Page 148 of Strangers in Time

“I think she does need to stay here, Molly,” said Stephens. “Until… She will be well cared for, I promise you.”

“And there will be no more procedures,” added Foyle. “Of any kind.”

They all left, leaving Molly on her bed, alone.

She slowly took off her necklace and opened the locket, revealing her mother’s picture inside. She needed to look at it now because she did not want the image of the raving woman back there to be the last one she had of her mother before she went to sleep tonight.

IfI go to sleep tonight.

When she finally did start to nod off, she held the locket tightly against her chest.

No matter where I go, you will be right here with me, Mum.

THEFINALTEAR

MOLLY DID NOT SEEher mother the following day, or the day after that. She was quite fine now, she had been told by both Foyle and Stephens. Yet every time she ventured near that door, the horror of that encounter welled up in Molly’s path, blocking her from moving forward.

Perhaps I am acquiring my own neurosis.

The suffering of the patients here was truly extraordinary. Molly could never see herself working in this field. There was no real medicine that would help. Only apparently sticking sharp instruments into the soft tissues of the brain. And while that might ease some of their violent symptoms, it often subtracted everything of importance from the person, leaving something less than human.

For her, being a doctor meant the ability to heal, not merely relegating patients to a purposeless stupor. Her mother was doomed, she knew that, and Molly had, to the extent any child could, accepted that fate. But that was not the same as understanding it to be right or fair. It was neither.

I can’t help these poor people. Apparently none of us can.

Two nights later Molly found that she couldn’t sleep. She rose, put on her robe, and used her key to get into the Institute. She walked down to her mother’s room with the thought of just watching the woman sleeping peacefully for a bit.

But when she got there she found the door open and her mother gone.

Molly looked wildly around for someone to alert, but found no one about. She ran back to the cottage and rousted Oliver and Charlie from their sleep. They quickly dressed and rushed outside.

“I thought they locked her door,” said Oliver.

“I did too,” replied Molly. “But it was open.”

“She must still be inside the Institute,” he said. “She was surely too weak to make it outside. I’m surprised she made it out of her room unassisted.”

“What’s that noise?” exclaimed Charlie.

They listened and heard what sounded like a door closing.

They ran to the rear of the building.

When they got there the first thing they saw was an empty wheelchair next to a small gray two-door sedan.

Her mother was sitting in the passenger seat looking placidly out the windscreen.

And someone else was with her.

“Father!” screamed Molly.

Herbert Wakefield turned to look at her.

He looked old, far older than she remembered. He was thin, she observed, unhealthily so. He was dressed in a three-piece suit. His hair was nearly all white and punished by the stiff wind.

He looked at her in bewilderment.

She took a tentative step forward. “Father, it’s me, Molly.”

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