Breaking the Silence

  “No.” She laughed. “Not even very close. But the last one I found is going to be bigger than this one.” She pointed to the photograph. “You’ll be able to see it without a telescope next summer.”

  “So, this is your area of research? Comets?”

  “Actually, no. Professionally, I study planetary atmosphere. Finding comets is my hobby. I do it on my own time, with my backyard telescope.”

  “No kidding?”

  Laura could tell that Emma was growing bored with the conversation, and she’d barely touched her burger. Ordinarily, she’d try to get her to eat a little more, but not tonight.

  “How about we play some games?” she suggested. “Then we can have some of the cake Dylan brought.”

  In the family room, they played Fish and Candyland. Emma was still clingy, still eying Dylan with distrust, but Laura felt optimistic. He was a nice guy. This might work out.

  She put Emma to bed at eight, and the little girl literally gripped Laura’s hand in her own, obviously not wanting to be left alone. Or, not wanting Laura to go back to the family room where Dylan was waiting for her.

  “Did you have a good time tonight?” Laura asked her.

  Emma gave a shrug and hugged her bunny closer to her chest.

  “Maybe some day we can watch Dylan go up in the hot air balloon. Would you like that?”

  Emma nodded.

  “You sleep tight, now, honey.” Gently extracting her hand from Emma’s, she leaned over to kiss her.

  Emma pointed to the night-light.

  “I’ll turn it on,” Laura said. She did so, then walked downstairs to the family room.

  Dylan stood near the bookcase, studying a photograph of Laura, Ray and Emma. Emma was only two in that picture, a dark-haired little waif.

  “Is this your father?” Dylan asked. “Emma’s grandfather?”

  Laura laughed. It was not the first time she’d heard that question. “That’s Ray,” she said.

  “Your husband?” His eyes were wide.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought…” Two coins of color sprang to Dylan’s cheeks, and Laura laughed again.

  “It’s a common mistake,” she said. “Ray was twenty-one years older than me.”

  Dylan returned his gaze to the picture. “Emma was a cute kid,” he said. “Still is. It’s got to be so hard on you, though, trying to figure out what she’s thinking all the time.”

  “It is, but I figure it must be a thousand times harder on her, trying to communicate without being able to speak.”

  “What was she like before…it all happened?”

  “Would you like to see a video?” Laura asked.

  Dylan’s eyes lit up. “Yes.”

  She culled through the videos in the drawer under the TV and put one into the VCR. “Emma’s four in this one,” she said, sitting in the chair closest to the TV, the remote in her hand. Dylan sat on the sofa. “This was in Brazil, where I was working at an observatory. She and her baby-sitter’s little girl were playing dress-up and putting on a skit for us.”

  Emma and little Carlita came into camera range, giggling and tripping over the fabric they had tied around their waists. Scarves covered their hair and big earrings drooped from their ears. They proceeded to perform a skit that had no rhyme nor reason to it, as far as Laura had been able to tell, but it obviously had some meaning to the two little girls. Emma did most of the talking, some of it in the Portuguese she’d picked up from the sitter and Carlita. She was garrulous, actually, interrupting Carlita loudly when the smaller girl would try to speak. Dylan sat on the edge of the sofa, transfixed. Laura hadn’t looked at this tape in a long time. It was painful to watch. Emma had completely lost that vitality and self-confidence.

  Once the tape had finished, Laura clicked off the video, and she and Dylan sat in silence.

  “My God,” he said finally. “She didn’t shut up once.”

  “That’s the real Emma,” Laura said.

  “She was so feisty.”

  “She was born feisty,” Laura said, “and started talking early. She talked constantly, even if it was gibberish. She’d talk to anyone who was around, and if no one was around, she’d talk to herself.” It saddened her to remember the child Emma used to be. “She was the great communicator. I wonder what it’s like for her now. What’s it like for someone who was always sharing her thoughts to suddenly lose her voice? How can she tolerate it? Her gabbiness could drive Ray and me crazy sometimes, but now I’d give anything to hear it again.”

  Dylan stared at the blank TV. He swallowed hard, and for a moment she thought he might cry. She felt like crying herself.

  “I feel powerless,” he said.

  The tone of his voice held such defeat that she was afraid he might give up on Emma. “Can you hang in there?” she asked.

  “Oh, definitely,” he said. “I promise you that, Laura. I’m in for the duration.” His face was very serious and she knew he was telling her the truth. He looked back at the television. “I missed out on a lot by not knowing her all this time.”

  “Are you angry with me for not letting you know about her?”

  “Angry? No way. I would never have been ready to be a father to her before now. Believe me. I was in no shape for it.”

  Laura sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I feel like a detective these days,” she said. “The people I care about are mysteries to me. I don’t know what’s going on in Emma’s mind. And there’s this woman…” She waved the thought away. Why get into that?

  “What woman?” Dylan asked.

  “Oh, it’s a long story,” she said.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He settled deeper into the sofa, as if readying himself for a long story.

  She told him about her father’s death and the promise she’d made him. She told him about her visits to Sarah Tolley and her inability to discover the attachment between the old woman and her father. And she told him about the notes, pulling the second one from the pocket of her shorts to read to him.

  “‘Memory loss can be a blessing,’” she read. “‘Sarah is nothing to you. Don’t go again.’” Reading the note aloud sent a fresh chill up her spine.

  Dylan sat forward, arms on his knees. “Weird,” he said. “She has no family?”

  “My father said she doesn’t. And the attendant at the retirement home says no one’s ever visited her till now.”

  “And you haven’t been able to figure out any connection between her and your father?”

  She shook her head.

  “Lovers?” he suggested.

  “Well, it’s possible, I guess. My mother died when I was seven, and as far as I knew, he never had a girlfriend, although he did have some women friends. But if he had been seeing Sarah, I knew nothing about it. And unfortunately, Sarah doesn’t seem to, either.”

  “Oh, he was seeing someone.” Dylan nodded with certainty. “Man doesn’t live by bread alone.”

  She smiled. “I suppose not. But I sure haven’t found any indication of it.”

  “Could she—Sarah—remember and just not want to let you know for some reason?”

  That hadn’t occurred to her. “I guess it’s possible,” she said.

  “So let’s say your father was her lover at some time. Maybe someone doesn’t want you to know that and that’s why they’ve sent you the notes.”

  “Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” she said.

  “I suppose not.” He looked as perplexed as she felt. Then his gaze shifted to the window. “Hey, it’s a clear night,” he said “Do you have a telescope?”

  She laughed. “Do you have a balloon? Of course.” She looked at her watch. “Want to see my latest comet?”

  They walked upstairs and down the hall. Dylan stopped short at the entrance to the skylight room. “Wow!” he said, looking up through the Plexiglas ceiling. “Incredible!”

  She pulled open the sliding glass door that led onto the deck. “We’ll take the telescope out here
since it’s so gorgeous tonight.” She carefully wheeled the telescope onto the deck and around to the north side of the house.

  “This is a phenomenal setup,” Dylan said.

  “We have to give our eyes a chance to adapt to the dark,” she said.

  She adjusted the settings on the telescope, knowing exactly where her comet would be at this time of night. After a few minutes, she peered through the lens, spotting the small, fuzzy object that promised to grow into something spectacular as it neared the earth.

  “Take a look,” she said.

  He lowered his head to the eyepiece.

  “See that globular cluster in the right side of the field?” she asked.

  He laughed. “Oh, sure. What’s a globular cluster? Oh, that white mass there?”

  “Right. Well, just to its left, smack in the middle of the field, is a tiny fuzzy ball. See it?”

  “Uh-huh. That’s the comet?”

  “Right.”

  “It doesn’t have a tail.”

  “You can’t see one yet, but I think it’s going to have a terrific tail next year.”

  “Will it be as big as Hale-Bopp?”

  “Bigger, I think. It’s hard to predict that for sure yet.”

  He was quiet as he continued observing the sky, and Laura braved asking him the question that had been on her mind for a while.

  “Have you ever been married?” she asked. It seemed peculiar for a forty-one-year-old man never to have married. “You were adamant about being unattached at Heather’s office.”

  “No, never married,” he said, without lifting his head. “I lived with a woman for many years, but that’s a long and miserable story. So now I’m sort of…leery of commitment.”

  “Because of the long and miserable story?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Well, you said you would commit to Emma.”

  “Different.” He stepped back from the telescope and looked at her. “She’s my daughter.”

  The words touched her in a way she couldn’t describe. She no longer felt so alone.

  They spent half the night staring through the telescope. She hadn’t done that since before Ray’s death. Spending the night with the stars had lost its magic for her; her time with the telescope had contributed to Ray’s unhappiness. But tonight, she recaptured the sense of wonder and joy instilled in her by her father. And each time she explained some phenomenon to Dylan, she heard the life in her voice, the confidence. The sky was the one thing she understood and could count on when everything else in her life was a mystery.

  19

  “IS IT A CLOCK?” SARAH ASKED, A PUZZLED EXPRESSION ON HER face.

  “It’s both a clock and a calendar,” Laura said, still pleased with her purchase. She was hanging the white plastic device on Sarah’s kitchenette wall, while the older woman watched her, perplexed. It was quite large. On its right side was a clock with large black numbers. On the left side, the month, the date and the day of the week were displayed.

  “All you have to do every morning is push this button and it will change the date,” Laura said as she began pushing the button. “See? Now I’ve got it up to today’s date. And it says Wednesday. So, if you push the button every day, you’ll know when Wednesday comes and that I’ll be here to take you for a walk. Or if it’s raining, like last week, I’ll bring a movie.”

  The previous Wednesday had been stormy, so Laura had picked up African Queen at the video store, remembering that Sarah had mentioned the movie when she spoke of her courtship with Joe Tolley. Sarah seemed to thoroughly enjoy the movie, though Laura missed hearing her talk about her life.

  “You ready?” Laura asked now, but the question was unnecessary. Sarah already had the door open and was walking into the hall.

  Outside the retirement home, Laura tried to steer Sarah in the other direction for a change, but the older woman stood glued to the sidewalk. She wanted to take the familiar route, it seemed, so Laura gave in and joined her.

  “Remember I told you that Dylan wanted to meet Emma?” Laura said as they walked.

  “Dylan?” Sarah asked.

  Of course she didn’t remember. Laura wasn’t sure why she tried talking to Sarah about her own life. It seemed pointless, but it was a way to start the conversation.

  “Yes. My little girl, Emma’s, father. Biological father. They met for the first time the other night.”

  “My,” said Sarah. “How old is…the little girl?” Emma’s name was lost in the tangle of Sarah’s memory already.

  “Five. She was pretty shy with him, but I think it went well for a first meeting.”

  “Does she like him?”

  “Well, Emma doesn’t speak, so I’m not sure how she feels about him. She had a terrible scare a few months ago and it left her mute.” Laura was about to explain the meaning of mute, but Sarah seemed to understand.

  “Ah,” she said. “Who is…the girl, again? Your daughter?”

  “Yes,” Laura said.

  “How old is she?”

  “Five,” Laura repeated patiently.

  “And she’s mute. Must be very frustrating for you at times.”

  “Yes. It sure is.”

  Sarah looked into the distance, toward the clock tower several blocks away. “I had a patient who was mute once.”

  “Did you?” Laura asked, sincerely curious.

  “She about drove me to become a patient myself,” Sarah said.

  Laura laughed. “Tell me about her,” she said.

  Sarah, 1956

  “That’s Saint Margaret’s?” Sarah asked Joe as he turned the car into the long drive. Ahead of them, at the crest of a broad, grassy hill, stood a huge building constructed of stone, which had grown dark and dirty with age.

  “That’s it,” Joe said, pointing. “See the sign?”

  Sarah’s eyes followed his finger to the small white sign wedged into the side of the hill. Saint Margaret’s Psychiatric Hospital. Hard to believe.

  “It looks more like a house of horrors,” she said.

  She was there for an interview as a nurse. She and Joe had moved to the Maryland suburbs shortly after getting married and were now living in a darling little house next to a park. Saint Margaret’s would be much more convenient to their new home than Mercy had been, and Sarah was thrilled to have this interview. Saint Margaret’s was a top-class facility. From the outside, though, one would never guess.

  The driveway curved around in front of the main entrance, and Joe stopped the car. “Are you sure you’ll be all right taking a taxi home?” he asked.

  “Of course. I’ll be fine.” She leaned toward him for a kiss.

  “Good luck, then,” he said. “Call me at the office to let me know how it went.”

  She stepped out of the car and waved after him as he headed down the driveway. Then, smoothing the skirt of her uniform, she took a deep breath and pushed open the huge, intimidating wooden door of the house of horrors.

  She was in a large square foyer, three stories high, rich with dark wood trim. Light poured through glass panels in the ceiling high above her, forming golden columns in the air. Voices echoed softly around her. The floor was formed of large, black-and-white, diamond-shaped tiles. There was a sense of aged elegance, and she could not detect the pervasive hospital smell she was so accustomed to at Mercy.

  The reception desk was at one side of the foyer.

  “I have an appointment with the nursing supervisor,” Sarah said to the clerk seated behind the desk. “Mrs. Love, I believe her name is.”

  She was told to take a seat, and she waited for nearly ten minutes on a lovely floral-patterned couch before Mrs. Love arrived. The supervisor was a young, attractive woman in a nurse’s uniform. Her smile was engaging, and there was a bounce in her step as she ushered Sarah down a long, dim corridor and into her office.

  Sarah took a seat across the broad desk from the supervisor.

  “What a beautiful pin!” Mrs. Love said.

  Sarah touched the c
ollar of her uniform. Joe had suggested she remove the pin for the interview, but she couldn’t bear to take it off. As she had promised, she wore it every day.

  “My husband gave it to me as a wedding gift,” she told Mrs. Love. “My supervisor at Mercy didn’t mind me wearing it. But if you—”

  “Oh, it’s not a problem. We all have special little things we do here to individualize our uniforms. This is mine.” She touched the delicate gold chain at her throat.

  “It’s stunning,” Sarah said.

  “Well.” Mrs. Love glanced at the papers on her desk. “I’ve looked your résumé over,” she said, “and I’m very impressed. The work you did at Mercy should prepare you well for what you’ll do here.”

  What you’ll do here. She made it sound as though Sarah already had the job. And indeed, the interview that followed was more a friendly chat than any sort of interrogation. Mrs. Love did most of the talking, telling Sarah about the innovative programs at Saint Margaret’s, about the state-of-the-art equipment in the hospital, and about the hospital’s director, Dr. Peter Palmiento. Mrs. Love’s cheeks glowed a vibrant rose color when she spoke about the director. “Surely you’ve heard of him,” she said.

  Of course Sarah had heard of him. Everyone wanted to work with Peter Palmiento. He was changing the face of psychiatry. “Yes, I have.” She smiled.

  “He’s put Saint Margaret’s on the map,” Mrs. Love said. “He’s a man of incredible power, yet a lovely human being, and he’s the reason we have all the equipment you could ever hope for. There’s a great deal of very exciting research going on here, and Dr. P. is a wizard at getting funding to keep it alive. Everyone adores him.” It was difficult to tell if Mrs. Love was talking about a man or a god. “This is an extraordinary place to work,” she added.

  “It sounds like it,” Sarah said, a little overcome.

  Mrs. Love took in a long breath, composing herself. “So,” she said. “Let me tell you about your salary and the hours you’ll be working.”

  “Are you saying I have the job?” Sarah asked.

  Mrs. Love laughed. “Yes, of course. That is, if you want it.”

  “Oh, I do!” She couldn’t wait to tell Joe.