long visit to a library. She had missed an important episode in the life of the Jennie/Janie. Through the courts, the Spring family had finally gotten their kid—but the Jennie/Janie left them and went back to Hannah’s parents.
Frank and Miranda still wanted these other people’s little girl more than they wanted their own little girl.
If only Hannah could make them suffer the way she had to suffer.
CHAPTER SIX
Brendan Spring’s first interview had been fun. He knew that Janie—always the star in her own personal soap opera—would hate it that he was talking to the media about her. Brendan rather enjoyed sticking it to her.
The second interview was difficult, seeing as Brendan had already told everything he knew. He wanted another free dinner, though, so he pretended he had more to say and was holding back.
The night before the third interview, Brendan had trouble sleeping. The long year of anger was over. He was just confused. He could not think of anything to do all day. He wasn’t interested in going to class. It hardly mattered now anyway. Classes were mainly over.
He wanted to pretend that he had never wanted success.
He wanted to pretend that success would come in the morning.
He wanted to have a better life handed to him.
A few hours before dawn, Brendan Spring realized that he was not the strong one in his family. He was the weak one.
When it was finally time to meet the interviewer at the restaurant, he remembered that Mom always said a good hot meal solved many problems.
Maybe she was right, but Brendan couldn’t eat. He didn’t know what he was doing here. He didn’t even know what he was doing on Earth.
For a while the researcher did the talking. Perhaps he couldn’t stand the silence. Perhaps he was hoping to jump-start Brendan. He told Brendan about the support checks Frank had been sending Hannah all these years.
Somebody in his family had done some serious talking. Brendan only knew about Frank’s checks because he knew there was some secret about that trip to Colorado that Janie and Reeve and Brian had taken. Brendan had pounded his twin until Brian gave it up. “How come we’re not telling the FBI?” Brendan had asked him.
“Because the one who’d be in trouble is Janie’s father, and she loves her father, and in fact, I like him too,” said Brian. “Frank is a good guy.”
“Good guys send money every month to kidnappers?” Brendan demanded.
His twin had been uncomfortable. They were always uncomfortable with Janie’s reality. But here in the restaurant, Brendan was really uncomfortable. This researcher knew more about the checks than Brendan did. Who had told him this stuff? Janie herself?
But Janie had practically hidden under the couch that day the FBI came and Dad kicked them out. Okay, sure, years had passed—she was older—but still. Brendan could not believe Janie had talked.
Stephen?
Stephen regarded the kidnapping and its effect on them as poison. Stephen wanted the kidnapper caught and imprisoned, but Stephen would not share intimate details with anybody about anything.
Jodie?
Brendan didn’t understand this sister. He could see taking a year off to hitchhike in Europe, although he personally didn’t care whether Europe even existed. But Jodie had gone to a third world island with no economy, fresh from earthquakes, waist-deep in rubble, where she was teaching English and tooth brushing. Yes, her cell phone worked and yes, she communicated all the time. You couldn’t tell she was living in another world. She could have dealt with this guy by texting or whatever. But Brendan doubted it. Jodie had been hurt more than any of them by Janie’s dislike of her real family. Jodie had made peace with their younger sister, but Brendan believed she was in Haiti partly to put serious distance between herself and the family. He did not think Jodie would tell a researcher anything.
Brian?
His twin was very bookish. Maybe he was in love with the idea of being part of a book. And for sure, Brian loved talking.
And yet, as the researcher moved into other topics and Brendan played with his food, he had a weird sense that the researcher was quoting a woman. It just didn’t sound like a guy.
There was only one other female in the family.
Mom.
He tried to imagine her in a restaurant pouring out her heart to this man. What would be the point? Mom could talk forever about the kidnap and it wouldn’t change the fact that her kidnapped daughter preferred her kidnap family.
And Brendan himself could