At school, when dark moods and fears descended, I’d disappear into the woods and walk the forest, not wanting the teachers to see how I couldn’t control my feelings. As I crunched through fallen snow or leaves, I’d struggle with guilt. I felt responsible for what happened to my mother, and to Tess and my grandmother too. I’d been so taken with the island I hadn’t helped them. Why hadn’t I seen? I asked myself. As the years went by, that guilt had eased some. But right now, it rose up as irrational terror slamming against my heart.
Suddenly, I stopped, hearing my own voice from deep within me: It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. I whispered the words, drawing strength from saying them. That conviction took me up the stairs, despite Dr. Brighton still at the window, watching me. Steeling myself, I grabbed the front-door handle and entered.
The receptionist greeted me and picked up the phone. I fixed my eyes on the door to Dr. Brighton’s office, but it stayed closed. I gripped my purse tightly in front of me, feeling the tension in my neck. A nurse with black eyes was at my elbow. I jumped when I found her there. “I … I didn’t see you.”
She blinked her eyes ever so slowly. “This way. Leave your suitcase.”
The stairs seemed excessively steep and narrow. I felt I was falling backward as we climbed. I held on to the railing tightly. Heavy doors, jangling keys, solemn looks, empty halls, my throat constricting … and then we were at a closed door. Black Eyes watched me carefully, silently, as she put the key in the lock, as if she thought I might run. What if they were locking me in? My mouth was dry. I needed water, desperately.
The room was small and windowless, feeling hot and close.
I sat in a large wooden chair that made me feel like a child. The only other furniture in the room was another chair like mine, positioned across from me. Nothing hung on the gray walls pressing in on me. Again, panic rose. Black Eyes shut the door, leaving me alone.
The last time I saw my mother’s face was when they were dragging her down the stairs and out the door to put her away.
Tess and I were huddled in the foyer, alone. My father had been dead for a few years. Tears ran down my cheeks, but Tess’s mouth was set in a determined line. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close. I leaned into that comfort, closing my eyes, not able to look. Then the front door shut, and my mother’s screams grew quieter. I buried my face into Tess before I’d flung myself away and out the door, wanting my mother.
Tess had been kinder to me in that time between my mother’s commitment and her death. I’d forgotten that until now. I’d left her arms and fled for the cliff, as fast as my legs could carry me, with her on my heels. I’d wanted to see my mother’s face. I had to see her. But she was on the boat, too far away …
My thoughts were interrupted by the door swinging open. I sat up straight in my chair, my heart racing.
A man appeared, leading my mother by the arm.
I almost gasped when I saw her, she was so different from how I remembered. Her face still held remnants of beauty, but it was a haunted desperate copy of what she’d once been. Her white gown had small polka dots and hung on a thin frame. But her long, thick hair was brushed and tied back oddly with a bright red ribbon that felt as if it were more for the benefit of the visitor than the patient.
The man ignored me, not saying a word, and led my mother to the chair opposite me. She sat there looking at me, no recognition in her eyes. My heart was breaking.
I took a steadying breath, looking up at the attendant, who was standing behind her. “Can we be alone?”
“I have to stay with the patient,” he said.
We sat in quiet for a little while, while I watched her. In the beginning her eyes were blank, but as the time passed, she became more alert.
Then she spoke. “Do you have a cigarette?”
“No,” I said, “I’m sorry.”
One thin shoulder went up. “I haven’t had one in so long.”
In the past, when I’d imagined this reunion, I’d hoped she’d reach out for me and hold me in her arms and say, “Cecilia, I’m here.” But even as I thought those things I knew I was imagining a mother completely different from the one I had. And that any meeting between us would most likely consist of a quick kiss on the cheek at most.
But this was worse. This woman had no idea who I was.
My eyes wouldn’t leave her. I searched her face, watched her hands fidgeting in her lap, while her listless eyes drifted about the room. I didn’t remember her like this. They had done something to her, I knew it. Dr. Brighton and his experiments had worked her over. My eyes burned, but I couldn’t waste time on grief. I didn’t know how long we had.
Acutely aware of the attendant, I tried to figure out a way to ask about the ghost at Sanctuary that wouldn’t be alarming.
He caught my eyes. “Are you done?” he asked, in a bored voice.
“No,” my mother and I said at the same time. Surprised, we looked at each other, and I saw a small smile play at her lips. She cocked her head to the side, scrunching her eyes. “Do you have a dog?”
“Yes, yes, I do,” I said eagerly, hoping she was remembering. “His name is Jasper.”
“Jasper,” she said. “I never liked dogs.”
I nodded. “You kicked him once.”
She thought for a moment. “Did I?”
“He was in your way.”
She looked sad. “I wish I hadn’t done it. I wish I hadn’t.”
I leaned toward her. “Do you remember doing it, Mother?”
She scrutinized me then, looking closely, seeming more alert. “You look like someone I used to know.”
Tentatively, I said, “I’m your daughter.”
Her eyes lit up, just a little, showing some interest, finally.
Before she could speak, I said, “Cecilia,” afraid that she would break my heart by saying Tess’s name.
She nodded once very slowly. “You have such blue eyes.”
“No.” Tess was the one with blue eyes. “I have hazel eyes. Like you.”
“Were you born in the sea? Sea babies have eyes like that.” She laughed. “My mother used to tell me that. We took from the sea, don’t you know? And then it cursed us for doing so.”
We were cursed, I thought, but it wasn’t the sea’s doing. My beloved sea wouldn’t do that. “I was born by the sea. In Sanctuary.”
Her head snapped up. Instantly, her eyes were ablaze with something. She began to rock back and forth. “No, no,” she said.
“It’s all right,” I said soothingly.
Her head shook back and forth. “She was leaning over the bassinet, that hair flowing down like black water.”
“What bassinet? Who was?” I asked.
“James said he would keep us safe.”
“My father did?”
She looked straight into my eyes then, hers widening, as if seeing me for the first time. “Who are you?”
“I’m your daughter.”
“You aren’t. You’re someone else.”
“Momma,” I said, hearing my voice change, like I was a child again. “It’s me.”
Suddenly, she reached across the space between us and gripped my arm. “I have to get back to Sanctuary. I have to.”
I waved the attendant off as he tried to pull her back. “Why? Why do you have to go back?”
Her eyes scrunched in confusion, frantic for an answer. “I did something I shouldn’t,” she said desperately. “Ooh, I can’t remember.” She began to tap the side of her head frantically. “I knew it once. But I can’t find it. I can’t find it. I can’t find it.”
The attendant ignored me now and took her arm. “It’s all right, Cora. I’ll take you back.”
As he led her out, I followed them out of the room and down the hall. He was blocking her from me. I wanted to touch her arm, to see her face again. But I couldn’t see her. He took her through a thick iron door, clicking the lock on the other side. I put my hand on the cold metal, wishing I’d never come.
I WENT TO A BENCH OUT ON THE FRONT LAWN, UNDERNEATH A LONG-BRANCHED oak tree, positioned to look at the sanitarium. I stared at the windows, wondering which one was my mother’s, if it was one of the barred ones or not.
Was this place where those who saw ghosts ended up, so they could be studied, their bodies shot up with drugs and shocked with electricity? A dull ache throbbed behind my eyes.
A woman with tight eyes and mouth, tiny hands clutching her handbag, sat beside me. Startled, I jumped. I was so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t seen her approach. She darted a look at me, and I gave her a nod, wishing she hadn’t disturbed my quiet.
“I have a friend in there,” she said.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said bitterly.
“Isn’t that God’s truth? I haven’t seen her in a while. They say she can’t have visitors, that she’s in isolation.” She nodded at me, looking at me right in the eyes. “Has to be by herself. But I sit here, right here, just in case she’s looking out a window, so she can see me here. Because she’s my dear friend. And I can’t stand to think of her in there, that she might think I left her there.” She glanced at me again, her little hands snapping and unsnapping her bag.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling sad for this woman.
“My friend is your mother, Cora Cross.”
Shocked into silence, I could only stare.
“The receptionist in there, Miss Tilly, is a nice lady. She called me and told me you were here.”
“You knew my mother?” I asked, still incredulous.
“We were tight, your momma and me. Lived together in New York before she met your father.” She smiled then. “We had fun. Gobs of it. We ate New York up, the place to be before the Depression. Thank God that’s over.”
“What was she like then?” I asked, desperate to know my mother finally, looking for answers that the shell of the woman I’d just seen couldn’t show me.
“Ah, she was different. Beautiful. Distant. Like she was from someplace wonderful and secret. She craved having people around her. Loved to dance.”
“How did you meet?” I asked, anxious for details.
“We found each other on the train out of Bangor headed to New York. We both wanted to have our time in the city, like that poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. She was from Camden, you know. Cora and I moved into a tiny place in Greenwich Village.”
“I thought that my mother was from New York, that both she and my grandmother were.”
“What? No, no. She was from Nova Scotia. Didn’t you know that?”
“What?”
“Oh, yes. Haven’t you ever wondered about your looks? You look just like your mother—very different because you’re a mixture of all sorts—French, Mi’kmaq, Basque, Irish, a blend of the world.”
My heart beat wildly in my throat.
“Your grandmother followed your mother down to New York. That was when your mother changed. She and your grandmother got in some awful rows. Your mother was in love with James by then. So in love. Cora dragged me off with her for an errand, and I ended up witnessing their wedding at City Hall. Your parents moved into a grand apartment close to Central Park, your father’s. His father had been rich as a Rockefeller. Then one day your parents packed up and left with your grandmother. They were meeting your mother’s sister, Laura, who was married to your uncle by that time.”
“Aunt Laura,” I whispered.
She looked at me then. “I would have known you anywhere, Cecilia. Don’t you remember me?”
For a moment, my confusion mixed with the strangeness of my life, making me think this woman was Aunt Laura coming back to life in another person’s body. But no, she was nothing like Aunt Laura. “I’m sorry—”
She waved her hand at me. “Don’t worry a whit about it. You were just a child.”
I stared at her for a moment. “Miss Owens, my governess?”
“Governess,” she repeated, laughing. “Isn’t that funny? Your mother thought of that one. Otherwise, that nasty uncle of yours would never have let me live there. Didn’t last long, though.”
I continue to stare at her, amazed by this news. “That explains some things,” I said slowly.
“I imagine. Which in particular?”
“Math lessons.”
She stared at me a beat, then let out a loud whoop. She laughed so hard she held her stomach. I found myself laughing a little too, releasing the tightness in my chest.
“But … why … why did you come live with us?” I asked.
“I was in a bad way,” she said, wiping the tears of amusement from her eyes, growing somber and more secretive. She sat still for a moment, and I was sorry I’d asked and broken the mood.
“Your momma helped me out,” she said finally. “As you hit the rough spots in life, you’ll find friends change. Those who abandon you,” she said, shrugging, “you forgive, move on. Those who are loyal, who stand by you, when you’re nothing, when you’ve got nothing, those are the ones you hang on to, Cecilia. And that’s what Cora was for me.”
“My mother was helpful?”
“She gave me money. She listened to me. She pulled me out of the dark pit I was in and set me back in the light of life.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, trying to reconcile this view of Cora with the one I had.
“And that’s why when your uncle locked her up in this place, I moved back to Bangor to watch over her. My family held it over me, still does, how I went off to New York and came back with my tail between my legs. But I’m happy with my lot.” She looked at the sanitarium. “Just not with Cora’s.”
I followed her gaze. “Is my mother insane, Miss Owens?”
“What? No, she’s not insane. Your uncle stashed her away in here. He never liked her. I always thought he was jealous because Laura loved your mother so much and that took Laura away from him. Your uncle—ugly spirit that he is—always loved your aunt, that’s for sure.”
Relief filled me. I believed Miss Owens. My mother wasn’t insane. “We could break her out,” I said.
“Humph. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.” She gestured to my suitcase. “So where you off to?”
I paused. “Back to Sanctuary,” I said finally.
“You were there?”
“For a few days.”
“Your uncle?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.
“Still kicking,” I said, mimicking the way this woman talked.
She laughed. “I bet he’s kicking. Why go back if he’s there? I could get you a job here, with me, working in the department store.”
“I have things to do,” I said, distractedly, looking for my mother’s window still. “I don’t like to leave her, though.”
“I’ll be here, right here. Hey, at least let me buy you a cup of coffee.”
MY OLD GOVERNESS WAS A TALKER. SHE GOSSIPED ABOUT EVERYONE AT the department store. She was funny, though, and fun to listen to. She liked to laugh—and loudly—and didn’t care much who heard her. I kept thinking how horrified the headmistress at the boarding school would be; she always lectured us to use our “lady voices” in public.
Miss Owens finally came back to the time she’d spent with my mother in New York. “Once Cora and I went off to a tearoom,” she said with a wink.
“It wasn’t really a tearoom?” I asked.
She laughed. “It was during the prohibition, so New York was jammed with tearooms, which were really speakeasies—you know, places you had to speak easy about, whisper about so the police wouldn’t find you. Cora and I were there, flapping away with corsetless dresses, me with my short bobbed hair.” She scrunched her shoulders. “I loved it. I felt free when I walked, like no one was pushing me and prodding me into something I wasn’t, into a shape I wasn’t. Not like at home.”
“How old were you?”
“I was younger than your mother, only seventeen.”
“Seventeen! You were my age.”
“Sure,” she said. “It was the high life. New York so
ared miles above the earth. The men were everywhere. So full of fun.” She laughed. “So full of themselves. Cora had their number. She’d say something snide to them, but with a quirky smile, leaving them confused and off-balance. With a stealth wink at me, she’d start spinning some tale.” Her laughter died to a sad smile. “She was something, your mother. Stunning. Men looked at her. And she had something else. Some call it confidence, and it was kind of that,” she said, staring into her coffee as she stirred, as if the past were in her cup. “But it was also like she was testing herself. Pushing the boundaries—and not because she wanted people to admire her for it, nothing like that. She wanted to see if she could, to know that she could. She liked being on the edge of life, putting herself in that place where she could topple off if she stepped too far. She burned the brightest right there, jazzing it up at the edge. So bright she blinded everyone around her so that they wanted to be lost in the music with her.”
I swallowed. “She’s different now.”
She looked at me sadly. “She’s different now.”
“How did she meet my father?”
“Ooh,” she said, sitting up, enthusiastic again. “That’s what I was telling you about. We were at this tearoom, drinking tea,” she said with a sideways look and a laugh, “and all of a sudden Cora goes real quiet. I flick her on the arm and say, ‘What’s with your ears?’ And still she ignores me. So I follow her eyes, and there’s this man.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “He’s on a date with a wealthy young heiress who we’d seen around. He’s drawing something for her on his handkerchief. She’s bored, looking around, a little bent. When she catches Cora’s eye, she doesn’t like it one bit Cora’s eyeing her fella. So she loops her arm through his, nodding like she’s interested after all. Finally, he looks up, like he senses Cora there. And his eyes go to hers. This Jane, she stands up on the table, starts yelling at Cora to leave her man alone. Cora walks over, puts out her hand, and asks if she can see the drawing. He’s entranced, your father. He picks up the handkerchief, has to pull it out from under his girl’s shoe, and hands it over. By the time their fingers touched that heiress jumped off the table right onto your mother’s back.”
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