IT WAS ALMOST AS IF NOTHING HAD CHANGED between her and Robert. They kept writing their letters, of course, but though it seemed like they were maybe expressing themselves a little more openly now, nothing about it struck Jen as being beyond the ordinary progression of a friendship. Nor would she have wanted to change that—it was becoming a comforting routine to read his letter each day and respond to it.

Their encounters, too, were polite as always – usually just a quick hello, the covert sliding of a letter across her desk, and some light banter if there was time to fit it in. She held true to her word and bought a box of Gushers the morning after they went to the museum and then snuck him a pack out of her purse on Monday morning. He'd made a surprised face when he popped a red one into his mouth and bit into it. She nearly giggled.

"I see what you meant," he told her.

It was in those moments, the times when they got to carry any real face-to-face conversation, that she had a harder time forgetting about what transpired at the museum. The way his fingers felt when they brushed against the back of hers, familiar and wildly unfamiliar at the same time. How safe she had felt for that brief moment she was in his arms. She had fallen asleep that night still thinking of him, his words echoing in her mind. You don't have to hide, Jen.

In a way, she didn't mind having to grapple with this maelstrom of feelings towards him because it meant that for one week, she spent most of her time thinking about him and only him instead of constantly worrying about her parents or Nora or anything else. It really did feel like she'd surrendered over some of her stress to him. The embers of that feeling she once knew, the relief that came when you allowed yourself to be consoled, had blazed back up into a flame and seared away some of her pain. She hadn't fully come down from that emotional high yet.

But all good things had to come to an end eventually. She was due a visit to her parents.

Jen felt like she'd lost her way at sea and now she was drowning. Or, rather, she'd been doing perfectly fine at sea until a giant kraken came out of nowhere and destroyed her boat.

She kept praying for the drowning to end, for a feeling of numbness or indifference to finally wash over her. Feeling nothing surely had to be better than feeling like this. But it had only been a week since the accident, since everything she knew about her mother was splintered apart, and she woke up each morning feeling even worse than she did the one prior.

She was laying in her bed now, staring at the ceiling. Her head throbbed with the persistent headache she'd given herself trying to absorb it all. She was supposed to be in Italy right now, roaming the streets with her peers. Instead she was here, struggling to learn how to cope with her mom's broken body and her broken family and somehow driving all the way to Chicago for classes on top of all of that.

She knew from the moment she saw her mother in the recovery room that there was no way she'd be able to leave her family now. She looked so fragile, bandaged and bruised and entangled with all sorts of tubes and machines that horrified Jen. The school had been accommodating and quickly found new classes for her, but she had to keep her head buried in her books so that no one would see her cry. She was devastated. By all of it.

And in a convoluted way, it was all her fault.

The door creaked open. Jen didn't want to turn her head on her pillow to look at her father, but she did. He only came to talk if it was important.

He looked like he had aged seven years in seven days. There were violet circles under his eyes and the lines in his skin looked deeper than they had even just yesterday. His hair and clothes were a mess. And yet he somehow looked even more grim now than he had every other time she saw him.

Jen sat up so quickly that it made her dizzy. "Did something happen?"

"Your mother's the same," he assured her wearily and she relaxed ever-so-slightly. "But..."

She didn't have time for vagueness right now. "What is it?"

"She doesn't remember it. Any of it."

Oh. Oh. He didn't have to clarify what it was. Just when she thought this situation couldn't get any worse, it did.

"None of it?!" She felt her eyes widen, panic rising up in her lungs. "What are you gonna– I mean, when– How–"

"I'm not going to," he said bluntly.

Jen blanched. He couldn't– There was no way he could just not– But all the doubt that rose up in her throat died before it could leave her lips. She saw the look on his face and knew that he was being completely serious.

"You're not gonna tell her what she did?"

Jen's hands clenched the steering wheel, causing her knuckles to whiten, as she drove down the interstate and away from Chicago. She used to love driving. As a teenager, she'd spend the evenings just driving aimlessly for hours, using up way too much gas in the process and therefore annoying her parents.

Driving was methodical, logical. It followed a strict set of rules. And when it was just her and her car, she could be herself. She could escape the miserable town that she had to call home and pretend she was somewhere else. In her mind, she could be anything; in the car, there was no one to stop her from feeling that way.

But all of that had changed since the accident. Now there was nothing that made her more anxious than being behind the wheel. Each time she knew she was making a trip to Woods Crossing, she'd spend the whole night prior tossing and turning in bed. She refused to even own a car, instead organizing her life in a manner that removed her from the need to have one. When she needed to go see her parents, she borrowed Celie and Jude's shared car and topped off the gas tank on the way back into town.

Driving always made her think about that night, and in a way it was worse than the occasional nightmares she'd have about it because she couldn't let herself become unfocused while she was in the car. She couldn't pick up a comforting book or go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. She just had to grit her teeth and keep her eyes on the road and bear the weight of it all.

After about ninety minutes, well after she'd gotten off the interstate and started driving down backroads, a familiar set of railroad tracks signaled that she was close to the town she hadn't grown any more fond of since she left. Woods Crossing, aptly named for the strip of woods that bordered it and the old railroad crossing, was so tiny and dull that not even its most loyal citizens had that much good to say about it. It had approximately one of everything – one Main Street, one middle school, one high school, one church, one miniscule grocery, and one hardware store, which her dad proudly owned. The only thing it had two of was McDonald's. Apparently an abundance of artificial chicken nuggets and fries was needed even in the middle of nowhere.

It was its own little isolated bubble, somehow making you feel as though you were trapped inside its invisible dome despite the fact that you had to come and go from the next town over for pretty much anything unless you wanted to go into the woods and hunt your own food, which some did. During work hours, when most everyone was inside doing something or another, Main Street felt like a ghost town. Even now, on a weekend, Jen only saw a handful of pedestrians on the sidewalks. She could have counted them on her fingers.

Every time she came back to this place, how she survived here for eighteen years straight became more and more of a mystery to her.

There had always been something eerie about these woods, and the feeling had intensified now that Jen had been living in the city. She wasn't used to these swaths of trees that stretched out for miles, their branches reaching over the roadway like skeletal arms and blocking out much of the sun's light. The way the wind whistled through the leaves here had the same sharpness to it as the whispered rumors that had rustled through the whole town after the accident.

The little town of Woods Crossing hadn't been prepared for a scandal of that proportion. The gossip spread like wildfire, and for a long time, Jen was embarrassed to show her face in public.

Poor girl, she'd hear them say. She had no idea.

Her parents lived in a ranch-style house on the outskirts of town, on a little gravel road so far removed from everything else that it made even the rest of Woods Crossing, the middle of nowhere, feel like somewhere.

The gravel always left powdery dust on her tires. The first time Jen ever borrowed the car, Celie joked upon her return that it looked like she'd run over a box of chalk. It wasn't an inaccurate observation. The car rumbled to a bumpy stop as she finally pulled up in front of the house she'd grown up in. Though the outside was usually slightly grimy, it was never in any actual disrepair. That was the nice thing about her dad being a handyman—he could fix almost any basic problem that arose.

Dad. She wasn't sure how prepared she was to see him or her mom, but there was no backing out now that she was literally in their driveway. Jen steeled herself for whatever was about to come as she walked up to the front porch, the gravel crunching under her shoes. The sound of it punctured the otherwise silent air, startling some birds out of a nearby tree.

Her hands had nervously threaded themselves together and she pried them apart when she stepped onto the porch, shoving one of them in her jacket pocket while she rang the doorbell with the other.

Tension pressed on her lungs like a straightjacket for a long moment while she waited. She worried for a second that Mom had forgotten that she should be expecting her this evening, so when the door finally opened, she almost sighed with relief despite not really wanting to be there.

In many ways, the woman who answered the door was a mirror image of Jen. They had the same straight brown hair, though the older woman's was streaked with gray now. The same eyes, but Mom's often seemed a little more distant, a little less focused.

"Jennifer!" she smiled. "How good to see you. I didn't know you were coming."

Her relief vanished like a puff of mist.

I'm sure you did know at some point, she thought sadly, but she managed to keep her friendly smile plastered on her face. Dad must have told you. And then you forgot. The same way you always forget when I tell you I like to go by Jen.

Yet when her mother hugged her, the affection behind the gesture was real. Mom loved her. She knew she did.

Jen was ushered out of the cold and into the living room, which for as long as she could remember had been an amalgamation of furniture and knick-knacks that once belonged to her grandparents. She'd always had a fondness for all of it—though it was obviously quite dated, it made her feel connected to Grandma Sarah and the grandfather she'd never gotten the chance to meet. He died in combat in Korea fifteen years before Jen was even born.

Her mother returned to her recliner to resume crocheting, something she'd always loved. Jen could still remember how happy she'd been when she saw that she hadn't forgotten how to do it after the accident, though nothing would ever top the flood of relief that overcame her when Mom woke up and still remembered who her daughter and husband were. They'd quickly deciphered that most of her older memories were completely intact and that it was mainly the ones from the past few years that were blurrier.

She still struggled with short-term memory to this day. It was why she didn't work. It was why a caretaker, Annette, came over briefly each day while Dad was at work to make sure that all the household tasks were accomplished. If she didn't sit there with Mom and brainstorm a list of every single thing that needed to be completed, there was no telling if she would remember to get anything done. Jen tried to send Dad some money here and there to help pay for Annette's visits, which was one of the main reasons why she'd bitten the bullet and taken the temporary job at St. Catherine's. The pay, certainly not luxurious but decent enough that she could afford to spare a little for her family, outweighed her disinclination to work with Nora.

The days of Mom being fully independent felt like centuries ago now. Maggie Adler was a hard-working woman, just as much so as her husband, and her daughter had never resented that she wasn't at home as often as some of the other moms from school. On the contrary, she could recall feeling a sense of pride even when she was quite young that her mom was contributing to the family like Dad was. Up until the wreck, she was a door-to-door makeup salesperson, a job that brought her outside the confines of Woods Crossing ninety-nine percent of the time. Some days she'd commute as far as Chicago. Which, of course, was the catalyst for all of that-

But Jen couldn't think about that now. Mom was getting a little bit better every day. The memories she lost didn't seem to be coming back, but she was holding onto new ones much more easily. If Jen were a good daughter, she would have been so grateful that it drowned out any of her frustrations. But now, as she watched her contentedly crochet, she wanted to break something and scream. The progress was coming so slowly.

And Jen just wanted her mom back. She wanted her to remember that her little girl liked to be called Jen or Jenny, not Jennifer.

It was such a minuscule detail in the grand scheme of things, but being called the wrong name was like a punch to the gut every time. It was a brand on her heart, a constant reminder that not even her own mother, the woman who birthed and raised her, fully grasped who she was anymore.

Your parents were supposed to know you better than anyone – your likes, your dislikes, your favorite memories, your odd quirks, your proudest and most embarrassing moments, how you changed for better and for worse over time. Without Mom knowing and without Dad always caring, Jen felt like she herself was the only one left in the universe who really knew who Jenny Adler was.

It got lonely.

Mom's calming voice broke the quiet. "Your dad should be home any minute now. He mentioned something about trying to leave work early."

Jen's spirits lifted. Dad must have carved that extra time out of his schedule so that they could all eat dinner together as a family. Or maybe he just knew that she wouldn't want to do any cooking right after driving all the way here. But regardless of whatever his motives were, she was pleased that her mother had recalled such a time-based piece of information. It lessened the ache of the sting she'd felt earlier.

"That's great."

They filled the next few minutes with small talk, but Jen spoke about her new job with extreme awkwardness. She didn't dare mention Nora – Mom didn't even know who she was and the absolute last thing anyone needed was for her to bring it up with Dad – or Robert. She wasn't exactly sure why she was so disinclined to talk about him. Maybe it was that she was nervous to accidentally say too much and give the wrong impression about who he was to her.

More likely, it was that Jen herself didn't even know.

The hinges on the door connecting to the garage emitted a loud squeak when it was opened. Dad stepped into the kitchen with a bag of to-go food, looking worn out as always but content to see his daughter. She hurried over to thank him and give him a one-armed hug before taking the bag from him and spreading the food out on the table.

Jen already knew for a fact that this restaurant was objectively bad – they'd frequented it throughout her childhood despite her protests – but at least it had never given her food poisoning. And Dad had made an effort for her, possibly as much of an effort as he could.

Despite how distant and preoccupied he usually was when they talked on the phone and despite the fact that they bickered a lot, her heart usually softened somewhat when she saw him in person. She wasn't blind to the reality that he was constantly juggling too many things for one person to handle well. Even before the accident, it'd been a challenge to keep the hardware store afloat and try to be a parent at the same time. Then he expended so much effort just trying to hold their little family together when it was on the verge of crumbling apart.

And he knew that his wife enjoyed the cheap food. She was beaming at him now, and he kissed the top of her head before sitting down at the dinner table.

It should have warmed Jen's heart. Instead, it made her stomach churn.

Mom still didn't know. It was the arrow embedded deepest into Jen's heart, the one that she still couldn't pull out and try to move on from after all this time. The one that made her resent both of her parents for vastly different but equally intense reasons.

How could their love possibly be real while she still didn't know? But they looked like they were in love. It made Jen want to punch a wall. So much so that she lingered in the kitchen with her father after they ate and Mom had gone to pull some clean laundry out of the dryer.

Her fingers anxiously fiddled with the hem of her shirt, but she forced herself to look at him. They were standing across from each other now and Mom clearly wanted them to talk in her absence, but neither of them really knew how to. They'd never been the most verbal with any of their emotions besides the negative ones.

"Dad?" she asked tentatively.

"Yes?"

She was quite possibly about to ruin their evening, but she couldn't stand to watch them and not say anything. "When...when do you think it will be time?"

His expression immediately hardened, his mouth drawing into a thin line.

"And don't," Jen added, and she was surprised by the fire in her own voice. Perhaps her skin had gotten thicker than she realized. She raised her chin slightly to meet his eyes more firmly. "Say never. You know I don't accept that as an answer."

He seemed more tired than angry, but there was definitely some irritation there. She could see it in the way his shoulders tensed instead of slumped. "You know it's not your decision to make. It never has and it never will be-"

"But I'm your daughter!" she cried out before instinctively lifting her hand to her mouth to stifle herself. If she got too loud, her mother was going to hear them arguing. She dropped her hand and continued more quietly. "Why do you force me to go through the torture of watching you two-"

"I might not be a perfect father," he stopped her, crossing his arms. "But I know I've never forced you to do anything."

Jen scoffed, crossing her own arms to hide that her hands had clenched into fists. She could feel her nails leaving little crescent moon kisses on her palms, but there was also something empowering about matching his stance. "You've forced me to keep your secrets. I could tell her, you know."

Yet as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew she couldn't. She wasn't that cruel.

Her threat didn't appear to anger him as much as she might have expected. He gave a long sigh. "I understand if it makes you uncomfortable, Jennifer-"

A spark of annoyance. He knew perfectly well that she liked to be called Jen but got impatient with her and called her by her full name, anyway.

"-and if you don't want to see us. I never ask you to come unwillingly."

She felt her eyebrows shot up, her eyebrows creasing. That was his solution, really? She should just stay away from her parents if she didn't like him hiding things?

"And what would Mom say if I just stopped coming? What would you tell her then?"

He didn't answer. She bit back a sigh—she didn't know why she bothered hoping that this conversation could be productive. It never was.

"I'm gonna go say bye to her," she said much more softly, then left the room without another look or word to him.

Despite the distance from Chicago, her visits to Woods Crossing never lasted very long. Things always fell apart in some fashion and she had learned over time that it was better to escort herself out than let their disputes escalate to yelling at one another. She hated to upset Mom with matters that she didn't understand.

She found her sitting on the end of the bed, quietly humming as she folded the last of the laundry. She looked so peaceful. It tugged at Jen's heartstrings, almost convincing her that maybe Dad was right and it was truly kindest to leave her in the dark. Almost.

She knelt down to her mother's eye level and reached over to gently squeeze her hand. "I gotta get going, Mom. I don't want to be out driving too late."

Mom nodded without any resentment towards her daughter for leaving so soon. "Be safe, Jennifer."

She gave her a sad smile, knowing that the words that were about to come out of her mouth would be said in vain. "You can just call me Jen, Mom."

She startled, eyes widening. "Oh." Her voice was small. She was a little surprised, a little lost. "I'll be sure to remember that next time."

"I know you will," Jen whispered, soothing her. Seeing her mother visibly relax, she knew that her work was done. She stood up and kissed her on the forehead. "I love you, Mommy. I'll see you soon."

The wing stung at Jen's eyes when she stepped back outside, but she didn't shed any tears on the way to the car. She just felt cold.

And so, so empty.

____________________

A/N:

This was a bit of a heavier chapter, but I hope you liked getting more clues about Jen's family. 

Don't forget to vote if you enjoyed!