The Boarding House (35 page)

Ellie moaned and covered her face with her hands. “She’s gone and I don’t know how to get her back.”

“But Ellie, do you really think you still need a nanny?”

Ellie kept sobbing, her shoulders shaking so hard her whole body was trembling. “No.”

“Then why are you so distraught? This just means you’re becoming an adult. One day you’ll be on your own and you have to learn how to do that before you can leave here.”

“I don’t want to live alone. I’m afraid to be alone.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know how to be that way. I don’t want to be that way.”

“So one day you’ll meet someone and get married.”

Ellie shuddered then looked up. “That’s not going to happen. I will never get married.”

Aaron stifled a sigh. He didn’t want to get into this, but they were here just the same. “With therapy you can—”

She leaned forward, pounding her fist on his desk—her eyes burning with hate. “You listen to me. I would never trust a man. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust Charlie, and you’re both good to me. I will never have a child for someone else to destroy. I will die first. You don’t talk to me about this ever again. Do you understand?”

Aaron felt chastised and ashamed in the way only his grandmother had ever made him feel. “Yes.”

“Sophie is dead and I’m sad. And I’m mad. I don’t need therapy today. I need to cry. Tell Charlie to come get me or I’m going on my own.”

Aaron picked up the phone and quickly paged Charlie’s number. “He’s on his way.”

Ellie covered her face. “The least she could have done was say good-bye.”

“Ellie.”

“What?”

“Lots of people die without getting to say good-bye to their loved ones.”

She swiped the tears from her cheeks and looked up.

He had her attention. Now he needed to drive the point home. “Think about it. When people die in accidents, they don’t know they’re going to die, so there’s no way for them to tell their loved ones good-bye. When people die on the operating table, they don’t get that chance. When people drop dead of heart attacks or strokes, they don’t get that chance. You’re not the only person who’s ever lost a loved one. You can grieve and get mad and blame God and whoever else you choose, but it doesn’t change the fact that bad things happen and lives end.”

All of a sudden Ellie stood up.

He thought she was about to run again, and then he realized she was listening to something. He assumed it was one of the alters. “Is Cinnamon talking to you?”

Ellie’s eyes widened as she slowly shook her head.

“Then who do you hear?”

“I think it’s God.”

Oh great. Sophie’s gone, so now she’s pulling out the God voice.

“Why do you think it’s God?”

“Because of what He said.”

“So tell me, Ellie. What did you hear the voice say?”

“Come to My window.”

Aaron stifled the urge to roll his eyes.

Ellie started toward the door. “I need to go to the common room now.”

“It’s morning. Free time isn’t until this afternoon.”

“I need to go now. He said, ‘Come to My window.’”

“There’s a window. You can use that one.”

Ellie looked at Aaron as if he’d lost his mind. “He said, ‘My window.’ Not ‘A window.’ I have to go now. You have to take me or I’ll take myself.”

Aaron could see another screaming fit coming and didn’t know whether to medicate her or let her have her way. Then Charlie knocked.

“Charlie will take me,” she said, and bolted.

Aaron followed. “We’ll both take you,” he said, well aware he couldn’t handle her by himself if she became hysterical again.

“I need to go to the common room,” Ellie told Charlie.

“I’ll come with you,” Aaron said.

Charlie looked a little startled. “Yeah, sure, whatever you need,” but Ellie was already on the move. They had no option but to follow or get left behind.

Aaron didn’t know what to expect, but when they got to the common room, it certainly wasn’t finding Luther Dunn standing beneath the window.

“How did this happen?” Aaron muttered.

Charlie frowned. “He’s not supposed to be here. Do you want me to take him back?”

“No. We’re here because Ellie said God told her to come here. I just wasn’t expecting this,” Aaron said.

Charlie paled. “He’s not God
 . . .
is he?”

“Of course not.”

“Then how come he’s here waiting for Ellie?”

“We don’t know that’s why he’s here,” Aaron muttered.

“Yes, we do.”

Aaron glared. “And how do we know that?”

“Because I just saw him say it to Ellie.”

“You saw it?”

Charlie nodded. “I read lips. He just said, ‘Welcome, Ellie. I’ve been waiting for you.’”

Ellie walked straight up to Luther without hesitation. “I’m here.”

“Welcome, Ellie. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Ellie shivered slightly, but stood her ground. “Are you God?”

“Who I am is not important. I felt your pain.”

Her chin quivered. “Sophie’s gone. I think she died.”

Luther laid a hand on Ellie’s shoulder, and as he did, the hair on her arms suddenly stood on end. “Sophie isn’t dead. She’s in you.”

Ellie’s eyes welled. “She can’t be
in
me. That would mean she wasn’t—”

“Real? She was real to you, and at the time, that was all that mattered. But you know different now, don’t you, Ellie?”

Ellie covered her face and shook her head, rejecting his words.

“Look at me.”

Ellie tried not to, but there was strength in more than his voice. She did as he asked and burned in the fire of his gaze.

“Hear my words, Ellie Wayne. You will be well. You will be happy. You will be loved.”

But Ellie needed it now. “Do you love me?”

Luther smiled. “It doesn’t matter who loves you, Ellie. What matters is that you love yourself.”

Ellie didn’t want to hear the hard stuff. She just wanted proof the easy way, like maybe a miracle before her eyes. “If you’re God, then tell me why the ghost baby cries all the time. Why won’t it leave me alone?”

Luther laid a hand on the top of her head and briefly closed his eyes. “There is no ghost with you.”

“But I hear it crying. It cries all the time in my head and won’t leave me alone.”

“Have you cried, Ellie?”

“Sometimes.”

“Why do you cry?”

“When I’m sad. Sometimes when I’m mad. Sometimes when I’m afraid.”

“But do you cry for yourself?”

She didn’t answer.

“Do you? Do you weep for what you have endured?”

“Not anymore.”

Luther moved his hand from her head to the side of her face. “What you hear is not a ghost, but yourself
 . . .
your inner child, crying for you when you do not cry for yourself.”

Ellie shivered from the touch of his hand against her cheek. It filled her, and at the same time made her feel lacking in his presence. He said pretty words, but she wanted proof.

“If you’re God, then make it go away.”

Luther’s sigh was that of a parent whose child has just disappointed him. It enveloped her. “You are the only one who can make it go away.”

“How?”

“You give away your pain for others to feel, but the pain is yours. Claim it. When you can cry for yourself, you will be well with God.”

“You don’t hate me?”

Luther opened his arms.

She walked into them. Peace enveloped her and with it came an unbearably beautiful light. She closed her eyes against the glow as it filled her—cherished her—cleansed her.

Luther touched the top of her head once more. “You are heard. You are loved.” Then he walked away, passing by the two men at the door without making eye contact.

Aaron was still struggling with the shock of watching Ellie accept Luther’s touch and walk into his open arms.

“Make sure he gets back where he belongs,” Aaron said. “I’ll take Ellie to her room.”

“Yes sir,” Charlie said, and followed Luther.

Aaron waited for Ellie, but when she didn’t move, he went after her. “Ellie, it’s time to go.”

When she turned, her expression was one of shock and disbelief. “God loves me, Doctor Tyler.”

Aaron frowned. “Is that what Luther said, that he loved you?”

“I have to claim my pain. I have to face my fears. I have to cry. That will be the hardest.”

“He said that?”

She sighed. “I’m hungry. Can I go back to my room?”

“Yes, of course.”

“If I’m not there, will they still leave breakfast?”

“I’m sure they will, but if they don’t, I’ll bring you some myself.”

“Thank you,” Ellie said, as she followed Aaron out of the room.

They had walked in silence for only a short distance when he heard a sob and realized she was crying.

“See, you’re already crying and you said that would be the hardest.”

Ellie frowned as she shook her head at him and again, he realized he had failed her in some way. “I’m crying because Sophie is dead. I still hear the crying baby, and we need to hurry or Cinnamon will eat all my bacon.”

“I don’t understand. What other kind of crying is there?”

“I never cry for me. He said I had to quit giving everyone else my pain and cry for myself. When I do that, the baby will go away.”

Aaron felt like Alice who’d fallen down the rabbit hole. Up was down and down was up and he was forever late in trying to keep up with Ellie Wayne’s brain. “Why will that make the baby disappear?”

Ellie sighed. “Because the baby is me. He said it was my inner child, and that it cries for me because I won’t cry for myself.”

The logic was so brilliant that it stopped Aaron cold. “Luther said that?”

“Yes. Tell everyone I’m very sorry for causing such a scene. I saw Momma when she was dead and I didn’t cry. But I need to go cry for Sophie, even if I can’t see her again.”

She walked in her room, checked the table for her food and pointed. There were still tears on her cheeks. “My breakfast tray is here and so is the bacon.”

“Okay. So I’ll see you later this afternoon in the common room.”

Ellie didn’t answer.

He quietly closed the door and walked away, refusing to dwell on what he’d seen or that the advice Luther just gave Ellie was as good, even better than what he might have said.

It was somewhat daunting to know there was a delusional patient dispensing very good advice. He didn’t know whether to worry that he kept missing the connection with Ellie, or be grateful that someone had finally gotten through to her.

At the other end of the long corridor,
Charlie saw Luther to his room.