Arlo left the car and walked ahead toward the old building, while the others followed him close behind.
Even though Penelope was only twenty-odd weeks along, she was carrying low and had begun waddling slightly when she walked. It might have something to do with her hips, but her pain wasn't too bad, she she didn't mind it.
Everyone at the restaurant thought it was rather adorable, but they were careful not to say that in her presence. She had never been okay being called cute, as she saw it has being belittled, even if that wasn't the case. What with her hormones now running the show, she was more likely to get upset and no one wanted that. Rick agreed with them, of course. She was strong, beautiful, adorable... In his eyes, she was a walking miracle right now. A goddess and a gift for carrying their child. He marvelled at every new thing they found out. Every new thing they experienced.
It was actually Rick that had made most of the purchases thus far. Penelope had had all day-morning sickness for weeks, and until she found a herbal medicine that helped, going anywhere in a car was out if the question. Standing upright was enough to make her queasy. Today was a good day for her though, and for that she was glad. She would not have been okay with missing this.
Arlo was wearing an onyx v-neck with a brown, light parkas over it.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
They knocked on the door, but there was no response. They half expected someone to be waiting on the other side of the door, but that wasn't the case. Arlo was bold and opened one of the doors as the other was locked.
In front of them laid a long corridor, but no staff was seen.
"It's cold in here, isn't it?" Arlo pointed out.
"Well, it's not open anymore. There's no heating, no electricity. It's bound to be cold." A voice coming around the corner said. "Though this has always been a cold place, in every sense of the word. I'm glad they decided to tear it down."
An old man walked up to them. He had his hair pulled back with brylcreem with a few stubborn curls that had escaped on each side. The top of his head was still covered in hair, though it could have been a well-planned combover.
"Jeremiah Shaek" He said and nodded once to each of them. "Now which of you two would be mr Spring?"
Arlo's heart somersaulted in his chest. He wanted to ask the man what he meant, but he wasn't sure he should.
"Neither." Rick cleared his throat. "My name is Rick. This is my wife Penelope and this here is my colleague Arlo Best."
"Aha, I see. I was expecting a mr Spring and a... let's see here" he pulled out a note and a pair of reading glasses that he perched at the tip of his nose. "Ah yes, here it is. A mr Spring, a mr Loris and two gentlemen both with the surname... A father and son, I believe. Mica Aphelion and Skyler Aphelion."
The old man nodded to himself as he flipped through his calendar, trying to make sense of it all.
A woman walked down the hallway. She was wearing a tan suit jacket with a cinched waist and a matching pencil skirt, black pumps with a rounded toe and a low heel and on her finger, she wore a gold wedding band with a white crystal in the middle. Surrounding it were smaller stones, one black and one emerald green on each side. Her hair was silvery grey and put up in a tight hairdo that was unlikely to come apart even if she fancied running laps in the hallway to pass the time.
"Mr Shaek. Doctor."
"Mrs Wilkins." He blinked, as if her not so sudden appearance left him surprised. "Might I trouble you?" He asked and handed her the note and his small leather calendar.
"Certainly." She nodded and accepted both items. She looked at them briefly and then nodded against Rick and the others. "One moment." She told them.
With the items in her hand, she walked back the way she came and they remained there in silence, not sure if they should say something or not.
"My assistant and... well, she runs a tight ship and she does whatever needs doing. Elena's always been a good girl. Organised and determined." He sighed. "If only she didn't always have to work so hard. I know she enjoys it, but she's a young woman. It's a shame she's wasting her time here when she could be tending to her home instead. Her husband wouldn't have wanted her to waste away in here."
His gaze was fixated on the main doors and he would not look away. It was almost as if he saw something there, something none of the others could see.
"Frank was not kind of man to leave his wife to fend for herself if his time came prematurely. He would've seen to it that she was provided for. Just as she would've been with him by her side." He shook his head and frowned. "I am not sure what I would do without her though. Both I and the patients... this whole establishment relies on her mind to keep things in proper order."
The others looked at each other and all three looked equally confused. She was not a young woman, but a woman who was at least in her upper sixties. And this place had been closed for years... His claims made little sense to either of them.
The sound of heels firmly clicking against the hardwood floor came closer at a rapid pace as the woman rushed back to them.
"This note is not for today nor is it for this week, mr Shaek. Those men were here last week. Last Friday, after mrs Jensen came over with your lunch. Do you recall?"
He nodded slowly, but his expression fooled no one. He did not remember them at all.
"According to our notes, these three are mr and mrs Hart and Arlo Best am I right?" She asked and turned to them.
"Yes, we called a few days ago. We wanted to learn more about this place and about one patient in particular."
"Oh yes, yes that's right. A miss Spring. Johnna Spring."
"Number..." he mumbled.
"What was that?" Rick bravely asked.
"The number, you all have the numbers wrong. Without the numbers, we'll all be lost." He threw his hands in the air with sheer frustration, then walked away with his cane firm in hand.
Feeling lost, just like he said they'd be, they turned to Elena instead.
"I believe I know to what he is referring to. You see, mr Shaek has advanced Alzheimer. His mind becomes muddled often. It is not always here with us, but lost in moments from the past. He sees and experiences them as clearly as if they were in fact happening this instant."
There was a stretched out sound of a doorbell being pressed. It was more of a tune than a bell, though slightly remnant of churchbells. Churchbells and something else. Arlo
"Mr Shake," she called out, "I believe that is mrs Jensen with your food. If you go to your room and wait there, I shall fetch you your food and I'll be there in a jiff. I think mrs Jensen just might've sent you a piece of peach pie along with your meal."
Mr Shaek suddenly reappeared, reminding the others of a child who had just heard the magic words to end their tantrum. "Thank you, Ella." He smiled warmly and kissed her hand gently, another memory from a different time. "Whatever would we do without you?"
"Starve, mr Shaek. No go sit down and I'll be right there."
When he reached his room and opened the door and got in without another word.
"Now where are my manners? My name is Elena Wilkins and your meeting here today is with me."
"It is nice to meet you." Penelope said and reached out her hand. As she did, she cradled her stomach out of habit. Elena's eyes were drawn there and a grimace of pain was seen on her face.
"Are you alright? Is something wrong?" Penelope asked and with her extended hand, she reached to pat her upper arm instead.
"No no, nothing is the matter, dear." Elena said in a strained voice. "The doctor is not the only one plagued with memories of the past, that is all."
She straightened her suit jacket and suddenly she was all business once more. "And you two?"
Elena asked even though she already knew their names. She had written the down herself. But one should always have good manners, and when another introduces themselves, one is expected to offer one's own name as well.
"I apologise, I am Rick and this here is Arlo."
"No surnames?" She raised an eyebrow, though her lips showed the beginning of a smile.
"Yes. Of course. Rick and Penelope Hart." he then bumped Arlo in a less than discreet manner.
"I am Arlo... Best." He said with cheeks blazing. "It is very nice to meet you." He said and reached out to shake her hand. Hers clasped his more firmly than he was expecting.
Her hands were calloused, contrary to her image. She was a hard worker and always had been. It was bound to show, no matter how much Nivea cream she used, and lately she hadn't been bothered to use any at all. Though her hands were still warm and her nails were well kept, but without nail polish. She found it got in the way in a place like this. Also, back in the day she had seen it as gloating. Many of the patients, if not most, did not belong and had not come to be there of their own free will. They did not need to be reminded that she had, and that unlike them, she could leave at the end of each day. That she could go home, and that even if they could do the same, they had none.
At first she had removed her nail-polish every day before work, and applied another layer for when she had dinner with her husband. But eventually that put a strain on both her nails and herself, so her husband told her to stop. To this day, she still remembered the words they said to each other that day.
"Honey, I work. I can't remain in our home all day, tending to the house or cooking you extravagant meals. I am exhausted when I get home from work, as are you. I am still able to put food on the table, but it is nothing compared to what the other wives in our neighbourhood make their husbands. You even have to make your own lunch! The least I can do is make sure I look the part."
Then Frank had laughed heartily in such a way that she could not help but smile too. "Sweet, sweet girl, you do not have to make me food or stay in the house. I do love your cooking though, because it is yours and because it means we will have time to sit down together and enjoy each other's company. I married you because I fell for you head first the first moment I saw you. Or heard you, more like. You were setting some less than gentlemanly types straight and your voice carried like no other." He smiled, remembering that day so clearly.
Elena blushed at that description of her. It didn't help her feel like the wife the times claimed she had to be or like the frail woman the magazines claimed all men wanted.
"Now that was a good thing. They had been bothering a lot of people and your voice and words were the first they heeded." He kissed here cheek. "Now where was I? Ah, yes. I married you for love and nothing else. A cook, a maid - whatever else others tell you to be, ignore them. We are a double income household and we can afford to hire someone to fill those roles. But you? You are one of a kind. All I need of you is your love and your presence by my side."
She threw herself in his arms and rested her head on his chest, listening to his thundering heart beating only for her.
"What about children?" She asked in a small voice.
He smiled and held on to her shoulders so that they could look at each other. "I know you've decided not to carry any of your own until those girls and women in that torture chamber you work in get their rights. Their rights to be free, to choose what happens to them and their children, to meet someone and settle down, to work or both. Whatever they desire. And I not only admire that, but I agree with you. That being said, there are a lot of children out there without homes, without parents who can care for them. So when you feel ready, love, how about we open our home to one of them?"
"You mean you'd be willing to adopt? For me?"
"Of course, though not just for you, love. I believe what goes on in that place is barbaric, and I know I don't even know the half of it. Those women deserve to know that their children are well looked after, and loved. That even though they cannot be together now, they are safe, and there is always tomorrow. None of us knows what tomorrow brings."
"I love you, Frank Wilkins, and I would love to start a family with you. You are a kind and loving man, unlike so many I've met, and you would make a wonderful father. Any child would be lucky to have you."
"And I love you, with all my heart. Any child would be lucky to have you as their mother."
"There is something I need to tell you. I have been thinking of doing something at work that is not strictly in line with their rules, but it would help a lot of the mothers."
"Those rules aren't worth following then. As a former nurse you always strive to ease the pain of others, and you must stay true to that. What is it that you plan on doing? Nothing that would put you in danger, I hope?"
"No, not unless they find out. I want to give the mothers a chance to have a little more peace, a little less heartache. I want to give them a chance to write down their story, their love in letters that their children might get to read someday, if they go looking for answers. Maybe even put away something they've made along with their letters, as a testament to their love."
His heart swelled and he leaned forward and picked her up, swirling them across the room. "You are without doubt the woman I fell in love with!" He told her before he set her down once more. "I am completely behind you on this, but where would you keep it all? Even if you are in charge of the rolodex, the institution is large. Someone might find it, or worse, see you hide it."
"I thought about that and that's why I figured I might keep it here?" She smiled sheepishly. "I could take them home in my purse and put them away safely with us. No one would dare to come looking here. Or have any reason to, since they would not know they exist in the first place."
He shook his head with a smile and sighed. "We'd have to move into a larger house eventually, but yes, let's do it. Let's give them a glimmer of hope, if we can." He kissed her cheek. "Though it might not be warm anymore, I made us dinner." He grinned.
"You did?"
"I did!" He winked. "Fish and chips á la the place around the corner from work."
"Oh Frank," she giggled, "how you spoil me. You know that's my favourite!"
Elena smiled as she remembered.
She told the three guests to sit by the chairs next to the old lunch room while she gave mr Wilkins his lunch. It didn't take long, and she was soon back with them. She led them down another hallway with the same pale yellow walls and then up a large wooden staircase with a carved railing reaching from the foot of it and all the way to the very top.
They continued through three corridors, though they all looking much the same. It would be difficult to find one's way out, unless one was being led by someone who knew the way. That was likely to have been the original intent by the architect. To make it as difficult as possible to try to escape, for anyone who had enough sense and heart left to try.
The pale and empty walls looked dreary and lifeless, not able to tell a living soul about the pain they had seen. It was eerily quiet and the floorboards creaked with each step. She led them past room after room, and each room's door looked heavy, as if it would take to people to hold it open, and each had a small window at eye level. That way they could check the rooms without having to open the doors.
Finally she stopped outside a room with a regular, windowless door made out of wood. It was the door to her office, formerly belonging to one of the doctors who was very much in charge back in the day.
She opened the door and turned towards them instead of inviting them in. "Would you like a cup of tea? I have sone biscuits too. Hobnobs, if I'm not mistaken."
"Yes, please." Penelope said quickly, feeling the nausea beginning to rear its ugly head once more. They had been walking around a lot, and it was getting to her.
"Morning sickness?" She asked her knowingly. "How about some soothing ginger tea for you, dear? Lemon for the others?" She asked and they nodded, "I'll add an extra biscuit to your plate, shall I?"
"Thank you, that'd be lovely." Penelope smiled tiredly. Her forehead was clammy and the rest of her body felt cold. Her ears were ringing and her head hurt. Pregnancy was not for the faint of heart.
"You may sit down in there. I'll be right back with your tea."
They walked into the room that seemed to be her office. The door was painted white, but based off of the places where the paint had worn off, it was made out of the same dark wood as the floors and the staircase.
Arlo thought it was strange to cover up something so beautiful with a dreary white paint, but perhaps that had been seen as trendy once. There had been a time when everything that wasn't "modern" had been considered terribly outdated. A faux pas that was best avoided. This building might have been designed or altered at that time.
In the middle of the room, facing the door, there was a large desk made out of shiny, dark wood that had been carved beautifully. It looked terribly heavy and there was no telling how anyone had been able to lift it in place, let alone how they got it through the door. It wasn't likely it would leave the room before the demolition. It's weight had made such an imprint to the floor that it was near welded to it by now. Its age was apparent in a few places, but mostly it looked well taken care of and treasured. Behind it stood a wooden chair with padded, ruby coloured leather across its back and seat.
There was a simpler kind of chair placed in front of desk. On the left side of the room, there were two more chairs with their backs against the wall. Arlo pulled out the one in front of the desk for Penelope while Rick fetched the other two and placed them next to hers.
In the right corner of the room, a medium sized bookshelf stood and it looked to be as heavy as the desk. It was full of all sorts of bound medical books. Behind the desk, there was a large window with mustard yellow curtains with lace edges.
Elena came back with a tray with tea, cups and four plates of biscuits. She even brought the rest of the biscuits still in the box, and held it underneath the tray.
"There we go," she said after placing out the cups and plates. "Milk?" She asked.
They all politely declined and she nodded and poured them their tea. When they'd all had a bite of a biscuit and a sip of their tea, she began to speak.
"Now then, I believe you came here to find out more about one patient in particular, yes?"
Rick took a sip and put the cup back on its plate. "Yes, Johnna Lake." He frowned, "Or perhaps her surname here was Spring."
Elena nodded once. "May I ask, are any of you related to her?" She asked, unable to hide the hope in her tone.
"No, we are not. Will that be a problem?" Arlo wondered.
"Perhaps, but we'll see. First tell me what it is you'd like to know."
"She had a child. A girl. We would like to know more about that matter. About what became of her, and what became of her mother."
She bit off a piece of her biscuit and washed it down with some tea. "We are not allowed to share adoption details, however, that child was never adopted. She lived here with her mother for the first years of her life." She smiled fondly. "The sweetest little child. I was sad to see her go."
"If she wasn't adopted, what happened to her?"
Her face suddenly turned morose as she remembered it all to well. "This place was never honest. It was never the sort of place it fooled some into believing it was. It was not here to help, but to hide away people's secrets. Bury their shame someplace no one would look. Out of sight, out of mind. No one came here out of their own free will. They were sent here or left here. Young women who had not waited for marriage, some of them pregnant. Men and women who were romantically interested in the same sex. Often they came here after being charged with public indecency, and being committed here was seen as an alternative to prison. The men were often medically neutered, but since there was nothing wrong with any of them, they could not be fixed. And so they were forced to spend the rest of their lives within these walls, though many didn't survive for long.
"The people who were committed were not seen as normal at the time, and their families would have become victims of gossip if their children had remained in their care. But that did not mean they belonged in a place like this. Locked away and treated like..." she shook her head.
"I remember one child was sent here because both of his parents were mathematicians, and the child was dyslexic. They didn't know what that was at the time and I believe they paid handsomely to have their child committed. Since the boy could not keep up with their minds, they believed their child to be slow, and too much for them to handle." She took a deep breath to compose herself. "Intelligence comes in many different forms. You can have a high IQ and still be an idiot."
"There were children with epilepsy sent here. They often came from religious backgrounds and their parents thought them to be possessed by the devil, that the demons made their bodies tremble and shake. It was not holy water those children needed. It was medicine, and heaps of love and care. Sadly neither was given to them here. Several died in their sleep. Others passed away during their treatments.
There were children and teens with autism sent here, long before anyone knew it existed, and when they did, before they understood what it truly meant. There were also a few with down syndrome and some with Cerebral pares."
She finished her tea and offered them some more before she poured herself another cup.
"The patients did not belong here or with each other. They were all so different. All they had in common was that they did not fit in. That they were considered unnatural and more trouble than they were worth. This was not a home, but many of the patients took to each other. They knew the only way out was in a casket, and so they looked out for each other best they could."
Her face looked tired and sad. "While they were so very different, each one with their own set of needs, they were all treated the same here. Like social experiments. Essentially," she swallowed and looked up to make sure her tears did not fall, "they were human lab rats, forced to participate in any and every experiment the doctors wanted to try. The moment they walked in here, they left their human rights at the door, and their torture begun as soon as they were committed."
Penelope's nausea did not improve. All she could think of was the child safe within her. How many had felt like she did and been tortured for it within these walls? How many had had their children taken away from them? To be institutionalised for being a woman and conceiving... she could not help but let her tears flow as her anger grew.
"Here you go, dear. Wipe those tears away and try not to let this upset you. It isn't good for the baby when the mother is in distress." Elena handed her an embroidered handkerchief with crochet edges.
"What about the mothers who were committed here?" Rick interjected. "Did anyone care about their distress? About their children?"
"Yes..." she closed her eyes and held onto her cup with both hands. "I did."
"Then why? How could you stay? Why didn't you do anything to help them?"
"At the time, we all had our roles to fill. Women's roles were very small, like extras in a movie. If one took one step out of bounds... Had I not played my role well, I would have been admitted myself. Especially after my husband passed. It would have been so easy for them to take my freedom away. And if they had, the patients, the mothers in particular, would have been lost. I was their only hope. The one person they had in their corner. Sometimes... the system is best fought from the inside." She shut her eyes hard and a tear escaped.
"Stop it, Rick!" Penelope told him in a firm voice. "This woman is not on trial before you. It hurt us just to hear of some of what went on here. Could you imagine the pain of seeing it go on day in and day out for years?" She turned to Elena and took her hand. "How did you manage to find the strength to come back every day?"
Elena smiled and patted Penelope's hand. "I had to, you see. My husband passed before we could adopt as we planned. And so these patients, whether they were little ones, teenagers or adults, they were mine to protect. My children. My family. With my husband gone, I had nowhere else to go, no one to spend my days with. I swore on his grave to dedicate the rest of my life to helping as many of them as I could before I joined him."
Rick felt bad for his behaviour. She had not deserved his outburst and he was ashamed he had made assumptions.
"And did you?" Arlo wondered.
"I did." She smiled. "Not as many as I would've liked, of course. But I knew that there were many whose lives were better for having met me, and that was enough to keep me going."
"What about Johnna and her child? What became of them?"
A fire was lit in Elena's eyes. "That girl did not belong here. Even less so than the other patients. Not once did any member of her family come to visit. Not once did they write to her. And so once, after the child had been born, I managed to find their contact information and I called to pass on the glad tidings. They did not see it as such. They told me not to bother them with such lies again. They claimed they only had one daughter. That their first-born was dead."
"Did Johnna know about her family? Did you tell her?"
Elena shook her head. "She kept writing to them, but after that day, I stopped mailing her letters. Later I found out they had had their daughter pronounced dead. There was a death certificate, a grave and everything. Legally speaking, their first-born daughter no longer existed. That is how much they had hated their own child. All because she got pregnant before marriage. That is why I gave her a surname and identity of her own. Johnna Spring."
Her little girl, as sweet as could be, was registered and baptised as Rhys Amara Spring. It was the one gift her mother could give her. A gift that cost nothing. A name that showed her how loved she was. She was a burning light that stood out in the darkness she grew up in. But her presence was healing. The patients gathered round her and everyone doted on her. Everyone whose mind was still their own. Most children were adopted right after birth, often before their mothers could even see them. They were sedated after birth, because their grief was too great, and their chests were bound to stop the milk from flowing out of them like tears.
But Johnna's girl got to stay. It wasn't until after she was sent away that I learned the truth. She had been allowed to stay so that the doctors could use her. They had planned to test her, experiment on her and then log the differences between the reactions of a toddler and an older children. Johnna had somehow found out and told me about it, and I swore to help her.
Shortly after that, my husband fell ill and passed away within a fortnight and while I was away, making the funeral arrangements, Johnna had taken matters into her own hands. When I came back, I found out she had arranged for her sister to care for the child. She had sent the girl away and she was to be picked up at the station near her sister's home.
Her sister never wrote to her or phoned us to accept the request to care for the child. She never legally adopted the child either. I feel so bad for not telling Johnna about what her parents had done to her. If I had, maybe she wouldn't had trusted her sister with her child's life."
It was so quiet in the room that you could drop a pin and the sound would echo throughout the building. The three of them clung to her every word. They didn't dare to speak lest they would interrupt her.
"Not a day has gone by without me thinking about what had become of that child. Praying she lived, praying she was looked after. If not by her aunt, then by someone else. And last Friday, when the injured young man came to see me, my prayers were answered."