“I dream of her sometimes. She’s sitting at her easel painting a canvas completely black, just adding layer after layer of black paint.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” Hattie shrugged. “I found something in Gram Ruth’s barn. It’s a newspaper clipping of Mama getting sent to the Northern Michigan Asylum. The summer we believed she died, she was actually sent away.”
“And your family lied to you? To your siblings as well?” Damien shivered, wondering why Dr. Kaiser had not mentioned the secret.
“For most of my life, she was dead and now…”
“Do you know where she is?” he asked, knowing if she said yes, he would not tell Doctor Kaiser.
“No. In the asylum, I hope because then she’s still alive. I only found out yesterday.”
Damien wanted to rub her back, whisper soothing words into her ear. He wanted to watch her sit and paint the wildflowers.
As he looked at the delicate bones of Hattie’s shoulder’s an image of Jude rose into his mind. She had straddled him, her muscular arms glistening with sweat and her face tilted back in a moan of pleasure.
How had he lost control so completely? He’d been so focused on school and later his future career as a psychiatrist he’d rarely slowed down to indulge his emotions. Something about Jude had triggered him. That night as they drank and talked he found a desperate desire for her body building within him. He had acted upon it and now a similar desire arose for Hattie. But it was not Hattie’s body that drew him, though it was beautiful. He wanted all of her, to wrap her in his arms and carry her home, to wake up every morning to her sleepy face on the pillow beside him.
“I need the help more than my patients,” he muttered.
Hattie looked up from her hands, her eyes dry but her face splotched and red.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Listen, I have to get back to the university. I’m sorry to do it, but I have a patient coming in…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have a patient coming in, but he couldn’t trust himself in that grove for another moment.
Hattie dropped the rest of her cookie on the ground and stood, brushing off her pants.
Jude
Jude stopped cold, staring at her Grandmother who sat at the head of her long dining room table. The table gleamed in the flickering lights of the two polished gold candelabras. Gram had not seen her, but Jude watched the long dark shadows that played over her Grandmother’s pallid face turning her into a ghoul hunched over her dinner plate.
Jude held the diamond ring clutched in her hand so tight the stone bit it into her palm. If she did not want so desperately to keep the ring she would have flung it at her Grandmother’s face. Instead, she took a loud step forward, revealing she had not removed her boots when she entered the house. Gram’s head snapped up and her eyes narrowed on Jude’s face. Her mouth pressed into a grim line of displeasure.
“Good evening, Jude. You might have called rather than creeping into my house like a common burglar.”
Jude said nothing, stepping to one of the tall wooden chairs and pulling it out with a scrape on the floor.
Gram’s eyes opened wide and her nostrils flared.
“If you’ve scraped my floor young lady, you’ll be on your hands and knees with sanding paper.”
Gram glared at Jude and then stabbed a piece of chicken on her plate, taking an angry bite, but still chewing with her mouth closed, never one to break etiquette, even when her temper flared.
“What happened to my mother?” Jude shouted. She had intended to speak calmly, not lose her cool. Apparently, she’d overestimated herself.
Gram cocked an eyebrow and took another bite.
“She died in a car accident, as you well know. Why on earth are you bringing this up now?”
Jude snorted and squeezed the ring tighter. Liar hovered on her lips.
“I can’t believe I thought you’d tell me the truth. After a lifetime of lies, I actually told myself before I walked through that door that this time you’d be honest.”
Gram’s face darkened, and her chewing became slower, more controlled. Her eyes had shifted for only an instant, darting to the side and Jude recognized the look. Gram was wondering how much her granddaughter knew.
“Where did the accident happen, Gram?” Jude asked, standing and allowing her chair to fall back with a clatter. It smacked the hardwood floor.
Gram didn’t jump, just continued her chewing, staring at Jude with eyes like a snake’s.
“In town? In the country? Where was she going, Gram? What street did it happen on? Who was in the other car? I’d love to talk to them.”
Gram slammed her fork onto her plate and stood.
“I won’t have you behaving this way in my house!” she shrilled.
Jude slammed the ring onto the table feeling the stone bite into the Mahogany - satisfied with the gouge it would leave behind. The diamond flickered rainbows in the candlelight.
Gram snarled, pulling her thin lips back as if the mere sight of the ring enraged her.
“What does that prove?” Gram snapped. “Your father kept the ring to pawn it. God knows we weren’t putting a diamond in the ground.” Gram shook her head as if disappointed in Jude’s weak confrontation. “Silly girl.”
Gram turned, but Jude ran towards her stopping at the last minute inches from her grandmother’s face. Gram Ruth stumbled back, grabbing her chair to keep from falling. Her eyes flashed furiously.
“How dare you? I raised you,” the old woman seethed.
“I know,” Jude hissed. “I know everything.”
Jude turned, snatched the ring from the table, and stormed from the house, allowing the heavy front door to hang open behind her, the dark night yawning.
Chapter 15
The Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane
Early 1960s
Sophia
Sophia sat in the common area watching snow fall beyond the windows. Though it was day, the sun was muted by a thick cloud cover, and snow had been falling in droves for hours. Other patients milled about, some anxious, others determined. Agnes, who claimed to have once been a nun, sat at the grand piano plunking on the keys and occasionally belting out song lyrics.
“Pistol packin’ mama, lay that pistol down,” she shouted.
Candace, the short red-haired woman who bit the orderlies when they refused her canteen privileges, told Agnes to shut up and clamped her hands over her ears.
Sophia had heard good things about other floors in the asylum, but she never left Hall Five, the troubled women’s hall. She spent more time in her room than in the common areas to avoid conflict with other patients.
She had made a friend or two, but noticed they were always transferred to another floor within a week of their conversations. Sophia knew Kaiser was behind it. He wanted to keep her isolated, all to himself, and had succeeded. He told stories about her violence, her delirious claims, the things she’d done before entering the hospital. Who would question him? He was a doctor after all.
Another patient, Jennifer, had given her a book about Michigan farming, and Sophia flipped through the pages, her eyes lingering on the colored drawings of green and vibrant plants. Oh, how she hungered to walk barefoot in the grass. It had been years. She rarely received ground privileges at the hospital and when she did, Kaiser nearly always appeared to usher her back inside for treatment.
In another life, she might have thought the hospital beautiful with its soaring brick walls and lush grounds. But no setting was beautiful when you were trapped inside.