Dead Sleep

29

It is dusk, and the house on St. Charles Avenue looks just as it did the day Jane walked out of it in her jogging suit, eighteen months ago. But the people inside are different. The lights glow warm and yellow through the windows, hinting to passersby of an idyllic life beyond the wrought-iron rail and polished door, but this is a false impression. A woman once told me that good homes have hearts. This house had a heart once. Now it has a great emptiness.

Jane and I mount the steps together, hand in hand. After much discussion, we agreed it would be better this way. Not to call first. Not to try to explain. Why put Marc or the children through an hour or even a minute of confusion? And why let Marc see her first, when it is undoubtedly the children who miss her most terribly?

Behind us, at the curb, John waits in the car. Not my rented Mustang, but an FBI sedan that let us all be comfortable. I look back at him, then raise my hand to knock on the door, but Jane stops me with a touch on my shoulder.

“What is it?” I ask. “Are you all right?”

She’s crying. “I never thought I would stand here again. I can’t believe my babies are inside.”

“They are.” I know this because an FBI agent posted on the street outside notified us when Marc got home. Marc is here, and the children, and Annabelle the maid, too. I take Jane’s hand. “Don’t think too much. Enjoy every second of it. You’re blessed beyond belief.”

I start to say more, but I don’t. To remind her that eleven other women won’t be going back to their homes would only trigger the survivor’s guilt that I know so well. Instead, I hug her to my side and hold her there.

“Here we go.”

I knock loudly on the door and wait.

After a moment, footsteps pad up the cavernous hallway and stop before the door. Then the knob turns and the great door opens, revealing Annabelle in her black-and-white uniform.

The old black woman starts to greet me, then freezes, her mouth open. Her hand flies halfway to her mouth, then stops and begins to shake. “Is it…?”

“It’s me, Annabelle,” Jane says in a quavering voice.

“Lord Jesus. Come here, missy.”

She pulls Jane into her arms and squeezes tight. “Mr. Lacour don’t know anything?”

“No. I thought it would be better if they saw Jordan and me together. Then they would know they could believe it.”

Annabelle nods with exaggerated amazement. “I wouldn’t believe it myself if I wasn’t seeing it right now.”

Jane slowly disengages herself. “Where are the children, Annabelle?”

“In the kitchen, waiting for me to fix supper.”

“How are they doing?”

The old woman starts to reply, but instead shuts her eyes against tears. “Not good. But everything gonna be all right now. Yes, Lord. What you want me to do?”

“Where’s Marc?”

“He’s in his study.”

“Let’s go in the kitchen.”

Annabelle takes Jane by the hand and leads her down the hall. The long, wide corridor throws me back to Wheaton’s killing house, just blocks away, and I quicken my steps to stay up with them. Jane looks back and hurries me along with her hand, knowing the children need to see us both to understand.

At the kitchen door we pause, and Jane whispers something to Annabelle. The maid nods and goes in ahead of us. Henry’s high-pitched voice asks her who was at the door, and Annabelle answers in a voice laced with excitement.

“You chil’ren close you eyes now.”

“Why?” they ask in unison.

“Your Aunt Jordan brought you a special present.”

“Aunt Jordan’s here?” asks Lyn, the hope in her voice breaking my heart.

“You shut your eyes!” says Annabelle. “You never gonna get a present like this again in your whole life. Neither one of you.”

“They’re shut!” cry the little voices. “Aunt Jordan?”

As Jane takes my hand, I feel hers quivering. I look into her eyes, she nods, and we step through the door.

Henry and Lyn are standing side by side, facing the doorway, their hands pressed hard over their eyes.

“Aunt Jordan?” asks Lyn, parting her fingers in an attempt to see.

“You can look now,” I tell them.

When the hands slip down, the children’s mouths drop, and their eyes flick back and forth between Jane and me. Then their eyes flash with a light I haven’t seen in twenty years of traveling the world. The light of those who witness a resurrection.

“Mama?” Lyn asks in a hollow voice, her eyes on Jane.

Jane falls to her knees and holds out her arms, and Henry and Lyn rush to her breast. She enfolds them in a shuddering embrace, and in seconds her eyes are pouring tears. When the children find their voices, they begin jabbering questions, but Jane can only cradle their faces in her hands and shake her head.

“What’s going on?” comes a deep voice from the hall. “Annabelle? What’s all the racket-”

Marc Lacour, wearing a pretentious seersucker suit, looks from me to the back of the woman holding his children, his face clouded with confusion. He can’t see Jane’s face, but something about her shape and manner has told him much already. She embraces the children once again, then stands and turns to face him.

Marc takes one step backward, unwilling to trust his eyes.

“It’s me,” Jane says. “I’m home.”

Marc steps tentatively forward, then jerks her into his arms and hugs her tight enough to break her back.

“My God,” he whispers. “My God, it’s a miracle.”

“It is,” Jane says, reaching backward with one hand.

I clasp that hand and squeeze it, and then I slip around them and through the kitchen door.

“Where are you going?” Jane asks.

I nod at the door. “I need to talk to someone.”

She reaches out again. When I take her hand, she silently mouths two words.

Thank you.

She lets my hand slip free, and then I’m walking down the long hall alone. For eighteen months Jane has lived in suspended animation, imprisoned by a man who saved her life, a desolate bird in a gilded cage. All that time, I trudged alone through a dark tunnel, burdened by guilt, haunted by loss, feeling hope die. A metaphor for my life, really: a lone woman lost in a tunnel with a camera, bearing witness to what happens in the dark, even as the darkness seeps into her. But today…

Today I emerge into the light.

John is leaning against the passenger door of the FBI sedan, watching me for clues to what happened. I walk down the steps, take both his hands in mine, and kiss him lightly on the lips.

“Are we going in?” he asks.

“No. They need time alone.”

“Where are we going?”

“We need time alone, too.”

He takes me in his arms and squeezes me tight.

“It’s time to start living again, John.”

“That it is,” he says, reaching back to open the door. “That it is.”