Clara gathered the blanket in her spindly arms and pushed herself into a standing position. Wearing a pink housecoat and red slippers with knee-high stockings, she shuffled out of the nurse’s way, waiting for the chair to be turned. When she sat down again, she rearranged the blanket over her legs, then gazed at Izzy, Susan, and Peg, her milky eyes lingering on Susan’s face just a heartbeat longer. Susan dropped her eyes and fumbled with her scarf, struggling to remove it, her cheeks flushed. The nurse closed the curtain between the beds.
“I’ll leave you alone for now,” she said in a cheerful voice. “But I’ll check back shortly. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No,” Peg said. “We’re fine, thank you.”
When the nurse was gone, Susan sank into a chair pushed in the corner. Izzy set her backpack on the floor and touched Susan’s shoulder.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
Susan rubbed her forehead, her temples working in and out. “I’m all right,” she said, her voice weak.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Peg whispered. “Maybe it’s too soon.”
Susan nodded. “I’m okay, really.”
Peg went over and knelt in front of Clara, who was watching with curious eyes. “Hello, Clara,” she said in a loud voice. “How are you?”
Clara smiled thinly. “I’m as well as can be expected, I guess,” she said. To Izzy’s surprise, Clara’s voice was low and raspy. For some reason, she’d expected it to be high, like a young girl’s.
Peg stood. “I’m Peg,” she said. “This is my foster daughter Isabelle, and our friend, Susan. We’d like to talk to you about your time at Willard, if that’s all right.”
Clara nodded. “That’s all right,” she said.
“We went to Willard for a museum project and found some old suitcases while we were there,” Peg said. She motioned for Izzy to get her backpack. “Among the luggage, there was a huge steamer trunk. We believe it belonged to you.” Clara stared at Peg, her face like stone. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Clara nodded.
“We’d like to show you a few of the items we found inside the trunk to see if you recognize anything,” Peg said. “Would that be all right?”
Clara nodded again and clasped her hands in her lap, one gnarled thumb rubbing the knuckle of the other.
Izzy reached into her backpack, pulled out a yellowed page of sheet music and held it out to Clara. Hand-drawn hearts surrounded the title, “Someone to Watch Over Me,” their red ink faded. Clara lifted her chin to look at it, then gasped. She reached for the paper with shaky hands and put it in her lap, hunched over and studying it with her head down.
“This is mine,” Clara said, looking up with wet eyes. “Someone very special gave it to me. I always wanted to learn how to play the piano, but my father wouldn’t allow it.”
From the corner, Susan watched with wide eyes, her fingers pressed over her lips.
“How about this?” Izzy said, holding out a postcard from Paris.
Clara smiled and took it. “This is from a trip to Paris when I was sixteen,” she said. She chuckled softly. “I was going to mail it to a girlfriend but I kept it as a souvenir instead.”
Izzy took a deep breath and held out the picture of Clara and Bruno. Clara stared at it, her pale cheeks turning pink.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Weren’t we beautiful?” She reached out to take the photo, then put her hands to her trembling chin, as if afraid to touch the picture. She bit her lip, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Do you remember who that is?” Peg said.
Clara sniffed, wiping her nose. “Of course I do,” she said, her voice breaking. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that photo. A long, long time.” Finally, she took the picture and held it to her chest. Then she took a deep breath and looked at it again. “Thank you so much for bringing this to me.”
With her heart in her throat, Izzy took the journal out of her backpack and knelt in front of Clara. She placed the journal on Clara’s lap. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I read this. I didn’t know you were still alive or I never would have . . .” She stopped and swallowed. “But that’s why we’re here. That’s how we found you.”
Clara ran shaky fingers over the green leather. For a few moments, she didn’t say anything. Then her hand stopped moving and she sat back in her chair and sighed. “So you know everything,” she said. “You know my father sent me away.”
“Yes,” Izzy said. “I do. And I’m so sorry he did that to you.”
In what seemed like slow motion, Clara patted Izzy’s hand, picked up the photo and put it inside the journal, then set the journal on the table beside her chair. She pushed the blanket off her lap and put her hands on the armrests, preparing to get up. Izzy straightened and stepped back, her heart roaring in her chest. She was afraid Clara was going to tell them to get out, to go away and leave her alone. Clara pushed herself out of the chair and stood, her frail body swaying slightly. She brushed off the front of her house coat, raked her fingers through her thin hair and took a deep breath. Then she looked at Susan.
“And you’re my daughter,” she said. “Aren’t you?”
Susan stood, tears running down her cheeks. “I think so,” she said. Clara clamped her hands over her mouth, her face falling in on itself. She edged toward Susan, holding out her arms. Susan closed the distance between them and they wrapped their arms around each other, smiling and crying at the same time.
“I knew who you were the second I saw you,” Clara said. “I recognized Bruno’s eyes and my nose.”
Susan laughed. “Are you sure?” she said.
“In my head, I wasn’t sure,” Clara said. “But in my heart, I knew.”
After a long minute, Clara released Susan and wiped her face. She moved back to her chair, her slippers shuffling across the tiles. “Come and sit with me,” she said to Susan.
Susan pulled a chair next to Clara’s, taking her hand. “I tried to find out more about you,” she said, sniffing. “But it was next to impossible. I had no idea you were still alive or I . . .”
Clara touched Susan’s cheek, wiping away her tears with papery fingers. “There, there,” she said. “We’re together now. That’s all that matters. I knew this day would come. It’s the only thing that kept me going all these years.”
“And my father?” Susan said. “Is he still alive?”
Clara shook her head, her eyes brimming. “Bruno tried to rescue me,” she said. “We had a plan to escape and we were going to look for you. We almost made it, but they caught us right before we got away. Bruno went back to try to save the man who helped us, and an orderly hit him over the head. He . . . he didn’t make it.”
“I’m so sorry,” Susan said, her voice catching.
“No,” Clara said, swallowing her sobs. “I’m the one who should apologize. If I had just gone along with what my parents wanted, Bruno wouldn’t have been killed and you and I could have been together all these years.”
Susan squeezed Clara’s hand. “It’s all right,” she said. “You couldn’t have known how things would turn out.”
“I want you to know that if it had been within my power,” Clara said, “I would have kept you. But they . . .” She paused, her chin trembling, her thin lips quivering in grief. “Willard was no place for a baby. But I thought about you every day. I kept thinking, someday I’ll get out. Somehow, I’ll find you. I never would have stopped looking. I would have searched the earth . . .” She hung her head, tears dripping from her nose.
Susan wrapped her arms around Clara. “I know,” she said, rubbing her mother’s back. “It wasn’t your fault. Now that we’re together, we can make up for lost time. We’ll just look forward.”
Clara sniffed and wiped her nose. “Yes,” she said, her voice catching. “You’re right.” Then Clara drew away, searching her daughter’s face. “But I have to know. Were you adopted? Have you had a happy life?”
Susan nodded, smiling through her tears. “Yes,” she said. “I was adopted. And for the most part, I’ve been very happy.” She glanced at Peg. Earlier, she’d told Peg and Izzy that, if indeed the woman in the nursing home was her mother, she didn’t want to tell her about Dr. Roach. There was no point in rehashing the past. It would be too upsetting and Clara had suffered enough.
“And they called you Susan,” Clara said.
“Susan Clara,” Susan said.
“I named you Beatrice,” Clara said, smiling. “Beatrice Elizabeth Moretti.”
“I love it,” Susan said.
Clara looked at Izzy. “How can I ever thank you for bringing my daughter to me?”
Izzy smiled and shrugged. “It was just something I needed to do,” she said.
“You must be awfully proud of her,” Clara said to Peg.
Peg put her arm around Izzy. “I am,” she said.
Just then, the nurse came into the room and looked at Clara, her forehead furrowed with concern. “What’s going on?” she said. “Are you all right, Clara?”
“I’m fine,” Clara said. “Better than I’ve been in a long, long time. Nurse Jennie, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Susan.” The nurse’s mouth dropped open, her eyes like saucers.
Susan stood and shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“I told you I had a daughter,” Clara said. “But no one ever listens to me. It’s the story of my life.” She chuckled, her eyes shining.
While Izzy gave Clara the rest of her photos and the letters to Bruno, Susan asked the nurse about Clara’s health. After a few minutes, she knelt next to Clara.
“Nurse Jennie says you’re fairly healthy,” she said.
“I suppose I am,” Clara said. “Except for being old and stiff and a little forgetful every now and then.”
“Well,” Susan said. “How would you feel about coming to stay with me? I’ve got a big old house not far from here, with a huge garden and two dogs. It’s nothing elaborate, but it’s home.”
Clara’s lips trembled. “I haven’t had a home in sixty-six years,” she said in a small voice.
“Well then,” Susan said. “My home is your home if you’d like it to be. And I’m retired now, so I’ll always be there to watch over you.”
Clara smiled, her eyes glistening. “I would love that more than anything in this world,” she said.
CHAPTER 26
IZZY
Hurrying into the kitchen after school on Thursday, Izzy’s mouth watered, picturing Harry’s famous chocolate chip cookies stacked beneath a glass cover on the island counter. She could hardly wait to pour a big glass of milk and gobble up three or four. Harry made the cookies every other week, and she couldn’t remember tasting anything so delicious. She dropped her books on the back door bench, hung up her coat, and stopped dead in her tracks. Somehow, with everything going on over the past two weeks—her mother’s burial, talking to Miss Trench, going on her first date with Ethan, finding Clara and her daughter—she’d forgotten what day it was.
Peg and Harry were standing at the kitchen island, wide smiles stretched across their faces. Instead of cookies, a chocolate cake covered with pink and white roses sat on the counter, eighteen burning candles reflected in Peg’s and Harry’s eyes. Dozens of pink and purple balloons floated near the ceiling, their curling strings like pastel rain. Peg and Harry started singing “Happy Birthday” and Izzy choked back tears. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had thrown her a party, let alone sang “Happy Birthday” to her. How ironic that this was the birthday she’d been dreading.
“Make a wish!” Peg said.
“Okay,” Izzy said, her face flushing. She held back her hair and blew out the candles.
“I told Peg we should wait until after dinner to sing to you,” Harry said. “But she couldn’t wait. She wanted to surprise you.”
“Thank you,” Izzy said. “You didn’t have to get a cake for me.”
“Yes we did!” Peg said. She hurried around the island and gave Izzy a hug. “And we have more surprises too.” She went to the table and pulled out a chair. “But first, can you sit down so we can talk about something?”
Izzy sat down, her heartbeat picking up speed. Peg folded her hands on the kitchen table, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She cleared her throat and swallowed, as if she didn’t know where to begin. An icy coil of sadness twisted in Izzy’s chest. Here we go, she thought. She’s going to tell me it’s time to leave because they can’t afford to keep me here. She’s going to apologize and say they wanted to give me a birthday party so I’d have something to remember them by.
“I know it’s probably too soon after your mother’s passing,” Peg said. “But Harry and I have been talking about it for a while now. We’ve already got the papers in order, and . . . well . . . it’s up to you . . . but . . .” She looked at Harry for reinforcement. Harry came around the kitchen island, wiping his hands on his pants.
“We realize you’re an adult as of today,” he said. “So you might not think this is a good idea. But we . . .” He sat down and took Peg’s hand. “We’d like to adopt you, Izzy. We know you probably think you don’t need . . . what I’m trying to say is, we’d really like to be your parents.”
Izzy’s mouth dropped open. Words escaped her. Peg took her hands in hers.
“We love you and want to be here for you,” Peg said, her voice shaking. “You’ve still got a lot of decisions to make in your life, decisions that are too hard to make alone. We’d like to help you, and see you go to college to find your full potential, whatever that may be. And when you get married . . .” Peg’s eyes brimmed with tears and she squeezed Izzy’s hand. “Harry would be honored to walk you down the aisle. And we would love to be grandparents someday.”
Izzy pressed her lips together, her chin trembling. She opened her mouth to say yes, to tell them she’d love to be their daughter more than anything in the world, but her throat closed.
“What do you say, kiddo?” Harry said.
Izzy nodded, smiling. Peg squealed and put her hands over her mouth. They all stood and hugged each other. Izzy closed her flooding eyes, wondering how it was possible that her heart could be bursting with so much joy after being filled with so much sorrow. She hugged Peg and Harry tighter, letting their strong arms chase away her worries and fears.
“You’ve made us so happy,” Peg said, sniffing.
Just then, someone knocked on the kitchen door. “Come on in!” Harry said.
Alex and Ethan entered the room, their arms laden with presents. “Happy Birthday!” they said at the same time. Behind them, Clara and Susan entered arm in arm, both of them beaming.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
During the writing of What She Left Behind, I relied on the following books: The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic, by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny; Ten Days in a Mad-House, by Nellie Bly; and Women of the Asylum: Voices from Behind the Walls 1840–1945, by Jeffery L. Geller and Maxine Harris.
Although the above books helped a great deal in imagining what conditions must have been like inside insane asylums, my novel is not a historical work and has no intention of being one. It is my interpretation of what it might have been like to be committed against one’s will. The characters in this novel are entirely fictitious. But several of the places described, including the Long Island Home and Willard State, are real. Chapin Hall, and its attached wards and outbuildings, existed. At Willard there were also detached patient wards: the Pines, the Maples, Sunnycroft, and the Edgemere, each with its own dining room, kitchen, supervisor’s office, apartments, and boiler house. It is also important to note that for purpose of plot, patient treatments and therapies were portrayed as being in use either earlier or later than was actually the case. The Utica Crib, a locked wooden cage, was put out of use in 1887. Insulin shock therapy was put into use in 1935. Electroshock therapy was put into use in 1938. And, finally, psychologists were not used in most state asylums unt
il 1960.
Please turn the page
for a very special Q&A
with Ellen Marie Wiseman!
What was the inspiration for What She Left Behind?
I’ve always been curious about insane asylums, especially the way patients were treated for mental illness in the past, and how our understanding and treatment has evolved over the years. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be committed to an institution and kept against my will. When I read about the Willard Suitcase Exhibit, a collection of patient suitcases found in the attic of the shuttered Willard asylum, I was immediately intrigued. That’s how I learned about The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic, by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny. The authors’ mission was to examine the contents of the luggage in an attempt to re-create the lives of those patients who had checked into the institution but never checked out. The book is fascinating and haunting because the pictures and stories are so easy to identify with. After reading it, I knew I wanted to write about finding the suitcases, and what it might have been like being a patient.
How did researching asylums make you feel?
It was difficult reading about people in the past being institutionalized, in many cases for the rest of their lives, because of emotional or economic distress. While some patients were truly ill, many were sent to asylums under circumstances we view differently today: poverty, homelessness, depression, homosexuality, alcoholism, and emotional distress due to divorce, family disputes, abusive relationships, and the loss of children. A person could be committed for something as simple as being unable to find work, or for a single angry public outburst. In the late 1800s, Dr. Judson B. Andrews wrote a paper entitled Early Indications of Insanity—suggesting families take note of “morbid dreams, sleep impairments, constant headaches, emotional exaggerations, excessive religious scruples, and changes in habits of dress and cleanliness.”
What She Left Behind Page 34