A Welcome Reunion

by Lucinda Berry

Could a child be born bad? And if so—if there really was such a thing as a bad seed—could you turn them good?

Christopher and Hannah because they’d been in the emergency room with her so many times. They placed her with Hannah’s sister, Allison, during the investigation, and that’s when everything really went to hell. Spiraled so badly that after Janie overheard Allison having a conversation about moving Janie somewhere else, she’d pushed her down the stairs.

He wasn’t sorry for going to see Janie, only that he hurt me by doing it, and that was the problem.

I’d accepted that fact. Christopher never had. Even to this day. That’s because she’d always been his. She’d never truly been mine. But the two of them? It’d been love at first sight from the moment they met in the emergency room. He’d always been so much more than her doctor, and there was no severing that bond. Even after all this time had passed.

ugghhh that's mad weird

It wasn’t just that Janie was talking to our son. The one I thought she was trying to kill, so I’d tried to drown her in our bathtub before she could, all those years ago. The entire reason she’d been staying with Allison in the first place.

omg what the fuck is wrong with Janie!!

“So, you don’t trust her either?” She burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me? That one pretty much goes without saying.” She gave me a funny look. “You know it was your husband who was smitten with her, not me, right? I was never Team Janie. I was always Team Reality.”

“I already talked to one, and that’s why I’m telling you—she hurts people. And not just physically. She likes to drive them crazy. Apparently, her favorite thing to do is glue their eyes shut while they’re sleeping. Can you imagine? Waking up in darkness and not being able to open your eyes? It’s mind-numbingly terrifying. The first time it happened to one of her roommates, it took staff hours to figure it out, and after they did, they shifted to determining what might’ve triggered Janie, made her mad enough to do that, you know? But as far as they could tell, it was nothing. She did it for fun. She got a kick out of it. There are similar incidents at other facilities.”

WTFFFFF

I scrolled to the bottom of the page, to the part that required a signature. And there it was. In black and white, the scrawled signature: Christopher Bauer.

WTFFF WHY IS HE HELPING HERR?????

“That’s your signature on the dotted line.” “What are you talking about?” He reached over like it finally dawned on him what I was accusing him of. He snatched up the papers, and quickly started going through them over and over again. Grabbing one, then slapping it down, and going on to the other. He shook his head harder and harder the longer he went along. “No. No, I didn’t do this. It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. I never signed these. Some of these are electronic.”

is Janie pretending to be him???

See? This clearly isn’t me.” I peered down. It was a PDF of last year’s tax returns with his signature at the bottom. I examined the documents he’d spread out. All required actual signatures. The scrawls couldn’t have been more different. There was no mistaking it wasn’t his signature. I slowly lifted my head. “Well, if you aren’t helping her, then who is?”

holy fuck what is happening???

“What are you saying? That we’ve been paying for all of her bills? Her rent?” He nodded slowly like he wished it wasn’t true.

Wtffff

“Christopher, what is it? Tell me.” I put my hands on his cheeks. He lifted his head, his voice barely a whisper. “They’re planning on running away together.”

Wuttttt

I’d never posted the photo anywhere. I’d never even shown anyone the wall. Nobody had seen it but me, because obviously, I knew how it looked. That only meant one thing—she’d been in my house.

Wtfffff