“You’re defending him? After what he did?”
“I’m just saying it was more complicated than you know.”
Just then, much to my relief, the downstairs door creaked open, and we could hear footsteps on the stairs. It was Maria, coming home from her job, hugging an overstuffed bag of groceries. “Hey,” she said. “What’s going on?” She took a closer look at her brother. “Is something wrong?” Then she looked at me. “Oh.” Clearly she thought we’d been arguing. She turned and went into the kitchen, setting her bag on the table; River and I followed. “I’m making corn chowder for dinner. I got some of that bread from the little Italian bakery near campus. What time is Diana due home?”
“I don’t know,” River said. “But when she gets in, Jane has something to tell the two of you.” He handed me the clipping and headed back to the living room. Quickly I slipped it into the pocket of my hoodie.
“You do?” Maria looked deeply concerned. “It isn’t bad news, is it? Everything’s okay, right?”
I nodded, unable to speak. Would Diana and Maria like me less when they knew I’d been lying to them? Wordlessly, I reached into the brown paper bag and pulled out some oranges; side by side, Maria and I put away the groceries. Though she said nothing, I could feel how badly she wanted to ask for an explanation. Such was her admiration for her big brother’s intelligence and idealism that she didn’t feel compelled to press me for more details. And I didn’t want to have to tell my story twice, so I said nothing. As Maria and I peeled potatoes for that night’s dinner, I considered why I was feeling so unsettled. I had enjoyed River’s approval of me, and now I was upset to think that maybe he thought less of me, for withholding my true identity and for consorting with — what had he called them? — the “ultrarich”?
Diana came home just as we were setting the table for dinner. I drew the two sisters into the kitchen and made my confession. Diana and Maria let me tell my story without interruption, their brown eyes growing wider and wider as I spoke. I had expected it to be painful, reliving the story of falling in love with Nico and then learning the truth about him, but to my surprise it was a relief to share the secrets that had been weighing on me. When I was done, my friends sat in silence for a while. Then Diana finally spoke.
“Whoa,” was all she said.
“Please don’t hate me,” I said. “I never should have lied to you, and I wasn’t trying to deceive you, really. It’s just… I mean…”
Diana threw her arms around me. “Of course we don’t hate you,” she said. “You poor thing. Going through all that.”
Then Maria was hugging me too. “We always said you had some kind of wild secret in your past, but we never guessed how wild.”
Relief flooded me, but then I remembered River’s disapproval. “Your brother’s disappointed in me,” I said. “For lying. Also he seems to think I’m some kind of materialistic groupie.”
“He does not!” Diana exclaimed. “River can be a little demanding of the people he’s close to.”
“He’s so principled,” Maria said. “He’s even harder on himself than he is on everyone else.”
“But he’ll get over it,” Diana concluded. “He’s so strict with himself that sometimes he forgets the rest of us are normal.”
I sighed. “I was afraid you were going to tell me to pack my bags — I mean, my bag.”
Diana crinkled her nose at me. “We’d never let that happen. You’re one of us now.”
“Like it or not,” Maria chimed in.
Then Diana laughed. “You almost married Nico Rathburn? Even I know who he is. Geesh, Janey. I can hardly believe it.”
I pulled the picture out of my pocket and unfolded it. “Well, here’s physical evidence.”
Maria gasped. “That dress…”
“It’s you, but it’s not you,” Diana said. “It’s freaky to see you like that.”
“It was a little freaky,” I said. “The clothes, the paparazzi…”
“I know you must not want to tell us any more about him,” Diana said. “Most girls would be dishing the gossip right and left.”
“Is that why you changed your name?” Maria asked. “To put it all behind you?”
I nodded. “I couldn’t talk about him. The only way I can get by is to build a wall between then and now. I have to keep the division clear. For my mental health.”
“We understand,” Maria said.
“But if you ever do want to talk…” Diana left the rest unsaid.
“If I ever talk to anyone, it will be you.”
They were silent a moment. Then Diana giggled. “You slept with Nico Rathburn?”
I blushed.
“I’m sorry. I won’t say another word.” Diana squeezed my hand. “Let’s go have some dinner. I’m starving.”
Over dinner, River said little but watched me closely as I ate, talked, and laughed with his sisters, as though he was trying to figure me out all over again. He didn’t look angry, exactly, just puzzled, and maybe wounded. His level blue gaze was unnerving; I could finish only half the soup in my bowl. After dinner, as Maria and Diana cleared the table, and I pulled on rubber gloves and started the dishes, River appeared at my side and finally spoke.
“Can I help?” Usually his sisters and I did the cleaning up so he could return to his homework, so this offer seemed like a truce, maybe even an apology. Grateful, I handed him a dish towel.
CHAPTER 25
After that evening, I detected a slight change in the way River treated me. He was as polite as he had always been, and a casual observer wouldn’t have noticed any difference between us; Maria and Diana certainly didn’t seem to. But whenever we were in the same room, I got the feeling that he was watching me closely, paying careful attention to my words and actions. And sometimes in the evening when we sat together practicing French, I could have sworn there was a tension between us. At first, I thought maybe he was on guard because I wasn’t quite the person he had thought I was. But over time, I began to rethink that impression. Though I would sometimes look up from whatever I happened to be doing — writing a grocery list or drawing in my sketch pad — and catch him watching me, his expression never struck me as suspicious. He seemed curious, as if I were a puzzle he was working to figure out.
Then one night, River surprised me. Maria and Diana had gone off to bed, and we’d been sitting up even later than usual. He’d been telling me of his preparations for moving to Haiti. As always, when he spoke about that country’s brutal poverty, ravaging disease, and injustice, his French took on a fluency it lacked when he was simply making small talk. That night, though, he broke off in the middle of a sentence, rummaged around under the couch, and pulled out a package, clumsily wrapped in festive paper. With no explanation, he handed it to me.
“What’s this?” I asked, disarmed back into English. River had never given me a present before, not even on my birthday, when Maria had baked a cake and Diana had surprised me with a big box of pastel crayons.
“Open it.”
It was a book, an autobiography — A Rude and Beautiful Awakening: One Woman’s Fight for Social Justice in Haiti. I looked questioningly at River.
“I wanted to thank you” — his steady gaze met mine — “for staying up late to practice French with me when I know you’d rather be sleeping. Or making your art. I hope this book will give you a sense of the important work you’re contributing to.”
I found my voice. “You didn’t have to.” From anyone else, the gift might have been a small gesture, but from River it seemed as premeditated and significant as everything he said and did. “But thank you.” I was honestly touched that he’d thought of me.
“Diana tells me you’re saving up to go back to school,” he said. “She thinks I should let you have your evenings to yourself.”
“Diana’s better to me than I deserve,” I told him. “And I appreciate her Mama Bear routine, but she worries too much on my behalf. I enjoy our practice sessions.” I wasn’t just being polite.
Though I hadn’t been particularly enthusiastic about our sessions at first, over time I’d come to look forward to them — the stillness of the house around us, the quiet companionship.
“You do?” River, usually so confident, sounded uncertain.
I nodded. I had thought he might hold my secret past against me; instead it seemed as though we’d broken through our polite formality to something like friendship.
“I’m glad, because I’ve come to count on them,” he said. “To enjoy them.”
Pleased and suddenly bashful, I opened the book and riffled through the pages. River drew a bit closer and looked over my shoulder. “You’ll like this book, I think,” he said. “I’ve heard the author speak, and she’s very eloquent.” Then he took the heavy volume from my lap, turned to a section of black-and-white photos at the center, and gave it back. He pointed to a snapshot of a slender little girl in a school uniform. “Look at the sadness in her face,” he said. The girl had smiled for the camera, but he was right: her eyes were haunting. “We can only imagine the horrors she’s seen.”
“You’ll help her,” I told him. “Or maybe not her, but others like her. As much as any one person can.”
River sighed. “I plan to try.” This was as much uncertainty as I’d ever heard him voice about his life’s calling. Then, abruptly, he changed the subject. “Sometimes I wonder, Jane… are you happy? Because living here must pale in comparison… to your life before us.”
I thought a moment. “I feel like I’ve found a family here. That might not sound like a big deal, but if you knew what my actual family life was like…”
“You can tell me,” River said. He had remained close to me on the couch, closer than we usually sat. I dared a glance over at him and found him looking back at me with that intense curiosity I had seen so often lately. “I know I must not seem terribly easy to talk to. Sometimes I wish I were a better conversationalist, that I knew how to make jokes and small talk like other people do.”
Coming from River, with all his quiet certitude, this admission surprised me. I struggled for a reply. “Small talk is overrated” was the best I could do.
“I’ve always thought so.” Then River smiled. Had I ever seen him smile before? He’d grinned wryly in my presence, but this was something different, warmer and shyer. “If you want to talk, I’ll try to be a good listener.” Then his bright blue gaze shifted from my eyes to my lips.
“Oh, I know you would listen,” I said with a lightness I didn’t feel, “if I wanted to talk.” Suddenly dizzy, I longed to escape to the privacy of my room. I scrambled to my feet, thanked River again, and excused myself. I shut the bedroom door behind me and changed into my nightgown. Under the covers in my narrow bed, I replayed our conversation and found myself trembling. I brought my knees to my chest and hugged them to steady myself. Was I imagining things? Could River really have been about to kiss me? And had I wanted him to? Was such a thing possible when I still missed Nico so desperately?
Midnight came and went, the digital readout of my alarm clock casting a red glow across my blankets. I squeezed my eyes shut and wondered at my own irrationality. River was handsome, smart, and selfless. Why had I panicked and run away from him when he seemed so clearly interested in me? There was only one logical answer. Without even realizing it, I must have been waiting for Nico to track me down and beg me to come home. But what sense did that make, when I could so easily return to Thornfield Park and give myself to him? Something was keeping me in hiding. Maybe it was fear that I had wounded Nico’s pride too grievously for him to ever forgive me. Had he resumed womanizing to spite me? Or — still worse — had someone else taken my place?
Of course, it was in my power to learn the answers to at least the last two questions. All I needed to do was go to the public library and look through celebrity magazines or browse the Internet. If the legendary Nico Rathburn had moved on to a new love interest, the celebrity gossip magazines would be bursting with the news. But did I really want to know if Nico had moved on? No, I decided, pulling the covers up over my head. I was better off with blinders on. I had to keep my gaze forward. I had to focus on the future. And if moving on meant finding someone else to be with, shouldn’t it be someone more like me; serious, determined, straightforward? Shouldn’t it be someone like River?
Over the next few days, I watched River carefully. After that first sleepless night spent mulling over the possibilities, I’d made up my mind. If River ever gave me another chance to kiss him, I wouldn’t run away. I would meet his gaze and stay put on the couch beside him. I would allow it to happen. But then, to my disappointment, nothing did happen. Our meals and French sessions were friendly enough, and over dinner I still sometimes caught him watching me, but beyond that things were as they always had been.
I had just about concluded that my mind had been playing tricks on me when the tables turned yet again. I was locking up the Open Doors office for the week. The director was out of town for a conference, and I had just spent a quiet day writing copy for the shelter’s monthly newsletter. As I struggled with the dodgy lock, I glanced up, and there, striding toward me down the dark street, was River. He’d never stopped by the office for a visit before, and his purposeful step made me think he had something important to tell me. But after he reached me and said hello, he had surprisingly little to say. Door finally locked, I agreed to walk home with him instead of taking my usual bus. We were nearly home by the time he found his voice. “So, Jane. Do you like working at the shelter?”
“Yes, of course.” I allowed myself to exhale audibly. If that was all River wanted to ask me, maybe I really had been imagining an interest that wasn’t there.
“Because I’ve been thinking a lot lately. About you. Your future, I mean.” Hands buried in the pockets of his sweatshirt, River looked not at me but at the street ahead of us. “I know art is your first love, but you have the right disposition for humanitarian work. You’re calm and serious; you don’t shy away from getting your hands dirty.”
Now he was sounding more like a guidance counselor than a potential boyfriend. “Oh, thanks,” I said. It was all I could think of at the time.
“No need for thanks. Your supervisor has been raving to me about the work you’ve done at Open Doors. She’s been impressed with your dedication and your meticulous nature.” He spoke quickly, as though delivering a speech he’d memorized. We’d come to an intersection, and as we paused for the red light, River glanced at me to see how I was reacting to his praise.
I said nothing, wondering where this conversation was going. The light turned green.
“I would hate to see you waste those talents,” River added.
“You mean by doing something as frivolous as painting?” The word had stuck like a burr since he’d used it to describe Nico.
“No, that’s not it.” He frowned. “I just think you might find humanitarian work even more meaningful.”
“As opposed to work that would make me happy?”
“There’s more than one kind of happiness,” he said. “There’s the kind that comes from getting what you want.” What do I want? I wondered. I hardly knew anymore. I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed at the impersonal turn our conversation had taken. “And then there’s the kind that comes from knowing you’re doing something selfless.”
“And you’re lucky enough to have both kinds.”
“Not yet,” he said. “But I hope I might find both in Haiti.”
“I hope so too, for your sake.” We waited at another busy intersection, and for a while, there was an uncomfortable silence. He watched me expectantly, and I found myself eager to speak. “I hope you don’t come to feel that you’ve made too many sacrifices for the betterment of mankind.”
“Too many sacrifices?” He looked truly puzzled. “You’ve been reading the book I gave you, right?”
I was. I’d stayed up late the night before, devouring a particularly moving chapter about Yvette, a young girl the author had met on her fir
st mission trip to Haiti. Having lost her parents to AIDS, the girl would have faced a life of prostitution if it weren’t for the school the author had helped build in her village. There she learned to read and write and showed such a flair for letters, in fact, that she stayed on to teach in the school after she graduated. She’d grown into an independent woman who could earn her own way, beyond the clutches of those who would use her for their own gain.
“Yvette’s story brought me to tears,” I told River. “Not for her, but for the other girls who aren’t so lucky.” He nodded, and it occurred to me that he’d chosen the book carefully, picking one he knew would move me.
“You have a good heart, Jane,” he said. We were still standing on the curb, though the light had changed more than once. His bright blue gaze held me in place. “I wonder what you want from your life,” he continued. “I don’t just mean your ambitions, wanting to go back to school and all that. I mean, sometimes I wonder what would make you really happy… both kinds of happy.”
A sudden, sharp longing for Nico took me by surprise. I fought it off, struggling to give River my full attention.
“Because sometimes I think you want what I want. To help people — the poor and the illiterate. To improve their lives,” he concluded.
The light turned green, and I resumed walking. “To tell the truth, I don’t know what I want,” I said finally, when River caught up with me. “I don’t know what would make me happy anymore.”
“You don’t?” He seemed exhilarated, as though this was the answer he had been hoping for. “Because I’ve thought of something that might be perfect for you. Something that might fulfill you beyond anything you’ve ever experienced.”
“Really?” It was the only response I could manage. I had no idea what he meant.
“Can’t you guess? Isn’t it obvious? I’m asking you to come with me to Haiti, Jane. To help me in my work.”
Now it was my turn to stop dead in my tracks. River saw my hesitation.
“For a long time now, I’ve seen something in you,” he said. “A real genius for helping people. If you say yes, your every need will be taken care of — you’ll have shelter, food, transportation. You’ll even make a stipend you can save in case you still want to go back to school. Your life in Haiti won’t be luxurious, but I promise, you’ll feel needed in a way you never have before.” He paused to gauge the effect those last words were having on me.