Early Warning

Every morning, Janny came into his room before he was awake, sat on his bed, and asked him what he was going to do that day. He told her — build a fort with the Sloan boys, bike into town, swing on the rope that hung over Wilkins Creek (which was way wider than Harkaway Creek), build a glider, solve a murder mystery, jump off the roof of the house into the pool when Mom wasn’t looking. At the end of the day, she sat on his bed and he told her what he had done: the glider sailed for twenty miles, the water from his jump had splashed all the way into the living room. None of it was true — he had just biked around, and the fort was four hay bales and an old tarp. But she didn’t care one way or the other. She said she never, ever, ever wanted to go home. She hated Uncle Frank, Aunt Andy, Richie, Michael, and Nedra, the housekeeper, all equally. Mom stroked her head and said, “Everyone feels that way once in a while, sweetie,” but Tim was twelve and had never felt that way. And then, two days before Uncle Frank was to come pick her up, she really did cry and cry and beg Mom to adopt her and keep her — she would always be good, every day, and help around the house. She got straight A’s and was reading at ninth-grade level — the last book she read was Jo’s Boys—and Mom had to keep patting her but shaking her head and saying, “No, Janny, we can’t do that. Frank and Andy love you and miss you. We were lucky to get you this long.”

Everyone was in bed, and quiet, and Tim was almost asleep, when Janny tiptoed into his room in her pajamas and lay down on his bed. Tim didn’t say anything; in fact, he let out a tentative little snore, to see if she would believe it, and she did believe it — she shook his shoulder to wake him up. He said, “Huh?”

Janny said, “Are you going to miss me?”

Tim said yes. Whether he meant this, he had no idea.

Janny said, “Can I sleep here? It’s hot, and I don’t need covers.”

Tim moved over toward the wall. Janny moved a little bit, too, away from the edge of the bed, so that she wouldn’t fall. He said, “When is Uncle Frank getting here?” He was hoping for another ride in the plane. Steve Sloan said that if you stared at something still, like the horizon, you wouldn’t get sick.

“He told Aunt Lillian on the phone. I don’t remember.”

Now she took a deep breath, but she didn’t cry. Tim thought that was sadder in a way. Then she said, “Maybe you could come visit me. In Southampton. We could go to the beach.”

“Maybe,” said Tim. Then, “But I would have to bring Debbie. She would never let me go there without her.”

They didn’t say any more. She fell asleep on her back, and Tim lay awake for a little while, looking at the ceiling, and then looking at her face two times. Was she pretty? Tim didn’t know. He fell asleep. Someone, Mom or Dad, came in before he woke up and carried her out. They had pancakes and applesauce for breakfast. When they took her to the little airport, Uncle Frank didn’t offer to take them for another ride. Janny did run up to Uncle Frank, and did hug him, and he did pick her up and kiss her on the cheek. And every so often after she left, Tim missed her. He decided that she was pretty, but he didn’t say anything about that to Steve or Stanley.

—

ANDY PUT HER HAND over her eyes. It was interesting that the story was as familiar to her as an old sweater — admittedly a Norwegian sweater — because it was a farmer’s story. She couldn’t remember where she’d read it. Two brothers, Kristjan and his brother Erik, and the mad wife, in this case Signy. Kristjan would have been thirty-five, and Signy would have been no more than twenty. Kristjan and Signy were married three years before they had a child — maybe there were a couple of miscarriages — but then a girl was born alive, and Signy insisted on giving her an American name, Fanny. Fanny was much doted upon, and Signy was very careful of her, but her care didn’t matter in the end, because Fanny sickened anyway, and died on her first birthday. This event took place in the spring, and shortly afterward, Kristjan and Erik had to go away overnight to buy a team of horses they needed for spring plowing. When they got back, Signy had gone mad.

“What did that mean?” said Dr. Katz.

“She looked for the child, who had been buried in the graveyard, all over the farm. She ripped open her featherbed and pulled all of the feathers out, looking there. She thought she might be in the wood box, or in some trunk or other. Wrapped in a blanket. Whenever she saw a pile of something, or something rolled up, she imagined that the child was in there, trying to get out. She was always whipping around to look behind herself. Finally, she took to wandering the farm with a spade in her hand, digging here and there. It was a fulltime job.”

Andy wondered if she would have the same reaction if Janny or Michael or Richie died, and if so, whether it would prove to her that she truly loved that child.

“The death of a child often leads to some form of hysteria,” said Dr. Katz.