

  “Oh God, Jason.” I bend over, retching in the grass as the scene plays out in my mind.

  Stunned by the blow, Wyatt leans to the side, his arms dangling, the large, rough hands that he dared to put against my husband’s throat curled at his sides. The same hands he used to hold me down so many times. I raise the bottle over my head. Champagne pours over me, soaking my hair and clothes. All of the hatred and fury I’d kept buried inside since my youth erupts and surges through my veins. I smash the bottle down on his skull with all my strength. Wyatt topples, lifeless, as the blood—so much blood, dark and thick—collects in a pool at my feet.

  Jason struggles to his feet. “Oh my God, Audrey, what have you done? The first one was enough to stop him.” He feels for a pulse, then shakes his head silently. I back away trembling. Horrified. I can’t feel my legs, but I run; I run away and fall in the dirt as Jason yells my name. I carelessly throw the bottle onto the front seat and peel out of the dirt road as fast as I can.

  I drive down the road screaming. Screaming at life for giving so much pain to one person. Screaming for Jason and for Daisy and for everything I’d done to them. Screaming at myself for being everything my mother said I was. Screaming because I know I can never face Jason again. Seeing the turn coming and flooring the gas pedal, knowing I wouldn’t be able to stop. Wanting to end it all.

  I try to breathe between sobs. “I killed him.” And I’d abandoned my husband at a murder scene. I should have died in that accident.

  “You saved my life, Audrey,” Jason whispers in my ear, and I realize he’s carrying me into the house.

  “Then why did you say I might not forgive you once I knew?”

  “I meant forgive me for telling you. For helping you remember. When the best thing would be for you to forget,” he says.

  He lays me down on the couch and leaves the room. When he returns, I feel him lift my arm and give me a shot. “It’s a mild sedative. Just to take the edge off.” After a while he hands me water. “You have to drink this.”

  “What happened after I left?” I whisper, unable to move.

  Jason sits next to me and moves the hair from my eyes. “I did what I had to do to protect you. To protect our family. I drove the boat far out to some rocks and pushed his body over the edge.”

  “Oh God, Jason.” I squeeze my eyes shut, tasting bile in my throat.

  He describes how he methodically cleaned the deck and used one of the towels to leave traces of blood on the side of the boat and rocks to make it appear as if someone hit their head going over the edge. He found some beer on the boat, poured it on Wyatt’s body, and left the cans scattered on the rocks. Finally, he destroyed Wyatt’s cell phone before taking the boat into the center of the lake and leaving it adrift. He swam back to shore and changed in to his gym clothes. When he saw his phone in the car, there were a dozen calls from the hospital. And then Thomas called again.

  “You did all of that for me?” I ask.

  Jason lived with that brutal memory, keeping it all to himself to protect me. It must have weighed on his mind and tortured his sleep in the months after my accident. And I fought against him, accusing him of everything I could think of, worried only about what would become of me if I remembered. I now understand, for Audrey and for Jane, what he tried to protect us from all along. The bad guy of our story was me.

  He runs his hand along my face. “You acted to save my life and then nearly lost yours. You always put more value on me than yourself.”

  “I’m a murderer. I thought I was bad before, but now…now I’m a murderer, too.”

  Jason leans down and looks me in the eye. “What you are is a survivor, Audrey. And the strongest person I have ever known.”

  I cry until I have nothing left and can only stare blankly at the wall. “What about the police? Dottie read me the newspaper in the hospital about a boating accident and a man—”

  “It was him. When I saw that article in your hospital room, I was terrified. I was sure you were going to remember, but you didn’t. That’s when I had hope that you’d never remember.”

  “But did anyone investigate? Did they know who he was?” I ask.

  “No. Wyatt was a drifter with a record a mile long in a dozen states. Nobody ever reported him missing, probably because he was always missing from someplace. And the boat he was staying on was stolen; the police traced it back to the owners, but that was it as far as I know. They couldn’t even fingerprint him because he’d been in the water too long by the time he was found. I waited, you know,” Jason says, tearing up. “I waited for the police to come and get me. I waited for the knock on the door, for someone to figure it out. But they never did. If they had, I was going to take the blame.”

  “Why? Why would you do that?” I want to scream but I can’t.

  “Because I should’ve seen what was happening to you. I should’ve known. I’m a doctor and I didn’t even notice that my wife was dying in front of me, little by little. I was an arrogant idiot. I thought I could love it out of you. But you needed something more than love,” he says. “After the accident, I had the chance to give you what you always wanted by letting you forget.”

  I replay so many scenes from the hospital. His black eye and bruised mouth, the way he wanted to talk to me alone when I first woke up. He must have thought I was going to blurt out that I’d murdered someone. And then I’d asked him if his name was Wyatt.

  All at once I realize the depth of his devotion and how far he was willing to go to protect me from myself. Jason had allowed me to forget, even though it meant sacrificing all of the things I knew and loved about him. He was willing to trade my good opinion of him for a better one of myself. The old Audrey was right all along; we didn’t deserve him, then or now.

  I feel myself crumble into a thousand tiny pieces and sob in his arms. He'd been right in trying to hide the truth from me. I finally have the answers I was seeking, only now I wish I didn’t. But I’ll never admit that because if he has to carry the secret with him, then I’ll carry it as well.

  “But the worst part was being able to love you as someone else and realizing you were right all along,” he says. “You were better somehow. Different. Free. Letting go of your past changed everything about you.”

  He may never know the power behind his words. For the first time in my life, I feel like someone truly understands. I had everything I’d ever wanted when I was Jane—the family, the peaceful life, and none of the memories. And I couldn’t even see it.

  After days of crying, I go to the only person in the world who can help me move on. Maman. I tell her everything except, of course, that it ended with me murdering someone. There’s no way I’m going to make her an accomplice after the fact.

  “I forgive you, chérie,” she says.
“It is over. You will do better now, because you know better now.”

  “How can you forgive me?” I ask.

  “Do not think me to be so perfect that I cannot understand what you were going through. Edmund has forgiven me for things, and I have forgiven him for things. None of us is without faults, Audrey.”

  “But Jason is your son. Look what I did to him.”

  She sighs. “You loved my son. Twice. You loved him so much that even when you were someone else, you fell in love with him. All the other things you were fighting against simply got in the way. You were drowning, my darling, and you kicked him while trying to get out of the water. I am sorry he was injured, but I can see you meant him no harm.”

  “How can you not hate me?”

  “Why would I hate you? Because you have sinned differently than me? I could tell you stories about my mistakes that would make your hair stand on end. There is only one person whose forgiveness you need if you want this to never happen again, my love, and that person is you. It is the only thing you have needed all along.”

  I draw from her courage and emulate her spirit. I allow myself a few weeks to grieve it out and then pledge to be the woman Jason and Daisy need me to be. The person I should have been all along. Jane.

  When I was Jane, I wouldn’t have wasted a minute worrying that I wasn’t good enough. I would have taken action to become it.

  Dr. Patel sits at his desk, studying the results of my bloodwork. It has been weeks since the night my memories returned, but we’re still conducting monthly tests to see if there’s any lingering damage to address. He sent me for a complete work up recently since I'd been feeling so exhausted and weak after my ordeal.

  “Is anything wrong?” I ask.

  He smiles. “On the contrary, my dear, I would say that everything is quite right. Even better than right.” He reaches out and puts a hand on my leg. “We always fear how patients will handle the anniversary of their traumas, but I think you will have your hands too full to care.”

  I look back at him cautiously. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “If you think I’m saying that you are pregnant, then yes. But there’s more.” He hands me a lab slip to read. “Congratulations, Audrey.”

  I no longer flinch at the name.

  I drop my head into my hands. Pregnant. The irony of this life truly astounds me. I laugh so hard Dr. Patel begins to look concerned.

  I find Jason in his study, hovering over a mountain of paperwork. After everything that’s gone on in our lives, after all the things Jason went through because of me, I get to be the one to give him a first experience.

  As soon as I walk in, he turns to face me. I watch his expression change as I deliver the first part of my news. He jumps from his chair and runs to me, and I find myself laughing too hard to tell him the rest. Laughing as he holds on to me, rocking back and forth, laughing as he calls for Daisy and Dottie to come hear our surprise. And when our daughter runs to us, wide-eyed and anxious, followed by my truest friend in the world, I get to tell them all.

  Tell them about the two miracles coming to join our lives next June.

  A flash of worry crosses Jason’s face. The old Audrey would have seen the date as a bad omen, a reminder of the pain I’ve caused. But not me, and I tell him so. I’m aware now of the rare gems hidden in the rubble that can only be found once we stop searching.

  Jason takes me in his arms and dips me back, kissing my neck.

  “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you.” He doesn’t need to say more. I know what he means.

  Thank you for finally choosing to be happy, because now we can all be.

  I can still see the scars left behind by the accident. Sometimes when I’m gardening I’ll gaze at a mark on my arm and watch it turn translucent in the sun. If I’d never been Jane, those scars would have bothered me; but they don’t, just like so many things I used to worry about. If anything, they are true evidence to my ability to persevere.

  I no longer care what the old me would have done or felt. I don’t know when or how it happened, but I let it all go. Let it wash down the drain one day in the shower or fly out the car window while singing songs with Daisy. I released it all—the anger, the sadness, the guilt of not being good enough for them.

  For as long as I can remember, all I ever wanted was to forget. But the truth is, the memories weren’t the problem. The problem was the power I’d given them. For too long, I allowed my past to corrupt my future instead of being grateful for where it led me.

  And I am, above anything else, grateful. For all of it.

  It no longer matters to me what I may or may not deserve or who should be the judge of it. I have a beautiful daughter, two adorable little baby boys, and a husband whose love is worth more than anything I have ever known. I nearly lost my life searching for my worth, only to find the proof of it had been standing in front of me all along. Jason.

  If I am to measure myself by any standard, it should be by the quality of the person who chooses to share a life with me. Because in the end, that shows me everything I need to know.

  And anything else can be forgotten.

  Acknowledgements

  I dedicate this story first and foremost to “my girls” and all of the others like them who have trusted me with their stories and inspired me to take my own advice.

  To my family-my husband David, and our kids, Beth, Kyle and Kate, thank you for allowing me to take the time away from you to complete this dream. No matter what I do, you will always be the greatest of my accomplishments.

  To my editor, Margo Navage Padala, the closest thing I will ever have to an older sister, thank you for every second you have devoted to my book, my writing and my life. In truth, you have edited so much more than words and sentences, revised things much greater than intros and endings, and provoked me to grow as a person in addition to a writer. Your talents transformed this story.

  I am lucky to have been surrounded by so many supportive friends-who are too many to name, but hopefully know I am thinking of them when I write thank you for your patience, kindness and love~in every situation. For my reviewers, thank you for reading and rereading, discussing, answering questions and keeping me going. Carrie O’Connell-the first person to ever know “Jane”, Lauren Dassatti, Joanne Audyatis, Jennifer LaBella, Karen Prevalla, Brianna Guertin, Caryn Vincent, Beth Coltart, Fran Tetro (the best grammy on the planet), Lisa Phipps, Jodi Paulin, Nadine Savage, Andrea Butwell, Eileen Budrewicz, Karen VanDerlyn and Beth Mieczkowski, editor-in-training. Special thanks to the Nonnewaug High School Foreign Language Department for helping Vivienne’s French passages make proper sense.

  Lastly, to my dear friend, Karen Fiore-Green, who did not live to see the publication of this book, for taking the time during our last moments together to advise me to follow my dream and “just do it already, no matter how you have to.” My dedication to completing this process is owed entirely to your example of how life is too short to wait.

  Thank you all for reading.

  ~Theresa

  Further Thought on When I Was Jane

  ~ Water is a prevalent symbol in this story. When does it present itself in the plot, and how does it affect the direction of the characters? What ideas might water symbolize in this novel?

  ~ Female relationships (or the lack of) are significant in this book. How do they affect Jane throughout her journey? How do Vivienne and Dottie each help Jane to grow?

  ~ In the hospital, Jane discovers that there are no female friends in her life. When writing this story, author Theresa Mieczkowski said, “I knew I could not have a best friend for Audrey or there would be no story.” Why do you think she felt that way?

  ~ Audrey/Jane had incredibly supportive male relationships in the book. Is that surprising considering Audrey’s past experiences? What does this suggest about men and women?

  ~ One of the themes of this story is trust—trust of another as well as trust of self. Was it more difficult for Audrey to trus
t because she was affected by her past or for Jane to trust because she didn’t have information on people? What other themes can you explore?

  ~ The idea of “sparing” people comes up several times. On Here, Jane guesses that Audrey was going to leave Daisy “because she loved her that much.” Jason attempts to spare Audrey by allowing her to forget. Could you imagine giving up someone you loved to save them from having to share your troubles?

  ~ After reading Audrey’s journal and her interaction with Wyatt, Jane struggles with whether or not Audrey could have had more control over the situation in the hotel room. Why do you think it was difficult for her to decide? What do you think happened?

  ~ There are many fields of psychology that deal with the different “parts” of people’s personalities. Compare the “trilogy” of the main character (Dree, Audrey and Jane) using the idea of the parts of human psychology known as the id, the ego, and the superego.

  ~ The character of Thomas was integral to the plot as well as Audrey’s life. In the original draft, Thomas returned to the story at the end. Why do you think editor Margo Navage Padala felt he needed to stay away for the integrity of the story?

  ~ On Here, Dr. Patel explains with specific detail how and why people hold on to certain memories above others. (“Memory is constructive. Previous experience dictates how and why we cling to certain events and how we perceive them, which in turn determines what is stored and what is not.”) Did this passage make you rethink any of your own experiences and wonder if you remember things as they really were or merely as you perceived them to be?

  ~ On Here, Dree recites an old proverb to Jason, once again bringing the symbol of water into the story. (“A fish and a bird can fall in love but where would they build their nest?”) Which animal do you think she identified with (or saw him as) and why? How did her thoughts about herself eventually make that hypothesis come true?

  ~ During Jason’s story, he reveals how he really met Audrey, and the reader finally gets a feeling for the kind of man he is. Why do you think he was so bothered by “Dree” allowing his friends to think they were having sex in the private room at The Hornet’s Nest?