What She Left Behind (10 page)

Ethan did as he was told. Within minutes, he and Harry set a large table beside the steamer trunk.

“I’ve got more black cloth in the truck,” Ethan said, heading outside.

“Grab another roll of film while you’re out there,” Peter shouted.

While Ethan went to the truck to get more cloth and a fresh roll of film, Peter used the opportunity to visit the restroom. Peg began opening the drawers while Izzy started writing everything down.
One copy of
The Great Gatsby,
by F. Scott Fitzgerald—condition: excellent. One copy of
Lady Chatterley’s Lover,
by D. H. Lawrence—condition: excellent. One paper folder of sheet music. Postcards from Germany, Spain, and France—condition: good. One pink feather boa. Three pearl necklaces. Four silver and semiprecious stone bracelets. One black-and-white photograph of a young woman in a flapper dress sitting at a round table, four flapper girls smiling behind her chair—written on the back: “18th birthday—The Cotton Club.” One photograph of the same young woman and a young man in a tuxedo with a high collar, written on the back: “Bruno and me—July 1929.” One photograph of the same woman with an older man in a fedora and wool coat, and an older woman in a fur wrap and feathered hat, written on the back: “Mother and Father—Christmas 1928.” One green, leather-bound journal, condition: good.

In every photograph, the young woman, Clara, was beaming, her bobbed, finger-waved hair loose, or tucked neatly beneath a cloche. She was pretty enough to be a movie star, with large, round eyes, long lashes, high cheekbones, and dark, full lips. In the picture of Clara and her parents, her father’s mouth was turned down beneath a walrus mustache. Clara’s mother was a tiny, pinched-face woman, looking off to the right of the picture, as if planning an escape as soon as the photographer was finished. They looked unhappy.

While Peg began organizing the contents of the steamer trunk, Izzy picked up the picture of Clara and Bruno to examine more closely. Bruno had dark hair, a wide, square jaw, and flawless skin. His arm was around Clara and he was turned slightly toward her, as if about to kiss her cheek. Clara was looking at the camera, her eyes soft, her smile content. Izzy stared at the picture, wondering if either of them had any inkling that their lives were not going to turn out the way they’d hoped. If anyone had stumbled upon this picture someplace besides the attic of an old insane asylum, it would have been easy to imagine the two of them married in a lavish ceremony, driven away in a black limousine, to live in a big house with a gaggle of perfectly beautiful children. It would have been easy to imagine that they had grown old together and died happy, after living a contented, normal life.

When Izzy looked at Clara’s happy face, a hollow draft of sadness swept through her. Did Clara have any idea she was going to lose her mind? Did she have any idea her life was going to take such a horrible turn? Izzy looked at Bruno, goose bumps prickling the skin on her arms. And what had become of him? Did he have any idea that he’d fallen in love with a crazy person? Hopefully, he’d gotten out of the relationship unscathed.

When Peg gathered the letters and shuffled through them, her head down, something ugly and dark writhed in Izzy’s stomach. This was not what she’d expected when she agreed to help with the suitcases. Everywhere she looked was a reminder of the unfathomable turn her own life had taken. Now, the piles of unopened letters reminded her of the manila envelope hidden in the back of her dresser drawer, its sides bulging with letters, birthday and Christmas cards—correspondence from her mother that, to this day, Izzy refused to read.

She had told her caseworker she refused to read the letters because she hated her mother. But that was a lie. No matter how angry she was with her mother, no matter how sorry she felt for her, or how much she feared ending up like her, she didn’t hate her. If she was being honest, she missed her mother as much as, if not more than, her father. She still remembered her mother baking cookies in a sunlit kitchen, planting pansies around the front porch, braiding her hair with pink ribbon. The woman Izzy loved and missed was not the same one who shot her father. Something had changed inside her mother’s brain and turned her into someone else. It was the only thing that made sense. The thought of her mother losing her mind was terrifying, but it didn’t fill Izzy with hate. It filled her with sadness and fear. She had to believe her mother had no choice in the matter.

The caseworker would think Izzy was crazy if she told her the truth—that she didn’t want to read the letters because she was scared that the envelopes felt tainted somehow. What if the letters were filled with the insane ramblings of a crazy woman? What if her mother’s words influenced her in some way, edging her down the slippery slope toward madness? The easiest thing to do, the easiest way to put one foot in front of the other and try to carry on, was pretend the letters didn’t exist. Sure, she took the manila envelope full of letters from one foster home to the other, adding the newest ones when they arrived. But she’d gotten good at reacting to them the same way she reacted to the framed picture of her father that she kept in the outside zippered compartment of her suitcase. The letters and photograph were just her belongings, what little bit of property she owned, like her underwear or a pair of jeans, all things not worth mentioning.

But there was one major difference between Clara’s letters and Izzy’s. The envelopes found in Clara’s trunk were missing stamps and post office marks because they were never mailed.

“They’re all addressed to the same person,” Peg said, looking at the last envelope.

“Bruno?” Izzy said.

Peg raised her eyebrows. “Yes! Bruno Moretti! How did you know?”

Izzy held up the picture of Clara and Bruno. Squinting, Peg looked at the photo. “Oh my,” she said. “What a beautiful couple.”

“I wonder what happened,” Izzy said, looking at the photo again. “She looks so normal. And happy.”

Peg shrugged. “Hopefully we’ll be able to figure that out.”

“Maybe this will tell us something,” Izzy said, reaching for the journal. The green leather cover was stamped with fleur-de-lis, its spine wrapped in black patent. She opened the small book and began reading out loud. “January 1925. Dear Diary, Right now I’m in Switzerland. Mother bought this journal for me in a beautiful gift shop in Engleberg. I wish I could live here. William and I have such a grand time exploring. I love the mountains and the chalets. Mother and Father seem happy here too. But we have to go home tomorrow.”

Izzy stopped reading and flipped to the last pages. She skimmed over the long paragraphs and read the last entry. “My father is sending me to Willard. I wonder if I should be afraid?” Izzy looked at Peg, trying to swallow the growing lump in her throat. What catastrophic event had befallen this young woman to land her in a place like Willard? If not some terrible happenstance, then what underlying, inexplicable condition had caused her mind to go around the bend? Why would her own father send her to an insane asylum? Had she seemed normal one minute, out of her mind the next? Had something happened to her, or to Bruno? Had Clara shot the love of her life in a fit of madness or jealous rage?

Just then, Ethan and Peter returned, more black cloth and a fresh roll of film in their hands. Izzy put down the journal and went back to rearranging the photographs and postcards, trying to hide her flooding eyes. She swore under her breath when her nose started running, wiping it away and hoping no one would notice. When she looked at Ethan, he was watching her, his forehead furrowed.

CHAPTER 6

C
LARA

In the backseat of the rumbling DeSoto, Clara leaned against the door and stared out the window, the blanket from Nurse Yott draped over her legs. The setting sun illuminated the thinning clouds, filling the sky with feathery shades of pink and lavender. The distant buildings and trees were growing darker and darker, becoming silhouettes against the pastel-colored sky. It was the one time of day when Clara imagined a person could actually see the earthly version of heaven and hell, light and dark, good and evil. The earth and everything on it was cast black for those last few minutes of daylight, as if evil ruled the world for that short period of time, before the stars and moon came out to illuminate the night sky and remind everyone and everything that there really was lightness and goodness in the universe, that there really was hope and heaven. Now, as the world was on the verge of being cloaked in complete darkness, Clara imagined Mr. Glen was going to keep driving and driving, until they were swallowed by the night. She searched the pale sky for the first star and breathed a sign of relief when she saw a pinprick of light twinkling above the bare branches of a black tree.

After six hours of near silence in the car, Mr. Glen finally announced that they were arriving on Willard Asylum grounds. Nurse May sat stiff as a board beside Clara, her hands in her lap and her face pinched, looking straight ahead. Three hours earlier, after they’d left the Long Island Home, Clara had begged Mr. Glen to stop at a gas station or roadside diner so she could use the restroom. She’d been hoping for a chance to escape, maybe through the back door of a restaurant or the window of a ladies’ powder room. But the nurse never let her out of her sight, going as far as entering the gas station restroom behind her, standing stiff and silent while Clara relieved herself.

Clara even looked around the toilet room as she washed her hands, searching desperately for something to hit Nurse May over the head with. But the only thing she could find was a wicker wastebasket. It was too lightweight to do any damage. Besides, Clara wasn’t sure she’d be able to hurt the woman anyway, even to save herself.

When Clara caught sight of herself in the restroom mirror, a stranger looked back at her. Until that moment, when she saw her weary features and disheveled hair, she felt like the last few hours were happening to someone else. She felt disconnected, certain it would all come to an end, like a nightmare or a practical joke. Someone or something would save her, she was sure of it. After all, she was Clara Elizabeth Cartwright, daughter of the lone heiress of the Bridge Bros. Clothing Emporium and the owner of Swift Bank. She loved Teaberry chewing gum, dalmatian dogs, cherry-flavored lipstick, and dancing the Charleston. Things like this didn’t happen to people like her.

But then she saw her hollow eyes and pale skin, and realized that, indeed, this was happening to her. Somehow, she was being sent to an asylum. This was the course her life had taken. Now, it was impossible to imagine that her lips were the same lips Bruno used to kiss, that her cheeks were the same cheeks he lovingly caressed. She wondered what the doctors and nurses saw when they looked at her.

After stopping at the gas station, they rode in silence, except for Mr. Glen’s occasional whistling of a Broadway or jazz tune. Rain hammered the metal roof and wind screamed through every seam in the car, like angry spirits from the empty fields, desperate to get inside.

Now, the rain had stopped and it was still light enough that Clara could make out several barns and what looked like orchards and crop fields. Here, the ground was bare, and she could see sheared rows of brown cornstalks and yellow wheat, like embroidery in the soil. Outside the barns, pigs and cows foraged in pens and a small herd of horses grazed in a fenced pasture. Farther along the road were chicken coops, a blacksmith shop, and several industrial-style buildings. She jumped when Mr. Glen suddenly started talking.

“Willard Asylum opened in 1869 and has grown into a sizeable village,” he said. “Patients work on the farm and the railroad, and our bakery and kitchens provide most of the food for inmates and staff. We have our own orchards and grow our own crops, and our shops produce clothing, shoes, even the pine coffins used to bury patients in Willard’s cemetery.”

The hair on Clara’s neck stood up. She never imagined people
dying
at Willard. She only pictured them getting help and being sent home. Why would an insane asylum need a cemetery?

“What happened to the patients who died?” she said in a small voice.

“All sorts of things,” Mr. Glen said. “Tuberculosis, typhoid, cholera, old age.”

“Old age?” Clara said.

“Sure,” Mr. Glen said. “Some patients spend decades at Willard.”

“There’s no need to discuss such things, Mr. Glen,” Nurse May said, her voice stern.

Clara swallowed the lump in her throat and pulled the blanket over her shoulders.

After they passed a railroad yard lit up with oil lanterns, where a dozen men pushed wheelbarrows full of coal toward a power plant, she saw the dark silhouettes of factory-sized buildings in the distance, attached to an enormous central structure that looked like a mammoth four-story mansion. As they drove closer to the buildings, she saw lights coming on behind tall, curtain-less windows, figures moving, walking, bending, standing motionless near the glass. The windows were covered with bars. Clara’s stomach twisted.

Just then, Mr. Glen started whistling “Someone to Watch Over Me” and Clara’s heart seized in her chest, her throat on fire. When Nurse May started humming along, Clara felt like screaming.
Had they chosen the song on purpose? Was this the first step in their plan to drive her insane?
She dug her fingernails into her palms, certain she must be asleep, hoping pain would force her awake. But this was no nightmare. It was real life, her life. Soon she would be on the other side of those windows, looking out, with no one to watch over her. A surge of homesickness roiled through her, so strong it nearly caused her to cry out.

Outside the car window, the three-story buildings went on and on, massive wing after massive wing connected at the far corners, like sideways steps leading to the central house. She tried to imagine how many poor souls were suffering behind Willard’s brick walls. If the number of buildings and windows was any indication, the number was high. The twinge of panic that had tightened her throat earlier turned into a swirling mass in the pit of her stomach.

The DeSoto bumped along the rutted road, then turned left to move across the front of the colossal structure. Out the car window to her right, the land sloped slightly downward. But it was getting too dark to see much more. In the distance, what looked like a bank of low clouds lay nestled in a deep valley, then the land rose again. Then she saw lights reflected in the valley and realized she was looking at a body of water.

Mr. Glen stopped the car in front of a mammoth brick Victorian. It was the main building, with a dozen wings leading off each side. A double staircase curved up to the front door and electric lights shone behind the windows. One of the oversized doors opened and a man in a dark suit stepped out onto the stone portico. Mr. Glen turned off the car and got out.

“Wait for me to come around and get you,” Nurse May said to Clara.

Clara swallowed the sour taste of fear in the back of her throat, her arms and legs shaking. Beads of sweat broke out on her upper lip. Despite the fact that she was suddenly roasting, she buttoned every button on her coat, reinforcing her only layer of protection. Mr. Glen retrieved Clara’s luggage from the trunk of the DeSoto, then came around the side of the car and opened the rear passenger door. Nurse May appeared and Clara stepped out of the vehicle, her eyes locked on the monolithic building before her. A carved marble sign above the stone portico read “Chapin Hall.” Looking up at the cathedral-style windows, the attic dormers, the massive chimneys and the three-story cupola, Clara’s mouth went dry. It was a castle, a fortress, a prison with no escape. And she was being taken inside.

The man on the portico followed the curved balustrade down the stone steps and met them at the end of the sidewalk.

“How was the drive?” he said to Mr. Glen. He nodded hello to Nurse May, then looked Clara up and down, his hands behind his back. He was a small, wiry man with a precisely trimmed goatee and low eyebrows, his dark hair slicked away from his tanned face. His navy suit fit like a glove, the high collar ghostly white, his leather shoes reflecting the gas porch lamps.

“The roads were somewhat treacherous for the first hour,” Mr. Glen said. “But we drove out of the weather.”

“Good, good,” the man said. “And this must be Clara?”

“This is Clara Elizabeth Cartwright, Dr. Roach,” Nurse May said. “Aged eighteen and in good physical condition.”

“No need for isolation?”

“Dr. Thorn assured us she hasn’t been sick,” Nurse May said. Nurse May kept her eyes locked on the doctor, as if waiting for some kind of recognition.

“Did she give you any trouble?” Dr. Roach said to Mr. Glen, ignoring the nurse’s stare.

“No, sir,” Mr. Glen said. “She was quiet as a mouse.”

“Fine, fine,” Dr. Roach said. “Bring her inside and we’ll get her settled.”

Clara tightened her jaw, a growing ache throbbing beneath her skull. They were talking about her as if she wasn’t there, as if she were a lesser human being who couldn’t hear or feel or speak. She extended her hand, hoping the doctor would recognize she didn’t belong there.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Roach,” she said, forcing a smile.

Dr. Roach stiffened and looked at her outstretched hand, his arms still behind his back. Nurse May shoved Clara’s hand back to her side, her lips curling in disgust.

“Keep to yourself,” she said.

Dr. Roach turned and started inside. Mr. Glen gestured for the women to follow. Clara stood rooted to the sidewalk, wondering if she should make a run for it. She might be able to outrun Nurse May, but she was fairly certain Mr. Glen would catch her posthaste. Nurse May poked her in the back, urging her to move. Clara glared at her, then started up the walkway toward Chapin Hall.

Dr. Roach held one of the double doors open and waited for them to enter, narrowed eyes watching Clara, as if worried she’d try to touch him again. Inside, Mr. Glen and Nurse May took off their coats and hung them on an iron coat rack. Clara made no move to remove hers.

“She can leave her coat on for now,” Dr. Roach said to no one in particular, his voice echoing in the vast, stone foyer. “We’ll be taking her to Women’s Ward B. Mr. Glen, please bring her luggage.”

The doctor strolled across the foyer, his hands behind his back, his hard shoes clacking along the white marble floors. A nurse sitting behind a desk looked up briefly, her pale face illuminated by the light from the desk lamp, its triangular beam like a beacon in the dim room. The ceilings were at least twenty feet high, with a stained glass dome in the center flanked by unlit gasoliers with brass leaves and etched globes. A marble chair railing stretched around the entire room, and images of pastoral farmlands and snow-covered Alps lined the olive green walls. A couch and several overstuffed chairs formed a seating area near the ceiling-to-floor windows to one side of the front door and, to the rear of the foyer, a grand mahogany staircase led to the second floor. The decor reminded Clara of her parents’ mansion, but on a much larger scale. Her knees vibrated and she started to tremble, her legs about to give out.

Dr. Roach led them across the foyer into a short hallway with several doors, stopping in front of the first door on the right.

“Nurse May,” he said, keeping his eyes on Clara. “Please take Clara inside and help her choose a sensible pair of shoes, undergarments, and three everyday dresses from her trunk. No stockings. We’ll provide her with nightwear and put the rest of her belongings in storage. Be sure to leave out her winter coat and boots for outdoor activities.”

“Yes, Dr. Roach,” Nurse May said, her voice clipped. She opened the door and led Clara into a changing room, mumbling something under her breath. Mr. Glen followed, lifted the steamer trunk onto a long table with a heavy grunt, then left the two women alone.

“You heard the doctor,” Nurse May said. She shut the door and sat in a chair against the opposite wall, her arms crossed. “Hurry it along.”

Clara took a deep breath and snapped open the trunk’s latches, hoping her letters to Bruno wouldn’t come spilling out. She stood close to the table, trying to block Nurse May’s view, and opened the lid. She wasn’t sure if she should take out a few letters and hide them in her pocket, or hope she’d have access to the trunk later, in case she convinced someone to mail them. But what if Nurse May caught her and took the letters? For some reason, the nurse’s mood had darkened considerably since they arrived. What if she decided to take out her frustration on Clara? Clara decided not to risk it. For now, she’d leave the letters in the trunk.

Inside the trunk, an envelope with Bruno’s name sat on top of her silk chemise. She put a hand over it, folded the chemise, and shoved it farther inside the piles of clothes. She pulled her brown walking shoes out of a drawer and set them on the table, then carefully searched for her undergarments and three sensible dresses, trying not to disturb the rest of the trunk’s contents. When she saw the peach fringed dress she was wearing the night she met Bruno, her throat tightened. Would she ever dance with him again?

At last, she found what she was looking for: a blue cotton dress with a round embroidered collar, a straight, brown skirt and pink blouse that tied at the neck, and a plain yellow housedress. She pulled them out of the suitcase and laid them on the table. Just then, Nurse May stood. Clara slammed the trunk closed, secured the brass clasps, picked up the dresses, and turned, draping the outfits over her arm.