As if through a time warp, he heard his own voice say, “Mom and me are going to the park.” And don’t try to stop us, the defiance in the words suggested. As if he had an eye pressed to a kaleidoscope that spun dizzily, he saw scene after scene, all accompanied by his voice, younger, older, in between, saying, “Mom and me are gonna…” She was his playmate, his best friend, his charge. He stayed close to her. He took care of her.
Until she disappeared, the summer he wasn’t home to take care of her.
“God,” he whispered, and let the card fall to the desk. He bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Lucy Peterson sat silent, letting him process all of this.
He felt as if he’d just been in a car accident. No warning; another vehicle running a red light, maybe, slamming into his. This was the moment of silence afterward, when he sat stunned, trying to decide if he was injured, knowing he’d start hurting any minute.
He lifted his head and said fiercely, “And you know this…homeless person is her? Elizabeth Rutledge.”
Lucy bit her lip and nodded. “I had no idea, until I found the driver’s license. I guessed her name was Elizabeth. She always went by some variant of it. But that’s all any of us knew.”
“She didn’t tell you her name?”
“She…took on different names. All famous people, or fictional ones. I think she believed she was them, for a while. I never saw the moment of transition. One day she’d be Elizabeth Bennett, from Pride and Prejudice, you know, and then Queen Elizabeth. Not the first,” she added hastily. “She said Queen Bess was bloodthirsty. Elizabeth the second.”
“I’m surprised she wasn’t the Queen Mother,” he said involuntarily.
“Because of the hats? But she wasn’t an Elizabeth, and your mother didn’t take on any persona that wasn’t.”
Abruptly he heard the verb tense she was using. Took on. She believed. Not takes on, or believes.
“I thought you said she was in the hospital.”
She looked startled. “I did.”
“You’re talking about her as if she’s dead.”
“Oh.” Once again she worried the lip, as if she often did. “I’m sorry. It’s just…the prognosis isn’t very good, I’m afraid. She’s in a coma.”
When he asked, she told him what had happened. That she’d been pushing her shopping cart across the highway, probably on her way to the Safeway store on the other side. The car that hit her had been going too fast, the police had determined, but she had likely been in her own world and hadn’t looked before starting across, either.
“She was sent flying twenty feet. The cart…” She swallowed. “It was flattened. Her things strewn everywhere. That was over a week ago. She hasn’t stirred since. There was swelling in her brain at first, of course, but they drilled into her skull to relieve it. Which sounds gruesome, but…”
He nodded jerkily. “I understand.”
“The thing is, until now it never occurred to any of us to try to find her family. I’m ashamed that it didn’t. We tried to take care of her, as much as she’d let us, but…She was just a fixture. You know? Now I wonder, if I’d pushed her—”
“If she didn’t know who she was, how could she tell you?”
“But she must have remembered something, or she wouldn’t have held on to those. Oh, and these rings.” She took them from the envelope and dropped them into his outstretched hand.
A delicate gold wedding band, and an engagement ring with a sizeable diamond. Undoubtedly his father’s choice. Adrian remembered it digging into his palm when he grabbed at his mother’s hand.
He wanted to feel numb. “She could have sold these.”
“It wasn’t just the rings she was holding on to,” Lucy said softly, her gaze on them. “She was holding on to who she was. On to you.”
“I haven’t heard from her in twenty-three years.” He felt sick and angry, and the words were harsh.
“Do you think she didn’t love you?”
He hated seeing the pity in her eyes. Jaw tightening, he said, “Let’s get back to facts. Where is she?”
“Middleton Community Hospital. Middleton’s not far off Highway 101, over the Hood Canal Bridge.”
He nodded, already calculating what he had to cancel. Of course, he’d want to transfer her to a Seattle hospital rather than leave her in the hands of a small-town doctor, but first he had to get over there and assess the situation.
“I was hoping you might come,” Lucy said.
Glancing at the clock, he said, “I’ll be there by evening. I have to clear my schedule and pack a few things.”
He saw the relief on her face, and knew she hadn’t been sure how he’d react. He might not be willing to drop everything and come running, had his mother walked out on her family for another man, say, or for mercenary reasons. As it was, he might never know why she’d gone, but it was clear she was mentally ill. His childish self had known she wasn’t quite like other mothers. Even then, she’d battled depression and a tendency to hear voices and see people no one else saw.
Schizophrenia, he’d guessed coldly as an adult, and still guessed. Her reasons for whatever she’d done were unlikely to make sense to anyone but her. There might be nothing he could do for her now, but she was his obligation and no one else’s.
He rose to his feet. “You can tell her doctor to expect me.”
She nodded, thanked him rather gravely, and left, apparently satisfied by the success of her errand.
He called Carol and told her to cancel everything on his book for the rest of the week. Then, with practiced efficiency, he began to pack his briefcase. Hospital visiting hours would be limited. Once he’d seen the doctor, he could get plenty done in his hotel room.
CHAPTER TWO
ADRIAN HAD NEVER taken a journey during which he’d been less eager to reach his destination.
Instead of turning on his laptop to work while he waited in line for the ferry, he brooded about what awaited him in Middleton.
He knew one thing: other people besides Lucy Peterson would be looking at him with silent condemnation as they wondered how a man misplaced his mother.
Yeah, Dad, how did you lose her?
Or had he discarded her? In retrospect, Adrian had often wondered. He loved his grandparents, but he hadn’t wanted to spend an entire summer in Nova Scotia without his mother. Some part of him had known she needed him. Years later, as he grew older, he’d realized that his father had arranged the lengthy visit so that no fiercely protective little boy would be around to object or ask questions when Elizabeth was sent away.
Supposedly she’d gone to a mental hospital. His father had never taken Adrian to visit, probably never visited himself. Perhaps a year later he’d told Adrian that she had checked herself out of the hospital.
With a shrug, he said, “Clearly, she didn’t want to get well and come home. I doubt we’ll ever hear from her again.”
Subject dismissed. That was the last said between them. The last that ever would be said; his father had died two years ago in a small plane crash.
Adrian moved his shoulders to release tension. Let the good citizens of Middleton stare; he