But no matter how much the other children seemed to begrudge a respect for her, to feign unawareness of her mysterious need to wear diapers (and who could tell how much they might know or think they knew through rumor?), and no matter how out of it she generally was, she was all too aware of her difference. How that was what really communicated to others that sense of strangeness. This was enough in itself to cause a gathering of something like sadness in her mind, a heaviness in her chest. There was no getting away from this awareness, a strange self-consciousness, as long as she was around others. And so it wasn’t very long before she began to question whether this business of schooling, of trying to be like everyone else, was actually worth the trouble. The odd mingling of a sense of sadness and embarrassment.
She had even caught Grace looking at her more than once with what seemed, possibly, a genuine sympathy. That was almost harder to take than what she sensed in the others.
And besides, she found it hard to concentrate, being hungry and thirsty all day. And tired of pretending to eat a lunch when she actually only picked at a bit of cornbread or biscuit she carried in a napkin in her pocket like some crumbling talisman, to ward off any overly curious attention. She knew it was safe to eat her lunch — nothing would happen before she got home — but she was too anxious about it all.
On the last day of school before the Christmas holiday, she let Grace walk on ahead without even trying to keep up or asking Grace to slow down. She cut through the woods, around the house, and came out in the pecan grove, the spindly gray branches ugly against the austere sky. A loneliness she didn’t even know how to name welled up in her so swiftly that she didn’t realize she had tears in her eyes until she felt them cold on her cheeks, and for the first time since she was very small she let them come, blurring her vision, pushing the hurtful feeling from her heart. When it was done she went on to the house. Her mother, standing on the back porch as if watching for her, didn’t speak but looked as if she understood everything. And so Jane went to her room to be alone until time for supper. And they left her alone, no doubt knowing.
Ellison Adams, M.D.
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland
Dear Ellis,
I have a regular supply of very decent homemade spirits and the occasional quarter of venison from Chisolm. He feels the need to pay me for my attention to the girl but I persuade him otherwise with the argument of acquiring valuable medical research. She is now seven years old, and seems practically immune to the kinds of infection apparently common in some such cases. Your diagnosis has not faltered at all.
Her disposition is generally bright, if also somewhat prodigiously contemplative. A fairly solitary and independent little sprite. I have driven up, looked around, finally asked, and no one will know where she is nor seem too concerned about the not knowing. And then she will appear, as if from thin air, behind me, standing there looking up at me and smiling. We talk. It’s rare that anything she says prompts me to request a thorough examination.
In any case, I figure we are out of the woods in terms of any potentially dangerous complications. I will keep a close watch when it comes near time for puberty, of course, although — again — if it is indeed what you believe it to be, I shouldn’t have to worry about that.
It was a disappointment to her, the attempt to attend our local school. I don’t know exactly what happened, and it didn’t seem the teasing was excessive. She was melancholy for a while after, but seemed to recover entirely by spring. Still, I cannot help but think that she hides a deep emotional burden inside her little child’s chest. I don’t see how she could escape it. My god, Ellis, the child pretty much picked up reading in just three months there. Such a waste.
I am considering taking it on myself to bring her up there for a thorough examination by Young, if you could help me arrange it. She is plenty old enough now to undergo surgery, if it were advisable. I know you think my own examinations and communications are probably sufficient to diagnose as you have: that this is not an operable condition, at this point in time, and that most likely even sphincter construction is unlikely. But, if the girl and her family are willing, I would rest easier knowing for sure, after examination by an experienced specialist in the field. If not your people, then at least let one of the urologists in Memphis take a look. It is only a little over 200 miles from here, as opposed to the near 1,000 to you.
In any case, I will be in touch about the potential visit/examination. Please continue to send any news of developments, but I will try to make this examination happen as soon as possible. The girl is such a delight, truly, that I hate to think ahead and imagine her living a long life of isolation and shame, which is sure to come on her if there is nothing to be done about her condition once she is older.
My best to Mary Kate, when you see her. Tell her the one she should have married wishes you all well. I do so miss Lett. Her family keeps fresh flowers at her grave in town. She is in their plot, as you know. As for me, burn and scatter the ashes in my woods if I go first. It’s in the will.
Yrs,
Ed
PRETENDING TO BEGRUDGE it but seeming to enjoy it once they’d get started, Grace sometimes helped Jane with her reading in the evenings, bringing home books from the school library, and corrected her handwriting efforts. The teachers had let her borrow the books, knowing she had a little sister at home who wanted to learn. There was the Bible in the house, of course, but it was incomprehensible. No one read from it, much less aloud. The pictures of paintings inside it were interesting. More helpful was the Sears, Roebuck catalog, with its pictures of the items described there for sale. There was always a new one in the house, and an older one in the outhouse. Sometimes she would take the newer catalog to her father in the evenings and ask him to read her the description of something in there for sale. It was all a kind of schooling, anyway.
When Dr. Thompson learned that she wanted for reading material, he began bringing books when he visited.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think to, before,” he said. “Lett was a reader. I am, too, of course, but she read novels, made-up stories. I like some of them but it’s the rare one I like a lot. I thought I’d bring some by, you see which ones you like, we’ll start to get an idea of which ones I ought to give you.”
“You don’t have to give them to me for good.”
He shrugged, said, “I don’t care much about hanging on to books after I’ve read them. Most of them, anyway. Better to give them away to others who might want to read.”
“Well. Thank you.” Then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on his bristly cheek. The doctor stood there a long moment, something like a look of amused wonder on his face. Then he smiled to himself, got into his car, and drove off.
Inside, Jane looked at the books he’d given her. One had her own name in the title, Jane Eyre. It seemed a little bit dense, but would be interesting to her later on. Another was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It was an old battered copy and about boys, so she thought it might have been his own book and he was just tired of reading it. She set it aside, too. The third one was old, also, but not so worn. It was a slim little book with a faded red cover and the title on the spine: A Simple Heart, by Gustave Flaubert, an odd name. She set to reading it that night, and couldn’t stop. She finished by candlelight. She was in tears over poor Félicité’s sad but beautiful life, her broken heart and her loneliness, her love for her mistress’s children, and fascinated by the way she began to lose her mind, and filled with wonder at the spirit of her beloved parrot hovering over her at her death.