by Kelly Rimmer
Then a traffic light turned amber, and just as I prepared to flatten my foot to race through it, the car in front of me stopped dead.
I sat behind that car as the light turned red, watching as the lemon Ford carrying my sister disappeared from view.
* * *
It’s no exaggeration to say that it was the longest afternoon of my life. By two o’clock I felt like I’d been waiting weeks instead of hours. I was already at the alley, tapping my toe impatiently against the concrete of the footpath, glancing toward the sky that was darkening ominously. I had a blister forming in my right heel and I’d been sweating so much that my nylon dress was clinging to me all over. I bought a sandwich at a nearby deli, but it now sat untouched in a nearby bin. I was hungry enough to feel a little light-headed, but I’d raised the food to my lips a few times, only to find my stomach was turning over so violently I couldn’t manage a single bite.
By two-fifteen, I was pacing between a stack of trash bins and the roller door of a garage. I jumped at every sound, and when a car finally turned into the alley, my knees went weak with relief. But it wasn’t the yellow Ford. It was an olive-green Chevy, and the driver gave me an odd look at my rapidly fading smile, then drove right past me.
By two forty-five, I could feel myself hyperventilating. She was forty-five minutes late and there was no longer any avoiding the “what-ifs,” but once I opened that floodgate in my mind, I was quickly overwhelmed. I sank onto the curb and forced myself to take some deep breaths because I wasn’t going to help anyone if I actually passed out.
By three o’clock, I’d returned to my father’s car and found the tattered piece of paper with the unregistered doctor’s phone number on it, and I was frantically looking for a pay phone in the blocks around the road, no longer trying to stay calm, and no longer trying to look inconspicuous.
I finally found a pay phone. It took me six attempts to dial the number because my hands were shaking so violently. The busy signal echoed in my ear, so I tried again, and again, and then I ran back to the road again, and I checked at the car in case she’d found her way there somehow, and then I ran back to the pay phone and tried again.
I repeated this cycle over and over, trying to convince myself that any minute now the call would connect and the “doctor” would give me a very reasonable explanation for the delay or that Grace herself would wander around a corner and tell me she’d simply gotten lost.
Grace is fine. I kept telling myself she was definitely fine. She had to be—she had four children at home who desperately needed her. I desperately needed her. The universe wouldn’t be so cruel as to have her harmed when I was only trying to help.
When I ran out of change, I managed to convince the attendant at the deli that I’d had a family emergency, and he let me use a phone in his apartment upstairs. I sweated as I raced through the entries in the telephone book, calling hospitals, praying someone had information about my sister. My attempts at conversation were embarrassingly unclear because I was so flustered I could barely explain what I needed.
“Grace Walsh...but maybe she’s not admitted under that name. Maybe she’s just been dropped off injured and you don’t know who she is yet. Have you had any unidentified women admitted this afternoon...? Do you have a women’s ward? Could you ask them?” And then finally, when I grew still more desperate, “I don’t know what you call the wards but I know you have places where women go. The women who’ve had failed abortions. Could you please check there?”
“We have two,” the clerk said curtly. “The sepsis ward, or the palliative care ward?”
“Oh, God. Check both.”
When my calls turned up nothing, I had started driving from emergency room to emergency room. One hospital did have a Jane Doe recently admitted and I waited half an hour to see her, but she turned out to be a stranger.
In the early hours, all I could think about was Grace. I was terrified for her—frantic only at the thought that she might be hurt...or worse. But as evening became night, a new realization was starting to dawn, popping up in my thoughts every now and again, then bursting like a bubble. It was becoming unlikely Grace wasn’t coming home unscathed, and there was something new at stake for me personally. I hated myself for even thinking about the consequences for myself when I didn’t even know what had become of my sister, but I had to be a realistic.
I arranged that abortion for Grace. She’d begged me to, and she’d wanted to go ahead with the procedure desperately, but that didn’t change the reality that I had broken the law.
And if Grace had been seriously injured, or worse...then maybe I was criminally responsible for her fate. If Betsy Umbridge’s boyfriend could spend two years in prison for arranging an abortion that had gone exactly according to plan, what would happen to me if Grace was injured...or never came home at all?
Beth
1996
I retreat to the bathroom to wash my face, and when I return to the table, everyone falls silent.
“I think you guys probably need to talk,” Ellis speaks first, motioning vaguely toward the four of us siblings.
“I’ll handle the cleanup,” Alicia offers. There’s a moment of stunned silence. Ruth’s jaw actually drops.
“Seriously?” I blurt, and Tim glares at me. He’s always been something of a leader in this tribe—and I’ve always been the most compliant member of our family. I’ve angered him more today than I have in decades, and I hate it.
“Thanks, honey,” Tim says pointedly to Alicia. “That would be a huge help.”
“Noah and I will take Patrick back to the nursing home,” Hunter offers cautiously. “If you’ll all be okay here.” His gaze is on me, again asking me a silent question. I nod, then look away.
“And I’ll take the boys back into the living room to watch another movie,” Ellis says.
Our spouses scramble away. Ruth excuses herself and all but sprints to the kitchen, returning with a bottle of wine and three glasses. I reluctantly, awkwardly, explain to my brothers and sister about the hidden cavity in the bottom of the wooden chest. By the time I finish, they’re all staring at me, slack-jawed.
“So...wait,” Jeremy says, holding up a hand toward me. “Mom didn’t die in a car accident?”
“I don’t think so,” I whisper.
“And you think she died in 1958?” Tim frowns, then shakes his head. “That doesn’t seem right. She was definitely still alive when I started school.”
“Us, too,” Ruth says. They all stare at me.
“I’m just telling you what it says, guys,” I say weakly. “It’s not my fault it’s confusing.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tim exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What the hell are we supposed to do with all of this?”
“I didn’t bring the photo album so I can’t show you the death certificate. But the notes and the artwork are upstairs.”
“Good. Let’s see them.”
I divert past Dad’s room to retrieve the clipboard while the other three walk upstairs. By the time I catch up, they’re all staring around the mess. My brothers are visibly horrified.
“You said there were paintings,” Jeremy says stiffly, glaring at Ruth. “You forgot to mention it’s an absolute fucking disaster zone up here.”
“I told you it was a mess. I didn’t realize I had to qualify that with an exact description,” Ruth snaps. Tim hesitantly picks up a basket, then grimaces and sets it back down again. “What’s in there?”
“Empty paint tubes, what looks like it used to be an apple core and I think maybe a whisk.”
“It’s all random. Just like that,” I tell them. “There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to the mess.”
“Let’s see these notes you found,” Ruth prompts. I pass the clipboard to my nearest sibling, which happens to be Tim, and then I motion toward the dark canvas.
“The date on that canvas matc
hes this first note,” I say. Tim skims the page, then swallows and raises his gaze to the ceiling. Jeremy takes the clipboard next, and he and Ruth read it together.
“That’s a suicide note, right? She talks about ‘mortal sin.’ That’s suicide?”
“Everything is a mortal sin,” Ruth scoffs, then sobers. “But yeah. That doesn’t sound great.”
“How do you even know she wrote these?” Tim asks. I lift the page to show him the other note, the one that refers to us and to Dad, and he exhales as he reads it. “Right. And downstairs, that stuff with Dad and you. What’s going on there?”
“I was asking him about Grace because of these. And the death certificate.”
“I meant why did he tell you to read these?”
“I think because he heard me and Beth talking earlier,” Ruth says. “Lisa thinks she has postpartum depression.” I look at her incredulously.
“No, Ruth, go right ahead and tell everyone my personal medical information. I don’t mind at all,” I say bitterly.
“I knew something was going on with you,” Jeremy says, tilting his head at me. “Are you okay?”
“I—” I want to protest and to assure my siblings that they don’t need to worry about me, but this time I don’t. “I don’t know. But reading that—” I point to the note in Tim’s hand “—I can’t help but wonder if there’s a genetic component.”
Tim hands the second note to Jeremy, and Ruth steps closer to him to read along.
“I just need to know,” I admit, throat tight. “I just need to know what happened to her. If she...”
“You should have told us about this,” Tim says abruptly. At my pointed look, he runs his hand through his hair, then says in exasperation, “All of this, Beth! The stuff you found in Dad’s chest. These notes. Christ. And the depression.”
“I don’t get it,” Ruth sighs, looking up from the note. “Why on earth didn’t you tell us? This is...a lot.”
“I didn’t know how to explain,” I say weakly. “I was worried you’d try to take over. I was worried you’d worry about me. It was overwhelming. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“I get it,” Jez sighs. “A few bits of paper and suddenly I’m questioning the entire way we’ve understood our upbringing.” He points toward the clipboard, then adds, “I mean...this refers to Dad, but she isn’t talking about the Dad we know. Right?”
“We don’t even know if they’re real,” Ruth protests. “You can’t let two random bits of paper—two unsigned bits of paper—make you question anything. Especially not the way you see Dad. That’s completely unfair.”
“It’s not just the notes,” Tim says heavily, glancing at me. “The death certificate Beth found raises questions, too. Why would he tell us she died in a car accident if she didn’t?”
“It would be unforgivably disloyal to judge a man who can’t defend himself, based on any of this,” Ruth snaps. “He’s so confused, and there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation he just can’t share.”
“Such as?” Jeremy says incredulously. Ruth opens her mouth to snap a reply back at him, but Tim cuts them both off.
“Squabbling isn’t going to help, is it? The only hope we have of understanding this is if we find the rest of the notes.”
“Well, that I can agree on,” Ruth murmurs. Jeremy nods, too, and then they all look at me, and it suddenly occurs to me that we are, at last, a united force.
I wanted the truth, but maybe I didn’t have the strength to find it until I had allies. Now, realizing that we’ll be a team, I’m less afraid of what we’ll discover up here, and simply determined to find it.
“Okay, boys, this is what we’re going to do,” Ruth announces, snapping on her project manager voice. “You two are going to handle the big items—boxes, baskets, furniture and so on. Empty them over here, and then take them up to that end of the attic.”
“We’re starting this today?” Tim asks, but he’s already rolling back the sleeves on his shirt.
“I don’t have anywhere to be. Do you?” Ruth says.
“The second note was in a pile of junk food wrappers,” I tell them. “So check everywhere. Listening to what Dad said downstairs earlier, I think he probably planned to throw these notes away once he finished the paintings. So they might already be scrunched up, like the second one was, or even just dumped in some random place among the chaos.”
“Got it.” Tim mock-salutes us. Ruth turns to me.
“You and I will sort through the smaller pieces of trash. We’ll make two piles—a keep pile, a toss pile. Jez, in between helping Tim, you can ferry the trash down to the dumpster.”
“We won’t get this whole space done today,” Jeremy warns us. “Not unless we work till midnight.”
“We don’t actually need to get the whole space cleared out.” Ruth shrugs. “We just need to see if there are any more notes.”
* * *
Jeremy finds a third note under a discarded plate by one of the windows, the back smeared with paint. He reads it silently, and then offers it to me and Ruth.
“Is it like the others?” I ask, staring at his hand hesitantly.
“Yeah.”
“Does the date match a canvas?” Tim calls from the other end of the room. Jeremy takes the note as he checks the canvases on the table, then nods.
“Put it with the clipboard, then, because we’re probably going to find more,” Ruth murmurs, returning to her sorting. “I’ll read them in order when we’re done.”
“Beth?” Jeremy checks, and I nod.
“Yeah. I want to do that, too.”
We have three notes now, three out of thirteen, assuming there’s one for each canvas. Jeremy sorts carefully through the pile of Dad’s canvases, then removes the relevant three and rests them on the floor. He pauses at the unique canvas.
“You said this looks like the ring you found.”
“I’m sure of that much, at least,” I tell him.
“And he said downstairs the others are of the curve of her stomach,” Ruth says quietly. Jeremy picks up one of the other canvases and we all stare at it. Before, when I was looking at this series of canvases, it was difficult to know what to focus on—they are busy, with layers of different colors and materials. Now that Dad’s given us a clue, it’s easy to recognize the shape of a pregnant woman’s belly and I can’t believe I missed it the first time.
“These are beautiful,” Jeremy says suddenly. He looks up at us, his gaze brimming with emotion. “I’m not really a fan of art, but there’s so much emotion here. I can feel the sadness. His regret. Her isolation.”
“The theory is that with Dad’s kind of dementia, as the language centers atrophy, the visual centers of the brain overcompensate. I read a paper where a woman who was in decline like Dad described the way her imagination went into overdrive when she got sick,” Tim says. “Neurologists think we can learn a lot about how the brain works from cases like Dad’s—” He makes a sound of triumph, then lifts a note up out of a basket. “There’s a splash of paint on it, but it’s legible. It’s another of the early ones,” he tells us as he carefully puts it in place on the clipboard, and Jeremy removes another canvas to the floor.
We get distracted for a while after that, when Ruth uncovers her Grade 4 report card, and we all chuckle at her teacher’s comments about how she was stubbornly determined to rule over her peers rather than to learn. Jeremy finds a copy of a long-forgotten photo of a camping trip we all took to Gardner Cave when we were preteens—the trip that sparked his love of geology. Tim then finds what looks suspiciously like mouse droppings, and we decide to take a break, swarming downstairs around hot cocoas. Hunter reappears, with Noah in tow.
“Sorry it took me so long,” he murmurs, embracing me from behind as I linger at the kitchen countertop with my siblings. I didn’t even realize he was coming back—he’s been gone s
o long I just assumed he’d just taken Noah straight home. “It took a while for your dad to settle back in at the nursing home. His oxygen saturation was far too low. The nurses had to call the doctor to adjust his medication.”
“I shouldn’t have upset him,” I say, throat tight.
“He’s dying, Beth,” Tim sighs. “Look, I know I was harsh earlier about you raising your voice at him, but like I keep trying to tell you, we’re past the point where any of these things will make much difference.”
“I do know that,” I mutter. When I think about the future, it’s all a blur. I have no idea how much longer we have with Dad—I get that the end is looming, and that’s why we had to move him into the hospice. But I don’t dare ask about the time frame. I’m certain Tim has an idea, but I just can’t bear to know if we’re talking days, weeks, or months.
“I assume you want to stay, honey. I just came back so you can feed Noah,” Hunter says quietly. “Maybe Jez can drop you home when you’re done here?”
I check in with my brother, who nods, so I curl up in Dad’s armchair to feed the baby. Through the window I’m watching Ellis and the boys, who are back out in the cold, throwing the football—their faces red as raspberries now; the joy in their expressions as they play together is such a contrast to the heaviness inside the house.
Tim approaches as I’m burping the baby. He perches on the armrest of the chair opposite me, and says very quietly, “I’ve been thinking. Especially about what you said earlier.”
“I said a lot of things earlier.”
“About Dad. About...what’s coming for all of us. About your postpartum depression.” His tone is gentle, his gaze soft on my face. “Look, I’m a surgeon. I don’t know much about mental health—just the basics. But I do remember colleagues talking about postpartum depression when it was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders a few years back. I know just enough to know this is a big deal. You need to go home with Hunter and leave upstairs to me and Jez and Ruth.”