A couple of hours later, Mom and I meet up for lunch at a nearby coffee shop.
“So, how was it?” I ask her.
“Good.” She actually smiles—the first smile I’ve seen on her in days. “Her doctor asked me some stuff about our childhood, so I got to tell my side of things.”
“Did Aunt Alexia tell hers?”
Mom shakes her head. “She mostly just listened. But that’s okay, too. Because at least she knows how sorry I am.”
“Even though it wasn’t your fault.”
My mom nods, but I’m not sure she believes it. Growing up, Aunt Alexia was hated by their mother—my grandmother. According to Aunt Alexia’s diary, and confirmed by a few details from Mom, my grandmother blamed Aunt Alexia’s birth as the reason her husband left them. Meanwhile, my mom was loved and indulged, often as a way to make Aunt Alexia jealous.
“She really wants to see you,” Mom says.
I take a bite of scone, thinking back to the last time I saw Aunt Alexia—probably when I was around seven or eight. She came to visit for the holidays, but then left on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.
I remember how nervous she was—always looking over her shoulder, forever checking out the window and fussing with her hair. And I remember all the art supplies she brought along. I wanted her to teach me what she knew, wanted to be able to do brushstrokes just like hers, but Aunt Alexia wouldn’t let me join in, insisting that art was for bad girls, and that I was better off playing with my dolls.
She left soon after, even though Mom begged her to stay. She just kept saying that she needed to get home for an interview she’d forgotten about. Finally, Mom caved and drove her to the train station.
We got a call from the local hospital a few hours later. Aunt Alexia never got on her train. Instead she ended up at the motel in the next town over, where she tried to kill herself, using some telephone cord to hang herself in the shower. Another guest at the motel had heard some weird noises coming from her room and asked the manager to check things out. That’s when they found Aunt Alexia, thankfully in time to save her.
“Just think about it,” Mom says to me. “No pressure.”
“I want to see her. That’s why I’m here.”
Mom reaches across the table to squeeze my hand. “When I brought up your name, she said she remembered how much you liked to watch her paint. I told her that you were an artist as well, and she asked if you’d like to see some of her work.”
“She wasn’t upset?”
“Why would she be?”
I shrug, still wondering what Aunt Alexia meant years ago when she told me that art was for bad girls. Was it a lame attempt to try to get me interested in other things? Was she afraid that I might end up like her?
“When can I see her?” I ask.
“How about after lunch? We leave tomorrow, so we need to take advantage of every moment.”
“Sounds good,” I say, eager to find out some answers.
BACK INSIDE THE FACILITY, Mom explains that this is an alternative place, that they give the patients a lot of liberties that bigger facilities don’t.
“For example?” I ask, closing the door behind us.
Before she can answer, Ms. Connolly appears. She ushers us through the lobby and into an art studio, as if things have all been arranged. “This is the art therapy room,” Ms. Connolly says, opening the door wide.
The ceilings are high. The smell of turpentine is thick in the air. And the room is set up with easels, drop cloths, and the requisite bowl of wax fruit as a centerpiece to paint (only, unlike the wax-fruit arrangement at school, this one has a bite out of one of the apples).
I continue to look around, finally noticing that we’re not alone, that someone’s working in the corner, only partially obscured by a canvas.
It’s Aunt Alexia. I’d recognize her anywhere. She has long and wavy pale blond hair and wide green eyes that stare in our direction.
“Do you want to come and say hello?” Ms. Connolly asks her.
Alexia takes a couple of steps toward us. She’s much tinier than I remember. She’s only a few years younger than my mother, and yet she almost looks like a little girl. Her outfit—a cotton dress with billowing sleeves—drapes her body, almost like a drop cloth itself.
“Do you remember me?” she asks. The angles of her cheeks are sharp, and her mouth looks like a tiny pink seashell.
I nod, and she comes closer. “You’re an artist, your mother tells me.”
“Well, I’m not really sure I’d go that far.”
“You’re an artist,” she repeats, nearly cutting me off. Her voice is like tinkling wind chimes.
“I was telling Aunt Alexia about your pottery,” Mom explains.
Alexia wipes her paint-covered fingers on the front of her apron, producing a bright red smear that makes it look as if she were bleeding from the chest. She extends her hand for me to shake. I try to let go after a couple of seconds, but instead she pulls me across the room toward her canvas, eager to show me her work.
“I’ve been waiting to get your opinion on this one,” she says, picking a canvas up off the floor. She turns it over so I can see.
It’s a painting of a boy, with an undeniable resemblance to Adam—same wavy brown hair, same olive skin. Dark brown eyes, dimple in his chin, scar on his lower lip.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” she says, checking for my reaction.
I swallow hard, not quite knowing how to respond.
“I painted it yesterday,” she continues. “When I heard you were coming, I went to my photo album and took out a picture of you—one that your mother had recently sent me. I touched the photo, and the image of this boy popped into my head.” She nods toward the painting. “Has that ever happened to you?”
Instead of answering, I glance at my mother. She wipes her eyes with a tissue, perhaps moved to see that Aunt Alexia and I have something in common.
If only she knew how much.
“I was hoping to show this to you last night,” Aunt Alexia explains, “when you first arrived. But unfortunately, things got a little detoured the further I got into my work.”
“Oh,” I say, wondering what detoured means, exactly, and if that’s the reason she was put to bed.
“Do you remember the last time I came to visit you?” she asks, narrowing her eyes, as if trying to read my mind. “We never did get to paint together, did we?”
“No,” I whisper, and look away.
“So, would you like to paint together now?” She looks to my mother for approval.
“It’s up to Camelia,” Mom says.
“I’m not really much of a painter,” I say, for lack of a better excuse.
“It’s easy when you use your hands.” She flashes me her paint-stained palms. “You use your hands with sculpture, too, right?”
“I suppose.”
“Well, you have to admit, there’s nothing quite like sinking your fingers into your work—becoming one with what you create…with what you touch.”
“Your mother and I will stay in the studio as well,” Ms. Connolly assures me.
I take a deep breath, thoroughly confused. But then I look toward the portrait of Adam again, and know that I have no other choice.
WHILE MOM AND MS. Connolly look on from the doorway, I slip into a paint-splattered smock, feeling my insides rattle.
“Relax,” Aunt Alexia says, obviously sensing my hesitation. She hands me a paint-covered palette and then places a fresh canvas on her easel.
“So, what should we paint?” I ask, eager to know how this is going to work.
“Why don’t we just see where our painting takes us?” she says. “There’s no sense forcing a picture that doesn’t want to be, right?”
I nod, taken aback by how much she thinks like me.
She dips her finger into the black paint and I do the same. Together, we create a spiral shape on the canvas. Aunt Alexia uses her middle finger to apply the brown paint, adding tonality to the indivi
dual rings. It’s amazing to watch her work, to see how much detail she can convey simply by using the tips of her fingers.
After several minutes, Ms. Connolly excuses herself, but my mother remains. Mom pulls up a stool and flips open a magazine.
“You’re very talented,” Aunt Alexia tells me. “A natural.”
I feel my face flush, wondering if she’s just being patronizing about my swirls and smudges, but her expression seems sincere. Our fingers completely covered in acrylics, Aunt Alexia and I paint a giant, diamond-shaped border. Inside it we paint a snail, the shell of which is almost iridescent, in shades of silver and blue.
“And now for the finishing touch.” Aunt Alexia dips her finger back into the black, and paints two long antennae that extend outward. She looks back at me with a menacing grin, as if she knows something I don’t.
I’m just about to ask her what it is, but then I figure it out: it’s just like the snail I sculpted at Knead, when I was showing Svetlana how to make a pinch pot, when I was thinking about Adam.
I take a step back and drop my palette. It lands against the floor with a thud. I look to see Aunt Alexia’s response, but she’s sitting on a stool now, rocking back and forth and covering her ears with her hands. She whispers something that I can’t quite make out.
“Aunt Alexia?” I ask.
“You deserve to die,” she whispers.
I shake my head, hoping I’ve heard her wrong.
“Camelia?” Mom says, standing up from her stool.
“You deserve to die!” Aunt Alexia shouts, staring right at me. Her eyes are wild, and her teeth are clenched.
I move toward my mother, who’s already called for help.
“No!” Aunt Alexia screams, shaking her head. Black paint stains her cheeks and neck.
A second later, two nurses rush in to restrain her. Aunt Alexia puts up a fight, kicking, screaming, and trying to bite her way free. The easel falls over with a crash.
“What happened?” Mom asks, all but covering her own ears, too. “Why would she say that?”
But I know my aunt doesn’t really wish me dead. I know she must be hearing voices—most likely the same voice that played in my head back when I was sculpting Adam’s mouth in pottery class.
Alexia elbows one of the nurses in the eye. Together, the nurses eventually wrestle her to the floor, pinning her arms behind her back and sitting on her legs so she can no longer kick. The nurse that got elbowed takes a needle from her pocket and jabs it into Alexia’s arm. It settles her right down.
Her eyes go blank. Her body turns limp. And she’s dragged away. Meanwhile, Mom wraps her arms around me, telling me over and over again how sorry she is.
Ms. Connolly comes to apologize, too. “This doesn’t happen often with Alexia,” she says, to reassure us. “But every once in a while…. It was like this the night you arrived. I’m actually not too surprised. Family visits are wonderful, and they’re an essential part of the treatment process, but sometimes they’re overwhelming for the patient. I hope you won’t take it personally, Camelia.”
“Not at all,” I say, knowing that it’s far more than personal.
It’s downright genetic.
AFTER THE INCIDENT at the facility, Mom and I head back to our B and B, where we sit in the dining room pushing the food around on our plates. “I’m sorry,” Mom says again, after what feels like an eternity of silence.
All during the car ride here, she just kept saying how she never would’ve agreed to let me spend time with Aunt Alexia—even to come on this trip—if she’d known how unstable my aunt really was.
“Ms. Connolly suggested that the outburst might be the result of hearing more voices,” Mom says, feigning a bite of broccoli. “And all this time…I thought she was supposedly getting better.”
“She is getting better,” I insist, knowing how ridiculous the argument sounds.
Mom shakes her head. Her fork lands against her plate with a clank. Meanwhile, my heart starts pounding, because I honestly don’t know how to break it to her—that sometimes I hear voices, too.
“Maybe she doesn’t belong at the facility,” I venture.
“Of course she does.” Mom sighs. “I see that more than ever now.”
“No, I mean, maybe we should look into some other type of therapy—something a bit more forward-thinking or progressive.”
“Ledgewood is forward-thinking. The doctors use all types of therapy in their practice—things like polarity, yoga, meditation…. Plus, you have to admit, it doesn’t exactly have the feel of a regular mental hospital. The furnishings, the decor, the wide windows to let in plenty of natural light…Everything’s been chosen with an eye toward health—”
“Well, it isn’t working,” I say, putting my fork down, too, “because staying there would make me sick.” I look away, still able to picture the snail insignia, and too timid to tell her the truth—that maybe there’s an alternative explanation as to why Aunt Alexia’s hearing voices.
An explanation that no one’s even considered.
The following morning, Mom and I pack up to leave, with plans to stop by Ledgewood en route to the airport. At first, Mom insists that I wait for her at the espresso bar down the road. She hands me a twenty and practically kicks me to the curb. But, after some major convincing on my part, she finally agrees to let me join her.
“I didn’t come all this way to turn back now,” I insist. “I wouldn’t feel right about not saying good-bye.”
Mom musters a smile, perhaps proud that I seem so concerned about Alexia. And I am concerned. But I also just want to see her again—to see if she has anything more to tell me, and to whisper in her ear that I know she isn’t crazy.
Once inside the hospital, Mom is escorted to a meeting room, while I’m forced to wait in the lobby. There’s a woman sitting across from me, probably in her late twenties. She looks perfectly normal, with normal clothes, and normal dark hair, and so I assume she must have family staying here, too. But then she starts eating a page from her magazine, ironically an ad for Snack Bits, and I know I’ve got her all wrong.
A moment later, Ms. Connolly calls the woman into another room, and not long after that, my mother reappears. She waves me over from the door that leads to what I’m guessing are the patients’ rooms. I follow her down a long, narrow hallway to the room at the end.
While my mom stands guard at the door, I venture inside. Aunt Alexia’s room looks much different from what I imagined. The walls are a deep shade of blue, her bed linens have a pretty violet pattern, and the lighting is soft rather than stark.
Aunt Alexia turns when she sees me. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she says, in a voice as tiny as she is. “Sometimes I get a little too wrapped up in my work.”
“That happens,” I say, almost wishing she could read my mind. “Is that more of your art?” I gesture toward some canvases piled up in the corner.
Aunt Alexia nods, and I go take a look, wishing that my mom would give us just a couple of moments alone. I sit on the edge of her bed, taking my time as I flip through paintings of all sorts, from the most disturbing image of a woman drowning in the ocean to an innocent portrait of a kitten sleeping with its mother.
I spend several minutes studying the images and searching for answers before I come across the portrait of Adam.
“You like that one, don’t you?” she asks.
“It’s just that he looks so familiar to me.”
“You know this boy?”
I open my mouth, but no words come out. Meanwhile, another nurse comes to ensure that everything’s okay. Mom exchanges a few words with him, but it’s all in hushed tones, so I can’t really hear.
Aunt Alexia checks to see that my mother is still preoccupied and then pulls a painting from the middle of the pile. “Does this look familiar to you, too?” she asks.
It’s a picture of a bloodstained knife. The handle of the knife is red and curls downward, perhaps for a better hold.
I stifle a g
asp, covering my mouth and noticing how the tip of the knife is jagged, and how droplets of blood drip down toward the bottom of the canvas.
“You recognize it?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I’ve never seen a knife like that before.”
“Not yet,” she whispers. Her voice is just as cutting as the knife.
“Excuse me?”
“I couldn’t get this image out of my mind the other night,” she continues. “I did it right after the painting of the boy.” She gestures to the picture of Adam. “And then I started hearing voices.”
“What kind of voices?”
“Screaming,” she says. “Like someone was about to die. And so I started screaming, too. That’s when the nurses came.”
I nod, trying to get a grip, almost tempted to look away, to excuse myself for just five solitary minutes.
But then: “Don’t let him out of your sight,” she hisses. She grasps my wrist. Her knuckles are taut and white.
“Excuse me?” I ask again.
“The boy with the snail insignia,” she explains. “Don’t let him out of your sight…or else he’ll die.”
A second later, I feel my mother grab me from behind. The male nurse comes to restrain my aunt, pinning her arms to her chest. But this time, Aunt Alexia doesn’t fight back.
“I’m fine,” I insist. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
But the nurse doesn’t listen, instead stabbing Alexia’s thigh with a needle.
“Mom, stop him!” I shout.
The nurse rings a buzzer to page Ms. Connolly, and then tells us to leave right away.
“You’re not crazy,” I blurt out to Alexia. Tears fill my eyes.
But I’m not even sure she hears me. Aunt Alexia’s body falls limp against her bed, her gaze no longer fiery, all the spirit inside her gone dead.