“To be honest, I think it began well before that; I just never wanted to think about it. It seemed wrong. And unkind to Frank, who I did love. I really did. It was a very confusing time when I loved them both.”
“So Frank didn’t know.”
“No.” June shook her head. “When Frank was home he wanted to be the one to care for Elwood. He gave him his sponge baths, shaved his beard, and trimmed his hair and nails. Frank would help him get dressed in the morning and get him ready for bed at the end of the day until his injuries healed. Frank would do all of these things thinking I was ready for a break from the nursing and caregiving when I actually wasn’t. I’m glad he had no idea.”
Eva waited to see if June would continue to lay bare things she had probably never told anyone. After a moment, she did.
“You know, the first time I found myself daydreaming about what it would have been like if I had met Elwood first, I thought,Who does that?What kind of woman fantasizes about being with her husband’s brother? But those thoughts would return to me whenever I wasn’t holding them at bay. It was too enthralling to think that if I’d met Elwood first, this beautiful house by the beach would be mine, not that dump of a trailer Frank and I had been living in at the time of the accident. I could be the one entertaining guests on Elwood’s lovely patio and serving them cocktails from that crystal pitcher. And it was impossible not to imagine that if I’d married Elwood instead, I might’ve had a child. I might havediscovered I had it within me to be a good mother even though I wasn’t raised by one.”
June had been speaking as if to the room just then, but now she turned to Eva. “But do you know what is the most painful thought that plays itself over and over in my mind?”
Eva shook her head.
“If I had married Elwood instead of Frank, he wouldn’t have been in that car with Ruthie Brink that night. He would have been home with me. I loved Frank. Honestly, I did. But if I had married Elwood instead of Frank, he wouldn’t have been disappearing right before our eyes with no way of stopping it. I could see something inside him was shattered, and those broken pieces were changing who he was. He barely touched his roses after the accident. And he loved those roses. He didn’t even want to sit down at his typewriter and write. The producers of the movie took back the screenplay Elwood had been working on and gave it to another writer. They kept asking him when he would return to work. He kept saying he didn’t know.”
“This doctor who told you the name of this condition—what did he say about how long it lasts? Did he tell you it would never go away?” Eva asked.
“That doctor didn’t know. He wasn’t a psychiatrist. So we called one in. Elwood was polite to that man but he didn’t want to talk about why he insisted on staying inside. The psychiatrist wanted to help Elwood regain a sense of security about being in the outside world and to get back behind the wheel of a car. But Elwood refused. He told him he wasn’t going to get back behind the wheel of a car. Or leave the house. Ever. And then that psychiatrist quietly suggested Frank petition a court for legal responsibility for his brother so that he could get Elwood the inpatient care he needed.”
“What is inpatient care?” Eva asked.
“It would’ve meant becoming a patient in a mental hospital. Frank was livid at the idea that this doctor thought Elwood was nuts. The doc didn’t say that, but that’s what Frank heard. He nearly threw him out of the house.”
“How awful for all of you.”
“We tried another psychiatrist a few weeks later who wanted to prescribe a slew of medications to alleviate Elwood’s anxiety. Elwood said no to that, too. Except for sleeping pills. Those he agreed to. After that, there were no more visits by psychiatrists. Elwood demanded it. It was his life to live as he chose to live it, he said. If Frank and I didn’t like it, we didn’t have to stay. He’d hire a housekeeper and gardener.”
“But you didn’t go.”
“No. Frank asked Elwood if he wanted us to and he said he didn’t. He liked having us there. But he didn’t want to live life any differently than how he was living it. It was nobody’s business but his own.”
“Did he think something bad would happen again if he went out?”
June thought for a moment. “That was really only a small part of it. And the more I was around Elwood and watching him and attending him, the more I understood it was guilt keeping him inside. He had made a prison for himself for killing Ruthie. He saw himself as a murderer and he was serving the time. It wasn’t true, Elwood hadn’t killed her, but it was no good to try to convince Elwood of that.”
“But at some point he did start working again, yes?” Eva asked.
“It was a long while after the accident. MGM continued to call with project offers and Max kept urging Elwood to sign on to one of them. It was a good two years later when Elwood was asked to adapt a bestselling novel about two young girls who meet on anorphan train heading west. MGM didn’t want to give this project to another writer; Elwood was who they wanted. But they told Max if Elwood turned it down, they would give it to someone else. And if that happened, they would unfortunately have to cut their ties and be done with him. I remember the day Max came to the house and told him this. Elwood was only fifty-one. He’d made some good money, Max said, but it wasn’t going to last forever. Max begged him to take that job. I sat down next to him after Max left and told him he’d be wonderful on this screenplay. I’d read the book it would be based on. He was perfect for it.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he didn’t think he could do it. And I said I was sure he could. He was born to write. Not only that, but that I would help him. I could type while he spoke the words so he didn’t have to feel overwhelmed. I told him I was a good typist, and that I knew from working with the cutters what a great story looks like and feels like. I could be his sounding board there, too. That’s when I saw a glimmer of happiness cross his face.”
“Ah. And that’s when he agreed,” Eva said.
“No. That’s when I finally understood fully why he’d shut himself away in this house. That joy I saw on his face was the thought of writing again, but then he remembered he didn’t deserve to be happy. Because of what he’d done to those boys. Ruthie’s boys. I wanted to shake him and yell that he did in fact deserve to be happy but I knew he’d pull back at those words. I had to make this about giving back to those boys somehow. So I told him he could use a portion of what the studio paid him to set up college funds for those boys. That would be a nice thing to do for them. A very nice thing. And he finally agreed.”
“He still wanted your help, though.”
“He most certainly did. And in truth, he needed it. Elwood wasat the top of his game before the accident. He really was. But after it, he struggled creatively. It took him a long while to get back in the groove. I’d thought that the more I helped him, the more he’d settle back into his old life and the less he’d need my help.”
“But that’s not what happened.”
“No. The more I assisted him, the more he seemed to need me to. It was almost as if his well was going dry and with every screenplay we worked on there was less and less water.”
“That seems so sad. What did your husband think about all this?”
“Frank was happy Elwood was writing again but irked that I was contributing to those scripts and getting zero credit for them. Elwood wasn’t too keen about it either, but when he brought up the matter to Max, he’d said the studio wouldn’t want to hear that Elwood’s sister-in-law who types his screenplays for him wants a screen credit.”
