LEXI BLUM

The thing she had never told her father was that in her own way she was as obsessed with the state hospital as he was. She had downloaded the State Library’s annual hospital reports onto her laptop and read them carefully, studying the causes of death, the reasons for hospitalization, the treatments that read more like medieval torture than therapies. She was most curious about the women incarcerated there. Here. She thought of them as the lost women. The ones whose husbands tired of them, who didn’t fit the norms of their time. Women like her, who didn’t want to be wives and mothers. She thought of her interest as the flip side of her father’s research for his book. Maybe one day she’d write her own book to bring those lost women back to life. She wanted to be like that performance artist who blasted Bach from the ruins—before they were demolished—to honor the missing voices.

The hospital was on her mind when she opened her eyes Saturday morning in her childhood bedroom. Her mother had turned it into a sewing room, but Lexi’s old twin bed was still there and a few discarded clothes remained in the bottom drawer of the dresser, pushed to the back by skeins of yarn her mother would probably never use. Her first waking thought was about one of the state hospital stories she’d been collecting, a true story about a patient who didn’t belong there—here—but was committed by a husband who had grown tired of her.

She had always been fascinated by the state hospital. When she was a kid and had a day off school, she begged her father to take her to work with him, but he never would. So, she snuck around, peering into windows. She found the doors that staff propped open with a bit of wood when they went outside for a smoke. She and Donnie sometimes wandered in the basement, through warrens of musty corridors stacked with unused stuff. Braver kids partied in the old tunnels, but their dank mustiness and moldy shadows creeped Lexi out too much.

She had slept later than usual and woke up feeling groggy and disoriented. She had tried talking with her father last night, but he was clearly exhausted and spent. He was ninety-four, after all. After he went to bed, promising to tell her everything in the morning, she drove home to pick up a few things, figuring she’d stay with him for at least the weekend. Back on Azalea Court, she couldn’t fall asleep. The mattress was too soft, and her mind was racing. It must have been after three in the morning that she finally conked out.

Maybe a shower would clear her head. The house was quiet when she opened the door and she slipped into the bathroom. When she walked into the hallway twenty minutes later, towel around her dripping hair, there were voices in the living room. Lexi did not recognize the voice of the woman who was speaking in soft sentences, but her father’s voice was clear, as was the harsh tone he used with her as a child when she said something he considered stupid.

“Are you accusing me of something?” he asked. “Are you saying I can’t keep my own wife safe? Do you know who I am?”

Lexi moved closer to the living room, still hidden from the voices. That edge in her father’s voice had always driven her crazy. She considered joining the conversation to maybe learn something, even in her robe and towel, but eavesdropping was safer.

“No one is accusing you of anything,” the soft voice said. “We’re just concerned about finding your wife.”

“I don’t need your help,” her father insisted. “Get out of my house.”

At the sound of footsteps and the front door opening and closing, Lexi slipped back into the bedroom, heart pounding. How could he act that way?

She dressed quickly and found her father sitting at the kitchen table.

“Who was that?” Lexi asked. “Who was just here?”

“Elder Services. A total waste of taxpayer money.” He opened the newspaper. “Will you make coffee?”

She talked her way through the process so he could learn, just in case. But he wasn’t listening.

While the coffee was dripping, she made toast and opened a jar of jam that she brought back from the Cape a couple of years before. As her father took his first bite, she sat across from him at the table.

“Time to talk, Dad.”

He shook his head, but she held up her hand. “You promised.”

“After breakfast.”

While she washed the dishes, her father slipped away to his study. She followed him there, dragging in a chair from the kitchen.

“Time to talk,” Lexi said. “Tell me why Mom left. It has something to do with Harriet, doesn’t it?”

“It’s complicated,” he said.

She waited. After a long pause, he continued.

“Harriet was your mother’s best friend, but she wasn’t good for Iris. She threatened everything we wanted to make of our lives.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m as good a citizen as the next man, but I know how things work. My family comes first. That’s what I thought then, when it happened, and that’s what I think now.”

“When what happened? Tell me about Harriet.”

“They grew up together on that damn island. I met them at Brooklyn College. They were undergrads and I was in med school. At first, we all had a good time together. Classes and politics. Half of Brooklyn College was in the Party.”

“The Party?”

“The Communist Party. It was very popular on campuses in those days, actively protesting economic inequality. It was all okay, until one day it wasn’t.” He paused. “I lived through the war in Europe. I had seen very bad things, and I could see what was coming here.”

“You told me that. But what does it have to do with Harriet?”

“It was getting dangerous. Harriet was deeply involved in Party organizing. So, I told Iris she couldn’t see Harriet anymore.”

“You told her she couldn’t see her best friend?” This seemed extreme, even for her father.

“It was dangerous. You don’t know what it was like in those years. People were terrified. People were ruined.”

“Still,” she said. “Her best friend. Was Mom in the Communist Party too?”

“No. But people were considered guilty if they associated with Communists. It was a terrible time. I had to forbid Iris to see Harriet, for her own good.”

Her disbelief and disgust must have shown on her face.

“You don’t know what it was like,” he said. “The Rosenbergs were on Death Row. All Jews were suspect, and it was extremely hard for us to find jobs. Your Mom and I were about to be married.” He hesitated. “Harriet was a danger to us.”

“Did she do it, stop seeing her best friend?”

“I thought so.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

Her father stood up, and she could see that his shakiness was real. “Enough for now. I’m too tired to talk more.”

“No. You can’t stop now. Finish the story. What happened? What did you do?

He sat down, collapsing into the chair. “Okay. Okay. What I did was to write an anonymous letter to the high school where Harriet taught chemistry, telling them that she was a member of the Communist Party. That was enough to get her fired.” He rubbed his face. “Harriet was called before HUAC.”

“HUAC?”

“The House Unamerican Activities Committee. Harriet refused to cooperate and spent six months in prison for contempt.”

Her father did those things? “Mom must have been furious.”

“She almost called off the wedding. But it was Harriet or us. I had to protect my family. My wife, my job, you.”

“I wasn’t born yet. Don’t blame this on me.”

“You were coming. I did it for you too.”

Lexi just stared at him.

“I know you’re judging me, Alexandra. But you must remember this. Jews are never ever safe. Here or in Europe or anywhere. They can come for us at any time. As Jews, Harriet and Iris should have known these things. You should know these things. But Iris didn’t understand, and neither did Harriet.”