The Mother Who Had “Left”
Chapter 02 - The Mother Who Had “Left”
Ethan drove Laura to a small private clinic outside the city.
Not the hospital his father suggested.
Not the physician Vanessa insisted on calling.
Laura had been staying at the clinic for three weeks under the care of Dr. Miriam Ross, a psychiatrist who specialized in patients recovering from long-term coercive treatment.
Ethan sat beside her bed after midnight.
“Were you sick?”
Laura looked toward the dark window.
“Yes.”
It was not the answer he expected.
She continued.
“After Grace was born, I stopped sleeping. I was frightened all the time. I needed help.”
Ethan remembered being eleven when his mother disappeared. His father had told him she suffered a breakdown, emptied a bank account, and left the country with another man.
Laura looked at him.
“I agreed to enter a treatment center for thirty days.”
“How long were you there?”
“Fourteen months.”
Ethan’s mouth went dry.
She explained that Charles chose the facility. Vanessa, then the family’s private nurse and later Charles’s assistant, managed the admissions paperwork.
Laura’s phone was taken.
Her letters were screened.
Whenever she asked to leave, doctors told her Charles had extended her stay because she remained unstable.
“I wrote to you every week,” Laura said.
“I never got anything.”
“I know that now.”
After fourteen months, Laura was transferred to another facility in Maine. Then another in Vermont. Each transfer created new paperwork and a new diagnosis.
By the time she was released, Charles had obtained a divorce and full custody.
“He said you and Grace were afraid of me,” Laura whispered.
Ethan closed his eyes.
His father had said the opposite.
That Laura wanted no contact.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
“I tried.”
She reached into a drawer and gave him copies of returned letters.
Every envelope bore the same stamp.
ADDRESS UNKNOWN.
Ethan had never moved.
Hawthorne Manor had been his legal residence until college.
Someone had intercepted the mail.
Laura touched the brass key on the bedside table.
“I stopped fighting after a while. I thought perhaps Charles was right. Maybe you were safer without me.”
Ethan looked at the woman he had spent half his life resenting.
“Who brought you to the engagement party?”
May you like
Laura hesitated.
“Grace.”
