Well Behaved Wives(60)

“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.

Nothing.

Relieved, Lillian took a breath. How could she ever have believed something like this would happen to her own mother? Or that it could have been caused by the father she adored?

“They’re both gone,” Anna said, her eyes still closed.

“What’s gone?” Lillian asked. Or was it who?

Anna opened her eyes and looked at Lillian.

Lillian thought she saw a flash of recognition in Anna’s eyes, but whatever it was, it quickly dissolved.

“My scar and my Lilly,” Anna said.

Lillian shook her head, trembled, as if the ground below her was cracking. “Your scar?”

“Let’s go,” Peter said. “That’s enough.”

“No, it’s not,” Lillian said, catching her breath. “What scar?”

Anna touched the other arm and Lillian knew she had checked the wrong one. Even though the external scars had faded, the internal one stayed deep and ragged.

“Who did that to you? Was it someone at the other hospital?” Horror stories about Byberry and other asylums had flooded the news in the 1940s. But something inside Lillian told her that her mother had arrived at Byberry with the scar.

Anna didn’t answer, then she said, “We can’t eat in our rooms, so if you brought me dessert, we’ll have to go to the lounge.”

“I’ll bring dessert next time. I . . . I just came . . . to make sure you knew that Lilly is safe.”