by Lisa Jackson
By memory, she found her way along the twisted road to Our Lady of Virtues. Of course the landscape had changed and where there once had been fields with cattle grazing or forests skirting the road, there were now clusters of houses in little pockets of farmland that developers had found.
Eventually the houses thinned and the terrain was more familiar with the stands of live oak or swamp holly. Her pulse accelerated and her hands were sweaty on the steering wheel. Several times she considered turning around.
When the going gets tough . . .
“Yeah, yeah, Dad, I know,” she muttered under her breath, ignoring an underlying sense of panic that had grown with each mile she’d driven closer to this, the place where her life had changed irrevocably.
She bit her lip.
You can do it.
One final turn and the narrow lane with its weatherbeaten sign was visible. OUR LADY OF VIRTUES. EST. 1843.
Abby’s fingers locked, her knuckles showing white as the wheels of her car rolled into the grounds owned by Our Lady of Virtues convent: thirty acres of lush, valuable gardens, buildings and forests that developers had been salivating over for years. As the suburbs had grown, inching ever closer to the secluded property owned by the order of nuns still living there, the land had doubled, then tripled in worth, even though many of the buildings were decayed and destined for the wrecking ball.
Abby took a fork in the private road and drove to the entrance of the hospital grounds. The gate, of course, was locked, a chain reinforcing the original bolts, a stern, faded NO TRESPASSING sign warning anyone who chose to ignore it that they would be prosecuted “to the full extent of the law.”
“Nice,” she muttered sarcastically. “Real Christian.” She had expected that the entrance would be barred and had formed a backup plan on the drive over. No way would she be thwarted. No way was she going to go through this emotional turmoil more than once. She unzipped her camera from its case, snapped a strap to it, then climbed out of her car. With more than a trace of sadness that she hadn’t expected, she noted the ever-declining state of the grounds and lawns and buildings beyond. Her heart nearly stopped as she viewed the old hospital, a building that had survived the War between the States, two world wars, and all the skirmishes in between. For a hundred and fifty years it had been maintained and kept alive, even flourished, but hadn’t been able to weather the most recent of times.
Everything has a life span.
Everything and everyone dies.
Ignoring her unexpected case of nostalgia, Abby pushed her camera’s lens through the bars and snapped off half a dozen shots in the fading light.
As she stared through the viewfinder, she felt an overwhelming sadness at the crumbling mortar, missing bricks, and lengths of plywood nailed over once grand windows. Graffiti sprayed in neon orange was visible under a layer of black that someone, probably hired by the sisters themselves, had used to try and cover up the profanity.
Dear God, what was wrong with her? She hated this place. So why a sense of sorrow or wistful sentimentality for a place she detested, a building on whose grave she should be dancing?
Maybe she was more screwed up than she’d thought.
“Stop,” she ordered. This was getting her nowhere fast.
Abby tried the gates. Felt raindrops in her hair. The old metal rattled and groaned, but the lock and chain held. Of course. She’d expected as much. She could turn back now. At least from a distance she’d seen the spot where her mother had died. Still, she wasn’t satisfied. And this, she promised herself, was her last trip to Our Lady of Virtues. If she couldn’t lay the ghosts to rest today, they were destined to be with her for the rest of her life.
What a depressing thought.
She had to give this her best shot.
She climbed into her Honda again, but instead of taking the fork to the main road, she veered toward the convent. Once near the gates, she turned onto a small access road, to a lower parking lot which, in the past, had been used primarily by maintenance workers.
As a child she’d found this small parking lot while exploring the grounds of the hospital. She and Zoey had discovered the path leading between the hospital and convent long ago, when they’d been grade-schoolers, searching the grounds, chasing butterflies and broken dreams through the sun-dappled woods.
Today the sky was gloomy and gray, another rain shower appearing inevitable if the heavy clouds scudding across the sky were to be believed.
Snagging her camera again from the passenger seat, Abby stepped into the warmth and solitude of the afternoon. She heard birds chirping and the chattering of a squirrel, but no sound of prayers or music or conversation seeped through the thick walls surrounding the convent itself. Good. She didn’t want any of the nuns to witness what she was about to do.
Feeling more than a little nervous that she was not only breaking the law, but perhaps making a mistake of insurmountable emotional proportions, she ignored her second-guesses, locked her car, then walked to the side of one of the garages where mowers and gardening equipment were kept.
A row of twelve-foot-tall arborvitaes flanked a chain fence that loomed over Abby’s head. The fencing curved inward, toward the hospital, making it nearly impossible for anyone to climb out, at least not easily, though Abby knew it could be done if one was agile enough.
At ten, she had been.
Now, though, the task seemed daunting. Could she climb over the fencing, drop ten feet to the ground below, and then somehow climb out again? As a child she was monkey-like in her ability to scale trees, fences, and balconies. Now, nearly twenty-five years later and forty pounds heavier than her pre-pubescent weight, it would be extremely difficult. But there had been a gate, she remembered, one that allowed the nuns and hospital staff to go between the two facilities. She searched the area and found what had once been some kind of entrance, though now the scratchy, moist, unclipped branches of the shrubbery had nearly grown together. She had a fleeting thought of the thorns and bracken surrounding the castle of Sleeping Beauty, a story her mother had read to her often when she was a child. In the bedtime tale the prince had found a way through the horrible, thorny branches to the castle to rescue his princess. Abby didn’t expect anything so grand or romantic. Even if she did manage to get to the hospital and face the past, as her last shrink had advised, what then? Would she feel this great uplifting of her spirit? Would all the problems in her life suddenly and miraculously disappear?
Not hardly.
Nonetheless, she pushed through the wall of greenery to the gate and found, to her utter amazement, that it not only was unlocked, but swung open easily.
Why?
She hesitated. This was too easy. Something wasn’t right. Why lock and chain the main gates and put up threatening placards, only to leave this one swinging free? That didn’t make any sense . . . unless the nuns still needed access, or the maintenance guys or groundskeepers still checked on the old building. That had to be it.
Then why let the arborvitaes grow out of control? Why not trim them here and keep the path clear? Inside the gate, on the hospital grounds, there was some evidence that others had trod through the grass and bushes . . . some bent blades, and for no reason other than to calm herself, she took a picture of the overgrown path she’d followed as a child.
Her heart raced a little faster as she hurried through the trees where grass, vines, and weeds had nearly obliterated the trail and her shoes squished in the mud. As she walked, she remembered running through this thin forest of bayberry and pine and oak. Zoey had often hidden in the branches of a swamp willow and sometimes the sweet scent of magnolia and jasmine in bloom had scented the air.
She saw herself as if it were an old movie, she and her sister running in sepia tones through this bit of forest, finding a hollowed-out oak and a nest of honeybees, spying jack rabbits and skunk. All the while she’d pretended that Faith Chastain was normal, that all the kids in the private Catholic school they attended only saw their own mother
s every Sunday after church, or on Wednesday evenings in the long hot summers. She’d tried, as a child sprinting toward the looming hospital, to convince herself that her classmates’ mothers, too, suffered from splitting headaches that changed their personalities. Surely, too, those mothers had spent the long hours of the day in bed with the shades drawn and occupied their nights by pacing the hallways, just as Faith Chastain had. Abby remembered the sporadic times when her mother had lived at home.
Those long nights, lying in her twin bed, Abby had felt the breath of wind stir through the screened windows, seen the sweep of the paddle fan mounted on the ceiling. She’d listened to the sound of traffic, watched as the splash of headlights traversed around the pine-paneled walls of the room as cars passed, heard the lonely sound of a solitary owl while her sister, in the next bed, slept blissfully unaware of their mother’s ritual.
But Abby had known.
She had watched the slim crack of light beneath the doorway, seen the shadows moving slowly back and forth as Faith Chastain had paced the halls; she’d smelled the scent of smoke from her mother’s ever-lit cigarette.
It had been on one of those nights, when Jacques, a lumber broker, had been out of town, when Abby had been awake, listening to the hum of the crickets and cicadas while watching the shadow pass under the doorway, that she felt it . . . a strangeness in the air.
She’d been around ten at the time and she’d heard the bathtub filling, water rushing through the pipes, and had noticed that the pacing had stopped.
The bathroom door clicked shut. Locked.
She’d wondered why her mother was going to take a bath at three in the morning.
Abby had lain in bed, waiting, though she didn’t know for what, all the while listening as the water ran and ran and ran.
Finally, she’d been unable to lie still another second and had thrown back the thin sheets. By the time she’d left her room and stood in the hallway, water was seeping from under the bathroom door, running along the old plank floors in slow rivulets tinged red . . .
Now, as she hurried through the thickets surrounding what had once been manicured lawns, Abby’s throat tightened and raindrops slid beneath her collar. In the back of her mind, she’d always thought her mother’s first stay at the hospital had been her fault . . . that if she’d been braver, if she’d gotten out of bed earlier, if she’d somehow stopped Faith Chastain from locking herself inside that bathroom, some of the tragedy that had become her mother’s life might have been averted.
I forgive you . . . Abby Hannah, I forgive you . . . Her mother’s voice, soft and whispery as it always was in the dream, slipped through her mind. She felt the first cool drops of rain fall from the sky and she stepped around a weed-infested hedgerow to look at the back side of the hospital.
How many times had she stood in this very spot, anxious as she’d slipped away from the shadows of the woods, hoping beyond hope that none of the nuns, especially stern-faced Sister Rebecca or ever-exasperated Sister Madeline, would catch her?
Again she lifted her camera, took pictures of this side of the old building, the willow tree and the long, open verandah where now only one forgotten chaise, rusted and broken, lay on the splintered flagstones.
Creeaaaakkk!
Looking up, she spied a gutter, bleeding rust and heavy with years of debris, leaning away from the roof, the metal being pushed from its eave by the wind. A gargoyle, eyes bulging over its spillway of an open mouth, glared down at her.
God, how those stony, medieval monsters had scared her as a child. She’d been certain any bird or squirrel foolish enough to step close to that gaping, dark mouth would be snagged and swallowed by the evil creature.
Of course, it had all been her childish imagination, she thought now as she walked to the front of the building.
She glanced to the upper floors and the third-story window poised directly over this spot. That window, shattered when Faith had flung herself through the old panes, had been replaced and was one of the few sheets of glass still intact. No bullet hole, no cracks, no graying plywood tacked over it.
Once Faith Chastain had fallen through, the window had been replaced quickly and now remained. Abby turned her camera to the window, and stepped back toward the end of the drive to make certain that the entire building and the fountain were included in the picture. Shadows moved and shifted, the dark reflection of the surrounding trees in the gloomy light. For a heartbeat, looking through the camera, focusing and snapping the first shot, she thought she saw a dark figure standing in the window of her mother’s room. She lowered the camera and studied the panels of glass with the circular, stained wheel of glass above them, but no one stood behind the panes.
“Of course,” she growled at herself. She was determined not to allow her own wild imagination to take hold of her. Yes, this was a depressing place, the very spot where her mother had lost her life, the building where Abby’s life had shifted forever, but it was time to deal with it.
Setting her jaw, she forced her heart rate to slow and clicked off several shots of Faith’s room, getting lost in the play of shadows, shapes, and images she saw through the viewfinder. She took pictures of the hospital as a whole, then separate shots of the component parts, the lifeless fountain with its mossy weeping angels, the skeletal remains of the ancient fire escape, and the large, looming front door where she had raced, eager to see her mother, her heart pumping with excitement as she was anxious to confide her latest crush to Faith on their shared birthday . . .
Or had she?
Her brow knit as she thought, the years tumbling backward. Was that what had happened? Or just the way she wanted to remember that day?
The rain increased as she stopped at the very spot in the cracked, wet concrete where her mother’s body had landed with a heart-stopping and sickening thud.
“Oh, Mama,” she whispered.
Her throat closed in on itself. She felt slightly ill remembering the horrifying scream and turning to spy her mother land, head cracking, bones breaking, blood pooling a thick, dark red.
“Jesus,” she whispered now and sketched the sign of the cross deftly over her chest. She knew the exact spot where her mother had landed, and when she closed her eyes, she still heard the rush of noise, her father’s shout, the cries and thunder of footsteps as others rushed to help.
Too little, too late.
Even the shriek of the ambulance’s sirens was just useless loud noise, part of the cacophony that seemed to announce to the world that Faith Chastain had finally escaped from her pain.
Abby backed up, away from the precise point, where, if she let herself, she could still see the blood flowing, her mother’s face, turned at an impossible angle. Staring up at her . . . as if from a far distance . . . as if Abby were on a mountaintop. Her mind, as always, played tricks on her as she, still staring at that horrid place, forced herself backward.
Her heels hit the steps leading to the main door. Abby tore her gaze away from the area where Faith had lost her life. There was no use standing in the rain, reliving the tragedy. If seeing that precise slab of concrete had been the point, she’d accomplished it. She turned and mounted the stairs at the door, she reached for the handle, then pushed with her shoulders.
Locked.
Of course.
The clouds were beginning to open up, raindrops bouncing on the ground, the sky as dark as twilight. She should just go back, call it a day, hope that just being here was enough to satisfy whatever psychological and emotional need was necessary to find the closure of her mother’s death. But as she glanced up toward the window of Faith’s room, she knew she would always have questions, be plagued with doubts if she didn’t find her way into the bedroom where her mother’s madness had escalated to suicide.
And she was here, wasn’t she?
She walked the perimeter of the building, testing doors and finding them all locked, the French doors to the verandah, the kitchen door where deliveries had been made, the two opposing hallway
doors beneath the old fire escapes . . . all locked tight.
She was about to give up, deciding the Fates were against her, when, at the back of the building near a service parking area, she noticed an unlatched window, one where the glass hadn’t yet been shattered.
Maybe the Fates had changed their collective mind.
She stepped onto the crumbling stoop leading to the kitchen and tried pushing the window upward. It gave slightly. Slinging her camera to her back, she pressed closer and, using two hands, shoved hard. Nothing happened. It didn’t even budge. “Come on, come on,” she urged, wondering how many laws she was breaking and, ludicrously, imagining herself explaining to Detective Montoya why she was breaking and entering. That wasn’t a pleasant thought. After taking several deep breaths, she tried again. This time she strained so hard, the muscles in the backs of her arms burned and her shoulders and upper back began to ache. She gritted her teeth. Pressed harder.
Suddenly, without warning, the window slid upward and Abby nearly tumbled off the stoop. Stale air escaped and she had another moment’s indecision before thinking, In for a penny, in for a pound. Using the strap on the camera to lower it, she set the Minolta inside. Now it was her turn. With more agility than she had expected, she pushed herself up and through, using her hands to catch herself as she landed on the dusty floor of what had once been a dining hall. It was empty now, the three chandeliers dark, the floor stained from water that had oozed through the window, down the wall, and into the cracks between the once-glossy planks.
It was dark inside, not only from the gloomy day but because she didn’t dare try any lights. She suspected the electricity had been turned off a decade earlier. The few windows that were still intact let in some natural light, but as she crept through the old dining area, she tried to be as quiet as possible, as if in making any noise, she might alert whatever ghosts and spirits abided here.
