Fear of Heights

by Mara White

  “I think your love is maybe pity masked as benevolence. You’ve always been one to be dedicated to a cause.”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  “I’m not trying to belittle it. What I’m doing is telling you that I understand you, Kate. I get it.”

  “It wasn’t a mission.”

  “In a strange way, I’d say that you’ve succeeded. Jaylee is a different person because he met you. I believe that, thanks to you, he’ll lead a very different life from the one he had laid out before him.”

  “If you can get him out of jail.”

  “I have every intention of holding up my side of the bargain. I haven’t been perfect either, Kate. You know that. But we’ll make it. I know we can.”

  I nod my head but I know my face betrays my doubt. What’s strange is that after my cheating, I no longer trust Robert. He thinks it’s okay to just let an episode of infidelity glaze over and be forgotten. He thinks spying on me is legitimate behavior. He thinks forcing me to abort a child is for my own good. He makes me feel like a property, like an investment, not a partner and a person. And he’s threatened to take away my children. Despite his tenderness, I can’t go back once those thresholds have been crossed.

  “Do you want to, Kate? Do you want to give us another chance?”

  Foreboding sits heavily on my chest. I don’t believe him. I don’t trust him.

  If I say yes, am I even up to the task? Is there a possible happy ending for us? Is there something wrong with me if I don’t want it?

  I close my eyes and nod.

  It’s for the best.

  Chapter 4

  Janinie must be tired of escorting me around like an infirm old aunt. She’s withdrawn and quiet this morning. She also doesn’t seem the least bit interested in going home. Robert left two days ago and Janinie’s been shuttling back and forth from hospital to hotel, as we await the okay from my doctor to finally go home.

  I’m thrilled at the thought of hugging and holding my girls. It’s all I can think about, and I can’t hide my excitement.

  In the last few days, so much has come into perspective. I am determined to reconcile with Robert, so that I can be with my children. This brush with death has reminded me what it’s worth to have each day with them. I value my own life more. It feels right to be alive.

  The nurse drones on with instructions for the antibiotics, which the doctor already went over with me. The catheter has been removed but I’m still vulnerable to infection and have to be religious about taking the pills, three times a day, one after each meal.

  The discharge process is agonizingly slow. I promise Janinie that we’ll get a nice breakfast together before we go to the airport. I can’t seem to apologize enough for making her life such a drag. She groans and waves me away with her hand. Her face is pale. When I ask her if she’s not feeling well, she shrugs and excuses herself to go to the bathroom.

  She doesn’t come back to the room, and after I sign the discharge papers, I find her waiting in a chair down the hallway, knees drawn up under her body. She doesn’t get up, even though I’m struggling to drag both of Emily’s suitcases down the hall.

  I’m guessing this is about Robert coming to rescue us, and she’s feeling defensive of her brother. I understand. The stakes are still high for her and her family. She’s been through so much in the last two weeks with me. I wouldn’t have survived, had she not been so brave and so dedicated. My gut tells me that she also feels some responsibility about me losing the baby.

  “Hey Neenay, you feeling okay? Ready to finally go home?”

  “I’m fine. I just want to get the hell out of here.”

  “Me too. Are you sure you don’t want to see the doctor while we’re here? You don’t look so hot.”

  I reach out to feel her forehead, and she shoves my hand away. Well, at least she’s still feisty.

  I shrug. “Okay, let’s just get to the airport and maybe we can find something to eat there.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  This strikes me as strange. As long as I’ve known Janinie, she’s always been ready to eat. I wonder for a second if sepsis is contagious through everyday contact, and if I’ve somehow given it to her.

  “I’m on the rag.”

  “Oh.” I hate that expression. “Do you need some Advil? We can stop and get whatever you need. I’ve got a suitcase full of pads.” I’m still bleeding lightly myself, but told the doctors it had stopped, hoping for an earlier release.

  She’s silent in the cab the entire way there. I’m getting one-word responses to every question: it’s a taste of what parenting teenagers will be like. I drag both of the suitcases out of the trunk while Janinie pays for the cab. Robert gave her money when he was here, and she seems eager to spend it.

  We find a diner in the airport. I order a ton of food hoping that Janinie will eat some of mine. She insisted on ordering only a Coke with ice.

  “What’s the first thing you want to do when we get home?” I ask her, hoping to take her mind off whatever is bothering her.

  “See Oscar.”

  “Really?” This piques my interest. Oscar is Jaylee’s closest friend, and Janinie at least always feigns disinterest and boredom when it comes to anything Oscar.

  “I bet he’ll be happy to see you too,” I say, smiling at her. I quickly push away the thought that in the cozy foursome of Janinie, Oscar, Jaylee and me, my age difference is staggering. But there’s no need to worry. It won’t be happening any more.

  “I miss him,” Janinie says, sniffing and then wipes her upper lip with the back of her hand.

  She’s sweating. I see that the baby hairs around her face are damp with perspiration.

  “Janinie, are you sure you’re okay?” But the food arrives and she gives me a weak smile, grabbing her Coke and some fried plantains, which she douses in salt. I sip a batida with papaya and coconut milk, and take a bite of the fried eggs I’ve ordered with mangú. I’m starving, and I know that I’ve lost too much weight. I went days without eating. The hospital fare didn’t do much to improve things. I’m having dreams about Carmen’s cooking.

  Janinie picks at my food without eating anything and excuses herself to the bathroom.

  Something is up.

  If our flight is on time, it will only be three short hours until I can squeeze my girls again. I just want to smell them and squish them and cuddle all night. I’m planning on sleeping with both of them in the big bed tonight, no matter what Robert says. I’m going to hug them until they can’t stand it. I want to be home and normal and in my pajamas, with all three of my family members within my reach.

  Janinie returns from the bathroom and stands by the table, shifting her feet but not sitting down.

  “Do you want anything else, or should I get the check?”

  She only shakes her head in response. I put my hand on her shoulder and when she raises her eyes to mine it looks like she’s been crying.

  “What is it, Neenay? You can tell me. Is your period that bad? Are you sick? Mad at me?”

  Her upper lip is trembling, and the tears start to stream down her face. I pull her into a hug and feel that she’s shaking.

  “What’s going on? Are you nervous about going home? Is it because Robert was here?”

  She makes a little gasping sound and runs back to the bathroom. I eye our luggage with loathing and drag it over to the hostess at the front of the restaurant, who reluctantly lets me leave it there.

  Janinie is sitting on the sink when I enter, crying, with her head in her hands. I approach her and rub her back.

  “Want to talk?” I ask her.

  “I can’t go home!” She sobs.

  “I know it’s hard to go back. We didn’t have much of a beach getaway, did we? I’ll be there for you, honey. To help with whatever you need. I know it’s hard that Jaylee’s isn’t home, but Robert is working on that.” I’m wracking my brain for the right thing to say.

  “I can’t get on the plane
, Kate. I can’t. I can’t fly right now. I can’t. I can’t,” she wails.

  I’ve never seen her so distraught.

  “I think you might be having a panic attack, sweetie. It’s okay. Just try to breathe. Are you afraid of flying? I promise I’ll hold your hand the whole way.”

  “I can’t get on the plane, Kate. Please take me home. Just get me out of here. I don’t want to be at the airport.”

  She’s choking on her tears.

  “It’s okay. Try to breathe. We’ll go. I’ll have Robert get us a later flight if that’s what you want.” My heart falls as I realize the countdown to see Ada and Pearl may have been premature.

  I make a quick, hushed phone call to Robert, who angrily tells me to “get her on the goddamned plane!”

  Janinie is sitting on the sink, still crying into her hands.

  “When we get home, everything is gonna change. You’ll go back to your family. You’ll forget about me and about Jaylee. You’ll be the good guys and we’ll be the bad guys and you’ll blame everything that happened on us. I know how this goes. It was the exact same way with my dad.”

  “Oh God, Janinie, is that what this is about? Our relationship won’t change. Sweetie, you’ve been with me through some of the most awful moments of my life. You are family to me no matter where we are.”

  “That’s what you say now, but when we get home, everyone will blame this on me. Robert hates me and my family. He’ll never let us be friends!”

  “Robert loves you. Do know what he told me just now? To make sure you got on the plane. If he didn’t care about you, he’d have told me to leave you behind. That’s why he put you in a hotel, because he cares about you and wants you safe.”

  “Please don’t leave me here!” Janinie wails and sobs into my arms.

  “Never! We’re in this together! But Janinie, please, I’m dying to see my girls. Do you think we can pull it together and try to catch our flight?” My fingers are crossed and I squeeze my eyes shut in a desperate prayer that she’ll come around. I’ve never seen her like this. She’s always such a tough cookie.

  “I’m sorry.” She takes a breath. “Yeah, I’ll try.”

  She wipes her nose with the back of her hand and her long black hair falls around her face, and I brush it back over her shoulder and give her a tissue.

  We exit the bathroom and I throw some cash down on the table and go to retrieve our suitcases. When I turn around, Janinie is slumped down in the booth looking miserable. She goes to take a sip of her Coke and knocks the cup over. The ice cubes and straw rush over the opposite side of the table carried by the swift spread of the spill. It looks like some has gone in her lap. She goes to grab napkins and we make eye contact. Her face falls and she begins to sob again, her arms crossing as if to cradle herself. My face falls too in the realization that, despite our pep talk, we are right back to square one.

  Then something clicks. I may have been out of it, but Janinie wasn’t afraid yesterday. In fact, she was confident and excited. Something has happened between when she left the hospital last night and came back this morning: something that has her scared, not wanting to fly. I stride back to our table, pulling the suitcases behind me.

  “Let’s go back into the bathroom,” I say through clenched teeth.

  Janinie follows with her head hanging down. I don’t speak to her once we’re out of sight. Instead, I unzip her suitcase and start rummaging through it, picking up items of clothing and giving them a good shake. I then run my hand along the inner lining, muttering about the men from the beach house. Her supposed “uncles.”

  “I knew I couldn’t trust them. Assholes! After all we’ve been through, and how much we both suffered in that hellhole. You are still a child with your whole future ahead of you. Fucking cowards!” Janinie just stands, hugging herself with her arms, shaking uncontrollably and crying.

  “Where are they? In my suitcase?”

  Janinie shakes her head despondently.

  “You can’t lie to me. I can see it in your face. Where are the fucking drugs? Those bastards!”

  “Oh my God, Kate, don’t say it out loud. People could hear you!”

  “Tell me now or I’ll scream it.”

  “I swallowed them,” she says quickly, and covers her mouth with her hands. “Me convirtieron en mula,” she whispers.

  I’m filled with a simultaneous anger and horror that is so overwhelming and ferocious I have to put my hands on the wall to steady myself. I feel violently protective of Janinie. My immediate thought is that I’ll murder those awful men. I grab her and inspect her face; it looks gray. She’s still sweating profusely.

  “Oh, Jesus, how much? How long ago?” I’m crying now too. “We have to get you back to the hospital!”

  “No! Are you crazy? If I go to the hospital they’ll throw me in jail here in DR for the rest of my life. I’ll get raped in there. I just need, like, a tranquilizer or something.”

  “Holy fucking shit, Janinie! This could kill you. We have to get the drugs out of your body right now. I’m calling Robert. What kind of drugs are they and how much did you swallow?”

  “Stop saying ‘drugs,’ Kate! God! We already look suspicious.”

  “And what do you want to do? Get arrested in customs in the States? Absolutely not. We’ll get the drugs removed at the hospital and we’ll fly out when it’s done. I’m not risking your life or your safety. You can’t get in trouble if they forced you to do it.”

  “Kate, believe me, this kind of stuff happens every day here. The person who swallowed the drugs gets in trouble too. There aren’t any innocent mules. Nobody will believe or care that they made me do it. They’ll say you can’t be forced to swallow. It’s too late. We have to do it—we have to get on the plane.”

  I pause and think about it. I bet she’s right about the authorities, both here and in the States. They wouldn’t believe us. I’m not supposed to leave the state, let alone the country, with my case unresolved as it is. If I come forward, I’ll be taken into custody and then what help can I be to Janinie? We can’t risk getting arrested.

  Maybe we can figure out how to get the drugs out of your body on our own. I’m not letting you go to jail.”

  Her face falls. I’m afraid the bags will burst inside of her and she’ll die before we can do anything. I want to grab her and hug her but I’m afraid to touch her, to even let her move. Janinie still looks guilty. She’s got more bad news for me.

  “They’re waiting outside. To make sure I get on the plane,” she says, looking at the floor.

  Her words are like a sucker punch to the gut.

  This is a nightmare. Just when I thought we were steps away from a happy homecoming. I take a deep breath and try to think.

  “OK. We’ll leave separately. Meet at a hotel. We’ll make ourselves look different and we’ll go out through a different entrance. We’ll wait for a couple of hours after it takes off.”

  “What if they check with the airline to see if we got on the plane?”

  “It would be illegal for the airline to give them that information. They’ll assume we got on, and leave when they don’t see us come out. It’s just the two of them, right?”

  Janinie says nothing. She goes over to the sink and rinses her face with water. She’s been through too much in her sixteen years. This isn’t a reality she should be facing.

  We’ve got to act. Janinie doesn’t have a better idea than the pathetic one I’ve suggested. That’s the best we’ve got. The rich white girl who went to Columbia and writes academic papers—now turned Dominican gang interloper and international drug smuggler. I have no other choice but to stick with her through this. Janinie was strong enough to help me through my personal hell and I will be there for her, no matter what.

  God, what I wouldn’t do to have Jaylee here by my side at this moment.

  I open a suitcase and pull out two designer dresses that Janinie lifted from my sister’s closet. Maybe Emily’s got the right idea with her posh lifestyle and
her refusal to ever engage anyone outside of her social circle.

  “Put this on,” I say, tossing one of the dresses at Janinie. “Is there a salon in the airport?”

  “Maybe, why, what are we going to do? Cut our hair off?”

  “That’s exactly what we’re going to do. Did you have a better idea? We need to call Robert. Then we need to call someone who can help us figure out how to get that shit out of your body without hurting you. Someone who can keep a secret.”

  “Oscar. But how are we going to get it out?”

  “I’m going to do it.”

  I tell Robert that we’re staying one more day, that Janinie has had some sort of psychotic break—the stress has gotten to her—that she needs to rest and probably see a doctor. Robert says he’ll call the hotel ahead of time to reserve a nice room, and have them send a car for us. It’s so hard to lie to him when he’s like this, the ever-considerate husband. He’s even got a kind of parental concern for Janinie. I know my girls will be devastated. I hate to disappoint them again. I tell Robert I’ll call them later at bedtime to say goodnight. I tell him I love him, and that, very soon, things will get back to normal.

  Janinie is on her phone with Oscar, pacing the other end of the bathroom. Another woman walks in, eyes us and our open suitcases with disapproval, and goes into a stall. Janinie looks at me and drops her voice to an almost inaudible level. I tell myself that it will all work out. I try telling myself that now we have my baby watching over us, who loves us both. The pain is immediate and severe when I allow myself to think of the child. I had just barely gotten used to the idea of his or her existence, and now I have to resign myself to the fact that this child won’t be coming. Janinie and I have both lost a family member. I can’t let myself think about it right now. I have to focus all of my energy on getting us out of this situation, on getting the drugs out of Janinie.

  Oscar tells her that using laxatives works best, but that he’ll call shortly to provide us with a contact, someone with experience, so we don’t make any mistakes. Muling can be fatal. It’s Janinie’s life on the line. We can’t afford any mistakes.