Anna Quinn - The Night Child

Sister Rosa kneeling down, touching her knee. “Nora?”

Silence.

“Nora, what’s wrong? Please tell me.”

Tell her. She will help us. Tell her. “I … I … can’t go home.”

“Why not?”

Tell her.

“Nora, forgive me, but I have to call your mother.”

No, no, no. Not our mother. She will kill us. Her eyes flash wide.

“It’ll be all right. I’ll be right back.”

“Wait,” Nora says through chattering teeth. “Will … will … you take me home?”

“Of course,” and then, even softer, “of course.”

In the car, Sister Rosa says, “Nora, we’ve known each other for a few years now.”

“Yes, Sister. Since first grade.”

“And we’ve prayed many, many times together.”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Can you please tell me what’s wrong?”

Tell her.

“Do you still pray to St. Margaret?”

She closes her eyes. She is so sleepy.

“Nora? Do you still pray to St. Margaret?”

“Yes, Sister.”

“And she’s kept you safe.”

Tell her.

When Sister Rosa stops the car in the Bauers’ driveway, she turns to Nora and takes her hands into her own. “You’re not alone,” she says and closes her eyes. Breathes deep, folds her hands into prayer. “Saint Margaret,” she says fiercely. “Hear me. See this beautiful girl. Protect her, now and forever. Amen.”

“Amen,” Nora whispers.

Maeve opens the door in her stocking feet and says, “Sister Rosa,” in a startled, slurred voice. It’s 4:00 in the afternoon, and Nora knows she’s been drinking for at least an hour. Auburn hair loose and messy, nervousness sparks from her glassy eyes as she looks at the nun, her daughter, and back again to the nun. A nun has never visited the house before. Maeve is wearing a wrinkled blouse with stains down the front and self-consciously crosses her arms over her chest. Nora averts her gaze, doesn’t dare make eye contact, looks at her shoes. Ears burning.

Sister Rosa holds Nora’s hand tight. “Mrs. Bauer, Nora was helping me with a project, and somehow the time got away from us, and she missed the bus. I hope that hasn’t caused a problem.” Her words an icy river.

“Of course not,” Maeve says, and Nora knows she is being careful to pronounce her words. “It was so nice of you to bring her home.” And she is saying things a good mother might say. “Would you like to come in? It’s freezing out there.”

“No, thank you. I need to get back.” Sister Rosa drops Nora’s hand. Her eyes, soft and deep with protection, meet Nora’s. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes, Sister.” Please don’t leave us here.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Bauer. You have a very special young woman here.” When Maeve says nothing, only smiles tightly, Sister Rosa says, meeting Maeve’s eyes straight on with the intensity of someone threatening battle, “But I’m sure you know that.”

Nora follows her mother through the doorway, and the door clunks closed. Her mother walks to the coffee table and picks up her glass of gin, takes a drink, the green olive touching her lips, then floating around the clear liquid again. She slams the glass back down. “What did you say to her?”

“Nothing.” Nora steps back.

“You told her something.”

Fear shakes Nora’s body, and her skin pales. “No … no … Mommy.”

“Didn’t you?” her mother says, coming closer.

Shivering all over.

Hard furious terrified woman hand bones against girlface-girlarm-girlback-girlbones. Again and again and again.

“You stupid girl! You’ve shamed us! Shamed us!” She stops, gulps more gin and Nora crawls away fast and slips downstairs to her piano.

A howl down the hall startles Nora into the present. The disinfectant smell of the hospital suddenly magnified, a monster pushing into her skin, her lungs, her throat until she gasps, sucks in enough air to breathe again. Again, the howl down the hall. Dark rises within her. Rises and swells. Rises and gathers force and becomes fire becomes blood becomes sound and the sound forces her body out of the bed and she begins running around and around the room arms and anger flailing pounding on walls and doors mouth open wide open wide and something fierce and violent rips open her heart rips her body open until she is not a woman not a girl only a screaming mouth a screaming heart a screaming body.

Nora wakes to the familiar fog of residual drugs. Shit. Now what ? And in the haze: How much more can I take until I’m planted in a wheelchair, staring at the same spot on the floor all day, eyes flat as stamps, murmuring silvery syllables that slip away like fish into an unfathomable ocean?

“Good morning.” It’s David. “I heard about last night,” he says, taking off his coat. He pulls up a chair to the bed.

This can’t be good. She reaches a drugged hand for her notebook, her pen.

“Nora. Wait.”

She waits. Grateful to close her eyes again.

“You don’t need to write. Just nod.” Pause. “Do you remember anything after I left? Carol says you were holding the photo of yourself as a child.”

She keeps her eyes closed and becomes acutely aware of the opaque mass that has invaded her brain cells, making it hard to concentrate, but then, there it is—the photo and Sister Rosa discovering her in the coat closet. Bringing her home. Her mother’s anger. The secrets. The shame. The slam, slam, slam of the hand. Her father’s mouth— If you tell you will be alone. No one will ever believe you.

The scream.

“Oh!” she says, and opens her eyes.

“Your voice is back!”

She sinks into the bed, closes her eyes, inhales, holds the air for a moment, stunned, nervous the sounds might be temporary, then through sheer force of will, clears her throat and pushes out another “Oh.” The sound bursts forth, shimmering and clear. She smiles uneasily.

“Keep going,” David says softly.

“Ahhhhhhh,” she says then, her body softening. “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,” up and down the C scale, slowly at first, then a bit faster, then loud and soft, over and over again, trying to get the breathing right, each sound giving her more confidence, more energy, reassuring her she’s lived through the hardest parts, she’s moving forward. And now she hums random notes, as if she is walking home from school on a pleasant day, the sounds still shy, as if they are surprised to represent her and her alone.

“Open your eyes, Nora,” David says. “Open your eyes.”

She opens her eyes. Blinks at the cool white of the tamper-proof ceiling lamp. “I … I …” she whispers, and then more loudly, “I’m going home.” She bolts up, turns to David, says in a faint but unwavering voice, “I’m going home. Today.”

He looks stricken. “Getting your voice back is tremendous. And—” he collects himself, leans forward, says calmly, “and you must give this time. There’s so much we haven’t processed.” He pauses. “We need to talk about the scream, how you felt about it, how you feel about having your voice back, how you feel about Margaret. There’s just—we should talk about these things.” He stands up. Walks to the window, shoves his hands in his pockets, stares out. “And …”

“And what?”

He turns to her, and she can see him try to keep his face neutral. “Tomorrow—tomorrow is, well, it’s Valentine’s Day.”

She’d lost track of the days. She can see how such a thing might happen in a place like this, a place where all you can do is crawl over and across your mind, crawl in circles arguing with yourself, confuse your feelings, try to figure out what went wrong, crawl into hiding only to have someone pull you out and force you to take side-trips and tie your feelings into knots and then pull on threads. A place where all you can do is look down the hall and at the ceiling and out the window and make everything a metaphor. And yet, (maybe because of this) she believes that now she can handle it. It being Valentine’s Day. Something more than her voice has been returned to her, and she knows she can rise above it .