As Bright as Heaven(97)

“I’m eighteen.”

“You’re fourteen. You live at home with your father. You still go to school. You—”

“How do you know all that?” I hadn’t told Albert my real name or anything else about me.

“Albert knows everything about the people he hires. He knows you want to be here and that you can be trusted to keep your mouth shut. But other people can be idiots. Other people can cause trouble. He makes special arrangements on nights you sing. Financial arrangements. You’re good for business, kid. People like you. They’re coming special to hear you. So don’t mess it up, okay? Go home.”

“I don’t want to go home.” I don’t. I don’t want to hear any more of Maggie’s plans to leave Philadelphia and take Alex. I can’t believe Papa is letting her do it. She has no right to take Alex from him. And he’s just letting her. Maggie knows how much Alex means to Papa. After all the losses he’s suffered, how can she take that boy from him? She’s only thinking of herself. I don’t want to go home. I want to wear the bows and lace and sing like there are only good things in this world.

Lila inhales from her cigarette and blows the smoke over her shoulder. Then she slides onto the bench where I’m sitting. Her robe feels cool and silky against my skin. “Who’d you get in a fight with?”

“No one.”

“Go home.”

I sit there for a minute, staring at my reflection in the mirror inches away from us, wishing there were a way to disappear into the glass like in the story by Lewis Carroll. “Why do people hurt other people?” I murmur.

Lila laughs. “Because they can, sweetheart.”

I look at the face in the mirror, at that sad face. “That can’t be the reason.”

Lila leans in. Her face is next to mine. Our temples touch and our eyes meet in the mirror. “Sometimes they just can’t help it,” she says. “They don’t mean to hurt anyone. It just happens. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Nothing?”

“Not unless you’ve got a magic wand, love.”

We sit there a minute longer as the smoke from her cigarette twirls about our heads like a halo.

“I’ll get you a cab,” she says.

Fifteen minutes later I am standing at the front stoop of my house. It’s only a little after midnight, but the house is dark and still. No one sees or hears me come in brazenly through the front door.

I cross the foyer to the staircase and stop to look down the little hallway toward Papa’s room. The seam under his door is a ribbon of mellow light. He is still awake. He didn’t hear me come in. Didn’t hear the front door open and close.

I stand there for a second or two longer, looking at his door and thinking of all the things I would change if I had a magic wand.





CHAPTER 60



Evelyn


I have been preparing for this day for nearly a week. Since the evening I told Maggie that she had to ask Jamie about those letters, I’ve known I would have to be equally honest with Ursula. Maggie told me she had spilled her question to Jamie in a moment of anxiousness, and while she had gotten the most tender of answers, I could not spill anything to Ursula in a likewise kind of temperament. I had to formulate what I was going to say, how I was going to say it, and how I would respond to every possible kind of reaction from Ursula, including no response at all. Maggie hadn’t prepared herself for what Jamie would tell her about those letters. I can see that she’s confused about her feelings for Palmer now that Jamie has come home, and especially so since learning the reason he kept them. She hadn’t contemplated the response she would get or what it might mean for her future with Palmer. I couldn’t be as unprepared when I met with Ursula.

I told Dr. Bellfield that I had decided I was going to do it his way—lay it all on the table, so to speak—but that I wanted a couple days to study case files and practice what I would say to Ursula to get her to open up to me. I think he’s grown tired of my little crusade and he waved me off to indulge in whatever approach I wanted, reminding me, though, that I have other patients.

But I am ready now. The time is right and I’m well-prepared. Today’s the day.

? ? ?



I take Ursula’s pencil box, wrap it in a cloth napkin I took from the dining room, and head to the solarium, where many of the patients spend the afternoon now that the weather has turned.

When I step inside, I see Ursula in her usual corner by the window. Conrad Reese is also there, sitting by Sybil in the opposite corner. He appears to be reading to her. He nods hello to me and I return the silent greeting. I make my way to my patient, hoping that I’ve chosen wisely to produce the pencil box when she’s in the solarium with other people about.

I take the chair next to her, glad that no other patient is too close by. She is alone in her corner. We have a measure of privacy.

“Hello, Ursula.”

She looks up at me. “Hello.”

“How are you feeling today?”

She lifts and lowers her shoulders. “I don’t know. All right, I suppose.”

I clear my throat and position the fabric-covered box on my lap so that it is easy to reveal. “I need to ask you something, Ursula. It’s actually fairly important.”