Letters to Hank

Chapter Seventeen

"Schizophrenia?" Rose muttered under her breath.

James sighed heavily. "I promised myself I'd never tell anyone, but here we are."

Scout, his brows furrowed, sat up straighter and wrapped his arm across Rose's shoulders. "You're telling us that Hazel wrote letters to her dead brother that she thought was alive?"

The older gentleman nodded slowly, his head burdened with grief. "She and Hank had an inseverable bond, from what I was told. After he died, she refused to believe it. She finally convinced herself that he never died in the first place and insisted that he was there living in the guest bedroom."

Rose fell deaf at James's words. Heidi was right after all—Hank died in the war and was sealed safely into the grave. But schizophrenia?

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" Anne chimed in, her voice quivering.

"I didn't want you to see her differently." James studied the pictures as if carving them into his brain. "To you, she was a loving grandmother. She spoiled you... much more than I preferred. She loved you, Annie. I didn't want you to know that she was sick in case you would have closed yourself off from her."

Anne shook her head. Her lips formed words though nothing but a gentle sigh came from within.

"My mother loved to travel," said James. "She always wrote back to her Hank."

"How did her husband handle everything?" Rose leaned closer to Scout, her heart in her throat.

James smiled softly. "He was a good man. He loved my mother and he loved me. He didn't want to break his family apart, so he stayed with her. He was never fond of living with her hallucinations, but he stayed because of me." The man grew solemn until his face appeared to be gray. "He got drunk one night. He came to me crying and telling me he wanted to have more children, but not with Hazel. Not with a woman that didn't have the ability to care for a baby. He loved my mother, but I always knew he wanted to leave."

Tears welled in Rose's eyes. She couldn't imagine being in such a place—sacrificing her own well-being for the future of someone else.

"Did she know she had schizophrenia?" Scout asked.

"That was another thing she refused to believe. My father pushed her to go to the doctor several times, and she never understood why. He finally got her to go, and that was when she was officially diagnosed. She was prescribed a medication but never took it. My father started grinding the pills up and mixing it with her orange juice every morning. She thought Hank got a job, which would explain why he stopped coming around so often. It came to a point where when she was on the medication, she went insane looking for him. My father eventually stopped giving it to her."

Scout unfurled his arm and clutched Rose's hand in his. "She never knew she had it?"

"She knew, somewhere deep down." James looked up at the two teenagers on his couch. "The mind is a terrifying place, capable of things we'll never understand. She was told she had schizophrenia. She knew. Yet she blocked it out until the diagnosis disappeared again. She lived the rest of her life alongside her Hank. When she died, it was almost like Hank died again, right next to her this time."

Rose squeezed Scout's fingers, her palms clammy. "When did you learn about it? What was it like for you?"

A miniscule smile grew across James's lips. "I was thirteen. My mother left me home alone with Hank. I searched and searched and searched for him, but never found him. My father came home and I asked him who Hank was. I'd asked him several times before then, but he sat me down on that cold, October afternoon and told me everything from start to finish." He thought for a moment, staring into a void. "I went on to graduate with my doctorates in psychology."

James sighed deeply, as if exhaling a breath he had been holding since Hazel died. "Do you have any plans for the postcards?"

Rose smiled, drying her tears with a benign thumb. "I'd like for you to have them."

James clutched the letters in his wrinkled hands. He nodded slowly, his eyes once again welling with tears. "I gave these away at an antique store shortly after she died. I never thought I'd see them again. Handing them over to the owner of the store was like handing over a piece of my soul." He laughed sadly, his tone hinted with sorrow. "You gave me something I thought I would never get back."

"They belong to you more than they will ever belong to me," Rose said quietly.

"Thank you." James set the postcards in his lap and began rummaging through the shoebox again. He studied the pin and the pictures, a small smile on his face. "Do me a favor? Give these to Hank's daughter. These belong to her."

As he handed Rose the box, she took it with gentle fingers. "I'll get them to her. I promise."

***

Rose stepped out of the post office, her shoulders heavy. She didn't have the postcards or the pictures or the pin anymore. Just memories of her last summer before college.

"I'd say that was a summer well spent," Scout said, tossing his arm across her shoulders. "Who else will be able to say some postcards took them across the country and back?"

She grinned. "Just us."

"Exactly." Scout stopped beside his truck and took in his final moments with Rose before she left in the morning for Vanderbilt University. "I'll miss you around here, you know."

Rose sighed. "I'll miss you, too. I'm having second thoughts."

He grinned. Cupping her face in his hands, Scout shook his head. "You're right where you're meant to be, and you're headed to the exact place you need to go. And besides, you're going on scholarship. You can't really pass that up."

She nodded. "I guess you're right. I'll be leaving everything behind, though."

"The everything you're leaving behind will be right here when you come back."

As always, Scout was right. Rose smiled, taking in the face that had walked beside her since middle school. "I'm going for a psychology degree."

"Fitting," Scout laughed. "That'll be really good for you."

"Thanks."

Scout stepped back, leaving Rose's cheeks abnormally cold. "Come back soon, alright? Maybe we can go antiquing."

The sound of it was music to Rose's ears. She wanted nothing more than to listen to his jokes about dolls and how hungry he always was, to eat ice cream in the back of his truck and talk about insignificant things. Yet there she stood, just hours away from her new life at college.

She stepped into his embrace, taking in the sweet smell of friendship, knowing all too well it would be months before she tasted it again. For the first time in her life, she choked on her words as Scout's dark eyes welled with tears. She'd never seen him cry, but she admired his soft heart. Finally, she stepped away and winked. "I'll send you a postcard."

"I'll be waiting patiently for it."