As Bright as Heaven(105)

I heard the truck door slam shut against Alex’s sobs and then the puttering of the engine as the truck eased off into traffic. And all the while Evie shouted, “It’ll be all right! It’ll be all right!” while Papa just stood there and said nothing at all.

I opened my eyes and stared at Evie, hating her for becoming a doctor and working at an asylum and for figuring out why one Ursula Novak wanted to kill herself.

If only she had become a teacher or a chemist or a librarian.

Why, of all the lunatics at that hospital, did Evie have to get paired up with Alex’s real sister? Dora had said earlier that surely it was fate, the heavens trying to make right what had gone wrong seven years ago.

Don’t talk to me about fate, I wanted to say to Dora. Fate is just another word for saying we’re all powerless. Me. Mama. Papa. Maggie. All of us.

Love something long enough and true enough and fate will tear it right out of your hands if it chooses, and there’s nothing you can do about it.





CHAPTER 63



Evelyn


Ursula took the news that not only was her little brother alive, but he’d been living for the last seven years in my house, surprisingly well. I was prepared for every response, from full-blown hysteria to catatonic stupor, but when the full truth was laid before her, the tears that fell were accompanied by no additional physical response other than that she laid a hand across her heart, perhaps to feel beneath her skin her splintered soul becoming whole again.

After Maggie had escorted the police to the row house where she’d found Alex, and Rita Dabney had confirmed that was where Ines Novak Dabney had lived with Ursula and Baby Leo, there remained no doubt who Alex was. The heart-shaped birthmark was proof enough to me, but the authorities were convinced only after Maggie took them to the building and Rita Dabney independently identified it as the home she’d visited when Leo was first born. How to share this news with Ursula kept me awake for two nights.

It wasn’t exactly my news to share. The police, or the child welfare people, or even her step-grandparents probably had the right to tell Ursula that Leo was alive more than I did. But Dr. Bellfield believed if I was up to the task, Ursula might better receive the news if she heard it from me. The police, the child welfare authorities, her step-grandparents, they had all spent the last seven years fully persuaded Ursula was responsible for Baby Leo’s death. I had not spent the same amount of time thinking she had killed her brother. I was not in that mix of people who’d believed she had drowned Leo in the Delaware River. Not only that, but I had refused to let her waste away in the asylum. I had been doggedly pursuing a way to help her. It was decided by Dr. Bellfield and the other senior staff that I could be the one to tell Ursula the remarkable news that Leo was alive but that Dr. Bellfield would be present in case Ursula became distraught, especially at my family’s part in what had happened.

For two days I did nothing else, thought of nothing else, except for how to tell her. Dr. Bellfield graciously gave me time off to prepare and also deal with the turmoil happening in my own family. Losing Alex was like losing Henry all over again. And yet I’d lain in my bed pondering the turn of events, and Dora Sutcliff’s observation that fate had brought Ursula to my hospital, fate had caused my heart to be stirred for her, and fate had pressed Dr. Bellfield into assigning me to her case.

I couldn’t get past the notion that I was meant to be Ursula’s doctor. It had been my destiny that her life and mine would meet at this precise moment in time, just like it had been Maggie’s destiny to find Alex, like it had been Mama’s destiny to die from the flu but Willa’s to survive it. Just like it was my destiny to love Conrad even though he can never be mine. These truths seem wholly inevitable to me now. Unavoidable. They’d been woven into the fabric of our existence long before we were even aware of the fibers.

When I arrived at the hospital on the morning I was to tell Ursula, the same day Alex was taken from us, I wanted to find Conrad first. I wanted to see his face and hear his voice and catch his scent. I wanted the truth of his inescapable presence in my life to uphold me as I walked into Ursula’s room to tell her things that would forever alter her world. I didn’t see him, though. He was not in the solarium where Sybil sat listening to—without hearing—a retired church pianist play hymns.

I was shaking as Dr. Bellfield and I entered Ursula’s room. Just outside the door, a nurse waited with a hypodermic in case Ursula needed to be sedated after I told her. But perhaps the truth feels so right when we at last hear it that it is its own calming agent. Ursula did not fall apart or lunge at me or faint dead away.

When I told her everything, when all the pieces at last made sense, especially Maggie’s white lace mask and her brown coat, Ursula looked at me with tears shining in her eyes and her trembling hand over her heart and said, “Thank you.”

Words failed me then. I could not find my voice to say anything else. When she asked when she could see Alex, I could not answer. Dr. Bellfield told her a meeting would no doubt happen very soon. “We need to think of his emotional state as well,” Dr. Bellfield had said. “He’s been well cared for by Miss Bright’s family and it’s the only home he knows.”

“Oh. Of course,” Ursula had replied, casting a glance at me and seeing the single tear sliding traitorously down my cheek.

Rita and Maury were now only too happy to reassume their guardianship over their step-granddaughter and called that same afternoon to arrange for Ursula’s release. Dr. Bellfield was able to convince them to let the news settle first, and then to allow Ursula to be reunited with her brother within the safe confines of the hospital. They agreed somewhat reluctantly to arrange for Ursula’s discharge after she and Alex had a chance to meet. Alex had been told only that his sister had recently been ill but was much better and that she was very much looking forward to seeing him again. It was agreed that two days after Alex had been returned to the Dabneys, they would bring Alex in to see her. Only they called him Leo, of course. They had also asked that I not be present for that meeting.