Free The Rain Barrel Baby by Alison Preston

enough to read it and understand what it meant.
    Grim, Frank thought. Very, very grim. Even without craziness bred in her bones or inflicted on her through injury, there was enough woe in the life of Jane Bower Mallet to turn her into a loon.
    She had lived at River City for approximately nine years. She had admitted herself in the fall of ’86 and been here ever since.
    Frank’s breath caught in his throat as he read on: In 1991 Jane Mallet had a complete hysterectomy after years of painful endometriosis.
    So much for his hunch.
    He found Jane in her room. She sat by a window gazing out at the big Manitoba sky. Frank wondered if it was the sky she saw or if she was looking at something else, a picture behind her eyes.
    She turned around to look at him. She looked her age, twenty-seven, but there was something odd about her. Her skin was so smooth. There wasn’t a line or a ripple, Frank realized, on a face untroubled by years of decision making and responsibility that form a part of a normal person’s life. Her face was a blank.
    Jane smiled like he was the only visitor she’d ever had. Her face lit up and Frank’s heart ached for this woman who was so alone through no fault of her own.
    “Hello, Jane,” Frank said.
    “Hello,” she said. “Are you the police?”
    “Why yes, I am,” Frank said. “How did you know?”
    “I know what you’re here for,” she said. “Are you going to arrest me?”
    She talked slowly, haltingly, just as Greta had said, with lots of pauses.
    “No, Jane dear, I certainly am not. Why would you think such a thing?”
    “Because I lied,” she said. “I lied to my real mother when I told her I was a nurse, when I told her I was married.”
    “Those are just tiny white lies, Jane. No one blames you for those. No. I just came to say hello really. I know your mother. She lives on my street. May I sit down a minute?”
    Frank straddled a chair across from her and peered into her face. “Why did you write to your mother, Jane?” he asked. “Why did you phone her?”
    “I dream about her. I dreamed her voice and I wanted to see if she really sounded that way, the way I dreamed.”
    “And did she?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Would you like to see your mother, Jane?”
    “I don’t know.” She cast her eyes down. “Why are you looking at me?”
    “You look a bit like your mother,” Frank said. “Just a bit.”
    Frank would tell Greta about Jane; he was certain she would want to know. But not today. He was suddenly very tired today.

CHAPTER 19
    Denise spent the night in and out of sleep. When morning came she felt a queasiness in her stomach and achy all over but she’d had worse awakenings.
    The curtains around her bed had been pushed back so when she sat up she could look both ways and see that all the other beds were occupied. Hers was in the middle, right across from the nursing station.
    She had no idea how long she had been here.
    Sun poured in the windows of the old building and landed on the two nurses at their station, some of it spilling over to one corner of Denise’s bed.
    “Good morning, Denise,” the one named Ralph called.
    An inkling of hope reared up and lay back down. Denise knew it was good that she woke up in this bed. She liked the small amount of routine that was provided for her here; she was good with routines.
    It had occurred to her on occasion that she would have been a good candidate for the army, with all those early risings, physical training drills, shiny boots and punishments. Or the headmistress of a girls’ school, or better yet, the assistant headmistress. If she was going to do something properly she wanted someone else to tell her what it was. I am an unenviable person, thought Denise.
    The breakfast trays arrived and the smiling Ralph slid one onto her bedside table.
    “Thanks.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed a little too quickly and had to lie down again. She saw a stainless steel teapot on her tray and felt bile rise