Breaking the Silence (27 page)

But she didn’t ask him. She didn’t want to know.

I
T WAS A BLIND DATE, ONE OF THOSE EXERCISES IN FUTILITY
to which he hadn’t subjected himself in years. But this woman was a friend of a friend of Alex’s, and with Bethany on hold, he’d allowed himself to be talked into it. Driving to her house to pick her up, he swore to himself he would not talk—would not even
think
—about Emma and Laura. He still remembered Bethany’s tallies of how often he said their names.

He found the Middleburg town house easily. Her front door was marked by a wreath of dried flowers, and he rang the bell.

“Hi, I’m Sherry,” she said as she let him in. She was a very attractive woman, with long dark hair and a body that was impossible to ignore. He watched her as she moved around her living room, hunting for her purse, her keys, her glasses for the movie. Then she disappeared into another room, and he heard her speaking to someone. She came out, smiling at him. “Just had to give the sitter her final orders,” she said.

A sitter. She had kids. Ordinarily that would have meant nothing to him, but tonight, it elated him. He tried to keep the pleasure from showing in his face.

He was able to refrain from talking about Emma throughout dinner, asking Sherry questions about her work and her
hobby of horseback riding, and he tried to listen attentively to her answers, with some success.

The movie was one of those overly long, slow-moving British types, and his mind was back on the beach, wondering if there had been something else he might have said to Emma to encourage her into the water.

On the drive back to Sherry’s town house, he finally allowed himself to ask about her children.

“I have three,” she said. “All girls. Nine, seven and five. I hope that doesn’t blow you away.” There was an apology in her voice. Probably the disclosure that she had three kids sent many of her suitors running for cover.

“Not at all,” he said. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with a five-year-old girl myself recently.” He felt himself slipping like an alcoholic at a bar, knowing he would not be able to shut up once he started.

“Really?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

He could lie. Say Emma was his niece. But lies did not come easily to him. “She’s my daughter,” he said, enjoying the unfamiliar sound of the words.

“You have a daughter?” Sherry asked. “I thought you’d never been married.”

“That’s true,” he said. “And I didn’t know she existed until a month or so ago.”

“Oh,” Sherry said, obviously aware there was a long story behind that revelation and wise enough not to push for it.

“Tell me about your five-year-old,” he asked. “What is she like? What sorts of things does she like to do? Emma…my daughter is having some problems. I’m not sure what’s normal for her age.”

“Well, Jenny loves to swim. She’s in a tumbling class. And she collects Beanie Babies and Barbie dolls.”

“So does Emma,” Dylan said. “The Barbie dolls, anyway.” He told Sherry about the aquarium he’d given Emma and how she turned the bookshelf into an office building for her dolls.

“Yes,” Sherry said. “They can be pretty creative.”

Was that boredom in her voice? He didn’t care. “Emma used to love to swim,” he said, “but she’s suddenly afraid of the water. Do you have any idea how I can get her excited about it again?”

“No, I don’t, really,” she said. “All three of mine are regular fish.” She tried to steer the conversation back to adult topics. The balloon business. The movie they’d just seen. It bothered him that she had three daughters and didn’t seem to want to talk about them.

He pulled into the parking lot and stopped in front of her town house.

“I’d ask you in,” she said, lifting her purse from the floor of the van, “but it’s late and I have to get the sitter home.”

“I’ll walk you up,” he said, opening his door. She didn’t like him. It was obvious. And that was okay. He walked her to her door and left her without a kiss, which he figured was fine with both of them.

Driving home, he realized she had asked him nothing about Laura.

“Tell me,” she might have said. “What exactly is your relationship with your daughter’s mother?”

“It’s, uh, we’re friends,” he would have stammered.

He glanced out the van window at the diamond-lit sky, remembering the night he and Laura had watched the stars through her telescope. He wished he were doing that right now.

L
AURA SAT ACROSS THE WAITING ROOM FROM
S
ARAH, WATCHING
the older woman stare at the nameplate on the receptionist’s desk. She was mouthing the name “Mrs. Quinn” to herself, over and over. Finally, she looked at Laura.

“Are we still at Meadow Wood Village?” she asked.

“No,” Laura said. “We’re at Emma’s psychotherapist’s office, and you and Emma will spend some time together here in a playroom. Since Emma has spoken to you, when she hasn’t spoken to anyone else, her therapist thought it might be helpful to have you here with her.”

Sarah looked at Emma, who sat in the corner of the room trying to balance a plastic horse on top of a pile of blocks. “I’ll play with Janie?” Sarah asked.

“Yes. But not out here,” Laura said. “There’s a special room to play in. You’ll be helping Janie…I mean, helping Emma, by playing with her. I’ll be very grateful.”

Sarah nodded, but Laura was still not certain she knew what was being asked of her. Sarah wore that resigned look of confusion that made Laura want to hold her.

Heather came out of her office and introduced herself to Sarah. She ushered Sarah and Emma into the playroom, seating
them at a broad table topped with a box of small dolls and a dollhouse, and Laura was relieved to see that Sarah had no problem lowering herself into one of the child-size chairs. Then Heather and Laura walked into the next room, hiding behind the two-way mirror.

Instantly, Emma began to talk. “Pick out the dolls you want,” she directed Sarah, holding the box of plastic figures in front of her.

Laura glanced at Heather, who grinned at hearing Emma’s voice for the first time.

Sarah reached for one of the male dolls.

“No, not that one!” Emma said. Then more gently, “Can I have that one, please?” She took the male doll from the box without waiting for Sarah’s response.

“This one is pretty.” Sarah plucked a young girl doll from the box. “Did you want this one, Janie?”

Emma rolled her eyes in exasperation, and the gesture made Laura laugh. “My name is Emma Brandon Darrow,” she said sternly. “Now, put that doll in one of the rooms. Please,” she added.

“At least she hasn’t forgotten her manners,” Heather whispered to Laura.

For half an hour, they watched Emma and Sarah play. Emma was bossy, frequently telling Sarah what to do.

“This is too cool,” Heather said as she watched them interact. “This is a side to Emma she’s never let me see.”

“That’s the way she used to be,” Laura said. “Self-confident and a bit overly assertive.” Not the quiet little shadowy figure living at the lake house. Not the child who feared the dark, and wet her bed, and stood alone on the beach while her friend played in the water.

“This is very encouraging,” Heather said. “She has so much
going for her. I know it’s hard to believe right now, Laura, but I think she’s going to be fine.”

“If she knew I could see her, though, she’d clam up,” Laura said. “That hurts.”

“For now,” Heather said reassuringly. “Can you bring Sarah again? She seems to be enjoying herself.”

“Maybe,” Laura said as she watched Sarah play with her daughter. Sarah seemed caught between the roles of child and woman, occasionally playing with the dolls as intently as Emma, occasionally guiding Emma in a more parental manner, and always, no matter how vociferously Emma objected, calling her Janie.

When the session was over, Laura buckled both old woman and child into her car for the return trip to the retirement home.

“Did you have a good time?” Laura asked them as she pulled out of the parking lot.

“Where were we?” Sarah asked.

There was silence from the back seat, where Emma sat.

“You were at a therapist’s office,” Laura said. “Playing with Emma in a playroom.”

“Do we go for a walk now?”

“Not today,” Laura said. “I’ll drop you off at your apartment, and then I have to take Emma home. But I’ll come visit you again tomorrow and we can go for a walk then, all right? It’s supposed to be a beautiful day.”

“I’ll put my walking shoes on first thing in the morning,” Sarah said.

“That’s a great idea.” Laura glanced at Sarah and saw that she was smiling broadly at the thought of taking a walk. “And maybe while we’re walking,” she said, “you can tell me what you did after you left your job at Saint Margaret’s.”

Sarah, 1959

Sarah was afraid of Dr. Palmiento and Gilbert. She knew the damage they had been able to do within the confines of a legitimate institution. The lengths they might go to outside that institution was a frightening unknown. Obviously, they would protect their so-called research at all costs. Dr. P.’s veiled threats toward Janie still rang in Sarah’s ears.

She decided to move to a different town. After selling the home she’d owned with Joe, she moved to an apartment thirty miles away. The move was painful. She felt as if she were wiping Joe and her memories of him from her life. But she still had Janie, the greatest connection she could possibly have with her husband. And every day, she wore the pin he’d given her.

She took a job in a blessedly conventional psychiatric hospital, Emery Springs, near her new home, and was relieved to find that the “progressive” techniques used at Saint Margaret’s were not being employed there. In her spare time, she tried to find either a Joseph Tolley or a Frederick Hamilton in the institutions in or near the metropolitan area. Driving from place to place, Janie in tow, she searched for him. None of the institutions had a record of either man ever being there, and she wondered if they might have checked him in under yet another fictitious name. That was, if he’d survived the lobotomy at all.

The only person from Saint Margaret’s she dared stay in touch with was Colleen. Colleen had been fired from the hospital immediately after Sarah left, and she’d been given the same threats regarding her own child, Sammy. Colleen was desperately searching for another job. She couldn’t afford to move, and Sarah felt guilty for her predicament, knowing it was Joe’s foiled scheme that had led to her unemployment.

Despite her relentless sorrow over Joe, Sarah tried to be cheerful and optimistic for Janie’s sake. Gradually, she began to relax and feel safe in her new home and job, although in the back of her mind, she was constantly trying to think of a way to tell someone in authority what was going on at Saint Margaret’s. She did not believe for an instant that the experimentation was sanctioned by the government. She should call someone at the FBI. If the government
was
behind Dr. Palmiento’s work, she wouldn’t be telling them anything they didn’t already know. If not, she could finally put an end to the suffering the patients were being forced to endure. Still, she was afraid to call, knowing that Dr. P. had managed to learn it was she who originally contacted the board of psychiatry. Yes, she was worried about the patients, but she had to put Janie’s safety—and her own—first. She had the FBI’s number on the wall next to her kitchen phone, though, in case she one day got the courage.

Early one Saturday morning in November, Sarah was cleaning her apartment when her doorbell rang. She was expecting one of her neighbors to stop by for a cup of coffee, but the woman was a little early.

She leaned the mop against the kitchen wall and walked past Janie, who was contentedly playing by herself in her playpen. Pulling the apartment door open, Sarah gasped and took an involuntary step back into the living room.

Gilbert smiled from the hallway. “I didn’t mean to alarm you,” he said.

“Why are you here?” she asked. “How did you find out where I live?” She thought she’d left no trail behind her.

“May I come in for a moment?” Gilbert asked. “It’s important.”

Sarah hesitated. “All right.” She would leave the door open and scream if anything happened. Her neighbors would hear her.

“This is your little girl,” Gilbert walked over to the playpen, and Janie reached her arms up toward him. Janie was too hungry for a man’s touch these days.

“Sit down on the couch,” she commanded Gilbert, stepping between him and the playpen.

He sat down, but she remained standing.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Just a few things.” He seemed unperturbed by her rudeness. “First, I wanted to let you know how much you’re missed at the hospital. You really were one of the very best nurses we had. I wanted to make sure you know that you’re welcome to return any time. Bygones will be bygones.”

“Never in a million years would I go back to that hellhole,” she said.

He nodded his understanding. “I know that Dr. Palmiento can be…difficult,” he said, “but his work is truly brilliant, and—although I know you are not yet convinced of this—critical to the security of the country.”

“Look—” Sarah walked toward the door “—there’s no point in talking about this any further. I know you think Dr. P. is God and doing God’s work. I don’t happen to agree. So let’s just—”

“You’ve been talking to people,” he said, not budging from the couch.

“I…what do you mean?”

“Your co-workers at Emery Springs.”

“How do you know where I work?” The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

He chuckled. “You are a very easy target, Sarah. I know a great deal about you. You leave for work at eight each morning. You drop little Jane there off with your neighbor, Mrs. Sucher, on the first floor of this building. You arrive at Emery Springs about 8:30. You come home at five each day, like clockwork.
Your closest friends in this building are Paula Rose and Susan Taylor. You visit with them occasionally in the evenings. You shop at the A & P on Terrace Street. You go to bed at ten-thirty each night. You are quite regimented.”

“How do you know all this?” She folded her arms across her chest, suddenly very cold.

“We told you there are people in the government willing to go to any length to protect our research,” he said. “But how we get information truly doesn’t matter, Sarah. What matters is that you said—you
swore
—you would tell no one about Saint Margaret’s, and you haven’t kept your word.”

“I haven’t told anyone who has the power to do anything about it,” she said.

He laughed. “True, because that person doesn’t exist.” He leaned forward. “Maybe Dr. P. and I should have made it clearer to you. When we told you not to tell anyone, we meant
anyone
.”

“All right. Fine. I understand. Now, please leave.”

To her relief, he stood up and moved toward the door. “Listen to me,” he said. “I don’t mean to be so harsh, but you have to understand how important it is for you to keep all of this to yourself. Peter Palmiento is driven. And he’s a genius. And sometimes geniuses border on the maniacal. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Good,” he said. “And good luck to you, Sarah.”

She closed the door after him and locked it. Trembling, she pulled Janie from the playpen and sat on the couch, holding her little girl in her arms. She’d thought she was safe in sharing some of her experiences at Saint Margaret’s with her co-workers. Who had told? She shouldn’t have trusted them, nor should she trust her neighbors. She would move again. Change
jobs. Should she change her name? No, she couldn’t lose that much of Joe. But she would have to stop searching for him. Maybe her inquiries were being reported. An easy target, Gilbert had called her. She would have to change that.

This time, she moved across the state line to Virginia, taking a less-satisfying job in a smaller hospital. She hired a woman to sit with Janie in the safety of their own apartment during the day. And she threw away the number she had for the FBI. She didn’t dare think about making that call.

Still, her dreams were haunted by images of the patients at Saint Margaret’s, those wounded people who put their trust in their caretakers, only to be slowly and methodically destroyed.