by A. C. Wise
“She can see how brave and strong you are, and it frightens her. It’s like the Little White Bird in our stories. When he plays mean tricks on people, it’s because deep down inside he feels small. Do you understand?”
Jane hadn’t understood then, but now she thinks she might know what her mother was trying to say. Later that same night, she’d asked her mother if there was such a thing as monsters for real.
“I’m afraid so.” Her mother had said it without hesitation and Jane had startled at the answer; it hadn’t been the one she’d been expecting at all. She’d tried to twist around in her mother’s lap in the big rocking chair beside the window, but she couldn’t quite get to a place where she could see her mother’s face properly to see if she was teasing. Her mother had stroked her hair again, rocking them gently, and Jane had felt warm and safe, the way she’d wanted to before.
“What happens if I meet a real monster?” Jane asked.
“Well.” Her mother kissed the top of Jane’s head. “You have to stand up, even when you’re scared, because if you let the monsters frighten you and take away the things you love, then they win.”
Jane had felt her mother turn her head, looking out the window at the starry sky as she continued talking.
“And the problem with monsters winning, Jane, is once they do, they want to win all the time. They want to win more and more, because they’re greedy, and we can’t have that, can we?”
“No, Mama.”
Then her mother had tickled her, and Jane had forgotten all about monsters, laughing and begging her mother for a story before she went to bed.
Thinking back on it now, Jane wonders if her mother was talking about the girl who knocked Jane down, or the kind of monster that hides under beds, or maybe even the kind of monster her Uncle Michael and her father fought in the war. Maybe her mother had been talking about all three of them. Or something else entirely.
What she does know is that her mother was right—she has to stand up even though she’s scared. Because otherwise the monsters win.
“Come on.” Jane takes Timothy’s hand, glancing down at him. The trust in his eyes frightens her even more than what lies at the end of the path, but he’s counting on her. She cannot let him down. “Let’s show the monsters we aren’t afraid.”
LONDON 1921
Wendy takes a deep breath, smoothing her hands over the front of her dress, then clenching them together across her midsection, the fingers of each hand gripping the wrist of the other. All she has to do is put one foot in front of the other and walk. She made the same journey in reverse almost a year ago. Step. Breathe. Step. She walked out of St. Bernadette’s, surely she can walk back in. It can’t be that hard. This time she is a guest, a visitor. No one can hold her or keep her here.
And yet her body itches, prickling with sweat all over. Sweat that doesn’t quite emerge but remains secret, like a bruise, tucked onto the wrong side of her skin. The brick facade of St. Bernadette’s leans out toward her, and it seems only the blink of an eye since she was here last. She never left, and now the door is a mouth, tongue lolling out to swallow her whole.
She shakes her head, dislodging the thoughts, and takes a determined step forward. White stone crunches under her boot heels. She’s heard Jamieson doesn’t even work here anymore. Some illness, leaving the left side of his body weak, perhaps the same hidden illness that kept him out of the war. She wants to feel spitefully, vindictively glad, but she can’t summon either hate or pity, only apathy. Jamieson is nothing to do with her now; this isn’t her life anymore.
The sun beats down, turning the scar of the path blindingly white. Leaf-stripped branches stir overhead in a gust of wind, and puffs of condensation frost from her lips as Wendy walks toward the door. She doesn’t belong in this place; there’s nothing to be afraid of here anymore.
Her footsteps sound extremely loud as she crosses the threshold. The sudden transition from bright sunlight to the relative darkness inside throws her for a moment. She’s disoriented, and reaches a hand to steady herself.
“Miss?” A voice at her elbow, and Wendy jumps.
A nurse. A young one. No one Wendy recognizes.
“It’s Mrs.” The words come from her in automatic response. She’s said them so many times to herself, trying to convince herself or convince the world, and they still don’t feel like they belong to her.
“I’m here to see Mary—” Wendy’s voice breaks, and she hates that it does, wishing it were stronger. “Mary White Dog.”
She takes pleasure in saying Mary’s full name, her true name, not the one given to her here. The nurse frowns before turning away, leaving Wendy alone in the entryway, and Wendy smiles to herself. She makes herself look up, at the railing running along the second floor where the private rooms are. She and Mary snuck up there so many times. She could almost close her eyes, trace her steps through this place and not get lost. She keeps her eyes open, forces her hands down at her side.
“If you’ll follow me, please.” The nurse returns and gestures, and Wendy obeys.
Her gait feels oddly stiff, as though all at once she’s forgotten what walking means. Even though she knows he isn’t here, she just can’t stop herself expecting Jamieson to loom out of one of the doorways and catch her in a meaty hand. Ned had offered to come with her, for support, but she insisted on coming alone.
“If I don’t face this now,” she’d told him, “I never will. It’s important.”
He’d looked concerned, but let her go, hiring a car to take her. Wendy had almost told the driver to turn around several times, and again at the gates she’d almost panicked and fled. Now, as she follows the nurse, Wendy’s fear shifts to something else. There’s a sense of dislocation, as if she’s floating. She isn’t afraid; she feels almost giddy, and that seems wrong.
She glances at the faces of the patients they pass. Most keep their heads lowered, not even looking up as she goes by. She remembers doing the same, ignoring the outside world as a matter of survival. If they did look up, would any of them recognize her? And would it make their lives better or worse? Would her being here give them hope they might leave one day, too, or would they simply resent her for having freedom they do not?
Lucky, she tries to remind herself how lucky she is, how little separates her from the patients around her. After everything, John didn’t give up on her. How many of these patients have brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, still hoping for their cure?
The nurse opens the door to one of the small sitting rooms, and Wendy’s heart takes a moment to forget how to beat. The room is empty save for Mary sitting in one of two chairs by the window, silhouetted against the bright winter sky. How should Wendy act? What will she say? All the ease between them has fled from her mind, as though they’re meeting again for the first time. Will Mary resent her? What will they talk about, now that they no longer know every single detail of each other’s lives day to day?
At that moment, Mary looks up from the embroidery hoop in her lap, and her face splits into a smile—sun breaking through the clouds—showing the gap between her teeth, and Wendy’s fear drops away. She forgets the nurse standing in the doorway, forgets everything and runs to Mary. They collide halfway across the room, crushing each other in a hug, breathless and laughing, both trying to talk at once.
“I’m so glad you—”
“I didn’t know if—”
They stop, staring at each other in wonder, and laugh again. When Wendy looks around, the nurse is gone, and they’re alone. She squeezes Mary’s hands, the calluses and warm skin familiar under her fingertips, and leads Mary back to the chairs. They sit, knees almost touching, and Wendy keeps hold of Mary’s hands. Now that she is here, she never wants to let go again.
“Tell me everything. How are they treating you? Are you all right?” The words rush out; she can’t stop staring at Mary, scarcely able to believe she’s real.
“Nothing ever changes.” Wendy’s heart drops, but Mary’s lips shape a m
ischievous expression, and there’s a glint in her eye. Wendy’s heart turns again, a complicated feeling. She thinks of Mary sneaking through the corridors, pulling off little thefts, all the trouble she might be getting into while avoiding getting caught. She should be here by Mary’s side.
“But look at you, a married woman now.” Mary’s words break into Wendy’s thoughts, and something catches in her chest. She blinks rapidly, and Mary shifts their hands so now she is the one holding Wendy, the pressure of her thumbs steadying Wendy so she lets out a shaky breath.
Mary leans forward, their foreheads touch, and the world rights itself. Wendy lets her weight rest there for a moment. She closes her eyes, feeling the solidity of Mary. She opens her eyes, breathes out and sits back, only slightly dizzy now.
A married woman. The past few months have been a blur. Wendy is scarcely used to it herself. She feared it at first, then began to think it could be something she wants—a family, not like Michael and John, but one all of her own, chosen and not formed by blood. But even as she and Ned learn more of each other, she cannot shake the sense of something missing in her life, something she could not name. Until here, now.
This. Mary’s hands in hers. The thought frightens her, too big to fully contemplate. She wants, but she isn’t certain exactly what it is she wants, and so she pushes the feeling down as it tries to rise up in her like an all-consuming tide.
“Tell me how it is with you,” Mary says. “Are you all right? How does your husband treat you? Do you love him?”
“I scarcely know him.” Wendy pulls her hands back, folds them in her lap. The weight of all her doubt and uncertainty, lifted a moment before, returns. Words pile up behind her teeth, but Wendy can’t think of how to speak them. This is Mary, they’ve never had secrets before, but not all of the secrets she carries now are hers to share.
Husband and wife. Of one flesh. Is this what it means to be joined in marriage, truly? From now on, she must carry Ned’s burdens too, as well as her own. If Mary were truly part of their family, perhaps… No, she pushes the thoughts down again. It is too much, too soon.
She focuses instead on Mary’s question, thinking how to answer it. Ned. Wendy conjures up his face, his kind eyes, his blushing stammer. At times, it barely makes itself known in his speech. Other times, usually when his father is around or a visit is imminent, he can scarcely get out his words.
Wendy thinks of the day they met, how he could barely look at her. And she herself, newly walked out of this place, practically new to the world. Can it really be less than a year? It seems like a lifetime ago.
Wendy looks up and finds Mary watching her patiently. She aches, the urge to speak and remain silent warring in her. If she could simply communicate with a look and have Mary understand everything that she is, everything she and Ned are together, it would be so much simpler.
“I… I think I might come to love him in time, but it’s…” Wendy hesitates; the words refuse to come easily. She understands Ned, at least in part. It is her own piece of the puzzle Wendy now struggles to understand.
On their wedding night, instead of coming to her as a husband, Ned had silently handed Wendy a bundle of letters. The edges of some had been burned, the paper frail and flaking and smelling of ash.
“I barely managed to save them,” he’d told her. She’d looked at him, questioning, but he’d only said, “You should know, and understand who it is you’ve married.”
He’d moved toward the window, leaving her to sit on their marriage bed with the letters in her lap. She’d felt a moment of relief, uncertain how things would be between them once they were wed, uncertain she wanted him as a husband when she’d barely begun to know him as a friend. Her own emotions had been a complicated knot settled in her stomach, where Ned’s had been stark on his face—sorrow and pain, hope and the willingness to trust braided together into one.
She lifted the first letter, unfolding it with care. She’d read, and Ned had watched her, pacing occasionally, and occasionally still, restless fear shivering beneath his skin. The letters were written by Ned, from the trenches in Verdun, addressed to someone named Henry. As the letters named shared memories, Wendy came to understand Henry had been a school friend of Ned’s. And reading on, in wonder, she had learned how time had transformed Henry and Ned into something else, something far more than friends.
Periodically, Wendy had looked up to see Ned almost mouthing silently, as if reading along with her words etched on his heart.
“My father tried to burn them,” Ned said as she set the last letter down.
The reading had left Wendy feeling wrung out. It had already been late when they’d entered the bedroom and now, beyond the windows, dawn had already begun to blush the edges of the sky. She’d read the whole night through.
“Were they never sent?” Wendy’s heart had ached, thinking of Ned—a man she barely knew then—so lost in love. She could scarcely imagine how it must have been for him, love twisted into a source of shame, forced to bury his secret, never allowed to simply be.
“They were sent. Henry wrote letters in return.” Ned’s voice had broken then, not his accustomed stutter, but something more raw and wounded. He hadn’t looked at her but out at the rising sun. “Those letters, his letters, I burned myself. To keep them safe. Henry… passed away recently. Complications from pneumonia. His sister returned these letters to me. I don’t know if she ever read them, but my father found the package and…”
Ned shrugged, an inelegant and pained motion, bringing his shoulders up in bony defense against the world. But when he’d spoken Henry’s name, when he’d told Wendy the truth of him, Ned hadn’t stuttered at all.
In that moment, Wendy had understood his father’s desperation for Ned to marry, why Ned had agreed to marry a woman like her, sight unseen. She’d thanked him for his secret, and promised to keep it. In return, over the next several days, she’d given him St. Bernadette’s, and everything that had happened to her there. While she’d maintained the fiction of the Spanish flu with Ned’s father, she had given Ned as much of the truth as she could—Jamieson and Dr. Harrington, the tub of ice water and her shaved scalp. She’d given him everything except what had sent her there in the first place. She’d given him everything except Neverland, and Peter, saying only that there had been a time in her life when she couldn’t tell truth from made-up stories, but all of that was behind her now.
In the days following, they’d spoken, shyly at first, and then more boldly. Over breakfast, over tea, Ned had confessed to wanting a child of his own someday, and Wendy had felt a fluttering response between her belly and her chest. She’d never truly thought on the possibility before of being a mother for real, but in that moment, she’d felt a blooming of hope. Since their wedding day, they’d kept the promise made to each other on the day they met; they’d become friends. They are husband and wife as well, but not in a way the rest of the world might understand.
“Would you be happier with a wife of your own instead?” Mary’s voice is guileless, simple, un-judging curiosity in the tilt of her head and her watching eyes as Wendy’s head snaps up at the question.
The question is so close to her thoughts, and yet miles distant. Love, family, like the words husband and wife, they are so fraught. The ache, the sense of something missing Wendy felt in the months between her wedding and this moment here, tell Wendy what she wants, but it isn’t a want she can put into words.
Her hand makes an involuntary movement, knocking into the little table between their two chairs so it totters without quite falling, the sound overloud in the silence. There are women, Wendy knows, in St. Bernadette’s who are here for no other reason than loving each other as Henry and Ned loved. It sickens her that the world could be so cruel, and yet she knows many of those same women, in secret, found their freedom here, making wives of each other in their hearts, in their minds, in every way that matters, away from the world’s watchful eyes.
Wendy looks for hope in Mary’s expressi
on—holding equal parts hope and dread of her own—but finds no weight of expectation there. Relief floods her, and it feels like the same fluttering she felt when Ned spoke of wanting a child. She loves Mary, of this much she is certain. And she is growing to love Ned. But as for being a wife, to anyone, it is not something she can do in more than name only.
The realization falls into place with a dull thud. If Wendy speaks her heart aloud, will she lose Mary? Will she lose Ned? At the same time, she cannot imagine keeping silent. She can’t share Ned’s secret with Mary, but she can give her own.
“I don’t think…” Wendy hesitates again.
She has no words for what she wants to say. She knows there are many men like Ned, many women like those in St. Bernadette’s, called sick and sinful, mad and wrong. But out in the world, all she sees are men and women, happy husbands and wives, or at least husbands and wives giving the illusion of happiness. Families. Children. Like her own family—mother, father, herself, Michael, and John.
Only her mother and father are long gone now, and Michael is gone as much as he is here—his body returned from war but as a home for ghosts. She wants what they had before all that, a family, a house full of joy and laughter, people who care for each other. If Mary can accept the possibility that Wendy might want a wife, if Ned’s heart can belong to another but he can still feel a kind of love for her, then perhaps this is possible too.
Wendy closes her eyes. She is a child again, standing on the window sill, her hand in Peter’s hand. The sky stretches before her, and she is about to take a step, to fly or fall. Her heart is overfull, ready to burst. Every instinct in her screams at her to be silent, but if she doesn’t speak, she will never know anything even close to happiness again.
“I don’t think I’m made for that sort of love.” Wendy opens her eyes, swallows. Her throat aches. It’s hard, saying the words aloud. “Not the sort of love most people think of when they think of a marriage.”
The words tangle in her throat, and Wendy swallows again.