by Cathy Lamb
“We could live in a house that was built three hundred years ago,” Bridget said. “Like right up there.” She pointed to a third-story window, purple pansies in the flower box. “Or right there.” She pointed to a window across the street, the lace curtains fluttering.
“And all the people who had lived there before us would be ghosts.”
“No,” Bridget told me. “You go to heaven when you die, you don’t stay here.”
“Are you sure? What if they liked their flat?”
She thought about that. “They could visit.”
“What if we’re in the flat when they visit?” I found that intriguing. “How would we know they were there?”
“They’ll make a noise. Maybe they come back to check on someone, make sure they’re well. Or to get something they lost.”
“We could give it back.” A dead person’s ghost floating in through the windows fascinated me. Would they be dressed in the clothes they wore when they were alive? Would she wear a bonnet? A corset? Would he carry a sword? Would they be knights in their silver mail? Scottish warriors? “Maybe they’re not dead.” This was an even more thrilling thought. “Maybe they still live in the flat, only we can’t see each other. Everyone is living at the same time.”
Bridget’s eyes became huge. “We’re all ghosts to each other, then.”
“Yes!” I grabbed her hand. “We’re ghosts altogether, but we don’t know it.”
“Can we get to the other people?”
“You mean the ghost people who are living with us in their flat?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. We should try to get into their time. We should try!”
We tried. We tried to reach my great-grandparents when Bridget spent the night at my house. We tried up in the hills at the cemetery, where Ramsays and Mackintoshes were buried. “Can you hear us? Can you hear us?” we shouted. We went to the ruins of the cathedral and ran amidst the gravestones. “Are you still here?” we called out.
It didn’t work. It did, however, ignite my imagination with thoughts of time travel . . . and, later, my studies in physics took me through a wormhole, a time warp, and a storyline.
“I was at a party the other night.”
“Better you than me,” I told my agent, Maybelle. I sat down in a chair in Toran’s kitchen. I had made Caledonian cream for him with marmalade and a smidgen of brandy. I knew he loved that treat, and I’d made it for him when I was fifteen, after our first kiss.
“You got that right. You told me once that going to all the publishing parties I do would be akin to sticking your head in an oven and turning the heat to four hundred degrees.”
“That is correct. I would go to the parties you go to only if I could turn myself into a potted fern and hide in the corner.”
“You wouldn’t look good with spores.”
“I would wear spores with confidence. A fern’s spores are how they reproduce themselves. They’ve been around for hundreds of millions of years. Ferns can also suck out arsenic from the soil. Fascinating plant.”
“Why do you have to get all science-y with me all the time?”
“Because science”—I stopped and chewed. Two chocolate creams with pecans at one time were too many in my mouth—“is an all-encompassing interest, impossible to compartmentalize when it’s imbedded in our everyday life. I am also secretly trying to turn you into a science nerd like me.”
“Banish the thought. I’d rather turn into a toad. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“So, have you written a few bodice-ripper scenes in your new book?”
“I never write bodice rippers, you know that. I write love-lust scenes with a time-traveling, independent, feminist woman who helps other people and saves their lives in a historical setting that I have researched to death. And no.” I popped a vanilla truffle into my mouth. “Not a word. I’ve been busy.”
“No, you haven’t been. Torture me with toothpicks. Let spiders eat my toes, you’re killing me.”
“How would you know? Do you have intercontinental spy glasses?”
“I know these things. You are not writing. Your publishing house lights up my phone at least once a week. Your editor is sounding more and more drunk and hysterical. Last night, at this publishing party, where you could have been a fern with spores, your editor, your marketing people, and even your copy editor came up to me and asked when you would be finished with your book. I told them I didn’t know. They know there’s a problem. Your editor handed me a vodka tonic, then took it back and drank it straight up.”
“Your loss. You like vodka tonics.”
“We drank so much, we had to spend the night in the hotel. I slept with your editor last night in a bed.”
“You shared a bed?”
“Yes. They had one room left. King-sized bed. I woke up with her curled around me. Her breath was atrocious. It smelled like spoiled eggs.”
“And yours smelled like peppermint with a splash of vanilla?”
“God, no. My breath was on fire. Like spoiled fire. Back to your book.”
“I’ll write it.”
“When?”
“Pretty soon. I have to go. The current issue of Science Monthly is ready to be read.”
“Don’t you hang up on me. I slept with your editor, I deserve an answer as to when this book will be done—”
“Soon.”
“Charlotte, you creepy writer. Listen, give me one chapter. One—”
“I’ll send you a sex scene.”
“And a synopsis?”
“No can do. Bye, Maybelle. Science Monthly calls.”
I love that magazine.
I do not love writing currently. Blocked, blocked, blocked, that I was.
Give me someone sexy, McKenzie Rae said to me.
I looked outside. Toran was coming in. Now, that was sexy.
Drew and I did not have sex often. I was desperate for more. I was hurt at the scarcity of it, but I buried it. I thought twice a day seemed about right; he thought twice a month. Drew most desired having sex with me when I lay on my stomach.
The sex was awkward, restrained, or overly, falsely enthusiastic, as if we were both trying hard and we were on a stage as actors with an audience nearby. We were engaging in this very intimate act, but it didn’t feel emotionally intimate. Drew would not hold my gaze when he was inside of me. He most often focused his attention on the bedside clock.
When you are married but your spouse doesn’t want to make love to you, you enter into a special kind of hell.
I asked him why we didn’t make love more often, why he wasn’t interested, and he said he was stressed because of schooling and his research job, publishing and meetings.
I asked again another time, and he said he was tired.
I asked a third time; he didn’t feel well.
I told myself I loved Drew. Sweet Drew, who often made dinner, organized our apartment with different colored baskets in the closet, cleaned, and bought me thoughtful gifts like warm socks, subscriptions to science journals, toys for my cats (I still miss Cleopatra and Sticks!), and gardening books with the Latin names.
When I was sick with the flu, Drew made me an I Hope You Feel Better basket with chicken soup, crackers, 7UP, chocolates, and a new romance novel, all wrapped up with a bow. He continued to buy my clothes for me and brushed my hair. We continued our dancing lessons. We listened to Tina Turner and found we loved seeing Broadway shows. He respected my opinions. He was the best husband except for the sex.
I started to fall out of love with Drew. The sex was a huge part of it, I’m sure. It’s hard to stay in love with a man who will not make love to you. The hurt kills it, the anger grows, the resentment becomes a bubbling volcano, swirling and burning inside you, chipping away at the love.
The marriage started to deteriorate.
I read more of Bridget’s letters.
October 18, 1972
Dear Charlotte,
I am pregnant. The
nuns told me I am. I kept throwing up at school and Sister Margaret looked at my stomach and called the doctor. I thought I was throwing up because I am scared scared scared of Father Cruickshank.
Then they told Father Cruickshank and he came in to the health room and told everyone to leave so he could pray over me. I could tell that Sister Margaret and Sister Mary Teresa didn’t want to, but he said, “My heart is filled with grief, let me bless this child and take her confession so she will not burn in hell. Show me your obedience to our Lord by giving us privacy for prayer,” and they did.
He told me again that if I told anyone, he would kill Toran. He has a gun, he does, he showed me, he put it on my forehead one time. He pretended to pull the trigger. I wet my pants.
Father Cruickshank said no one will believe me, least of all my father, that he forced me to have sex. “You liked it, Bridget. You seduced me. You’re the daughter of the devil.”
I didn’t like it. Hated it hated it hated it. Hate him.
He said I am going away today. He told me he was going to write a letter to my father and bring it to him as soon as I leave. I know what he’ll do. He’ll hand my parents the letter over the dining room table, probably with tea and biscuits, wait while they read it, then say, “Let’s pray and then I’ll answer your questions.”
He said I can’t even go home and get my books and drawing pads and pencils, but I know he’s afraid I’ll tell. I won’t. I love Toran. Don’t shoot Toran. Don’t shoot.
Sister Margaret and Sister Angeline hugged me.
I love you, Charlotte.
Bridget
October 20, 1972
Dear Charlotte,
I am at the school for pregnant girls. It’s called Our Lady of Peace, A Home for Unwed Mothers. We are allowed to plant and weed the gardens. When I’m there, I think of you and your mum and all the time we spent in your garden.
I cry all the time. I cry in the garden, especially.
I draw pictures of this garden, like I used to.
Small. So small. I feel small. Like my drawings.
They said I will have the baby in March. That’s why I didn’t have my period. It’s why I felt sick and threw up in the morning. I signed a paper. I don’t know what it said. They said I had to.
The nuns are kind. They say, “All will be well.” No, it won’t.
I am so glad to be away from Father Cruickshank. He’s doing to other girls what he did to me. He had a lot of girls go to his house, or to the shed, he did.
I hope he dies. If I could, I would kill him myself. I would kill him. Kill him.
I would not kill the baby, though. I think I should hate the baby, but I don’t. I feel the baby moving. I put my hands on my stomach. It is not the baby’s fault. I imagine the baby. The tiny hands and toes, the tummy, the eyes. Will the baby have my eyes? My ears? I don’t want to see my father in the baby, or Father Cruickshank, but I would love to see Toran.
Love,
Bridget
I dug deep in the box and found the letter Bridget referred to. It was addressed to Carney and Bonnie Ramsay. The letter was written by Father Angus Cruickshank. There was no stamp, no return address, so Bridget was right. He brought the letter to her parents as Bridget was being shuttled off to the unwed mothers’ home.
As I read it I felt a gush of rage so strong, so insidious, I thought I would have to scream to get it out of my body.
October 18, 1972
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay, my good friends in Jesus’s love,
I am sorry to inform you that your daughter, Bridget, has obviously had relations with a boy in the village. Who, I don’t know. I have heard rumors of several possibilities. I know we have discussed my concerns before this.
It is a tragedy, but Bridget is pregnant. A few months along. It was easy not to see the weight gain, as she is a very slight girl, but the nuns said that she was vomiting in the morning here at school. Because of her unfortunate reputation, we decided to send for the doctor. She has had a positive pregnancy test.
After prayerful consultation with the bishop and archbishop, we decided to send Bridget to Our Lady of Peace, A Home for Unwed Mothers. We will pray for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. After the baby is given up for adoption, we will welcome Bridget back here at St. Cecilia’s. Her secret is safe and the other girls will never know.
We are, as you know, a place of compassion, forgiveness, and generosity. I have already spoken to Bridget and told her that God loves everyone, including teenage girls who engage in sinful sexual intercourse with young men. I spent an hour in prayer with her today and I have taken her confession. I asked her to say twenty Hail Marys and twenty Our Fathers, every day, until the birth of the baby.
She is contrite and guilt ridden about her behavior and says the devil made her do it. I, too, believe that the devil led your daughter astray. She promises me that it will not happen again, that the Devil has been purified from her body through prayers and confessions with me.
So as not to cause your family embarrassment, I think we can all agree to say to the students and others in St. Ambrose that Bridget is spending time with a cloister up in Inverness, that she is preparing to become a nun herself, and this placement is an honor. This will prevent any shame from coming upon your heads, as you are God-fearing Christian people.
Do not hold yourselves accountable for Bridget’s sin. We have one girl, maybe two, each year who cannot resist their baser impulses and become pregnant by young men in the village.
May God be with you during this difficult time.
I am praying for you both.
In Christ, our love, our deliverer, our savior,
Father Angus Cruickshank
I put on my tennis shoes and ran. I ran and ran and ran. I stopped when I couldn’t breathe, when my sobs choked me, when thoughts of my sweet friend being attacked by this vile, Bible-thumping rapist were so overwhelming I thought I’d die if I didn’t lie down. I lay down by the fort that Clan TorBridgePherLotte built years ago
I hated Angus Cruickshank. If he ever appeared before me, I would kill him myself.
Later that night Toran and I talked about Bridget. We talked about her once a week, usually. It hurt too much to do more than that, and there was no new news, anyhow.
Not knowing where someone you love is, especially when she has soul-deep, talon-scraping problems and is not making safe choices, makes you pace at night.
That’s what love can do to you sometimes. It nearly kills you with worry. It makes you pace.
So we paced, together.
Bridget, where are you? Please come home.
Gobbling Gardens and Gab Group was held at Rowena’s house that night. As she told us when we arrived, “The Arse and The Slut have the kids for the next three days. Let’s see how Bubbles, The Slut, likes playing stepmom.” She cackled.
Rowena’s home, toward the center of St. Ambrose, around the corner from the fountain, was made of stone, possibly rocks from the cathedral, as it periodically crumbled over the centuries. It was, she told me, built in 1780. It had a light blue door and shutters. The interior looked like something that should be in a magazine. Scottish home meets modern color/design and four kids. Upstairs there were three bedrooms. The two girls shared a room, as did the boys.
Downstairs she had set up a place on her dining room table for her rock jewelry business. I loved the necklaces. I had bought four from her, the rocks wrapped in silver wire with bright beading lining both sides. They were earthy.
“I talked to The Arse, and he said he does not have enough money to give me child support again this month, so I’m going to sick that solicitor on him like a rabid dog. Four kids, he walks out, and leaves me with two hundred pounds. He and The Slut bought them all kinds of toys and books and clothes. The Slut has a beautiful home, courtesy of her last husband, and yet The Arse says he doesn’t have money for child support?”
“I hope his body is infested with pinworms,” Olive said, shaking the end of her knitte
d elephant scarf in frustration. The elephant appeared drowsy. I don’t think it was intentional. “I take care of my pigs. They don’t have problems like that, if anyone is wondering.”
“Thank you, Olive,” Rowena said, passing around tea in pottery mugs. “You are always on my side.”
“I hope he has an obscure medical problem that causes his tongue to swell and fill his mouth,” Kenna said. “As I am a doctor here, I won’t be able to treat him due to the fact that I think he’s a eunuch.” She clarified, “I would treat other eunuchs, however, immediately. I have nothing against eunuchs who aren’t The Arse.”
I offered up that I hoped there would be a scientific anomaly and gravitational forces would ebb around him and he would levitate, then fall off the earth. This wasn’t possible, but it was the intent behind it that counted, and Rowena appreciated my murderous thoughts.
“I’m the hostess, so I’ve picked the topic for tonight’s discussion,” Rowena said. “Today we’re going to talk about poisonous and bad plants.”
“In India we have plants that hide the poison inside. Secret poison. And kill,” Gitanjali said, smiling, gentle, her hands like doves in flight. “Many plants that causes a wrinkle.”
“A what?” Lorna asked, mouth twisting in disapproval. She twitched her oatmeal bottom in her seat.
“You understand.” Gitanjali scratched her arm. “Plants that cause a wrinkle.”
“You mean irritation?” Malvina asked.
We all froze for a second. Malvina spoke and she was not inebriated!
“Yes, you scratch like this”—Gitanjali scratched—“and it’s a wrinkle.”
“An itch!” Olive said, with triumph.
“Good enough,” I said.
“A itchy!” Gitanjali said. “Yes.”
Lorna rolled her eyes, impatient. Why couldn’t people speak proper English? She could hardly understand that Indian woman!