Chapter 2
I carried Clara inside myself.
She argued.
For the first time in months, she argued with fire in her voice.
“I can stand, Daddy. I felt it. I want to try again.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know. You weren’t there at the beginning.”
That stopped me.
I looked down at her in my arms.
“What beginning?”
Her face closed.
The old Clara returned.
Careful.
Quiet.
Afraid of saying too much.
Eli walked beside us, keeping two steps away from everyone.
Mrs. Hargrove followed behind, stiff as iron.
I could feel her anger.
No.
Not anger.
Panic.
The kind people feel when a locked room opens.
Inside the sunroom, I set Clara on the long sofa.
Her legs rested beneath a wool blanket.
Her crutches leaned nearby.
Eli stood near the door, ready to run.
Mrs. Hargrove folded her hands.
“I’ll call Dr. Mercer.”
“No,” I said.
She blinked.
“Sir?”
“No doctors yet.”
“But Miss Clara—”
“Moved her foot.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Yes. Which is exactly why we need a professional.”
I studied her.
“For three years, professionals told me she could not move it.”
Mrs. Hargrove did not answer.
Clara watched us with wide eyes.
Eli looked at the floor.
I turned to him.
“Sit down.”
He shook his head.
“I’ll get dirt on the chair.”
The sentence hit me harder than it should have.
I owned rooms full of chairs no one used, tables polished by people whose names I barely knew, rugs worth more than the house Eli probably slept in.
And this child was afraid of dirt.
I softened my voice.
“Sit wherever you want.”
He chose the floor.
Clara slid from the sofa and sat on the rug across from him before I could stop her.
Mrs. Hargrove gasped.
“Miss Clara!”
Clara lifted her chin.
“I’m fine.”
It was the bravest lie I had ever heard.
I sat in the armchair opposite them.
“Eli, tell me about your mother.”
He twisted the scarf around his wrist.
“She told me not to tell grown-ups unless Clara moved.”
“She moved.”
He looked at Clara.
Clara nodded.
“She did.”
Eli swallowed.
“My mother’s name was Rose.”
The name struck the room like a bell.
Mrs. Hargrove stepped back.
Her face drained.
Rose.
I knew that name.
Not fully.
Like a tune heard through a wall.
“Rose worked here?” I asked.
Eli nodded.
“She was a night nurse.”
My pulse slowed.
Night nurse.
After Clara’s accident.
After the fever.
After the night she woke screaming that she could not feel her legs.
There had been so many nurses then.
So many faces.
I had been half-dead with grief and fear.
My wife, Marianne, had died the year before.
My mother had moved into the house and taken control because I was drowning.
Mrs. Hargrove had managed staff.
Dr. Mercer managed treatment.
And Clara got smaller.
Quieter.
Less alive.
“Rose,” I whispered. “Red hair?”
Eli’s face changed.
“You remember her?”
A memory surfaced.
A young woman standing in the nursery doorway with a tray of tea.
A dark red scarf around her neck.
A soft voice telling Clara a story about a girl who talked to stars.
Then my mother’s sharp tone.
That nurse is too familiar.
Then nothing.
“She left suddenly,” I said.
Eli’s eyes filled.
“She didn’t leave.”
The room went cold.
Mrs. Hargrove said sharply, “Sir, this is inappropriate. The boy is upset and inventing stories.”
I looked at her.
“Be quiet.”
She stiffened.
I had never spoken to her like that.
Maybe I should have.
Eli reached into his torn suspender and pulled out a folded envelope.
The paper was old.
Soft from being handled too many times.
He held it toward me with both hands.
“Mom said if Clara moved, I should give you this.”
My hand shook as I took it.
On the front, in careful handwriting, was my name.
Mr. Adrian Blackwood.
I opened it.
The first line made my stomach drop.
If Eli has found courage enough to bring this to you, then Clara is still alive, and God has given me one mercy.
I read aloud because Clara whispered, “Please.”
Rose’s letter said she had worked nights after Clara’s sudden paralysis.
She said Clara moved in her sleep.
Not often.
Not strongly.
But enough.
A toe.
A knee.
A reflex stronger than the doctors admitted.
Rose wrote that she told Dr. Mercer.
He dismissed it.
She told Mrs. Hargrove.
Mrs. Hargrove warned her not to confuse a grieving father.
She told my mother.
The next day, Rose was fired.
Two nights later, she returned to retrieve her wages and found Clara sedated though no medicine was listed on the chart.
My blood turned ice cold.
Clara looked at me.
“Sedated?”
I could barely speak.
Rose wrote that she stole a vial from the locked medicine cabinet and hid it.
She believed someone was giving Clara medication that weakened her muscles and kept her dependent.
Mrs. Hargrove lunged for the letter.
I stood.
She stopped.
Her eyes were wild.
“That woman was unstable.”
“Sit down,” I said.
“I served this family for twenty years.”
“And now you’ll sit down.”
She did.
Slowly.
Eli’s voice trembled.
“My mom got sick after that.”
I looked at him.
“She coughed all the time. She said stress made it worse. Then a man came to our apartment and told her to stop writing letters.”
“What man?”
Eli shook his head.
“I only saw his ring.”
“What ring?”
“A black stone. Like the one on her hand.”
He pointed at Mrs. Hargrove.
She looked at her own hand.
A black onyx ring sat on her finger.
My mother had worn one just like it.
The room began to spin around me.
My mother.
Dr. Mercer.
Mrs. Hargrove.
A fired nurse.
A sedated child.
Clara pressed both hands to her legs.
“Daddy,” she whispered. “Did someone make me sick?”
I wanted to say no.
I wanted to gather her up and lie with all the love in the world.
But lies had already stolen enough.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m going to find out.”
The sunroom door opened.
My mother stood there in pearls and dark silk, her silver hair pinned perfectly.
“What,” she asked softly, “is that boy doing in my house?”
Eli shrank back.
Clara grabbed his hand.
May you like
I stood between my mother and the children.
And for the first time in my life, I saw fear flicker in Beatrice Blackwood’s eyes.
