Sanctuary

by Jennifer McKissack

  He leaned in. “What?”

  “Thank you for helping me.”

  He smiled. “You’re welcome.”

  I miss you, Eli, I thought, but didn’t say. “And thank you for teaching me to drive these last few days. I know that’s been trying,” I said, attempting to inject lightness into my voice. But it only came out nervous and shaking.

  He laughed a little and smiled at me. Then he looked at the sanitarium, his face suddenly sober again.

  I almost didn’t recognize Miss Owens as she was approaching. She wore a fur-trimmed coat and a stylish hat. Her face lit up in a bright smile. “Hello, Cecilia.”

  When she was closer, I saw that her coat was frayed on the bottom and some years old and one of her gloves had a penny-size hole at the wrist. But her face was radiant and eager. “You look very nice,” I told her.

  She cocked her head at Eli, and I introduced them. He was very serious, and I could tell he wanted to get on with things. She must have seen his worry because she patted his arm. “I have a friend on the inside.” He nodded, but this information didn’t make him feel more at ease, I could tell.

  Miss Owens gave him a bag and we stood in front of the bench while he moved things to his briefcase and then gave the empty bag back to Miss Owens.

  “Let’s go,” she said, taking my arm.

  Eli with his long strides went ahead of us and had disappeared up the steps before we arrived at the receptionist’s desk. My hands were shaking as Miss Owens signed us in with Miss Tilly, who didn’t look up. She’d lose her job over this if she was found out.

  Dr. Brighton smiled at us when we entered, putting his hands together. “Miss Cross, I’m delighted you’re ready to talk about your mother’s treatment. And who is this?” he asked, squinting at Miss Owens as if he knew her but couldn’t place her.

  “Miss Owens. She’s a friend of my mother’s.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said, “welcome to you too. Please sit down.”

  As we settled into chairs in front of his desk, he eyed me as if I were a specimen for him to pick apart. My lips trembled as I remembered how Uncle wanted to have me committed. If we were caught, would Eli and Miss Owens go to jail and I be locked up with my mother?

  I looked down at my folded hands in my lap for just a second, took a breath, and tried to rearrange my face from one of fear to one of pleasant interest, trust, and concern.

  “So, yes, Dr. Brighton, you explained a little of the surgery to me on the telephone,” I said. “I thank you for delaying it until I could get here to discuss it with you.”

  “Of course. I want you to be comfortable with the procedure.” He cocked his head, and I imagined him thinking of all the things he could do to my brain if he had the chance. “You’ll see your mother’s demons will disappear after this is over. It will be a very good thing.”

  “Miss Owens,” I said, “would like to hear about it. I didn’t explain it very well. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not. Miss Owens, the objective is to separate a person’s emotions from her intelligence. Mrs. Cross’s prefrontal lobe will be removed—”

  “Will you do the surgery?” I interrupted. Miss Owens shifted in her chair. I was sorry for bursting out, but I couldn’t stand hearing about it. My stomach had turned to ice.

  “No, no. A neurosurgeon, Dr. Clark, will perform the surgery. I’ll be there, of course. Your mother is my patient in my personal care.”

  I stared at him, imagining how my mother might do it, hoping to unsettle him. And I put my thoughts on Eli. Was he talking to the attendant at the locked door in his very calm and professional manner? I tried not to shiver as I remembered how horrible it had been to walk through that door when I’d visited my mother last fall and then to hear it clang shut behind me.

  The attendant would come out with a set of keys and open the door for Eli. Without a backward glance, Eli would disappear into the hallway. I knew the routine because Eli had told me. It was the same thing he’d been doing for the last three days after he’d gone to Dr. Brighton and apologized for questioning his diagnosis and insisting he now wanted to observe the procedure.

  But he asked to be allowed to talk to my mother and ask her questions that he would supposedly ask her again after the surgery. Dr. Brighton’s eyes had lit up when Eli had told him it was for a paper that Eli would write on the procedure.

  “Of course,” I heard Miss Owens calmly say to Dr. Brighton.

  “Yes,” I agreed, though my heart was pounding.

  Dr. Brighton put his arms on his desk and leaned forward. “We’ll give your mother anesthesia so she won’t feel anything. Dr. Clark will drive holes through the skull,” he said, pointing to his own head, “and then, using a metal loop, will remove pieces of the white matter through the holes.”

  He discussed it like it was clipping my mother’s fingernails, ridding her of something dead and useless, and then she’d be all pretty inside and out when it was done.

  I composed my face, nodding. Behind my eyes stung fear.

  My mind, however, was with Eli. At this moment, if all was going to the plan, Eli was walking my mother to the attendant, saying that he was going to assess my mother’s intelligence through tests in Dr. Brighton’s office. The attendant knew that Eli had been working with Dr. Brighton and that yesterday he had indeed brought my mother to the doctor’s office for Eli’s testing.

  Yesterday, the attendant had called down to Dr. Brighton’s office, and Miss Tilly had transferred the call to the doctor and he had given his permission. Today would not be so easy.

  But if, if, Eli was able to get my mother past the attendant, when he was halfway down the stairs he would take the coat out of his briefcase and button my mother up in it and put shoes on her feet.

  The peals of a bell filled the room, making me jump and my heart pound harder. Dr. Brighton turned to me politely, overly politely, evaluating my every move. “Are you all right? It’s a lunch bell.”

  “No, no, I’m fine,” I assured him.

  But he looked at me a little suspiciously.

  Calm yourself, Cecilia.

  With a quick glance at me, Miss Owens leaned toward Dr. Brighton. “So how long before she’s better?”

  “Hmm?” asked the doctor, still looking at me. I met his gaze as calmly as I could.

  “Will Cora go home then?” Miss Owens asked loudly, trying to pull his attention from me. Our original plan had called for me to come in alone, but we thought we’d more likely be able to distract him with two of us. Because of my current state, I knew we’d made the right decision.

  “What? No, no,” Dr. Brighton said. “We can’t send her home.”

  “But isn’t the idea for her to get better? To have the operation so she can come home?”

  Dr. Brighton hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “Of course we want her to be able to go home. But she really is very ill.”

  He was never going to let her out. Never. He had some arrangement with my uncle and he would leave her in here and experiment on her until she died. I knew it. And he wanted me too. I could see it in his eyes. The greedy need to study both mother and daughter was tempting, especially since he had a willing, a more than willing, guardian.

  There was a tap at the door. Again, I jumped, cursing myself silently as soon as I did. The doctor narrowed his eyes at me while he got up to answer the door.

  “May I speak to you a moment?” we heard Miss Tilly’s voice asking.

  He snapped at her in a low voice but stepped out of his office, shutting the door.

  Miss Owens reached toward me. “You’re shaking. It’s all right, Cecilia.”

  I took a calming breath, and then another. For some slightly unsettling reason, I thought of Amoret and how feisty she was in my dreams, the fire in her. I wasn’t going to be trapped in here, and neither was my mother any longer.

  “What do you think she’s telling him?” I asked.

  “Miss Tilly? She’s making something up. He’ll be angry with
her for interrupting, but we need to keep his little mind occupied and distracted.” She grabbed my wrist and looked at my watch. “Do you think your fella is done?”

  “He’s not my fella,” I said quietly.

  “Oh, baby doll, baby doll.”

  Dr. Brighton came back in, and Miss Owens stood, putting out her hand to shake his. I didn’t know how she could bear to touch him. “Well, thank you.”

  “Are you going?” he asked, looking from her to me. “I apologize for my receptionist. It was a silly little matter—”

  “I have to run an errand, but Cecilia has a few more questions. Is that all right?”

  His eyes lit up, making me terribly uncomfortable. “Of course.”

  And then Miss Owens left me alone with the lunatic.

  “I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time.” I heard the receptionist’s phone ring and tried not to freeze up. It might be the attendant from upstairs. “But I’d like to know how many times lobotomies have helped patients enough that they could have normal lives.”

  “This operation has not been done extensively in the United States, you understand. And currently, it’s difficult—with the war—to get information out of Europe. Not as easy as before.”

  I nodded.

  “Did you know that the first lobotomies performed in the US were on chimpanzees?” He laughed. “Their names were Betty and Lucy. After the surgeries, they were calmer, much calmer, and still able to do the tasks given to them. Maybe not as well, but sufficiently.”

  My hands tightened together so much they were white.

  Through the window, I could see Eli walk down the front steps of the sanitarium with my mother in one of Miss Owen’s coats. She stumbled down the steps, but I kept nodding at Dr. Brighton. Miss Owens drove up in the car. She helped Eli gently put my mother in the automobile. They drove away.

  Dr. Brighton was watching me. I was still nodding.

  “What?” I asked. “I’m so sorry. What?”

  He turned around and looked out the window. “Why were you staring … ?” He squinted.

  I stood, and he came around the desk. My hand was on the doorknob when I felt his hand grip my arm. I looked him directly in the eyes and said viciously, “Let go of me,” jerking my arm away. He was shocked for just a moment, long enough for me to get the door open and almost fall into the outer office.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Stopping, he looked above him, as if he was trying to see into my mother’s room.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” Miss Tilly asked innocently, coming back into the office.

  “Where have you been?” he demanded.

  “I just told you, Dr. Brighton. I had these papers to run to—”

  He stepped toward her as I hurried through the half door into the hallway.

  “Was no one watching the door?” He glanced at me again and disappeared on the stairs to the second floor.

  “Thank you,” I mouthed to Miss Tilly, and then was out the front door and down the steps, running, running. I got to the parking lot, started the car. I put it in gear and sputtered along. I saw Dr. Brighton at the entrance of the sanitarium looking out, but I was off to the side and I didn’t think he saw me. I drove off, desperate to get away and see my mother.

  Dr. Brighton was on the front steps, looking. He threw up his hands and ran back inside.

  THE MOTEL ROOM WAS SMALL AND FREEZING COLD. THE RADIATOR EMITTED very little heat. We wrapped my mother in blankets. She stared out at nothing, and then slept.

  “Do they keep her so drugged up all the time?” I asked Eli, horrified.

  “She was heavily medicated the times I saw her.” He swallowed. “He’s been giving her different drugs, using her as a test subject.”

  My eyes stung as I stared at her wan face on the pillow. “How many others is he doing it to?”

  “Not any of my patients, I know that.” Going to his coat, he pulled an envelope out of his pocket, which was addressed to a doctor I didn’t know. “I’ve written a letter describing my concerns. I’m sending it to Dr. Smalling. He’s a good man. He’ll look into it, I hope.”

  “When will you mail it?”

  “After,” he said, going to tend to my mother when she groaned. He talked to her soothingly, so quietly I couldn’t hear.

  Someone knocked on the door. I was startled for just a moment, exchanging a look with Eli, but parted the curtain a fraction and saw Miss Owens’s old fur-lined coat.

  “It’s so dark in here,” she said. She looked at my mother tucked in one of the twin beds. “Ah, Cora.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed. “You did the right thing, Cecilia.”

  “We did the right thing,” I said. “All of us.”

  “Now we just have to not get caught.” She lifted the suitcase, looking around. “Where should I put her clothes?”

  We cleared off a place on the dresser. She opened it up, pulling out a pink nightgown with ruffles. “Cora is going to cast kittens when she sees what I’ve dressed her in,” she said with a laugh. She laid it out on the extra twin and turned back to my mother. “She’s out. Did you give her anything?”

  “No,” Eli told her. “She’s sleeping off the drugs in her system. That’s the best thing for her right now.”

  Miss Owens grew somber, and her eyes filled. “Do you think she’ll be okay?” But before Eli could answer, she shook her head. “What am I saying? Of course she will.” She looked at the two of us. “Why don’t you go for something to eat? I can stay here with her.”

  “I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I shouldn’t leave her.”

  “You two must be starving. Now there’s a café right next door.” She went to the window, pulled back the curtain, and pointed. “Right there, see. Just walk over, have something quick. I’ll fly over if anything goes wrong.”

  Eli and I entered the small café. A bell on the door alerted everyone to our entrance, and a frazzled waitress in a stained green-and-beige uniform gave us a nod. A couple of the customers watched as we moved to a table. I appreciated that Eli procured us a place in the corner; it was slightly dark away from the windows, but more private.

  We dined on identical $1.10 meals of minute steak and french-fried potatoes while music scratched out of a boxy brown radio on a table beside us.

  “How long did you stay at Sanctuary after I left?” I asked.

  “For a few days, hoping you’d come back. Then I couldn’t take your uncle anymore and left.”

  I didn’t like the thought of Mary having him all to herself. “You came back to Bangor?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “I went home.” He paused. “To my parents,” he clarified. “It felt like where I needed to be.”

  “And to all your brothers and sisters.”

  He nodded, pushing his empty plate to the side. “They were as rambunctious as usual.”

  “You never told me their names.”

  “There are so many I forget,” he said, smiling softly into my eyes. “Many sticks in my family.”

  I paused, returning his smile, his look. I couldn’t think of anything to say that would make it better between us, so I just kept looking at him. I thought the waitress might have returned to clear the plates. I thought I might like to sit in this café with Eli for a while, and let the sun sink, and rise again, and here we’d still be.

  Eli ordered dessert and coffee, which I declined. While he ate his pie, he told me about helping his father around the farm and how good it was to be working outdoors, saying it was exactly what he needed. He’d stayed for only a week, but it was enough time. Then he returned to Bangor and began looking into what was going on with my mother.

  “I thought of looking for you,” he said, “but I didn’t know where to begin. I gave Anna my address and telephone number, just in case you returned to Sanctuary.”

  “I stayed with a family in Nova Scotia, a family friend. She had lots of wild children. They reminded me of you.”

  He laughed.
“Well, thank you.”

  I smiled at his laughter. “I meant, of what it must be like to be you, to have such a family. So it seems we were on the same trip, just in different places.”

  “I would rather have been in the same place,” he said gently.

  I was quiet for a moment. “I needed the time. But now we’re in the same place.”

  “When is your birthday?” he asked abruptly.

  “In March,” I said, scrunching my eyes at him.

  “And you’ll be eighteen,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Eighteen,” he repeated.

  He stirred more sugar in his cup. “Cecilia.” He paused, grappling for words. “You don’t have to go back to Sanctuary. Please don’t.”

  Before I could answer, the waitress returned with the check. I left the diner and sat on a bench out front, waiting for Eli to pay the bill.

  He sat beside me, quiet.

  “I have to go back, Eli. I have to go back.”

  He didn’t say anything, but I could read his face, filled with disappointment. “Don’t worry,” I said.

  But he was worried.

  “I WON’T GO THERE,” MY MOTHER SAID, SITTING UP IN BED BUT LOOKING weak and drained. It was the seventh day.

  “You don’t have to,” I told her. “I’ll do what needs to be done.”

  “No,” she said, plucking at the pink ruffles on her nightgown with a distasteful look on her face. “You’re not going back either.”

  I pressed my lips together, not wanting to defy her when she wasn’t well yet. Nevertheless, she saw it in my eyes.

  “You have to listen,” she said, glancing at Eli warily while she talked to me. “You don’t understand what’s to be lost.”

  “I do.”

  “Not this, you don’t. You don’t know what happened to your grandmother and to Tess.”

  I sat on the bed beside her, and she shifted a little. We weren’t used to being so close to each other. “Do you know about the fire?”

  She closed her eyes almost as if she were in pain and put one finger on her lip. “I want a cigarette.”

  “Did Aunt Laura tell you?” I asked gently.