The Ferryman (15 page)

“And I hear you're seeing David Bairstow again,” Carlson observed.

“Gossip hounds, all of you, I swear!” Janine cried. But she shook her head, amazed at how quickly word had gotten around. “We've been out twice.”

“In five days, that's pretty good.” Carlson waggled an eyebrow suggestively. “That's nice, though. I always thought you two made a great couple. I'm glad that you had Annette and David to help you through this.”

“And you, Tom,” Janine said softly. “You helped, too. A lot. Thank you.”

He seemed stymied by her gratitude, and only nodded a bit shyly. “This school needs you, Janine.”

“Not half as much as I need this school.” She stood up, went to the door, and then turned to face him again.

“Glad to hear it,” Carlson replied. “Tell David I said hello.”

“Will do.”

Janine opened the door and stepped into the outer office. While Carlson's inner sanctum was overrun by plants yet otherwise neat, the outer office—lair of the receptionist—was a vast array of in and out boxes, file cabinets, folders, and an enormous jar filled with rolls of SweetTARTS candy. Janine had often wondered why SweetTARTS but had never remembered to ask.

No one sat at the reception desk, but as she stepped out, past the Poland Spring water dispenser, a tall, thin man with wispy hair and a red tie and a rumpled suit stood up from a chair near the door to Carlson's office.

“Janine Hartschorn?” the man asked.

A student's father,
she thought. But she did not recognize the man.

“I'm Miss Hartschorn,” she replied, relying upon the school's traditional formality within those walls.

The man reached inside his jacket pocket and for some reason she stiffened. A breeze whistled through the slightly open window nearby and it sounded almost like crying. A child crying.

He handed her a folded sheet of paper and, by reflex, Janine took it.

His smile was like a shark's.

“A summons, Miss Hartschorn. Have a good day.” The man turned on his heel and marched stiffly out of the reception area.

“What?” she whispered, mystified.The breeze from the open window slipped tendrils of cool air around her, and she shivered as she unfolded and read the summons.

She forgot to breathe. The tears she had held back in Carlson's office began to flow and she put a hand to her mouth again.A tiny grunt escaped her, the smallest of breaths, as though she had been punched in the gut. As if it burned her, she dropped the paper and took several steps back as it fluttered to the carpet. Her legs went numb and collapsed beneath her, and Janine found herself sitting in the middle of the floor. She cradled herself, rocking just a bit.

“Bastard,” she whispered. “You evil bastard.”

“Hey,” a gentle voice said.

Janine glanced up, and Carlson was there, stroking his beard, his brow furrowed in profound concern.

“What was that about? What's happened?”

“Spencer,” she said, and fought for breath, struggled to keep from hyperventilating.

The clock on the wall ticked loudly, proof that she was still alive, that the world was moving on. Somewhere out the window, out in the parking lot somewhere, a car engine roared to life and the radio was up too loud. From the hallway, a girlish giggle.

The words that came out of her mouth seemed so foreign to her, as though someone else were speaking them. Distant and hollow and metallic, the way it sounded if she tried to talk while underwater.

“He's suing me for custody of ... of the baby. It says I buried my son without his consent. He ...” She gazed up at him, the horror of it all dawning fully on her now. Nausea roiled in her belly and then vomit rose in her throat. Only with effort did she manage not to puke, but she could taste bile in the back of her mouth.

“Jesus, Janine, how can he do that? The baby's already buried.” Carlson gazed at her awkwardly, perhaps unsure how to help, or unwilling to admit that he couldn't.

Long, shuddering breaths escaped her and her whole body shook. The tears on her cheeks seemed to burn. She felt a lump inside her, but not in her stomach this time. Lower, deeper. Janine could feel the weight in her uterus, feel the distended flesh stretched across her belly, where baby David had once breathed and thrived, her blood his blood, her breath his breath.

Hollow now. Hollow inside.

Now he rested in the cold ground beside the bones of her father, who had held her in his arms when she was a little girl and told her it would be all right. He could never have known how wrong he was. She had thought, in some crazy way, that he would watch over his grandson now.

But he was dead. Her father was dead, and her son was dead, and it was all she could do to keep her spirit from withering and decaying along with them, to keep her soul from becoming as hollow as her belly.

“Janine?” Carlson prodded.

Cold, empty, she turned her eyes up to him again. Her hand was across her mouth and nose as a mask, and she gazed at him over her quivering fingers.

“Spencer wants to ... to dig him up. To ... exhume him so they can put the baby in his family crypt.”

She threw up then, there on the floor in the reception area outside the principal's office.

Only static issued from the speaker, and Janine grumbled with frustration as she realized she had no idea what movie she was at.
Must have drifted off to sleep,
she thought.

Her eyes snapped open and she stared briefly at the ceiling of her bedroom. Then the tears began to flow and she lay on her side and cried herself back to sleep. It took more than twenty minutes of weeping before she at last drifted off again.

After that, she dreamed no more.

 
“Twenty-two?”

David stared at Annette in disbelief. It was Friday afternoon and they were alone in his classroom. She sipped a cup of coffee and leaned on the radiator by the window as he collected his papers to go home.

Or that was what he had been doing when she had mentioned the age of the new woman in her life.

“Twenty-two?” he repeated, though this time without quite so much judgment in his voice. He had not been able to edit out the astonishment, however.

Annette frowned at him over the rim of her coffee cup as she took a long swig. David was fascinated by her in that moment. All week she had seemed different to him, happier. When they had lunch together or even just stumbled across one another in the corridors of St. Matt's, her eyes had a faraway quality that had been a mystery to him.

Not anymore.

Though her clothes were not very much different from what she usually wore—today she had on a burgundy cotton V-neck and beige capri pants—somehow she looked better. Sexier.

Only now did he realize that there was a reason she looked sexier.

“Wow,” he whispered.

Annette's expression changed, and now she looked almost hurt. “Y'know, try to be a little open-minded, David. If one of your penis-equipped friends had met a cute twenty-two-year-old girl, you'd be high-fiving him in the hallway. She's not
that
much younger than me.”

The desk was not much neater, but he had gathered the things he needed. David clicked his briefcase shut and offered a sheepish look by way of apology.

“Just doesn't seem like you, Elf. Took me by surprise.”

That faraway look that had been with her all week returned then, accompanied by a grin both coy and mischievous.

“Only 'cause you haven't met her.”

“She must be really something,” he said.