What She Left Behind (16 page)

Now, as she always did, Clara sat with one hand on her belly, waiting to feel the baby move. Her greatest fear was that the fetus had died and she wouldn’t know until she gave birth. As usual, she felt nothing. The only time she felt movement was at night. Even then, she worried she had imagined it; so slight was the flutter beneath her hand. For the millionth time she thought that either the baby was abnormally tiny, or something was horribly wrong. The idea made her heart constrict.

From the other side of the desk, Dr. Roach considered her, his pen poised over her chart. She looked at the fancy, carved pen in his hand. How foolish she had been, thinking she would have access to ink and stationery to write letters to Bruno, thinking she would ever get anyone to mail them. No one at Willard cared about why she was there, let alone her previous life. She thought about Nurse Yott. For some reason, the young nurse had been able to tell immediately that Clara was sane. Why was it that no one at Willard could do the same? Clara had to believe that Nurse Yott had either changed her mind about mailing the letter, or had been caught somehow. Otherwise, Bruno would have come to rescue her by now. A dull, empty ache gnawed beneath her ribcage.

“What were you just thinking, Clara?” Dr. Roach said, his voice deep and relaxed.

“I was wondering how you expect to help patients if you never see them,” she said.

His brow furrowed. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean,” he said.

“I’ve been here five months and this is only my second appointment with you. The only other time I saw you was when I got in trouble.”

He sat back in his chair, stroking the edges of his neatly trimmed goatee between his thumb and fingers. “We have over three thousand patients here at Willard,” he said. “Male and female. You can’t expect special treatment now, can you? This isn’t the Long Island Home.”

“I’m not asking for special treatment,” she said. “But you claim you want to help me. How can you help me if you never see me? I’m beginning to think the only thing Willard is good for is locking people away.”

“This institution was founded on the belief that madness can be cured by a firm but humane hand, a safe haven from the stresses of life, rest, and regular work. You’re getting all of those things, aren’t you, Clara?”

Clara shifted in her seat, her back screaming in pain. “First of all, I’m not mad. Second, this is not a safe haven from the stresses of life. I’m being kept here against my will. Is that supposed to make me feel peaceful and carefree?”

“How can I relieve some of your stress, Clara?”

“Release me. I’ve been here long enough. I’m sure even my father would agree.”

Dr. Roach shook his head. “I’m afraid you’re wrong,” he said. “Your father is counting on me to cure you. Unfortunately, you haven’t said anything to show me that you’ve made progress.”

“What do you want me to say? Tell me, and I’ll say it.”

“Do you still believe your father sent you here to get rid of you?”

Her shoulders dropped. “That’s the tenth time you’ve asked me that question.”

“It’s my job to ask questions.”

“But you twist my answers around to fit your preconceived notions of who I am. You’re convinced that just because I’m here, something is wrong with me!”

“Just answer the question, please.”

She took a deep breath and sighed loudly. “My father sent me here, that’s all I know. If you send me home, I’ll do whatever he wants.”

“Are you saying you finally understand your father only wants what’s best?”

She bit down on the inside of her cheek and nodded. Right now she’d agree to anything if it meant she would regain her freedom. Whatever happened when she got home would be better than being locked up. Dr. Roach scribbled on her chart, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. Then he looked up.

“Do you ever entertain thoughts of suicide, Clara?”

She shook her head. “Why are you even asking me that? I haven’t given you any reason to think . . .”

“I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but suicide can run in families. I just want to make sure . . .”

“No,” she said. “Like I said before, all I want is the chance to live a normal life, to be with the man I love, to raise our baby. But I can’t do any of that as long as you keep me here.”

“I assume you’re talking about Bruno.”

Clara’s breath caught in her chest. “How do you know his name? Did my father tell you?”

Dr. Roach glanced at her file, frowning and rolling his pen between his thumb and fingers. Then he looked up at her, searching her face. “I’m afraid it’s time to tell you the truth, Clara.”

She sat forward in her seat, her heart thundering in her chest. “The truth about what?” she said.

“You’re right about one thing,” Dr. Roach said. “Your father told me about Bruno Moretti.”

“Yes?” she said, unable to breathe. “What did he tell you?”

Dr. Roach set down his pen and folded his hands on his desk. “Clara,” he said, his face etched with pity. “Bruno Moretti doesn’t exist.”

 

By the first of June, the spring rains finally stopped. Now that the grounds of Willard were dry, the patients were allowed outside for supervised walks. Each ward was kept in their own group, lined up four across like a confused marching band. Some patients turned left when the group turned right, others fell back, unable to keep up. Females were sent in one direction, males in the other. Squinting beneath the blazing sun, Clara followed the other women on her ward, looking out over the shimmering waters of Seneca Lake.

A tall, slender woman hummed beside Clara, rolling up her sleeves and turning her face toward the sun. Esther had been at Willard six weeks, committed by her husband when he caught her kissing another man. Even without makeup and wearing a plain, blue housedress, she looked like a movie star, with thick blond hair and peaches-and-cream skin. The first time Clara saw her in the cafeteria, looking around at the other patients with fear-filled eyes, Clara knew she didn’t belong in Willard any more than she did. Later, in the ward, Clara warned her about the Sun Room, and told her that the only way to escape it was to behave. Since then, they’d struck up a friendship and Clara was beyond grateful to have someone to talk to.

Walking on the other side of Esther was Madeline, a petite woman in her mid-twenties, admitted to Willard over a year ago, after losing two babies and leaving her abusive husband. She and Clara had become friends while working in the kitchen, where Madeline washed dishes.

“The sun was shining just like this when I came to Willard,” Madeline said, lifting her chin toward the sky. “The buildings and the lake looked so beautiful that day. I thought someone was finally going to take care of me.”

“Ain’t no one going to take care of us in this place,” Esther said. “When I get out of here, I’m going to find me a sugar daddy and never have to worry about being taken care of again.”

“Maybe that’s what I should have done,” Madeline said, grinning. “I should have found a sugar daddy to pay rent to that miserable old landlady.”

“She would have called the cops on you anyway,” Esther said. “She probably would have said you were a prostitute or something.”

“I thought you were sick in bed when the cops came?” Clara said. “Isn’t that why you couldn’t work and pay your rent?”

“I wasn’t sick,” Madeline said. “I’d just come back from asking my no-good husband to give me a little money for food. He beat the tar out of me. Took me a week before I could get out of bed other than to use the bathroom. After the cops took me in, the doctor said I was below normal physically and should go to the hospital. But that damn landlady said I used vulgar language and talked to myself, so they sent me to the loony bin instead.”

Clara shook her head. She looked at the other women in line ahead of her, shuffling with their heads down or their shoulders hunched, women who, like her and Esther and Madeline, had believed they would live ordinary, happy lives. Of course some of them were truly sick, with mental issues that prevented them from being normal and productive. But how many were victims of circumstance, women left penniless by husbands who abandoned them or died, women who lost children and needed help coping with unbearable grief, women banished by parents who disapproved of their decisions? How many were at Willard because of a single angry outburst, or because they had grown old and been abandoned by their children, or had lost their parents at a young age and had grown up in an orphanage? How many were sane when they got here, but after months of abuse or overtreatment with ice baths and sedatives, would never be rational again?

A while back, Madeline had told Clara the story of Ruby, an Italian immigrant who had come to America with her husband twelve years ago. Two years after they arrived, Ruby’s husband was killed in a construction accident. Starving and homeless, Ruby took to prostitution on the streets of New York, unable to speak more than a few words of English. Eventually, she was arrested and sent to Willard. That was ten years ago. Now, she sat in the Sun Room every day with her head down, silently picking at the skin on her arms.

Being locked up was bad enough, but Clara couldn’t imagine the torture of being unable to communicate, of not having the right words to try to explain how she got there, or that she was perfectly sane. Why hadn’t the doctors found someone who spoke Ruby’s language? What if Ruby had family in Italy, wondering where she was and what happened to her? What if all it had taken was a simple letter to get her out of this hell? Thinking about the injustice of it all, Clara felt a dull, empty ache gnawing inside her chest.

“How are you feeling today?” Esther asked her. “Won’t be long now before your daughter is here.”

Clara put a protective hand over her stomach, her heart filling with a strange mixture of love and fear. She had told Esther and Madeline everything; about Bruno and her father, about her belief that the baby was a girl. “I’m fine,” she said. “A little weak, but other than that . . .”

“What do you think is going to happen after the baby comes?” Esther asked Madeline. “Do you think they’ll let Clara go?”

Madeline shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never heard of anyone giving birth here.” She turned her face toward the lake, avoiding Clara’s eyes.

Clara took a deep breath, trying to ignore the feeling that Madeline wasn’t being completely honest. She couldn’t fault her for it. If Madeline knew something and wasn’t telling, she was only trying to be kind. Madeline understood that if Clara allowed herself to think any further than the day of the baby’s birth, she might not find the strength to put one foot in front of the other. For now, Clara had to believe things would change for the better. There was no other choice.

“I hope they’re going to let me go,” Clara said. “This is no place to raise a baby.”

“I think you’re right,” Esther said, smiling. “They’ll let you go.”

The group of women followed Willard’s main road toward a thick pine grove on the other side of Creek Mears, a long, wide stream that emptied into Seneca Lake. Due to weeks of heavy wind and rain, the grass-banked creek barreled west like a raging river, nearly overflowing, branches and leaves swirling and spinning in the swift, gray water. The women crossed a wooden bridge, the rushing surge drowning out their voices. Clara thought about jumping over the railing, letting the strong current sweep her out to the lake, where a passing boater could pick her up or she could make her way to the opposite shore. But the creek was too deep and powerful, the rough water breaking thick branches on boulders and rocks. Besides, she didn’t know how to swim, having done little more than wade and splash on the beach at Coney Island. Even if she wasn’t pregnant, the risk of drowning was too high. What good would freedom be, if she were dead?

At the end of the bridge, the women turned right, following a dirt road toward the lake. To their right, between the road and the pine grove, a wide field was filled with row after row of iron markers, each two feet high and a foot wide. In the back row, a man in rubber boots and overalls was digging a hole in the ground. When he saw the women, he stopped and pushed his shovel into a mound of fresh dirt, took off his cap, and waved.

“That’s the grave digger, Lawrence Lawrence,” Madeline said. “He’s been at Willard for over thirty years and can pretty much do whatever he wants. I heard that one summer he started sleeping in that shack over there, by the cedar grove.” She pointed toward a small, one-story house nestled at the edge of the woods, its roof littered with pinecones and needles. Clara had no idea how long the dwelling had stood empty, but to her it looked tired; ready to collapse into a dusty heap, years of bone-dry wood and stale attic air released into a thunderous cloud of sawdust and jagged splinters. She couldn’t imagine what condition it was inside. “Lawrence asked the doctors if he could stay in the house instead of the men’s ward,” Madeline continued. “He told them not to worry. He wasn’t going anywhere because he doesn’t have any place to go.”

“He never tries to leave?” Esther said, her eyes wide.

“He says he’s happy here.”

“He must be crazy,” Esther said. “No one could be happy here.”

On the left side of the road stood a four-story building with a green-tiled roof that sagged in the middle, as if supporting an invisible burden. At one time, apparently, the brick building had been painted white. Now, the exposed stone looked grainy and pink, with ashy patches of peeling paint clinging under the eaves and around the window casings. Iron bars crisscrossed the grimy windows, like black thread in a mended sock. Beside the structure, a tall, dark tree reached for the sky, its limbs twisted and bent.

In the side yard, two groups of patients trudged along the ragged edge of weed-choked grass, some with their wrists tied together, some in straitjackets or leather mittens with chains, all bound together by ropes around their middles. Males made up one group, females the other. Their white hospital gowns were torn and caked with filth, their legs, arms, and hair encrusted with feces, vomit, and urine. One woman kept falling and being dragged along by the others, until the orderlies stopped the group long enough for her to stand up. Every ten steps or so, the woman fell again. Several of the patients staggered or limped, and some cried out for help. One kept trying to hit everyone around her, and another tried to turn around and walk in the other direction. A male patient in a straitjacket thrust a shoulder forward with every step, first the left, then the right, like a football player practicing his moves. One of the men had a muzzle over his mouth. Several of them cursed at the top of their lungs.