CHAPTER ONE
PEARL ~ 1983
Time has a way of evening things out. I was beautiful once, turning heads and garnering admiring glances, but now I would not stand out in a group of my peers.
If you saw me in public, picking up prescriptions at the drugstore or sitting in the waiting room at one of my many doctors’ appointments, you wouldn’t give me a second glance. If you thought about me at all, you might think I looked like a nice white-haired grandma. Or, if you’re a mean-spirited type, you’d peg me as a broken-down old hag, one who’d lived a bit too long. One foot in the grave.
And you wouldn’t be wrong either way.
If you read a brief summary of my life, nothing would seem out of the ordinary. It would go like this: Born to an upper-middle-class family in a small town in Wisconsin in 1899, the second of seven daughters, Pearl married young and had one son. Upon the death of her husband, a World War I veteran, she was widowed in her forties and never remarried. After her husband’s death came a succession of office jobs, none of them noteworthy, but because she made some good investments in the stock market, she accrued enough to build a nice nest egg. When her father passed away, she moved back into her childhood home and spent most of her elder years living there until poor health forced her into an old folks’ home.
Phrased like that, it sounds like a very small, uneventful life. I guess in a way it has been. Honestly, I had planned for more. I was going to travel the world and have big adventures. So much for that.
Getting old sneaks up on you. People see you differently. Weaker. They use the word frail and rush to your side to help you over curbs and such. Others see you as a problem just for existing. I understand that and will not be offended if you’re wondering why God takes youngsters and leaves old-timers like me behind. I have often wondered the same thing myself. My body has long since worn out, held together now by spit and baling wire, my bones creaky, my joints complaining with every move.
I have regrets, many, many regrets. One night, while lying in bed, I realized that I’d broken each of the Ten Commandments at least once. It was a horrifying thought, made all the worse by realizing there’s nothing that can be done about it. What’s done is done. You can’t unring the bell. You can bet I would, if given a chance.
I find myself praying every day, something I never did much of before. Fear is what drives me. I don’t want to go to hell, if there even is such a place. And I know I’m not a shoo-in for heaven; this worries me.
You’d think after so many years, I would be as wise as an old owl, but if anything, the opposite is true. The more I learn, the less I understand, and the more uncertain I become. And maybe that’s just the way it should be—the afterlife as a mystery known only to God.
I do know one thing. I am the only one left who knows the truth about the final moments in the life of Alice Louise Bennett. She was my sister, only eighteen months older. The two of us were as different as the night sky and the morning sunrise. Alice was the one with a heart of gold. My father called her Ally-bird because she sang like a nightingale. She loved everyone in our family, but I always thought I was her favorite. She was the best of all of us.
There has to be a reason why I’m still around. Lately, I’ve been thinking that it may be to seek redemption. To that end, I’m on a quest to change my ways, to repair some of the damage I’ve done. When I meet my Maker and he says, “Pearl, what do you have to say for yourself?” I want to be able to say that at the end, I tried. Better late than never. The effort has to count for something.
Alice died at the tender age of nineteen. She would have lived much longer if not for me and my foolish pride. Her death was a great loss.
After she left this earth, nothing was ever the same again.
I miss her still.
CHAPTER TWO
1983
Joe was in group therapy when he got the news that someone had come to sign him out and he would soon be leaving the facility. This was a surprise. Just that morning, Dr. Jensen had told him he was nowhere near ready to be discharged from the Trendale Psychiatric Treatment Center. The good doctor, his face serious, had said, “In my professional opinion, you are still in need of a lot of help, the kind you can only get right here.”
“I’m legally an adult,” Joe said. “I can check myself out, right?” It made sense. He was twenty-two—old enough to vote, drink, and drive. He should be able to make decisions about his own health.
Dr. Jensen shook his head. “Not if you’re deemed to be a risk to yourself or others.”
“But I’m not. A risk, I mean.” It was ludicrous that his sanity was in question. Joe wasn’t a drug user or an alcoholic. He’d never had hallucinations. Sure, two of his recurring nightmares were violent, but he himself was not prone to violence. Even as a kid, he’d avoided schoolyard fights. He didn’t have it in him.
“I understand that’s your take on it, but it’s really my call.” The doctor clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I know it’s difficult, but we’ll get there, Joe. Patience, son. Patience.”
Defeating words meant to be encouraging. Joe wasn’t in prison, technically, but it felt like it. The doors were locked; his mail, both incoming and outgoing, was read by the staff, and they listened in on his phone calls. So many times he regretted having confided in his father in the first place. That had been a mistake. His dad had told his stepmom, who’d become insane with worrying. If he were being perfectly honest about it, she had good reason. On more than one occasion, he’d woken the entire family with his screaming. After a while, bedtime began to make him anxious, so he’d started staying up late, throwing back a few beers in the hope it would mute the dreams. Even the guys at work noticed the mornings he’d staggered onto the jobsite exhausted, bags under his eyes. The worst of it came the night he’d sleepwalked into his sister’s room, waking her up and mumbling in a way that scared her. Knowing that he’d done that terrified him as much as it did the rest of the family.
He’d lived with his family for only a month at that point, having moved home after his landlord sold the building to a developer who was converting the place into condominiums. Joe wasn’t planning on staying with his folks for more than a month or two, just long enough to get another apartment. And that’s how it would have gone down, if not for the dreams and his stepmother’s fears.
The next thing he knew, they’d driven him north to Wisconsin and had him checked into the treatment center, something he’d reluctantly agreed to just to placate them. The white coats at the center promised him help, but in three months, all he’d gotten was a lot of talk and an array of pills. At least the pills helped dull the nightmares, but they weren’t really a solution. He was ready to call himself as cured as he would ever be, then head home to deal with it on his own, but each time he brought up the subject, Dr. Jensen said he wasn’t ready. “You’re holding back, Joe. If you want us to help, you need to open up.”
Learning he could walk out of Trendale that very day was like hearing that the governor had unexpectedly pardoned him.
When it happened, he was one of eight people sitting on hard plastic chairs arranged in a circle. The TV across the room was still on, a leftover from the previous group, “Current Events,” which consisted of watching the five o’clock news and discussing it afterward. Joe’s group was called “Open Discussion,” leaving the topic open to the staff member who would be moderating.