I cross the hall while using my fingers to comb my still-wet hair. “Hey, Virginia, what flavor oatmeal would you like for—”
I freeze in the doorway. Although the music is playing and the wheelchair is right where I left it, Virginia herself is gone. I scan the room, stupidly, as if she’s merely been misplaced and not completely missing from the room.
By the front door is a table normally used for mail and car keys. On it sits a single sheet of paper bearing six typed lines.
Holding my breath, I pick it up and begin to read.
At sixty-nine, Virginia Hope
Wrote her nurse this little note
Thank you, dear, for saving me
Now it’s time to let you be
I take my leave, walking tall
Knowing that I fooled them all
My dearest Kit,
I hope you’re not surprised to receive this letter. I hope you knew, deep down in your heart, that I would contact you again. Leaving you the way I did was for the best, you see, even though I hated doing it. But I was afraid of how you’d react once you learned the truth.
Then again, you always suspected I was capable of more than I let on. To most people, my silence and stillness rendered me almost invisible.
But you, Kit, saw me.
And now you know the truth. I can walk, talk, and use my whole body. Right now, I bet you’re wondering why I spent such a long time pretending I couldn’t. The reasons are many, beginning with the simple fact that at first I had no desire to move.
I was as surprised as anyone when I survived my suicide attempt. And disappointed as well. Despite a miracle occurring, I still wished I were dead. I longed for it. I wanted the sweet relief of death so badly that I pretended I truly had died. I simply lay there, not moving, trying not to breathe.
Stupid as he was, Dr. Walden might not have been entirely off base with his diagnosis. For something was indeed wrong with me, although I’m still unsure if it was physical, mental, or emotional. Perhaps it was a combination of all three, which rendered me paralyzed even though I technically wasn’t. All I know is that I felt lifeless, mute, and immobile. And so that’s how I stayed.
I might have remained that way forever if it hadn’t been for Archie, who refused to leave my side. “You’ll get better one day, Ginny,” he often whispered. “I’m sure of it. And when you do, we’ll find your son.”
That got me wondering if he was right and that it was possible to one day find my little boy. The more I thought about it, the more I felt a spark of the old me still burning inside.
Without letting Archie know, I began the drawn-out task of forcing my body to start working again. It began with a wiggle of the fingers on my left hand and ended many, many years later with me walking around my room in secret.
I suspect the first question you have is: Why didn’t I leave Hope’s End then?
I wanted to. I wanted so many things. To travel. To run and dance and sing. To raise the child who was so cruelly stolen from me.
But I was frightened of what was beyond Hope’s End. I knew the world had changed greatly since my youth. I feared that if I were to leave, I wouldn’t recognize it. But Hope’s End was familiar, and I took solace in that familiarity. Even a prison becomes comforting if it’s the only thing you know.
The second question I bet you’re asking yourself right now is: Why didn’t I tell at least Archie that I could move, walk, talk?
The answer to that is slightly more selfish. I didn’t tell him because I feared my sister would find out if anyone else knew. And after she’d returned from Europe, where she lived the kind of life I had long dreamed of, I wanted to punish her. That’s the brutal truth of the matter.
At first, I simply considered killing her. A murder for which I would have happily taken the blame.
But death is quick.
And I wanted her punishment to last a long, long time.
So I made myself the burden she thought me to be. She assumed she was punishing me by keeping us both here. In truth, she was only punishing herself, and I enjoyed watching it. Think of it as a variation on the game my father forced us to play. I finally won. And the amount of time I chose to keep Lenora in her room was more than fifty years.
But it wasn’t just about animosity toward my sister. The main reason I stayed was because I wanted to be there in case my son ever decided to come looking for me. I feared that if I left, he’d never know where I was and therefore would never be able to find me.
The idea that we might one day be reunited was, to me, worth the wait.
So I chose to continue to appear hopeless, even though I was capable of so much. Shockingly, not a single person noticed, including the many nurses I had before you arrived. So many that I’ve forgotten most of their names and faces. I suspect I was just as forgettable to them, for very few ever paid me much mind. Yes, they performed the basic job of keeping me alive. But only a handful treated me like I was an actual human being. Someone with thoughts and feelings and curiosity. I suppose my silence played a small part in that. One can be easily ignored when one doesn’t speak. And so I was.
Of course, nearly all of those nurses were terrified of me. I can’t blame them, really. I’d be scared, too, based on all the rumors that have swirled around me. None of those previous nurses were interested in the truth. Even the ones who deemed me worthy of a little kindness or a bit of conversation.
That all changed when Mary came along. Poor, sweet Mary. She’s another person who saw me. Like you, she was curious. So much so that she bought that typewriter in the hope I’d learn how to use it and eventually write my story.
I did, as you well know.
I only wish I’d been able to do the same with you, Kit. You deserved to know the truth. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint you with the news about your father. So I stalled, evaded, and misled, knowing it was inevitable that you’d one day find out.
I truly regret the way you did eventually learn the truth--and all the events that came after it. You didn’t deserve that. The fact that you’ve handled it so well speaks highly of your character.
Around the same time Mary was teaching me how to type, something else extraordinary occurred.
I was given an amazing device called a Walkman. With it was a cassette featuring a book read aloud by Jessie, the new maid at Hope’s End. Although I did read in secret at night, it was nice to be able to enjoy a book out in the open, so to speak. I didn’t care what the story was about. I just liked being told a good tale.
Imagine my surprise when, halfway through that first cassette, the book stopped. One minute, I was listening to North and South by John Jakes. The next, Jessie’s narration ended and regular talking began.
“Listen, I know you’re not Lenora Hope, but her sister, Virginia. I know a lot about you. More than anyone else, I think.”
And so it continued, a one-sided conversation between me and Jessie, conducted via the messages she slipped in between chapters.
“I don’t think you killed your parents. And even if you did, from what I’ve been told, they kind of had it coming. At least your father did.”
“I haven’t told Mary, but I’m pretty sure you can move and possibly talk. I’m curious to hear what your voice sounds like.”
Finally, the most important message came.
“By the way, I’m your granddaughter.”
Jessie told me all about her father, who was named Marcel. He grew up in a loving home with Miss Baker and her husband. He played hockey, loved to read, and excelled at painting. After university, he got a job as a commercial artist in Toronto. He didn’t get married until his thirties, when he met and fell in love with a fellow artist. They had one child, Jessie, and lived a happy life together, savoring every moment until Marcel passed away from illness in 1982.
After his death, Jessie was told the truth about Marcel’s parents by Miss Baker, a woman she had always known as Grandma. Undertaking a bit of detective work, Jessie found out Hope’s End needed a maid and applied for the job. Her intention was to try to dig up information about who I was and if I’d really killed my parents like everyone said.
What she ended up finding was me.
While I’m sad to never have gotten the chance to meet my son, I know that life doesn’t always grant you your greatest wish. But happiness can still sneak in, and now I am overjoyed to be able to know my granddaughter. The noises I’m certain you heard during the night were Jessie, who would come to my room in the wee hours so we could whisper the ways in which we planned to escape. Plans that were derailed by Mary’s murder, your arrival, and the eventual collapse of Hope’s End. (Good riddance to that place, by the way!)
Jessie also had to return to Canada when Miss Baker passed away. Another disappointment. I wish I had been able to thank Miss Baker for taking care of my son, even though he ended up being her child much more than he was ever mine.