Carl exchanges greetings with Dr. Murray, chats about the trip. The doctor pauses several times to warn patients to quiet down. The winding road bumps up against the beach of East Grand Traverse Bay, and ends at a small clearing where the hospital set up picnic tables with access to the water, away from the summer tourist spots. Dr. Murray sways down the aisle to check on a distressed patient. Jostled by the bumpy road, she staggers back alternating her hands on the backs of the seats to steady herself.
She sits at the edge of her seat, leans forward. I hear her say, “Carl, have you heard any rumors about a patient named Marge who was assaulted in the old Soap House?”
“She was in Judy’s ward. Got pregnant two years ago.”
“Is that right?”
“She had a couple stillbirths in the past, the way I understand it. There’s a lot of that in the women’s wards. This time, though, the baby lived …sent to the children’s asylum, like the others.”
Dr. Murray looks over at me as she leans forward again. “Carl, do you know who the father is? Who might have been having sex with Marge?”
I pretend to be sightseeing. I lean my chin in my hand and look out the side window.
“Way I hear it, a lot of guys.” He pauses for awhile. Then he says, “But I know for sure Joe Doremire ‘cuz he told me.”
“Joe Doremire? Spelled like it sounds? I would like to turn his name in to supervision, Carl. I won’t say who told me.”
“Okay by me. Just isn’t right. What’s it matter now. Judy’s gone.”
“What did you say, Carl?”
“Nothin’.”
Group meets the next day. With all the leaves and home visits, the group hasn’t been complete all summer. But it will be today, everybody but Beth.
“Hello.” Dr. Murray takes her spot in the circle.
“Having a good summer, Doc?”
“Pretty good, yes, Isabel.”
We do our usual dance, squirming around a bit in our seats, looking down. Estee is asleep, her chin rests on her chest.
“Estee, are you with us?” Dr. Murray asks. “Estee?” She reaches over, shakes her knee.
“Huh?” Estee snaps her head up.
“Just want to make sure you’re awake. I have something I want to say.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m here.”
“There is no easy way to tell you this. I have some very bad news.” Dr Murray’s voice is husky with emotion. “I received word at team meeting yesterday that Beth died.”
Chapter 37
My feet squish inside my sandals as I make my way along the walkway by the reflecting pool, past the abandoned shuffleboard court, grass and weeds crack the concrete. It seems at least ten degrees cooler on the front lawn of Building 50. I think about all the patients who have walked under these same oaks in the last eighty-some years.
As I come up to Building 50, I step back inside the pages of my favorite childhood book, Nancy Drew and the Message in the Haunted Mansion—Nancy locked in the tower of an imposing stone castle, with vines and moss covering the thick walls. I shudder at how real it seems now.
As a kid I was an ace detective, carrying my sister’s old black leather shoulder-strap purse with the metal medallion on the front. It held all my sleuthing equipment: pad of paper, pencil, ink pad and rubber-letter stamp for messages, an old compass I found in the garage, and the white stretchy Easter gloves I wore when investigating a crime. My private office was the front coat closet, between the first and second rows of coats. The sign pinned to Dad’s hunting jacket said: Nancy Drew is __IN___. Two paper squares, IN or OUT could be thumbtacked to the sign to indicate my presence at headquarters.
My mind wanders back inside Hall 5. I don’t have a clue what will become of the women locked away in the disturbed wards. Who will save them? My heart skips several beats. I can’t stay there long, in Hall 5. I’ve already filed it away in some back file cabinet in my mind. But I can’t forget the patients hidden behind the brick walls and barred windows. No matter how many hall parties are given, dances and concerts planned, field trips taken, nothing will change for the chronics. It’s like treating terminal cancer with a Band-Aid. They will die here.
I check my watch. It takes me about forty-five minutes to walk from Murdock’s if I keep an even pace. This afternoon I reopened briefly to slice a piece of nut fudge for a little kid who pressed his face against the locked door. He had big blue eyes, just like Alexander.
I miss dinner, get back to Hall 9 by my six-thirty curfew. I change my clothes and head out to the west porch for a smoke with my friends, a predictable and welcome end to my work day. Summer evenings in Michigan are sticky, but a breeze off the bay helps. Moves the heat around, keeps the air circulating on the porches. The west porch is jam-packed. Autumn has wrestled off several women to save me a seat.
“Hi, gals. Nice night, huh?” I stretch out my legs and hold up my cigarette.
“It’s a hot one,” Heidi says.
“I’m leaving here in three weeks, and I gotta’ tell ya’, I’m going to miss you gals,” Isabel says.
“Too many things changing,” Estee says. “Autumn and I will probably be rattling around in 50 until they close it. Sometime before winter, I guess. They won’t want to heat it past fall.”
“Hear anything about your transfer to a semi-open cottage?” Autumn asks.
“Still on the waiting list,” Heidi answers. “You hear yet, Lu?”
“No, as far as I know, we’re both still on the list. It takes forever for these transfers.”
“Hall 9 will be lonely with Isabel and Beth gone and you and Heidi in a cottage,” Autumn says.
“We’ll still see each other.” Heidi nudges Autumn’s shoulder with the flat of her hand.
“Yeah, the place is a regular social club,” Isabel says.
“Observer says there’s a rock and roll concert tonight at the Bandstand.”
“The Who?” Heidi grins.
“Some local high school group, The Blue Boys. I’m going,” Autumn ashes her cigarette.
“I’ll go. Might be fun,” I say.
“Count me in.” Isabel leans back in her chair.
“How’s the job?” Heidi asks me.
“Good. It took me a couple weeks, but now I feel like I know what I’m doing. Your program going okay?”
“Yeah. Once I get out of the Daily Living Program, Dr. Murray says I can apply for the Sheltered Workshop.”
“I’m Carl Reinbold’s helper on garden crew.”
“You get paid for that?”
“Nah, I enjoy it. Carl reminds me of my dad.”
“Yeah?”
“You know, I can’t stop thinking about Beth,” Autumn says. “Anybody heard anything?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t think we’re ever going to know what happened. Dr. Murray says Beth’s parents won’t return her phone calls. She wants to go to the funeral, if there is one, but she can’t find out when it is,” Isabel says.
“Nothing in the Traverse City Record Eagle either. Her being such a big star at Interlochen, doesn’t make sense.”
“Parents kept it out, probably,” Estee says.
“I just keep thinking about her. Trying to imagine what happened.” I can feel my lips quiver. “You know, something passes between people who suffer together. It forms a bond, like a sister.”
“I sure miss her,” Autumn says.
Isabel takes a long drag, noisily exhales, looks out over the lawn. “When you know somebody in their worst moments …and yours too, I guess . . .” Isabel wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I got a sick feeling she starved herself to death,” Heidi says.
Chapter 38
I received a letter Tuesday. It’s from Beth’s mother. She wants it read in group.”
“A letter? Her mother wrote it?” Isabel asks.
“Yes. It’s more like a story. But Mrs. Shaffer called it a letter, and asked me to share it with you.”
Dear
Friends:
I would like to tell you a story. I hope this will help you grieve for my beautiful daughter, Elizabeth.
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl named Elizabeth. She was entranced by a magic spell and slumbered in a deep sleep—like Snow White. Her mother looked down at her as she slept. Her thick lashes almost to her cheeks. Shiny dark hair framed her face, draped luxuriantly across her shoulders. She wore an antique brooch pinned at her throat, centered on the high collar of her ivory silk dress.
Her mother bowed her head. No sorrowful dwarfs would file past Beth’s coffin, no Prince Charming would kiss her awake.
A spray of red roses and baby’s breath with a wide gold ribbon, Beloved Daughter, rested on the mahogany. Her parents had chosen the Sunshine Chapel in Cross Village just north of Harbor Springs for Beth’s final appearance. They sat side by side on a velvet settee pulled up close, near their daughter’s head. The pews were empty.
Elizabeth was interred at Lakeside Cemetery. The blue granite headstone etched with angels was especially designed by Wally Garner, the renowned stone mason and artist, now retired to his cottage on Walloon Lake.
A HEAVENLY ANGEL FLOWN AWAY TOO SOON
Beloved Daughter, We miss you.
Elizabeth Ann Shaffer
Born: August 12, l950 Died: August 12, l969
Her mother smoothed the cuffs of her daughter’s dress down over her thin wrists. She kissed her forehead. My beautiful daughter—flawless. The funeral director had done a good job, despite all his complaints.
“Isn’t she stunning dear?” Beth’s mother said to her husband. “She hasn’t looked this good in a long time.” Satisfied, proud even, she knew it would turn out all right. The last few days had been difficult, but now her daughter slept peacefully.
May she rest in peace.
Sincerely,
Dorothy Shaffer.
“Okay, now that pisses me right off.” Isabel crosses her arms.
“Why is that?”
“My god. Her daughter kills herself, and this woman makes it all about her and how beautiful her daughter is. That’s sick.”
“It doesn’t sound right to me either,” I say. “Beth was having a terrible time with her parents’ expectations. Now her mother acts like they were all in some kind of fairy tale?”
“Dr. Murray, if a person dies, do you still have confidentiality?” Heidi squirms and crosses her legs.
“What do you mean?”
“Can you tell somebody else what they told you?”
“I think so. As long as it isn’t malicious, and isn’t gossip. This group is ruled by confidentiality, too. If you want to share something about Beth in this group, I think that will be fine.”
“Beth told me she tried to kill herself last year. Her family was up here for the summer. It was right after her birthday party. She took a neighbor’s dinghy—she said that’s a small boat—and jumped overboard. She wanted to drown, but a guy—a captain from the Maritime academy—saved her. I guess the neighbor was gonna press charges against Beth. Her parents hired a lawyer. He said get her to the closest hospital, so they sent her here. Parents were so afraid of what their friends might think.”
“I see.”
“Before she left for home visit last time, she said goodbye to me. Said she saved up enough pills to kill herself. I begged her not to. She made me promise not to tell. I …I didn’t think she’d do it. Now I feel like shit.”
“If somebody wishes to end their life, there really isn’t anything we can do. I feel badly, too, Heidi. I’m her therapist. Maybe I could have helped her more. I’m so very sad. Such a wonderful girl with a promising future …” Dr. Murray wipes her eyes with a Kleenex.
“She told me her mother was a drunk,” Isabel says. Well, she didn’t use those words, but I know a drunk when I see one.”
“Beth faced a lot of challenges. I wish she could have made it. Anorexia is a very, very stubborn and deadly disorder.”
“You said we’d all make it,” Estee screams. “Now will you believe me? Who’s next?”
Chapter 39
THE OBSERVER August 13, 1969
Page 7
THE LAUNDRY SCENE
The laundry workers are proud of the equipment they have. They have two shirt presses, one flat work ironer for sheets and bedspreads, one flat work ironer for smaller items, five 400 pound washers, one press, one 100 pound washer, two extractors, ten dryers, one set of uniform presses and three sets of dress presses.
Some interesting statistics: They do 1,390 pairs of pants, 14 thousand sheets and spreads, 12,884 bath towels, 9,114 washcloths, 10,097 dishtowels, 5,939 bed pads, 2,538 pillow slips, 1,165 men’s handkerchiefs, 3,200 dresses and 2,600 shirts per average week.
Summer drags its sticky feet—August in the laundry is like being dropped down an active volcano. Today, I work one of the extractors, taking over for Barbara who’s sick.
Autumn is behind the eight ball—working the eight-roll flatwork ironer. The sweat slowly creeps from our armpits and necks, joins up at the center of our blouses. By midday our soggy clothes will stick to our bodies like cellophane. Autumn is one of ninety-five patients and eleven employees who got the short end of the stick and ended up in the laundry. I’ve only worked there a couple of times, and that’s enough.
The bell for morning break vibrates above the clanking and groaning of the monstrous washers and dryers. I wait for Autumn as she takes her knee from the press lever, scoots aside while her replacement slides in behind the massive machine, the rollers whirring as the steam hisses and sighs. We hurry out the back door where workers gather on the porch. We crowd around the attendant with the lighter like pigeons in Central Park. The lucky frontrunners will squeeze in two cigarettes in the ten minute break.
I notice Autumn looking around the crowd, her glance falling on a handsome attendant. He winks and smiles.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“Attendant.”
“Well, I know that. But he winked at you.”
“Shhhhh. It’s Rudy,” Autumn whispers. “I’ll tell you later.”
I light a second cigarette and hang back to smoke as much of it as I can before the break ends. I watch as Autumn inches her way toward Rudy. She drops her hand and turns it palm up behind her back. Rudy presses a note into her hand; she closes her fingers around it.
When the three o’clock bell rings, I wait for Autumn by the front door of the laundry. I lean close. “Okay, what’s going on?”
“We keep our distance on the job, but we’ve been sneaking around most of the summer.”
“Are you nuts?” I say it, then pause, and we both laugh.
“We have a system.”
“What does that mean?”
“He gives me a note. Tonight we’ll meet behind the machine shop.”
“Are you …is he like a boyfriend?”
“I love him.”
“He’ll lose his job.”
“That’s what I told him. He said he doesn’t care.”
“What about you? They could keep you in here longer.”
“But if I didn’t have Rudy, I don’t think I could make it at all.”
“You have us.”
“But I fell in love.”
“How?”
“We met on break. There are a lot of private places around the grounds. We meet in privacy …”
“Oh, I get it.”
“He loves me.”
“Wow. If you’re happy, I’m happy for you. I just worry.”
“That’s what I said to Rudy, Please don’t break my heart.”
“What did he say?”
“Not a chance. I’m going to take you out of here and marry you.”
“He sounds serious.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“What?”
“I don’t know how long they’ll keep me here.”
“Well?”
“He says he’ll wait as long as it takes.”
> “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Please be happy for me. I’ve found somebody who really loves me, no matter what.”
“I am happy for you.” I stop and give Autumn a hug. “And I know you had to kill your bastard husband. You had no choice. You deserve some happiness.”
Chapter 40
I walk along with Carl through the cemetery. He limps gingerly, taking care to walk a straight path approximately eight feet from the rows of headstones. Carl pulls off his cap, holds it in front of him. “Hi, Judy. Garden’s lookin’ pretty droopy.”
Briarwood is old, crumbling stones dating back to the early eighteen hundreds, a cool spot shaded by maples and beeches sitting on a slight hill on an acre just outside Lake Ann. The cemetery is small, and all the graves are full. Carl tells me he and Judy have the last reservations in the Reinbold family plot.
Carl stops at a long-handled green pump. He leans into the handle, the loud braying finally brings up a trickle of water which grows to a stream, falling on river rocks at the base. He grabs hold of the galvanized pail with his left hand, sticks it under the spout. Then he hands it to me while he fills a second pail.
Hobbling back across the lawn, the cold water splashing from the pail, Carl stops in front of Judy’s headstone. He has planted the flowers around Judy’s grave, and I help him maintain the little garden through the hottest part of the summer.
“Well, honey, the new children’s hospital opened. It was a big deal. Governor Milliken came up.” Carl stoops and rations the water around each plant. “Luanne’s here with me today. You remember her, don’t ya? We been spendin’ quite a lot of time together.” He smiles and sits back on the grass. “She’d be about the right age for our daughter, wouldn’t she, darlin’? She’s a fine young woman, just havin’ a hard time.” He chuckles to himself. “She’s quite the little gardener. Gettin’ better every day.”
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