Page 68 of Lightning in a Mason Jar
1981
Libby’s battered face looked worse now than it had in the barn. That nightmare was still too close to the surface, physically as well as emotionally. As I stepped deeper into her hospital room, I stifled a gasp and tried to school my features not to let the horror show. For an instant, I even stopped worrying about Russell as I took in her eye swollen closed and the shaved portion of her head with at least a half dozen stitches. I had a million questions I wanted to ask but knew I’d have to limit myself since my friend was in no condition for an interrogation.
Still, maybe we could clear up a few things. A quick check of her roommate confirmed the woman was sleeping and on some kind of breathing machine. Libby and I could talk freely.
As soon as that uncharitable thought crossed my mind, I winged a silent apology to the poor woman and pulled the privacy curtain between the beds. “How do you feel?”
“Like my life fell apart,” Libby croaked, her voice barely more than a whisper with each word tugging at her split lip. “At least it takes my mind off all this.” She motioned to her face, two of her fingers splinted together.
If I’d ever required assurances that what we did at the network was important work, I had plenty of it right here in my poor friend’s condition.
“You’re alive and you’re free. Focus on that.” I still measured what I said on the off chance someone might hear something, anything.
“How is Russell?” Libby asked, a tear teetering on the edge of her one open eye.
Tears weren’t too far away for me either. I only just managed to hold them back, saving them for the shower later where I could wash away the acrid scent of smoke and terror.
“Doing well. They set his collarbone, and he’s resting comfortably.” I knew I had to give her a snippet of information to keep her from probing, but I left out any mention of his punctured lung. Libby had enough to worry about. The rest could wait until emotions were less tender. “The nurses’ station said I can visit him in a few minutes. I just wanted to pop in to tell you I love you, dear friend, before you go to sleep. Thea is going to look after Keith and the new girl. She is committed to staying awake and keeping a vigilant eye on both teens.”
Libby let out a weak laugh. “Thank you.” Her chin began quivering. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault. I thought I saw Fred around town recently but convinced myself I’d imagined him. That he was just a ghostly figment of my guilty conscience.”
A ghost.I’d discounted Libby’s worry over seeing a “ghost,” growing complacent. Another thing Annette never would have let happen. Lesson learned.
Run like hell from ghosts.
I placed a careful hand on her arm, opting to keep her calm for now. We could unpack our mistakes later. “After so many years, who would have thought he would find you now?”
“I should have realized he wouldn’t give up.” Her feet twitched under the sterile white blanket, as if running in place. “A month before I left, he took my boy and barricaded himself in a hunting shack. He swore if anyone came in, he would shoot them, himself, and my son. Eventually, he calmed down and came out, but I knew in that moment I couldn’t take the risk again, not with my child’s life. That’s when I started planning to leave in earnest.”
“Libby, I’m so in awe of how brave you were then and now.” Even as Libby shared the chilling moments from her past, the words stirred a memory of my own.
My mother once told me—in a lighthearted tone—about the time she wanted to kill herself. But she didn’t want people to see her messy house. So she cleaned. Then she worried about how she would look when people found her, so she showered, changed, and styled her hair.Next, she wanted to make one more special moment with her daughter and sat with me on the sofa to read a book. As we explored the Velveteen Rabbit’s urge to become real, she realized her house was clean, she looked her best, and her little girl was such a quiet toddler.
And my mother’s urge to take her own life faded.
She would tell the story jokingly, a drink in one hand and a cigarette burning to ash in the stone ashtray. Everyone would laugh. I would join in.
Why had it taken me so long to see her hidden message to her daughter and any other females out there? Maintain a clean house, stay pretty as a peach, and keep your children quiet. The stakes for doing otherwise were high. Life or death.
I couldn’t figure out if her warning was for me to carry into marriage or if it was meant as a warning to toe the line as a child so Mommy didn’t want to off herself.
Either way, it wouldn’t pass the sniff test with any decent therapist. If I’d dared share the memory. And I hadn’t. Not even with Russell. “You said you thought you saw Fred here in town? Where was that?”
If Fred had revealed Libby’s and Keith’s true identities to someone, what would that mean for them in regard to that body in the barn? Might our cover story about a drifter be blown?
“I thought I saw him coming out of the post office.” She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead. “The postmaster knows everyone. Fred said he showed photos of me and Freddie.”
Back at the barn Libby’s husband had talked about “Junior,” but I’d been so filled with fear, I hadn’t processed much more than survival. Now my mind returned to that first day in the library, when Keith—Freddie—had struggled to respond to his name. While all these years I’d realized that it must have been difficult for the child to adapt to so many secrets, a part of me hadn’t fully grasped the magnitude of that until this moment. No wonder he struggled.
It felt wrong to ask Libby to reveal more of her story—to expect that level of trust on a night I’d learned just how horribly her trust had been broken in the past.
So I gave her my trust instead, allowing her to rest while I shared something of myself. “My name is Eloise. And I left my husband after he convinced the world I was crazy and locked me away in an institution.”
My gut knotted over saying even those few words. What if Libby assumed I truly was insane? What if I lost her friendship? I wasn’t sure I could bear it. Telling Russell had been easier since he had kept so many secrets for his grandmother over the years. And Annette would have been able to vouch for me, as she always investigated those she took in. I’d learned over the years that while Annette gave her help generously, she didn’t bestow her assistance easily. Secrets were sacrosanct.
But just as Annette had led the Bent Oak arm of the network, I wasn’t her, and my way would have to be different, more of a small group co-op style with Russell and my friends who I trusted with my life.
Libby extended her hand and clasped mine in greeting. A new spark glinted in the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. “Hello, Eloise, I’m Mary Jo, and for the first time since I turned eighteen, I’m not afraid Fred will kill me.”
