After a few minutes, she ran her hands over her body, brushing her fingers over her breasts, the fine, fluffy hair between her legs. How many times had she thought about having sex, about having a man kiss her bare breasts and warm skin, having him touch her in all her tender, private places? How many times had she thought about Ethan making love to her? Countless. Thankfully, she didn’t have any real memories of her father violating her. But would anyone be able to tell what he’d done? The thought filled her stomach with greasy nausea. She washed between her legs a second time, then stood and rinsed off under the shower, letting the hot stream loosen her neck and shoulders. Finally, she turned off the water and emptied the tub. She toweled off and put on clean pajamas, then went to her room and crawled under the covers.
I won’t let my past define my future, she thought. I was a different person back then. And I’m not going to spend the rest of my life paying for my father’s sins. I won’t and I can’t.
CHAPTER 18
CLARA
After talking to Madeline and Esther, Clara spent the next few weeks trying to figure out where Bruno might be working. At night she couldn’t sleep and during the day she was distracted. At her job in the laundry she mixed up the sheets with the towels, the hospital gowns with the aprons. When the foreman saw her mistake, he put her to work in the sewing room across the hall, making and repairing shirts and trousers and nightgowns. She sat on a stool making tiny, precise stitches, trying to think of new ways to find Bruno. So far, nothing had worked.
The day after Esther told Clara what happened, Clara thought about asking to see Dr. Roach to convince him once and for all that Bruno did exist. Somehow, she would insist he bring the construction crew into his office one by one. Bruno would be among them and he would recognize Clara, proving she’d been telling the truth all along. Then she remembered Madeline saying Dr. Roach had put Esther on medication because she was frantic, acting as if her life depended on finding Clara. Why would he medicate her, other than to keep her quiet? Was he afraid Clara would find out Bruno was at Willard? And if so, why? Before she went to Dr. Roach, she needed to ask more questions. That afternoon, in the recreation room, she sat across from Esther, gently shaking her awake.
“I need to ask you something,” Clara said, leaning forward and keeping her voice down.
Esther blinked and lifted her head, giving Clara a thin smile. “Did you find Bruno?” she said, her words slurring.
“Shhh,” Clara whispered. “I don’t want anyone to hear.”
Esther exhaled. “Okay,” she whispered.
“Just shake your head yes or no, all right?”
Esther nodded, her wet lips parting, her eyelids half closed.
“Did you tell Dr. Roach the name of the man who came into the ward?” Clara whispered.
Esther nodded.
“Did you tell him Bruno was looking for me?”
Esther nodded again.
Clara’s heart started racing. “What did Dr. Roach say?”
Esther’s mouth contorted in disgust. “He said I was hallucinating.”
“Is that it? Is that why he put you on medication?”
Esther shook her head. “I asked about you. He said you were very ill. Then I asked about your baby. I said Bruno was the father.”
“And?” Clara said, holding her breath.
“He was surprised I knew about the baby.”
“Did he tell you they took her?”
“No,” Esther said, her chin quivering. “He said I should mind my own business.”
Clara’s face and chest felt on fire. She couldn’t imagine why Dr. Roach refused to believe Esther’s story. Esther had nothing to gain by saying Bruno was real. And why wouldn’t Dr. Roach look into it, to find out if Clara had been telling the truth all along? Had he gone too far—keeping Clara locked up, taking her baby away—to admit he’d made a mistake? Or was her father behind it all, pulling Dr. Roach’s strings?
Suddenly, Esther’s face twisted in anguish. “I’m sorry,” she said, dissolving into tears. “It’s all my fault.”
“What?” Clara said, her stomach tightening.
“I shouldn’t have told Dr. Roach about Bruno,” she said, her voice catching.
“It’s all right,” Clara said. “You were just trying to help.”
“But what if Dr. Roach got rid of him?” Esther said.
Clara felt the blood drain from her face. The room started to spin. She hadn’t thought of that. Dr. Roach could easily have Bruno fired and banned from the property. What then?
A few days later, she stole a pair of pants and a boiled shirt from the sewing room, wet her hair down and slicked it back from her face, then went into the laundry to try to sneak out with the male patients picking up the clean linens. The foreman caught her and pulled her aside, earning her a week in isolation before she was allowed to come back to work. She asked the other patients if they’d seen the construction crew, and if so, where. They all said no, shaking their heads with worried eyes, just wanting to be left alone. She thought about sharing Esther’s story with Nurse Trench, hoping she would feel sorry for her, but decided it was too big a risk. At times, finding Bruno seemed impossible. But she had to try. There was no other choice.
The wee hours after midnight were the worst. That was when she worried Bruno had been fired and wouldn’t find another way to rescue her. She worried he’d get discouraged and stop looking. She worried Esther had been dreaming. After all, Clara had told Esther and Madeline everything, that she and Bruno were in love, that her parents had disapproved, that her father had sent her away, that she was expecting a baby. Maybe being locked up in Willard and being put into a coma had sent poor Esther around the bend. Maybe she had imagined the entire thing! The thought pressed against Clara’s chest like a slab of cold granite.
For nights on end, doubts and questions kept Clara awake. Every time she was finally on the edge of sleep due to pure exhaustion, the horrible idea that Bruno wasn’t at Willard made her sit up in bed, breathless and sweaty, her legs tangled in the grimy sheets. Afterward, she’d curl up and cry herself to sleep, wondering if she would ever be free.
Then, one day in the sewing room, while sitting on a hard stool with her back to the window and a basket of freshly starched shirts at her feet, Clara watched the forewoman climb a ladder to change a lightbulb. The forewoman was a petite, older woman who limped around the sewing room, her long, full skirt rustling along the plank floors. She called the female patients “dearie” and made sure they kept their heads down, their eyes on their work. Sometimes, she used a cane to get around, complaining about the weather making her bones ache, frequently stopping to massage her gimpy leg. Lately, due to the damp spring, she used the cane every day.
Watching the forewoman on the high ladder, Clara cringed when she teetered and nearly fell. Clara had no idea what was wrong with the forewoman’s leg, but she wondered why she’d risk climbing a ladder to change a lightbulb. There were three blown bulbs in the sewing room, including the one above where Clara was sitting. But the ceilings were twelve feet high, the light fixtures nearly ten feet from the floor. Surely, Willard had men to do jobs like that.
Then, like a jolt, an idea came to her.
If she couldn’t go to Bruno, maybe she would find a way to get Bruno to come to her. Esther said he was working with the carpentry crew. Madeline said they were fixing a leak in the ceiling or putting up a new door. Clara looked around the sewing room, trying to figure out what she could break. After a minute, her heart sank. The doors were too thick, the moldings too wide. The walls were lined with open cupboards used for storing folded cloth and linens, and there were dozens of wooden stools, sorting tables, and high-back chairs, but nearly all the furniture was made out of solid oak or maple. The room’s support beams were bigger around than Clara’s head. Then she realized that, unlike the windows on the wards, which were covered by protective mesh, the insides of the sewing room windows were exposed. The panes were separated by thi
n, wooden grids and could be easily broken.
With her heart in her throat, Clara got up from her stool and went over to the ladder, where the forewoman was climbing down. On the last rung, the forewoman lost her balance and nearly fell. Clara grabbed her arm.
“Can I help you?” she said.
The forewoman exhaled in relief, then straightened her skirts, her face red, her gnarled hands shaking. “Thank you, dearie,” she said. “I hate climbing ladders.”
Clara and the forewoman moved the ladder across the floor, positioning it beneath the next light fixture. Clara climbed up and changed the bulb without incident. Then they dragged the ladder beneath the next bulb, near the windows where Clara had been sitting. Clara took a deep breath and climbed the ladder, trying to keep her knees from shaking. There was no other choice. She had to get out of Willard. She had to find Bruno and Beatrice. And she had to do something drastic right now, before she lost her nerve.
Clara reached for the lightbulb and purposefully leaned too far, tilting the ladder toward the windows. She pretended to lose her balance and pulled the ladder over, crashing the top step into the windowpanes, sending glass shards and splintered wood across the room. At the last second, she let go, falling to the wooden floor with a bone-jarring thud. Then the ladder fell sideways, tipping over a cupboard, stacks of white shirts and brown trousers sliding from the shelves in what seemed like slow motion. The top shelf cracked in half, and the ladder fell to the ground with a loud clatter.
“Oh lord in heaven!” the forewoman cried. “Are you all right, dearie?”
Two orderlies rushed into the sewing room, hurrying over to help Clara up. Several patients stared with frightened eyes, while others shrugged and whispered. Most sat watching, their pasty faces blank. Clara stood on shaky legs, brushing off her dress.
“I’m fine,” she said, rubbing her elbow. Her hip screamed in agony and her shoulder felt like it had been wrenched from its socket, but she wasn’t about to complain and get sent to the infirmary.
Flustered and red-faced, the forewoman ordered everyone back to work. The women found their stools and resumed their sewing, some crying, some mumbling, others whispering behind trembling hands. The forewoman got the broom and held it out to Clara, panting and leaning on her cane as if she was the one who had just fallen off a ladder.
“I’m sorry,” Clara said, taking the broom. “I was just trying to help.”
“Don’t you never mind about that, dearie,” the forewoman said. “Just sweep up this mess, then find another stool and get back to work.” She gripped her cane with both hands and looked around the room, clucking her tongue. “I suppose I better get someone over here to fix all this.”
“When?” Clara said.
The forewoman furrowed her brow. “As soon as I can,” she said, her voice flat. “Although I have no idea why that makes any difference to you, dearie.”
After breakfast the next morning, Clara hurried through the sewing-room door with her heart in her throat. Her eyes flew toward the broken window and cracked cupboard, hoping to see men working there. But the window was boarded up and the broken cupboard was gone. Her shoulders dropped. If the carpenters had been here, she’d missed them. She went across the room and found a stool among the other women, baskets of sheets and nightgowns at their feet. She could barely push the end of her thread through a needle, the world a blur through her tears.
How stupid and foolish of me, she thought, biting down hard on her lip. Even if the carpenters had come while I was here, there was no guarantee Bruno would be among them. Like Esther said, Dr. Roach could have gotten rid of him, or maybe there’s more than one carpentry crew. The hard toast and dried prunes from breakfast churned in her stomach and she nearly gagged. One of the patients started singing “Bye, Bye, Blackbird” in a high, off-key voice. Another started humming along, her thin, white fingers floating in the air as if she were conducting an invisible orchestra. It was all Clara could do not to yell at them to stop. Then the forewoman came in to make her rounds, and Clara was grateful when the woman stopped singing.
She plucked a torn nightgown from her basket, then lowered her head and got to work, accidently sticking the needle in her fingertip. She ignored it and kept working, stitching a ripped shoulder closed. The forewoman limped past, her cane tapping on the wooden floorboards. A red blotch bloomed on the nightgown in Clara’s hands, bleeding into yellowed stains. Clara put her finger in her mouth, got off her stool, and shoved the nightgown to the bottom of the basket, swearing under her breath. The woman next to her watched, her mouth pinched in disapproval.
Just then, Clara heard a male voice in the hallway. Her head snapped toward the sound, her heart racing in her chest. A man was moving backward through the sewing-room door, his shoulders hunched as if he were lifting something heavy. The ceiling lights reflected off his bald head and his torso was short and thick, as if his body was that of a dwarf despite his limbs being long and lean. Sawdust coated his overalls like a fine layer of yellow fuzz. The bald man shuffled backward into the room, one end of a window frame in his hands, trying not to scrape the wide sash along the doorframe. Clara held her breath as she watched the window inch through the entrance, thinking she might pass out before she saw who was holding the other end.
Then her shoulders sagged. The man carrying the other end of the repaired window was pale and lanky, with short blond hair. Clara sat down hard on her stool, blinking against her tears. The men carried the window past her and set it up against the wall, next to the boarded-up window.
“When are you fixing the cupboard?” the forewoman asked the bald man.
“Here it is now,” the bald man said, turning toward the door.
Clara swallowed, following the bald man’s gaze. Another worker backed into the doorway, one end of a wooden cupboard in his hands. He was square shouldered and sturdy looking, his black hair slicked close to his head. Clara gasped. She dropped the nightgown and got to her feet. It seemed to take forever for the rest of the cupboard to come through the door. Clara glanced at the man on the other end. He had gray hair and glasses. Her eyes snapped back to the dark-haired man. Finally the cupboard was all the way in the room. The men set it down and, in what looked like slow motion, the dark-haired man turned. He took off his gloves and glanced around the room, as if looking for someone. His hair was longer than Clara remembered and there was a fresh scar above his eye, but Clara knew that face.
It was Bruno.
A cry of joy burst from her throat. “Bruno!” she cried, her voice breaking. She started toward him.
Bruno’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. He dropped his gloves and started toward her.
“Stop right there!” the forewoman shouted. “Orderlies!”
“Do as they say,” Bruno said.
The orderlies rushed into the room and Clara stopped in her tracks, fighting the urge to run into Bruno’s arms. But he was right: Getting into trouble wouldn’t help their situation. Bruno moved backward, his hands up in surrender. The forewoman glared at Clara.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she said, scowling. She limped across the room and grabbed Clara’s chin with hard fingers. “You been doing something you’re not supposed to be doing? You just wait ’til Dr. Roach hears about this. There’s a special ward for women like you, dearie.”
“She’s my wife!” Bruno said, his voice strong.
The forewoman glared at him. She let go of Clara’s chin and looked him up and down, her lips pressed into a rigid line. Then she lifted her cane, pointing the end of it at the bald man. “You have any idea what’s going on here?” she said.
He shook his head.
The forewoman jerked her head toward the door. “Take them to see Dr. Roach,” she said to the orderlies.
Clara and Bruno sat on opposite ends of Dr. Roach’s office, an orderly on both sides of their chairs. Dr. Roach sat at his desk while Nurse Trench stood behind his shoulder, worried eyes darting back and forth between Clara
and Bruno. She held a patient chart against her ample chest, a straitjacket draped over her arm like a serving towel. Nurse May entered from the hallway, handed Dr. Roach a folder, then obediently stood at one end of his desk. Dr. Roach opened the folder, laid it on the blotter and scanned the papers, clenching and unclenching his jaw. Clara could barely breathe, waiting for him to say something. Finally, he looked up.
“I’m not sure I understand what’s going on here,” he said. “Would you care to enlighten me, Clara?”
“This is Bruno!” Clara said. “The man you said doesn’t exist! I told you I wasn’t insane! He’s . . .” She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and stared at Bruno, tears flooding her eyes. There was no other way to tell him. “He’s the father of my baby. The little girl you took away from me.”
Bruno stiffened, his face turning crimson. He closed his eyes and hung his head, his fingers digging into the arms of the chair, his temples working in and out.
“Maybe he’d care to explain why his employee chart says Joseph Russo,” Dr. Roach said. “Not Bruno Moretti.”
Bruno looked up and cleared his throat, his eyes glassy. “Joseph is my father’s first name,” he said, his words hard and forced, as if he could barely control his anger. “Russo is my mother’s maiden name.”
“Why didn’t you use your real name when you applied for the carpentry job?” Dr. Roach said.
“Because Clara warned me in a letter that the doctors at the Long Island Home knew about me,” Bruno said. “Her father had ordered them to keep me away from her, going as far as intercepting her earlier letters so I wouldn’t find out where she was. I used a different name because I figured you’d been given the same instructions.”
“So you took a job at Willard to find your girlfriend?” Dr. Roach said.
“Yes,” Bruno said. “I knew you wouldn’t listen if I came to the front door and demanded you release her. Henry Cartwright is a powerful man. I know she’s being held here under his orders. And just to be clear, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s my wife.”
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