Hattie hung suspended, adrift in a torrent of strange sensations, one moment flying high on the euphoria of the night, and the next crashing, plummeting to the cold, sterile truth of Jude in that big white bed, her skin a million colors. A painting covered in black getting stripped away, Damien’s scarlet blush, Jude’s narrow eyes, Hattie in the middle, and yet nowhere at all.
Damien moved closer, touched Hattie’s elbow, and stepped into Jude’s room. He pulled Hattie in after him and shut the door.
Jude watched him with sharp eyes, and her gaze slid toward his hand where he held Hattie’s arm.
“I screwed up,” Damien told them. He was glancing back and forth at their faces, his gray eyes studying Hattie with each pass. “Hattie,” he took her hand in his, squeezed. “Jude and I know one-another.”
“You do?” Hattie glanced at Jude who stared at Damien as if fireballs might explode from her eyes.
He shifted to Jude, cringed at her gaze, and continued. “I work closely with several doctors at the Northern Michigan Asylum. It’s expected that I seek their guidance for my research. I also need a letter of recommendation. I started working with a doctor a few months ago and recently he asked me for a favor.”
Hattie frowned, not following. Jude did not look confused, something like understanding was turning her features.
“That doctor asked me to contact you both.”
“Dr. Kaiser,” Jude hissed.
Damien looked wearily at Jude as if he feared she might lunge from the bed.
He nodded.
“Dr. Kaiser has been working with your mom at the asylum for a decade. When she escaped, he thought she might go to her children.”
“You fucking rat,” Jude seethed.
“You knew about Mama?” Hattie asked, her voice trembling. She blinked at him, noticing how the longer she stared the less solid he become, a little blurry, more like a ghost than a real man.
Hattie stepped away, and he released her hand, but his eyes stayed locked on her face. She turned and moved closer to Jude, but Jude stared angrily at Damien.
“I did,” he confessed. “I was only meant to speak with you a few times, keep tabs in case your mother made contact, but…”
“But you fucked us instead,” Jude said, and the word exploded in Hattie’s head. She walked, dazed to a chair and slid down into it, pulling her knees to her chest.
She stared at the white tile floor, the white walls crawling up to the white ceiling. The white blotted out the color of the previous night, the color she felt rising in her cheeks, the color splattering her sister.
Damien moved towards her, squatted, tried to take her hands, but she balled them and stuffed them behind her knees where he couldn’t reach.
“I didn’t intend it that way, Hattie. You have to believe me.”
Hattie didn’t look at his face, she focused on that white, empty space. If she stared hard enough, she might disappear into the white abyss, wake up in a room she only vaguely remembered that smelled of her mama. A little paper hot-air balloon hung from the ceiling, a fan whirred on warm nights, and Hattie could curl beneath a quilt with her cat Turkey Legs.
A knock sounded on the door, and a nurse in a white uniform with a white hat perched on her caramel colored hair swept into the room.
“Look at all these visitors, you have,” she exclaimed going to Jude’s bedside and touching her wrist.
“Get out,” Jude snapped hoarsely.
The nurse drew her hand back, shocked.
“Not you,” she said. “Them.” She nodded her head toward Hattie and Damien.
Jude did not look at her, and Hattie’s insides curdled. She wanted to hug Jude and cry and run away all at the same time.
The nurse pursed her lips and nodded.
“She needs her rest. It’s been quite an ordeal,” she told them.
Damien stood, offering Hattie his hand. She didn’t take it but followed him into the hallway.
The man from Jude’s room stood near the nurse’s station. He stepped forward when they walked out.
“Hattie Porter?” he asked, extending a hand.
She nodded and limply shook his hand.
“I’m Detective Kurt Bell.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
“What happened to my sister?” she asked, glancing back at the closed door to her sister’s room.
“She was attacked last night and nearly killed.”
Hattie sagged to the side and Damien caught her around the waist.
“I’m fine,” she murmured, pushing him away. “Because of my painting?” she asked.
“In part, yes. I would like to interview you about that, but I’m sure this has been a tough morning.”
He gazed with hard green eyes at Hattie but glanced toward Damien.
“I’m not related,” Damien told him. “I’m…”
“A liar,” Hattie interrupted him.
He turned crimson but said nothing.
“Do you need help, Miss Porter?” Detective Bell asked, squaring off against Damien who took a step back.
“No, I…” she trailed off. Did she ask Damien to take her home? Stay and wait for Jude to allow her into her room? “I don’t feel so well,” she murmured, touching a hand to her clammy forehead.
Damien hesitantly reached a hand up and touched the back of her neck.
“You’re warm,” he said. “Let me take you home, Hattie. You can drive back down this afternoon.”
“Is that what you want, Miss Porter? If not, I can arrange a driver for you.”
“No,” she said, turning toward Damien. “It’s okay. I’ll be back. I need to… I’m so tired all of a sudden.”
Jude
Jude stared at the closed door. The pain in her body was miniscule compared to the pain blooming in her chest. A weird hollow sensation landed in her belly coupled with a vice holding her heart hostage so that every beat took an effort she could barely muster. The nurse had given her a sedative and soon she would slip out of the discomfort of her body, the rawness of her emotion, the churning of her mind.
The door opened, and a tiny hopeful flicker ignited within her. Who did she want to walk through? Damien? Hattie? But no, Kurt peeked in, a cup of coffee clutched in one hand.
“May I?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I spoke briefly with your sister, but she wasn’t feeling well. I believe she’ll be driving back this afternoon.”
“My fault,” Jude muttered, bunching her sheet in her hand. “I was mean to her. Hattie is delicate.”
“Seems that way,” Kurt admitted, returning to his seat. “I had the sense I shouldn’t say too much, plus she had that fella with her.”
“Damien,” Jude said his name and a word floated to her lips, but she didn’t say it: rejection.
“Is that her boyfriend?”
Jude scoffed, which hurt her throat. She shook her head without answering. On second thought, she didn’t know, did she?
“I get the feeling you have a complicated life, Jude,” he said.
“These days,” she murmured, settling back on her pillows, a heaviness crawling through her limbs.
“I’m going to stay a little while longer if that’s okay?” he said.
She closed her eyes and mumbled a sound, but never heard his reply.
Chapter 34
September 20, 1965
Jude
Jude woke to sun streaming through the hospital window. The chair beside her stood empty, but perched on the corner of her bed was Clayton.
He grinned when she opened her eyes.
“Your Knight in Shining Armor has arrived,” he announced.