My Very Best Friend (39 page)

He straightened. “Yes, I am. Renowned, if you must know. But this is a new, communicable disease to us. We know little. It started with the homosexuals. The fags. San Francisco. New York. Could be airborne. It could be spread by casual contact, a touch of the hand. Spittle, even.” He shivered, his eyes darting to Bridget, skinny Bridget who hardly made a bump in the blankets. “She could be a threat to the health and safety of our staff and to the village. We need to prevent her from spreading this contagion.”

“You need to educate yourself.” What an ignorantly arrogant piss ant.

“I beg your pardon!”

“I do not beg yours,” I said. “If you are going to practice medicine, practice it by knowing the facts, not indulging in unfounded hysteria and fear. She is not contagious to you or anyone here unless you decide to shoot drugs up her arm and then use the same needle to shoot them into yours. Are you planning on this activity?”

“I will not be spoken to in that tone!”

“And I will not stand by while a frightened old man, who is supposed to be knowledgeable about different diseases, just about wets his pants when discussing one of his patients.”

“Excuse me!” he said, wagging a finger.

“You will need to do more than excuse yourself. You need to study this disease so you don’t engage in spreading rumors about AIDS or demonizing people with it. Surely you can pull yourself together enough to do that.”

My heart was pounding. Not from the irritated, sanctimonious doctor—I was used to old/middle aged, rigidly thinking men like him—but because of poor Bridget. Sweet Bridget and her brother, my beloved Toran, who was now sitting beside his sister, holding both her hands as she lay weak, her eyes closed, a half-dead sleep claiming her. He brought their hands to his forehead. I knew he was crying.

I was going to lose it, too, in about one minute, and I’d be a sobbing mess. Sobbing messes cannot take control of situations. The ability to make sound decisions is curtailed by emotion, and first I would deal with this patronizing doctor.

“It is my job to protect my patients and my staff!” He held up his pointer finger, pompous, predictable.

“Then do your job.” I pointed my pointer finger right at him. “And do it correctly.”

I looked around the room. Several of the medical personnel seemed downright frightened, wanting to bolt. A couple were calm. This was their field, after all. They took care of sick people. They were professionals. One of them winked at me, another smiled. This ego-inflated doctor was another Len Xavier.

The hospital room was sterile, cold. I didn’t like it. Depressing. Lonely. Alone. I could not guarantee that the employees would treat Bridget with kindness or with disgust and disapproval.

I was going to say it, but Toran said it first, his voice deep, strong. “She won’t stay here. We’re taking her home.”

I stood up. “I’ll bring the truck around.”

I saw the doctor’s expression of relief. “Courage, doctor,” I drawled. “Be brave, little man. You’ll be fine.”

“I am not a little man! How dare you!”

He was, in fact, tall. “You’re a little man in your heart. You lack courage, and that’s all that counts, isn’t it?”

He flushed behind his mask. “I will not tolerate this impertinence.”

“And I will not tolerate you and your sluggish mind. Not for one more minute. You are a plague.” I saw Bridget move in bed. Her eyes were open. “We’re leaving, Bridget.”

She nodded. “Take me away, Clan TorBridgePherLotte. We’ll battle the dragons tomorrow.” She mimed sword fighting, weakly.

She laughed, also weakly.

I laughed, too. Couldn’t help it. It was laugh or fall apart.

On our first day home, with Bridget barely conscious, Silver Cat leaped onto Bridget’s bed. She licked her cheek as if they’d been best friends forever and meowed.

Bridget’s eyes widened, then she held the cat’s face with a weak hand. “Father Cruickshank had a cat exactly like this. The cat used to bite him. This cat is a twin to the other one, I swear.” She shivered in remembrance. “He hit the cat once, and later shot it three times.”

Silver Cat settled in near Bridget’s arm and stared up at her.

Silver Cat, from that moment on, would not be separated from Bridget.

14

“How are you?” A week later I reached out and held Bridget’s hand. It was tiny, like the broken wing of a dying bird.

“Feeling better?” Toran asked.

Bridget was in her bedroom, the room that Toran had lovingly designed for her on the second story. Light-pink-striped bedspread, white walls, the window seat so she could read, the wide white desk where she could draw her miniature pictures.

Toran had picked two bouquets of wildflowers for her, one for her dresser and one for her nightstand next to a white lamp. He had also given her several drawing pads and handfuls of colored pencils that he’d stored for her, waiting for her return.

“Perhaps I have been better,” she said, laying her head back on the pillows. She was gaunt, her cheekbones sticking out, lips pale. She had bathed, with my help, and I had washed and brushed her white-blond hair, so it looked neat, certainly better than the ragged mess it had been. Tears streamed from the corners of her blue eyes, so like Toran’s, only a deeper blue, crushed blueberries.

“I’m sorry, Bridget.” We had told her about her diagnosis three days after we arrived home. She was fully awake then, more rested, clean, fed, and she’d asked us what she had been diagnosed with. She had not seemed surprised and said, “I thought I might have it.” I thought she would collapse, burst into tears, but she didn’t. She said, “I love both of you so much.”

Poor Toran. Huge Scotsman, repeat champion in the Scottish games, proud man, crying.

I wrapped an arm around him.

“I am so sorry, Toran,” Bridget said.

“No, no,” he said, voice cracking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t protect you.”

“You did, you did. Char, I am so sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I told her, wiping tears off my cheeks

“I know you’re both furious with me. I lied. I caused you to worry. I didn’t call you.”

“Please, Bridget—” Toran said.

“I have caused you pain my whole life, I’ve been a terrible burden—”

“No, you haven’t. Pain has been caused to you. Years of pain.” Toran’s neck was bent, the tears streaming down. My whole body ached from the pain in that house. “Which caused more years of pain.”

“I should have tried harder, Toran. Should have stopped. Shouldn’t have left all the rehab places you paid for. They reminded me . . .” Her voice pitched, raw and edgy. “Of the insane asylum. I couldn’t breathe. I was so scared there. Out of control. I kept remembering all those people tied down, beaten up, hurt, yelling at themselves, hurting themselves, the staff mean . . . but I should have stayed at the rehab places. They tried there, they cared and they tried to help me.”

“I understand, I do—”

And Toran did, he understood. He was a sympathetic, compassionate man who was introspective and intelligent. He had a mind that could see all angles, with depth and accuracy.

“Those drugs, they . . . I tried to stop, I did, and I would for a while, and I’d keep thinking of Father Cruickshank. I felt his hands on my neck, I could hear him ripping my clothes off. I couldn’t get rid of it. I kept thinking of Legend. Out there. Without me. Gone. I never said they could take her, I never did.”

“I know, sweetheart, I know.”

“Taking drugs was the only thing that took that away.” She tipped her face up to him, then looked at me, sick and hopeless. “Char, please forgive me. Toran, please. I can’t die without you both forgiving me.”

“I forgive you,” we both said together.

“Bridget, we love you,” I said. “I know what happened to you. I know about your daughter. I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through.”

“Aye, me too,” Toran said. “A child gone. Endless heartache.”

“I’ve been clean for a year. I wanted to make sure I could do it, be sober, before I came and saw you again.”

“I am happy to hear it.” Toran’s voice broke. “So happy.”

“But then I thought I shouldn’t come because I was sick and getting sicker, and I’d be a burden again, but I wanted to see you. I knew . . . I knew I was dying . . . I’m so sorry.”

We talked. We cried over the hopeless, devastating truth of it all. We ended up laughing, Bridget, even now, so funny.

She said, “Do you think I look more like a pasty scarecrow or a ghost? What do you think of my new look? I call it AIDS chic. I’ve travelled the world, and I know one thing—the drugs are bad everywhere.”

We hugged.

We forgave.

What was the point of anger now, anyhow? Toran could be angry with his sister for not staying in rehab, for continuing down her destructive path. I could be angry that she lied. There wasn’t enough time to be angry.

And what was there to forgive? A sixteen-year-old girl, one nightmare after another, piled on her innocent head. What she had done was heroic. Angus Cruickshank said he would kill Toran if she told. So she didn’t. Her intent was to save the life of her brother.

This is what happens when nightmares claim the lives of young girls. They become women who are haunted. Then they reach for things to take away the pain.

And the cycle begins.

“There is one thing I can’t forgive you for, though, Charlotte,” Bridget said.

“What is it?”

“That American accent. You must start talking like a Scotswoman again.”

Bridget told me later, “You are gorgeous, Charlotte. Absolutely stunning.”

“Thank you. I had a makeover.” We laughed about what Louisa said to me.

“You’re not a mouse, Charlotte.”

“Gee. Thanks, Bridget.”

I picked up Bridget’s letters again that night as she slept the sleep of the half dead. I thought of her writing these letters, The Diary Letters, saving them, bringing them home, so one day I would know what happened, so there would be a record of her life. I felt as if I were being ripped inside out.

February 12, 1975

Charlotte,

How do you live without a child that you love? How does life go on? I know she’s alive, and somewhere out there, but she is not with me. I am her mother. I have told myself that I shouldn’t want her, that she was the child of a rapist, but I can’t help it. I fell in love with my daughter when I held her in my arms that day in the hospital. She had Toran’s smile, my nose, our blue eyes.

My baby, not a baby any longer. Are they being kind to her? What does she look like? Does she have brothers and sisters? Is she healthy? Is she happy? Does she dream about me? I dream about her.

She’s gone. She’s lost. She’s somewhere. Where? It hurts me. I can’t hold her, can’t hug her. She’s mine. They took her. I never wanted them to take her.

He made me watch him throw his silver cat.

Love,

Bridget

March 16, 1975. Or the 17th or 18
^th

Charlotte,

She’s gone. Legend’s gone. I try to live without her, but I can’t. I try to work without her, but I can’t. I try to walk by little girls with blond hair and I try not to check to see if they’re Legend. How would I know? I try to hold my arms, empty, they’re empty. I can’t hold empty. I can’t hold air. She was mine. Lovely daughter.

I try to breathe without her but I can’t.

Love,

Bridget

April in 1975. Don’t know the day or date. Maybe the 5th or 12th.

Charlotte,

What does Legend look like? What is she doing? Is she safe? Do they hug her and read her stories? Can she draw or paint? Is she scared or sad?

Does she feel me? Does she know that she’s not with her mother? Does she feel lost? Will they tell her, will she look for me when she’s older?

Will I see her again? I don’t think I will.

They took her. I never said they could.

Love,

Bridget

Could Bridget have murdered Father Angus Cruickshank?

She would have been only twenty years old. She was gentle, sweet, and sensitive.

But women who are gentle, sweet, and sensitive can be driven to murder. Happens all the time when they’re continually abused or feel that their life—or worse, someone else’s life—is at risk. In Bridget’s case, not only was she raped, Angus Cruickshank was directly responsible for taking her daughter away from her.

Could she have done it during one of her trips home, maybe high on drugs and raving?

Would I ask her?

Would I want to know? If I found out, what would I do with that information?

I certainly wouldn’t tell the police. I laughed out loud at that. Me, telling the chief about Bridget killing her attacker. Hell, no.

Was it fair to ask her that question and put her on the spot? What would be my motivation for asking?

I knew that answer, quickly. I would want to know if Angus was dead and gone and couldn’t hurt other young Bridgets. I would also want to know if Bridget got her revenge.

Bloodthirsty, I can be, yes, I can.

“I want to save Bridget.” I held Toran’s hand as we walked on the farm, the blueberry bushes in rows, undulating with the land, the leaves of the apple trees whispering when puffs of wind traveled by. “I want to take her to a doctor, to a hospital, and I want to save her.”