Lucius practiced out of an office in his home on Main Street. It was a freshly painted white house with black shutters; a shoveled brick walkway led to the front door, where a sign hung: LUCIUS SHEA, M.D. Martin entered, hung his coat on the rack, and peeked into the front parlor, which had been converted into Lucius’s office. The door was open, and Lucius was at the desk, writing. No patient in the room, no one waiting on the chairs in the hall.
“Hello, brother,” Martin called.
Lucius looked up, smiled. “Martin! Come on in!”
It was a simple room with a glass-doored cabinet full of supplies: medicines, cotton, jars and bottles, forceps, clamps, wooden tongue depressors. An examination table made of dark wood took up the center of the room. There were shelves full of medical books and more bottles and jars; below these were rows of drawers. On the right side of the room was the large maple desk Lucius worked at. His hair was rumpled, and his eyes were red.
“You look tired,” Martin said, sitting down.
“Long night. Bessie Ellison finally had her baby. Breech birth. Damn difficult. They’re both fine now, though.”
“You should get some rest.”
Lucius nodded. “How’s Sara?” he asked.
Martin looked down at his hands, fingers knit together tightly. “I’m worried, Lucius,” he said. “Very worried.”
“Tell me,” Lucius said, leaning forward, so that his elbows rested on the desk.
“Last night, I woke up and found her out of bed. She was sitting on the floor in front of the closet. She said …” He paused, rubbed his face with his palms. “She said Gertie was in the closet.”
Lucius took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “And what did you do?”
“I told her to go back to bed.”
Lucius was quiet a moment. He stroked his neatly trimmed mustache. “Have you thought any more about the state hospital?”
“She’s been through this before. When Charles died. And she came back around.”
“I know,” Lucius said. “And we’re going to hope that she does again. But we need to make a plan for what we’ll do if she doesn’t come around. If she falls deeper into these morbid fantasies. It’s possible that she will get worse, Martin. And it’s possible that, if she loses touch with reality completely, she may become dangerous.” Lucius stood, went to the wooden drawers, and pulled one open. “I’m going to give you some pills. I want you to grind one up each night and put it in her tea. It’ll help her sleep, still her dreams. I’ll stop by to see her soon. In the meantime, if she gets worse, you come get me.”
Martin nodded.
“I mean it, Martin. Don’t think you can do this on your own. Don’t think you have to.”
Martin arrived home to find Sara working in the kitchen. There was stew simmering, biscuits just out of the oven, and the smell of something sweet—Sara had baked molasses cookies.
“It’s nice to see you up,” he told her, kissing her cheek. “Supper looks wonderful.”
To see her up and cooking—cheeks pink and a little smile on her face—seemed nothing short of miraculous. He wished Lucius were here to see it.
He’d been so worried about her last night. He was sure, in those dark moments, that Sara had slipped away from him completely.
But there had been something in that closet, hadn’t there? Something scrabbling, trying to get out.
Mice. A squirrel, maybe.
But hadn’t he seen the doorknob turn?
A trick of the light, he told himself.
He pushed it all out of his mind. It didn’t matter. Sara was back now. Well again. Everything was going to be all right.
“I ran into Amelia in town. She’s going to come by tomorrow. She wants to take you to her house for lunch.”
“Lovely,” Sara said. “That’s just lovely.”
Martin sat down at the table, put a napkin on his lap, and watched as Sara served him, ladling stew into a bowl, then bringing the biscuits and butter to the table.
There was something odd about Sara’s movements: they were quick and jerky, almost puppetlike. She seemed terribly excited, the way she got at holidays. She sat down and began picking at a biscuit, just pulling off flakes of it onto her plate.
“Tell me what our Gertie looked like,” Sara said, eyes glimmering in the lamplight.
His skin prickled. “You know what she looked like,” he said.
“I don’t mean before. I mean when you found her at the bottom of the well.”
They had not let her see Gertie’s body, knowing that she was too fragile, that it would break her into a thousand pieces, never to be put back together again.
“I want to see my little girl!” Sara had cried, but Martin remembered the way she’d clung to Baby Charles, and shook his head.
“No, Sara,” he’d told her, voice as firm as he could make it. “It’s best if you don’t.”
“But I need to see her one more time! For God’s sake, Martin, you must understand,” Sara had begged.
“Sara,” Lucius had said, taking her hand firmly in his own. “We want you to remember Gertie the way she was. Not like this. You need to trust us. It’s for the best.”
Now Martin kept his eyes down on his bowl of stew, as if the image were trapped there. “She looked peaceful. Like Lucius said.”
Martin took another spoonful of stew and swallowed.
“Did she have any … injuries?”