What Jenny Knew

A Secret Last Night

“Where were you last night?”

No answer. She stood in her nightgown, her hair wet and hanging around her face as if dead. Her head was down, shoulders slumped, facing the wall.

“Jenny, where were you last night?” I asked again, a sterner tone seizing my normally mellow and patient voice. “You’re all wet…”

She looked up and turned toward me slowly, with that far off look in her eye- the look she had when she went somewhere else. The look she had when she woke up from the coma in that bleak, white hospital room that had taken her away from me for longer than I would have liked. Little did I know that when I would finally get her back, she would never be the same. But what was the “same”? She had always been different.  

“I was in the rain…” Jenny finally responded with a sigh in a distant, sing- songy voice.

Something strange pulsed through my body. An emotion I rarely felt, but unrecognizable all the same… terror. Something about the way she said that “In the rain”…it sent shivers up and down my spine and pajama- clad arms.

“You know you’re not supposed to leave the house, Jenny; unless I go with you. You could get hurt.” I said, side- stepping toward the kitchen, where there was more light, and more windows…and knives.

“You know what I saw?” Jenny said with a giggle, blatantly ignoring my assertive tone.

“Jenny…” I warned.

“Do you know what I saw!” She asked emphatically, beginning to get apprehensive. Her oblivious smile somehow clouded over, and a more secure look coming into her gray eyes. They flickered around the room.

“They were there Tobie…they were all there and I know what they were doing,” she smiled, content with her secret.

A new colour, red, entered her frail body. “I know what they were doing Tobie! I know!” she blurted out with what sounded like something in between a chortle and a cry of pain. This had been happening for as long as I could remember. It was only after her extended period in the hospital that it got really bad.

Suddenly, my mouth was slick with saliva, I could feel tears pinpricking at the corners of my eyes. “What were they doing, Jenny?” I said, in a voice, hardly more audible than a whisper. I was staring at the floor. I couldn’t look into her eyes. But they were penetrating me…I could feel her staring, branding my scalp.

“Shhh…” she said. My eyes flickered up toward her, now dripping in salty tears.  She brought a forefinger to her trembling lips, a smirk in her eye.

“It’s a secret.”