Louisa, Please Come Home

Shirley Jackson

 

            I listened to my mother’s voice over the radio. “Louisa,” she said, “please come home. It’s been three years since we saw you. We miss you, and we want you back again. Louisa, please come home.”

            Once a year I heard that, on the anniversary of the day I ran away. I also read the newspaper stories. “Louisa Tether vanished one year ago.” Or two years, or three. I used to wait for June 20 as if it were my birthday.

            I was living in Chandler, which was a big enough city for me to hide in. It was also near my old home, so the papers always made a big fuss about my anniversary.

            I didn’t decide to leave all of a sudden. I had been planning it for a long time. Everything had to go right. If it had gone wrong, I would have looked like an awful fool. My sister Carol would never have let me forget that.

            I planned it for the day before her wedding. The papers said they had the wedding anyway. Carol told a reporter that her sister Louisa would have wanted it that way.

            “She would never have wanted to spoil my wedding,” Carol said. But she knew that was exactly what I had wanted.

Anyway, everyone was running around the house, getting ready for the wedding. I just walked out of the door and started off.

            There was only one bad minute---when Paul saw me. Paul has always lived next door to us. Carol hates him more than she hates me. My  mother can’t stand him, either.

            Of course, he didn’t know I was running away. I told him what I had told my parents. I was going downtown to get away from all the noise. He wanted to come with me, but I ran for the bus and left him standing there.

            I took the bus downtown and walked to the railroad station. I bought a round-trip ticket. That would make them think I was coming back. Then they wouldn’t start looking for me too quickly.

            I knew they’d think I’d stay in Crain. That was the biggest city the train went to. So I stayed there only one day.

            I bought a tan raincoat in a department store in Crain. I had left home wearing a new jacket. I just left it on a counter in the store. Someone probably bought it.

            I was pretty sure of one thing. There must be thousands of 19-year-old girls, fair-haired, five foot four inches tall. And a lot of them would be wearing tan raincoats.

            It’s funny how no one pays any attention to you. Hundreds of people saw me that day. But no one really saw me.

            I took a train to Chandler, where I had been heading all along. I slept on the train.

            When I got to Chandler, I bought a suitcase. I bought some stockings and a little clock and put them in the suitcase. Then I was ready to get myself settled in Chandler. Nothing is hard to do unless you get upset or excited about it.

            I decided who I would be. I was a 19-year-old girl named Lois Taylor, who had a nice family upstate. I had saved enough money to come to live in Chandler. I would go to business school there. I would need a job to pay for the school.

           

--1--

            I stopped in a drugstore for breakfast and a paper. I read the ads for furnished rooms. It all looked so normal---suitcase, raincoat, rooms for rent. When I asked the clerk how to get to Primrose Street, he hardly looked at me.

 

            I walked into Mrs. Peacock’s house on Primrose Street. I knew this was the perfect place. My room was nice, and Mrs. Peacock and I liked each other.

            She was pleased that my mother wanted me to find a clean room in a good neighborhood. She liked the idea that I planned to save money so I could send some home.

            Within an hour, Mrs. Peacock knew all about my imaginary family. I told her my mother was a widow. My sister had just been married. My younger bother Paul made my mother worry a lot. He didn’t want to settle down.

            Mrs. Peacock wanted to take care of me. She told me about a job in a stationary store. So there I was. I had been away from home for 24 hours, and I was a whole new person. I was Lois Taylor, who lived on Primrose Street and worked in a stationary store.

            Mrs. Peacock and I ould read the papers during breakfast. She’d ask my opinion about the girl who disappeared over in Rockville. I’d say she must be ccrazy to leave a nice home like that.

            Once I picked up the paper and looked at the picture. “Do you think she looks like me?” I asked Mrs. Peacock.

            Mrs. Peacock said, “No. Her hair is longer, and her face is fatter.”

            “I think she looks like me,” I said.

            My picture was in the Chandler papers a lot, but no one ever looked at me twice. I went to owork. I shopped in the stores. I went to the movies and the beach, and no one recognized me. I had done a perfect job of changing my identity.

            One morning, Mrs. Peacock was reading about my disappearance. “They’re saying now that she was kidnapped,” she said.

            “I feel kind of sorry for her,” I said.

            “You can’t tell,” she said. “Maybe she went willingly with the kidnapper.”

            On the anniversary of my running away, I bought a new hat. When I got home, Mrs. Peacock was listening to the radio. I heard my mother’s voice.

            “Louisa,” she said, “please come home.”

            “That poor woman,” Mrs. Peacock said. “Imagine how she must feel. She hasn’t given up hope of finding her little girl some day.”

            I decided not to go to business school because the stationary store was branching out. I would probably be a manger soon. Mrs. Peacock and I decided it would be foolish to give up such a good job.

            By this time, I had some money in the bank, and I was getting along fine. I never had a thought about going back. It was just plain luck that I had to meet Paul.

            I didn’t stop to think when I saw him on the street. I yelled, “Paul!”

            He turned around and stared at me. Then he said, “Is it possible?”

            He said I had to go back. If I didn’t, he’d tell them where I was. He told me there was still a reward for anyone who found me. He said I could run away again after he got the reward.

           

--2--

            Maybe I really wanted to go back. Maybe that’s why I called his name out on the street. Anyway, I decided to go with him.

            I told Mrs. Peacock I was going to visit my family. I though that was funny. Paul set a telegram to my parents.

            When we got to Rockville, we took a taxi. I began to get nervous, looking out the window. I would have sworn that I hadn’t thought about Rockville for three years. But I remembered it all, as if I had never been away.

            The taxi turned into my street. When I saw the house, I almost cried. “Everything looks the same,” I said. “I caught the bus right there on the corner.”

            “If I had stopped you, ”Paul said, “you probably wouldn’t have tried again.”

            We walked up the driveway. I wondered if they were watching from the window. I wondered if I would have to ring the doorbell. I had never had to ring it before.

            I was still wondering when Carol opened the door. “Carol.”  I said. I was honestly glad to see her.

            She looked at me hard. Then she stepped back, and I saw my mother and father. I was going to run to them, but I held myself back. I wasn’t sure if they were angry with me or happy that I was back.

            “I wasn’t sure of what to say, So I just said, “Mother?”

            She put her hands on my shoulders and looked at my face for a long time. She was crying, and she looked old. Then she turned to Paul and said, “How could you do this to me again?”

            Paul was frightened. “Mrs. Tether---“ he began.

            My mother asked me, “What is your name, dear?”

            “Louisa Tether.” I said.

            “No, dear,” she said gently. “Your real name.”

            Now I felt like crying. “Louisa Tether.” I said. “That’s my name,”

            “Why don’t you people leave us alone?” Carol screamed. “We’ve spent years trying to find my sister. People like you just try to cheat us out of the reward money.”

            “Carol,” my father said, “you’re frightening the poor child. Young lady,” he said to me, “I don’t think you realized how cruel this would be to us. You look like a nice girl. Try to imagine your own mother if someone did this to her.”

            I didn’t have to imagine my own mother. I looked straight at her.

            My father said, “I’m sure this young man didn’t tell you he’s done this twice before. He’s brought us girls who pretended to be our Louisa. The first time we were fooled for several days. The girl looked and acted like our Louisa. She even knew about family things that only Louisa—or Paul---could know. But she was not our daughter. And my wife suffers more each time her hopes are raised.”

            He put one arm around my mother and the other around Carol. They all stood there looking at me.

            Paul started to argue with them. I realized that I wanted to stay there, but I couldn’t They had made up their minds that I wasn’t Louisa.

            “Paul,” I said, “can’t you see that you’re only making Mr. Tether angry?”

            “Correct, young lady,” my father said.

           

 

--3--

 

            “Paul,” I said, “these people don’t want us here.”

            Paul was about to argue again. Instead, he turned and walked out.

            I turned to follow him. My father took my hand and said, “My daughter was younger than you. But I’m sure you have a family somewhere. Go back to the people who love you.”

            That meant Mrs. Peacock, I guess.

            “To make sure you get there,” my father said, “I want you to take this.” He put a $20 bill in my hand. “I hope someone will do as much for our Louisa.”

            “Good-bye, my dear,” my mother said. “Good luck to you.”

            “I hope your daughter comes back someday,” I told them. “Good-bye.”

            I gave the money to Paul. He had gone to a lot of trouble, and I still had my job at the stationary store.

            My mother still talks to me on the radio once a year. “Louisa,” she says, “ please come home. We miss you so much. Your mother and father love you and will never forget you. Louisa, please come home.”

           

           

           

           

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

--4--