Kate went back to her office. She sat down at her desk, answered a few emails, and was about to turn on her email out-of-office and leave when she noticed her answering machine was blinking. She played back her messages. Three were work-related. One was from her father.
“Hello, Kate. You told me to call you sometime, and I just heard what happened. Bad news travels fast around here… I’d like to be the kind of father whose children can rely on him, not this person I’ve become… Anyway, I’ve taken the day off to run a few errands, but I’ll be home for most of it. Give me a call if you’d like. Goodbye.”
It was the warmest message she’d ever received from him. Maybe this was her chance. Kate scooped up her car keys, put on her parka, and left the hospital. If they were going to have a heart-to-heart about her mother, she wanted to do it in person.
An hour and a half later, she pulled into her father’s empty driveway. The Ford Ranger was gone. Okay, he’d said he was going to run a few errands. Fine. She would wait as long as it took.
Dark clouds were accumulating on the horizon. She took the spare key from under the flowerpot in the garden and let herself in. The house was silent and museum-like. What kind of errands? she wondered. What did her father do in his spare time? Drive around aimlessly? Visit friends? Did he have any friends? Was he fucking his secretary—that white-haired old lady with seven grandchildren? A high percentage of physicians got hooked on drugs. Was he addicted to pharmaceuticals? Did he pick up prostitutes? Gamble? Volunteer his time for good causes? Go to church? She had no idea. Her father was a mystery to her.
She went upstairs to her old room, which hadn’t changed in over a decade. The shelves were crammed with books by Carl Jung, Jean Piaget, and Abraham Maslow. On the bureau were her old beauty products and garish makeup. On the walls were music posters: U2, Nirvana, Pink. The drafty old-fashioned windows overlooked the backyard. She used to watch the changing seasons from that painted rocker, while dreaming about becoming a famous psychiatrist and discovering the cure for her mother’s madness.
Now she heard a noise and stepped out into the hallway. “Dad?”
Nothing but squirrels on the roof. Or mice in the walls.
She hadn’t set foot inside her parents’ room in decades. The maple door creaked on its hinges. The hardwood floor popped and snapped in all the familiar places. A few years ago, Bram had moved his belongings downstairs, but he’d left Julia’s things intact, along with the four-poster bed with its scrolled walnut posts, the matching nightstands, the sturdy bureau, and the faded Persian rug. Kate sat down on the bed and listened to the springs squeak. She and Savannah used to climb all over their parents in the mornings, waking them up. Her father used to laugh a lot back then.
She got up and stood in front of the bureau and rummaged through the drawers, fingering her mother’s lacy nightgowns and camisoles, her imitation Louis Vuitton handbag and her dark Ray-Bans. Julia’s birth control pills had been abandoned mid-cycle. Everything smelled faintly of Dior Poison.
The closet was crammed with 1990s clothes. Kate found several labeled storage boxes tucked away behind the dresses and skirts and slid them out past a flotilla of high heels. She popped the lid off WINTER STUFF and examined the mothball-smelling clothes, scarves, and gloves. Tucked in between two cable-knit sweaters was Julia’s jewelry box.
Kate grasped it with delight, and opened the lid. She scooped out a handful of bangles, beaded necklaces, and hoop earrings, looking for her mother’s Man-in-the-Moon necklace, her favorite piece. Then she grew chilly with sweat, remembering the long silver chain with a smiling silver crescent pendant. A pendant about the size of the injury on Susie Gafford’s throat.
In a panic, she dug her hands into the jewelry box, searching for the silver necklace, but couldn’t find it anywhere. Dr. Holley had said her mother believed some of her jewelry had been stolen. Maybe Julia hadn’t been so crazy, after all? Maybe whoever had stolen it had killed Susie Gafford? Maybe William Stigler…? But wait. Julia believed her jewelry had been taken before she’d gone to the asylum. Before she’d met Stigler. So it couldn’t have been him. Kate shook her head. Or maybe the whole thing was ridiculous. There must’ve been a million silver crescent pendants sold in the nineties.
Kate dragged the rest of the storage boxes out of the closet, hoping to find the missing necklace. She opened a box labeled BABY STUFF and pawed through tiny baby clothes, rattles, and booties. Hard to believe she was ever that small. She found her favorite childhood sweater, a blue cardigan with an orange tiger patch sewn over the breast pocket, and shook it open. Out fell a stack of letters. She stared at her mother’s meticulous handwriting. All the envelopes were addressed to Bram. She started reading.
Dear Bram,
How can I say this without sounding crazy? I’m being studied. Observed. As if I’m part of some huge experiment. Okay, that does sound crazy. I found a dead squirrel in the yard yesterday. What does it mean? And my doll, too, my favorite doll—I told you what happened, didn’t I? I can’t tell if some of these things I’ve been experiencing lately were done deliberately or not. Does this happen to other people? Or is it just me? I’m convinced somebody’s been in our house, an intruder, and I know you don’t believe me, but they must’ve broken in without leaving any proof behind. They must’ve taken that picture down off the living-room wall and put it on the dining-room table—don’t you remember? The landscape with the barn? Am I crazy? And my favorite doll taken? Who would do such a thing? We need to do something. You have to believe me.
Julia
Dear Bram,
I know you want me to suffer. You must. That’s the only explanation I can think of for your coldness, your remoteness, your barely disguised hostility toward me. Here I am in this awful place, because I came close to slitting my throat, and that scared the daylights out of me. I could’ve killed myself, and I’ve explored the many ways and possibilities… but I chose to seek professional help instead. Well, it was the best decision I ever made. Dr. Holley is so understanding and sympathetic. The people here are wonderful. You wanted to punish me, I guess, and that’s why I’m here. You punished me every day with your harsh criticisms. I can never do anything right. And even though my mental state isn’t the best right now, I’m still stronger and healthier than I used to be, and I’m getting stronger every day, and soon I’ll find the courage to leave you. There, I said it. I’m taking the girls with me, and you can’t stop me. Maybe if you’d listened to me sooner.
Julia
Dear Bram,
I love you, I honestly do. But the question is—where did you go? Where is my loving husband? What caused you so much pain that you’d pull away from the only person in the world who loves you so much? Because I do, Bram, with all my heart. But I don’t understand your behavior, and I can’t live with it anymore. You make me feel bad about myself. I’m alive and emotional and I feel and I want. But I can’t live within the walls you’ve constructed around yourself. It feels like a dungeon. Things have to change. We either face this together or we face it apart.
Julia