Secrets of the Asylum

by Linda Hughes

  “Oh, my lord! Look at all those beautiful paintings!” Jed was agog.

  “I knew she painted but had no idea it was like this!” Meg marveled as she touched one after another of the canvasses.

  Jed craned his neck to look in every direction. “The place is run-down but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with some elbow grease and paint.”

  Meg stayed glued to the artwork of her mother. “Look at this one! It’s fabulous!” She pointed to a partially finished portrayal of a lady in a yellow dress lounging on a hammock in the gazebo with the bay behind her.

  Jed came over and looked over Meg’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. “It’s exquisite,” he agreed.

  Rain suddenly beat a steady rum-a-tum-tum on the roof, solidifying their solitude in this shelter.

  Meg turned within his arms, melting into his embrace as they kissed once more, this time deep and lingering. When their lips parted, they looked into each other’s eyes, startled at the intensity of their desire for one another. They kissed again, their mouths unable to remain apart. Jed’s hands roamed down Meg’s back to knead her derriere and she found herself matching his caresses with her own, feeling the breadth of his shoulders then running her hands down the muscles of his back to land on his slim waist. Her breasts afire, she was shocked to find them rubbing against his chest, as if of their own will.

  As deftly as if she were a feather, Jed picked Meg up and laid her on the faded chaise lounge, stretching himself out beside her. Their hands groped and fondled while their lips parted only long enough for them to breathe.

  The rhythm of the rain served as a metronome as their bodies undulated to the beat on the rooftop.

  “Jed… Oh, Jed….” Meg moaned repeatedly with no pretense of being capable of finishing a sentence.

  A bolt of lightning pierced the sky beyond the murky windows, for a split second illuminating their glistening faces, highlighting their ravenous intent.

  When his hand went to the buttons at the top of her blouse and fumbled in their urgency, a woman unknown to Meg helped him unbutton her blouse. The foreign hand attached to her arm guided his hand inside her silk chemise to her bare breast.

  A clap of thunder drowned out her scream of delight.

  Meg’s stray hand slid down Jed’s torso until she grasped the waistband of his trousers. Now it was Jed’s turn to moan like a tormented creature. Meg tugged on the band and it was then she thought he just might die.

  With one arm around her back, his other hand left her breast and grappling with the hem of her skirt to gather it up.

  That alien woman who had possessed her body aside, Meg somehow managed to recall her vow to herself to stay chaste until marriage.

  “Jed,” she whispered. “Jed, dear….”

  Eyes glazed, he looked at her. “What?”

  “I’ve… well, I’ve promised myself I would stay a virgin until my wedding night.”

  He lifted his head and looked at her quite stupidly. His hands stopped moving. “You mean you’ve never...? Not even with your fiancé?”

  “No. Never.” She didn’t add that with Robert she’d never felt a wanton need like this.

  Jed sat up, smoothed down her skirt, and said, “Oh. Well, then, I need you to take your hand away.” He looked down to where she still held onto his waistband.

  “Oh! Yes, of course.” She let go and lifted her hand to let it dangle in the air, not knowing what else to do with it. He took it in his hand and kissed it, then took her arm and helped her sit up beside him, and they swung their legs to the floor. She looked at him sideways while buttoning her blouse, wondering if he’d be mad at her. Robert always got mad when he tried to do anything, not that they’d ever done anything like this, and she stopped him.

  “Meg, I’m so sorry,” Jed said gently, placing a hand on her knee. “I can’t seem to keep my hands off you. I think you like me, too.” He grinned.

  Teasingly, she looked up at him. “What gave me away?”

  He lifted his eyebrows and pointed to where she’d held his trousers in a vice grip.

  “Oh, yes, I guess that was a dead give-away.”

  “There’s only one thing for us to do to remedy this situation.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We need to get married. Meg Sullivan, will you marry me?”

  Meg had read of women swooning in romantic novels and always thought that was mere fiction. Yet she swooned.

  “Yes, Jed,” the foreign woman inside of her said. “I’ll marry you.”

  Slowly, Jed O’Neill wrapped his arms around his intended and held her tight. “I love you, Meg.”

  As if speaking an unknown tongue, Meg found herself saying, “I love you, too.”

  She’d never said that to Robert.

  To veer away from her desire, Meg asked the question that probably pressed on every young woman’s mind upon first making love with a man. “Jed… Um, well…”

  “What is it, Meg? Oh, you want to know if I’ve made love to lots of other women.”

  “Well, I was wondering…”

  His snicker came as a relief. He pulled her close, kissing her forehead. “To tell the truth, I was wet behind the ears all through high school. Not that I didn’t want to be with girls; they didn’t want to be with me. I was skinny as a rail. Wasn’t an athlete except for loving to swim in the Detroit River in summer and ice skate in winter. And I loved swimming and riding horses when we came up here in summer. But in school I wasn’t a football player or anything like that. Nothing that would attract girls. Started wearing spectacles for reading when I was twelve. Not a muscle on my body until I was eighteen. I didn’t start looking like a man until college.

  “I finally got a girlfriend in college and we dated until graduation, but when it became obvious she expected a marriage proposal, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t picture a whole life with her. She was furious and dropped me like a hot potato. So, I know what that feels like. After that I was in the war in France.”

  “Did you have any… girlfriends… in France?”

  Sheepishly, he looked at her sideways. “Well, I was in France.”

  She squinted at him. “I might want to hear about that someday, but not yet.”

  “Good. Let’s change the subject and look through the cottage, like we said we’d do.”

  They got up from the chaise lounge and went back to surveying the place. She commented on a pretty cemetery scene by the fireplace. Jed joined her to look at it but that just led to more kissing so they went to opposite sides of the room. Meg had anticipated that exploring her mother’s cottage would be a momentous event in her life yet it couldn’t compete with her need to be with this man. Lust and love, she realized, outbid her desire to learn more about her mother.

  But the paintings were wondrous, and she and Jed agreed they needed to be sold, with the money donated to charity. Meg felt certain her father would agree to that.

  They also decided not to share their marriage plans just yet, believing that everyone they knew would think they had lost their minds seeing that they’d only known each other for a week. For another few weeks, they would let it be their secret and then they would shout it from the rooftops.

  In their love-lust delirium, neither of them noticed the smudged dust spots around the lanterns, the faded and fresh portions of the chaise lounge, or the trapdoor under the rug. If they’d been able to think clearly, they might have known someone else had recently been there.

  By the time the rain stopped and they went back to the house to visit with her father, they were able to do their best to act like normal human beings. There was tea for her and illegal Walker’s Old Highland whiskey for the men. Meg watched them drink their liquor and became thunderstruck with the notion that she wanted to marry this Jed O’Neill.

  When Jed drove the Tin Lizzie away from the house at dusk after telling her he had to leave early in the morning to take the train to Detroit to get a deposition for a case and wouldn’t be
back until Tuesday, she realized she hadn’t given another thought to whether or not she should tell him she was going to secretly see her mother tomorrow night, Monday.

  It hadn’t even crossed her mind.

  21

  “Hello, Hannah. Come in.” Abby opened the door so that her monthly guest could enter her cabin.

  “Hello, Abby. Happy Monday morning. How are you today?” the head housekeeper of the Sullivan house, and mistress of Mr. Sullivan himself, asked.

  “Oh, I’m fine! I see that Sam drove you, seeing that it’s a bit chilly and cloudy today.” Abby poked her head out and waved at the driver waiting in the Sullivan limousine. He waved back.

  “I’ll be right out!” Abby hollered and turned back into her cabin. Hannah had gone to the fire to warm her hands.

  “Yes,” Hannah replied, “once he takes Herbert to work in town for the day, Sam is always so willing to take me wherever I want to go. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  “He’s a gem, for sure.” Abby poured a cup of coffee from a steaming pot sitting on the hearth and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  She left the cabin and took the cup to Sam, handing it to him through the open window.

  He threw out the cigarette he’d been smoking and readily took the cup, saying, “How is it an Indian makes the best coffee in the country?” He winked at her and blew on the steamy brew.

  Abby guffawed. “Oh, you old charmer, you. Listen, my friend, why don’t you come in for a reading some day? I’d love to know what the spirits have to say about an old scallywag like you. Aren’t you curious?”

  The wiry, weathered guy laughed. “Abby, you know me better than that. I just want to handle today. Tell me where to drive today. That’s all I need. The future is too much for me. If I make it through today, each day, tomorrow will always take care of itself. See what I mean?” He took a long draw from the cup.

  Abby pondered his words for a moment. “Sam, that just might be the most profound philosophy of life I’ve ever heard. I think you’ve got something there.” She smiled at him and turned to go back into her cabin.

  Inside, Hannah had already poured them each a cup of coffee and sat down at the table, so Abby sat across from her.

  “Here we go,” Hannah said as she pulled a small box out of her handbag and set it on the table. The shared box of Hershey’s Kisses was a tradition between the two women. The box may be unopened now but by the end of the hour, every little piece of bite-sized, conical-shaped chocolate would be gone and the box would be full of nothing but wadded up aluminum wrappings. For all the time it took a Hershey’s factory worker to hand-wrap each piece of chocolate, it only took one second to rip off the tin foil to get to the treat.

  Abby waited for her guest to imbibe first and Hannah obliged right away. As Hannah chewed, Abby said, “How are things going up at the big house now that Miss Meg is home?” She opened her own kiss and popped it into her mouth.

  Hannah swallowed and took a sip of coffee before answering. “Oh, Abby, she’s such a lovely young woman.” She pulled her shawl off her shoulders and folded it on her lap. The ruffled pink blouse she wore favored her rosy complexion. “I’d give anything to be like a real mother to her, but we want to give her time to adjust to our… situation.”

  “Wouldn’t you think she’s already guessed? Or been told? You do have Peggy living in that house.”

  They each ate another chocolate kiss and sipped at their coffee.

  Hannah smiled and for the hundredth time, Abby thought about how this middle-aged woman might not be traditionally pretty, with a face a bit too long and hair a dull brown except for the few touches of gray, but somehow her demeanor, expressions, voice, and eyes rendered her comely and appealing. Also, her heart. Abby could see why Mr. Sullivan fell in love with her.

  “I suppose,” Hannah said. “Sometimes Herbert and I worry that we’re treating her too much like a child. She is a grown woman now. But, on the other hand, she’ll always be his little girl. He adores her. I think he wanted to go to Chicago and wring that Robert’s neck for breaking her heart. But she seems to have recovered well, so it’s all probably for the best. She wouldn’t get over Robert so easily if she’d been madly in love. She even has a new friend, the judge’s nephew. He seems like a very nice young man.”

  “Ah, yes, the new lawyer in town, setting up practice in his uncle’s old firm. And his sister’s husband already works there. I think they’ll be very successful.”

  “Do the spirits say that?”

  Abby smirked. “No, it just seems that way to me.

  “Okay, let’s look at what the spirits have to say today. What would you like me to ask them?” Abby ate another chocolate, foregoing the crystal ball with Hannah, who’d been coming here long enough to know better than to believe in a mystical glass orb.

  Hannah ate another piece of chocolate and looked at the ceiling in contemplation. When her gaze came back down to Abby she said, “I’ve been dreaming lately about Harry. Even though that happened before my time, I feel as if I know him and should be able to find him.”

  Startled, Abby didn’t know how to respond. Lately, thoughts about little Harry had been invading her mind, too, fifteen years after his disappearance.

  Hannah asked, “What do the spirits think that means?”

  Abby’s spirit guides had always remained silent on the topic of Harry, her questions as to his whereabouts always lamentably unanswered. But for Hannah’s sake, she wanted to try one more time.

  She closed her eyes, folded her hands in prayer on the table, and said, “Dear ancestors, we thank you for your presence and guidance on this day. My friend Hannah and I are grateful for any answers you may be able to provide. Please hear our plea about Harry Sullivan. It’s a heartbreaking mystery to us as to how he disappeared. Now we want to know why he has been on Hannah’s mind. Is there something we need to know? If we search again will we find him? Does he need us? We will honor your guidance in this matter.”

  The fortune teller sat still, lost in her netherworld. Her mind roamed, searching, searching, and landed nowhere. After a few of minutes of silence from her ancestors, she opened her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Hannah. The ancestors have never had anything to say about Harry and they won’t reverse their silence today. They have nothing to say. I’m sorry.”

  Hannah ate a kiss and nodded her head. “That’s okay, Abby. It can’t work all the time. Besides, I can’t help but wonder if their silence isn’t a message in and of itself.”

  “I’ve wondered that myself.” Defeated, Abby ate another kiss and drank her coffee.

  “Well, then, I have one more question: Do the spirit guides think that this friendship between Meg and Jed O’Neill could develop into something serious?”

  “Oh, yes, definitely!”

  “The spirits think so?”

  “No, just this woman’s intuition.”

  Hannah said, “That works for me. I’d love to see that work out. Of course, if he’s as good a guy as he seems to be.

  “That makes me think of one more question. I know, I thought I was done. But talking about Meg and Jed makes me long to know something I’ve always been afraid to ask: Will Herbert and I ever be able to marry?”

  “Yes!” The answer came through so loudly it relieved Abby to know her guides had not abandoned her altogether. “In fact, I see a tombstone that says Hannah Sullivan, 1877-1971. Is that the year you were born?”

  “Yes!”

  “It’s saying you’ll die when you are… What is that? Ninety-four. And you die as a Sullivan. Hannah, you are going to be one wrinkled up old lady,” Abby teased.

  Hannah beamed. “To hell with the wrinkles, I’m just so happy I can be Herbert’s wife. I only hope it happens before all those wrinkles start setting in.”

  “I hope so, too.”

  They chatted amicably for a while, eating the last of the Hershey’s kisses and finishing their coffee. When she left, Hannah put two silver dolla
rs on the table, even though Abby had often asked her not to pay, because everyone in the Sullivan house was so kind to her. But Hannah always insisted this was different and if she ever came to be head housekeeper in Abby’s cabin she’d charge for her work, too.

  Abby walked out to the car with her and commented on the gloomy sky. Sam hopped out to go around and open the front passenger door for Hannah, as she refused to sit in the back all by herself. Giving the empty coffee cup back to Abby, he bid her farewell and they drove off.

  Abby watched them bounce down her dirt road, wondering why the ancestors refused to reveal anything about Harry when they were so willing to share so much else with her. It was a mystery for which she had no answer and they certainly were not willing to give her one.

  22

  Elizabeth scrutinized the canvas before her. Traverse Colantha Walker stared back at her with brooding eyes.

  “Am I beautiful or what?” the woman imagined the cow mooed at her.

  “You are gorgeous!” Elizabeth cooed.

  Satisfied with her work, she cleaned her brushes, took off her apron, and went into the next room to check the clock. Two hours until Meg would be here.

  Her daughter. She found it hard to think of it that way, it had been so long since she’d seen her. Meg had been six years old the last time she’d laid eyes on the child. Elizabeth had been a mere twenty-three. Now she was thirty-eight. Where had the time gone? It flew by. Especially being holed up here in an asylum.

  Sometimes she fancied demanding her release. But then she’d try to picture where she’d go or what she would do. No images ever came to mind.

  Elizabeth admitted to herself she felt excited about the possibilities of the visit with Meg. It would undoubtedly bring some excitement into her life. Her daughter had lived near or in Chicago for almost ten years. She’d been engaged to one of the most prominent young men in the city. Certainly Meg would display some of the pizazz that kind of relationship would require, even if it hadn’t worked out in the long run. Hopefully she’d be a flapper with a lot of flare and they could talk about fashion.