Women Who Stay, 36 (Epilogue)

Chapter 1 ... Chapter 35

______________

Money, I found, made my fear of failure easier to live with. I bought an apartment. I remodeled a bedroom into a writing studio. And slowly, like a spoonful of honey, the money eased my frustration with feeling, once again, like a larger, better story had crossed my path. If life kept feeling like this, I could live with it.

Because who cared? Not my editor, not my readers. Not even me, when the reviews started coming in. When the tour was expanded from the tristate area to the whole of the US, when the book was translated into Spanish, then French and German and Chinese. When the rights for the movie sold. When my ludicrously large advance paid out and the royalty checks followed.

"Yes," I said on talk shows. "Women are complicated. Janie was more so than most, but in the end, she only wanted what we all do: love, comfort, and peace."

"Yes," I said on panels. "The key to writing a bestseller is to believe in your story over everything. That's what I did."

"Yes," I said to my friend Eleanor. "I know she talked with you."

She cried on the other side of my new dining room table, tears dripping onto the gleaming spalted maple surface.

"And you didn't think to give me a heads up?"

"Come on, you knew," I said. "We talked about it. You gave me advice about how to talk with her."

"That's a shit move of you," she insisted. "You could have been talking about anyone. I guessed, and I gave you advice. But when I asked you, point blank, after she died, you lied to my face. I could have helped you more if you'd let me in."

I felt a cruel smile cross my face. "I didn't need your help, did I?"

She looked at me with disgust. "You look just like her when you smile like that. Do you know what she told me? When she fired me?"

"Yeah, I read the email. She said you weren't smart enough to handle her story."

She left after that. I don't see Eleanor anymore.

___

I returned the pictures and documents to Gordon. I kept the typewriter for myself. Like a trophy.

But its keys wouldn't depress fully, so I had a repairman give it a once over. When I went to collect it at his cluttered shop, he held up a finger and went in back as I pressed the gleaming machine's buttons and shivered at their clack.

"This was tucked inside," he said, returning with something in his hand. "You a journalist?"

"Author," I said, accepting the envelope with apprehension. Janie's looping cursive scrawled The Journalist across its front.

I knew better than to read it in the shop. Back in my kitchen, I slid a paring knife under its flap and read her final missive.

This is my confession: On the night of September 26th, 1996 I chased my husband to Pinnock Lake, I made him write a suicide note, and I shot him dead.

I don't regret it. He was an embarrassment and everything he gave me turned to shit.

Do you believe me?

-- Janie

I sat at my table for hours, holding the letter.

Did I believe her? Yes, yes, yes.

Gordon's memory was finally fitting itself like a neat puzzle piece into my timeline. Janie had taken him along, calling Antonio on her car phone, finding him at the Lake. Antonio had looked at the toddler through the car window. And after she killed Antonio, Janie took Gordon to get a milkshake.

It explained why she wouldn't go to the police when she got threats, preferring to let sleeping dogs lay. It even fleshed her out, the ever-growing, ever-morphing Janie, now cast in stark relief. She knew. But she didn't care, not until he threatened to take the children from her. Not until his existence threatened to destroy her world.

But did I know? Enough to revise my story? Enough to change the course of my life again?

Was there any proof, other than this letter? Wasn't the case closed? Why dig all that up again?

I filled the basin of my copper sink. I lit a match, and I burned the words until flames licked my fingers. The last piece floated, sizzling on water:

don't regret it.

______________

Thank you, thank you, thank you for joining me on this journey. I am so grateful for the investment of your time and attention to my tale, and I hope you feel satisfied.

While this is the end of this tale on Vocal, I am making bigger plans for the story in general -- stay tuned. And in the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy whatever my next obsession is <3