by Dan Kolbet
"I've always been here. I'm here now," I try to say, but the words don't come out.
The Janes all stand up in unison and push in their chairs. The legs of the chairs scrape against the hard ground like nails on a chalkboard, causing me to cover my ears and turn away. And then in an instant they are all gone, save for one at the far end of the table.
Her mouth is moving, but there is no voice coming out.
"I can't hear you," I try to say, but I can't get words out. She just keeps talking in silence. Her face is pale like porcelain, beautiful and whatever she's saying is soothing and gentle. It calms me. Then she fades away too.
* * *
When I wake up it's dark outside. I only slept for an hour. The dream replays over and over in my head. I can't make any sense of it. I'm not sure dreams are supposed to make sense anyway. I curse myself for thinking of Jane. I want to hate and forget her. I want her to answer for what she did to me and our daughter. Not to dream of her soothing voice and beautiful face.
It's not fair that she has this hold on me. And it's not fair that she's done this to all of us.
The house is quiet except for the rhythm of the TV. Gracie's watching some Disney show that features really smart teens and really stupid adults. Must be how they see us. Go figure. We don't always act like the smart ones.
I plop next to Gracie on the couch.
"Hey kiddo."
She crawls into my lap and rests her head on my chest.
"Sorry I was gone for a few days," I say.
"It's OK. I was in school," she says.
"Well, I'm just starting to like you and I don't like being away for so long," I tease.
She swats me on the arm, "Hey, that's not very nice!"
"Well, it's a rough world out there kid," I say with a smile. "You'd better get used to it."
She ignores that and returns to watching her TV show. There seems to be an argument over two of the main characters actually liking each other. The topic seems a bit more mature than what I think Gracie would understand, but who knows.
"Who is Liberty?" she asks when the show goes to a commercial.
"I think you mean Libby," I say.
"Maybe. How do you spell it?" she asks.
"L-I-B-B-Y," I say.
"How do you spell your name?"
"B-I-L-L-Y."
"That's like the same letters almost," she says.
I realize she's right. While it's not quite an anagram, it's pretty darn close. I wondered where Jane came up with Libby as Aspen's new name. It's a bit unsettling that she found one that was so close to mine—and that I didn't even realize it until Gracie noticed. More questions without an answer.
"She's downstairs with Kendall talking," Gracie says. "Who is she?"
"Well, it's a bit hard to explain and I know you might not understand right now, but she's my daughter. I just haven't seen her in a long time."
"OK, that's what I thought," she says.
"Why's that?"
"Because you have the same letters in your name, silly," she says with an expression that means there could be no other possible reason.
"Yep. That's why," I say and don't offer any additional explanation. When the time comes and she needs to know what happened, I'll have to tell her. But I'm not interested in crossing that bridge just yet.
"Is she gonna live here too?" she asks.
"I'm not sure yet, honey."
"Well, I want a new room, so she can have mine."
"Why do you want a new room?" I ask, but I know at the moment there are no spare bedrooms to be had for anyone. I'm still sleeping on a bed in the office and I plan to put Libby in the room April was staying in.
"Kendall is really noisy. Her computer is really loud and she's on it when I go to bed and that makes it hard for me to go to sleep."
"Maybe I should just talk to Kendall about being quieter? Is it her music?"
"No," she says. "She just types loud. She likes to type the stuff in all those blue books in her room."
"The blue ones, really?" I ask, but she ignores me. The show has returned from its commercial break and Gracie's attention is focused intently on the teen drama. I make a mental note to ask Kendall about those blue notebooks again, but I don't want her to think I was spying on her. I am curious though. Are those still my blue notebooks and if so, what is she doing with them?
I slide Gracie over onto the couch next to me and cover her with a blanket from a basket on the floor. She snuggles in close, but keeps watching the show.
* * *
"I think I should go back to Seattle," Libby says after dinner. The girls and I ordered a pizza. Mom didn't even come out of her room.
"Why would you do that? You just got here," I say, trying not to let my emotions overcome me and yell at her that there is no way in hell I'm letting her out of my sight until she's 40—at least.
"You've got it good here. Kendall and Gracie are awesome and they need you to be here for them since their parents . . ."
"Trevor and Jennifer."
"Right, sorry. Since Uncle Trevor and Aunt Jennifer died. They need you to be their new dad," she says. "They don't need me here to take you away."
I'm impressed with this act of selflessness, but shocked at the same time. Without any hesitation, she's ready to give up a parent so someone else can have one. I want to be proud of her, but I'm disgusted at the same time. She should never think I would let her go so easily. Whatever Jane did to her has made her think that parents can just pop in and out of your life when the seasons change. That's sick. That's not how it's supposed to work and it infuriates me that she was brought up in an environment that would allow such a thing.
"I'll be perfectly honest with you," I say. "I know the girls need me and I love them. I didn't think I was the guy who could help them. Just a few months ago, I was ready to never see another member of my family again. I hid myself away from everyone I knew to ensure that my actions didn't hurt anyone. It was better that way, or so I thought."
"I'm not sure I know what you're saying," she says.
"Life went on without me. The pain, hurt and loss. The joys and happiness. All of it. And I wasn't around to see it. It didn't help anyone but me to hide. I was a coward. I hid myself—I thought I killed you and your mom and that exile to Montana was my punishment. Now that I know that it was all a lie, I'm mad. Mad at your mother. Mad at myself for allowing self-pity and loathing to blind me. So, if I'm being perfectly honest with you—there is no way in the world that I'm going to be apart from you. If you want to move to Alaska, I'll be on the next dogsled behind you. I need to see you grow and become a strong woman. We need to make all this right again."
Libby smiles and looks out the window to the snow outside.
"I don't like the cold," she says.
"What?"
"I don't want to move to Alaska."
"Good. Me either," I say.
"But I can't be a burden to you. That's not fair to them."
"Let's make a deal," I say. "I'll do the best I can to be the father and uncle I'm supposed to be if you stop thinking of yourself as extra baggage. You're part of this family and that will never change."
"I can try," she says.
"Good. Now there's one other person in my life you haven't met yet."
"Not another crazy grandma, I hope," she says.
"Not even close. Her name's Michelle and I think you'll like her."
Chapter 40
That night I can't sleep. Libby is staying in the office that doubles as my bedroom, so I curl up on the couch in the basement with a blanket and pillow. I don't have the energy to clear off the bed in April's room. But sleep doesn't come. A January winter storm is raging outside, which is beautiful in its own way. The big sliding glass door gives me a nice window to watch snow engulf the world. The wind howls, swirling the snow in a dizzying dance to the ground. It's a welcome sight and one of the reasons I'll always call the Northwest my home.
I watch the snow because my
mind won't shut off. I think about Trevor and Jennifer and how their deaths kicked off a series of events that led me here today. I think about my father, whose ashes are still sitting on the fireplace mantel upstairs. I'm thankful that I was able to spend some time with him before the end. I wonder what he meant when he told me, right before he died, to be the man he raised and that he was proud of me. Was it because I finally came around and came home after being gone for 12 years? Or was it something else entirely? What sort of man did he want to raise? Am I being that person now? Or could he have been trying to give me the kick in the butt I needed to stop being so selfish? Maybe it was a little of all of it. I miss him and how easy it was for me to open up and tell him anything I felt, even if he wasn't physically able to respond to me. He knew and that matters.
I think about Libby and how she fits into my world now. She's a grown woman—almost. She's 19 and by any legal definition she can make her own choices and decide for herself what she'd like to do. But in another way she's many years younger and immature. She was raised on a lie and made to feel unwelcome. What can I do to make it right with her? I've missed out on 12 years of parenting—learning how to tell if she's OK or not. Now I want to be perfect for her and I have no background to fall back on.
I can't fail her.
I feel like the snow floating about outside—drifting aimlessly toward the ground. I'm being tossed this way and that way before I land.
I don't want to lose her.
My fear of making a mistake with Libby sits in my gut because of Jane. Because I can't be certain that I alone wasn't the problem. Sure, she's the one who took action and made this situation happen, but why? What was it that led us there? I would be the most self-centered person in the world if I didn't think that I had something to do with her decision to run from me. I'm not perfect. Never was. But there is so much distance between that life and today and I can't come to a conclusion that makes me satisfied. I want to know so I don't do it again.
I can't force my family away. I can't be Billy, the guy who exiles himself anymore.
But I have questions that can't be answered by anyone but Jane, and obviously that's not going to happen. I bristle even to think of her. I don't want to.
So I think of Michelle. Sweet Michelle, who came into my life at the worst—or possibly the best—time imaginable. She snapped me out of my funk by just being herself. She was my safety net when Dad died, helping with the girls and remaking Christmas. She's helped Gracie in school and out. If not for her I'm not sure that I would be where I am. She gave me the strength and encouragement to see Libby in that jail cell. Never once has she asked anything of me. Am I worthy of that? Am I doing enough for her? I think the answer is a resounding no, but I'm at a loss to try and fix it. I think about the conversation we had in her kitchen about building families and how for a brief moment I thought she might be pregnant. It makes me happy.
I can build a life with her. I can start over or at least start again.
The wind outside settles down and the snow stops blowing against the sliding glass door. It's quiet. I pull the blanket over my shoulder, close my eyes and force myself to forget the worry and pain, and to focus on what else makes me happy. I close my eyes and see images of Gracie, Kendall and Libby. They are all smiling and with me. I see Michelle and feel her touch. My mind begins to shut off as I finally drift off to a much-needed sleep.
But the moment is fleeting. I see Jane again in my dreams.
She's again at that big table, each chair filled with another Jane. Then it's just one, sitting right next to me. She stands up, walks away, stopping only to see if I follow her. She waits. I try to follow but I can't move. She disappears.
I bolt upright, instantly awake with a cold sweat covering my forehead.
It's going to be a long night.
* * *
I spend the next few days showing Libby around Spokane, which in the winter isn't all that exciting. The trees are bare and the river is low. The city is a sloppy mess of slush and crusty black snow pushed up onto sidewalks and into icy mounds in the middle of grocery store parking lots. I really do love this town and it always feels like home when I come back. I want Libby to see it in the spring. It's so much more appealing when the trees are full of green leaves and the lilacs are in bloom.
I show her my high school—North Central. It's a big brick complex with several structures and random add-ons. Not much to look at really and she doesn't seem impressed.
Less than a mile away is the house I was raised in. We park on the street in front of the house.
"It's a nice house," she says of the craftsman style home across from Corbin Park.
The four-bedroom, 102-year-old brick home features a wide covered porch that extends the width of the house. I explain that the inside is filled with deep mahogany woodwork, the type of stuff that builders don't bother with today. I remember my dad would spend long hours on the weekends restoring the original craftsman features of the house. He took great pride in the work too. The bedrooms were heated with radiators, which meant I would have my bedroom window open even in the dead of winter to try and regulate the boiling heat and freezing cold. Even today I tend to open the windows when I sleep. Habit, I guess.
Corbin Park across the street spans several blocks in either direction. The mostly flat park is covered in manicured grass and filled with large maple trees, a playground, basketball court and walking paths. Today it's covered in snow, except for a few paths tamped down by children looking for a shortcut across the park.
"My parents sold the house when Dad needed full-time medical care awhile back. I loved growing up here," I say. "It seems to be a little worse for wear today, though."
A gutter on the east side of the house hangs loosely off the edge of the roof. A broken birdbath sits in three pieces in the flowerbed and a rusty Jeep with four flat tires blocks the single-car driveway to the garage.
I try to ignore the neglect the current homeowners have inflicted on the house, but it makes me angry to see my dad's work go to waste because these people can't figure out how to keep up with it.
"In the summer April, Trevor and I used to spend all day at the park. I'm not sure what we did all that time, but the park seemed much bigger back then than it does right now. Adventure around every tree and rock."
"That sounds nice, you getting to spend summers with your brother and sister," she says.
Something in her voice makes me realize that I might be rubbing it in because I had it so good with siblings and parents growing up while she was alone with her mom. I had several friends who were an only child. Our experiences were never quite the same. They seemed to grow up too fast, emulating the adult actions of their parents before they really needed to.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I'm being insensitive, bringing you here."
"No, not at all. I want to see where you were raised. It's OK."
"I guess I don't really know much about where you were raised either," I say, trying to shift the conversation.
"There's not much to it, really," she says. "We lived in this secluded little house by the river near St. Cloud with Mom and Aunt Ella until I was in Jr. High. Then we moved to Port Orchard and after a while we lived with Frank. Just those places."
"Who's Aunt Ella?"
"Just the lady who owned the house we lived in," Libby says. "She rented us two rooms and in exchange for rent Mom worked around the house a little. She was a nice lady."
"Why did you call her aunt? She wasn't really your aunt, right?"
"No. We lived with her for years. She took care of me when Mom was working. I guess you just do that. Her real name was Aurella. Aurella Mackey, but everybody always called her Ella."
She shrugs her shoulders.
"I never really thought about where you guys lived or who you lived with," I say. "I just assumed you hid out somewhere in an apartment or something."
"Remember, I didn't think we were hiding. You don't question stuff like that when you're a kid.
I'm not sure why Mom picked that place to rent rooms, but I know that's where we went after you . . . well. After you died."
"You went right there? No place else?" I ask.
"I'm pretty sure. I mean I was 6 I think, so I can't be certain, but that's the only place I ever remember staying. I started kindergarten that year too. Half way through the year. Pine Trail Elementary."
I was already trying to figure out why Jane picked central Minnesota to live, or hide, depending on how you look at it. And now to learn that Jane knew exactly where she was going beforehand, it's just too convenient. She had to have been planning it, maybe for weeks or months. Did I really miss those signs for months? Was I that much of an idiot?
"Whatever happened to Aunt Ella?"
"I saw her a few years ago. Actually it was right before Mom died. She came out and saw us. She was really old then. She stayed at Frank's house for a few days and then went back to Minnesota."
"How old was she?"
"I have no idea, but pretty old I think."
"If you had to guess?"
"I don't know? Seventy years old? She wore one of those white wigs because her hair was really thin after she had chemo treatment for cancer."
"Are you in contact with her?" I ask.
"What do you mean? Since I saw her last? No. She just showed up one day. Mom asked her to come. I didn't friend her on Facebook or anything."
"Is she on Facebook?"
"I highly doubt it," she says. "Why does it matter who we lived with?"
"It probably doesn't. I'm just curious," I say.
But it does matter. It matters that there's some woman living in Minnesota who knows Jane from the moment "she died" in that fire in New York. She also knows about the new life she started in Port Orchard with Frank.
I leave these questions behind and continue my Spokane tour with Libby, but my mind's not on it. It's somewhere east of here, thinking about St. Cloud, Minnesota, and some woman named Aunt Ella.
Chapter 41
"So you think this Ella woman knows why Jane left you," Michelle asks after Libby excuses herself to clean up after our day of touring the city.
