“Maybe you should see a doctor, get a sleeping pill. You don’t look at all well. Would you like me to call a doctor for you? Sophie won’t be very happy with me if she comes back and finds out I’ve let you worry yourself sick.”
Regina started to protest, thinking that she was the last person to deserve anyone’s concern, but then vague ideas from the long night coalesced in her mind. “Do you know a Doctor Carter?”
“In Piedmont?”
“No. I think Farmville.”
“Why? If you need a doctor, there’s a very good one right here in Piedmont. My Doctor Bunkley would see you, I’m sure. Do you want me to call him?”
“No, thank you.” She hesitated, conscious of the older woman’s watchful eyes. “There was a letter. My father consulted a Doctor Carter not long after Eugenie died. About me.”
“About you? Why?”
“I guess I must have been—I don’t really know. I just thought since he saw me back then, maybe it would be nice to go back to him now.”
“I can look him up if you like. Violet?” She raised a hand. “Bring me the telephone book, please, ma’am.” She turned back to Regina. “Why would he have gone all the way to Farmville? What was wrong with you?”
“I don’t know. I guess I must have been a little wild back then.”
“I’m sure you were upset. That whole house was turned upside down.”
“I don’t remember. I know I was too much for Alice to handle, after what happened. She couldn’t manage to take care of me.”
Mrs. Marsden snorted. “She didn’t care for any of her children from what I’ve heard. Thank you, Violet.” She opened the telephone book and paged through. “Women like your mother didn’t care for their own children. In their day, well-to-do children had mammies. That was before the Depression. And Alice Hannon always had Mary taking care of her children.” She tapped a page. “There’s a Doctor Carter on Hill Street in Farmville.”
“That’s it.”
After breakfast, she sat on the side of the bed and looked at the number Mrs. Marsden had written down for her. Farmville was on the way to Richmond. She could still make the noon meeting with the clients. She wasn’t sure she would be welcome, but she’d never failed a professional responsibility before. She decided that she’d risk being shown the door rather than be at fault for not being there if Ron needed her and wanted her there. Her own material was ready. She hadn’t prepared the alternative proposal Ron had asked for, but surely, she thought, her father’s situation was a reasonable excuse. She couldn’t even reconstruct in her mind the things she’d said in Ron’s office—was it only yesterday? She heaved a fatalistic sigh. Ron would do what Ron would do.
And Al. It was barely a week since they’d reconnected, but she’d been so glad. She’d felt as if she’d been given a second chance at a life that had been taken from her. A secretly dreamed-of future. She couldn’t bear the idea that she had lost his good opinion. She let her shoulders slump. She would apologize, repent, confess the damage she had wreaked. And Al would react one way or another. She felt as though she had lost all control of her life.
Another jolt stiffened her. Was her father still alive? She would call the hospital first.
After a long wait, Pace came on the line. “Regina, Papa’s gone. He died early this morning.”
She could only utter a soft, “Oh.”
“Are you all right? Where are you?”
“I’m okay. I’m at Mrs. Marsden’s. How—” She couldn’t figure out what to say.
“We’re taking care of everything. Mary’s with Mama. We’ll go back to the house, then I think most of us will go on home for a couple of days. The funeral is probably going to be on Saturday. I’ll tell Mary you called.”
She sat on the bed with the phone in her lap until the dial tone warned her to hang up. Then she sat there another long while, unaware of time, her mind mostly empty, her emotions dulled. She considered going to Blue Lake and decided not to. Did they expect her to come? Did they want her there? Probably not. Certainly she wasn’t needed. It wouldn’t matter much to any of them one way or another. Except Bebe. Bebe would be glad if she stayed away. She sighed and let her eyes and mind drift out the window to the hills. No use pretending it was a decision to be made. She knew she wouldn’t go home.
After a while, she returned to the slip of paper Mrs. Marsden had given her, dialed, and reached Doctor Carter’s nurse.
“Are you a patient?”
“He may have seen me with my mother when I was a child, and I have some questions.”
She gave her name and waited ten minutes until the nurse returned to say, “We have no record of having seen you.”
“There’s a letter from him to my father about it. Anyway, I—I’m home visiting my family. My father has been in the hospital, and he passed away this morning.” Her voice wavered, and the nurse murmured sympathy. “Anyway, I’m not sleeping well. I thought of Doctor Carter because I saw him as a child. And I wanted to ask him about that letter. I’m sorry, I’m not making much sense.”
“I’m so sorry about your father. Doctor Carter can probably find time to see you for a few minutes this morning. You’re welcome to come by.”
Doctor Carter’s office was a tidy bungalow on Hill Street. The nurse she had spoken to on the phone, a pretty young woman with short auburn hair and a crisp white uniform, was reassuring and gentle.
“He’ll see you in his office,” she said, leading the way down a hall decorated with children’s drawings.
The office was sunny and neat, and the doctor who rose to greet her was a tall, handsome, dark-haired man in his thirties.
Too young. The wrong doctor.
After shaking his hand, Regina said, “Oh. I think I made a mistake. I thought my father consulted you about me once.”
“When would that have been?”
“When I was about three. 1945?” She laughed, lifted momentarily by the first touch of humor in days.
He laughed too. “I was, let’s see, about fifteen?”
“I’m sorry.” She was still smiling but hung her head. “Anyway, I’ve been under a lot of stress lately, and a friend suggested I see a doctor to get something to help me sleep. I called you because I thought I’d seen you before.”
“Holly said you wanted to ask me some questions.”
“I did, about a letter that I thought you might have written, but it couldn’t have been you.”
“What made you think it was in the first place?”
“I have a letter, well, really just some notes, from a consultation with a Doctor Hamilton Carter. At this address.”
“You could have seen my father.”
“Oh?” An unexpected feeling of dread washed over her, and she realized she had laughed out of relief when she thought he couldn’t be the right doctor.
He pointed at the framed degrees and certificates on the wall. “That’s me, Ross Hamilton Carter III. Runs in the family. I joined my father’s practice when I finished my residency and kept it when he retired two years ago.”
“Do you have his records?”
“Yes, of course. He was a pediatrician like me. But from time to time, somebody who saw him as a child turns up. I thought that might be your case, but we didn’t find anything.”
“Oh.” Hope that had flared winked out, along with the dread.
“Do you have this letter?” He glanced at her purse and empty hands.
She shifted in her seat. “Not at the moment. I might be able to get it, but I saw it recently. I know what it says. My father consulted your father about what to do with me.”
“It puzzles me that he would have given you something in writing without there being a file with a copy.”
“It looks very informal. Oh, well, actually, I should say this address was printed on the notepaper, just a line at the bottom. It could have been on a prescription pad. I wish I could show it to you. But it was in an envelope that was mailed from Florida.”
He
leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “When did you say this was?”
“In 1945. November.”
“That would not have been my father. That would have been my grandfather.” He pointed at the diplomas again. “I’m the Third. My grandfather retired to Florida before the war. He died in 1946. He was seventy-five.”
“Oh.” She was breathless. She thought back to the slips of paper she had pored over. “He mentions being in poor health. As I say, it was a very informal consultation. Just a few jotted notes.”
“What was this about?”
“My sister drowned. My mother was very upset, of course. And I think it was difficult for her to care for me—I was three.”
“If it was your mother who was so distraught, why would he consult a pediatrician?”
“I don’t think it was about her. I think it was about me. I don’t think there was anything physically wrong with me. I was maybe—too difficult to handle.”
He cocked his head. “You had lost a sibling. You were very young, but it would have affected you too. Profoundly. You might have developed some distressed behaviors. Do you remember anything about this?”
“Not really. Or I’m not sure.”
“Some people have memories from when they were three years old. That’s quite young though.” He hesitated. “Your mother, she’s still alive?”
She nodded and looked down. Waited for the question she knew he would ask.
“You can’t just ask her about this?”
She took a moment before saying, “Not really.” Then met his eyes. “It’s a very painful subject for her even now.”
“It’s all very curious. I might have to see the letter before I could tell you anything useful. But I still don’t understand. You saw him in Florida?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I—I don’t think he actually saw me. It seems like my father might have just written to him and asked him what to do about me. Your grandfather mentions a painful dilemma. He doesn’t tell my father what to do. He just says he’ll have to do whatever he thinks best for his family.”
“Strange. Your father must have known my grandfather personally. Maybe he turned to a friend who was also a pediatrician. Your name is Hannon?” He shook his head, looking perplexed. “Doesn’t sound familiar. But I wouldn’t necessarily know the name.”
“My mother is Alice Hannon.”
He shook his head again.
“Her maiden name was Wilcox. She was Alice Wilcox.”
His brow cleared. “Oh, that explains it. My grandfather was a great friend of George Wilcox, if it’s the same family. My parents were married by Reverend Wilcox. ”
“My mother is his daughter.”
“Your father consulted a family friend who was also a retired doctor.”
“That makes sense.” A friend who would understand the delicacy of a painful, private situation in a small town. A doctor who was retired and living in Florida, his discretion doubly guaranteed by distance. It would be just like them to be concerned with appearances. For Alice’s sake.
He broke into her thoughts. “What is it about the contents of the letter that you’re wondering about?”
“It sounds like my father wrote after my sister drowned. He wanted to know if he should bring me to see Doctor Carter. It says that I needed constant attention and watching.”
“All young children need that, especially a child who has experienced a death in the family.”
“It was more than she could do. My mother.”
“Now, that sometimes is true. A parent may be so overwhelmed by the loss of a child that she is unable to function, unable to provide for a surviving child, particularly a demanding and active toddler, with all the care and attention she needs.”
Remembering what Al said, Regina asked, “Wouldn’t you think a parent would be doubly watchful of her remaining child?”
“People react to these situations differently. Depression can come into play. And people who are depressed often can’t function normally.”
She struggled with the feeling that she wasn’t getting at the point. “It sounded like the letter was recommending that I be taken from her because I was too much for her. Because I was too… strong-willed and demanding.”
“At three? A child of three may have been too much for her, but that does not necessarily mean that you would have been too much for her if your mother wasn’t suffering a traumatic loss, which the death of a child always is.”
She bit her lip, frustrated almost to tears.
“Who did care for you?”
“My sister. Another one, much older.”
“There you go. You weren’t too much for her.”
She wiped her eyes, fumbled at her purse, and he pushed a box of tissues her way. “Doctor Carter, it really sounds like the letter is saying that I was too difficult, that there was something about me. He talks about a child who is willful, headstrong, and jealous.”
Doctor Carter looked concerned and confused. “But you were so young. Could this have been about the child who drowned?”
“How could it be? Why would they even talk about her that way if she was dead?”
“I don’t know. I would have to see the letter.” He spoke with finality, as though there were nothing more to be said.
“The conclusion seemed to be that I should be taken from her.”
“Because your mother was too fragile. You were too young to be characterized in those terms, and I’m surprised my grandfather did so.”
“He didn’t,” she agreed, thinking back on the letter. “Since he didn’t see me, it must be that my father had used those terms to describe me.” Her voice broke. Her father had called her willful, headstrong, and jealous? Her heart felt like stone inside her.
The nurse knocked and stuck her head in the door. “Your appointment is here, Doctor Carter.
Regina glanced at the clock. “I should let you go.”
“It’s okay. Holly, tell them I’ll be with them soon.” He turned back to Regina. “What is it that’s bothering you?”
“I wonder about—what if a child were responsible for the death of a sibling?”
“A child could—make that would—feel responsible, surely.”
Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips.
He continued. “It is both common and natural for a child to feel guilty about the death of a sibling. You’ve heard of sibling rivalry. And you know that siblings don’t always get along. You don’t remember your sister—have you other siblings?”
“Yes.”
“Do you always get along with them?”
A rueful laugh escaped her. “No. Not always.” Bebe’s relentless persecution came to mind.
“Conflict can develop between even very young children. Your sister was how old?”
“Five.”
“A five-year-old and a three-year-old can squabble quite bitterly. I’ve broken up some fights between my own children that are like barroom brawls.” He smiled at this, but she could not. “Children’s emotions are experienced very acutely, and they may be very clear-cut. So you sometimes hate your sister, or she’s sometimes mean to you and you wish she would die—not understanding what that means, of course—and then one day she dies. Children think in terms of magic. You think, I hate my sister! and she dies. Presto. Your fault. You did it.”
“But do children ever actually harm their siblings?”
He pursed his lips. “All the time. Usually not seriously, but I’ve seen a case or two. Usually older siblings harm the younger ones, and usually there’s a pattern of escalating violence and the parents fail to intervene for one reason or another. I don’t see how it could apply in your case.”
“What about by accident?”
“It’s possible. I’ve never seen it. I don’t recall my father or my grandfather ever mentioning a case like that. What is common and probable is a feeling of responsibility, often where an older child is responsible for a younger one.” He leaned forward and said
kindly, “Miss Hannon, your mother was unable to care for you. You were a healthy, active child of three. This was not because you were unlovable or because your sister’s death was your fault. If there was sibling rivalry, being the younger child, you probably suffered for it. The younger child is almost always the victim. What happened to your sister was unfortunate, but it was not your fault. And that your mother couldn’t care for you wasn’t your fault either. It wasn’t what you deserved. It’s just what happened.”
She sighed. Maybe it was time to take this kind, sensible message to heart. “I’m sure you’re right.” She stood. “I know you’re busy. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
He held up a hand. “Miss Hannon, let me say this. If your mother was unable to take care of you and your parents took you to the doctor, they may have believed that you were the problem. My grandfather was old-fashioned. He may not have questioned your father’s description of the situation. Your father may have been trying to protect your mother from a feeling of shame or failure about not being able to care for you. It wouldn’t be the first time a child took the blame for a parent’s shortcoming.”
“They always said it like I was too much for her.”
Gently, he said, “They may have seen it that way. But I guarantee my grandfather did not say any three-year-old was more difficult than she should be. And this was you?” He laughed as he rose to show her out. “I don’t think so.”
It was 12:20 by the time Regina pulled into the parking lot at the office. She hated being late, but again, didn’t she have a good excuse?
Rosa was not at her desk. Regina found her in Regina’s own office, with Beckie, gathering and sorting through her project materials.
Beckie spotted her first. “Oh, Regina. Sorry, Ron wants these.”
Rosa looked up from arranging brochures in Regina’s portfolio. “This stuff is great. I don’t know how you can think about work with your dad and all. I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. I’m okay. I’ll take care of this, Beckie. Have they already started? I know I’m late.”
“They already started the meeting…” Beckie hesitated and exchanged a look with Rosa.
“Oh. Have I been fired?”
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