A Kingsbury Collection Page 9

  “I understand.” Sarcasm dripped from her words. “But Daddy, don’t tell me that each of us is wonderful. You love Ellen more than you love me. You always have.”

  Dad’s face grew angry at the accusation. “Listen, Jane. I do not love any of my children more than the others. I am proud of Ellen, yes. She was an honor student, a cheerleader, an editor on the school paper. I’m her father and I have a right to be proud of her, don’t you think?”

  Jane rolled her eyes.

  “I’m just as proud of you, young lady. But I won’t tolerate excuses for bad behavior. You will obey my rules or you will be punished, do you understand me?”

  Jane’s eyes grew damp and she ignored his question. She ran to her room and slammed the door.

  The next day, before Ellen returned home from her friend’s house, Jane packed some belongings into a knapsack, flung them over her shoulder, and set off on her bicycle. She rode four miles to the house where Clay and the other band members lived. They were having a speed party and Jane was invited. The idea was completely new to Jane. She and Ellen sometimes drank at parties, but they had never dabbled in drugs. For that reason alone, Jane decided to attend the party. She would be different from Ellen if it killed her.

  But that night she had more in mind than the drugs. Jane had experimented sexually with Clay but had not yet lost her virginity. Now she’d made up her mind. She would stay at Clay’s house for a week and spend much of it in bed with him. So what if it went against everything her parents had taught her, everything she had learned at church over the years? So what if Clay didn’t love her? Neither did her father.

  But that night after taking one hit from a cigarette dipped in liquid speed, Jane grew violently ill and threw up on the living room rug. Looking disgusted with the mess and frustrated by her inexperience, Clay relegated her to a back bedroom.

  “Lotta fun you are. Stay there until you can party like the rest of us.” He slammed the door.

  Her heart raced and she could barely catch her breath. She struggled for an hour to stop vomiting. When she felt better she climbed out the bedroom window, crept around the house to where her bicycle was parked, and sped off. She spent that night and most of the next day at her friend Rochelle’s house, sorting through her feelings. Rochelle had seen the changes in Jane and was thankful she had come to her senses before making a grave mistake.

  “Clay is worthless, Jane. Let him go.”

  Jane nodded and suddenly Troy’s words had come back to her: Someday, Jane, I’ll grow up and be ready for what we have between us.

  “Thinking of Troy?” Rochelle had asked.

  “Yep.”

  The two girls stayed up into the early hours of the morning talking. Jane promised Rochelle she was through with Clay and the fast crowd, but she could not bear any more comparisons to Ellen. She was determined to explain this to her father.

  When she phoned her parents they were frantic. They had contacted the police and searched for her throughout the night.

  “Jane, where have you been? We’ve been so worried.”

  “Never mind, Dad. I have something to say.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence and Jane knew her father was probably at a loss for how to deal with her. Ellen had never challenged him this way, she was sure. But she was equally sure the time had come to make her feelings clear.

  “What?” His voice was gruff with disapproval.

  “Dad, don’t ever compare me with Ellen again. Please.”

  “Jane, I never meant—”

  “Dad, please. Don’t talk about it now. I’ve thought things through and I’m ready to start living the way you want me to live. I’m sorry about the past. Just don’t ever compare me to her again.”

  Dad was silent and Jane wondered if maybe he was crying. “I won’t compare you,” he said finally. “But I will insist that you come home now and start acting like the responsible young lady we’ve raised you to be.”

  Jane was satisfied with that. The trip away from home was worth every minute if it had finally made him aware of her feelings.

  After that Jane still felt she didn’t quite measure up in her father’s eyes. But at least her shortcomings were no longer verbalized.

  Jane paused a moment, catching her breath and collecting her thoughts. “Is there more?” Troy asked, taking her hand.

  A sadness fell Over Jane then, and for the first time there were tears in her eyes. She tightened her grip on his hand.

  “You okay?” He moved closer, and she fell into his arms.

  “Hold me,” was all she could manage between sobs. “There’s more.”

  The worst was yet to come.

  7

  Jane sat back against the cushions. “Are you okay?” Troy asked. “You don’t have to do this, hon.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I do.” Reaching out, she took his hand, then closed her eyes, letting her mind drift back. Back to the events that took place after her graduation from high school. She held Troy’s fingers tightly, grateful for his love. For his support. She needed both desperately if she was going to finally tell him the truth.

  “It was the summer of 1986.” She paused. “The summer Daddy lost his job.”

  Jane remembered the details of that ordeal like it was yesterday. Her father had left the security of his long-time position as professor at North Central Community College for a lucrative offer with a promising new company in Traverse City. It was a forty-five minute drive one way, but the company offered him nearly twice his previous salary and a benefit package that included a pension plan and complete medical coverage. It was an offer too good to pass up, and her father took it willingly.

  “Up until that time, things had been modest. Oh, we never had to do without. But my parents did what everyone did those days: they used credit cards and second mortgages to buy material goods. They bought our Petoskey home for only $39,000, and by 1980 it was worth three times that. Each time the value of the house grew by $20,000 or so, Mom and Dad borrowed against it and paid off the cards.” She shook her head. “Dad’s new position could have offered him a chance to finally pay off their debts and reduce their mortgage payments.”

  “Could have?”

  “Yeah, but Daddy didn’t have the job five weeks before he and Mom bought a new van, new clothes for all five of us kids, and a time-share vacation condominium in Lake Geneva. There were dinners on the town, steak barbecues, and personal computer components.” She grinned. “It was like Christmas every day.

  “One night we were all gathered at the table for dinner and Daddy got this funny-looking grin on his face. He pulled a box from his suit coat and gave Mom the most beautiful string of diamonds you ever saw. No one could believe it.”

  Troy looked surprised. “I’ll bet.”

  “He told Mom he’d never been able to shower her with gifts. If money weren’t a problem, he said, he’d give her gifts like that every day.”

  “It must have felt good for him to do something like that.”

  “It didn’t feel so good when the debts piled up. I heard Mom ask Dad once if we could afford everything, and he just assured her that his new job would take care of all our financial worries.”

  “Sounds like an exciting time,” Troy remarked, and Jane gave him a grim smile.

  “You have no idea. Four weeks later, on a Monday at the end of June, Dad’s supervisor approached him with bad news. They had lost one of their most lucrative contracts, an oil deal with Saudi Arabia. The company was downsizing. They had to let Dad go. And there was no severance pay.”

  Her father had been stunned. He spent the rest of the week waking at his usual time, dressing and pretending to go to work while he looked desperately for a new job.

  He approached his previous employer and spoke with the president of the college.

  “They said they’d love to have him back, but they were filled for the semester. They couldn’t get him on staff until January.” She paused, closing her eyes. “It was June. When nothi
ng else seemed immediately available Dad began to panic. On Thursday night he wrote a letter to us.” She opened her eyes and met Troy’s stunned gaze. “I know it by heart.… ‘Dear Diane, Ellen, Jane, Megan, Amy, and Aaron. I have failed all of you miserably. My company lost a contract and let me go last Monday. I have looked for a job but there is nothing. The college can’t take me back for seven months so I have let you down and I am sorry.

  “ ‘You will notice that the computer from the back bedroom is gone. I hope to sell it. I’ll send money when I do and there should be more money later; I’m sure you’ll know what to do with it. Diane, my life insurance policy is in my top drawer. I love you all. Please forgive me for what I must do. Your loving husband and father.’ ”

  “Did you find the letter?” Troy’s question was filled with sympathy.

  Jane shook her head. “Mom did. It was in a business envelope propped up on Dad’s pillow. She told us about it that afternoon. She said Dad had lost his job and gone away for a while. We were stunned. We just sat there, staring at her.” Jane grimaced. “Of course, Ellen was the first to recover. She asked where Dad was. Mom sighed and said she wasn’t sure. That he’d send us some money soon.”

  In her mind’s eye, Jane could still see the loss on her mother’s face, the confusion in her brother’s and sisters’ eyes. “Maybe he’s trying to find work,” her mother had finished.

  “How could he do that?” Ellen asked and she closed her eyes so the others couldn’t see her tears.

  “Maybe it’s just a vacation,” Megan had mused. She was fifteen and always the optimist back then. “Maybe he needs a little break so he can work things through.”

  “Why didn’t he take us?” Amy asked. She was thirteen and there was naked fear in her green eyes.

  Aaron said nothing. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at the floor.

  Jane remembered studying the others and rolling her eyes.

  “He didn’t take us because Megan’s right.” Mom had tried so hard to sound reassuring. “It’s something like a vacation, except this time he needs to be alone. Sometimes adults need time to themselves.” She looked at the other children and tried to assess their feelings. “Jane, do you understand?”

  “Sure.” She’d allowed hatred to fill her eyes. “Dad doesn’t love us so he left.”

  “Jane!” Her mother reached gently toward her and touched her cheek. “That’s not what’s happened at all. Of course your father loves you and all the rest of us. This must be very hard for him.”

  “Yeah, Jane, why don’t you just shut up!” Ellen had shot back, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “You’re always so rude to Dad. Why don’t you give him a chance. He’ll be back anytime and then he’ll explain the whole thing.”

  “He’ll explain it to you, maybe, because he loves you. But he doesn’t care if he leaves me, and that’s the truth.”

  Ellen clucked her tongue against the back of her teeth. “Not another poor Jane story. You always think people love you less than everyone else. It’s all in your head, Jane. Why don’t you grow up?”

  “Girls!” Their mother’s voice was loud and it stopped the argument. “We all need to stick together. I won’t have any more arguing.” She paused. “There’s something else.”

  She dismissed the younger children and asked Ellen and Jane to remain. Their dad had never done anything like this before, she said, so there was no telling when he might come back. She told Jane and Ellen that she was planning to find a job and begin working immediately, but several weeks might pass before she received a paycheck.

  “We have a house payment coming up. You both have jobs this summer and I may need your help.” There was shame in her eyes and the girls had to strain to hear her. “I hate to have to ask, but we don’t want to lose the house.”

  The girls nodded, stunned by their mother’s request. They had never considered their parents’ finances before. Suddenly their firm foundation was shifting badly.

  “What did you say?” Troy asked quietly, breaking Jane’s flow of memories.

  “We said we’d do whatever we could to help.” Jane shifted, restless.

  “You don’t have to go on, hon. Not if it’s too hard.”

  She reached out to touch his face. “Yes, I do. You need to know this. We heard nothing from Dad that night, and early the next morning Ellen left the house. She said she’d be back later and not to worry about her.”

  “Did Ellen ever tell you where she went?”

  Jane nodded. She had, indeed.

  With the sun still making its way into the sky, Ellen had driven to Magnus Park and found it empty. The tourists had recently returned to their homes in Chicago and Detroit and the town was noticeably quieter. She walked through the thick grass toward a shady knoll overlooking the water. No one would bother her there.

  She stared at the blue-green bay and thought about the position her father had left them in. His actions tore at her loyalty to him as nothing else had.

  After a while, her thoughts drifted and she considered her own life. She had missed so many classes at North Central the year before that she had been placed on academic probation.

  “You’re a smart girl, Miss Barrett,” the dean had told her. “We would welcome you back should you change your study habits. But we will have to limit your course load until you can show an improved attendance record.”

  The probation was her fault. The reason, of course, was Jake Sadler. When he wanted to see her, she went regardless of her schedule. What was a history class when she could spend an afternoon with Jake?

  After being put on probation she figured that perhaps she did not need a college degree, after all. She had not told her parents, but she planned to drop out of school and enroll in a course for legal secretaries. But her father’s disappearance had changed everything.

  A gentle breeze blew off Lake Michigan that day, and Ellen stared beyond the bay toward the open water. For the first time in her life she realized how utterly dependent the six of them were on their father. She thought about Jake and their plans to marry someday. Certainly she relied on Jake and would do so even more if they married. If he left she would be heartbroken.

  But she would not be broke.

  She later told Jane that in those solitary moments she decided she would never be financially dependent on Jake or any other man. She would never wonder where the next house payment was going to come from.

  Suddenly the idea of quitting college seemed utterly ludicrous. She would reenroll at the community college. She would attend her classes, regardless of Jake’s persuasive invitations. She would work harder than ever to earn high grades and then she would transfer to the University of Michigan where she would work until she had her bachelor’s degree. Jake had made her forget her dreams, but now they were convincingly clear. She would study journalism and become one of the best reporters ever.

  When she married, she would never place her husband under the financial strain her father had been living with. She stood up, brushed the sand off her shorts, and headed for her car.

  “It was a turning point for Ellen.” Jane turned to meet Troy’s eyes. “She told me she knew it with everything in her. Even her walk was different, more confident, the picture of determination.” A wry smile tipped her lips. “She said there would be no notes left on bedroom pillows for Ellen Barrett. No matter what happened with Dad, she was sure of that much.”

  “Sounds like a defining moment for her,” Troy said, and Jane nodded.

  “It’s strange, though, how the same event affected each of us so differently.” She sighed and forced herself to continue.

  When her father didn’t return home by Saturday evening Jane did something she hadn’t done in months. She called Clay’s friend and found out where the band was playing that night. By then she had saved up enough money to buy a small used car. After dinner she drove ten miles along the shore of Lake Michigan to Charlevoix where the party was already underway.

  “I moved th
rough the crowd of drunken, drugged partygoers and wondered what I was doing. I thought about my father and his eternal comparisons and I had the strange sensation that I was someone other than Jane Barrett, almost as if I no longer had any attachment to the Barrett family whatsoever.”

  She closed her eyes, fighting the tears. Troy squeezed her hand, offering her silent encouragement as she went on.

  “This tall, dark-haired stranger with bloodshot eyes came up to me then. He looked me over, and I could tell by his expression that he liked what he saw. I guessed he was about twenty years old, completely stoned. But his approval fed something … a hunger, I guess, deep inside me. He was handsome in a dangerous way and he dressed like one of the band members even though I had never seen him before. I—I smiled at him.”

  How she regretted that smile. Even now, so many years later, she wished desperately that she’d just turned and walked away.

  “I’m the new drummer, and you’re Jane Barrett, right?” His words had been slightly slurred.

  “How do you know?” Jane had batted her eyes, playing with him.

  “Everyone knows about Jane Barren. Used to be Clay’s girl. The only blond who ever dumped Clay on his royal behind.”

  He laughed at the thought and put his hand on Jane’s bare shoulder. She savored the sensation and felt a stirring in the pit of her stomach.

  “It’s warm in here.” His voice was husky. “Let’s take a walk.”

  Jane had looked into the young man’s red-rimmed eyes and decided no harm could come from taking a walk with someone who thought she was beautiful. She nodded and allowed him to slip his fingers between hers as they turned and headed for the door.

  “Hey, Squid-man, where you headed?” The voice could barely be heard above the din of the party, and Jane turned to see another band member making his way toward them.

  “Taking a walk,” the dark-haired stranger shouted in reply, squeezing Jane’s hand tighter. “Be back before the next set.”