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Or maybe it’s just the novelty she enjoys. Denied most modern technology for so long, she thrills at all the things I’ve had for years and therefore take for granted. My boom box being the chief one. Most days, it plays nonstop. But also television, which left Virginia awestruck the first time I turned it on. She spent the whole night delighted by whatever was being broadcast. She was the same way when I took her to seeReturn of the Jedi, even though neither of us understood what the hell was going on. We simply enjoyed the spectacle.
I pause in the doorway of Virginia’s new bedroom. Once my room, it bears no resemblance to the place where I grew up. Archie and Kenny helped me remove the ugly floral wallpaper and paint the walls a soothing shade of lavender. All my old furniture is gone, replaced with things more appropriate for Virginia’s needs. A new Hoyer lift. A modern wheelchair. A bed donated by the local hospital that Virginia can raise and lower with the left-handed press of a button.
I’ve moved into my parents’ old bedroom. A change I wasn’t quite prepared for. Those first few nights, it felt strange to be sleeping on the other side of the hallway, in a bed and room larger than what I was familiar with. But I’m getting used to it day by day. So far, I’ve only had nightmares about my mother twice.
There have been none about my father.
I’m hoping it stays that way.
After what happened at Hope’s End, there wasn’t any question that Virginia would stay with me. I was still her caregiver, after all. Also, she had nowhere else to go. It was either here or a place like Ocean View Retirement Home.
It was rough those first fraught days. Both of us were grieving. Virginia had lost her sister and the only home she’d ever known. I’d lost my father, my sole remaining parent, and the idea of the person I thought he was. Now that two months have passed, things have become slightly more bearable.
It helps that Archie’s still around, as supportive as ever. He got a job cooking at a fancy hotel two towns away and stops by every night after his shift to check in on us. Which is more than can be said for the rest of the people who had once lived at Hope’s End. Jessie’s all but disappeared, not bothering to reach out to us even after what happened made headlines around the world.
As for Carter, well, he’s been having trouble forgiving and forgetting. I can’t blame him, really. I did, after all, accuse him of murder and leave him stranded with no way home. When he finally did get back to Hope’s End, it was hours after the entire place was gone. What had once been his cottage was now part of a massive pile of rubble littering the Atlantic surf.
I tried apologizing that night, and again a few weeks later when I entered the bar where he’d started working part-time. He said he understood why I thought what I did. He even went so far as to say I was forgiven. But I could tell he didn’t fully mean it. It was merely something he said because he wanted me to go away.
So I did. He did, too, leaving town not long after that to search for his birth family. I wish him well. I hope he gets whatever closure he needs.
I hope the same for me.
Like Carter, I’m having trouble with that whole forgiveness thing. Despite helping me save Virginia, I continue to hate my father for what he did, just as I hate myself for also still loving him. I now know Archiewas right about being able to do both. I should ask him how he handled it when he stops by tonight.
But for now, there’s Virginia to focus on. Among her new belongings is an electric typewriter that she uses only sparingly, mostly as another way for us to communicate. So far, she’s shown no sign of wanting to write any more of her story. I think she doesn’t see the need now that everyone knows it.
While the initial murders at Hope’s End were upstaged by a historic market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression, the media made a point of not letting it happen a second time. Coverage of the mansion’s collapse, my father’s guilt, and how a still-alive Virginia Hope lived under her sister’s name for decades was everywhere. I still get the occasional phone call from a journalist asking to speak to Virginia.
My standard reply is “Sorry, she can’t talk right now.”
Yet there are days when I wish she could. I think it would help Virginia to be able to articulate how she feels about what happened to her. I can’t imagine enduring everything she went through, from having her baby taken from her to seeing her mother killed by her lover to being hidden away by her very own sister. It makes my own trauma look like child’s play.
Right now, though, Virginia radiates nothing but happiness as she sits in her wheelchair, listening to the steady beat of the song that’s playing.
“Our Lips Are Sealed.”
One of her favorites.
“I’m going to take a quick shower,” I tell her when she catches me watching. “Do you need anything?”
Virginia replies with a single tap and goes back to listening to the music. I head to the bathroom to start my shower, turning on the water and waiting until it gets warm. That’s when I’m hit with the thought that always strikes while I’m alone with nothing to do.
Somewhere out there, I have a half brother.
Maybe.
There’s no way of knowing if he’s still alive. Or, if so, where he is. Orif he has a family of his own. Archie and I have started putting out feelers, trying to find out what happened to the real Miss Baker, hoping that information can lead us to Virginia’s son and my half brother. We do it in secret, reluctant to tell Virginia out of fear it’ll get her hopes up. So far, the secrecy’s been justified. All we’ve managed to learn is that Miss Baker got married sometime in 1930 and moved. Where, we don’t know. The name of her husband is also unknown. For now, all we can do is wait and hope that more information comes our way.
I think Virginia would like that.
I would, too.
Despite technically not being related, she’s the only known family I have left.
The Go-Go’s are still playing when I get out of the shower. I hear the music echoing across the hall as I dry off and put on my uniform for the day. Jeans, comfy blouse, cardigan. No more nurse’s whites for me.
I cross the hall while using my fingers to comb my still-wet hair. “Hey, Virginia, what flavor oatmeal would you like for—”