“Celia, I hope you know me well enough not to feel obliged to dance and cushion.”
“I do.” And crossing her legs, Celia stopped dancing. “Alice has suffered extreme physical, mental, and emotional trauma over a period of years. We can’t yet determine how long. She doesn’t remember, and may, in fact, have no true gauge of how long. It may be her memory will come back, it may not. More likely it will come in pieces and patches. It’s my opinion that over this undetermined period of years she was indoctrinated by methods of force, physical assaults, praise, and punishment. Your mother tells me Alice was never particularly religious.”
“No.”
“She quotes scripture—Old Testament—some verbatim, some bastardized. Vengeful God, a man’s superiority and dominion over women. The sin of Eve. Again, it’s my opinion these views were part of her indoctrination. Physical assaults, religious fanaticism, imprisonment, and as she speaks of no one but the man she calls Sir, probably isolation.”
“Torture,” Maureen said.
“Yes, extended until she submitted, until her will broke and she began to accept the will of her torturer. He is a sexual sadist, a religious fanatic, a psychopath, and a misogynist. And he was her provider. He provided her with shelter, with food, with, however horrid, companionship. He beat her, but he also fed her. He raped her, but he put a roof of some kind over her head. He imprisoned her, but given her condition when she was found, allowed her basic hygiene. She was completely dependent on him. While she fears him, she feels loyalty to him. She believes him to be her husband, and the husband, however cruel, is designed by God to rule.”
“No one ruled Alice. And boys … she liked boys,” Maureen said. “She liked using her appeal. Not in a mean way, she wasn’t mean like that. Careless, maybe even callous. She didn’t think much of marriage back then, made noises about how it was just a trap for women. She pushed that on me off and on while we were planning my wedding. Some of it was just Alice-talk, and some was her idea of being a free, desirable, and famous woman one day. She was always so sure of herself, Celia, impulsive and headstrong and confident.”
“She wanted to scrub her hospital room.”
“She what?”
“She’s supposed to scrub her house every other day. She became agitated about cleaning her hospital room.”
“Alice would rather have gone without eating than wash a dish. Making her own bed in the morning was a daily bitch fest.” Sliding a hand under a wing of her chestnut-brown hair, Maureen rubbed at her temple. “Can somebody really change somebody else like that? Make them all but the opposite.”
“If you were punched or slapped every morning before making your bed—”
“I’d make it faster,” Maureen finished.
“Can I ask a question?”
Celia turned her deep brown eyes on Bodine. “Of course.”
“She had children. Has she said anything about them? I can’t get them out of my head.”
“She said Sir took them away, their father took them away. She became despondent and withdrawn when we approached the subject. I won’t probe there again until we’ve built up more of a relationship. She has accepted your mother—not as her mother, but as a companion and an authority figure. She also looks to Sheriff Tate, and seems to trust him as far as she trusts anyone.”
“She and Bob were friendly,” Maureen told her. “Might’ve been a bit more than friendly for a while.”
“Yes, he told me. She’s accepted Dr. Grove, though she continues to become agitated during exams, and can be jittery with the nurses. But she’s obedient. She eats when she’d brought food, sleeps when she’s told to rest, showers when she’s told to. Who thought of bringing her mother’s crocheting in?”
“Bo did.”
“Well, it’s excellent therapy for both of them. Cora’s teaching Alice to crochet, and they’re spending time quietly that way. It’s good for both of them. It’s going to take time, Maureen. I wish I could tell you how much time.”
“She can’t stay in that room forever. Neither can my mother.”
“No, you’re right. Physically she’s recovered enough to be released. Dr. Grove and I have discussed a rehabilitation center.”
“Celia, she needs to come home. My mother will end up sleeping in her room at another kind of hospital just as she is here. We can take care of Alice at home.”
“Home care, considering her condition, is a complicated and demanding enterprise. You need to understand just what that would mean, for Alice, and for all of you.”
“You could recommend nurses or aides as long as she needs them. You could continue to treat her. We’d bring her to you every day if you say she needs it. I’ve thought it through. It might spark something in her. Her home, her views, Clementine and Hec—they work for us, and did when Alice and I were teenagers. Wouldn’t what’s familiar help her, and the normal of it?”
“She couldn’t be left unattended in her current state of mind. She could wander off, Maureen. There’s medication to administer, and there’s, most importantly, a need not to press her, not to overwhelm her.”
On a nod, Maureen rubbed at her temple again. “I’ve been reading as much as I can find, and I think I have those broad strokes. You and Dr. Grove tell me what needs to be done, and not to be done. We’ll abide by it. I know I can take her home without your permission, but I don’t want to do that. And I don’t want to put my sister in a psychiatric hospital—because that’s what you mean by ‘rehabilitation center’—until I’ve tried to bring her home.”
“She needs to agree. She needs to feel she has some control.”
“All right.”
“Driving her back and forth for sessions is far too much stimulation, too overwhelming. If she and Dr. Grove agree, I’ll agree to a week trial. I need to come to her, talk to her every day. You’ll need round-the-clock psychiatric nurses until I’m convinced she’s adjusting and won’t harm herself.”
“Harm herself?”
“She’s not suicidal,” Celia said. “But she could inadvertently harm herself. Your mother should be close by.”
“She and my grandmother will both move to the ranch for as long as they need to.”
“Let’s start here.” Celia rose. “Come down with me and see her, talk to her.”
“I—I thought I wasn’t allowed to yet.”
“Now you are.”
“Oh, I— Give me a second.” Maureen held up a hand, palm out. “You threw that one at me too quick.”
“She’ll throw more.”
“I know it. That one just knocked the wind out of me for a minute.” But she rose. “Bodine.”
“I’ll be right here. I’m going to call Clementine, and have her fix up the room for Alice. It’ll be ready for her when we bring her home.”
“Bodine, you’re my rock. All right, Celia.”
The walk down the hospital corridor seemed endless, and far too quick. “I’m nervous.”
“That’s natural.”