The Bright Unknown

by Elizabeth Byler Younts

  “I was born at Riverside. This is my mother, Helen Friedrich.” Kelly moves to the next slide. “She was emaciated and sick. But even weeks before her death she would hum to me. She knew me and she loved me, and she deserved a better life and a better death. She gave birth to me in that room, and that’s where we lived together for eighteen years. She was a German immigrant and was put into the asylum when she was found alone in an apartment unable to care for herself.”

  Kelly goes to the next shot.

  “When Grace was admitted into Riverside she brought her camera, not knowing where her parents were leaving her. We had a nurse who looked out for us—” I pause, my throat turning to knots. I clear it because I need to tell this story. “She tried, anyway. We blackmailed her into allowing us to take pictures. She agreed because she knew we’d never get the chance to develop the film. In the time we had the camera, we took these photographs, but they’ve been sitting in a pillowcase in the attic since 1941, when I escaped with my friend Angel—an albino boy I met when I was five. I got the film back last week.” I pause and nod to Kelly. “This is Grace when she arrived at age eighteen. She was vivacious and full of life. She was unlike anyone I’d ever met. She taught me a lot about the world—your world—the one I’d never lived in. She was institutionalized because, according to her parents, she loved the wrong man.”

  Kelly moved on.

  “This slide shows Grace after she was hospitalized for about a year. You can see that she’s just a skeleton. Her hair was falling out by then. She couldn’t eat much without vomiting. Her skin was dusky and flaky because of dehydration.” I have to pause as I look back and stare at the large image of her on the screen. I loved her so much. “And I escaped without her.” I choke, and everyone gives me a moment. “I still don’t know what happened to her. But she was my friend, and I loved her. I believe many of you would’ve also, and I hope she found a way out. And she’s why I’m here today. We made a promise to one another, and today I’m able to fulfill it by sharing with you how we lived and how so many died. We knew if someone didn’t speak up, our stories would be lost and our voices muted. I wish she could be up here with me today.”

  I have to catch my breath with a long, shuddering inhale. I don’t know if I can keep talking. But Kelly continues with the slides. It is hard for me to speak when I see the next image. He was so beautiful and lovely. He was so bright. He was my Angel. Can I even speak about him?

  “I met this boy in the graveyard in the back acreage of the hospital property. He didn’t know his name. He didn’t know what a mother was or what a bath was or what a book was. He didn’t know anything. I taught him to eat properly. A kindhearted nurse taught us both to read—though he required a magnifying glass. He was given up by an affluent Pennsylvanian family when he was a toddler because they were ashamed of him being albino. He was at Riverside until he was twenty-one. He was an intellectual young man and my best friend. I called him Angel.”

  My entire face is now wet with tears as I relive these friendships that meant so much to me. The friends I lost so many years ago. Who would they have become if they’d been given a chance?

  I turn back to the crowd, and everyone is in stunned silence.

  “These patients weren’t just patients to me. They were my friends. My family.” Kelly continues to click through the other photos. “This is one of my friends, Rosina. She taught me the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish and some basic Bible stories. B.J. read me her favorite story no less than half a dozen times, so if any of you high schoolers need help with Robin Hood and his Merry Men, I can help.” I smile as I see some of the good and humorous in all of this hurt. “There were aides taking care of us, and fewer nurses and even fewer doctors. The nurse who raised me, Joann Derry, at one point had over a hundred and fifty patients to take care of with the help of only one attendant. We were at almost double capacity when I finally escaped just before we entered the Second World War. This was a trend nationwide in asylums, not just at Riverside.”

  I look at all these faces. What do I want them to know? They’ll have these images with them forever, I know that. But what do I want them to think about when the images come back to their minds? Because they will.

  “Build your new buildings, if that’s what you want. Build them and make them a great place to connect as a community and to enjoy each other. But don’t forget the sacred ground that they will be built upon. Don’t forget that thousands of souls lived and died there and were ostracized by society. Many are buried in the back corner because no one claimed their bodies. Don’t forget the history of what has happened at Riverside and other facilities like it, and don’t let history repeat itself. And when you meet someone who might struggle with mental illness, see the person behind the frightened eyes. Not just the diagnosis.”

  I pause, reluctant to say what I feel I must. It was not my agenda to besmirch a person’s reputation, but I can’t turn away from this. “The hospital administrator, Dr. Wolff, did not keep his Hippocratic oath, and if I had a vote, I wouldn’t want anything named after a doctor like him. Name it for your community and let it be a place where hope exists instead of the darkness I and so many others experienced.”

  The place is more silent than it has been throughout the entire talk. I pause and know that I am done, but I’m not sure how to finish. So I say something I haven’t said in decades. “My name is Brighton Friedrich. Thank you for hearing my story.”

  It’s hard to leave the gymnasium. People are trying to talk to me and even surrounding me. They want to know more. They want more pictures, more stories, more of everything. All I want is to leave and clear my mind.

  Kelly helps me, and finally I’m in the gym parking lot with her. My body feels fuller than it has in a long time. The stories I told today I am now ready to tell the important people in my life.

  “You were amazing in there,” Kelly finally says when we are at my car and she’s helping load all the photos and slides into my trunk. “You held them captive.”

  I smile, and it doesn’t feel fake. Her choice of word makes us laugh together.

  “What’s all this about a newspaper ad?” I ask. “And did you call the TV station?”

  “I wanted as many people as possible to hear your story.” Her voice carries a sigh in it. “I may have called the station and the newspaper saying that a special guest would be sharing stories that would ‘thrill your dreams and confirm your nightmares.’”

  I purse my lips and raise my eyebrows at her.

  “You mentioned them in your letter to Grace.”

  Then I exhale and smile at her. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but thank you, Kelly. For all of this. I didn’t know that this was what I needed for so long.”

  When we hug, she hugs me back like a daughter would, and I like that.

  “I don’t think you’re finished, though.” Her excitement is bubbling over and she can barely keep up with herself.

  “What do you mean?”

  She throws a thumb over her shoulder. “The local TV station is sending your talk to the national networks. They want your story to be heard by more than just our audience.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” My hand goes to my chest, holding my heart in place.

  “I also heard my father say something about changing a part of the proposal.”

  “Really? What change?”

  “The name.” She pauses. “He said that Grace Place has a nice ring to it.”

  I nod in agreement. It does, and Grace would be so pleased.

  “And I have this for you.” Kelly hands me several envelopes. I put on my reading glasses. I file through them, not recognizing any of the names. I stop at one that lists Hannah James as the sender.

  “I don’t know who this is. Or any of them.”

  “These are the families of the asylum patients I’ve been contacting about belongings. I told them about you and they have written you.”

  She pauses and puts her hand over mine.

&nb
sp; “That top one is Grace’s sister,” Kelly says, and like a healing balm she adds, “I found her.”

  I gasp and don’t hold back fresh yet long-held tears.

  “Just tell me—” I pull off my glasses and wipe my eyes. “Is she alive?”

  Kelly inhales deeply. “No, she’s not, but she did not die at Riverside. Hannah fought for her and got her out, but not, unfortunately, before she was sterilized and lobotomized.”

  “No,” I gasp and wonder why she is ruining this special day with such awful news. My hand shakes as it covers my mouth.

  “But Hannah says that she lived a happy life despite her terrible years in the asylum. She only passed a few years ago because of health complications. Hannah called her the best, most fun-loving aunt her children could’ve had because she was so childlike. There were challenges, but she was happy and they were together. It’s all in the letter.”

  I press the letter to my chest. How I long to have one more conversation with my Grace.

  “I didn’t want to give this to you before the meeting.” She shrugs. “I didn’t think that would be fair.”

  I nod. My words are stuck in my throat. I hug and thank her again. I can’t ever repay her for how she’s helped me. For all she’s done for my Riverside friends.

  But I have one more stop to make.

  1941

  Something Pretty like Hope

  The first week under the care of the church in a town I didn’t know was a quiet one. A woman named Natty, who had a round belly and was expecting her first child, took care of me in the softest bed I’d ever been in. The blankets were warm and feathery. I sank into the mattress that felt like a large pillow. No one made me talk, and they hadn’t even pushed to know my name; they cared so well for me. I’d slept and dreamed most of those hours.

  “Where are you from?” Natty finally did ask a few days after my arrival. She brought me a mug of hot chicken broth.

  I sipped it carefully, and the salt in the broth made my tongue come alive. I took another two sips before I answered her. I didn’t want to stop drinking in the broth, and I had to think about what I would tell her. Where was I from?

  “Milton,” I said quietly. That was true. I couldn’t possibly tell her that I was from an asylum.

  “Milton?”

  “In Pennsylvania.” I sipped again. I tried not to look too hard at her rounded belly that was carrying a baby. I’d never seen someone so pregnant, or a baby for that matter. It made me think of Joann.

  Her brows pulled together, and her lined forehead looked like stairsteps up to her brown hairline. She just kept bringing me food; she put salve and bandages on my arms for days. The sun threw its light and warmth through the lacy curtain, and next to the window was a cross on the wall—only this one was plain wood without the man on it. Like he’d been rescued. Like the restraints had been taken from his hands. I believed that.

  “Where are you going?” Natty asked on the fourth day when she brought me a hot drink that afternoon. I’d never tasted anything like what she gave me. She called it hot cocoa.

  “To my aunt,” I said before I could swallow back the words. “She lives in Brighton, Michigan.”

  “Would you like me to write her? To tell her you’re safe?”

  “No,” I said too quickly and without explanation.

  “Why didn’t you just take a train or a bus there from Milton?”

  I was afraid to answer questions, especially because of what happened with the Fancies and Fears. But I knew she deserved some answers, given all that she was doing for me. I looked at the cross, and I could almost feel the smooth wood on my fingertips.

  “I don’t have much money,” I said.

  “We found money.”

  The chocolaty drink burned my tongue and I didn’t mind. My tongue needed to be restrained or I would let everything inside of me out.

  “Someone gave me the money to buy a train or bus ticket, but I don’t know where a station is.”

  Someone. Conrad. The one who stole Angel.

  I was given everything I needed and left alone as much as I wanted for the first two weeks I was with them. I just kept staring at the small wooden cross on the wall opposite. Natty was always so kind and quiet and loving. She looked tired some days, and her belly grew larger than I thought possible.

  I slept so much during the day that at night I felt wide awake and I would look out the window for my bright little Crux. I’d look for Angel. But found neither. I did discover that Joann had packed in my bag all my birthday photographs. I’d stare at the one with Angel, willing him to come back. Then I’d return to sleep.

  On the second Sunday in this little Ohio town, I didn’t stay in bed. I sat in Natty’s parlor when her church friends came over, and I listened to them talk. They talked about a local woman who had been awarded with a Teacher of the Year designation and a diner owner who was doing a pancake breakfast to raise funds for the high school. They ate cake and drank tea and spoke so kindly to one another. And they just let me listen.

  I started to sit at Natty’s kitchen table for meals. She served me food but never made me feel bad for being quiet. Her husband, she said, was in the army and not home right now. She told me all about him and he sounded like a nice man. She said I could stay as long as I needed to and that she liked my company.

  One night I got out of bed quietly. The wood floor was warm under my naked feet, and a thin breeze rustled my hair and the nightgown I’d been given. I stepped through the bedroom door, down the steps, out to the front porch, then stood on the sidewalk. My toes curled from the touch of the rough concrete.

  I looked up. It was an entirely dark night. A black canvas hovered above me and felt heavy on my heart, pushing me to sit on the bottom step.

  “The Ladies Aid raised enough money for you to take the train all the way to Brighton.” Natty’s voice pulled me from my melancholy. “We want to help you get to your aunt.”

  I turned and watched as another angel in my life sat next to me on the porch step. She leaned back and sighed. She smelled of sweet things that I didn’t know well enough to place. Her hair was rolled and covered with some type of net. She wore a robe even though it was warm.

  We sat in silence, and I looked off into the field across the road and down the hill. Where so much had happened. Where I’d lost the last person I had loved. It was empty, and the tracks from the trucks weren’t visible anymore. It was as if they’d never been there.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I finally said. I’d spoken so little, it was odd to hear my voice. It was so different from the voice I spoke in my head telling me how to feel, what to do, and where to go. That one sounded like the sixteen-year-old girl yelling at Joann.

  Then she put her hand on mine, and for a moment I thought it would feel as if she were holding me down, keeping me there, confining me. But it didn’t and she wasn’t. She was lifting me up. She was letting me go. Then she jumped and laughed.

  “This baby is busy tonight.”

  “What?” I asked, sitting up straighter.

  “The baby is kicking.” She put her hand on her swollen abdomen.

  “You mean you can feel it moving?” I turned toward her, shocked.

  She nodded. “You don’t know these sorts of things, do you?”

  “I’ve never—” I didn’t know how to finish my sentence. I’ve never seen such a pregnant woman. I’ve never felt a baby move. I’ve never seen a baby except in a storybook.

  Natty took my hand and pressed it against a bulging spot on the right side of her belly. A few breathless moments later I felt it. This little person inside Natty had just kicked my hand.

  “Wow,” I said, and a surge of something I couldn’t name surfaced. “Is it a boy or a girl?” I asked, keeping my hand in place.

  “You’re silly—I don’t know yet—not till it’s born.” She sighed and looked up. “Look, the first star.”

  She pointed and I looked up. The pinprick of light was brighter than any st
ar I’d ever seen.

  “‘All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.’”

  If I could’ve weighed the truth of that statement, this one would’ve toppled the entire earth.

  “Is that in the Bible?” I asked.

  “No, but close,” Natty said with a giggle. “Saint Francis said it.”

  “It’s true, though, isn’t it? Even though it’s not in the Bible,” I asked, hopeful.

  “It is.”

  We watched in silence as the little star was met by one more, then another, and then hundreds burst out of hiding.

  “I want a girl.” Natty patted her belly.

  “What will you name her?” I asked almost thoughtlessly, but as soon as I’d spoken the words I wished to take them away. Names were too important to throw around on porch steps.

  “Something pretty, like Hope.” She looked at me.

  “Hope.” I repeated the name, and for the first time I realized that sometimes the very best things in our lives are those things that take time to unfold.

  Then I told Natty everything, and she cared for me anyway.

  1941

  One Bright Window

  Five days later Natty delivered her baby. And just like she wished—it was a little girl, and she named her Hope. She was pink-skinned with a burst of red hair and rosebud lips. Her cry sounded like a song, and her eyes shined like a mirror into the future.

  “Here.” Natty put her in my arms before I could say no. I was so afraid of hurting her.

  And there she was, innocence wrapped in the softest skin I’d ever touched. For the first few minutes she was awake, her glassy blue eyes looked right at my face. But as her eyes drooped in slumber, she gripped my pinky finger in her whole hand and I was sure I could never give her back to Natty. But of course I did when she bawled to be fed. Natty took her, gently rocking and nursing her.