Chapter 14
Jane took Clare through more steps to build a record for Katie Barnes.
There were doctors for exams and shots, a dentist to have her teeth cleaned and examined.
The purpose was to broaden and deepen the records, while also making Katie eligible to enter a school in New York State.
Jane said Katie Barnes was a niece of hers who had come for the summer and would be staying for the next school year while her parents were working out of the country.
She had notes that appeared to be signed by them giving her full authorization for medical and other decisions.
Jane had a long, probing conversation with the admissions officer while she held May in her sling on her lap, skillfully using May’s pretty face to keep the admissions officer charmed and distracted.
Katie used the time to fill out the first few pages of the application devoted to who she was, where she was from, her current address and phone numbers, and what had drawn her to look into the Stanhope School.
The admissions officer, Mona Stark, arranged an interview for Katie with the headmaster.
Katie’s interview with the headmaster was scheduled for two days later, but then the headmaster, whose name was Dr. Simons, drifted into the admissions office, introduced herself as Judy Simons, said she’d had an appointment unexpectedly canceled, and initiated a friendly conversation with Katie Barnes.
At the end of it, Katie Barnes was admitted to the school as a special student for the fall semester, a status that Dr. Simons assured Katie and Jane would be regularized as soon as her records and essay could be properly evaluated, probably as early as mid-September.
Afterward, as they were walking across the parking lot toward Jane’s car, Clare said, “I’m afraid.”
“Sure you are,” Jane said. “You’d be a fool not to be. But you obviously aced the interview with Dr. Simons. That’s a beautiful start.”
That reaction seemed to stagger Clare, but then she recovered a bit. “I won’t know anybody, and I certainly won’t have any friends. I’ll eat lunch alone, and—”
“Yes. For a while you will. But Katie Barnes will be smart enough to pretend she’s extremely confident, the kind of person other people want to meet.
Above all, she will be receptive to anybody’s attempt to connect with her.
Receptive, not eager. If they say hi, you smile and say hi.
The smile is not optional. If you do this right, your face will be tired at the end of the day.
Some of those people will become friends.
Others will not. But until the day they forget you entirely, they will think of you as a good person, who wasn’t mean to anyone. ”
“You make it sound like a party, but I could be risking my life.”
“That’s right. Everything you do from now on can either increase your risk or make you temporarily safer than the average person.
But you should be used to that by now. It’s been true since you got attacked.
And here you are: Katie Barnes, the newest student in the tenth grade of a respected private school, about five states away from Clare’s troubles. Nobody is going to look for you there.”
Jane turned on the car’s interior lights and unlocked the car doors with the key fob from a distance, and then opened the back door to put May in her car seat. Clare got in beside May in the back seat, and Jane drove away from the school.
As the days passed May was growing, learning, and noticing more of her environment.
She could hold her head up, reach for things, and had facial expressions of happiness when Jane, Carey, or Clare came near.
Jane was watching the phenomena that mothers had been discovering for themselves for forever.
Babies and young children learned more quickly than seemed to be possible.
During her pregnancy Jane read that the average five-year-old knew ten thousand words.
That meant learning at least five and a half new words every single day.
May wasn’t using words yet, but she was making cooing sounds and was already showing signs of responding to the voices of the people around her.
Clare was making progress at becoming Katie.
She memorized all the details that she and Jane had put into her history.
It wasn’t enough to have all the addresses where Katie had lived on paper, Katie also had to know them.
The names, personalities, and life stories of Katie’s grandparents, parents, siblings, and friends, the names of her teachers, the stores where her parents had shopped, the schools that not only Katie, but also her parents, had attended all had to be ready in her mind.
The parts of her lived experience that were necessary to make her stories seem real had to be studied closely in order to be sure that they didn’t lead to the real place where she had lived.
Studying these things gave her the chance to revise and add details that worked.
Every few days she would tell Jane and May the new parts, and Jane would listen for false notes or contradictions.
Clare devised her own methods for calming her nerves about the new school.
She and Jane ordered copies of the standard New York State school textbooks for the ninth and tenth grade curricula, and she studied them and took the practice exams. She also read some of the supplemental books recommended for discussion in English and history classes.
Jane was pleased that this was Clare’s reaction to her predicament. She was preparing for every challenge she could anticipate, and if there was a way to increase her chance of fitting in by work and preparation, she embraced it.
Every day, Clare accompanied Jane on her long walk with May.
Much of the time they spoke English, but when they were on a trail, in a park, or along the river where strangers were too far away to hear, they spoke Nundawaono, partly so that May would keep hearing it and begin to learn.
There were many days when life seemed so simple and familiar to Jane that it felt as though she had two children, one less than a year old, and the other a teenager, the sort of sixteen-year-old who sometimes seemed like a vulnerable kid, and sometimes seemed like an adult who had already seen too much.
One night Jane heard an unfamiliar sound.
When she got up to investigate, she realized the sound was Clare downstairs crying.
Jane went to the staircase, then ventured as far as the foot of the stairs.
Jane had the baby monitor in her hand, and the sound was the slow, measured breathing of May.
Clare stood up, quickly ran her hands down her face to wipe the tears away, stood up, and hurried through the kitchen, then out the door into the night.
Jane walked outside. “It’s me,” she said to the night air.
“I only want to help.” She listened for an answer, but heard only May’s slow, quiet breaths.
After a long time, she said, “All right. I’m sorry I intruded on your privacy.
If you ever want to talk to me, I’m always available.
Good night.” She turned and went inside, climbed the stairs, returned the baby monitor to the nightstand, and slid into bed beside Carey.