What's Left Unsaid

by Emily Bleeker

  Maggie returned to her desk, and Hannah settled on the floor to look through the documents inside. First was a typewritten log of what ended up being minutes to meetings held by the charitable board that kept the hospital running. The majority of the members were men through much of the twenties and thirties, but one woman, Shelby Dawson, took over during the war and led the organization until it was discontinued in the mid-1980s.

  Dawson. The name was familiar, but Hannah had left her notebook back at the table where she’d been working. She’d remember the name and check for it later. Hannah continued shuffling through the items. There were a few digitized files on microfilm she’d have to pick through on one of the machines, but what she didn’t expect was the small manila envelope at the bottom of the box, closed with a button and string. Whatever was inside was hefty enough to need several rows of stamps if it were to be mailed. As she unraveled the string that kept the top flap of the envelope closed, Hannah savored each loop, the anticipation, the hope that there might be something new and useful inside.

  What she found was a pile of photographs. Most in black and white. Each labeled on the back in a neat cursive. On top was a postcard with a photo of a large stone building: Crippled Children’s Hospital and School, 1919. It wasn’t direct evidence of Evelyn, but it was a step closer to the world she’d become certain Evelyn lived inside. According to the bylaws and press releases included in the box, the hospital had been founded in 1919 by Dr. Jeffery Dawson, an orthopedic surgeon who specialized in “incurable” medicine. In those days, children who were born with a significant physical “defect” or who acquired one through disease or accident were often not cared for at home. This hospital and school had been organized to provide care for those children, away from home, at no cost to the family.

  Of course, Hannah noted, all the faces that stared back at her in the first fifty years of the charity were white. She cringed. Sometimes it was hard to accept that this kind of open discrimination was deeply entwined not just in the history of her country but also in her own family’s history. Though Patrick Williamson had had a difficult time discussing some of his family’s secrets, like Sam’s suicide and Papaw’s alcoholism, he had always been open about the way he felt about his upper-middle-class white ancestors. Though his parents were involved in the civil rights movement, they were the first generation to not wholly embrace the systemic racism woven into the roots of his home state. He loved telling her and Brody stories passed down from their family history, but each one was spelled out with a half apology, explaining that he moved north hoping to find a more balanced outlook on diversity and inclusion. Growing up, Hannah wasn’t sure if he found exactly what he was looking for, since the poisonous effects of discrimination turned out to be everywhere, even if the symptoms looked different. But as she settled into her life down here, she saw what her father must’ve been running from.

  The other pictures in the pile included photos taken of the hospital’s float in the Cotton Carnival parade, a rickety playground outside the living quarters of the Children’s Hospital, and then several group photos of blurry black-and-white figures, some in nurses’ uniforms, some in skirts and fluffy shirts, and a few men in tweed trousers with ties and metal-rimmed glasses.

  Hannah flipped the first group photo over—1921 faculty was scrawled across the top with a list of names neatly printed underneath. She moved to the next one and repeated the inspection. Each subsequent photo was the same as the first—a date, often with chunks of years in between, and a list of names. Altogether there were about twenty-five faculty images, most in black and white, some in bleached-out color, but all well documented with names and dates on the back.

  Hannah shuffled through the pile again, this time with the names and dates facing up rather than the photos. Some of the names from the faculty stayed the same for years on end; most rotated frequently. But one name showed up on every list: Dawson. That was the name of the woman who had donated the files and the name of the doctor who had founded the school.

  Placing all the items carefully back in the box, Hannah stumbled to her feet, her right leg tingling with pins and needles from sitting on the floor too long. With a new purpose, she copied every photo, front and back, and started in on the microfilm articles that were stored inside the boxes, scratching down information, names, and potential leads in her notebook.

  She jumped when Maggie touched her elbow as she sat at the microfilm viewer.

  “Oh my God. You scared me,” Hannah gasped, heart pounding in her ears. She could tell by the twitch on her assistant’s lips that her shocked expression had been too loud.

  “So sorry,” she answered in an exaggerated whisper, as if she were trying to teach Hannah how to be quiet in a library. “It’s just that we close in an hour and I need to go downstairs to help with the checkout rush. I found a few things that might be helpful, but nothing about your Evelyn.”

  Closing? Hannah wondered, glancing at the clock over the line of couches to her right. It was already 5:00 p.m. How had she gotten so wrapped up in her research that she’d lost track of time this massively?

  “Oh shit,” Hannah cursed, once again at full volume, immediately feeling like she’d sworn in church. “Sorry,” she whispered, “I didn’t mean to stay this long.”

  Hannah closed her research notebook and piled up the resources she’d been using. She’d promised to be back home by eight. The Pines was only fifteen minutes or so from the library, according to Mr. Davenport, but who knew if anyone from that facility would be willing to sit down and talk to her this late in the day. She cursed herself as she piled copies into her messenger bag. She had to try to get to the Pines; she didn’t know when she’d have another opportunity to have a whole day off with a mode of transportation to keep herself going on this wild goose chase of a story.

  “Here are a few things I found and printed for you about a Harry Westbrook. I’m not sure if it’s your fella, but I hope so. He sounds . . . interesting.” Maggie held out a manila folder about half an inch thick with printed materials.

  “Seriously? That’s fantastic.” She grabbed the offered documents and went to peek inside the folder when she remembered the time as Maggie stood to leave.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for anything else. Oh, and I sent you a few links,” she said, the colorful pins on her library credentials clicking as the fabric lanyard straightened into a V. “To the email on your business card.”

  She doubted that she could still access the mailbox Maggie had been emailing all afternoon. Thankfully Maggie hadn’t tried the phone number, which would either lead to a dead end or some other random employee at the Trib who may or may not remember Hannah and be able to put two and two together.

  “Here, let me give you my number and my personal email. That one can be kind of . . . sketchy.” Hannah scribbled out the information printed in raised ink on the front of the card and wrote out her more up-to-date information on the back of it. “There you go. That should work better.”

  Maggie slipped the card into her ID holder at the end of her lanyard. “Sounds great. I’ll forward everythin’. I don’t have a card, but you can call me here.” She pointed to a yellow Post-it on the front of the envelope Hannah still had clutched in her hands.

  “My phone is toast. I’m waiting for a replacement.” She tried to sound official, like she was anticipating the delivery of a new device from Chicago any day now.

  “Email works fine too.” She fiddled with her ID badge and took a step back, away from the desk. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Miss Williamson. Best of luck. You know, I started in journalism. I can’t wait to read your story.”

  Hannah stopped packing for a moment and made eye contact with the young grad student. She wasn’t sure, but Hannah thought she read admiration in the woman’s eyes, like Maggie saw the reporter Hannah wanted to be in her. The look filled Hannah with shame. She looked away, finished filling her bag, and gave the best smile she could muster.

  “Thank
you for all your help.”

  And without looking back, Hannah rushed across campus, the slight fall nip in the air barely registering against her bare arms. She was getting too good at lying, and it was going to catch up with her if she didn’t stop soon. But as she unlocked the Buick and used the push-button door handle to get the massive door open with a screech, she knew it wasn’t possible to stop. Not yet.

  She pulled out the sheet of Mr. Davenport’s handwritten directions and started the car, the sun dipping lower in the sky than Hannah had hoped. She had one more stop to get to today and a growing list of questions, paired with a burning curiosity that wasn’t going away. Being an entirely transparent, sainted journalist wasn’t in her immediate future—she knew that. At the Pines, she’d likely need the business cards in her wallet and the set of outdated press credentials in her bag, as well as a great backstory and a few sleights of hand. But after that, she’d stop lying. Or . . . at least she’d try to.

  CHAPTER 12

  The sun was rapidly dropping as Hannah reached the black gates of the Pines Wellness Center. The facility sat nestled in the middle of an eclectic mix of nicely remodeled older homes and run-down shops and dilapidated houses that needed to be demolished and rebuilt before anyone could live in them again. A curved drive just past the open gates led to a two-story brick structure with a columned porch.

  Even though it was past five, the building was buzzing with activity. Cars lined the drive, and the oak trees planted along the side of the road were strung with twinkling white lights that made it look like the stars had sunk to the earth as the night fell slowly around them. Mamaw’s brown Buick stood out like a rusty nail in a line of shiny new bolts. A black Jaguar, silver BMW, and midnight-blue Tesla were in front of her. A Lexus SUV pulled up behind Hannah, making it impossible for her to have second thoughts about joining the queue. Initially, when Maggie had reminded her of the time, Hannah had been afraid that no one would be at the front desk of the treatment center, but she had not anticipated there would be a line out the door.

  The parade of cars went up to the front porch, where it looked like there was valet service provided. Men in tuxes passed keys over to men wearing vests, while women in floor-length, sparkling gowns emerged from their vehicles like King Arthur’s Lady of the Lake. Hannah looked down at her worn-out jeans and T-shirt. There was no way she was going to blend in among this cast of characters. Then again, if they thought she was a member of the press, that might explain her casual dress and would likely gain her some leeway to ask about the facility and maybe even gain access to records. Of course, that would mean more lying, but she might as well add “master manipulator” to her résumé at this point.

  Wouldn’t Dad be so proud? Hannah’s guilt whispered.

  One car remained before it was her turn to talk to the valet. Hannah ran her fingers through her hair, slicked on a new coat of peppermint-flavored ChapStick, wrestled into her flak jacket, and snagged her press credentials from her bag. Using the manual crank handle, she rolled her window down to talk to the valet without having to mess with the sticky door. Once the glass partition was gone, a sharp stench of burning rubber filled the interior of the car. She coughed and gritted her teeth to keep from gagging. Because she hadn’t eaten anything since a piece of toast and a large coffee on the way up to the university, Hannah’s stomach was already tight and overly sensitive. She wasn’t the only one to pick up on the stench. The slender woman exiting her BMW in front of Hannah ran a jeweled hand under her nose like she’d wandered into a fish market on a hundred-degree day.

  Hannah rolled forward, eyes drawn upward by four massive white columns and a sign that read THE SAFE PLACE: CHARITY GALA AND AUCTION. For a moment, she wished she were wearing something fancy and had an invitation to the party. These were the kinds of charity events she’d have gone to one day with Alex. He’d have a tux in the back of the closet in a dry cleaner’s bag. She would’ve gotten a sitter for the kids and had her hair done and a manicure to match her gown. They’d take his stupid, sporty coupe because it was the only one without car seats surgically attached to the rear bench.

  Hannah exited her rickety car, feeling out of place among the fancy vehicles and dresses but glad she didn’t have to show an invitation to get past the valet.

  “Don’t forget your ticket!” A man wearing white gloves handed her a small square of paper with a handwritten number as he opened the oversize wooden front doors.

  “Thanks,” she said under her breath, rushing through the entry. The next fancy couple in line exited their vehicles, complaining loudly about the wait, and Hannah had no desire to meet them face-to-face. But she froze in place as soon as her feet hit the marble entry floor. The vestibule curved around the edges, and the darker marble pieces pointed inward to the middle of the room, where the bluish purple of the early evening cascaded in from a skylight. During the day, the sun’s rays would’ve flashed off the tiny particles in the marble, making the floor glitter as if the starlight from the trees were embedded within.

  The beauty in this place was palpable but also unsettling. Like the dripping trees and towering columns and marble floors and sparkles and skylights were all put there to make the ugliness of disease and disability dissolve into the background—a lovely mask that concealed a time in the world when it had been reasonable to send children away because their bodies were broken and to tell them their futures were broken as well.

  The air sucked around her as the front doors opened again, like the room was taking a deep breath. Hannah moved through the vestibule into a dark side room, pretending to admire a line of photographs on the wall. She watched the newly arrived couples half-heartedly. They didn’t seem to notice the skylight or the floor, and the only sparkles they seemed interested in were the ones sewn into the bodices of the middle-aged women’s gowns.

  Hannah took a step farther into the room, working on blending into the background. Perhaps she could be added to the list of unnoticeable things for now, at least until the stream of guests slowed and she could figure out the next step in this hastily thought-out plan.

  As she lingered in her hiding place, the pictures she was pretending to look at started to come into focus as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light. She started. Could it be possible? Some of the photographs were the same as the ones in the research box from the library. Hannah drifted across the soft blue-and-white floral carpet to the other side of the room to examine another tall display of old photos.

  On this wall were pictures she’d never seen before. All of them were of children, little forms settled in wheelchairs or walking with the help of crutches or braces around their legs. Several were what looked like class pictures, lines of sallow faces from toddler to teen. Goose bumps covered her arms under her heavy canvas jacket. She was closer to answers than she’d ever been.

  She ran through the dates on the golden plaques at the bottom of each eight-by-ten-inch image. Not every school year was represented. It looked as though, when photography was far rarer, that the school had invested in professional photos every few years or that only a few pictures were selected for display in the lobby of the Pines to give some sense of history and dignity.

  That’s when she saw it, a photograph from 1930. Hannah scanned each face, confident that she’d be able to sense which one was Evelyn based only on the description in her letter and the connection Hannah was starting to believe existed between them.

  She would likely be one of the oldest students in the picture if she’d been shot at fourteen. Hannah took a step toward the wall, lightly caressing the glass separating her from the aging photograph. The faces took on even less detail up close, like an ink drawing that had been left out in the rain, making the lines bleed into each other. But there, on the outer edge of the second row, was a young blonde woman sitting in a wheelchair. She wasn’t smiling, but she looked like she wanted to smile, like the kind of girl who would swing over a river and fall in love with a boy at first sight. It could be Evelyn.<
br />
  Someone cleared his throat behind her.

  Hannah spun around, snatching her hand back from the photograph. A tall, dark-haired stranger stood there, arms crossed with a stern look on his face. His blue eyes, even in the gray of the room, were bright against his airbrushed tan. His hair seemed authentic at least—silver strands accented the darker ones at his temples. She scrambled for the press credentials hidden just under the flap of her bag. But before she could stumble through her half-assed cover story, the man started talking.

  “Can you believe that was taken almost one hundred years ago?” he asked in one of those official-sounding, warm southern accents. He looked over her head at the photo with the golden 1930 plaque at the bottom.

  “Well, not exactly. Ninety years is more like it,” Hannah corrected, not glancing back at the picture, finding the stranger more interesting at the moment.

  “Close enough,” he responded, shrugging and putting his hands in his pockets, squinting at the photograph like it was a 3D painting he could make pop out at him if he looked at it the right way. In the few seconds his hands were visible she didn’t notice a ring, though she did hate herself for looking. When was the last time she’d noticed a detail like that?

  “Ten years is a long time to gloss over,” she said, half under her breath, nervously checking the room for an approaching security guard or police officer. Really, she should shut up and not argue.

  “I was rounding up,” he said, simply.

  “Well,” Hannah said, ordering herself to be silent but also unable to stop, “which ten are you leaving out? The twenties, with Prohibition? Or the thirties, when the government was like, oops, never mind, hashtag Great Depression? Or the forties, when Hitler was defeated, and the US government dropped not one but two atomic bombs? Or . . . the fifties, with the baby boom and the Korean War, not to mention that DNA was discovered. Then, the sixties—I mean, if you skipped the sixties, we’d miss integration and JFK, Martin Luther King, Vietnam . . . and the moon and . . . well . . . you get the idea.”