“Yeah, sort of, in an Addams Family kind of way. Did you see those pictures at the library?” Sam said.
“All the photos Dr. Willard had up on the walls, you mean?” Chloe asked.
“Yeah. Did you notice how he had some that were in black and white from when the buildings were new and how he had recent shots next to them, like, how they look today?” Sam mused.
“I guess I didn’t notice,” Chloe admitted.
“Well, I did. It’s kind of creepy really. All those beautiful old buildings…boarded up…falling apart. What happened? Why are there so many of them? Why did they all close?” Sam wondered.
“I read about it. After Seth told us all that stuff I started looking it up. See there was this deinstitutionalization movement and-”
“Deinstitutionalization?” Sam cut in, “that’s a big word.”
“Well, here’s how I understand it,” Chloe explained, “See, way back in the day, like in the 1800’s, people that were…ummmm…mentally unsound ended up in prisons and poorhouses. Or their relatives had to take care of them. So there was this woman named Dorothea Dix and she started this reformation in America to help these people.”
“When did you find time to read about all this?” Sam asked suspiciously. “Seriously, you’re like one of those over-achievers everyone hates, aren’t you?”
“I googled it this weekend,” Chloe waved a hand impatiently, “Just trust me. So the government got involved and they started building asylums. Places that were just for crazy people. Only, what constituted “crazy” back then isn’t the same as now. It wasn’t just like, schitzos that got sent there, it was people that had seizures, and people that were depressed, and sometimes people that weren’t really crazy at all, people they just didn’t know what to do with. There were a ton of them!”
“Right. Seth told us that, I remember,” Sam interrupted.
“Okay, so that guy, Thomas Kirkbride? The one Seth told us about? He wrote about this idea called ‘moral treatment’, about how crazy people need to be treated well and with like respect and kindness and stuff. He wrote that book about how to build asylums, because he thought that if you built them a certain way, very pretty with gardens and parks and stuff, it would help people get better faster.”
“I still think it’s really strange that he thought you could cure people by putting them in a pretty asylum,” Sam snorted.
“Well, yeah, I guess. This was back in the 1800’s, they didn’t know the stuff we do now, and it was really different at the time. I just told you they were locking people up in poorhouses and prisons, so it was definitely a step up. His book, became “the Kirkbride Plan” and for like, fifty years, almost all the asylums that were built were based on his ideas. That’s why they all look so similar. They all have that kind of central part of the building and then the wings that come off the sides and the wings are staggered so that all the patients can have good views. And there were little things, like having nice big windows and having architectural details that were beautiful or inspiring. It seems like he really was a good guy that wanted to make things better. He wanted crazy people to be treated like human beings, you know?”
The bus slammed to another stop. Chloe and Sam held onto the edges of their seats as students disembarked.
“Okay, I already know all that,” Sam reminded her. “So if he was this benevolent, Santa-for-the-insane type guy, what happened?”
“I don‘t know exactly,” Chloe admitted, “I think it was that after awhile, these places just started to get really full, and nobody was getting better. Because you can’t heal crazy with gardens and fancy brickwork. So they tried other things, and even though these places were started up under the whole ‘moral compassion’ platform, not every single doctor and nurse in every single one was on board that train, you know? And the insane did get treated bad in some of them. In the 19th century they…well, the people in the asylums sometimes got treated like guinea pigs. That’s when you get all that electroshock therapy, and lobotomies and stuff. And there were so many people in those asylums. They were overcrowded, and the nurses and the attendants were over-worked, and that’s probably why it all went bad. Then these books come out, like that book One flew over the cuckoo’s nest, and other stuff, and people on the outside started to realize how bad it was in those places. So there was this big public wave of support for deinstitutionalization. People kind of decided that the asylums weren’t helping the crazy people at all, and they also started to find out about drugs, mood stabilizers and stuff that actually worked. In Kirkbride’s day, asylums were the cutting edge for psychology, in our day they’re like a last resort.”
“But they still have some, right? I mean they sent you to one, didn’t they?” Sam asked.
“Yeah…it’s not like it used to be though. Almost all those big old asylums are closed down. The places they have now, like where I went…they’re smaller, closer, less people, more like a home setting. I guess a few of the old asylums are still running…at least I think, but most of them? They’re just rotting into mounds all over the country. Look at how it is just in Michigan. There was a big one in Pontiac. I think it’s all been torn down, and that one Seth told us about, the one in Newberry? That’s a prison. There was one in Traverse City, I don’t know what happened there, but I don’t think it’s running anymore. Most of them are either destroyed or empty and just rotting away…” Chloe shrugged.
“That’s kind of sad,” Sam said thoughtfully.
“What? It’s sad that we’re not locking thousands of people in big buildings to be tortured or forgotten anymore?” Chloe laughed harshly.
“No it’s just kind of sad how it turned out, isn’t it? It sounds like they started out with really good intentions, trying to help these insane people, and like, treat them better and stuff. They go and build all these beautiful enormous buildings, with gardens and big windows and bell towers and they turn into hellholes and then empty out and rot away to nothing. Are there really a lot of them, all over the country?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, I think so. I know there’s a few in New York, and there’s that one in Kentucky…looks like the backdrop for a horror film,” said Chloe.
“I bet they’re actually kind of pretty. All overgrown with vines and windows broken out and nature coming inside. Like lost castles in fairy tales,” Sam said dreamily.
“Like hell,” Chloe snorted.
“I kind of want to see one,” Sam admitted.
“Not me. That’s a road trip you can take by yourself,” Chloe answered firmly.
“The bus swerved to the stop in front of Kirkbride Hall. Chloe tagged behind Sam. While her roommate seemed to be more concerned with the fate of the buildings, Chloe couldn’t help but think of the people that had lived in them. Victims of the ‘cutting edge’ in mental health of their day. Asylums were a disproved theory, weren’t they? So what happened to the people beneath the theory? What if--
Chloe slammed into Sam’s back. Her roommate had stopped abruptly, causing a distracted Chloe to almost knock her over.
“What the hell, Sam?” she demanded.
“Look!” Sam hissed.
Chloe followed Sam’s gaze upward to the rows and rows of windows lining the face of the old building until it angled out of site. Light blazed from most of them, students moving back and forth, some open to the cool night air. A hum of music and voices and laughter seemed to radiate from the whole face. Chloe counted one up and eight over. Their window was the one lined with Sam’s plants and a shimmery bead curtain. The light was on, a beacon…warning them or welcoming them back.
“I didn’t leave the light on,” Sam whispered.
“I know.”
“I locked the door,” Sam murmured.
“Yup,” Chloe shrugged her backpack up higher and walked towards the arched entryway.
CHAPTER NINE
The snow fell early that year. Chloe could remember only one time in the lower peninsula, back when she was still small enough
to be excited over Halloween, where it had been necessary to cover up her costume with a heavy winter coat. She had been angry about it too, and had thrown it into a clump of bushes as soon as she was out of sight from her house. Even in the U.P., Seth had assured her that the real snow usually waited until November. Though don’t be surprised if the ground is white in the morning all through October, he had cautioned sagely.
On October 19th, great feathery clumps of snow drifted down to form clots across the still-bright colors of fall. At first, and for hours afterwards, the giant flakes melted the instant they touched ground, leaving everything, and everyone making their way to or from class, cold and soggy.
Sam had come home to find Chloe with her face pressed against the window, watching as the snow at last began to stick, covering the grounds and trees with a thin layer of powder white. Chloe, aware that Sam was watching her, heaved a long, miserable sigh.
“It won’t last,” Sam comforted her, “it’s a freak storm, sometimes it happens, but we’ll get Fall back and have at least a couple more weeks before the snow really sticks.”
Chloe hoped so. She really hoped so. Seth had taken her on what he called a “touristy” fall colors walk the week before. They had spent all afternoon walking the trails near Tahquamenon Falls. Touristy or not, Chloe didn‘t think she had even seen anything more beautiful than the Falls in...well...the Fall. She had tried to take what she thought were “artsy-looking” pictures of red and yellow leaves floating on the river which reflected the blue sky above. The forest was a riot of bright fire colors. She had collected leaves, pointy crimson ones, violently yellow round ones…of course Seth had been able to tell her what each leaf was. They had held hands as they walked, dropping them only to snap a picture or to let Chloe pick up another leaf. Seth had found a nice troll couple to take their picture in front of the falls. Chloe had tacked it to her bulletin board and bordered it with some of the bright leaves. They were already drying up and curling towards their centers. She wasn’t ready for Fall to be over.
“Can I get rid of the leaves yet?” Sam asked poking a crisp-looking brown oak leaf, “they’re about to fall apart anyway, and we could use the space.”
She was right. Every inch of the board was plastered with Xeroxed copies of old newspaper articles, photos, and handwritten lists of events and names. Chloe had given in to Sam’s wanting to include Jen and Melanie in their search for the dormitory’s history, and the bulletin board was mostly the fruit of their labor. So far they had uncovered not just the original fire that had destroyed the west wing of the building, but a suicide in the 1970’s and a student who had died after a drunken fall down the stairs in the 80’s. But none of the victims had the initials A.M.. In fact, they hadn’t found anyone connected with the history of the dormitory with those initials at all.
“Leave them up a bit longer,” Chloe decided, “and while you’re at it, put the schedule back up, Seth said he was coming by to drop off the tickets.”
Sam nodded and slid the large, laminated square that read Birch Harbor Bears Men’s Hockey over the mass of papers and tacked it securely in place. Now only a few paper edges showed. They could have been anything to someone who wasn’t looking very hard.
Chloe glanced toward the picture of the hockey team under the schedule’s heading. Seth was in the second row on the far left. She had resisted the elementary school urge to draw a big, red cartoon heart behind his head, but she had placed star stickers next to all the dates that were home games. The season had started at the beginning of the month, but the Bears first home game was scheduled for that night, and Seth had come through with the tickets.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about hockey yet. Since the start of the season, Seth had been gone every weekend, and had less time to see her during the week. She felt a great deal of pride when she heard other students talk about how well he played, or when she read his name in the school paper, but that feeling fought against the resentment she felt at his always being gone, and they were only a few weeks in. Since the season stretched all the way into March, Chloe had a feeling that she would probably hate hockey before long.
Sam wandered over to where Chloe was still standing by the window and glanced out.
“Wish we didn’t have to go to the library tonight,” she hinted, watching the snow fall.
“But we do,” Chloe assured her, “Can’t blow it off tonight, Dr. Willard’s going to be there, we’ll have to keep it short too if we want to get to the game in time for face-off”
“I know, I know,” Sam waved away her lecturing tone.
A knock at the door brought a smile to Chloe’s face.
“There he is! Right on time!”
Sam crossed the room and dropped down onto her bed.
“It’s open!” she yelled.
The door creaked forward, and stopped, as though the person opening it wasn’t quite sure whether they really should come in or not. The person decided quickly, and the door swung the rest of the arc. Still clutching the knob, a middle-aged woman with severely styled ash blonde hair and a long black dress coat, stepped tentatively in. Chloe immediately recognized the clack-clack sound of those sensibly short-heeled shoes, almost before she noted the face.
Some women of that age wore lines around the corners of their eyes as a testament to the fact that they smiled so often. Chloe’s mother had none of those.
“Chloe?” she asked, although she was standing in the same room, staring directly at her daughter.
“Mom.” Chloe acknowledged. Sam jerked upright on her bed.
Diana Adams took another few steps into the room, leaving the door open behind her, and unwound her knit scarf.
“You haven’t called,” she said, folding the scarf neatly and laying it on Chloe’s desk.
“I’ve been busy…school stuff,” Chloe said, watching the woman warily.
“I called your phone, it goes straight to voicemail,” her mother said.
“I lost my charger,” Chloe lied.
“Your number here is unlisted,” Diana continued. Chloe shrugged.
Diana Adams frowned and looked around, taking in the room. Her eyes fell on Sam.
“I’m Chloe’s mother,” she said, shooting her hand out towards Sam, “and you are…?”
“I’m Chloe’s roommate,” Sam said mimicking the cold disapproval in Diana’s voice.
She didn’t bother to shake the woman’s hand, but glanced over her head to where Chloe was standing. Behind Diana’s back, Chloe made eye contact with Sam, and jerked her head once towards the door.
“Nice to meet you Chloe’s mother,” Sam went on in the same tones, “but I have somewhere to be just now.” Following Chloe’s suggestion, she bounced to her feet and went out, closing the door softly behind her.
“Aren’t you going to say ‘she seems nice’?” Chloe asked, smirking.
“Why would I? She doesn’t seem nice at all. She seems disrespectful and rude, not unlike some other-”
“What do you want?” Chloe cut in, “Why are you here?”
“I’m still your mother. I have a right to be concerned about you and to check on you, especially in light of your…history. I was worried. No one’s been able to get a hold of you. You left Woodhaven without saying a word to anyone. I‘ve been sick. I‘ve been just sick,” Diana shook her head slowly.
“I like how you say, ‘I left Woodhaven‘, it‘s so diplomatic of you. I ran away. I ran away, I escaped. But you…you act like I went for a stroll, and got lost. Why? I ran away, Mom. I ran away from them and I ran away from you.”
“You didn’t escape, you were never a prisoner,” Diana said.
“There was an alarm on my window. It would go off if you opened it after 8 o’clock at night. I waited until after bedcheck, cut the wire and went through the window. That was an escape.”
“You waited until the day before you turned 18. You could have walked out the next day. You would have been free to pack your bags and go right through the door
the next day. That wasn‘t an escape. That was you being overly dramatic.” Diana said.
“I couldn’t wait! I couldn’t! You think I don’t know you? You think I don’t know that you’d have shown up with a crappy bakery cake, a re-gift, and a court order to keep me in? I know you! I knew I couldn’t trust you--”
“And you don’t say anything, not a word to me, you just leave, and I spend over a thousand dollars trying to find you and you--”
“Who asked you to find me? Who asked you to come all--”
“Who do you think you are? How can you act like this when all I‘ve ever--”
“When all you’ve ever done is treat me like shi--”
“You’re a danger to everyone! You’re a danger to yourself, a danger to any person who cares about you! You’re so poisoned that--”
“SHUT-UP!” Chloe screamed, grabbing her head, “JUST SHUT-UP!”
Diana Adams sniffed dryly, and watched Chloe from behind a mask. It was that small, seemingly insignificant thing that Chloe hated worst about her. The way the woman looked at her. The way Diana watched her, without expression. She would have welcomed a glare, a vicious sneer, a look that plainly said “I despise you”… she already knew she would never inspire that face to show love or pride, but anything…ANYTHING rather than nothing. Diana Adams looked at her as though she were nothing more interesting or worthy of attention than a block of wood or a cup of coffee.
“What do you want?” Chloe asked again, in a voice too tired to even sound bitter.
“Just to know that you’re alright. You haven’t had any…problems?” her mother asked vaguely.
“No.”
“You’re all set with tuition and books, no problems with your account?” she verified.
“None.”
“I am assuming that this is all being paid for with your Dad’s fund?”
“Mmhmm.”
“You’re keeping up with your classes?”
“Sure.”
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