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“My dear,” she said, “I had hoped you would be gone.”
I had no idea what was going on, but when I started to stammer out something, she shook her head at me and I shut my mouth quick.
“I’m Julianna Belman-Powell. Delia F. Belman was my grandmother.”
“Oh,” I said as my heart plummeted down into my laceless shoes. I knew why she was here.
A long time ago, Amy had sat me down and explained the situation.You can stay at Belman as long as you need to. You don’t ever have to worry about the cost of it. You have Mrs. Belman-Powell to thank for that.
In other words, Julianna Belman-Powell had been my fairy godmother, making sure I could stay at a ball that no sane person would ever want an invite to.
But now she was here to tell me that my time was up and they were kicking me out, I was sure of it.
I’m not ready. I’m not ready.
“Did Dr. Ager call you in?” I asked. “I know she’s dying to get me out of here.”
But Julianna Belman-Powell shook her head. “No, Dr. Ager didn’t call me,” she said. “Jordan Hassan did.”
Jordan Hassan?“Why would he do that?” I yelped. “Does he think I should leave, too?”
“This isn’t about discharging you, Hannah.” She patted her hair, as if my outburst might’ve disturbed her coiffure.
“Then whatisit about?” I asked desperately.
“Jordan called me because he wanted to ask me for my help in getting certain information that he thinks will help you,” she said. “But I told him that I couldn’t. Not until I saw you first.”
“I still don’t understand.”
But Julianna Belman-Powell clearly didn’t think I needed to understand, because she just gazed at me, a tender look on her face. “You’ve grown so much,” she said.
“Uh, yeah. Cell division will do that to a person,” I said awkwardly.
Julianna Belman-Powell smiled. “Why do you think you keep coming back to Belman?” she asked.
“Because the police keep bringing me here,” I said. It was the kind of answer I’d give to Dr. Nicholas. It didn’t satisfy her, though.
She reached out and put her hand against my cheek. Her fingers were cool and dry. “I know you say you’re a time traveler, Hannah. But do you know what I think? I think it’s easier for you to believe something utterly impossible than it is for you to remember something that you’ve always wanted to forget.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Perhaps you’ll know someday, and find a way forward,” she said. She stood up. “It’s been so lovely to see you. Be well. And don’t forget to brush your hair. You’ll look so much prettier that way.”
CHAPTER 104
As the subway rockets him south, from Inwood down to Morningside Heights, Jordan holds the heavy cardboard box so carefully you’d think he was carrying a bomb.
He can’t believe how simple it was to get Hannah’s records in the end. Though Dr. Ager was Belman’s medical director, when push came to shove, Julianna Belman-Powell and her money were in charge.
“I will be sending a member of the hospital staff to pick up the files,” she’d told Fillan House. “I need you to have them ready by Tuesday afternoon.”
And so, an hour after accepting the box from the woman with the cat-eye glasses, Jordan’s back in his dorm room. The box is now sitting, unopened, on his bed. He has a moment of terrible hesitation. Of almost what he’d call panic.
Is it his place to open the box? These are Hannah’s secrets—not his. Doesn’t she have the right to keep them hidden?
He touches the corner of the lid. Keeping them hidden is destroying her, he’s convinced of that. Maybe Hannah doesn’t want to know what’s in her past, but how can she get better if she keeps it all buried?
Once she can acknowledge her past, she can begin to heal it.That’s what Jordan believes, because that’s just how human psychology works, everyone knows that. “We are what we are because we have been what we have been, and what is needed for solving the problems of human life and motives is not moral estimates but more knowledge,” said good old Freud. He wasn’t wrong about that.
