Chapter 29. Jenny
JENNY
Jenny stared at the bedroom door. Would Simon come to bed now? She didn’t know what she would say, or if she wanted him to know that she’d heard everything. He’d talked and talked, before he put Alice back into the basement. Jenny had gone down with Simon when he first opened the hatch.
It was dark and creepy, probably crawling with spiders. Simon said the others would be more comfortable because they didn’t have to be tied up. Still, it was a basement and they had to use buckets. She told herself they wouldn’t be in there long, but she didn’t know.
Simon hadn’t answered Alice’s question about whether he was going to leave them behind, and he hadn’t answered Jenny when she’d asked the same thing earlier. She liked having Alice with them. She knew things. Grown-up things. But Simon always wanted Alice around too.
Jenny didn’t like that as much. It made her feel useless.
Simon had never told Jenny that his mom made him special grilled cheese sandwiches. Maybe he felt lonely tonight. Maybe she should have stayed with him, but the smell of his cigarettes had made her sick, and she didn’t like his slurring words and unfocused eyes.
Jenny hadn’t told him all the things Alice had said about the fight at the church. She didn’t want Simon to think she didn’t believe him. Truth was, she didn’t know who to believe.
Simon was walking around in the kitchen now.
The fridge opened. Then more footsteps, and the back door creaked open and slammed closed.
The house was silent. Jenny waited a few moments, then slipped out of bed, careful not to bump the rifle and the shotgun that he’d placed near the bed.
They were leaning against the wall. Simon had left them loaded with the safety on.
The ammunition was stacked near them. It felt like he was preparing for a shootout.
She didn’t like that feeling either.
She walked to the window, pulling the curtains to the side, and stared at the dark shape of the barn.
Simon hadn’t seen the phone when he went out with Ruth to feed the animals.
Jenny had stood at the living room window then, waiting for him to come back angry or suspicious.
But he hadn’t, which meant it was still out there.
Jenny flexed her feet, rose up onto her toes, feeling the familiar stretch of her arch.
She used to love pirouetting. Her mind would blank out while her body took over.
Her muscles and limbs knew what to do. She didn’t have to think.
Jenny used to be good at not thinking about a lot of things.
She could go to school and the studio, but inside, she wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere.
Now her thoughts were loud. That night. Her mother.
Simon.
She could call the police. She could climb out the window or go through the front door. She could run fast to the barn. Simon probably wouldn’t hear her footsteps from inside the shop.
They’d both be arrested. He’d be sent to Ontario.
The boy who loved the ocean would be kept in a small, cold cell.
The women’s prison might be there too. Would she be allowed to write to him?
She wouldn’t have any visitors. She’d have to spend years there.
Maybe her entire life. She was only eighteen.
She hadn’t gone anywhere or done anything.
She wanted to get married. She wanted a family.
Her baby would go into foster care. Would she grow up thinking that Jenny was a bad person?
She might not want to see her. She might look at Jenny the same way her mother had.
Same as Hannah, her former friend, who would walk the other way to avoid her at school.
The teachers who thought her dismal grades were because she was stupid.
The Royal Winnipeg Ballet judges when she failed her audition the summer before.
Her mother who’d berated her on the train home, saying the tickets were a waste of money.
Jenny a waste of her time. She hadn’t practiced enough.
She’d gained weight. She was impossible.
And then that spring, when her mother had realized Jenny was pregnant, and there’d never be a second audition. The things she’d screamed at her.
The only person who never made her feel ashamed was Simon.
She was sitting on the dock, bundled in her winter coat, with her knees to her chest. Her knit hat was pulled over her ears and a scarf covered the lower half of her face.
Her cheeks were wet. Her eyelashes spikey with tears.
The stairs were so slick with ice, she’d nearly fallen on the way down and had to cling to the railing.
Why didn’t she just let go? She would have slid all the way to the bottom.
Maybe straight into the ocean. With her heavy clothes, she’d sink right away.
The February morning sky was streaked with charcoal-colored clouds that rolled across the horizon. In the distance she could make out the dark shapes of the few small islands that dotted the channel. Seagulls glided overhead, soaring up, then sideways with the wind.
She heard the soft sound of a boat motor coming from the direction of the bay, a purr over the slap of the white-tipped waves, and the creaking of the dock rubbing against the piers.
The sound grew louder, and a metal skiff rounded the point. A man was sitting at the back in a yellow rain slicker with a hood pulled over his head, and an orange life jacket.
The man’s head turned her way. Was he looking at her? He was coming toward the dock. Maybe he was going past. No. He was slowing. She tensed. If it was someone who knew her mother or Robert, he might tell them she’d been on the dock.
The boater pushed the hood off his head as he drew closer. His brown hair was damp and curling around his face. Simon Gray? She was so surprised she lifted her face out of the scarf.
Simon had been in his last year of school when she was beginning senior high.
She hadn’t seen him around much since he graduated.
She’d heard things, though. The girls at ballet talked about him.
The mysterious brown-haired, brown-eyed boy who didn’t have a steady girlfriend, even though they’d all kill to go on a date with him.
People said he spent more time on water than land.
His dad owned the marina. There were rumors that they used their boats to help draft dodgers flee up north during the Vietnam War. Her mom called them criminals.
“You okay?”
Jenny had never spoken a word to Simon, but he was looking at her like this was normal, his hand draped over the long handle that steered the motor. As if they talked all the time.
“I’m fine.”
He puttered closer, reached out to grip the side of the dock, and quickly wrapped a rope around one of the hooks. He was in front of her now. Only a couple of feet away.
“It’s too cold to be sitting on a dock.”
“You’re in a boat.”
He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
She noticed a reddish purple shadow under his eye, with a scrape. Something had split the skin. It had been bleeding recently. The blood smeared.
“What happened to your eye?”
He reached up to touch the bruise like he’d forgotten it was there. “My dad’s on a bender. I’m staying away for a few days.” Now she noticed the duffle bag in the boat.
“Where?”
“There’s an old shanty on one of the islands. Not far. I keep supplies there.”
“Is that where you were when you went missing?” It had been over two years, she guessed, since he’d disappeared at sea during a storm, but she still remembered how scared she’d been for him, imagining what it must have been like.
When there’d been no sign of him for days, everyone thought he’d died.
It was a shock when he and his boat reappeared without injury.
Rumor was that he’d found an island, built a hut out of driftwood, started a fire to keep himself warm, and ate fish and berries. But she didn’t know if any of that was true.
“Tell you a secret?” he said.
“Okay.”
“I wasn’t missing. I was hiding from my dad.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what to say. She’d seen his father around town, with his flushed, wind-burned skin, and deep creases around his eyes from always being out on the water. He was a big man, with muscled arms covered in tattoos. Being hit by him would hurt a lot.
“I see you on the beach sometimes,” Simon said. “What are you looking for?”
“Rocks. Shells.”
“Why?”
“I make jewelry.”
“Cool. Have you ever found sea glass?”
“What’s that?”
“Broken bottles and glass that’ve been on the shore a long time. They get tumbled in the waves and turn smooth. Want to go for a ride? I’ve found pieces on my island before.”
“I’m not supposed to spend time with boys.”
“Do you want to spend time with me?” He held her gaze, waiting for her answer, but her mouth was dry, and her thoughts had scattered.
She’d never actually asked her mom if she could go on a date before—no one had ever asked Jenny out.
But her mom’s plans for Jenny to audition again in the summer for the Winnipeg Ballet were firmly cemented.
Jenny’s destiny had been laid down the first time her mom told her to point her toes.
“Sure,” she finally managed. “But my mom … she’d freak out.”
“Does she know you’re on the dock?” Simon said.
“She’s gone into the city for the day. She’s shopping.”
“With your stepdad?”
“No. He was working late. He’ll probably sleep most the day.”
“So no one will notice if you’re gone.”
No one would notice. It shouldn’t hurt. Not still, but it did. Because her mother would come home late and be preoccupied with her purchases. And when Robert did wake up, he’d go to his office again and stay there into the night. Drinking bourbon. Typing and ripping up pages.
She wasn’t supposed to disturb him, and she never did.
Jenny had made a terrible mistake before her mother married Robert, when her mother had been dating two men at the same time, waiting to see who she liked better.
Her mother didn’t lack for attention. It wasn’t just her beauty but how she could make them feel as though they were completely fascinating.
That time it was a lawyer and a stockbroker.
One phoned their apartment, and Jenny had used the other man’s name.
When they found out about each other, they broke up with Isabelle, who then ignored Jenny for days.
When her mother finally spoke to her, it was only to announce Jenny’s penance.
She’d have to eat a bowl of tomatoes. She knew Jenny hated the texture.
The squishing between her teeth. How the taste made her gag and her throat itchy.
Jenny steeled herself and choked down the bowl and went to bed relieved it was over.
Then her breakfast was fried tomatoes. She opened her lunch box at school and found more tomatoes. Dinner was cream of tomato soup.
It went on for days. Jenny didn’t want anyone to notice she wasn’t eating at lunch, so she hid in the library.
She didn’t have any of her own money to go to a store.
No friends to ask for help. She nearly fainted while dancing, but her mom didn’t let up.
She came home to more tomatoes. Blanched tomatoes.
Salsa. Steamed. Boiled. Stewed. Jenny’s throat was constantly burning, an itch she couldn’t scratch.
She tasted blood. She drank water, milk. Nothing helped.
She thought she might die. She sat at night with the stones she’d collected with her father. She held them in her hands, rolled them like dice, and looked up at the ceiling.
Please, Dad, I miss you so much. Please save me.
Then one night, her mother came into her room and perched on the side of her mattress.
She leaned over, enveloping Jenny in her flowery perfume.
Jenny thought her mom was going to kiss her cheek and tell her she was finally forgiven.
Instead, she’d whispered into her ear. “You will never ruin one of my relationships again. Understand?”
Jenny did indeed understand.
Her mother changed her mind about businessmen and stopped going downtown for cocktail hour.
Instead, she haunted the theater, literary events, and the opera.
Anywhere she might find an academic, someone cultured.
When she began dating Robert, Jenny was careful not to do anything that might make him not want their family.
She was polite. She kept her room clean and didn’t leave any belongings around the house.
She was quiet. She’d stayed that way even after they were married.
Because now it would be even worse if she ruined it all.
But this wild boy, with his messy hair and crooked smile, was holding out an opportunity. For what exactly, she wasn’t sure, but it was something. Something different.
She got to her feet, but still, she hesitated. Their eyes met, and now she saw the sadness he’d been trying to hide. The shame. Underneath the smile, the confident words. His dad beat him, and he’d had to make up a story so that people didn’t know. But he’d told her the truth.
She carefully climbed into the boat, gripping the slippery metal sides, and sat across from him. The seat was cold under her bottom. They were so close their knees were nearly touching.
As they moved away from the dock, he looked back toward the marina, his eyebrows pulled together as he scanned the water, like he was scared that his dad might be following.
Maybe that was when it truly started. When everything was set in motion. She’d thought that Simon was the same as her, so when he turned around again, she told him a secret too.
“I wish my mother was dead.”
Jenny flopped back onto the mattress, wrapped herself in the blankets, and breathed in the scent of clean linen. She rolled over to her other side, so she could no longer see the window. When she eventually heard Simon’s halting steps, she held her body still, taking only shallow breaths.
He pushed the door open and moved around the room as he undressed.
He bumped into the foot of the bed with a muffled curse.
The mattress dipped with his weight. Cigarette smoke and whiskey wafted from him.
She tensed, waiting for wandering hands to grab her, under her shirt or around her bottom.
He let out a heavy breath and shifted onto his side, facing her.
She squeezed her eyes shut. The clock ticked on the night table.
The touch of skin, warm against her hand, his fingers entwining with hers. Within moments, his breath deepened. He’d fallen asleep. He’d only wanted to hold her hand.