“It’s no wonder, then, that she doesn’t remember that time.” His eyes were kind, kinder than she had any right to expect under the circumstances. Most people wouldn’t even mention a relative who was locked up for life—it was as bad as having a parent in jail. She felt a surge of gratitude for him again.
“You’re right.”
Peter steered Lillian around a planter—just in time for her to miss bumping into it. “Watch where you’re going. Maybe the photo wasn’t a good idea.” He held on to her arm protectively.
Lillian stopped walking. “But she knew it was me on the beach.”
“No, she knew it was her daughter on the beach. She didn’t know that photo was over twenty years old. She’s not in her right mind.”
“But what if she is? Sometimes, I mean. She knows she likes sweets and hates raisins, and she never mixes that up. She said Lilly was her ‘firecracker,’ and that’s what she called me. Why would she say my father was a bad man? Why would she think I wasn’t safe? And that she was glad he died? That was the worst part. What if she had said that to my grandparents?”
She could tell Peter was turning her words over in his head. Finally, he said, “That sounds like paranoia, doesn’t it? Reason enough to have someone put away. She obviously wasn’t in her right mind back then.”
“I guess. But how do we know that, when it comes right down to it?”
“Listen, you have no proof other than her accusations from today. She’s never said anything before about this?”
Lillian shook her head, then she pivoted and marched up the brick road to the main building. She’d never questioned what she had been told. Her mother had gone crazy. What if Anna had lost her mind because of her treatments, not despite? She’d heard of such cases.
But—what if Anna’s recollections were correct? She’d recognized Lilly, after all.
“Lillian!” Peter yelled. She stopped and turned around, ready to argue for her right to answers to questions that were decades past due. But he was stretching his hand toward her. “You deserve to know. Let’s get some answers.”
Dr. Paul was not a man accustomed to impromptu appointments. He walked—almost stumbled—into his office, where Lillian and Peter sat waiting, as if crossing the finish line of a race.
“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice,” Lillian said.
“My secretary said you wanted to see the admitting records of Anna Feldman.” He looked at Peter, but Lillian cleared her throat and Dr. Paul turned to her.
“I’m her daughter. I was a teenager when she came here.” Lillian should have asked about her mother’s history a decade ago.
“I understand, and I’m sorry. And since Mr. Diamond is her custodian, I need his permission to discuss this with you.”
“His permission? I’m her daughter.” Lillian’s volume had risen more than usual.
“Of course you have my permission,” Peter said, stopping any rising tide.
“Very well,” Dr. Paul said. “I was not working here in ’46, and unfortunately, the records from Byberry State Hospital are incomplete. All I can say is that it’s fortunate for her that you got her out of there.”
Lillian leaned forward. “Why was she admitted?”
The doctor checked the file in front of him. “She was admitted here with a diagnosis of presenility.”
“No.” Lillian was becoming impatient. “Why was she admitted to Byberry?”
Dr. Paul leafed through the stack of papers. “It says here ‘grief madness.’” His eyebrows rose. “My word, we don’t use that terminology today. Wait, there’s a photo.”
“Of my mother? Let me see it.”
“I don’t think—”
She looked him squarely in the eye. “I am not a child, Dr. Paul.”
Avoiding her gaze, he handed the picture to Peter, who looked at it and frowned. “We don’t know that this is Anna.”
Irritated by his condescension, and even more curious now, Lillian reached for the photo, but Peter held it back, hesitant to let her see. She cocked her head at him.
Silently, Peter handed Lillian the photograph.
Not a face. A close-up of someone’s forearm. In the center of the picture, near the bend in the arm, a round pale scar. It looked to be the size of a quarter.
The photograph had been clipped inside her mother’s file, but there was nothing to identify the owner of that arm, or that scar. Lillian fought to recall her mother’s bare arm and realized that she hadn’t seen it for years. Anna always wore long sleeves.
She looked at the back of the photograph. The blue writing was smudged but legible.
Patient said she had been burned with a cigar.
Nausea roiled Lillian’s insides. That burn mark was horrible, cruel, but this couldn’t be her mother. Lillian would have known if her mother had been hurt that way—if she’d had a scar.
He’s a bad man.
Anna’s words of less than an hour ago echoed in her mind. After seeing the twenty-four-year-old photo of her family, she’d recognized Lilly. Had she recognized Lilly’s father too? That picture had been taken on the beach in the middle of summer. For the first time, it occurred to Lillian how odd it was that her mother was wearing long sleeves on a hot beach day.
“He smoked cigars,” Lillian whispered.
“Who?” Peter asked.
Lillian bolted from her chair, dropping the photo on the floor. “I have to see her again.”
She ran from the room and ran down the same hallway she and Peter had walked earlier. Then, she had been filled with trepidation. Now energy pulsed through her, and her stride lengthened. Had her mother told anyone about her troubles? Worse, had she been involuntarily committed to hide the truth? Was her mother mentally ill or had she become ill after they’d locked her away?
Peter caught up to her. “The doctor says she may not remember anything.”
“She doesn’t have to remember.”
Lillian scanned the garden, but there was no sign of her mother.
“Are you looking for Anna? She’s in her room. She can’t be late for weaving,” a silver-haired woman in a wheelchair said, as she crocheted something in lavender wool.
Lillian was pretty sure her mother didn’t weave anything, especially from the look of her withered limbs.
Without a word, she swirled around and ran back inside, past Peter, to her mother’s room.
Knock, knock.
“Mom—I mean Anna—may I come in?”
No answer.
Lillian turned the doorknob and pushed open the door. Her mother lay on the bed, her eyes closed.
“Anna, are you awake?” Lillian whispered as she walked nearer the bed. The room, sparse but clean, reflected no past and no personality. It occurred to Lillian that it was wrong for her mother to live in such a sterile environment. The next time she came, Lillian would hang yellow gingham café curtains. Gingham was cheerful. Her mother’s favorite color was yellow. She would fill the room with yellow.
Lillian sat on the edge of the bed. Peter stood in the doorway but said nothing. Lillian lifted her mother’s arm and pushed up the sleeve of her blouse and ran the pads of her fingers up and down Anna’s forearm. Scars faded, but if one had existed, Lillian believed she’d feel it.