by T. Greenwood
It was Friday. She imagined Ab waking to an empty house. Normally, she rose at least an hour before he did during the week, relishing the peace of the sleeping house. The thick shag carpeting made stealth easy. She would pee without flushing the toilet and wait until later to wash her face and brush her teeth. She could navigate the labyrinthine house’s twists and turns without turning a light on.
She always stopped at Peyton’s door to peek inside, where she invariably found him sprawled out across his bed, flat on his back with his arms and legs spread wide, before making her way down the hall.
Ab had, as promised, turned the nursery, that tiny room near the top of the stairs, into a study for her. He had ordered a desk from Design Research in Boston as well as the most comfortable chair, brought her an electric typewriter that was being disposed of at his office. He had the walls painted a soft mauve and hired the same man who built Peyton’s tree house to install floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. He’d been so proud of himself when he presented the transformed room.
“The other Virginia says a woman should always have a room of her own,” he had said and kissed her softly at her temple.
He’d meant well, but she couldn’t imagine sitting at that desk, sinking into that overstuffed chair, looking out that window without thinking of Lucy. And though he didn’t say so, she knew he’d been hurt when she sat down in the chair at the desk, ran her fingers across the keys of that hulking Selectric. As she stared blankly out the window at the giant oak that would have been the first thing Lucy saw each morning from her crib. But his disappointment slowly turned into resignation, and he stopped trying to get her to use the room and, instead, simply closed the door. She went in only if she was looking for a book or when she needed the Electrolux, which they kept in the room’s closet.
At home in the mornings, she made coffee and, weather permitting, took a mug and a book outside onto the screened-in back porch, where she read and watched the sun come up, relishing the last few minutes of solitude before her husband and son awoke. It was here where Peyton would find her most mornings, still rubbing sleep from his eyes as he tugged at her arm to pull her from her reverie and into the kitchen to make him breakfast. “Mama! Pan-a-cakes?”
The moaning of the pipes would signal that Ab was in the shower. By the time he came downstairs, she’d have breakfast cooking on the stove: eggs and pancakes and sausages sizzling in a cast-iron skillet. His clothes were ironed, his shoes shined, his lunch packed so that he needed only to get dressed and eat before heading out the door to catch the train.
Without her there, she had no idea what Ab would do, nor what she herself should do here at Marsha’s.
She pulled on a filmy pink robe she found hanging on the back of the bedroom door, noting the musky scent of Marsha’s Styx perfume, hoping Marsha wouldn’t mind, and padded down the short hallway to the kitchen, where there was a large box of doughnuts open on the counter and a cigarette burning in the cut-glass ashtray. Peyton was sitting on one of the barstools, munching on a maple bar, his plastic tumbler of milk sitting dangerously close to the edge. Ginny pushed the cup to safety and ruffled his hair, kissing the top of his head. He smelled like shampoo and maple.
“Marsha says I can have three doughnuts,” he said, licking the frosting from his stubby fingers.
Marsha was also sitting at the kitchen counter, smoking and reading the paper, and Ginny’s heart sank.
“Is there another article today?” she asked.
Marsha nodded and slowly pushed the paper toward her. The final installment of the exposé covered the entire front page: THE TRAGEDY OF WILLOWRIDGE: THE FORGOTTEN CHILDREN. Ginny quickly scanned the article, but tears filled her eyes, blurring the words. The children, of course, are the worst casualties. Retreating into their imaginations to escape the horrific reality.
Yesterday, she hadn’t thought much beyond simply getting home to Amherst. But now she knew exactly what she had to do, perhaps what she’d known all along.
“I need to go,” Ginny said. “To Willowridge. To see if it’s true.”
Marsha took a long drag on her Virginia Slim and exhaled, the smoke curling like an apparition toward the popcorn ceiling. “Okay,” she said, nodding. “I’ll take you.”
Six
September 1971
“My tummy hurts. Where are we going?” Peyton asked as they climbed into Marsha’s car, a blue Dodge Dart parked in the alley behind her apartment building.
Marsha looked at Ginny, eyebrow raised.
Ginny took a deep breath and peered into the backseat at Peyton. “We’re going to go see your sister,” she said, trying the word for the first time, relishing the sweetness of it, the delicious s.
“My sister?” he asked.
“Her name is Lucy,” she said. How could they have lied to him, this little boy? Did Ab really think that a secret like this could be kept? Peyton had a right to know that he had a baby sister. It was ridiculous.
But when he peered back at her with confusion, she felt her heart squeeze. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe it was too soon. Regret snagged in her chest like a hook.
“She lives at a special school, and we are going for a visit today.”
Ginny had been too nervous to call the school to find out about visiting hours, so Marsha had called for her. She had taken the phone down the hallway, the cord curling like a snake behind her. When she came back, she was smiling.
“Will they let me see her?” Ginny had asked, her words struggling past the lump in her throat.
“How would you like to have her for the whole weekend?” Marsha asked, reaching for Ginny’s hands and pressing them in her own.
“Really?” Ginny asked, her eyes brimming with tears, her heart brimming with gratitude. It seemed too simple. All it took was a phone call? “They’ll really let me take her for the weekend?”
“I think with all of this publicity, with the lawsuit and all, they know they can’t afford to anger any more parents.”
“But she won’t even know me. What if she doesn’t want to go?”
Marsha smiled. “She’ll know that you’re her mama. I guarantee.”
Ginny wanted to believe her, wanted nothing more than to take Lucy into her arms, to hold her and comfort her the way she did Peyton when he was hurt or scared. If even half of what was written in the papers was true, then she must be terrified. The photo of the little girl curled up in the corner on the floor, knees to her chest, had disturbed her terribly. Thankfully, she looked too old to be Lucy, but she was someone’s daughter.
She’d read an article just last year about a little girl named Genie who’d been confined by her own father for nearly eleven years, caged like an animal. When she was rescued at thirteen, she still wore diapers, couldn’t speak, and crawled on all fours. The article had haunted Ginny. She’d had to convince herself that this was not the same. That she and Ab were giving Lucy the best life they could. But the exposé in the papers changed all that. The children at Willowridge were no better off than that poor neglected child, and Ab and she were no better than that awful father who caged his daughter and the mother who turned a blind eye.
As they hurtled down the country road toward Willowridge, she tried to conjure the words she might say to Lucy. The explanations, the apologies. But for once, words seemed inadequate.
In town, they stopped at a five-and-dime to pick up diapers, bottles, and other items she thought she might need for a weekend with a two-year-old. She also picked up a couple of jumpers and blouses, a pair of Mary Janes, and two pairs of pajamas. She felt giddy as her fingers skipped across the beautiful girls’ clothing. She had avoided the girls’ department for the last two years. But now she delighted in the tiny pink things, the bows and barrettes. The tights and dresses and ruffled socks. She could easily spend her whole wad here if she wasn’t careful.
“Do you think she’s walking yet?” Marsha asked, looking at the tiny pair of shoes in Ginny’s hand.
“I have n
o idea,” she said.
Ginny thought of the milestones that a normal child reached in the first two years of life: walking, talking, feeding oneself. She had no idea what milestones a two-year-old child with Down syndrome would have met. By two, Peyton, with his quick little mind and his strong legs, was running, singing, identifying colors even. Before he turned three, he could ride a tricycle and had started to potty-train. Lucy, she suspected, would still be in diapers. Would she drink from a bottle? She wondered if she had even said Mama yet, and then she realized the absurdity of this. Why would she give a name to something that, as far as she knew, did not exist?
“Do you think it’s really as bad as the reporter says?” Ginny asked as they turned down the road to Willowridge. “Maybe Ab’s right. That it’s a scandal just to sell more papers.”
Marsha reached for her hand without her eyes leaving the road.
“That article said that most attendants don’t last more than six months,” she said. “One of them hung himself from a tree on the school’s property.”
Ginny felt sick. She hadn’t been able to make herself read much beyond the first article in the series.
“What about the other employees? Why would they stay?” Ginny asked. “If it’s so terrible?”
“One of the nurses the reporter interviewed said she can’t leave them,” Marsha offered. “The babies. She says she hears their cries in her dreams.”
Ginny covered her face with her hands.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Marsha said. “I only meant there are people there who care for them. People just as upset as you are.”
Ginny tried not to think about the doctor’s warnings. That Lucy had health issues, heart issues. Her father-in-law had cautioned that many mongoloid children die as infants from their damaged hearts. At this, Ginny had felt a distinct pain in her chest. She thought of those children’s poor, broken hearts. Dying alone in that awful place. Did they just go to sleep and never wake up? Did anyone mourn them?
Mourning, this was exactly what the last two years felt like. Ginny had been asked to accept the loss of her daughter the way one would mourn the loss of the dead. To pretend she had died. But she was not dead, and so this was a special kind of grief. An endless sort of sorrow.
“Where should we take her?” Marsha asked brightly.
Ginny hadn’t thought beyond going to the school, seeing her daughter with her own eyes. She certainly hadn’t imagined getting to take her off campus. And definitely not overnight. She hadn’t seen her in two years. Despite Marsha’s assurances, Lucy likely wouldn’t know Ginny, but worse, Ginny wondered if she would even know Lucy anymore, if she would be able to recognize her own daughter.
“We could go to Look Park, to the petting zoo?” Marsha suggested. “Maybe to McCray’s for some ice cream cones? So the kids can see the cows?”
Ginny shook her head. It was a dreary day, not a day for ice cream.
“No,” Ginny said, shaking her head. “Let’s just get her first and then we can decide.”
The winding road was lined on either side with trees, the leaves still lush and green despite the slight crispness in the air. As Marsha sped down the road, Ginny rolled the window down and felt the cool air on her face. She leaned into the wind, closed her eyes.
WILLOWRIDGE SCHOOL FOR THE FEEBLEMINDED, the sign at the entrance to the campus read. Ginny felt a wave of nausea overwhelm her.
She looked at Marsha.
“You okay?” Marsha asked.
Ginny nodded, and Marsha pulled in through the open gates onto a long gravel driveway.
Seven
September 1971
They could have been driving onto a college campus. It looked surprisingly like Amherst’s campus. She even felt an odd ping of nostalgia, of longing. What had she imagined? Certainly not this. For some reason, she’d pictured a hospital, like the one in which Lucy was born. She’d never dreamed it would be so beautiful. Perhaps she had been worrying over nothing. Ab had promised that his father would make sure Lucy was in the best possible facility, that she was cared for. Perhaps Ab was right all along; this was simply an eager reporter’s attempt at scandal.
Marsha pulled up in front of what appeared to be the main entrance, a large ivy-laced brick building with white pillars and a sign that said ADMINISTRATION.
“It’s going to be okay,” Marsha said.
Still, Ginny felt paralyzed, unable to reach for the car’s door handle. Maybe coming here was a mistake. Maybe Ab was right, Lucy was better off without them. But when she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the words from the news article swam before her eyes again: cockroaches, slop, solitary confinement. Filth. She simply needed to see for herself. And if all was well, no harm done.
“Do you want us to come with you?” Marsha asked.
Peyton had fallen asleep in the backseat. He was snoring softly under the worn blue blanket her mother had crocheted for him, clutching Brownie.
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
Ginny got out of the car and straightened her skirt. It was overcast and chilly out, but she still felt flushed. She worried she might be perspiring through her sweater. She made her way up the steps to the heavy front door, which took both hands and all her weight to open. Inside she was greeted with slightly warmer air, though it carried the scent of something faintly sickening.
The receptionist was severe looking, with jet-black hair in a dramatic bouffant, thick liquid eyeliner making her look more feline than human. She peered up at Ginny over a pair of cat’s-eye glasses, missing a rhinestone on one side. This, along with the dirty linoleum and a large water stain on the ceiling, contributed to a nagging unease.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Ginny said tentatively as she stepped forward. “My daughter is a resident here. I’ve come to check her out for a visit.”
“Name?” the woman said.
“Richardson. Mrs. Richardson? I called earlier. I’m Lucy Richardson’s mother.” As she spoke this sentence, she realized it was the first time she had said her daughter’s full name aloud. As the woman reached for a clipboard, Ginny nervously added, “My husband, he couldn’t get away from work.”
“Is this your first visit?” the woman asked, but her tone wasn’t accusatory.
“Yes. We would have come sooner, but my husband … he thought it best we wait a little longer. But now, with … everything … she’s nearly two years old…”
Ginny felt her words trailing off, even as she tried to make sense of the fact that she had never been to visit her own child.
From somewhere came a low moaning. At first Ginny thought it was only ancient pipes coming alive; their house in Dover was nearly a hundred years old. If someone flushed a toilet on the second floor, the pipes in the kitchen lamented. But when it came again, Ginny felt her skin prickle. It was human, this keening.
“Is that…? Should someone check?” she started.
The woman let out a sigh, followed by a knowing, smug little chuckle.
“Ma’am,” she said, shaking her head, “I take it you’ve never been to an institution before?”
Institution. The word felt so clinical, so terrible.
She shook her head. “My husband, my father-in-law … they said this is a school. The sign outside…”
“For the retarded, they’re called schools. For the mentally ill, they’re hospitals. But they’re the same thing, sweetheart. What did you say your name was again?”
“Richardson,” Ginny said. “Virginia.”
“Oh, yes,” the woman said, tapping one bloodred nail at a clipboard. “Here you are. We have you on the visitor list today. You’re aware of the rules?”
“No,” Ginny said. “I’m sorry.”
“You can check her out for the weekend, through Monday if you like, since it’s a holiday. But you must stay in Massachusetts, no crossing state lines. And I’ll need your identification, of course.”
“Oh
,” she said. “I don’t…”
“Driver’s license?”
“I don’t drive,” Ginny said, feeling panic start to creep up her back. She never needed identification in Dover. All the shopkeepers knew the Richardsons; she could write a check without providing anything but her signature. And often she simply charged purchases to Ab’s tab or paid in cash.
“Passport?” the woman asked impatiently. “Social Security card? Birth certificate?”
Ginny shook her head. Ab kept all their important papers in a locked safe in his office. She hadn’t planned on this. She wasn’t prepared.
“You got anything at all with your name on it?” the woman asked.
“I … I…” Ginny said and reached into her purse, digging through her cosmetics. There were a handful of rocks—gifts from Peyton, who could never leave anywhere without some sort of souvenir. Finally, near the bottom of her purse, she found a letter from her mother. It had her name and address in her mother’s wobbly handwriting.
The woman studied it and then handed it back to her.
Ginny felt her knees go soft. The woman wasn’t going to let her take Lucy. She knew it. What on earth would she do now? How could she have been so stupid?
“I guess this will do,” she said, and Ginny’s breath hitched.
“Oh,” she said, “thank you. Thank you so much. I came all the way from Dover. I didn’t know I’d need anything.”
“Well, next time, make sure you have the proper paperwork. I could get in a lot of trouble for this, but I understand. I’ve got two kids of my own.” She stood up and motioned for Ginny to follow her. “My name’s Penny, by the by.”
* * *
They walked out a side door and across the sprawling campus toward another ivy-covered brick building. The desolate campus looked just like Amherst’s campus over holiday breaks. There was no one on the grounds, not even a caretaker; the grass was high, the hedges untrimmed. There was a sort of wildness to the landscape, despite the rather dignified architecture of the school itself.
