“Yes.”
Ursula looks down at my hand on hers and says nothing.
“You might be thinking right now it’s too hard to do that, but if you—”
“I don’t want to move past it,” she says.
“Beg your pardon?”
She raises her head to look into my eyes. “I don’t want to move past it.”
I need a moment’s thought before I can continue. “Right now thepain you carry might be all that you have, and it’s probably scary to imagine having nothing at all, not even that, and I do understand that fear, but if you will just—”
“But I’m not afraid.”
I hadn’t expected this kind of response. I must attempt a different approach. If I can be allowed to see what she has suffered, perhaps I can convince her to trust me. “Ursula, can you tell me about your parents?”
“What about them?”
“Where are they?”
“They’re dead.”
“Can you tell me how they died?”
She inhales deeply as though to prepare to share with me something she hasn’t told anyone else in a long time. “My father died in a construction accident when I was a baby. My mother died from that flu.”
“I see. I’m so very sorry. My mother died from that flu, too,” I say gently.
For a second, Ursula stares at me in disbelief that she and I could possibly have anything in common. But then she turns back to the window, and it’s as if a cloud has passed over her.
“So you must have been a young girl when your mother died,” I say. “Nine? Do I have that right?”
She says nothing.
“Any brothers or sisters?”
Nothing.
“Did your grandparents or other family take you in, Ursula?”
She blinks but does not answer.
“Do they know where you are?”
Ursula turns her head just a fraction so that she is now looking at Sybil Reese, sitting in her chair and staring out a window.
“Ursula, I really do think I can help you. But you must help me first. I need you to tell me if you have any family that we should know about. If they have hurt you or if you are afraid for them to know where you are, we don’t have to tell them you’re here. I promise you that. Ijust need to know if there is someone who can help us understand what you’ve been through.”
For a second I think Ursula is done talking with me today. This happens. A patient suffering from mental illness will just suddenly shut down like a machine with its power cut off.
But then Ursula nods toward Sybil Reese. “What’s wrong with her?”
I follow Ursula’s gaze. “She... That woman has a sickness that has greatly affected her mind.”
“A sickness? Like the flu?”
I shake my head. “No. It’s not something that you or anyone else can catch from her.”
