Read Online Rosebush by Michele Jaffe - Free Book Online Page B

the word as though she was savoring it. I could already hear her spinning it for cocktail parties, using the anecdote to highlight how brave and capable she was. “This is hardly the time for her to be grilled.”
    “I know, ma’am, but your daughter is the only one who can help us figure out what happened to her. It’s imperative that we get as much information as we can, as quickly as we can, and Dr. Connolly says if she can speak, your daughter is up to answering questions.” She turned to me. “Do you remember why you were walking alone on the street so late at night?”
    Walking? Alone? I didn’t remember anything. My mind was completely blank. “No.”
    “Was there a particular reason you went to Dove Street?”
    Dove Street? I’d never heard of it. “No. Where is that? Is that near here?”
    My mother’s lips got tight and she swallowed. “Dr. Connolly says that this forgetfulness is normal but that she’ll probably recover her memory soon. He’s one of the best in the country.”
    That did it. “Stop saying I’m normal, that I’m going to be fine,” I said, raising my voice. It shook. “You don’t know that. You just want to make yourself feel better. I’m paralyzed, Mother. Paralyzed. For once look at me. See me for what I really am.”
    My mother’s lip trembled. “Jane. Don’t say that. This isn’t you, this is just temporary.”
    “You don’t know that. You don’t know what’s going to happen. No one knows. I could be like this forever.” I tasted tears on my tongue.
    “Jane, please. Not now.”
    “Why does the time matter? Why not at”—my eyes went to the clock—“three ten? Will it be better at four fifteen? Five twenty-seven? Anyone can see that I’m a mess. That we all are.”
    Now tears quivered in my mother’s eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
    “Why are you?” I demanded back.
    It sounded like the beginning of a hundred fights we’d had over the last two years. “I’m just trying to do my best for us, Jane. For all of us. Why are you so angry at me?” she’d say, and I’d shoot back, “Why are you so angry at me ?”
    And we’d look at each other the way you do when you see someone on the street you think you recognize, but not quite. Someone you wish with all your heart were there but who is actually just a stranger. And you feel a kind of deep longing that hurts like a huge gash and your inability to fix it leaves you frustrated and angry and bone-deep lonely.
    Now my mother shifted her eyes to the policewoman and when she spoke, her voice was even, but I could see her knuckles were white and clenched. “I apologize for interrupting,” she said to the officer. “We’re all under a lot of stress. Please go on.”
    The policewoman gave her a benign smile and returned her focus to me. “The night of the party. You stepped outside. Maybe you were just getting some fresh air? Or meeting someone?”
    Meeting someone? Had I been? I have a sudden flash of memory, of being on a street talking on the phone. “Where’s my cell phone?”
    “No cell phone was found with you. Could you have left it at the party?”
    “I just—I have this idea that I was talking to someone on it. When I was walking around.”
    “It hasn’t been recovered, and there was no sign of one around the scene of the accident. Do you remember anything else? Anything about the car that hit you?”
    “No.”
    “Wouldn’t there be marks on the car?” Joe said with an air of importance, like he just discovered nuclear fusion. “Shouldn’t you be looking into that?”
    “There is very often damage to the car in question, and certainly that’s something we’ll look at when we have a suspect.” The policewoman returned her focus to me. “Do you know of anyone who might want to harm you?”
    Before I could answer, my mother said, “No one would want to hurt Jane; she is very popular.”
    “I have to ask, ma’am.” The policewoman focused on my mother now. “What about you? Do