“It’s almostmidnight,” the voice says.
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s a family emergency.”
The only problem with a secure mental health unit is that it is very secure.
There is no response, so I try again.
“I’m so sorry, I know how completely unacceptable it is to turn up like this in the middle of the night, and I would never do such a thing if it wasn’t so important. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you and your colleagues for taking such great care of our little girl now that we are no longer able to. I’ve driven through the night to get here. It’s a deeply upsetting family matter, and it is time sensitive, so won’t take long. I would just like Gabby to have the opportunity to say goodbye to someone who loves her before it is too late.”
It’s strange how true the lie sounds when I say it out loud.
Something I said works because I hear a click, the door is released from its locks, and I am able to push it open. The large wooden door of The Manor gives a theatrical creak as I step inside, and the air feels immediately cooler. A little stale. This place was once a manor house, but it is now home for young people who need the kind of care only somewhere like this can give. The Manor is expensive, secure, and discreet. It’s where rich broken people go when nobody wants you to know they are broken. Gabriella did notwantto come here. Harrison didn’t like the idea either. But as much as I love her, I cannot care for her every day and night forever.
Is that so wrong of me?
Guilt is a tight-fitting emotion and I wear it a little too well.
A woman dressed in white hurries toward me across the polished parquet floor.Everythingshe wears is white, not just her uniform, but her hair band, glasses, and shoes too. She insists on accompanying me to Gabby’s room, which is good, because this place is a bit of a rabbit warren and I honestly can’t remember the way.
I follow the woman in white. The heels of her white leather shoes squeak on the stone floor as we walk through a grand entrance hall, past a huge grandfather clock, and up the steps of an elaboratetwisting staircase. I can still hear the ticking clock echoing as we walk along the corridor and it reminds me of the night Gabriella had her accident. I remember feeling more alone than I have ever felt, and counting down the minutes until Harrison would come home and fix everything.
But some things that get broken can’t be fixed.
I can still picture eight-year-old Gabby on her shiny new bike.
One minute she was there, then she was gone.
The investigation that followed the accident concluded she was on her bike in a blind spot on the quiet suburban road outside our house. They said the driver of the police car wasn’t to blame, despite driving too fast in a residential area in heavy rain, but I have always believed that if they had driven more carefully perhaps they might have seen her and stopped before it was too late. I hate the driver of that car; what happened that day was really their fault, not mine.
I remember Harrison finding us in the hospital and it was like watching his heart break when he saw his broken little girl.What happened?he’d whispered over and over again, holding her tiny hands in his. She was unconscious so couldn’t answer. I struggled to find the words myself. I think I knew even then that we—Harri and I—would never be the same again. His daughter was his world and his love for her eclipsed his love for me.
Harrison is a man used to getting his own way. He insisted on only the best doctors caring for Gabriella, and when they couldn’t fix her he demanded better ones. Until there was nobody left to tell him what he didn’t want to hear. None of them thought she would make a full recovery and all of them were right. Over time, and with a series of lengthy and painful operations, her body healed itself. But her mind never did.
“I don’t think we’ve met,” I say to the woman in white, wondering how much she knows about me, our daughter, and us.
“No, we haven’t,” she confirms. Her crisp white uniform looks new and I think she might be too. “I only work nights, so I rarelymeet visitors.” Which means she can’t confirm that I am Eden Fox. I’m pleased she didn’t ask to see any ID—given I don’t have any—but the fact that she let me in without checking who I am leaves me with more questions than answers. Like wondering how secure this place really is for the residents if they let random people inside late at night.
“Here we are,” she says, stopping outside a door that looks exactly like all the other doors we have passed except for the name and number on the front.
Room ThirteenGABRIELLA WOOLF
“I’m sure you know this already,” the woman in white says. “Gabriella has been making good progress.” I did not know that, but perhaps the woman is just being polite. I also didn’t know that the staff locked the residents in their rooms at night, and feel a little shocked when she takes out a set of keys. It makes the place feel even more like a prison and me feel even more guilty about leaving Gabriella here. What if there was a fire? The woman in white takes an extraordinary length of time to unlock the door, and a small part of me is relieved, scared of what I might find behind it.
Gabriella was a happy child before the accident, but she was never kind. It’s a terrible thing to think, but I always thought there was something wrong with her. Even before there was. Gabriella won’t be able to say who I am—she hasn’t spoken a word since it happened ten years ago. Harrison took her to see every specialist in the country after she recovered from her physical injuries, but none of them could help. All the doctors he took her to said the same thing—that there was nothing wrong with her brain function and that her mutism was a symptom of extreme post-traumatic stress. They all said she’d speak again one day. But she never has. The only thing she does do since the accident is paint.
Painting was always my favorite form of escape. It was something I did to try to find myself again when I was too naive to see that I had lost me in the first place. It was something I did for myself—theonlything I did for myself—but the way Gabriella watched me made me think it could be good for her too. So after the accident I taught her to paint, and it seems to be the only way she can express herself. Despite being eighteen now, all the paintings she did with me in our old home were still very childlike. They tended to include animals and birds, clouds and rain. Gabriella’s face rarely expresses emotion since the accident; there is no real way to know what she is thinking or how she is feeling, but I like to believe that painting makes her happy. Even if she isn’t terribly good at it.
The real reason I came here wasn’t to see my daughter, it was to make sure I haven’t gone mad and that I am who I think I am. I left a framed photo of the three of us—Harrison, me, and Gabby—in her room the day we dropped her off. It must still be here. So even if all traces of me have been removed from the house in Hope Falls, there is something at The Manor to help prove who I am. To prove that I am Eden Fox.
The woman in white opens the door and flicks on the light inside Gabriella’s living quarters, which consist of the lounge we are now in, a bathroom, and a bedroom. But I don’t see the framed photo I came here to find. I forget to even look for it, I am too distracted by the paintings.
There are so many of them.
And theydon’tlook like paintings by a child.
They are perfect. Beautiful. Terrifying.
Because all of them are of Spyglass, with its distinct curved roof and windows like eyes. I stare at the endless, exquisite paintings of my beautiful but strange new house in Cornwall. A place Gabriella has never been. A home she’s never seen.
