All the Best People

by Sonja Yoerg

Walt said, “Maybe he was worried about her, that she’d hurt herself.”

  A sense of foreboding came over Carole.

  Dr. Friedman shrugged. “It’s possible. I can’t say anything with certainty. But that phrase was often used when a man wanted his wife committed, not necessarily for her good, but for his. It was not uncommon and most doctors went along with it.”

  Carole stared at the doctor, stunned. “But why would my father do that?” As soon as she said it, she realized she knew. Because of her mother’s betrayal. Her chest constricted and she struggled to breathe.

  Walt leaned toward her. “Are you all right, Carole?”

  She’d never told him about her mother’s affair. She should have, she could see now, but she hadn’t. Instead, she’d borne her mother’s shame. “Yes. Of course. It’s just all so upsetting.”

  Dr. Friedman said, “Mrs. LaPorte, I only bring it up because we should be aware of your mother’s history. You suffer from schizophrenia while your mother, as best as I can surmise from her files, had a collection of memory and anxiety problems as likely to have been caused by early, misguided treatment as helped by it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Carole said. “I must have misunderstood you.”

  “It’s distressing, and of course it’s only conjecture, but there’s nothing in her files to suggest otherwise.”

  She pictured her mother in her room at night, screaming for her baby. Her stomach knotted and she clenched her teeth. “They made her this way.”

  He nodded. “It’s possible. At that time, once patients were admitted, especially if no one advocated for them, they were unlikely to leave.”

  Walt put a hand on Carole’s shoulder. She hung her head and squeezed her eyes shut. Her father did this. Her aunts had to have known, too. Had Aunt Bettina ever visited Solange as she claimed she had? By the time Carole saw her mother, ten years along, the damage had been done. Pity swept through her.

  The doctor went on. “There’s something else.”

  Carole straightened and tried to breathe normally. She felt Walt tense beside her.

  Dr. Friedman referred to the file again. “When I asked for your mother’s records, the clerk found two S. Giffords. I gave your mother’s year of birth and your father’s name, in case your husband had the date wrong. Osborn is an unusual name.” He made a pyramid with his fingers. “The other S. Gifford was Osborn’s mother.”

  Carole frowned. “I don’t see how. My father, and my aunts, too, I think, told me she had consumption. That’s tuberculosis, right?” The doctor nodded. “They sent her someplace dry, Arizona, maybe. But she never recovered. She died before my parents met.”

  Dr. Friedman said, “Her files are very complete. She was admitted for psychotic symptoms and diagnosed with schizophrenia.” He tapped the files with his pen. “She committed suicide at Underhill in 1921.”

  The edges of Carole’s vision went black. She was only dimly aware of Walt’s arms around her, the murmurings of the doctor, the linoleum underfoot, the cold snap of the air as Walt led her to the car.

  On the ride home, she cried, heartbroken that her mother might have been confined to Underhill for so long without reason, that her suffering and bewilderment and isolation might have been preventable and, worse, that Carole’s father might have been the cause. Yes, Solange had betrayed him, but getting rid of her, locking her away from her children—from her life—was unspeakable.

  Carole pulled a tissue from her handbag and blew her nose. She’d been keeping the secret from Walt for so long, but now it seemed a simple thing to tell him. It wasn’t her secret. It wasn’t her shame.

  “On my eighteenth birthday I found out something from Grandma Rosemarie. My mother’s mother.”

  Walt looked over at her then returned his attention to the road. “What was that?”

  “My mother had an affair.”

  Walt let out a low whistle. “Well, I guess that happens.”

  “No, Walt. You don’t understand.” The urgency in her voice caused him to glance at her again. “Janine’s my half-sister. We have different fathers.”

  “What’s this?” Walt signaled and pulled into a small side road. He put the car in park but kept the engine on. He pushed his watch cap off his forehead and sighed. “Now, Carole, tell me again.”

  “I never understood why my father and my aunts didn’t care for Janine—”

  Walt raised his eyebrows and sighed. He didn’t care for Janine, either. Carole must have understood this, because it didn’t surprise her. He’d kept it to himself because he knew how much she loved her sister.

  Carole wiped her eyes. “I should’ve told you. I was ashamed of my mother, and I didn’t want Janine to know. She’s had a hard enough time.”

  “You don’t suppose I could’ve kept a secret?”

  The sorrow in his voice pained her. How many times would she have to hurt him? He was right to be disappointed in her.

  “I know you would’ve. But I didn’t have anyone to talk to before I met you. I pushed all of that ugliness away. It was all I knew to do. And once I’d buried it, that’s where it stayed.”

  She began to cry again, for the frightened girl she’d been, for her futile attempt to rid herself of her parents and for how she’d compromised her marriage in the process.

  Walt unclipped his seatbelt, slid over to her and wrapped her in his arms. “You don’t need to be sorry. None of it was your fault. None of it.”

  “But I should’ve told you.”

  He pulled back and lifted her chin with his fingers. “You told me now. And it doesn’t matter a damn.” He kissed her. “I love you, Carole. You. Everything that’s worth a damn in my life starts with you, and nothing about your family will ever change that one least bit.”

  She smiled, despite everything. “I love you, too.”

  He slid behind the wheel. “Let’s go home.”

  Carole dabbed her eyes dry and looked out at the bare winter landscape, turning over the doctor’s revelations and trying to reconcile them with what she knew about her parents, especially her father. She had no idea whether he knew about the true nature of his mother’s illness, much less that she’d been sent to Underhill and had taken her own life there. His sisters were more likely to have known, given that they were older, but that wasn’t a certainty, either. Osborn’s father might have lied to his children about their mother to protect them; that, at least, was more understandable, even laudable, unlike Carole’s father’s lies, which seemed to serve only himself. He sent his wife away because he could not cope with raising a child who was not his, or find some way to preserve the happiness of both his wife’s daughters. The shame was more salient to him than his own life, which he sacrificed on the false altar of war. Only this fact softened Carole to her father at all, because she was only too aware of how powerful shame could be.

  They arrived home before noon. Walt opened the office door and flipped the sign so the Open side faced out.

  Carole removed her coat and folded it over her arm. “Will you have something to eat before you start work?”

  “Sounds good.”

  They’d only had cereal that morning, so Carole set to work making fried-egg sandwiches. Walt poured coffee. Carole arranged slices of bacon in the pan and adjusted the flame.

  Walt handed her a steaming mug. “We don’t have to talk about this, but I’m wondering if you knew who Janine’s father was.”

  “I don’t mind talking.” Carole sat at the table and Walt sat, too. “My grandmother told me the day I found out my father died. His name was Caleb Ploof. He grew up on the lake, like my mother did. He died in the war.” She sipped her coffee. “But Regina must’ve known, too, because she called Janine ‘that pirate child’ once. On that same day. I wonder if they’d have treated her differently if her father had come from their side of the tracks.” She shrugged. “Maybe it wouldn�
��t have mattered.”

  She got up to turn the bacon over.

  Walt said, “I only met your aunt a couple times, and that was plenty. She was hard.”

  Carole smiled at him. “Well, you weren’t good enough for me.”

  She’d said it lightly. It was a joke between them, as old as their relationship. But in the words now she heard echoes of countless slights and offhand remarks made by her father’s relatives during her childhood. She heard the late-night arguments between her mother and father, and her aunts’ pride in referring to Carole as her father’s daughter, as if she’d escaped being tainted by the curse of her mother. She felt her sister’s hurt at being pushed into a dark corner again and again.

  Bad blood.

  The idea had haunted her for so long, permeating her subconscious. The irony was that if she had bad blood, it came not from her “pirate” mother, but from her father, in the form of this disease.

  Walt got up and slipped his arm around her waist. “That old biddy Regina might’ve had that right, you know.”

  Carole put down the spatula and faced him. A sly smile played at the corner of his mouth and his eyes drew her closer. She put her arms around his neck. Tears filled her eyes, and when she smiled at him, they fell.

  “I doubt it,” she said.

  “Let’s call it even.”

  Walt swayed her slowly, and leaned his hip against hers. She slid her foot back.

  They were dancing.

  40

  Carole

  Outside the office windows, snow fell in large flakes, far apart, sifting down like seconds. Carole tapped the stack of November’s receipts on the desk to align the edges, fastened a binder clip to the top and set them aside. She’d reconciled the month’s accounts. A humble enough feat, but one she knew better than to take for granted. The figures on the pages of the ledger obeyed simple laws when her mind was clear enough to see them.

  Walt came in from the kitchen, followed by the boys. He pointed in the direction of the garage. “No funny business while we’re gone. Do the oil changes and look after that carburetor. Remember Mrs. Tuttle’ll be in for an inspection on that Saab of hers. That’s it. Don’t start taking apart someone’s engine if they happen to pull up for gas.”

  Warren headed for the garage. “Yeah, Dad.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. LaPorte!” Lester gave a small salute and trailed after his brother.

  Walt held out her coat for her. She thanked him and slid her arms into the sleeves, aware the coat was snug. She’d gained fifteen pounds, a side effect of the medication. Her body felt awkward with the extra weight, but she didn’t dwell on it. Walt settled the coat collar, rested his hands on her shoulders and kissed the back of her head.

  Alison came through from the kitchen, a cake in a Tupperware container balanced on the crook of her arm. “I’m ready to go!”

  “So you are,” Carole said.

  Walt grabbed the keys from the desk. “We’ll take the truck. Haven’t gotten around to putting snow tires on the Valiant.”

  Out front, Alison handed the cake to Carole and climbed in beside Walt. Carole passed the cake to her and got in, trying to recall the last time they’d had Alison between them. She hadn’t known she’d missed it until now.

  They turned onto the road and crossed the bridge. Alison craned her neck to see the river, tumbling gray and quiet. Carole couldn’t picture what had happened there, having no clear memory of it.

  She asked Alison, “Does it scare you?”

  “Not really.” Alison leaned back and adjusted the cake in her lap. “It’s never the same two days in a row.”

  Carole nodded.

  They followed the river valley out of Adams. The truck rumbled along, past small towns and through hills dusted in white, snow coming down so slowly it seemed winter might last forever.

  Her father shook his head in wonder. “Will you look at that.”

  “It’s like a snow globe,” Alison said.

  Carole took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it. “It’s beautiful.”

  She remembered driving along this road in August, when the world had been a feast of green. She’d been frightened then, by the mysterious scrambling of her perception, by the encroachment of ominous and unwelcome sensations. She’d been tipped upside down, and turned inside out, and now, as in a snow globe, the flakes were settling.

  Still, she worried, not so much for herself, but for her children. The doctor had told her each child had a one-in-eight chance of developing schizophrenia. There was nothing she could do to alter the odds, to block the path of misfortune, nor would there be a remedy for the guilt she would feel if one of her children should inherit the illness from her. It wasn’t logical, but it was true. What is in your blood matters, but not as much as what is in your heart.

  They arrived at Underhill and walked toward the entrance along paths coated with snow. Walt carried the cake because Alison said she was worried about dropping it. Once inside, they stomped their feet on the mat. Walt signed them in and they took seats in the waiting area.

  Carole studied the drab room. How fortunate she was to have medication that worked. Without it, her fate might have been the same as her mother’s; she might have languished here with scant hope of improvement. A surge of compassion for her mother’s misery came over her with more force than she’d ever felt. The terror and isolation she’d experienced at the height of her illness was fresh; maybe because their illnesses had different origins, her mother’s internal world was less chaotic and frightening, but how could Carole know? She reined in her emotion by focusing on Alison, whose face shone with excitement.

  An orderly appeared at the doors.

  Carole said to Alison, “She may not remember you. Please don’t be upset if she doesn’t.”

  “She remembered me last time. Right away.”

  “All right. But it might be different today.”

  Solange was waiting by the French doors, as if contemplating a walk in the snow. She wore a deep green sweater and a gray skirt. As they approached, she furrowed her brow, perhaps searching for a plausible slot in which to place them.

  “Mama. I’m so happy to see you.” Carole kissed her cheek.

  “Carole, dear.”

  “Walt’s here. Isn’t that nice?”

  She smiled at him but her expression betrayed confusion.

  Walt ran a hand through his hair. “Good to see you, Mother.”

  “And you, Walt.” Solange’s eyes brightened as she stepped closer to Alison. “And Alison, too. Well, this is a quite a treat.”

  Her daughter looked up at Carole, beaming, then addressed her grandmother. “I made a cake for you. It’s vanilla.”

  “That’s my favorite.”

  “Mine, too. I like your sweater.”

  “Thank you.”

  They moved to a table, and Carole served the cake. They talked about the snow, and Alison told her grandmother about her friend Caroline. Solange listened politely for a time, but her attention soon drifted.

  Carole handed Alison the paper plates and plastic forks and pointed to a nearby trash can. She covered the remaining cake. “We’re tiring you, Mama.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You seem tired.”

  “I am a little. I haven’t slept much. I’ve been so worried about the baby.”

  Alison had returned. “What baby?”

  Carole stilled her daughter with a look. “Please don’t worry, Mama. The baby is just fine.”

  “Is she? I was sure she was in pain.” Her eyes glistened. She clutched Carole’s hand, hanging on, knuckles white. “I couldn’t bear to think of her in such pain. She was such a lovely baby. Such a good baby.”

  Her mother’s face was a terrible, beautiful image of agony and love. Tenderness swelled within Carole. She pictured her sister as she’d first seen h
er, lying in her bassinet, fists wheeling, dark eyes wide, astounded at the bright, confusing world. Carole focused on the sweet innocence of the child, on all it could not suspect about life, the same innocence she’d marveled at in each of her children when she’d first held them and which she still saw, even now, if she looked. She hoped—no, she knew for a fact—her mother had reveled in her in the same way.

  Solange’s eyes beseeched her. Carole squeezed her hand and smiled. “Yes, Mama, she’s perfectly happy.”

  Her mother’s body softened in a shudder of relief. “Oh, I’m so glad.”

  Carole leaned to kiss her mother’s cheek and stood. “See you next week, Mama.”

  “Good-bye, dear.”

  Carole looked on as Walt and Alison said their good-byes. How little it took, sometimes, to smooth the rough currents of worry and fear: a word, a look, a hand. How very little.

  41

  Carole

  June 1973

  Walt peeked through the driver’s side window of the Valiant. “You ladies sure you’ve got everything?”

  Alison didn’t look up from her book. “I’m sure, Daddy.”

  Carole nodded. “And before you ask, I double-checked my pill case.”

  “All righty, then.” He opened the door, slid behind the wheel and started the engine. He hung his elbow out the window and called to Warren and Lester in the Nova. “Remember, boys, this isn’t Thunder Road. Five miles over the limit and no more.”

  “Got it, Dad.” Warren revved the engine and gave Walt a sideways grin.

  “Tell me, Carole. What was I thinking when I let him put a V-8 in that vehicle?”

  “I believe you were proud he’d graduated high school with a B average.”

  “So I was.”

  Alison said, “I hope no one’s thinking of getting me an engine for graduation.”

  Walt laughed. “What’s your idea, then?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll think about it.”

  “Well, you’ve got a few years,” Carole said, wishing it were longer.

  A month ago, Walt surprised her by insisting they take a family vacation after school got out for the summer. “High time,” he’d said. He had never been one for traveling, and going anywhere with the twins when they were small had been inviting chaos. Carole wouldn’t have minded going farther than Lake Winnipesaukee when the children were school-age, but Walt hadn’t wanted to close the garage, and she’d been satisfied to stay where she’d always been.