Then I opened my eyes.”
“And you couldn’t see.”
Julia had told her mother all this in the hospital where she’d been taken after the accident, but she continued, needing, for some reason, to repeat it. “I thought, how strange. I must have been here for hours. Callie must have ridden back to get help and they can’t find me. I thought it was night, but such a black, black night. As it turns out I was unconscious for less than a minute.”
“Does it help to go over this again and again?”
“Nothing helps. The fog doesn’t lift. It doesn’t even waver. And you know what the worst moment was? Worse than waking up blind? When they told me there was nothing wrong with my eyesight. Conversion hysteria. I’m a hysteric.”
“You’re a wonderful, sensitive, intelligent woman. You’re not a psychiatric label.”
“I’m in a psychiatric clinic! Maybe it has fireplaces and antiques, but it’s still a clinic for the mentally ill.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Julia realized she had to tell Maisy the rest of it. “There are things you don’t know.”
“Well, you’re not the first to say so.”
Julia tried to smile but couldn’t. “Before this, before I even saddled Duster that day, things hadn’t…hadn’t been going well.”
Maisy was silent. Julia knew that if she could see her mother, Maisy would be twisting her hands in her lap. The hands would be covered with rings. Maisy loved anything that sparkled. She loved bright colors, odd textures, loose flowing clothing that made Julia think of harems or Polynesian luaus. She was a focal point in any crowd, the mother Julia’s childhood schoolmates had most often singled out for ridicule, a bright, exotic flame in a community of old tweeds and perfectly faded denim.
“You don’t want to hear this, do you?” Julia asked.
“Julia, I’m sitting here waiting.”
“You never want to know when things aren’t going well, Maisy. If you wore glasses, they’d be rose-colored.”
“No doubt,” Maisy agreed. “Cats’-eye glasses with rhinestone frames, and you would hate them. But trying to keep a positive attitude isn’t the same as refusing to see there’s another side of life.”
Julia felt ashamed. She loved her mother, but there was a gulf between them as wide as Julia’s twenty-nine years. She had never quite understood it and doubted that Maisy did, either. How two women could love each other and still be so different, so far apart in every way, was a mystery.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to criticize.” Julia started back toward the bed, or thought she did. “It’s just that I don’t want to make this worse for you….”
“Let’s make it better for you, instead. Tell me what’s been happening. And move a little to your left,” Maisy directed her.
Julia adjusted; her shin contacted the bed frame. “I’m going to need a white cane.” The last word caught.
Maisy took her hand and helped her sit. “Has Dr. Jeffers given you a prognosis?”
“No. He rarely speaks during our sessions, and when he does, he just asks questions. Why didn’t I seek help when the problems started? Why do I think I’m being so defensive? Why don’t I want my husband involved in my treatment?”
“Would Bard like to be involved?”
“I doubt it, but I’m sure he’s never told the doctor outright.”
“Tell me about the problems you mentioned before.”
“I was having blinding headaches.” She smiled grimly. “Pardon the pun.”
“The doctors know this?”
“Yes. They’ve scanned every inch of my brain, done every test a neurologist can dream up, called in every specialist. They can’t find anything physical.”
“What else?”
“I…” Julia tried to decide how to phrase the next part. “My work was suffering.”
“Your painting?”
Julia nodded. “I had a commission for a family portrait of the Trents. You remember them? They have that pretty little farm down toward Middleburg, just past the Gradys’ place? Two very blond children who show their ponies with Callie? A boy and a girl?”
“I think so.”
“We had three sittings. I never got things right.”
She wasn’t sure how to explain the next part. She’d had no success with Bard or Dr. Jeffers. Bard told her she was simply overwrought and making her problems worse. Dr. Jeffers scribbled notes, and the scratching of his pen had nearly driven her crazy.
She tried again. “It was worse than that, actually. I did preliminary sketches. The Trents wanted something informal, something with their horses and pets out in the countryside. The sketches were fine. I had some good ideas of what I wanted to do. But when I tried to paint…”
“Go on.”
“I couldn’t paint what I saw. I would begin to work, and the painting seemed to progress without me. Mr. Trent is a stiff, formal man who’s strict with the children. That’s all I was able to capture on canvas. He looked like a storm trooper after I’d roughed him out. At one point I even found myself painting a swastika on his sleeve.”
“Maybe you weren’t painting what you saw but what you felt. Isn’t that part of being an artist?”
“But I had no control over it.” Julia heard her voice rising and took a moment to breathe. “And it was true of everything I painted in the month before the accident. I would try hunting scenes, and they weren’t lovely autumn days among good friends anymore. We chase foxes for the fun of it, not to destroy them. But every painting I attempted seemed to center on the hounds tearing a fox to bits. They were…disturbing, and when I was finished with a session, I’d feel so shaken I was afraid to start another.”
“Maybe it was simply fatigue. Maybe you needed a break.”
“Well, I got one, didn’t I?”
Maisy was silent, and Julia didn’t blame her. What could she say? If Julia’s sight was not restored, she would never paint again.
“When you were a little girl,” Maisy said at last, “and something bothered you, you would go to your room and draw. It was the way you expressed yourself.”
“It still is. But what am I expressing? Or what was I? Because I won’t be able to do it again unless something changes radically.”
“Come home with me, Julia. If Bard doesn’t want you at Millcreek, come back to Ashbourne. You know there’s room for you and Callie. We can find a therapist you trust. Jake wants you to stay with us, too. You know he does.”
Julia loved her stepfather, who had brought balance to Maisy’s life and gentle affection to her own. He was a kind, quiet man who never ceased to marvel at his wife’s eccentricities, and Julia knew he would welcome her with open arms.
For a moment she was tempted to say yes, to return to her childhood home and bring her daughter to live there, too. Until her sight was restored or she’d learned to live with her impairment. Then reality got in the way.
She shook her head decisively. “I can’t do that. My God, Bard would be furious. He had to pull strings to get me admitted here. He’s convinced I need to be away from everything and everyone before I’ll get better.”
“And what do you think?”
“I hope he’s right. Because I don’t think I can stand being here very long. I feel like I’m in prison. I know how Christian—” She stopped, appalled