Jerry lied to me. . . . Does he have Jack? He wouldn’t want him . . . maybe to use him . . . ?
“Mary!”
I have to get out of here—have to find him—I can’t breathe. . . .
“Mary! Let’s go!” Someone had a hold on her arm and was pulling her forward. Her feet were moving, but she didn’t know how.
“Don’t know what jes’ happened,” Dottie was whispering fiercely in her ear, “but them guards are watchin’ an’ ya need to get on back to work.”
They passed a large trash receptacle near the door, and Mary veered toward it, leaned over, and lost her breakfast. Shaking, she straightened, and with Dottie’s arm around her for support, Mary moved slowly from the food hall. I knew I couldn’t trust you, God. . . .
Chapter Thirty-four
Rock River, Wisconsin
THE TWO ORDERLIES STANDING TOGETHER at the end of the hall didn’t look twice at Felix as he gathered some items from the maintenance closet. Felix may as well have been invisible—but he was used to it. Used to the fact that people only saw him when it suited their purposes. Got a family thing going on Sunday, Felix. Take my shift for me? The wife and I are headed to the lake for the day, Felix—trade me shifts? You send the rest of your hair out for cleaning, Stanhope? Does Ichabod Crane know he has a twin? Maybe you could be the janitor in Sleepy Hollow. . . .
Otherwise Felix was persona non grata. He worked hard at his job, saved the little money he made, and thought about a day when he wouldn’t be surrounded by the saddest of humanity. He pulled clean sheets and pillowcases from the closet, easily overhearing the orderlies’ conversation.
“You put your money in the pool yet?”
“You betcha. Ten bucks on one-eighty-three.”
“One-eighty-three . . . you’re nuts! One-eighty-three’s been here two years,” the first orderly argued.
“Wife just died.” Felix heard the confidence in the voice of the man who’d just bet ten bucks.
“Well, the winning number is already on his way to ride the white lightning, and it ain’t one-eighty-three.” This from Number Two.
“How do you know?”
“ ’Cause I walked by them on the way here, heading the kid toward the C wing. Doggone it! What’s that kid’s number?”
“Not the one I picked.”
“Did he have a lollipop in his hand?”
“Not this time.”
“Who’s the fool now? No sucker, no lightning—”
“Yeah? Well, we’ll see who’s the sucker, sucker.”
Felix quietly closed the door as the men walked away without a glance in his direction.
Carrying an armload of fresh linens, Felix hurried into the zoo and immediately looked toward Jack’s cot. The boy was not there. He crossed the room, all the while his head swiveling. The white lightning. But no sucker, no lightning . . . The boy wasn’t his problem—so what if it was the first time since his arrival Jack wasn’t sitting at the window. Maybe they’d taken him for an exam. Felix started to strip the boy’s cot. Or maybe someone finally came to claim him. Someone who cares about him . . . someone who’ ll take good care of him. But a wave of unease swept over him.
“You put your money in the pool yet?”
“It ain’t one-eighty-three.”
“Where’s Jack, Louise?” Felix asked as calmly as he could manage. He was looking at just her feet sticking out from under the table.
“Jack’s gone, gone, gone,” Louise chanted.
“Who took Jack, Louise?” Felix asked, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Did he have a lollipop in his hand?”
“Not this time.”
Felix looked back at the cot. He didn’t see a telltale lollipop. There was always the bribe—always the lolly. He bent down low enough to look under the table at the twins. Laura stuck her tongue out at him, and it was bright red. He cut his eyes to Louise and saw it—Dr. Tanner’s calling card. Louise was sucking on the big red lollipop.
The C wing of the poorhouse was off-limits to visitors. The paint on the walls was blistered like peeling sunburn, and the ceiling was stained with rusty yellow watermarks that spread in circles from the corners. This was the wing where the medical side of things occurred— for the staffs’ eyes and ears only. A place where treatments varied and stories stayed behind when those who worked in unmentionable jobs went home and tried to forget what they did to earn enough to feed their family.
Jack lay on a thin white mattress covering a stainless steel table in the middle of room 7C. The little boy offered no resistance at all. His expression was blank—eyes unfocused and heavy lidded thanks to the medication.
“Make sure the restraint is tight,” Nurse Bess instructed. The orderlies fastened a leather strap over Jack’s midsection while Nurse Bess herself applied petroleum jelly to both sides of the boy’s temples. Dr. Tanner entered from an anteroom and moved to the table to put a hand on Jack’s limp arm.
“I want to help you, Jack,” he said soothingly. “I want to help you into the light of this life. I want to release you from the prison of your own mind. I’m doing this for you.”
He nodded to Nurse Bess, who proceeded to put a metal headband with cotton pads on the ends across Jack’s head. One of the orderlies pushed a rubber block between his teeth.
“Document this as Electroshock Case Number Twelve, patient four-twenty-four,” Dr. Tanner said. Nurse Bess dutifully recorded every word. Then he looked at her. “All right. Step into the other room.”
Without another look at Jack, Nurse Bess disappeared into the anteroom. The orderlies, familiar with procedure, stood on both sides of patient four-twenty-four. Several wires led from the metal headband to a gray metal junction box on a small table nearby. Dr. Tanner stepped over to the junction box and grasped its red handle.
“I’ll count to three—then flip the switch. Hold him as still as you can for a count of fifteen.” The men on either side of Jack each braced themselves, hands on his shoulders and legs.
“One, two, three . . .”
The static sound of electricity surged through the room and through Jack’s small body. He strained against the restraints, bit down hard on the rubber block between his teeth as the doctor counted. “Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve . . .”
Suddenly the ECT machine silenced and the room went black. Dr. Tanner cursed in the instant quiet. “Find out what happened! Immediately!”
“It’s a power outage,” one of the orderlies offered.
“I know what it is, thank you. Find the source and fix it!”
“What about the boy?”
“Leave him. Hurry up.”
“Doctor?” Bess’s voice came out of the darkness. “Is there anything I can do?”
“It’s best to stay put,” he said. The orderlies felt their way around in the dark, bumping into Bess as they went out.
It was less than two minutes later when the lights came on in room 7C. Dr. Tanner stood just as he’d been, holding on to the handle of the metal junction box. Nurse Bess stood in the doorway of the anteroom, and the orderlies stared from behind her. The only difference from two minutes before was the location of patient number four-twenty-four. He was gone.
In his panic he had taken a wrong turn—he was sure of it. Or was he? Had he passed the graffiti on the wall? Made the turn that would lead him out of the web and into the sunshine? He rushed through the eerie half-light of the tunnel and nearly passed out when he heard thundering footsteps racing up behind him. Someone close was breathing hard, so close he was afraid to turn. The running dialogue in his head was relentless—turn and look! Check and see! The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. . . .
He whipped his head around, but the gloom behind him was empty except for the speck of light hanging from the low ceiling. The sound of the thundering, the erratic breathing, still filled his ears. Then he realized with a start that the thundering was his own heart, the breathing his own attempts to calm himself. He kept movin
g through the shadowed passageway and finally saw the graffiti on the wall that told him he was on the right path—“Despair breeds here.” Ain’t that the truth?
A sudden scream punched through the air, and he stepped up his pace—but the laundry cart was impeding his progress. The wheels weren’t cooperating, spinning off in different directions that made a straight path nearly impossible. Another scream. Someone’s moving patients . . . must be raining outside, and me without an umbrella. He laughed aloud at his own warped worry. I’m running away from my job—probably will become a fugitive for my actions, and I’m worried about an umbrella?!
The tunnel’s ceiling was sloping lower, and he ducked to miss one of the single bulbs. The labyrinth grew narrower and darker as he struggled to get the laundry cart to turn left. Almost there, almost, almost . . . He reached the end of the tunnel and pushed against the heavy door—and felt stinging raindrops on his cheeks.
He yanked wadded sheets from the top of the laundry cart and then lifted his bundle and placed it carefully on the ground. What have I done? What am I going to do? I’m as crazy as some of the patients in the wards I clean. They’ ll miss him, but it’ ll be a while until someone misses me. Maybe being invisible is a good thing. . . .
Felix Stanhope looked at Jack, pale and still on the ground, and laid his head on the little boy’s chest. He felt instant relief when he heard the steady heartbeat.
“It’s just the two of us now, Jack. Just the two of us—but I promise, no one is going to hurt you again.”
As the rain let up and the sun slipped out of the clouds, Felix lifted the boy into his arms and walked away. He would never set foot inside that door again.
Chapter Thirty-five
SUMMERTIME 1939
MARY DIDN’T MIND THE DARK. Didn’t mind that she hadn’t spoken to another person in a week—or that the tasteless food was passed through a small opening in the windowless door, and the well water to drink smelled of iron. She didn’t mind that she had spent seven days in solitary confinement as punishment for the scene she caused the last time she’d seen Agnes in the food hall. A snide comment from Agnes had been the match that finally lit the dry timber of her rage into an inferno of frustration and anger and betrayal. She’d thrown her food tray, chair, utensils—anything she could get her hands on. When Bonnie grabbed her arm to stop her, Mary had sealed her fate by lashing out at the guard. But truly she didn’t mind having the time alone in the dark—she didn’t have to see Agnes.
What Mary did mind were the constant nightmare scenarios running through her thoughts. She imagined Jack in every possible place, feeling every possible emotion. She felt guilty for being in a room with a roof and a floor and food—not knowing if Jack at least had that much. Her mind went places she begged it not to go. Jack sick, Jack lost, or Jack . . . she could hardly bear to think the word, dead. To preserve her sanity, she forced herself to remember the good things. Jack’s smile, the joy in his eyes at seeing her. And then their reunion, the celebration at being together again. I’ll never let anyone else into our lives ever again. I’ ll never trust another deceiver like Jerry—or Agnes . . . never ever. I only need Jack, and he only needs me, and the rest of the world can go to hell. . . .
A flood of light shot across the floor when the door to her cell opened. She had to close her eyes for a moment against the brightness.
“If you’re ready to play nice, Mary, you can come out now.” Mary squinted in Ruth’s direction and slowly unfolded herself from the hard cot.
The guard stepped out of the way as Mary stumbled toward the door.
“You’re going to the showers first,” Ruth said, wrinkling her nose. They headed down a dingy hall in the prison’s basement. “And then you’ll have a few minutes in your cell to change before you get back to work.”
Mary’s muscles were stiff, and she walked slowly behind Ruth, pushing her hair out of her face and trying to focus on what Ruth was saying.
“You know all those letters you been sending out into the world? Well, one of ’em mighta hooked a response while you was thinking over your sins,” Ruth said over her shoulder.
It took her a moment, but Mary finally raised her eyes to look up at the guard. She had to clear her throat before she could croak out a word. “I . . . got some mail?”
“Yeah.”
Mary picked up her pace, suddenly anxious. “Could I get it now? Before my shower?”
Ruth sighed. “You still don’t get it, do you? This ain’t about what you want. It’s about what you have to do. You’re taking a shower now ’cause you sure need one. Then I’ll give you a few minutes with your letter. And, Mary—don’t even think about going near Agnes Meriwether, or you’ll find yourself coming out of solitary confinement looking older than that old lady. But, listen to me, she ain’t your problem anymore. Stay outta trouble and you just might cut a couple a’ months off your time. You get me?”
Mary stopped midstep.
Ruth turned. “What now?”
“Are you saying I could shorten my sentence—?”
“Yeah, lots a’ times good behavior is rewarded by shaving time off the end. Now, let’s go rinse the week off of you.”
Mary’s gloves were damp from the shower, and she knotted her hands into fists at her sides while she waited impatiently outside her cell for Ruth to open the door. Her wet hair hung loosely down her back, and she felt a chill race down her spine—whether from cold or nerves, she couldn’t tell. The key clanked and the door slid open. Mary hurried toward the single white envelope lying in the middle of the floor. The door slammed shut behind her.
“I’ll be back in ten. Lunch is nearly over, and you need to get back to the laundry,” Ruth said through the bars.
Mary had already forgotten Ruth’s presence as she picked up the envelope and sat down on the cot. She started to rip it open, thinking of all the letters she’d written since learning Agnes didn’t have Jack, all the pleas to the police and the state’s attorney and even the judge who had sentenced her. She’d even written to Jerry, begging for any information about Jack, any shred of knowledge about where he might be and who he might be with. And then praying over and over that he was alive, and hoping someone, somewhere, might have the decency to tell her.
All those letters and not a single answer from anyone—until now. Her hands shook as she looked at the return address, then realized the dampness from her gloves had made some of the ink run in the corner. She quickly pulled off both gloves and dropped them on the cot beside her. Looking again at the return address, she saw it was from the tenth precinct police station in Chicago.
If I don’t look, I still have hope. . . . If I don’t look, I can still pretend he’s okay. . . . Look inside! It might be good. It might have the news that Jack is fine and in foster care with some nice family with lots of children and . . .
She tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter. “Dear Mrs. Sinclair, Regarding the whereabouts of your son, Jack Godwin Sinclair . . .” She sucked in a sharp breath and her mouth was instantly dry. “We have contacted your husband, who still maintains the position that the boy is not with him. . . .” Her heartbeat was loud in her own ears. “We have contacted hospitals and morgues in a fifty-mile radius, and no one matching Jack’s unique description has been found. We are, unfortunately, at a loss at this time as to where he is or who he might be with. Without a single lead to go on, the investigation has been suspended at this time. . . .”
The letter slipped from her trembling hands just as a bell rang. They are giving up. They aren’t even looking for him anymore. How could an eight—he’s nine now—nine-year-old boy survive on his own for this long, and no one see him?
“Mary.”
She closed her eyes and felt the despair seep into every part of her body. She was responsible for this tragic situation. She had failed her son on every level, and now she wouldn’t have another chance to make it up to him.
“Mary . . .” Ruth’s voice cut through her thoughts.
“I’ve got a situation in the garment room that I need to see to. Can I trust that you’ll go to the laundry right now?”
Mary lifted her head slowly and looked at her—then nodded.
Ruth nodded back. “Then come. Right now.” Ruth unlocked the cell door as Mary slowly rose from the cot. The woman hesitated just a second before saying, “I’m sorry ’bout the letter.”
Mary woodenly stepped over the envelope and sheet of paper on the floor and moved out into the hall.
Chapter Thirty-six
Lincoln, Nebraska
IT WAS WANDERLUST. The moving trains beckoned hoboes from all walks of life with a train whistle, an “all aboard,” and a promise of faraway places and conversations that lasted long into the night with strangers who became fast friends. They compared adventures around campfires, spoke of escaping dangers with bravado tempered with respect for their fellow travelers. Racing through dark nights under a smattering of stars and a full moon, the boxcars clattered noisily while the air rushing into the open doors told tales of the places they’d passed—orange blossoms and pine trees, stockyards and factories. The rocking of the train soothed them into deep sleep, and the brakes from the engineers jolted them to jump off into new places where odd jobs and kind people would be discovered. There was infinite freedom, unfettered from the usual anchors of life. No permanent job, no time clock or gas bill or boss to tell you what to do and how to do it. Unique talents on the road provided a coin or two here and there—an onion or a carrot or a potato for shining some shoes, fixing a cupboard, picking cotton, or harvesting grapes.
Self-made identities could be reinvented with every new group of travelers joined at a campfire. It was one of the many things Felix loved about the new life he’d embarked on with Jack right after they’d made their break from the Rock River Poorhouse.
“I go by Fleet Foot Felix,” he’d say when he met a new set of fellow travelers. “And this here’s Lucky Jack.”
The first time they’d chased a freighter had been both exhilarating and terrifying. Catching on to a car on a steep incline as the train slowed, Felix had all but thrown Jack into the clattering space, then had pulled himself up the iron ladder into a world of shaking boxcars smelling of pine tar and creosote.
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