CHAPTER 63
Evelyn
Ursula took the news that not only was her little brother alive, but he’d been living for the last seven years in my house, surprisingly well. I was prepared for every response, from full-blown hysteria to catatonic stupor, but when the full truth was laid before her, the tears that fell were accompanied by no additional physical response other than that she laid a hand across her heart, perhaps to feel beneath her skin her splintered soul becoming whole again.
After Maggie had escorted the police to the row house where she’d found Alex, and Rita Dabney had confirmed that was where Ines Novak Dabney had lived with Ursula and Baby Leo, there remained no doubt who Alex was. The heart-shaped birthmark was proof enough to me, but the authorities were convinced only after Maggie took them to the building and Rita Dabney independently identified it as the home she’d visited when Leo was first born. How to share this news with Ursula kept me awake for two nights.
It wasn’t exactly my news to share. The police, or the child welfare people, or even her step-grandparents probably had the right to tellUrsula that Leo was alive more than I did. But Dr. Bellfield believed if I was up to the task, Ursula might better receive the news if she heard it from me. The police, the child welfare authorities, her step-grandparents, they had all spent the last seven years fully persuaded Ursula was responsible for Baby Leo’s death. I had not spent the same amount of time thinking she had killed her brother. I was not in that mix of people who’d believed she had drowned Leo in the Delaware River. Not only that, but I had refused to let her waste away in the asylum. I had been doggedly pursuing a way to help her. It was decided by Dr. Bellfield and the other senior staff that I could be the one to tell Ursula the remarkable news that Leo was alive but that Dr. Bellfield would be present in case Ursula became distraught, especially at my family’s part in what had happened.
For two days I did nothing else, thought of nothing else, except for how to tell her. Dr. Bellfield graciously gave me time off to prepare and also deal with the turmoil happening in my own family. Losing Alex was like losing Henry all over again. And yet I’d lain in my bed pondering the turn of events, and Dora Sutcliff’s observation that fate had brought Ursula to my hospital, fate had caused my heart to be stirred for her, and fate had pressed Dr. Bellfield into assigning me to her case.
I couldn’t get past the notion that I was meant to be Ursula’s doctor. It had been my destiny that her life and mine would meet at this precise moment in time, just like it had been Maggie’s destiny to find Alex, like it had been Mama’s destiny to die from the flu but Willa’s to survive it. Just like it was my destiny to love Conrad even though he can never be mine. These truths seem wholly inevitable to me now. Unavoidable. They’d been woven into the fabric of our existence long before we were even aware of the fibers.
When I arrived at the hospital on the morning I was to tell Ursula, the same day Alex was taken from us, I wanted to find Conrad first. I wanted to see his face and hear his voice and catch his scent. I wanted the truth of his inescapable presence in my life to uphold me as Iwalked into Ursula’s room to tell her things that would forever alter her world. I didn’t see him, though. He was not in the solarium where Sybil sat listening to—without hearing—a retired church pianist play hymns.
I was shaking as Dr. Bellfield and I entered Ursula’s room. Just outside the door, a nurse waited with a hypodermic in case Ursula needed to be sedated after I told her. But perhaps the truth feels so right when we at last hear it that it is its own calming agent. Ursula did not fall apart or lunge at me or faint dead away.
When I told her everything, when all the pieces at last made sense, especially Maggie’s white lace mask and her brown coat, Ursula looked at me with tears shining in her eyes and her trembling hand over her heart and said, “Thank you.”
Words failed me then. I could not find my voice to say anything else. When she asked when she could see Alex, I could not answer. Dr. Bellfield told her a meeting would no doubt happen very soon. “We need to think of his emotional state as well,” Dr. Bellfield had said. “He’s been well cared for by Miss Bright’s family and it’s the only home he knows.”
“Oh. Of course,” Ursula had replied, casting a glance at me and seeing the single tear sliding traitorously down my cheek.
Rita and Maury were now only too happy to reassume their guardianship over their step-granddaughter and called that same afternoon to arrange for Ursula’s release. Dr. Bellfield was able to convince them to let the news settle first, and then to allow Ursula to be reunited with her brother within the safe confines of the hospital. They agreed somewhat reluctantly to arrange for Ursula’s discharge after she and Alex had a chance to meet. Alex had been told only that his sister had recently been ill but was much better and that she was very much looking forward to seeing him again. It was agreed that two days after Alex had been returned to the Dabneys, they would bring Alex in to see her. Only they called him Leo, of course. They had also asked that I not be present for that meeting.
And I was told by Dr. Bellfield that I needed to honor that request.
I did not go into the hospital the first day we woke to a morning where Alex was not a part of it. I might have stayed home today, too, but I know the Dabneys are bringing Alex in to see Ursula this afternoon. Perhaps the Dabneys will suddenly change their mind about my being there for that reunion. I don’t want to be twenty minutes away if that should happen. I want to be just down the hall or in the next room. What if Alex asks for me? What if he cries for me? I must be there.
•••
I arrive at the asylum at the usual time and attend to my routine duties, but my thoughts are scattered. The other residents, the nurses, the orderlies, everyone who works at the hospital knows what has happened. They glance at me with questioning eyes, some clearly astounded and moved by my situation, others seemingly skeptical that I hadn’t known Ursula Novak existed before this and that I somehow arranged her stay here.
Dr. Bellfield looks for me fifteen minutes before the Dabneys are to arrive and tells me I am to avoid the entrance to the hospital, his office, and the main corridor.
“It’s important that you stay out of sight,” he said.
“You will keep an eye on Alex, too, won’t you?” I ask him, flinching a little at the sting of his words. “This has been very hard for him.”
“I know how much you care for this child. If I see anything amiss, I won’t ignore it. But, Miss Bright, this situationisgoing to be hard. For everyone. Surely you know that. An extended time of adjustment for everyone involved is to be expected.”
“He’s just a little boy,” I say, reining in my emotions.
“Yes, I know. But the law says he’stheirlittle boy. That’s why it’s best you honor their request to stay away. I’m agreeing to this for him. Not for Ursula. Not for the Dabneys. And not for you.”
I had wanted to find a way to view the reunion from some hiddenvantage point. But now that I know the meeting will take place in Dr. Bellfield’s office, I see that will be impossible. And while it hurts, I see Dr. Bellfield’s point. Even if Alex were to ask for me, it won’t help him to see me. It will only make it harder for him today than it was when the Dabneys came to the house for him. Perhaps I could find a way to listen in, though.
When Dr. Bellfield leaves me for the meeting, I hover at the door to the wards until I see through the glass that Ursula has been escorted to Dr. Bellfield’s office to wait for Alex to arrive. I make my way through the main lobby and then the corridor to the administrative wing, letting myself into a broom closet close to Dr. Bellfield’s office that I know is vented. I close the door quietly and get myself as close to the vent as I can, overturning a metal bucket so that I can stand on it and hopefully hear better. But when I finally hear the telltale sounds of multiple voices in Dr. Bellfield’s office, I can’t distinguish them. The venting garbles the words and the intonation. All I can hear is a deep voice, followed by a soft, feminine one, followed by one belonging to a young child. Dr. Bellfield. Ursula. Alex. But I can’t make out what they are saying. I hear slight laughter, happy tears, more voices, more laughter, more happy tears.
But I can’t hear the words. This moment is not mine. I don’t belong to it.
I don’t want to be in the closet anymore, struggling to make myself a part of what is happening in Dr. Bellfield’s office. I climb off the bucket, aware of fresh tears that threaten to fall, and open the door slightly to make sure no one will see me leave. I make my escape and look for a corner of the hospital where I don’t have to think about the fact that Alex is here and I can’t see him and everyone is telling him his name is Leo, but where is such a place? There is no place I can escape to where I will stop thinking about what is happening.
As I near the main entrance, I see Conrad at the reception desk, leaning over it and signing something. I am overcome with the desire to run to him and throw my arms around his neck and relive thememory of his kisses. I want him to soothe the burn of losing Alex, of being responsible for Ursula’s years of suffering and now Alex’s misery, of missing Mama, and of facing my existence alone. My feet are moving toward him and I don’t know what I will say; I only know I can’t walk past him and say nothing, not after what happened in the shed and what is happening right now.
He makes it easy for me by looking up as I approach. He smiles slightly, but it is a troubled, conflicted smile.
When I reach the desk, I look down at the document he is signing. Discharge papers. He’s taking Sybil out of the asylum. He pushes the document toward the nurse behind the desk.
