What She Left Behind (8 page)

With careful, reverent fingers, Peg took the dry, fragile contents one by one out of the suitcase while Izzy wrote the items down.

 

 

Izzy waited for Peg to keep going, but there was nothing else inside the suitcase, no clothes or nightgown, no letters or other personal items.

“That’s it,” Peg said, her eyes glistening. She shrugged and looked at Izzy, Peter, and Ethan.

“Why would anyone bring baby clothes to an insane asylum?” Izzy said.

“I don’t know,” Peg said. “Maybe they were her babies’ bonnets and booties. Maybe they were the only things she cared about. But, don’t you see? That’s why we’re doing this! We’re trying to find out more about the people who left these suitcases behind.”

“But how?” Ethan said. “How much can you find out just from looking inside these suitcases?”

“We’re hoping to get access to some of the medical records too,” Peg said. “Right now they’re sealed, but we’re going to pick the most compelling cases and ask the Office of Mental Health for permission to let us find out more.”

“Do you want the items photographed individually or in a group?” Peter asked.

Peg stood with her hands on her hips, thinking. “I guess it’s going to depend on how many things are inside each suitcase. For this one, I think we can shoot them together.”

Ethan pulled a black cloth from his bag and laid it out in front of the suitcase, then set up another tripod for a second light. Peg gave Izzy a pair of plastic gloves and asked her to help rearrange the bonnets, pictures, and silverware on the cloth. Izzy was thankful for the gloves, carefully picking up the fragile items. She wished she had one of the paper masks Peg always wore while restoring paintings or scrubbing dirt from an old artifact. It was probably foolish, but she didn’t want to breathe in the decades-old dust or smell the arid odor of decay radiating from the insides of the suitcase and the yellowing baby clothes. The dry, pungent aroma and bitter tang of death reminded her of old graves, and her parents’ sealed bedroom.

At least in the museum the antiques were on display pedestals or behind glass. You weren’t supposed to touch them. This was different. Now, like one of the first archeologists on a dig, she was handling things that hadn’t been touched by another human in decades. She was helping unearth buried secrets, coming in direct contact with items once owned by people who were now nothing more than a pile of rotting bones in the ground. Not to mention the fact that the owner of these items was insane. She knew it was crazy, but she pictured microscopic particles wafting up from the baby bonnets and silverware, floating through the air and entering her lungs and bloodstream, starting a psychotic chain reaction that, when the tainted molecules reached her brain, would seal her to her mother’s fate. She felt light-headed and tried not to take deep breaths, hoping the day would fly by, so she could go home and shower.

Peg and Izzy finished rearranging the items, then Peter and Ethan took pictures. Izzy and Peg stood back, waiting for Peter to tell them if the items needed to be repositioned. Together, the four of them worked in silence, hovering over the baby bonnets, silverware, photographs, and Bible like a group of surgeons and nurses over an operating table. Once Peg was satisfied with Peter’s pictures, she and Izzy gently returned the contents to the suitcase, closed the lid, and moved on to the next piece of luggage.

While the process was repeated over the next four suitcases, Izzy became aware of every breath and movement; every position of her hands and legs. She felt Ethan watching and could smell his masculine cologne, the woodsy, spiced fragrance reminding her that they were young and a long way from death. She wanted to stay near him, to breathe in his scent instead of the bone-dry stench coming from the suitcases. Sometimes, she accidentally brushed his arm or got in his way, and he smiled at her, a wide, white grin. She ignored him and looked away, irritated that her face was turning red. What was it about him that made her feel so vulnerable, shaky, and exposed?

The butterflies in her stomach reminded her of the way she used to feel talking to her caseworker. But this was different. It didn’t make sense. Ethan didn’t know anything about her. He didn’t know about her past, her present, her trials and journeys, her hopes and dreams. And he never would. He was a spoiled bully, just like his girlfriend. Izzy didn’t want anything to do with him. She needed to pull herself together, especially since they had to go through two hundred more suitcases. Between having Ethan in such close proximity and the discomfort of handling the personal belongings of long-dead, mentally ill people, her thoughts were disjointed and scattered. Every movement took all her concentration.

The suitcases held letters and photographs, silverware and Bibles, suspenders and alarm clocks, buttons and shoes, embroidered handkerchiefs and shaving mugs, a small statue of a dog and a porcelain teacup, a homemade quilt. Izzy wrote every item down, frequently blinking against the moisture in her eyes. She couldn’t help but imagine the parents and spouses and children of the suitcase owners, confused and mourning their loved ones’ absence, even though they were physically still of this earth. How difficult it must have been to question what went wrong, to stay awake night after night, wondering if there was something they could have done. She wondered if the Willard inmates’ loved ones were sideswiped by their family members’ descent into madness, or if they had seen it coming all along. Either way, the thought of entire lives lost—family celebrations, Christmases and birthdays, love affairs and bedtime stories, weddings and high school graduations—because of a misfire or unexplained chaos inside a person’s brain, made her chest constrict. It wasn’t fair.

By noon, they’d only gone through fifteen suitcases, and Izzy was beginning to realize that the project was going to take a lot longer than she thought. At this rate, she’d be spending six or seven days working beside Ethan. Would it be too obvious if she asked to help Harry instead? And yet, if she was being honest, the thought of spending more time with Ethan sent a flutter of excitement across her stomach. Being this close to him made her feel as if she hadn’t slept or eaten in days. Her legs felt weak, her head woozy. It was exhausting, irritating, and wonderful all at the same time.
What the hell is wrong with me?
she thought.

Thankfully, when it came time to take a break, Peg asked Izzy if she wanted to sit outside for lunch. She’d packed a cooler with sandwiches and they could eat in the shade beneath the oak trees, in the wide swath of grass next to the parking lot. Peter, Ethan, and the rest of the guys were going to drive to the nearest McDonald’s to get Quarter Pounders and milk shakes. Normally, Izzy would have wanted to go too, because eating out while in foster homes was a rare treat, even if it was a fast-food place. But this time Izzy was relieved to stay behind, to get some peace and quiet, some space and time away from Ethan. Then she heard Peg talking to the others and her stomach tightened.

“Oh no!” Peg said. “I’ve packed enough food for everyone! I’ve got ham and cheese sandwiches, macaroni salad, hummus and pita bread, potato chips, watermelon, iced tea, and lemonade. There are extra blankets and folding chairs in the trunk of the car. Come on, it’ll be fun!”

“Sorry, guys,” Harry said, grinning. “My wife has a thing about feeding people.”

Peter and the other men laughed and agreed to stay. They headed to Peg’s car to unload the chairs. Peg turned to Izzy.

“Can you give me a hand with the food?” she said.

“Sure,” Izzy said, groaning inside.
Leave it to Peg to take care of everyone,
she thought.
Working with Ethan was one thing, now she had to have lunch with him?
The last few minutes before it was time to take a break she’d been starting to get hungry, her stomach growling so loud she was sure everyone heard it. Now, her stomach roiled with a strange mixture of elation and dread.

Everyone gathered beneath a row of thick-trunked oak trees, the men setting up folding chairs, Peg and Izzy spreading out a blanket and organizing the food on a foldout table. The men formed a line and Peg poured drinks and scooped macaroni salad onto paper plates while Izzy pulled sandwiches out of the cooler and handed out snack-sized bags of chips. When she saw Ethan next in line, she kept her eyes on her work, hoping he was going to sit far away. She held out a sandwich, pretending to search in a grocery sack for a bag of chips, and felt his fingers brush hers. At first, she ignored it. Then she handed him a bag of chips and he grabbed her hand and the bag at the same time, crushing the chips between their fingers. She looked up.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, grinning. “It’s hard to see when you’re not looking.” She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let go. “Thank you for the sandwich,” he said, “and the chips.”

She rolled her eyes. “Can I have my hand back?” she said.

“Thank you for the service with a smile.”

“You’re holding up the line.”

“Can you say, ‘please move along’?” he said.

She pinched the skin on the back of his hand. “Please move,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. He let go and took the chips.

“How about, ‘you’re welcome’?” he said.

Izzy ignored him and smiled at the next man in line.

“How come he gets a smile and I don’t?” Ethan said. Izzy forced a thin smile so he’d leave her alone. “That’s better,” he said. “Now I can enjoy my lunch.”

After Ethan walked away, Izzy sighed and tried to focus on the rest of the men in line, her chest welting up. She’d never met anyone so arrogant! She couldn’t believe she let herself get nervous around him.

Later, after everyone was done eating, Izzy sat cross-legged on the blanket beneath an oak tree, nibbling on a pita chip while Peg refilled everyone’s drinks. Ethan was sitting on a folding chair a few yards away, talking and laughing with Peter and Harry. Every now and then, he glanced over and caught her looking at him. Each time she vowed not to look again, but her eyes were drawn to the sound of his deep voice and his contagious laughter. She wished she’d brought her journal or a book to read, anything to make it look like she was doing something besides just sitting there. She’d already spent way too much time in the bathroom after she was done handing out food, washing her hands and fixing her hair, hoping everyone would be finished eating when she came back out. Instead, Peg was offering them seconds, laughing and pleading with them to eat more because she didn’t want the food to go to waste.

While Peg finished doling out the last of the iced tea and lemonade, Izzy kneeled on the blanket and started packing up the empty Tupperware and extra napkins, doing what she could to get this awkward picnic over with. Then Peg came back and sat down, leaning against the gnarled bark of a wide oak tree. She sighed and wiped a wrist across her brow.

“This was nice,” she said. “I love picnics, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh,” Izzy said.

“My word, he’s a handsome boy,” Peg said. “Don’t you think?”

Izzy reached for the empty plastic pitchers. “Who?”

Peg laughed. “You know who. Ethan.”

Izzy shrugged and put the pitchers in the basket. “I guess.”

“We’ve known his parents for years,” Peg said. “They’re two of the nicest people you could ever meet.”

“Too bad their son is a jerk,” Izzy said, gathering her and Peg’s empty potato chip bags and shoving them into a trash bag.

“Whose son is a jerk?” a deep voice said above them. Izzy turned to see Ethan standing over them, one hand gripping a branch above his head, the other in the pocket of his jeans. He winked at her. She wanted to stand up and wipe the self-confident smirk off his face.

Peg offered Ethan a spot on the blanket. “Here,” she said, patting the empty space between her and Izzy. “Sit down. We’ve got a few more minutes before we have to go back to work.”

Izzy stuffed a fistful of dirty napkins into the trash bag.
What the hell?
she thought.
Just because you like Ethan’s parents doesn’t mean I have to be friends with him.

“That’s okay, Mrs. Barrows,” Ethan said. “I get the feeling I’m interrupting something.”

Mrs. Barrows?
Izzy thought.
Ugh. What a brownnoser.

“Oh no, you’re fine,” Peg said. “I was just telling Izzy what nice people your parents are. I told her that they’re good friends of ours.”

“Guess that makes me the jerk then,” Ethan said, laughing.

“Oh no.” Peg sat up, eyes wide, hands waving as if she could erase her comment from the air. “That’s not what I . . .”

“It’s okay,” Izzy said to Peg. “You don’t have to protect me.” She grabbed the dirty forks and the watermelon knife, wrapped them in a paper towel, and shoved them in the picnic basket between the Tupperware and plastic pitchers. The pain was instant and sharp as the watermelon knife sliced through her index finger. She yanked her hand out of the basket, looked at the inch-long cut, and her knees went weak. She put her finger between her lips, the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth, then sat back on the blanket and closed her eyes, waiting for the dizzy, whirling sensation to subside.

“What’s wrong?” Peg said. “Did you cut yourself?”

Izzy nodded and grabbed a fistful of blanket with her other hand, looking for something to hold on to while the world spun around her. Then she felt someone touch her wrist and she opened her eyes. Ethan was kneeling beside her, gently pulling her finger out of her mouth.