The Unremembered Girl: A Novel

by Eliza Maxwell

  “Ran into Brady in town,” Henry said, for no other reason than to change the subject. “Said he’d been out to visit recently.”

  Ms. Watson pursed her lips before answering. “He does that from time to time. Not as often as he should. Jonah loves his big brother.”

  Henry glanced over to where Jonah was still showing Eve his cars. She looked uncomfortable in her own skin, sitting stiffly, nodding when Jonah asked her a question. But then, she looked like that a lot. Jonah didn’t seem bothered by it.

  “It’s guilt that pulls him out here,” Ms. Watson said with a shake of her head. “And guilt that keeps him away so long in between. But that’s a crock of shit, you ask me. Brady and Mari were just kids when the accident happened. Kids. And what’s done is done. Acting like a fool about it doesn’t change things.”

  Henry was caught off guard. She didn’t usually mention the accident that had caused Jonah’s disabilities. No one did. The effects had been too far reaching. Jonah, deprived of oxygen for far too long, had been left with the mind of a child, trapped in a body that had continued to manhood.

  As for guilt, while Brady might be plagued by it for the rest of his life, he’d still handled it better than Mari had. There was a headstone and a world of unvoiced grief that could attest to that.

  “I won’t keep you two any longer, Henry. I know you’ve got other things to see to. But send your mother my love, dear. I’ll drop by and visit her soon, if you think that’d be all right.”

  Ms. Watson’s words were kind, but her usual energetic disposition was subdued.

  “I’m sure she’d appreciate that.”

  He and Eve took their leave.

  Henry felt bad that he’d let Jonah down. He hadn’t been able to make his aunt laugh after all. Not this time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “I told you, Henry, I’ve got no interest in wasting what time I have left with doctors.”

  Mama’s words were weak, but she leaned around the doctor in question to deliver a glare at Henry that was anything but.

  He stood his ground.

  “Just let the man have a look at you, Mama. He’s come all the way out here as a favor to Alice. The least you can do is be civil.”

  “Civil? Henry, are you lecturing me on manners? I’ve got news for you, son—” But whatever she had to say next was cut short by a bout of coughing that shook her whole body to the bones.

  “I understand we’re a tiresome breed, Mrs. Doucet, but I promise you, I’m only here to help.”

  “Hmph,” she snorted, once the coughing had come under control. “I’ve heard that before. But I’ll save you a lot of time, Doctor, and tell you now: I’ve got cancer. It’s incurable, and it’s catching up with me.” Her voice was growing strained and weak as she visibly tried to fight off another coughing attack. “Nothing you can do about that.”

  “True enough, Mrs. Doucet. There isn’t a thing I can do about that. But if you’re right, and this is your time, there are things we can do to make it easier.”

  Mama looked up at the man standing by her bedside and gave him half a smile. “There’s not much else in life that’s easier than dying, Doc. Seems to me, you just go along for the ride till it stops.”

  Dr. Atkinson chuckled, and Henry wondered if things might have been different if his mother had met a doctor earlier who was willing to listen this closely to her.

  Probably not.

  “You’re right about that. But I wasn’t talking about you, Mrs. Doucet. I was talking about them,” he said, looking back over his shoulder at Henry and Alice. “I can help make things easier on them. If you’ll let me.”

  He’s good, Henry thought. Damn good.

  He watched his mother lose her smile, and her feverish eyes bored into the doctor, but he’d given it to her straight, and he wasn’t backing down either.

  “You fight dirty, Doctor,” she said.

  Dr. Atkinson nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I do. When I feel it’s necessary.”

  “All right, then. But this is the last time I intend to be poked and prodded. And you two,” she said to Henry and Alice, “you get out of here and give me some privacy already.”

  Alice nodded through relieved tears, and Henry leaned over to squeeze his mother’s hand before doing as she asked.

  “Go easy on him, Mama,” he said.

  She squeezed back. “I think this one can hold his own just fine.”

  Henry followed Alice out the door. She had her hands stuffed in her pockets, and her shoulders were hunched against a chill, in spite of the warmth of the house.

  “Frank’s a good man, Henry. He’ll do what he can for her.”

  Henry could tell that was true, and his focus shifted to his sister-in-law. “Let me make you a cup of coffee, or some hot tea, Alice. You look like you could use it.”

  “Okay. But I’ll make it. I need something to do with my hands.”

  Alice scrubbed at her face as they walked to the kitchen. Eve was outside, feeding the chickens. Henry glanced toward the window but resisted the urge to check on her. Even so, he was always aware of her.

  “I thought while Dr. Atkinson was here, he could take a look at Eve too,” Alice said, her thoughts apparently moving in the same direction as Henry’s.

  “Maybe,” Henry said. He had no idea how Eve might react to the suggestion, but it wasn’t a bad one.

  “Eve seems to be good for Caroline,” Alice said. “And for you.”

  “I don’t know, Alice. She’s doing okay here, I guess. She spends a lot of time with Mama, but when we’re out in town and around other people, it’s hard for her.”

  “And how is Livingston?”

  “Honestly?” Henry asked. “He’s coming off the rails.”

  “He’s losing his wife, Henry,” Alice said.

  “Yeah. And somehow he’s managing to make that all about him.”

  “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

  “No, Alice, I don’t. Where is he? Why isn’t he here?”

  “I heard he’s been spending a lot of time in town, spreading the word.”

  Henry snorted. “Is that what he’s doing? Sounds a lot like yelling at people to me.”

  “Just try to be patient with him, Henry. Caroline would want that.”

  There were only so many words that they could use to fill up the space, and they’d run out of them. Settling on silence, the two of them marked the minutes, lost inside their own heads.

  Eventually, they heard a door opening and footsteps in the hallway.

  “Well, Doctor?” Henry asked, rising to his feet when the other man joined them in the kitchen.

  Dr. Atkinson sighed. “There’s no easy way to say this, but it looks like Mrs. Doucet has all the signs of pneumonia.”

  Alice raised a hand to her mouth, leaning her weight on the counter at her back. Henry sat down hard on the chair behind him.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say in all likelihood, the cancer has spread, and she’s more susceptible to infection because of it.”

  “Pneumonia can be treated, though,” Alice said. But Henry had an idea what the doctor would say about that.

  “It could, if Mrs. Doucet would allow it. But the chances of success are slim at this stage, and she’s refusing treatment anyway.”

  “But . . . but we can’t just let her . . . ,” Alice trailed off.

  “I’m afraid she’s adamant, Alice.”

  “How long, Doctor?” Henry asked.

  “Well, at this point, it’s hard to tell. She’s still lucid, which is a good sign, but I take it she’s not eating much.”

  “No,” Henry said. “A few spoonfuls of soup today, but I think mostly just to make me feel better.”

  Henry looked down at his hands. They were calloused and capable. But they were useless to him right now.

  “I think you all need to prepare yourselves for the worst. There’s no easy way forward now. She’s refusing to go to the hospital, but I did manage to extract a grudging ag
reement from her to allow someone to come into the home.”

  There was a pause while his words sank in.

  “Are you saying . . . hospice care?” Alice said. “But is it really time for that?” The pitch of her voice was rising. She’d picked up a towel from the counter and was wringing it between her hands. Henry rose and went to her. He pulled her into a hug. She was shaking as she buried her face against Henry’s chest.

  “I’m afraid it’s just around the corner. The spreading cancer coupled with the pneumonia will no doubt be too much for her to fight off for very long. And she knows that. None of this was a surprise to her.”

  “Will she be in pain?” Henry asked over the top of Alice’s head.

  “I’m afraid she’s been in pain for quite some time,” the man said gently. “Hospice can help, although it is, of course, a significant financial decision.”

  Henry waved away the question in the doctor’s eyes. He wasn’t concerned about the money. If need be, there was always the money his father had left him. It was hardly a king’s ransom, but it was there. Mama had never let him touch it. For his future, she’d said. A future, he now realized, he’d have to face without her.

  “I’ll prescribe a morphine drip that can be administered through an IV,” Dr. Atkinson continued.

  “And she agreed?” Henry asked.

  “She did.” The doctor nodded.

  Henry didn’t know what words Dr. Atkinson had used to elicit Mama’s agreement, but he had a feeling it had to do with how it would affect her family more than her.

  “I’ll set up the hospice care, and they should arrive tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Alice sounded near panic now, glancing up at the doctor, then quickly back at Henry’s face. “That soon?”

  Dr. Atkinson gave her a sympathetic nod. “Spend as much time as you can with her now, while she’s still with you. She’s weak, and with the fever, that’s going to get worse very quickly, but for the moment, she’s still Caroline, and she needs her family around her now. And you need this time as well.”

  Henry let Alice go, and she buried her face in her hands.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” he said quietly, moving to shake the man’s hand.

  “Of course,” he said. “I wish there was more I could do.”

  “You’ve done plenty, and we’re grateful,” Henry said.

  “Doctor, before you go, would you mind doing one more thing? You remember the girl I told you about?” Alice said, wiping her face and straightening her shoulders with an effort. Her voice was dazed, but she was trying to pull herself together. Or distract herself, Henry wasn’t sure which.

  “Ah, yes. The girl from the woods.”

  “Henry, if you could bring Eve inside, maybe we should let the doctor give her a check-up while he’s here.”

  “I have to confess, I’m curious,” Dr. Atkinson said. “I was involved with a case early in my career. A young boy found running feral in the wilderness. I’d be happy to give her the once-over. Only if she’s willing, of course.”

  Henry nodded. “I’ll go talk to her,” he said.

  “We don’t actually know anything about the way Eve was raised or what kind of conditions she was living in prior to her being left here, Doctor,” Henry heard Alice telling Dr. Atkinson, sniffling around the words. Even after a month, there was little they could add to that. Eve had remained mute about her past.

  Henry made his way to the chicken coop, trying not to think too deeply about what the doctor had said. There would be time for that when he was alone. Instead of Eve, he found only the hens scratching at the grain on the ground. The bucket used to feed them was hanging from a hook along the wall of the coop, but Eve was nowhere in sight.

  Involuntarily, his eyes sought out the place where the hatchet hung in the toolshed that backed up against the coop. It was undisturbed, with no signs of fresh blood. He felt instantly guilty for checking.

  “Eve,” he called, stepping away from the coop and glancing around the yard. He hadn’t heard her go back inside. She had to be out there somewhere.

  “Henry,” Eve replied, startling him. She was standing directly behind him.

  “Oh God, Eve,” Henry said, shaking off the scare.

  Eve’s eyes pierced the veil of calm he was hiding behind.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said. “Is it Caroline?”

  His chest grew tight, and he swallowed hard to hold back the emotions that the doctor’s words had stirred—emotions that he didn’t want to share, even with someone it seemed he couldn’t hide them from.

  With a phenomenal force of will, he held his voice steady.

  “Alice is inside. She’s got a friend here with her. Someone she’d like you to talk to.”

  Eve bit her lip, glancing toward the house, then back at him, but Henry couldn’t tell if she was worried about speaking with someone new or about his state of mind. And he didn’t know how much longer he could hold it in.

  He needed her to go.

  “Will you talk to him?” Henry asked.

  “Without you?”

  He nodded once. “I’ll be there in a bit. I just need a minute to clear my head.” The tightness in his chest was starting to creep up into his throat, and the words were getting harder to push through.

  She stared into him with an intensity that made him look away.

  “Okay,” she said, finally. “If that’s what you want.”

  The moment she turned away from him, Henry’s shoulders sagged. The hated tears he’d been fighting against were there, just under the surface, but even alone, he didn’t want to give in to them. Not because of some misplaced belief that men weren’t supposed to cry, but because he knew they’d do no one any good.

  What good were tears to the woman lying in there, days from death? Or to Eve or Alice, or any of them? He needed to be strong right now, strong enough for others to lean on. What pulled at him, bringing him low, was the realization that he was losing his touchstone. His mother had always been there, the one constant he could rely on. Always. How was he supposed to find strength, or compassion, or faith, if she wasn’t there to lead the way?

  Torn between the need to hit something and the overwhelming urge to run as far and fast as he could from the grief waiting to devour him, he stalled in place, frozen in a suspended state of denial.

  Henry didn’t know how long he stood there, immune to the passage of time.

  It was the shouting that brought him back to the here and now.

  As he ran for the house, the horrible possibilities of what he might find when he got there flashed through his head. Mama was dying. Eve was unstable. Livingston was missing in action. And Henry had been outside giving in to self-pity, leaving Alice to deal with it on her own. It was his responsibility to be there when things went wrong. Only his.

  “No! No!” Eve was screaming when Henry threw open the front door.

  Alice was standing, wide-eyed with shock, across the living room from where Eve had backed herself into a corner. Dr. Atkinson was a few steps in front of Alice, with his hands raised, palms up.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Eve,” he was saying in a calming voice.

  “No! No doctors!” Eve was still screaming.

  Henry ran toward her to try and calm her down, but she jerked away from him, knocking a lamp over with a crash in the process. The sound of glass breaking made her cringe and set off a bout of hysterical sobbing as Eve curled in on herself and slid down the wall in a heap.

  “No doctors, no doctors. Henry, please!”

  He sank down beside her, broken glass biting into his knees, and put his arms around her balled-up form.

  “Shh,” he said. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not! It’s not okay!” she sobbed.

  Henry looked over Eve’s head and met Alice’s stunned gaze.

  “I should go,” Dr. Atkinson was saying to Alice in a low voice. “Eve, I’m going now,” he said, louder now, hoping to be heard over her sobs. “I’
m not going to hurt you, you won’t be forced to do anything you don’t want to do, and I’m sorry I’ve upset you.”

  Alice quickly walked the man outside. Henry could see her shaking her head in confusion as she apologized to Dr. Atkinson and shut the door behind them.

  “Eve, shh. Shh. The doctor’s gone now. Everything’s going to be all right,” Henry crooned, rocking her gently in his arms while her hysterics ran their course.

  “I can’t, I can’t. No doctors, Henry, please,” she cried, sounding like something had broken inside of her. “No doctors. Please don’t make me.”

  “No one’s going to make you, Eve. No one wants to harm you. Shh. It’s okay.”

  Once she’d calmed enough, Henry walked her to Mari’s room—Eve’s room now. He opened the door and was momentarily surprised that nothing had changed in the month that Eve had been with them. The room looked the same as it had the first day she’d come there.

  “Why don’t you lie down, rest for a while. If you need me, I’ll be right outside.”

  Eve nodded, swallowing against the hitch in her throat, and climbed into the bed. She pulled a pillow to her middle and wound her arms tightly around it, squeezing her eyes shut. Henry wondered at the demons she was shutting them against, the ones that haunted her past and had come out to grab hold of her present.

  On quiet feet, he left her and joined Alice and Dr. Atkinson on the porch.

  “Henry, I don’t know what happened,” Alice said. “One minute she was fine. Well, fine for Eve. But as soon as she realized that Frank was a doctor, she just lost it. He never came near her, I swear.”

  The echoes of the earlier conversation with Raylene didn’t escape Henry.

  Dr. Atkinson had one hand in his pocket while the other fidgeted, rotating his wedding band around his ring finger with his thumb.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor,” Henry said. “Eve’s . . . she’s having a hard time.” The words felt as lame as a limping thoroughbred.

  “So I saw,” Dr. Atkinson said. “I’m no psychoanalyst, but between you, me, and the fence post, I’d hazard a guess that that girl has suffered some trauma in her past.”

  “Do you have any suggestions, Doctor? To help make things easier?” Alice asked.