Looking for Jane (23)
“Lois called me yesterday to relay the news,” her mother continues. “It sounds like Clara’s decided not to go to school and to get married instead.” Her gaze lingers on her daughter.
“Mum,” Nancy says, “you can do both nowadays, you know. Marriage doesn’t have to preclude school, and vice versa.”
“There’ll be an announcement in this weekend’s paper,” Frances says, ignoring Nancy’s comment. “So I imagine we’ll all be off to a wedding not long from now. I thought maybe you could wear that new dress, too. I’m sure there will be lots of eligible young men there to catch your eye.”
She winks at Nancy, who forces down a sip of tea. As much as she likes Clara, she’s already considering how she can weasel out of having to attend the wedding. A poorly timed exam might do the trick. And besides, she’s had trouble seeing Clara at family events ever since That Night. The sight of her cousin just brings back a host of memories she’s tried very hard to forget.
Blond hair splayed out on a black pillowcase.
Blood on her jeans in a cold hospital waiting room.
A mysterious woman named Jane.
She and Clara haven’t ever spoken about it. What was there to talk about, really? It’s a secret between the two of them, no one else’s business. If Nancy were in Clara’s shoes, she would probably never want to talk about it again, either.
Just keep yourself to yourself.
“Are you quite all right, dear?” Frances’s voice filters through the images running through Nancy’s mind.
“Of course. Yeah. Very exciting for them.”
Nancy drinks her tea in silence and allows Frances to wax critical about the style of wedding Clara might have, taking into account her sister Lois’s dreadful taste in colour palettes. Mercifully, Nancy’s dad emerges from upstairs a few minutes later.
“Hey, there, Beetle,” he says, pulling Nancy into a tight hug. “Good to see you. I overheard your mother pushing her marriage agenda on you. Thought you might need a rescue.”
“Bill!” Frances cries. “I was not—”
“Yes, you were, dear.”
Nancy chuckles, but softens at the hurt look on her mother’s face. “It’s okay, Mum. Thanks for the dress. You guys should, uh, get going.”
She swallows on a tight throat, considers whether to abandon this reconnaissance mission, which in all likelihood will turn up nothing at all.
“We should,” Frances agrees. “I just need to go freshen my lips. Be back in a wink. Oh, and Nancy,” she adds. “When you leave, be sure to check the freezer. I’ve set aside some shepherd’s pie leftovers for you to take back to the apartment.”
“Jesus H, Frances, the girl knows how to feed herself,” Nancy’s dad says.
“I know she can feed herself!” Frances says, stung. “A mother just has an inherent need to feed the child she loves. You two need to cut me a little slack, you know. I’m trying.”
Waiting in the hallway, Nancy does her best to shake off the dark shadow that’s settled around her shoulders. Five minutes later, she hugs both her parents and waves from the front porch as they pull out of the driveway. Her mother waves back out of the open car window, chubby hands stuffed into those silly out-of-date gloves that only English royalty wear anymore.
“It’s a mark of refinement for a lady to wear gloves to a fancy affair,” her mother always says, but Nancy knows Frances wears the gloves because they cover her perpetually bitten-down nails and ragged red cuticles, and the thick scar on the back of her left hand, a souvenir from a kitchen accident that occurred long before Nancy was born.
And it’s not just the gloves. There’s a decorative bowl on the dining room table that no one is allowed to move or use. Its only purpose in life is to camouflage a large watermark from a long-ago carelessly placed glass. Frances has repapered the upstairs hallway seven times over the past ten years, anytime a piece gets nicked or torn or starts to fade. Furniture gets rearranged to cover stains and the wear from foot traffic on the carpet. Her mother’s few early grey hairs are dyed at the hairdresser’s on a biweekly basis. Nancy has never even seen her without makeup on. Her mother has hidden all manner of imperfections for as long as Nancy can remember.
She waits in the living room to make sure her parents don’t return for anything; her mother almost always forgets to bring a shawl. The rest of the house is silent, but the huge old cherrywood grandfather clock ticks away as Nancy chews on her fingernails, staring blankly at the wings of the pink patterned armchair.
After fifteen minutes, Nancy is quite sure her parents aren’t coming back anytime soon. She doesn’t hesitate as she climbs the stairs and takes a right at the top of the landing instead of turning left toward her old bedroom. She doesn’t know the creaks in the floor on this side of the hallway, and it’s an unfamiliar feeling to turn the knob on her parents’ bedroom door. It seems like an invasion of their privacy, a display of her lack of trust. Her heart hurts at the thought.
But it’s true. I don’t trust them. Not about this, anyway.
What had her grandmama said? That was right around the time they got you. The words reverberate as Nancy wrestles down the anxiety that flickers in her chest. She pushes the door open and steps into the darkness of the large master bedroom. The air is still and smells strongly of her mother’s hair spray and perfume—a French jasmine blend Nancy’s father gives her every Christmas, even though he doesn’t like the scent. She would have spritzed herself in it before she pulled on those white lace gloves and set her hair for the fourth time.