Chapter Text
Janna showed up at Nora’s door on a rainy, stormy night, soaked to the bone and quiet in a way that didn’t quite match the girl that Nora remembered. But Nora hadn’t seen Janna in—lord, nearly two decades, making the girl twenty-nine instead of the little slip of a ten-year-old who had hung around Nora like a shadow after Aunt Danica had died.
Her hair was short. This too did not quite fit with the girl that Nora had known. Janna had kept her hair long, braided with ribbons. She was hugging her elbows and staring somewhat distantly in Nora’s general direction, like it had taken everything in her just to get here.
Nora didn’t quite know how she knew it was Janna. It had been long enough for her to almost forget what most of her extended family looked like, and a cousin who had stayed with the family for a handful of weeks until Enyos had swooped in to take her under his wing shouldn’t have made so much of an impression. But Janna had always been the favorite—she was the very last direct descendant of the family who had lost a daughter to Angelus, the whimsical, playful little girl with a sweet smile and a sharp tongue. The gossip after Aunt Danica’s death had been vicious, but the sentiment towards poor little Janna had always been sympathetic. It was hard not to remember the girl who had made jealousy burn hot and choking in Nora’s chest.
“Janna,” said Nora, and waited to see if she was right.
Janna just kept looking at Nora with those empty, hollow eyes. Finally, she said, “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Please,” said Nora disbelievingly. “Nowhere else to go? You?”
Without saying anything, Janna let go of her elbows. As Nora followed the movement with her eyes, one of Janna’s hands came to rest very quietly over her stomach, fingers splayed protectively over the barely-there swell.
“Jesus,” said Nora, and pulled her roughly over the threshold.
“It’s…my boyfriend’s,” said Janna. “Or, um, ex, I think. We haven’t…he doesn’t know, so…”
“Gadjo?” said Nora, who figured she knew the answer. When Janna pressed her lips together and stared at the table, she knew that she’d been right on the money. “God. What does Enyos have to say about that? Did he—I mean, are you—”
“Enyos is dead,” said Janna. Her eyes were still trained on the table.
Something had happened, Nora realized. Something horrible. Struggling to find a question that would reveal what had led to Janna pregnant with a gadjo’s child and Enyos dead, she finally settled on, “You’re twenty-nine. Why didn’t you get married?”
Janna let out a choked, bitter laugh and buried her face in her hands. “Christ, Nora,” she said, as though that was some kind of colossally stupid question.
Indignant, Nora said, “I haven’t talked to the family for more than half of your life, Janna. I’m sorry if my questions aren’t relevant to you—”
But Janna didn’t seem to hear Nora. Her shoulders were shaking.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Nora irritably, stalking into the living room to scoop up a nearby blanket before returning to the kitchen. Carefully, like she would with Stacia (Ezra and Bella still being much too little for a blanket to substitute as maternal comfort), she tucked the blanket around Janna, who slowly raised her head to look into Nora’s eyes. “We don’t have to talk about it now,” said Nora, unable to soften her voice into the tone she used with her children. She was still quite frustrated that there was so much she didn’t know, and that Janna was being so impossible to talk to about it. “But I do expect an explanation at some point, all right?”
Without a word, Janna tipped her head forward, letting it fall onto Nora’s shoulder. She sounded so small and young when she said, “I missed you. No one ever told me where you went.”
“You didn’t look,” said Nora stiffly.
“I was—I had—” Janna let out a stuttering, miserable sound.
She really was so young, Nora thought. Even now. The thought of Janna as a mother, Janna raising a baby alone in the state she was in—something about that made Nora’s chest hurt. She wondered who this man was. She wondered how Enyos could have let something like this happen—and remembered, belatedly, that Enyos was dead. “You are such a foolish girl,” said Nora, tucking the blanket a little tighter around Janna’s shoulders. “I feel certain that I’ll disapprove entirely of the choices that led you here.”
“Big words from the lady who got herself kicked out of the family,” said Janna, but her voice was so empty of emotion that Nora couldn’t quite take it as an insult. “I was the good one, remember?”
“You were the slippery one,” said Nora. “They didn’t know what to do with you.”
Janna laughed, sounding positively wrecked. “God, you have no idea how true that is.”
Nora led Janna to the guest room and left her there, Janna curled up on the bed in her wet clothes and hugging her arms to her sides—no, Nora realized, she was hugging her stomach. Janna wanted this baby. Perhaps that was part of what had Janna so strange and forlorn—pregnant with a gadjo’s child, and she wanted to keep it. If Nora had ever been the kind of girl to care about what her family thought of her, she might have been just as adrift as Janna in that moment.
If Nora had known Janna better, she might have stayed in that room—carded her fingers through the lanky, wet tendrils hanging round Janna’s face until Janna’s shoulders relaxed and she let out the breath she was holding. But the last time Nora had seen Janna, they’d both been so different from who they were now. The girl that Nora remembered—the sweet, silly, inquisitive little thing—would have shattered and broken with Enyos dead and a baby on the way.
Nora went upstairs. Ezra was fast asleep, but Bella was stirring, rubbing at her eyes with chubby baby hands. Leaning down, Nora picked up Bella with a small sigh, letting her daughter nuzzle into the soft fabric of her blouse. She thought about the girl that she had been so many years ago—impetuous, angry, burning too many bridges to count. That girl would never be able to hold a child so gently.
Still holding Bella in her arms, Nora left the children’s room to go back downstairs and dial Donovan’s number. At this hour, he’d still be working the shop, probably letting a delighted Stacia run the register under his expert supervision. Her daughter was a smart little one, thought Nora, and she let her maternal pride buoy her as she waited for her husband to pick up.
“Nora.” His voice was so full of love. Even on a cold and rainy day like this, he made her feel so warm.
“Don, I…” Nora struggled to find the words. How could she explain something she didn’t fully understand? “You know I don’t talk to the family anymore.”
“I do.”
“And you know…” Giving up on a more long-winded explanation, Nora distilled the situation to its bare essentials. “My cousin showed up. Janna. She’s…in a bad way, I think.”
“Is she all right? Is someone hurt, or—”
“Apparently Enyos is dead.”
Donovan drew in a soft, sympathetic breath through his teeth. “Janna. That was…she’s the last direct descendant of the girl that Angelus slaughtered, isn’t she?”
It really said something that even Donovan knew about how special and precious Janna was. Tamping down the age-old resentment, Nora said, “She was. I don’t know very much about why she’s here; she said something about having nowhere else to go.”
“Seems a bit unusual,” said Donovan slowly. “Her parents—?”
Nora sighed softly, bouncing Bella in her arms. “Her mother died when she was ten, and no one knows where her father is. Unless that’s changed—”
“But she still has the rest of the family, doesn’t she?”
“She’s pregnant, Don.”
A long silence. Then, softly, “Poor thing.”
Nora was somewhat frustrated with the fact that she agreed. “I don’t know how long she’ll be staying,” she said somewhat shortly. “I haven’t made her any promises, if you’re worried about that.”
“You know I’m not.” A pause. “Do you want her to stay?”
“If Enyos is dead and she’s pregnant with a gadjo’s child, I don’t think anyone else will be likely to open their doors,” said Nora. This was not quite an answer. When Donovan did not respond, she sighed. “I don’t know. It’s…I can’t turn her away.”
“Then she can stay as long as you see fit.”
She’d known he would react like this. Donovan was so much gentler than her—so much calmer. He’d probably get Janna to spill her little sob story in thirty seconds; he was just like that with people. Nora had never quite mastered the kind of patience that her husband possessed. “I’m going to go check in on her again,” she said. “Can you tell Stacia that we have company? I don’t want her to be too surprised when she returns.”
“Of course, sunflower. I love you.”
Nora drew her daughter closer, running a hand through Bella’s soft, downy hair. “I love you too.”
Donovan hung up; Nora replaced the phone on the hook. There was still no sound in the house—no rustle of movement from a waking Ezra—so Nora, with Bella still in her arms, headed back downstairs to the guest room.
Janna was still lying on her side, eyes distant and empty. She hadn’t even taken off her shoes. “You can stay here, if you need to,” said Nora, and when this didn’t garner any kind of reaction, she felt somewhat uncomfortable. “Janna—”
“Is that your daughter?”
Nora decided not to dignify this particularly inane question with an answer, sitting down on the bed next to Janna. She noticed, however, that there was a tentative light in Janna’s eyes, and this reminded her of her earlier revelation. “Janna,” she said slowly. “You want to keep your baby. Why?”
Janna didn’t answer. She sat up, instead, eyes on Bella, looking almost wondrous. Shyly, she said, “Can I hold her?”
Involuntarily, Nora’s arms tightened around Bella. “I don’t know a thing about you right now,” she said, “and this is my child. I want to know why you came here of all places instead of going to someone who is actually part of the family—”
“You have hated our family since you were your daughter’s age,” said Janna. The light in her eyes had vanished entirely, replaced again with that awful emptiness. Nora felt a tinge of guilt. “I didn’t want to go to someone whose disappointment would hurt me more than I’m already hurting. You never expected anything from me anyway.”
This was not the girl that Nora remembered. Not the spitfire causing trouble, not the laughing center of attention—
“Tell me about the father,” said Nora.
“No,” said Janna.
Christ. Janna had never been easy. “Tell me something,” said Nora. “I don’t know a damn thing about why you’re here. And don’t say it’s because you don’t want to disappoint the family—I want to know what I’ve missed. Enyos is dead. Tell me about that.”
Janna went rigid. Something animal and terrified flashed through her eyes. “I-I can’t, I can’t,” she said. “Don’t ask—d-don’t ask about that, I almost didn’t—”
“Janna.” Something was wrong. “Did someone hurt you?”
Janna swayed, then fell forward into Nora’s arms.
Oh, there. Nora remembered, now, how to be the mother who gathered her children close. Bella let out an irritable whimper as Janna fell forward, clearly bothered by the damp clothing and wet hair; Nora shifted Bella to one side, pulled Janna into the other. Janna was sobbing—loud, ugly sobs that shook her entire body. The thought of someone hurting her baby cousin, the little girl who had worn ribbons in her hair and clung happily to her father’s legs—Nora hadn’t thought of the family for so long, but when she’d thought of Janna, she’d always imagined Janna happy. She had never imagined Janna rigid and guarded and crying like she’d only barely escaped whatever had killed Enyos.
“It’s my fault!” Janna sobbed. “I d-don’t want to tell you, Nora, you’ll—you’ll say what all the aunts said, when he started—and I’m not—it was never supposed to be me, he had sons, he would have sent them if they’d lived—”
Nora entirely gave up on making heads or tails of the nonsense, and focused on rubbing gentle circles on Janna’s back.
“I am such a fucking basket case,” Janna wailed. “I’m pregnant and I’m keeping the baby and that is insane but I can’t—I can’t talk myself out of doing it! I’m supposed t-to talk myself out of doing it but I keep thinking about him a-and I can’t think of anyone’s baby I’d want to have more than his, I-I-I can’t—can’t imagine a world where I just give up the chance to have his baby, and I hate it, and I hate myself for not—just—I’m better than this!”
“Janna.”
“I am! I’m not—you’re looking at me like I’m still her, and I’m not, I’m not her, I am a computer science teacher who has been around, I’m n-not Janna, I’m not her anymore!”
“Jesus, you’re a wreck.” The words came out gentle enough to surprise them both. “Let me put my daughter down. You’re crying all over her.”
“Oh,” said Janna weakly, letting go of Nora somewhat slowly.
Nora pulled back just enough to set Bella down on the bed, then placed a hand on Janna’s shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “Okay? I don’t need to know.”
“I-I almost want to,” said Janna. Her face was streaked with tears. “I just—I can’t—you’re going to look at me differently when I do.”
“Then don’t tell me,” said Nora. “I don’t care. Fair warning, however, you cry like this in front of Stacia and she will want to know what’s going on.”
“Stacia?”
Nora blinked, then realized that Janna had no idea what her life looked like right now. “I have three children,” she said. “Ezra is upstairs napping, Stacia is with my husband at our grocery store, and this is Bella.”
“You’re married?”
“To Donovan.”
She wasn’t sure how Janna would react to this. She knew that Janna’s reaction would set the tone for what they would be from here on out. Both of them, after all, knew that Donovan had been the one to finally push Nora out of the fold—he wasn’t gadjo, but he wasn’t the man that she’d been meant to marry, either. Her running away with him had been the last straw for her family, who had been entirely grateful for the excuse to finally cut ties with their rebellious oldest daughter. Everyone had known about Donovan.
“Oh, Nora,” said Janna, and Nora was shocked to see the first genuine smile from her cousin since that strange, stormy arrival. “Oh my god, Nora, that’s wonderful! You two stuck it out? And three kids—god, you must be just sickeningly in love. That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you.”
Nora’s heart caught in her throat. In nearly two decades, not one of her family members had ever said something like this to her.
“Oh, god, I’m sorry. Was that—things are good between you and him, right? I didn’t mean—”
Somewhat awkwardly, Nora gathered Janna into a quick, perfunctory hug. Janna was beaming when she pulled away. “Donovan and I…we are very happy,” Nora said, trying her best to keep herself stiff and composed. She didn’t feel comfortable enough, yet, to remove her armor and soften in the way Janna still seemed so startlingly capable of doing. “He’ll be pleased to see you; we don’t often get visitors.” She smiled a little wryly. “You know I’m not exactly the sociable type.”
“I do. I like that about you.”
Startled, Nora had to bite back a laugh. She settled instead for smoothing down Janna’s damp hair. “You should get into some dry clothes,” she said. “Do you have anything with you?”
“My stuff is in my car,” said Janna sheepishly. “I parked down the road. I can go and—”
“—no, no, it’s still raining, you’ll catch cold. Borrow some of my things. There are some extra t-shirts and shorts in the bureau, I think. Once it’s dry, we can go get things from your car together.” Janna was beginning to smile again, soft and a little shy. An answering flicker of warmth rose in Nora’s chest. She could almost see the little girl she remembered. “I need to go make dinner for the family. Donovan should be back in a minute. Do you want anything in particular?”
“A place at the table is honestly so much more than I was ever expecting,” said Janna earnestly.
“You need to learn to ask for more than that,” said Nora reprovingly. “You’re a guest, aren’t you? What do you like to eat? You’re eating for two, now, you know.”
Janna’s smile grew. “I am.”
She really does want this child, Nora thought. “Take care of yourself,” she said a bit brusquely.
And Janna, who had always been exasperatingly good at seeing through Nora’s chilly veneer, reached up and twined her fingers with Nora’s, staring up at her with that intent expression Nora remembered in the eyes of a much younger girl. Quiet and appreciative and smart in a cutting kind of way.
“Thank you, Nelly,” she said softly.