Chapter Ten
Two months after that terrible day, Caleb was standing in line at a coffee shop with his phone pressed to his ear. The woman in front of him was trying to reason with a screaming toddler, and he could feel his temper on a thin wire, ready to snap.
“You have to do something,” Nina Finch was saying. “We sent her a plane ticket so she could come home for Christmas, but she wasn’t on the flight.”
“What do you expect me to do about it?”
His voice was gruff, and he hated himself for that. The Finches had lost their oldest child, and their youngest wasn’t talking to them.
She wasn’t talking to anyone. Him, least of all.
It had been two months since he’d walked into her store and told her the news. For the rest of his life he’d remember the look in her eyes, the way she’d struggled to break free of him, and the crack of her palm hitting his cheek when she’d finally wrenched away.
“Get out of here,” she’d said. “Get out!”
He hadn’t. He’d put his arms around her and held her close and made her listen, because she’d have to hear it eventually, and it wouldn’t be a kindness to put it off.
It had been an equipment failure, he’d told her. One of Sam’s rappel anchors had broken and she’d fallen. She’d died instantly. She hadn’t suffered.
“You’re lying. She’s not dead.”
“Sweetheart—”
“Don’t call me that. Get out of here. Get out of my sight!”
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
And he hadn’t. Not until Felicia arrived to handle things at the bookstore so Kiki could take Jane home, promising Caleb she’d stay with her until her parents arrived from California.
He’d known before he’d ever walked into her shop what the price would be. The price of being the one to tell her, the one who broke the news that her sister was dead.
For the rest of their lives, he’d be linked to that moment of shock and grief. And she’d hate him for it.
So he hadn’t just lost one sister. He’d lost two.
Nina and Harvey had lost more than he had. They’d lost a child. They deserved compassion and kindness and anything in the world he could do for them.
Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do.
He’d already checked out.
He’d felt it happen a few weeks after the funeral, when Jane still wasn’t answering his calls and he was still dealing with the paperwork that resulted from one member of a business partnership dying suddenly. He was Sam’s executor, too, which had landed him with even more tasks.
“We should be each other’s executors,” Sam had said when they’d discussed making wills a few years before. Considering the dangers inherent in their work, they’d decided it was irresponsible not to plan for the unexpected.
“Why would we do that? We’ve both got family.”
“Because I know if Jane died the last thing I’d want to deal with is a will and probate and all that crap. And you know Jane—she cries when those ASPCA commercials come on. She couldn’t cope with paperwork if I died. But you’d go right into practical Caleb mode and just take care of everything.”
The idea of Sam dying had seemed so ludicrous then. They’d been in a café in Buenos Aires when they’d had this conversation, a shaft of sunlight striking sparks off her golden hair.
So he’d said yes. Even though he’d known that nothing is promised, that anyone can die, even the people who seem most alive.
He supposed he should be glad that Jane and her parents weren’t dealing with any of this. But the truth was, he’d checked out. He was counting the days until he’d done everything he was supposed to do, and then he’d be gone. And it would be a long time before he came back.
“I can’t fix this for you, Nina. I’m leaving in two days.”
“Leaving? Where are you going?”
“Australia.”
“For an expedition?”
“Several, actually. I’m going to be based there for a few months, leading treks into the outback.” He paused. “If you want to talk to Jane, you can’t do it through me. For one thing, she’s not taking my calls. For another, I won’t be back in New York for a while. I’ve given up my apartment.”
“But, Caleb! Do you know anyone in Australia?”
“Yeah. I know plenty of people.”
“You know what I mean. Do you know anyone well? Do you have family there or real friends?”
No, thank God.
“If you want to talk to Jane, you’ll have to come out here yourself,” he said, changing the subject.
“But we always spend the holidays here in LA. Every year. I want her to come home, Caleb. I think it’s important, for all of us. We still have three days before Christmas. We can buy her another plane ticket. Please, please, can’t you talk to her?”
That kid in front of him was screaming louder than ever.
“Nina—”
“Please, Caleb. Please.”
He closed his eyes. “Fine,” he said.
“What?”
“I said fine!”
“Oh, thank goodness. Call me and tell me how it goes.”
And before he could take the offer back, Jane’s mother ended the call.
Goddamn it.
Using the phone would be no good—Jane wouldn’t answer. He’d stopped by the shop a few times, but she hadn’t been there, and Kiki had said her hours had been irregular since the funeral.
If he wanted to see her, he’d have to go to her apartment—the one thing he’d told himself he wouldn’t do.
It was one thing to call someone who wouldn’t answer or go by their place of work hoping to see them. But to go to their home, knowing they hated the sight of you . . . knowing you’d probably get the door slammed in your face . . .
Oh well, what the hell. What was one more bad memory to file away in the room marked “Don’t Look in Here”?
He finally got his coffee, wrapped his cold hands around it, and took it with him on the subway to Brooklyn.
The last time he’d seen Jane was at the funeral. Sam had asked to be cremated, so there was no gravesite horror to go through—just a memorial service for friends and family at a church Sam had liked, even though her work schedule had meant she wasn’t a regular attendee.
It had been a perfect October day, so beautiful it had hurt . . . and as different from today as it was possible to be.
Today was funeral weather. Gray and cold and raw, the sidewalks covered with a mix of icy slush and dirty snow. Once he left the subway station, the only warmth anywhere was in the cardboard cup he held between his hands, and even that was dissipating.
After two blocks it was gone completely. He threw it in a trash bin without having taken a single sip.
Another ten minutes and he was at Jane’s place.
He was heartened a little by her tree-lined block. This was a neighborhood people cared about, the kind of place people decorated for the holidays. There were wreaths and red ribbons and little twinkling lights everywhere, and in the downstairs windows of Jane’s building a child had hung homemade snowflakes and paper chains.
Maybe Jane had absorbed some of the holiday cheer in spite of herself.
He walked up her stoop as someone else was coming out, so he didn’t have to get buzzed into the lobby. The Christmas theme continued here with gold and silver bows on all the mailboxes.
One of the mailboxes was stuffed full, as though the owner were away on vacation.
He went close enough to read the name and saw that it was Jane’s.
Great. What if she wasn’t here? What if she’d gone away someplace?
Her apartment was on the third floor. He went up the stairs slowly, wondering what he’d do if she wasn’t home. Wait? He might have to wait a long time. Try to track her down? She’d have to have told Kiki and Felicia where she’d gone.
There were two apartments on each floor. The door across from Jane’s had a big wreath hung on it and a red-and-green welcome mat proclaiming “Happy Holidays!” on the floor in front of it.
Jane’s door was unadorned. He knocked, but he was almost certain now that Jane wasn’t home. He was already trying to think of a plan B when he heard a voice on the other side of the door.
“Who is it?”
The voice sounded strange—a little creaky, like an unused gate. But it was definitely Jane’s.
“It’s Caleb. Let me in.”
Now that he’d heard her voice, he was ready to settle in for a siege if necessary, to get a look at her and make sure she was all right.
But it didn’t take a fight. The door swung open, and there was Jane, standing in the doorway and looking at him.
She was drunk. Even if she hadn’t been holding a bottle of vodka, he would have known from the vague, bleary look in her eyes.
Her feet were bare, and so were her legs. She was wearing an old white T-shirt, a little too small for her, and when she lifted a hand to brush her hair off her face it rode up enough that he could see her underwear—white cotton with bright red candy cane stripes.
In all the time he’d known her, he’d never seen Jane look like this.
“Jesus,” he said.
Jane nodded. “He has a birthday coming up.” She pulled up her T-shirt to give him another glimpse of her panties. “See? I’m festive.”
She let go of her T-shirt and leaned toward him, resting the hand not holding the vodka in the center of his chest. “Actually,” she said confidentially, her face close enough that he could smell the alcohol on her breath, “I’m not wearing these to be festive. My aunt sent them for Christmas, and I put them on because I’m out of clean underwear.”
He looked down at her for a moment and then over her shoulder at her apartment. It was a mess, the kitchen filled with dirty dishes and the living room crowded with old pizza boxes and Chinese takeout containers. Through the bedroom door he could see laundry piled up on the floor.
He looked back at Jane. “Invite me in,” he said.
She blinked up at him for a moment, her eyes not quite focused. Then she took a step back and gestured grandly with the vodka bottle. “Won’t you please come in?”
He closed the door behind him, went to the middle of the living room, and turned to face her again.
“Okay,” he said. “Now say, ‘Caleb, you have my permission to clean this place up.’”
“Caleb, you have my—” She stopped. “Wait a minute. You totally do not have my permission.”
“Jane—”
She threw the bottle of vodka onto the sofa and stormed up to within a few inches of him.
“What’s wrong with you? Why would you say that? There’s nothing wrong with my apartment. How dare you come in here and tell me my sister’s dead?”
She heard the words at the same time he did. He watched it happen with a sick feeling in his stomach, and when her eyes widened and she stared at him, all he could do was stare back.
“I didn’t mean that,” she whispered, and his heart clenched in his chest.
He closed the space between them and put his hands on her shoulders. “Jane—”
She shrugged away from him. “It’s not your fault. It’s my fault.”
She turned her back and took one uncertain step, and then another. He’d never seen a human being look so utterly lost.
He came up beside her and took her hand. Then he tugged on it, gently, and led her over to the sofa. He shoved the pizza boxes off to clear a space, and then he sat down, pulling on her hand until she sat down beside him.
“That’s not true,” he said. “It’s no one’s fault.”
She looked at him for a moment, her face twisting as her eyes filled with tears she refused to shed.
“I was going to tell her about Dan. I was going to give her the letter and tell her to give him a chance. I could have stopped her from going on that trip.” She took a deep breath. “But I didn’t tell her, because I was jealous.”
“Telling her about Dan wouldn’t have stopped her from going. Nothing would have. Nothing ever stopped Sam, Jane. You know that.”
“She would have stayed if I’d asked her to. She loved me, and if I’d asked her to stay she would have.”
“Jane—”
“Do you know what her last words to me were?” Her lips trembled for a moment, and she took a deep breath. “‘Stay safe, little sis. I love you.’”
His heart clenched again. Sam, he thought. Oh, Sam.
Jane pressed her hands to her temples as though her head had started to throb. “She always told me to stay safe. Why? When have I ever done anything but stay safe? She was the one who needed to hear that. But I never told her.”
“She wouldn’t have listened. You told her you loved her, Jane. That’s what’s important.”
She shook her head. “But I didn’t. I started to say I love you, too, but she was gone. I never got a chance to say the words.”
“You told her plenty of times, Jane. She knew. You know she did.”
Her hands pressed harder, as though she were trying to crush her own skull between them.
He grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands away. “Stop that.”
“If she read my mind, she would have known the truth.”
Her hands felt so small, so cold, so fragile. He held them tighter, trying to will some of his own body’s warmth into her.
“She did know the truth. You loved her, and she knew it.”
Jane shook her head. “But I didn’t,” she whispered. “Not really. The truth is, I was jealous. She was beautiful and alive, and I was jealous of her, and I wish I was dead.”
Up until that point, the only thing Caleb had felt was pity and sorrow. But now, a whiplash of anger cut through the pain.
He let go of Jane’s hands, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her.
“Is that why you’re living like this? Are you trying to kill yourself?”
The shock of his sudden fury seemed to wake her up a little. Her eyes were a little clearer, a little more focused, as she stared at him.
“What are you talking about? What’s wrong with the way I’m living?”
He gestured around the apartment. “Are you kidding? The place is a mess.” He gestured toward her. “You’re a mess. You stink, Jane. When’s the last time you took a goddamn shower? Last month?”
The harshness of his words woke her up a little more.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you’re going to take one now. Come on.”
He surged to his feet and pulled her up with him, leading her to the bathroom. She stumbled after him, but he kept her on her feet until they were there, and then he closed the door behind them.
It wasn’t as messy in here as in the rest of the apartment. There were even clean towels hanging on the rack, maybe because it really had been a while since Jane had taken a shower.
“I thought I was exaggerating, but how long has it been?”
The blinds had been closed in the living room, and the only light had come from a lamp on a side table. In here, the cold gray light of a winter afternoon seemed almost cheery in comparison.
“Since what?”
“Since you were clean.”
Jane sat down on the toilet seat. “I told you I don’t know.”
There was a radiator in here, and with the door closed the small space was warming up.
“This is actually the nicest room in your apartment right now,” he said to her. “So you’re going to stay in here while I take care of some stuff out there.”
He went over to the tub, closed the stopper, and turned on the water, fiddling with the faucets until he got the right temperature—hot, but not too hot.
“A bath will feel even better than a shower.”
He turned back to Jane as the tub began to fill. He started to ask if she had any bubble bath, but he forgot the question when he saw the look on her face.
“What’s wrong?”
She wrapped her arms around herself as she looked down at the floor. There was a rug, soft and white and fluffy, but she took her feet off it and rested them on the cold tile instead. “You said a bath will feel even better.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t understand. You don’t understand anything.”
“What don’t I understand?”
She looked up at him again, and the expression on her face tore at his heart.
“I don’t want to feel better.”
He knelt down on the floor and put his hands on her knees. Their faces were level now, and he looked straight into her eyes.
“You’re wrong, sweetheart. I do understand. I know you don’t want to feel better. But I’m in charge right now, and you don’t have a choice. Do you have any bubble bath?”
She shook her head.
“That’s okay. The bath will still feel good. I’m going to wait here until the tub is full, and then I’m going to turn my back while you get in, so I know you did.”
He thought for a second she might argue, but then her shoulders slumped and she looked down at the floor again.
For the moment, her depression and exhaustion actually gave him an advantage. They didn’t leave her with enough strength to fight him.
He didn’t say anything else until the bath was ready. Then he turned off the faucets and went to the door, standing facing it with his back to the room.
“I’m not leaving until you get in,” he said.
A moment of silence. Then: “Fine.”
Another moment passed, and then he heard the faint splashing that meant she was stepping into the tub.
“Stay in until your fingers get pruny. And if you don’t use the soap and shampoo, we’ll do this all over again.”
“My God, you’re bossy.”
He started to answer, but a sudden realization made the words stick in his throat.
Jane was naked.
At least, he assumed she was. Considering she was still under the influence of alcohol, he supposed it was possible she hadn’t bothered to undress before getting into the tub.
It was the last thing he should be thinking about right now. And as if to confirm that truth, Jane’s voice came from behind him.
“You can go now, Caleb. I’m in the damn tub. I’m putting soap on a washcloth. Go away.”
“Right.” The word came out as a kind of croak, and he opened the door and closed it behind him.
He stood there a moment, breathing deep and trying not to imagine Jane naked and covered in water.
It was a good thing he had a big job waiting for him.
When he saw how bare the fridge and the cupboards were, he decided he should go to the grocery store on the corner before he did anything else. But then it occurred to him that they might make deliveries, which would save time, and when he called them up they confirmed it.
He placed an order for more food than Jane could eat in a week.
He spent the next ten minutes taking care of the easy stuff—bagging up the pizza boxes and other trash. Then he gathered up the laundry from Jane’s bedroom and put a load in the little washer behind the door in her kitchen.
There was a clean set of sheets in the bottom drawer of her bureau, so he was able to make her bed. He also found her Harry Potter pajamas neatly folded in another drawer, and he wondered for a moment why she was wearing a smelly old T-shirt.
The answer, of course, was obvious. She loved the pajamas, and wearing them would have felt good.
Something she didn’t think she deserved.
She really was out of clean underwear, though—except for the other two pairs in the holiday three-pack sent by her aunt, which was on the coffee table in the living room beside a glitter-covered Christmas card.
He pulled out the pair covered in green holly and red berries and carried them, along with the Harry Potter pajamas, over to the bathroom.
He knocked on the door.
“How’s it going in there?”
“I’m pruny.”
He smiled for the first time that day.
“Well, good. You ready to get out?”
“I suppose.”
“I’ve got clean clothes for you to put on. I’m going to open the door a crack and drop them on the floor.”
“It’s very considerate of you to protect my modesty,” she said, sounding a little like the old Jane again. “That’s definitely something I’m worried about right now.”
“Okay, then, I’ll just walk right in.”
He turned the doorknob and she squealed.
“Caleb!”
He smiled again. “Don’t worry,” he said, opening the door just wide enough to drop the clothes on the floor before closing it again. “Your modesty is safe with me.”
The groceries arrived, and after he put the bags on the counter, he filled Jane’s copper kettle and turned the burner on. As he put the food away, it started to sing.
He’d included chamomile tea and honey in his grocery order, and as he made a cup for Jane and one for himself it occurred to him that this had been his mother’s way of coping with tragedy and hard times. Considering he’d never before looked to his mother as an example to follow, he must be pretty damn desperate.
It wasn’t just his mother he was looking to, though. As he toasted white bread and spread butter on it, he remembered something Sam had told him once when they were on a cold mountaintop together with the temperature dropping. They’d been talking about favorite foods to keep their spirits up.
“Hot buttered toast,” Sam had said. “That’s what Jane and I decided was the most comforting thing, back when we were kids. Well, that plus puppies and kittens. But if you can’t get puppies and kittens, hot buttered toast is pretty good.”
And so when Jane emerged from the bathroom in her Harry Potter pajamas with a freshly scrubbed face and wet hair, he had tea and hot buttered toast ready for her.
She looked less happy to see the tray on the coffee table than he’d hoped she would.
“I’m feeling kind of queasy,” she said. “I don’t think I can eat anything.”
“You’re queasy because of all the vodka.”
“Thanks for that brilliant analysis. Where is my vodka, by the way?”
“Down the drain.”
She looked indignant. “Hey! That belonged to me, not you.”
“Now it belongs to the alligators in the sewers.” He pulled her down on the couch beside him and nudged the tray closer to her. “Have a bite of toast and a sip of tea. It won’t kill you.”
She looked at the mug he handed her with distaste, but at least she took a sip.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
She nodded, and he pointed to the one thing on the coffee table—the whole apartment, really—that looked intentional instead of chaotic. Several sheets of brightly colored paper, a few of them folded into shapes that weren’t yet recognizable.
“What’s this? Origami?”
She looked where he was pointing and then away. “Yes. It’s stupid.”
“What were you trying to make?”
She shrugged. “Paper cranes. I haven’t done one for years, though, and I’ve forgotten how. Like I said, it’s stupid.”
“What is?”
She took another sip of tea. “There was this story Sam and I both read when we were kids—one of the few books we both liked. It was about this girl who lived near Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped. There’s a legend in Japan that whoever folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted one wish. This girl developed leukemia, and she tried to fold a thousand paper cranes before she died. She didn’t make it. I tried a couple times to get to a thousand when I was a kid, but I never finished. The closest I ever got was two hundred.”
He looked at the sheets of paper. “I don’t think there’s enough here to make a thousand.”
“Nope. And I don’t know what I’d wish for even if I did.”
She leaned forward and swept the paper and her half-finished cranes onto the floor, and Caleb resisted the urge to pick them up.
“I think I’m still drunk,” she muttered.
“Good thing you don’t have a driver’s license.”
“I feel like shit.”
“Eating and drinking will help. Also aspirin.”
“I don’t have any aspirin.”
“I ordered some from the grocery store.”
He went over to the kitchen counter, grabbed the bottle, and came back with two white pills.
“Here you go.”
Jane swallowed them dry and then gulped down some tea.
“You think of everything,” she said.
“Not everything.”
“Really? What didn’t you think of?”
He looked at her for a moment and then away. He rose to his feet, went over to the window, and opened the blinds.
Night had fallen. In the light of the street lamps he could see snow coming down.
He turned back. “I didn’t think to check Sam’s climbing equipment before her trip.”
Jane froze.
For a moment they just looked at each other. Then Jane said, “That’s stupid. You know that’s stupid.”
“No more stupid than you thinking you killed your sister because you didn’t make her stay in New York to meet some guy who thought he was in love with her. Or because you felt jealous of her once in a while.”
Jane started to tremble, and he had to resist the urge to go over and put his arms around her.
“Get out,” she said, and her voice was shaking, too.
“As soon as you eat something and go to bed, I will.”
“You can’t blackmail me into . . .”
“Into what? Taking care of yourself? I’m doing it right now. You want me gone? Eat something and go to bed. That’s what it’ll take.” He paused. “I’ve actually got better things to do than be here, you know. I’m going to Australia in two days.”
Her head jerked up like someone had given her an uppercut to the jaw.
“Australia? You’re going to Australia?”
He nodded. “So as soon as you eat some goddamn toast, I’ll be out of your hair.”
She’d stopped trembling, except for the slightest quiver in her lower lip. Almost as though his awareness made her aware of it, too, she pressed her lips together in a firm line, stilling that tiny movement.
“Fine by me,” she said.
Then she picked up a piece of toast and started to eat.