The Face on the Milk Carton

As Janie continues with her school day, she feels as though her mind and body have separated. Her body functions normally while her mind races with thoughts of her possible kidnapping. Janie wonders if she is insane. She steps out into a stormy, rainy afternoon. Reeve offers her a ride home from school in his Jeep. He suggests that they drive by the water, and Janie recalls how “Reeve loved floods” (15). Janie flattens out the milk carton and hides it inside her English notebook. She wonders if one of her parents might not be her biological relatives.

Reeve is disappointed to see that the rainstorm has not caused major flooding. He drives to “the Scenic Overlook, better known among teenagers as the Sexual Overlook” (17). Janie observes the ocean and hears flags flapping in the wind. Reeve compares himself to a flag that says, “YOU’RE DUMB” and tells Janie that his parents have not taken him to tour colleges, even though they took his siblings. Janie thinks that she, too, is different from her family members. She reads the name on the milk carton—“Jennie Spring”—and hides it from Reeve when he looks. Reeve drives aggressively to express his irritation, but he suggests they go for ice cream.

Janie continues to wonder about her possible kidnapping, recognizing that she feels younger than her friends. Reeve stops at an ice cream shop and orders hot fudge sundaes for them both. As he continues to talk about grades, Janie suddenly envisions herself eating a sundae as a young girl. A young woman is with her, and the woman laughs and later goes to a parking lot. Janie is shaken by her vision but dismisses it as a daymare rather than a memory. Reeve notices Janie’s distress and asks for their sundaes to go.

Reeve offers to send his mother over to care for Janie, but she declines. Janie returns home to an empty house. She loads the dishwasher and then wanders upstairs, noticing all the photographs of herself along the way. Janie thinks about how her parents have no baby photos of her. She feels that she should remember if someone kidnapped her at age three. Janie tries to relax in her room, but instead she escapes its silence by going next door to Reeve’s house.

Janie finds Reeve’s mother watching the television show Lassie. She asks Mrs. Shields how long she has known Janie’s family. Mrs. Shields says that Janie and her parents moved to the neighborhood when Janie was five, and Janie’s mother was strict. Janie suddenly experiences another vision. She sees herself taking candy from what she believes is her mother’s apron, though her mother does not wear aprons. Mrs. Shields says that Janie’s mother was strict because she was afraid of anything bad happening to Janie.

Janie returns to her house. Her mother, Miranda, rushes in, apologizes for being late, and asks whether Janie prepared dinner. Miranda worries about eating dinner without Janie’s father. Janie doubts that her mother is a kidnapper. She admires Miranda’s elegant clothing but thinks that she and mother are not alike. Janie’s father, Frank, returns home from coaching his soccer team at practice. He energetically discusses his team and then goes upstairs to shower.

Janie and Miranda take a cake decorating class at the YMCA. Miranda remembers when Janie briefly joined a swim team at the facility. As Janie decorates a cake, she falls “hideously into another daymare” (35). She sees white shoes and believes they are a memory of shoe shopping. When Janie resumes her cake decorating, she attempts to write “Happy Birthday” and wonders if she is Jennie Spring and has a different birthdate than the one she celebrates.