Patrick’s face came close. He stilled my hands. “Precious Feeny, it’s all right, sweetie. I know the tubes are uncomfortable, but you need them right now. They’re helping you breathe. You can’t pull them out.”
From far away I heard Hannah crying. “Look! She’s in pain. She’s crying. We’ve got to do something.”
A voice I didn’t know came close. A soft hand on my face. A woman’s voice.
“Josephine, Josephine. I’m the nurse practitioner, Dr. Lenski. We’re going to give you something to help the pain.”
A soothing voice. She was still talking, but as if far away.
“This is normal behavior for a patient with a brain injury. She may be disoriented or confused for a while. Every person is different, and every injury is different. She may seem restless or have trouble concentrating or sleeping. Some patients become physically aggressive or agitated—as you just saw, with her pulling at the tubes. And all of that could change depending on the day.”
“I can’t bear to see her like this,” Hannah wailed.
My firstborn cried easily. Not so with Paige.
The calming voice again. “This stage can be very disturbing for the family. Your mother may behave very uncharacteristically, but these are very positive signs. She’s making amazing progress. . . .”
Voices kept fading in and out, but Patrick was still holding my hands. Yes, I felt that.
“You must be patient. Inconsistent behavior is also common. Some days will be better than others. She squeezed your hand several times at your prompting, but that may not happen again for a time . . .”
Had anyone told me what was wrong? Patrick said I was at a hospital. Kit said there was an assassination attempt. What on earth did she mean? Why did my head throb so horribly? Why wouldn’t they let me move? Why was the blackness coming again . . . ?
———
2001 . . . Her first novel garnered mixed reviews and modest sales, but the second one! It soared straight onto the New York Times bestsellers list. Josephine was not prepared for the attention, the adulation, the demands for interviews, and all the fan mail!
Hannah and Paige didn’t like their new nanny. Patrick had more responsibility at the office, staying late almost every night. And Kit! Another relapse, with screaming and cursing and a hospitalization.
Josephine remembered her dark days as a child and adolescent, when she had felt that hole grow bigger, when she was certain she’d fall in. And she was so incredibly tired.
It was no surprise that the cruel letter took her down.
She was sitting at her little writer’s desk, looking out on the fall foliage with its magnificent array of colors. The chestnut trees a bright yellow, the dogwoods almost russet, and the maples! Oh, the maples boasted a multicolored palette of brilliant reds and yellows and oranges. She was blithely creating another story when Patrick brought in the mail. She’d received so much fan mail in the past month since the publication of her second novel that she couldn’t keep up with it. She always took the letters seriously and used to answer quickly. Impossible now.
She opened a letter in a pink envelope, expecting roses of affirmation.
I wish you would burn in hell. Your story caused my daughter to jump off a bridge to her death. I HATE YOU!
Josephine squealed and dropped the letter as if it were burning her hand. She sank to the floor, buried her face in her hands, and screamed. When Patrick hurried back, he found her with a wild, unbalanced look in her eyes.
How could a piece of paper—pink stationery, no less—precipitate a nervous breakdown? All the years of being perfect and kind and doing the right thing split apart and the hole in her head became an earthquake and she fell in headfirst, begging God to save her somehow. Her saviors that time ended up being therapy, her husband, and, eventually, La Grande Motte.
———
Josephine looked out over the palm trees to where the waves of the Mediterranean were licking the fine, dusty sand and the wind was blowing it up into tufts and swirls. She sat on the balcony, bundled in a fleece blanket, a cup of tea beside her. Her place of rest. The doctor had ordered calm and peace and solitude. Time for prayer and meditation and long, long walks. Rest. Wait. Do not write. Not now. Just rest.
She put on her parka and leggings, pulled a scarf around her neck, and went out into the fierce blue of November. The beach was deserted except for a few brave souls zipping far out in the sea on the sailing boards. Windsurfing, they called it. How they did not drown, Josephine could not guess. She walked and prayed and carried the Bible verses on cards with her, whispering the truth into the wind. And she rested. But in the calm, the terrible and beautiful calm, she heard nothing.
The stories were gone.
———
“I don’t think I can keep writing, Patrick. The stories aren’t there. It’s emptiness.”
They were walking along the beach, his big hand tight in hers, the sun starting to cast shadows behind them.
“Shhh, Feeny. Don’t think about that now. Remember, now is the time to rest. Rest.”
“Yes. I know. But what if they never come back?”
“We’ll talk to the publisher. We’ll ask for more time.”
“You know it’s because of the medication. Should I go off the antidepressants?”
He drew her close and said, “One day at a time, my beautiful girl. We’ll figure this out one day at a time.”
But Josephine knew she could not go off the medication. The stories had gone, but so had the horrible accusing voices and the terrible darkness. She missed the stories, but not those voices! How could she be a wife and mother with the raging darkness?
Patrick said, “You will not answer the mail. You won’t even read it, okay? We’ll hire someone to keep up with that for you. You just write.”
But he didn’t understand that the letters made the writing worth it. The words from readers, so sincere and heartfelt, gave her hope in the midst of the numbing pain.
Later she was walking along the empty beach with the sea lapping up and occasionally tickling her toes, really startling her with the icy splash. And it came in a whoosh, like before. A scene. It flickered for a moment and wrote itself in her mind and then she saw it, all of it at once.
A story.
Josephine fell to her knees, the wet sand seeping through her jeans, and wept.
———
When she returned from La Grande Motte, fresh stories sprang daily. Josephine overflowed with thankfulness. She got out the stack of Bible verses written on file cards, some of them over twenty years old, then took a large piece of plywood, sanded it smooth and stained it a maple color, and glued the file cards one by one onto the wood. It made a beautiful kaleidoscope of truth, the cards green and yellow and pink and white, some written on flowery stationery or just scribbled on a pretty napkin. She découpaged them all to the wood and called the resulting artwork her testimony, her Lucidity Lath.
“It’s beautiful, Momma,” three-year-old Paige said when Josephine hung the board on the back of her office door. “All those colors and the words make me smile, and your handwriting is so pretty.”
When she spoke to women’s groups, Josephine never shied away from the truth—her need for antidepressants to regulate her moods, her need for counseling, her need for complete rest, her need for Scripture and people. She told it all in living color, always ending with, “God’s Word brought me back from the edge of despair . . . from insanity.”
PAIGE
I dreaded my meeting with Detective Blaylock. He wanted to see me last night, but I begged exhaustion. Waiting hadn’t helped at all; I’d hardly slept. I felt like I had a noose around my neck, and if I wasn’t careful it would end up around someone else’s.
He had set the appointment for ten, and I arrived at the hospital early to check on Momma first. I was excited at her progress and yet unglued by her obvious discomfort. No matter the nurse practitioner’s assurance that this was normal, no one enjoyed watchin
g a loved one make agonized grimaces while flailing her arms spastically in every direction as she tried without success to grab at the tubes.
I still had fifteen minutes before my appointment, so I headed down to the Pediatric ICU on the third floor in search of Libby. I’d brought her several casseroles from home, a box filled with chocolate treats from the Chocolate Fetish, and one of the many flower arrangements that had been delivered to our home. Another dozen decorated Momma’s hospital room. And Mrs. Swanson daily trekked to our church with a car filled with flowers to be delivered to nursing homes and homebound people.
I set the casseroles and desserts in the small fridge and headed for Jase’s room. When Libby saw me standing outside the door with an enormous arrangement of white orchids, she burst into tears. Then she motioned for me to come in, took the vase from me, and set it on the windowsill.
Jase was lying in the bed, hooked to at least as many tubes and machines as Momma. He had a mop of chestnut-colored hair almost as thick as mine, but the rest of his body, his face and hands, were as white as the sheets that covered him. I bit my lip hard to keep from crying out at the sight of this little boy, a small human being, being kept alive by so much machinery. At least Momma had lived a very full and fulfilling life for fifty-some years. But this child? A six-year-old with a very slight chance of survival? How was that fair? How was that anything but soul-stopping tragic?
I grabbed Libby’s hand, and we stood there staring at her boy, and the tears came cascading down my face as I whispered, “He’s beautiful. Your Jase is just beautiful.”
———
Detective Blaylock found a quiet corner of Café 509 where we could talk. I tried to read his expression. Resigned? Hopeful? Annoyed?
“So Paige,” he began, tugging at his black beard, “your father and I have talked several times at length, and you’ll be happy to know that I’ve studied your family a bit more, as you suggested.”
I got it. He was feeding me my own medicine.
“I believe I have most of the facts, but I need your and your sister’s memories.”
“Okay.” I heard Daddy begging me again. “Paige, just answer his questions, honey. Please don’t be belligerent.”
“Your mother had a history of nervous breakdowns. What do you remember about those?”
“I don’t see why you’re asking me when you already know.”
“Trust me. I have a reason.”
“Momma says that writing a novel is like giving birth. You become so heavy with the story, and then it finally sees life. She says she is all done in afterward. It sucks everything out of her. So Daddy sends her away to rest. I wouldn’t call that a nervous breakdown. She’s exhausted. I think it’s pretty wise of them, actually.”
“Okay. But several times she received very dark mail from readers, and that upset her. . . .”
“Naturally.”
“And your father?”
“Daddy is very protective of my mother. They’re super close. I’ve told you that. So of course he feels her pain.”
I knew what was coming and couldn’t steer the detective away.
“I’d like to ask you a little bit about the months in 2007 when your mother was in France.”
I thought of my dream from the night before. “What about them?”
“Can you tell me what happened with your father?” He noticed my steely stare and silence. Detective Blaylock gave his by-now-familiar frown. “He and I have already talked about it, Paige. He specifically asked me not to mention anything about what you and your sister call ‘The Awful Year.’ I’ve respected his wishes for six days, but now, with this third threatening letter as new evidence, I need to get your take on that time. What happened, how you and your sister fared during those months your mother was away and your father was often gone too.”
“It was horrible and scary,” I blurted. “The year was already a disaster, long before Daddy . . . went away. Both of Momma’s parents died—tragically. Her best friend got divorced. My aunt relapsed big time.”
“And your father sent your mother away to the beach in France?”
“Yes, like always.”
“And about how long was it between when she left and your father started going away?”
I didn’t see why he was questioning me when he could have the bare facts. “I don’t remember. It all smudges together in my mind.”
“Do you know why your father went away?”
Of course I knew. “Because he had a big project at work, and it came at exactly the wrong time. So he had to get other people to care for us.” Even as I pronounced the words, they sounded false in my ears.
I took a deep breath and turned my eyes down. Get the conversation away from Daddy.
“I’ve had ideas about who would want my mother dead. I think it could be a reader who revealed too much to Momma and panicked.”
“Panicked?”
“Yes, decided to kill Momma before she turned on her.”
Detective Blaylock looked unconvinced.
I had a flash. “A long time ago, when I was really little, there was an unstable woman who accused Momma of being responsible for her daughter’s suicide. She wrote a threatening letter, I think. Maybe Daddy has told you about it. A crazy woman. Her daughter was the one who read Momma’s books. This lady was just really, really torn up and bitter about her daughter’s death and needed to blame someone. I never saw the letter, but Daddy would know if it still exists. Maybe it’s that woman.”
Detective Blaylock was hunched over, scratching his head and then flipping through notes he had scribbled in a small spiral notebook. For a moment he reminded me of Columbo, minus the cigar—I’d loved watching reruns of the rumpled homicide detective with Momma when I was younger. He found the page he was searching for and said, “We’re trying to see if anything about The Awful Year could have to do with the assassination attempt. But we’re also looking at these three pink letters.” He glanced down at his notes again. “You say a deranged woman wrote your mother years ago? It would be a big help if you could find that threatening letter so that we can compare it to these recent ones.”
“I can try.” Why had Daddy not mentioned that to Detective Blaylock? And would he know if the letter was still somewhere in the house?
“Thanks, Paige.”
I thought I’d gotten away with it again, but then he closed his notebook, straightened up, and steered the conversation back to Daddy.
“I’d like to know the events of those last months of The Awful Year, after your mother left. When your father was often away too, and when he ended up in jail.” He doubtless saw my face fall, and added, “I’m sure it was all extremely painful.” That brief sentence sounded compassionate. “But it’d be very helpful for me to hear what happened from your point of view. I know you were pretty young, but anything you can remember could help. Sometimes even the tiniest detail can shed new light on a case.”
I closed my eyes. Anything I could remember? I remembered everything.
“We spent the night at our friend Drake’s house. Momma had a book signing that Daddy wanted to attend and then she was leaving the next day for La Grande Motte, as usual. We’d already told her good-bye after school, and she’d cried a little. We never liked her to go away, but we knew she’d be happy at The Motte. And weeks alone with our father were always fun.”
Usually they were fun. I cleared my throat and stared at my hands.
“When we got home from school the next day, my father was already there—which was strange. He got us a snack, and when we’d finished it he told us to go into the den, he had something to tell us. But he didn’t really explain. When we walked into the den, we found Mrs. Swanson there. Daddy said there’d been an emergency at work, and he had to leave for a few days.”
I took a bite of the pumpkin muffin I’d ordered, thankful to have my mouth too full to talk for a moment.
“Now? But Momma just left! Don’t go too!” I remembered begging. And I remembered t
hat Daddy had the strangest look on his face, his brow furrowed so tightly, his face so downcast, that for a moment I wasn’t sure it was my fun-loving father looking at me. I kept begging and begging my father not to leave. Normally I didn’t get too emotional about Momma leaving. That was Hannah’s specialty. In truth, I wasn’t upset about Momma. It was Daddy’s odd composure that unsettled me.
But the detective didn’t need to know that.
I finished chewing my bite, looked at Detective Blaylock and continued. “We wanted to know where he was going, why we couldn’t go along, but he just said we had to trust him. I remember Hannah asking, ‘Is Momma okay?’ and he said, ‘Yes, of course. She’ll be in Paris soon and take the train to Montpellier, like always.’
“So he went away for a few days, and when he came back, he didn’t seem like himself. He even forgot to pick us up at school two times, and that had never happened before. He kept leaving every few days, because he had some work project that had to be handled, so we spent a lot of time with sitters and neighbors.
“Usually when Momma went to France we talked with her once or twice a week, but not this time. Daddy was so distracted he’d forget about calling, and when we’d remind him, he’d be mad. One day I got really mad back and told him I wouldn’t get in the car unless he promised we could call her after school. . . .”
I was not going to tell the detective every stinking detail, but boy, did it flash through my mind.
Daddy grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “No, Paige! Stop your whining. I said it’s bad timing for me! And your mother needs her stint away. I don’t want to hear another word about this!” Daddy was yelling, his eyes blazing. He looked furious and stormed out of the garage.
“Paige? You okay?”
I felt my cheeks go red, nibbled another bite of muffin and nodded. “Yeah. Our father never raised his voice, but he did that day and it shook us up a little.”
“I’m sure it did,” Detective Blaylock said, pulling on his beard and frowning at me like he knew very well I was leaving out the juicy parts of the story. I hurried along.
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