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Janie snaps awake and sits up with a gasp, disoriented.
Sits there, sinking back into the pillow, trying to get her heart rate back down to normal.
Thinking.
Hard.
Harder.
And then she pads over to the computer and waits in the cool dawn for it to boot up and connect to the Internet.
Looks up Morton’s Fork again. Why won’t Morton’s Fork just go away? Why do I keep running into this stupid concept? I know, already. Seriously. I. Get. It. I get it more than Henry ever got it.
She finds it. Paraphrases under her breath. “A totally suck-ass choice between two equally terrible outcomes. Okay, okay. Right? I KNOW this.”
She thinks about it more, in case she’s missing something.
Thinks about Henry.
Henry’s Morton’s Fork was obvious. He chose isolation over the torture and the unpredictable nature of being sucked into dreams. That was his choice. That’s what he knew.
Equally terrible.
Yes, Janie could argue that his options were equally terrible. It’s a crapshoot. He could have gone either way.
She thinks of Martha Stubin. About how, when she was young, her Morton’s Fork was exactly the same as Henry’s, and she’d chosen the other path. She didn’t know, at the time of her choice, what would happen to her. But then, she became blind and crippled.
Which adds a factor. And it makes Janie’s Morton’s Fork different.
Janie has the most information of all of them.
Still, this is not news. She’s had all this information since the green notebook.
Equally terrible.
The term niggles at Janie’s brain and she begins to pace around the little house, the wood floor cool and smooth on her bare feet.
She opens the refrigerator and stares into it, not really seeing anything inside, and thinks about her options.
Argues with herself.
Yes, it’s equally terrible. Leaving Cabe and society to go live in a shack, alone? Yeah, that feels pretty terrible. As terrible as becoming blind and crippled? Sure.
Isn’t it?
But what if Cabe wasn’t a factor?
Isolation. Going off to live alone—hermits do it. Monks do it. People actually choose to do that. To isolate.
No one in his right mind chooses blind and crippled—not after really thinking about it, like Janie did. Martha didn’t choose it—it just happened. She didn’t know it would happen. No one would ever choose it.
No one.
Unless the only alternative is equally bad.
She’s thinking. Thinking about Henry. How he lived. How he died. About how he grew calm, finally. After. Only after he got sucked into Janie’s dream.
“There is no best,” he’d said during his dream earlier. Holding his head. Pulling his hair out. But he was talking about his version of Morton’s Fork. His choice. Janie knows Henry couldn’t have known the true choice—he didn’t know about Miss Stubin and her blindness, her hands. He still doesn’t know, probably, unless she told him. After.
7:03 a.m.
Janie’s brain won’t let it die.
Because what if?
What if Henry’s brain problem actually wasn’t a real illness, like a tumor or aneurysm, that normal people have?
What if . . . what if it was a consequence?
The migraines, the pain. Pulling his hair out. As if there was so much pressure.
From not using the ability.
Pressure from not going into other people’s dreams.
So much pressure, parts of his brain exploded.
“Noo-o,” she says softly.
Sits there, frozen.
In shock.
And then she drops her head. Rests her cheek on the desk.
Groans.
“Shit, Henry,” she says softly. She sighs and closes her eyes, and they begin to sting and burn. “You and your Morton’s fucking Fork.”
THE LAST DAY
Thursday, August 10, 2006, 7:45 a.m.
Janie still sits at Henry’s desk. In shock. Denial.
But deep down, she knows it’s true. It has to be. It all makes sense.
Can’t believe it all comes down to a totally different choice than what she—and Miss Stubin—had thought all this time.
Not between isolation and being blind and gnarled.
But between being blind and gnarled, and isolating until your brain explodes.
“Gaaah!” Janie shouts. That’s one great thing about this little house out in the middle of nowhere. She can shout and nobody calls the police.
She slumps back in the desk chair. Then slowly gets up.
Falls on the bed and just lies there, staring at the wall.
“Now what?” she whispers.
No one answers.
9:39 a.m.
She gets up. Looks around the little shack. Shakes her head.
Sorry.
So very sorry.
And now, looking at a fresh set of equally suck-ass options, a true Morton’s Fork, she realizes that she has a new choice to make.
She sits cross-legged on the bed, pen and paper in hand, and lays it all out. Pros and cons. Benefits and detriments. Suck versus suck.
Miss Stubin’s life, or Henry’s?
Which one does Janie want?
“No regrets,” Miss Stubin had said in the green notebook. But she didn’t know the truth.
“There is no best,” Henry had said in the dream. He didn’t know either.
Janie, alone in the world, is the only one who knows the real choice.
10:11 a.m.
She calls Captain.
“Komisky. Hey, Janie, how you doing?”
“Hi, Captain—okay, I guess. You have time to talk today?”
“One sec.” Janie hears Captain’s fingernails clicking on her computer keyboard. “How’s noon? I’ll grab takeout, we can have lunch in my office. Sound good?”
“Sounds great,” Janie says. She hangs up.
Feels the butterflies in her belly.
And then.
She shakes her head and starts packing.
Packing up the things that she brought over here, smashing them into her suitcase to make it all fit. Hoping to carry it all in one load.
She’s going back home.
If it weren’t for Cabe, she’d probably just risk it. Stay isolated. In case she’s dead wrong about what really happened to Henry.
But she’s pretty sure she’s right.
It’s a gut thing.
So.
There it is.
Janie grabs a handle shopping bag from under Henry’s sink and fills it with all the stuff she couldn’t fit in her suitcase. Shakes her head from time to time.
Still can’t believe it.
Before she leaves, she calls Henry’s landlord to let him know that Henry died. Then, she closes down Henry’s online shop for good, schedules a pickup for the last remaining item, and leaves the snow globe gift outside with a sign so Cathy doesn’t miss it.
She sets her suitcase down. Closes the door behind her, leaving it unlocked, just as she found it.
Takes a deep breath of country air and holds it in, lets it out slowly.
Glances at the certainly potent sun tea, still resting on the station wagon’s hood.
Picks up her suitcase. And sets off.
Crunches down the gravel driveway like a homeless person, carrying all her crap.
Doesn’t look back.
When she gets home, she puts her things away in her room, and from the bag she pulls the shoe box, all the letters untouched. Janie, medal pinned to her backpack and ring on her thumb, carries the box to the kitchen and sets it on the counter next to the lure of Rabinowitz’s fruit and cake.
