* * *
• • •
It took Edward the better part of a year to achieve what he had set out to do: unsettle Donna.
All those carefully selected items, all those times he went to Shadow Garden, put up with security, dropped off a bronze statue, a photo album one week, one of her favorite dresses, the one with the animal print she used to love and wear often, a book the next, including a note he had found in Penelope’s room, one she had written as a child, stuffed away in a box that contained everything from her first school year, an attempt at writing, first letters, then words, and finally sentences. He even found a children’s book with a creepy dollhouse on the cover that had dropped behind a dresser drawer and had been stuck there for who knows how long. For months she didn’t seem to react to any of it and he felt as if he was quibbling over scraps, wasting his time, but eventually, according to Marleen, Donna was beginning to become unglued. She had begun to ask questions, demanded to know where all those items came from, and Marleen remained steadfast. She believed in some sort of therapeutic component of it all until he dropped off the urn. He had felt her hesitation then and not only did he fear the end of the cooperation on her part, but he was also running out of things that seemed suitable. The room he had created for the collection of the items was filled with bulky furniture unfeasible for the task at hand.
When he called her to tell her he was dropping off the urn, Marleen was adamant that planting it might be a bad idea.
“How is her daughter’s urn a positive memory? I think we might set her back months. When you approached me, you assured me you’d limit this, this . . . undertaking to pleasant memories. I don’t think I’m prepared to go forward with this any longer. I think I told you once it doesn’t feel right, I’ll no longer be part of this.”
No need to be surprised, Edward thought then, Donna had won over Marleen a long time ago. She’s molded her to her advantage. Donna was like the mouth of a lion, swallowing everything and everyone.
“But Marleen,” he said and clutched the phone in his hands, “the urn is all she has left of her daughter. She would want to be with her. Would want her near. Right?”
“I will remove anything that causes her any kind of stress, Dr. Pryor. Know that.”
“I understand, Marleen. I understand.”
Dropping off the urn was the last time he’d gone to Shadow Garden. He was done. No one could sustain this state of mind, this madness lingering in the bones, eventually it would reach to the edges of his body and do him in.
It no longer felt like he was coming out on top or getting closer to the truth—after all, he had arranged for Donna to be a recluse, with Marleen and the planted memories of her past being her only connection to the outside world—but she wasn’t cracking the way he thought she should. His last trump, the ace in a hole, was all he had left and he had just handed it to Marleen.
* * *
• • •
One night he heard someone in the house, roaming around like a thief. He saw light in Penelope’s room and for a second he believed in ghosts but then he knew it had all come to fruition.
Donna had arrived and Donna’s memory was ready to let go, to expel the truth.
59
DONNA
I reach for the letters and Edward doesn’t protest. I stuff them into my purse. I guess I’ve done what I came here to do. Edward on the other hand fell just short of getting the answers he was looking for. The letters are mine to keep, that’s my punishment for him, I suppose.
“Just go, back where you came from,” he says, slumped over, defeated.
He calls a taxi and gives the driver instructions to take me to Shadow Garden. I open the thumb turn bolt of the garage door leading to the front path and step outside. The taxi is parked down Preston Hallow Road, a short walk. It’s barely daylight and I won’t alert the neighbors. What would they say if they saw me, especially in this condition? I haven’t looked in a mirror in days, it has seemed almost unnecessary to get a look at myself, it’s always just a glimpse, never my true self. Was that the reason I shrouded them, because what’s the point of looking at someone you don’t recognize?
I get into the taxi and I realize how shaken up I am. My eyes are tired and I’ve seen too many things, heard too many explanations. I concentrate on the silver maples and the taxi takes a left. I turn and look back at the house. The entire upper floor is illuminated. There’s a shadow but I could be mistaken—it could be the oaks and the branches swaying in the wind—and by all accounts Edward sat in the kitchen when I left.
I no longer understand what reality is, what it isn’t, and what exactly is the opposite of it? Not a dream state, but an alternate reality that one lives in but never recognizes as such? Unreality?
I understand Edward. For the first time I comprehend his conundrum, his need to understand, this fervent obsession to assign everything a name, a reason, a cause, a motivation. Last night, he asked me over and over why Penelope would see a need to confess.
“After all she’d done,” he said and wiped his forehead. “After everything, all the doctors and the therapy. That boy . . .” His eyes grew wide. “That boy, that poor boy. Why suddenly did she feel the need to confess when so much was at stake?”
Poor Edward. He will never know.
Say I know the answer. Say Penelope and I had a conversation about this while he was out dumping the body. Say Penelope told me, “No one can get away with this.”
She saw the magnitude of it all and I understood. She couldn’t hide in a closet, couldn’t talk her way out of it, blame it on others. The dark. A horse. Pills. Doctors. She was to blame and there was going to be a consequence but this time we had risked it all. We had proven ourselves worthy, and maybe that was all she needed to know. In the end Penelope was a coward, and that too is not a judgment but merely an observation. Better to confess than to be found out. It was a new one but that was the world she lived in. Don’t try to understand it.
I wonder, if people knew our story, would they question our love for our daughter? I imagine hearing a story like ours and I’d be the first one to question the parents’ love for their child. I haven’t spoken of my love for her yet. Though it’s hard to imagine, considering her brazen ways, she was vulnerable. Know this, I want to tell them, know that she was all we had. We loved her the way you love the weakest, the most defenseless. We loved her the most. We defended her. We put it all on the line for her. We risked it all for her. What greater love is there?
I know this but I will never tell Edward. I won’t give him the satisfaction.
* * *
• • •
The driver doesn’t speak to me and I stare out the window, having nothing to say to him. Alone with my thoughts, I doze off. When the taxi turns onto Decatur Road, Shadow Garden lies in wait. The gate is closed, and I see Shadow Garden for what it is: a fortress. For the first time it dawns on me that getting in may be as difficult as leaving.