Sanctuary

by Jennifer McKissack

  I left my boat at the Lady Cliffs dock, avoiding the eyes of one of the elderly fishermen, who was sitting in his boat, working on a tangled line. He was gnawing on his lower lip, showing a missing tooth in the front, studying me. It wasn’t a pleasant look. I thought of my grandmother’s charred cottage and remembered my aunt’s accusations about the people in the town. Although I had my own thoughts about who had caused the fire, I hurried down the pier.

  The coastal townspeople in Lady Cliffs were leery of us. The internment of my mother and the fire and our family’s tragedy, and all the rumors and stories about the island’s early days, had made the coastal townspeople keep their distance, but as Mary had said, they were possessive of Sanctuary, in awe of it as well.

  I took the motor coach, changing buses twice, from Lady Cliffs to Ellsworth, the reverse of my trip just days ago.

  Switching to the train, I rode second class and watched out the window as we rattled down the rails through the countryside of pines, maples, and ash. The coach seemed tight and close to me, with a long narrow aisle, all of us in yellow seats facing forward. After the conductor collected the tickets, I pulled out a piece of paper from my purse.

  Slattery Asylum.

  THE STATION WAS VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE ONE IN ELLSWORTH, BUSY and large and presided over by a tall clock tower. I took the trolley car down a wide street to the asylum. A little boy smiled at me. I thought to smile back, but he was off the trolley too quickly, pulled along by his mother. Glancing at my wristwatch, I was surprised to see that it was half past noon. I’d left early, but all the traveling—by foot, by boat, by bus, by train, and the waiting in between—had taken some time.

  It was a short ride to my stop and a short walk before I arrived at the grounds of Slattery Asylum. Evidently, the town had not wanted to be too close to the patients.

  The redbrick building was an imposing structure, with its high gabled roof and long wings on each side, so proud and sure of itself and its mission. I remained on the sidewalk, staring at it, for a long time. Nightmares at school had been filled with this place, although the asylum in my dreams was a Victorian house with boarded-up windows and endless halls with no doors. And I was always there not of my own volition, but trapped, trying to find my mother in an asylum with no rooms.

  My body was trembling as I went up the steps to the front door. The reception hall was narrow with wooden benches and chairs against the wall and rugs on the planked floor. Just to my right was a door of two halves: The top was swung back and on the other side of it was a small office. When I’d entered the building, a woman at a desk behind the door had stood. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, my voice quiet and shaking. “I’d like to see my mother, please.”

  She was looking at my suitcase.

  “I’m not staying.” I shut my eyes tightly and then opened them, trying to start again. “I mean, I have my suitcase because I came directly from the train.”

  She nodded at me, waiting. She had a long, thin face and eyes that didn’t dawdle or imagine.

  “My mother’s name is Cora Cross.”

  Her serious eyes registered surprise for just a second. “I’ll need to speak with the superintendent. Please sit down in the reception area.”

  I glanced to my side and back to the closed door just behind her. “All right.” The chair I chose was just across from the doorway. I wanted to be able to see her when she came back out of the office.

  No one else was about. It was awfully quiet. I’d been worried there would be screaming, but the patients must be kept far away from the reception hall. I wondered if they would let me in my mother’s room or if there was a special room they’d take me to. Would my mother even recognize me? I was frightened to see her, anxious about what state she might be in.

  I crossed my legs, folded my cold hands together tightly, and waited.

  I didn’t wait long. The woman was back at the door quickly. She opened the bottom half. “Miss Cross.”

  “Yes?” I asked, standing.

  “Come in, please.”

  I was surprised, but did as she asked, entering into what seemed to be a private area. I hadn’t thought they would let visitors in here, with the locked steel filing cabinets of patient files and secrets, and the important phone calls about the patients’ well-beings and mental states. But here I was, back in the office, following the prim, efficient woman to a closed door.

  She opened the door, holding on to the knob as she waited for me to go past her. The office was nice-sized, with a window that looked on to the automobiles out front, and a small man with a mustache sitting behind a mahogany desk with neat stacks of papers and a long row of pencils. He stood when I entered, and although he was reserved in his quick nod, I detected a slight eagerness in his eyes. Maybe he was lonely in his office and no one ever came to see him.

  “So you’re Cora’s daughter?” he asked after we’d both sat down.

  “Are you her doctor?”

  “I’m Dr. Brighton.”

  I nodded, trying to be polite. I wanted to appear cooperative so I could see my mother. This man was the gatekeeper, and I had to get past him. I hoped he couldn’t tell my secrets just by looking at me: that I saw ghosts and heard strange noises. I focused on keeping my face as composed as I could.

  “And so, you are her daughter?” he asked again, his eyes considering me. He had an odd way of speaking, enunciating almost every word, but abruptly clipping the sentence off at the end, as if, really, he had more important things to do, and would I please hurry along with my answers. I wondered if he had learned that affectation in college. I couldn’t imagine him running around as a child and talking like that.

  “Yes, sir.”

  His mustache twitched. “You look like her.”

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  He continued to watch me, making me even more nervous, then his eyes went to the window. I followed his gaze. A trio of people were out in the parking lot, arguing. A younger woman was crying. A man and an older woman were trying to pull her toward the door, but she kept shaking her head, her short straight hair swinging.

  When I looked back, Dr. Brighton was staring at me again, apparently not at all concerned he might be having another visitor soon, one who obviously didn’t want to be here. “And you want to see your mother?” he asked.

  “That’s why I came all this way.”

  “Have you talked to your uncle about this?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Are you in contact with your uncle?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought he might have smiled, but his lips hid behind his mustache. “I can tell he’s your uncle. You both have little to say.”

  “He’s not my blood uncle.” This was important to me; I wanted people to know it.

  Dr. Brighton’s smile drooped. “Your uncle has forbidden us to give out any information about your mother.”

  “It shouldn’t be his say.”

  He spoke firmly: “Your uncle was made your mother’s legal guardian when she was declared mentally insane.”

  This shocked me. “He had no right.”

  “He has every right.”

  I twisted my mother’s watch around my wrist. “She’s not insane,” I said, not liking that my voice sounded young and naive. I wasn’t even sure why I said it. I believed she was insane. Didn’t I?

  “Has your uncle explained your mother’s situation? I know you were a child when she was brought here.”

  I looked up quickly. He’d talked to Uncle about me. He looked a little flustered as I continued to stare at him. “Not so much a child,” I finally said.

  “I have your mother’s file,” he said, patting a dark folder on his desk. “Do you remember much about the day she was taken from your house?”

  Images flashed in my head—my mother’s twitching eyes that didn’t recognize me, her screams at Uncle, her elegant hands gripping the doorsill. Wasn’t there another man there? What had he looked l
ike? Had it been Dr. Brighton?

  I found the superintendent’s eyes were on me. “I don’t remember.”

  “Do you know why she was brought here?”

  “She’s not insane,” I said again, this time more strongly. She was just very sad, and grief wasn’t insanity, was it?

  Startled for a moment, thinking I was hearing my mother’s screams, I jumped out of my chair and looked toward the door.

  Dr. Brighton cocked his head and looked at me. “Don’t be alarmed. It’s a new patient.”

  I realized it was the young woman from outside, now in the building. Her screams were horrid.

  “Sit down, Cecilia,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Still feeling disoriented, I did as he asked. But I realized he hadn’t asked; he’d told me to. Was it because he was a doctor and had a fancy office that I was compelled to do as he said?

  He shut the door as he left, but I could still hear the woman’s screams. My hands were shaking, so I pressed them together, trying to relax. My body felt like a tight, tight ball of memory and emotion.

  The screams finally stopped, very abruptly. I could breathe again, but my jaw ached from how hard I’d been clenching my teeth.

  Dr. Brighton returned, not at all flustered, and sat across from me again and regarded me. “Would you like a cigarette?” he asked.

  “What?” I shook my head. “I don’t smoke.”

  “Isn’t that what young girls like to do these days?”

  I stared at him.

  “You seem very tense, Cecilia. I thought it might calm you down.”

  “It’s Miss Cross,” I told him. “I really don’t have a lot of time, Dr. Brighton. May I see my mother?”

  He thought some more, and I waited while he did. If this was a test, and at the end of it I could see my mother, I would get through it. He scribbled something down on the paper in front of him, but it was hidden by a teacup and I couldn’t see what he’d written. “Do you know what your mother told the doctors when she first arrived?”

  I paused, not wanting him to see the eagerness in me. I did want to know. And I didn’t. “What did my mother say?” I asked finally.

  “That Sanctuary was a prison, that it captured people’s souls.”

  Something frantic and true clawed at my heart. Tears welled into my eyes, and I stood abruptly and looked out the window. I wiped my cheeks, refusing to let this man see me cry. It would be like handing him power over me. I could feel him wanting to snatch it from me.

  He kept talking. “We had to put your mother in isolation because her behavior frightened the other women. She would scream for hours, holding her head from headaches, yelling she needed to return to Sanctuary. She was worried for your sister, in particular.”

  Tess, Tess, Tess.

  “What do you think of that?” he asked.

  I tried to swallow down the tight fear that had my throat in its grip. I was frightened for my mother, locked away in here for years, and frightened because I wondered if Tess had been the one calling me home to save her. And if she was the reason I felt compelled to return now.

  “Miss Cross?” Dr. Brighton asked.

  I tried to give an unconcerned shrug as the trees in front of the building fought the wind picking up. Pulling myself together, I sat back down and looked at him with dry eyes.

  He leaned toward me, his eyes ablaze. “But you agree that your mother cannot be sane if she believes these things?”

  “I want to see my mother.”

  That disappointed him. He withdrew a little, scribbled something else down. How I wanted to pick up his teacup and shatter it against the wall.

  He looked at me patiently. “I would like to explain something to you to help you appreciate our mission. We are beginning to understand things about the mind that we never knew before. The mind,” he said, leaning forward, “is fascinating. Sometimes it doesn’t work the way it should. Sometimes we have—and we think this is passed from parent to child, a condition within families—a splitting of the mind, where it can’t tell the difference between realities and the imagination or dreams or even memories.” He continued to watch me. I said nothing, but my hands were grasped so tightly together I was hurting myself. He leaned back in his chair. “You mustn’t think there isn’t hope for people like your mother,” he said, pausing and holding my eyes for a moment. “There are many useful therapies, some excitingly new and helpful, like inducing epileptic convulsions with drug injections, or electric shock therapy—”

  “You can’t do that to her.”

  “Don’t alarm yourself. These are safe—”

  “May I see her?”

  He paused, clearly irritated. He pulled at his tie. “Come back in the morning, and you may see her.”

  I stood and picked up my suitcase.

  “I’ve upset you.” Coming around his desk, he gave me a handkerchief.

  I stared at the white cloth.

  “Your uncle said you were a sensitive girl,” he said.

  Alarmed, I looked up into his eyes. “He said that about me?”

  He started to say something else, but I left his office quickly, the handkerchief fluttering to the floor. I went through the now empty outer office and out the split door. In the hallway, I literally ran into the efficient assistant returning to the office.

  “I’m very sorry,” she said briskly. She paused when she saw my face. “Are you all right? I am so sorry about your mother.”

  I looked at her, surprised at her tone. There was something not quite right about it: too nice, too concerned. Her eyes widened as if she thought she’d said something she shouldn’t have. She turned and went back down the hallway and out of sight.

  My hands were shaking as I left the building.

  I GAVE THE LANDLADY THE MONEY I HAD STOLEN FROM UNCLE’S ROOM. I’D never stolen anything before. But when I’d seen the money in the desk, my hand had gripped the bills tightly and stuffed them into my pocket. I’d heard Tess whisper Thief in my ear.

  My room at the large boardinghouse had a window that looked out over a quiet street, with a bathroom down the hall to be shared by other boarders. After the landlady left, I plopped on the bed, facedown. Weariness sank my body into the mattress. I slept a dreamless sleep.

  Waking, I flipped on the lamp. I stared at the ceiling above the bed, imagining a stain to be a sinking boat. I thought about seeing my mother, wondering what she would be like, what she would say when she saw me. My stomach felt sick. The sea, I miss the sea so much.

  I closed my eyes, remembering my frantic early morning swim and how it had soothed me. I felt a hunger for the sea now. The desire was worse than when I’d first been left at the boarding school. Sanctuary pulled at me, calling me home. Or was it Amoret who called? She seemed to be lodged against my heart now, very close. My legs and arms twitched as I struggled to get this onslaught of feelings under control. I was frightened of going back to Sanctuary, but I needed to. The warring in me was so great I felt I might split in two.

  I forced myself to get up and dress for dinner. I couldn’t stay in this room alone with all my fears and thoughts. I’d go mad.

  Dinner was crowded, with two large tables taking up most of the dining room. I sat in a corner and listened as people talked quickly and laughed loudly, as if they all knew one another well. They didn’t give me too much notice. I faded into the background and watched their dinner show of conversation and friendship. They seemed more like a family than just friends.

  A milkman tried to flirt with a shopgirl while she rolled her eyes at him. A middle-aged trolley car driver and a secretary had a quiet conversation amid the chaos. An ex–carnival worker told wild and funny stories that made me feel the narrowness of my childhood. Even a man with sad eyes laughed so hard he had to wipe the tears from his cheeks. I felt separate, apart. Uncertain on my feet, I climbed the stairs back to my room.

  The door next to mine opened. A thin and bony man stood there, with tiny dots for pupils. “Hey, sweet
heart.”

  His filthy smell made me take a step back, but he came into the hallway and blocked the way.

  “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you. My name’s Al. What’s yours?”

  “You look too sick to hurt me,” I told him, noting his pasty face. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He looked taken aback. “I’m fine. I’m in heaven. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m being kept from my room.”

  “You’re no different than me, girlie,” he said, his tone changing. “You have the look, I know it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “May I pass?”

  “May you? May you pass?” Dramatically, he stepped aside and waved his hand forward. “Please, my lady, do go past.”

  I eyed him as I went by quickly, catching another whiff of his sweaty skin. But I was distracted by his whisper. “You’re an addict just like me,” he said. “I know the look.”

  I shut my door and locked it.

  DR. BRIGHTON WAS AT HIS OFFICE WINDOW, WATCHING ME APPROACH. The sanitarium loomed in a threatening way. For a moment, it reminded me of Sanctuary, the mysterious part I didn’t understand. Tess thought houses and buildings had lives of their own: their own moods, quirks of character, particular silences or noises, and even emotions. They should all have names, she’d said. Slattery Asylum fit this place. If this building were a person, I’d avoid him, not approach him.

  What if Dr. Brighton meant to keep me here? I hesitated on the front steps, knowing he was watching. I faltered in my resolve and retreated to the bottom of the stairs. I put down my suitcase and paced, not able to care that Dr. Brighton watched. If I didn’t pace, I’d run to the train. My fear of this place and of my mother’s disappearance into it was balled up tight inside of me. I felt that ball would continue to pull the bits of me in—winding tighter and tighter until there was nothing of me left.