What She Left Behind

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  “Henry Cartwright cares about his daughter’s well-being,” Dr. Roach said. “He sent her to Willard because she’s not well.”

  “Bullshit!” Bruno said, the veins in his forehead standing out. “He sent her here to keep her away from me! There’s nothing wrong with her!”

  “I’m afraid you’re not qualified to judge her mental state,” Dr. Roach said. “Whereas I, on the other hand, am.” He directed his gaze at Clara. “Would you care to explain why you never mentioned being married?”

  Clara glanced at Bruno, unsure of what to say. But he was glaring at Dr. Roach, clearly fighting the urge to launch himself across the desk and strangle him. Then, sensing Clara’s hesitation, he looked at her, his forehead furrowed, as if trying to convey she should play along. He reached into his back pocket and retrieved a folded piece of paper from his wallet.

  “Here’s our marriage certificate,” he said, holding it out to Dr. Roach. Nurse May came around the desk, took the paper, and laid it on the open folder. Dr. Roach scanned the certificate.

  “How did you two meet?” he said.

  “At the Cotton Club,” Clara said. “My father had no idea that I used to go there with my girlfriends. One night, Bruno was—”

  Dr. Roach waved a hand in the air. “No, no,” he said. “I don’t want to hear any more stories. I want to know how you met here, at Willard. Clearly, our system of keeping outside help from mingling with patients has some serious flaws.”

  “It’s not a story!” Clara said. “We—”

  “Clara was working in the sewing room,” Bruno interrupted, his voice strained. He moved to the edge of the seat, as if getting ready to stand. The orderly grabbed his shoulder and urged him to stay down. Bruno shot him a dirty look before resuming. “I was helping deliver a cupboard from the woodshop. It was the first time I saw her here, even though I’ve been searching for months.”

  “So you didn’t start a relationship with Clara while she was a patient here?” Dr. Roach said.

  “No,” Bruno said, holding Dr. Roach’s gaze. “We met two years ago at the Cotton Club, just like she said.”

  “Why won’t you believe anything we’re telling you?” Clara said. “All along I’ve said my father sent me here to keep me away from the man I love. Now he’s right here in front of you and you’re still not listening!”

  “You’ve been delusional since you arrived,” Dr. Roach said. “This man is trying to take advantage of your illness by telling you he’s someone he’s not.”

  “That’s not true!” Clara said, pounding a fist on her leg. “How do you explain the names on the marriage certificate?”

  Dr. Roach lit his pipe, took a long drag, then looked at the certificate again, smoke rolling from his lips. “This doesn’t prove anything,” he said. “It could be forged for all I know.”

  “What about Beatrice?” Clara said, panic tightening her chest. “If Bruno isn’t the father, who is?”

  Dr. Roach shook his head. “I’m sure I don’t know,” he said. “But your father made me aware that you were being rather, how shall I say, free with yourself before you were sent to the Long Island Home. He said it was unlike you and that’s when he started to suspect something was wrong.” Dr. Roach gave a nod to Nurse May and she left the office, exiting through the examining room door.

  “That’s a lie!” Clara cried. “I was with Bruno, that’s why my parents sent me here! Don’t you see? It all makes perfect sense!”

  “Where’s our daughter?” Bruno said, grinding the words out between clenched teeth. “I demand you give her back to us.” He took a deep breath and held it, clearly trying to maintain self-control.

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Roach said to Bruno, his voice flat. “I know you think you’re helping Clara, but she’s unfit to be a mother. Trust me when I tell you that her daughter has been placed in a loving home and is being well taken care of.”

  Just then, Nurse May reappeared with a hypodermic needle on a tray. Clara’s heart hammered in her chest. Bruno looked at the tray with a furrowed brow, then stood, his hands in fists. The orderlies grabbed him by the arms.

  “This can’t be legal!” Bruno said, his voice rattled by fury. “You can’t just lock people up and do whatever you want with their children!”

  “Clara’s father has trusted me with her care,” Dr. Roach said. “I’m only doing what’s best for everyone.”

  “I’ll go to the police!” Bruno shouted. “I’ll tell them you kidnapped our baby! I’ll bring them back here and demand you return my daughter and let Clara go!”

  Dr. Roach considered Bruno for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether or not he was bluffing. Bruno glared at him, his chest heaving in and out.

  “Where’s my daughter?” Bruno said again, his eyes burning with rage. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll find someone who will. And then I’ll have you arrested!”

  Dr. Roach put his pipe in an ashtray. He shifted in his seat, then wrote something in Bruno’s folder, perspiration breaking out on his forehead.

  Clara stood. “Why are you so nervous?” she said. “Has my father been paying you to keep me here? Did he tell you to give my baby away?” The orderlies shoved her back into the chair.

  Dr. Roach ignored her and turned to Nurse Trench, his hand out. She bit her lower lip and gave him the chart she’d been holding. Dr. Roach opened it, turned to the last page, and scribbled something at the bottom. Then he closed the folders and made a small gesture, as if shooing away a fly. The orderlies shoved Bruno back into the chair. Bruno struggled and tried to stand. It was no use.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Bruno shouted. “You have no authority over me! I’m not one of your patients!” Dr. Roach stood, reached for the coat on the back of his chair, and pushed his arms into it. He directed his attention to Nurse Trench.

  “Insulin therapy for Clara,” he said, buttoning his jacket. Nurse Trench nodded, her eyes growing moist. Then Dr. Roach looked at Bruno, his face flat. “I’m recommending you be admitted for evaluation, Joseph or Bruno or whoever you are.”

  Bruno struggled to stand, his hands in fists, his mouth twisting in contempt. “That’s it?” he bellowed. “You’re just going to decide we’re lying, or insane, or whatever you want to call it? You’re just going to lock us up?”

  “I’m doing my job,” Dr. Roach said. “I’m trying to help Clara. Now I’ll try to help you.”

  “The hell you are!” Bruno shouted. “What are you afraid of? What are you trying to hide?”

  Clara slumped in her chair, certain she was going to throw up. One of the orderlies grabbed her under the arm and yanked her to her feet. Finally, Bruno pulled out of the orderlies’ grasp. He flew across the room, grabbed Clara, and dragged her toward the door.

  “Stop them!” Dr. Roach shouted.

  An orderly caught Clara by the waist and carried her backward, her feet coming off the floor. She clawed at the orderly’s arms, breaking his skin, but it was no use. The orderly wouldn’t let go. Clara watched, suspended in midair, as the other orderlies wrestled Bruno to the floor and held him there. Dr. Roach rushed over with a straitjacket and the orderlies yanked Bruno to his feet. Bruno thrashed and bucked, trying to escape, but the orderlies twisted his arms backward, pulling them up behind his shoulder blades. Bruno doubled over in pain, his eyes bulging. He lifted his head to look at Clara.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, his voice strained. “I’ll find a way to get you out of here!”

  Dr. Roach buried a syringe in Bruno’s upper arm, then stepped back, watching the orderlies wrestle Bruno into the straitjacket. Clara squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t watch.

  CHAPTER 19

  IZZY

  Bedford State Prison

  The October wind whipped Izzy’s hair across her face as she stood looking up at the two-story metal gate outside Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. She turned her back to the icy gusts and gathered her coat beneath her chin, trembling and waiting for the guard to
let her in. Behind the gate, the hodgepodge collection of brick buildings, barred windows, and clusters of chimneys reminded her of Willard State. The only differences between the asylum and the prison were the watchtowers and the curling barbed wired above the metal fences.

  She glanced across the road toward the parking lot, where Peg sat in the driver’s seat of her car, watching from behind the windshield. Peg had called ahead to arrange the visit and offered to go in, but Izzy insisted on saying good-bye to her mother alone. Now, her stomach started doing flip-flops and she wondered if it was too late to change her mind. Just as she made the decision that she really wanted Peg to come with her, a guard ambled through the inside gate to let her in. He scuffed his heels along the pavement and looked around as if bored, his expression indifferent.

  “Visitor’s pass?” he said when he reached her.

  “No,” Izzy said. “I . . . um. I’ve never been here before. My mother is in the infirmary. My foster mother called and talked to the warden. He said I could visit.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Isabelle Stone,” she said.

  “Hang on,” he said. He opened a black box on a pole next to the gate, dialed a number, and told whoever was on the other end about the situation. “Yeah,” he said. “Isa . . . what’s your name again?”

  “Isabelle Stone,” she said.

  “Isabelle Stone,” the guard repeated. “Yup. Okay.” He hung up the phone and looked at her. “You got some ID?”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out her birth certificate and school ID. He examined them, glancing up at her to compare the pictures, then unlocked the gate.

  “You have to go to the visitors’ entrance and get a pass,” he said. She shoved her IDs back in her purse, glanced over her shoulder and gave Peg a quick wave, then entered the prison grounds. The guard pointed toward the brick buildings to his right. “See that blue sign over there? The one that says All Visitors?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Follow the sidewalk to the lobby entrance, then press the intercom and tell them what you told me.”

  “Okay,” she said. She dropped her head and walked into the wind, putting her hands on her dress to hold it down, berating herself for wearing it in the first place. When she was little, her mother had insisted on making her wear homemade dresses, curling her hair and tying it back with pink ribbons. At six years old, Izzy started rebelling against the frilly clothes, begging her mother to let her wear T-shirts and jeans like her friends, as if that was the most important thing in the world. Her mother had relented, but Izzy never forgot the sad look in her mother’s eyes when she realized her little girl was growing up. Today, wearing a dress felt like the least Izzy could do. Now, with the wind whipping against her bare legs, she realized how foolish it was. After all, her mother wouldn’t know the difference.

  With her heart in her throat, Izzy pushed the buzzer on the outer door of the visitors’ lobby and was let inside. Sitting behind a sliding window and keeping her eyes on her work, a receptionist handed Izzy three forms, instructing her to fill them out. Izzy took the clipboard over to a chair and sat down, trying not to stare at the children playing and reading at the kid-sized tables in the center of the room. They were school-age children, toddlers and babies, girls and boys around ten to twelve years old, smiling and laughing, as if playing in a prison lobby was the most natural thing in the world.

  At first, Izzy was confused, wondering why children would be hanging out in a jail. But then she realized they were there to see their mothers. Their mothers, who were locked up in prison. She bit down on her lip. Had the older ones ever refused to visit? she wondered. Or were they always loyal, visiting their moms no matter what? She filled out the paperwork, a sour mass of guilt twisting in her stomach.

  Finally, a female guard came to lead her to the infirmary. Izzy followed the guard through a riveted metal door into a short cement passageway that smelled like damp stone, iron, urine, and something that reminded her of curry. Long, barred windows ran along one wall and three open doors lined the other. The guard stopped and motioned Izzy through the first doorway. She did as she was told. Inside a small room, another guard waited beside a white table.

  “I need to search your bag,” the guard said.

  Izzy slid her purse from her shoulder and handed it over. The guard dumped the contents on the table.

  “Lift your arms and stand with your feet apart,” the first guard said.

  Izzy swallowed the lump in her throat and raised her hands. The guard patted her down, feeling between her legs and beneath her breasts. Finally, the search was over and the first guard took her back into the passageway. At the end of the hall, they came to a door made of iron bars. Izzy stood behind the guard, waiting for her to unlock it, her knees jerking up and down. The only sound she heard was her racing heart, roaring in her ears. It was bad enough being inside a prison for the first time, but the closer she got to seeing her mother, the harder it was to put one foot in front of the other.

  She followed the guard through the bars into a concrete hallway with caged ceiling lights, then through another locked metal door into a small lobby. The guard instructed her to take a seat and wait for someone to come get her. She did as she was told, sitting on her hands, trying to take deep, calming breaths. The guard left, exiting through another doorway.

  A nurse sat on the other side of a glass partition, an open door behind her leading into another room. Maybe this is a mistake, Izzy thought, blinking back tears. The image of her mother sprawled on the bed in the mental ward jerked into her mind and she nearly cried out loud. Not only did she wonder what her mother was going to look like now, after ten years of being locked up in prison, but when she thought of seeing her mother in a coma, her stomach churned and she felt like she was going to be sick. The last image she had of her mother had haunted her dreams for years. What horrible picture would be painted in her mind today?

  She remembered a book by Stephen King called The Dead Zone, where a man injured in a car accident spent five years in a coma. She pictured the main character waking up and grabbing someone’s hand, unable to let go until he’d made a prediction about the person’s future. After reading the novel, Izzy hadn’t been able to sleep for weeks. Being in a coma seemed like the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone. And now she was about to see her mother in that condition. Between the guilt she felt for refusing to visit all these years, the sorrow about the prospect of being an orphan, and the fear of seeing her mother on life support, Izzy felt like screaming. But she had to apologize and say good-bye. She had to tell her mother that she’d never stopped loving her. She owed her at least that.

  When one of the lobby doorways opened, Izzy jumped. A female guard called her name and held the door open. Izzy went through it and stood in the hall, her fingernails buried in her palms. A dark-haired nurse in scrubs appeared and led her down a long, green hallway, her shoes squeaking on the tiled floor. The nurse stopped outside a set of double doors and, to Izzy’s surprise, smiled at her.

  “You okay?” she said.

  Izzy nodded. It felt more like a spasm.

  “Just so you know,” the nurse said. “We rarely allow family members in the infirmary. Normally, someone in your mother’s condition would be sent to the public hospital. I hate to be blunt, but we don’t think she’d survive the trip. Your foster mother begged us to keep her here until you could come see her. You’re only going to have a few minutes.”

  Izzy nodded and tried to thank her, but her mouth had gone dry.

  “Don’t worry,” the nurse said, putting a hand on Izzy’s shoulder. “She just looks like she’s sleeping.” The nurse opened the door and led Izzy inside. A dozen metal beds lined the white walls of the vast room, a female prisoner lying on each one, some sleeping, some talking to the prisoner next to them, some reading. A guard sat at a desk beside the door. The prisoners stopped what they were doing and looked up, eyes widening in surprise, brows wrinklin
g in confusion. The nurse led Izzy to the first patient, pulled a curtain between the beds, brought over a metal chair, and then stood with her hand on the bed railing. Beside the bed, monitors beeped, ventilation machines squeaked and wheezed.

  “Your daughter is here to see you, Joyce,” the nurse said to the woman lying in the bed.

  Izzy steeled herself, her stomach clenching. Her lungs felt like they were wavering inside her chest, as if at any second her organs were going to spasm once and shut down forever, leaving her dead on the floor. She edged over to the railing, her fingers over her trembling lips, and looked down at the woman on the bed.

  When she saw her mother’s familiar features, her high cheeks and straight nose, the little scar above her right eyebrow from the time she fell on ice in the driveway, Izzy’s breath caught in her chest. Wrinkles lined the skin around her mother’s eyes, and streaks of silver lined her black hair, but other than the ventilation tube taped over her mouth, she looked unchanged. When Izzy was little, she thought her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. Over the years, she’d come to wonder if every little girl thought her mother was beautiful, if the picture she had in her head had been enhanced by time. Now, she realized she was right. Her mother was stunning. She dropped her purse in the chair and moved closer.

  “Is there any chance at all she might wake up?” she asked the nurse.

  The nurse shook her head. “No, honey,” she said. “By the time they found her, the damage was done.” She came around the bed and put a hand on Izzy’s arm. “I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do for you? Would you like a glass of water, or a soda?”

  “No,” Izzy said, her voice tight. “Thank you. I just need a few minutes alone with . . .”

  “Are you all right? You look a little pale.”

  Izzy nodded and the nurse patted her shoulder. “Okay,” the nurse said. “I’ll leave the two of you alone for a minute.” She jerked her chin toward the guard at the door. “Just behave yourself, okay?”