The Final Tear
T HE F INAL T EAR
M OLLY DID NOT SEE her 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.”
“My God,” he said. “Molly?”
She took another step toward him.
“I came to visit Mum.” She glanced at her mother. “Where are you going with her?”
He looked over his shoulder at his wife. “I… she needs to leave this place. We both do. It’s… um… government business. All hush-hush. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. Official secrets and all that.”
“Father, you can’t do this. You mustn’t do this.”
“I tell you, it’s official business. I’m taking your mother to a… a safe place.”
“I know, Father. I know everything.”
“Do you now?” he replied sharply, his features hardening.
“Yes. You killed British soldiers.”
“You know what they’ve told you, I imagine.” He gestured angrily to Oliver. “But not my side of things.”
“Now you can have your say.”
“And would it make any difference to you, child?”
“You’re my father,” she said simply. “And I deserve an explanation.” He seemed taken aback by this and Molly decided to push ahead. “Why did you never bring me home?”
“Home to what? A barmy mum and a murderous father?”
“But I came home anyway. The money wasn’t being paid and even though the Coopers would have kept me on, I wanted to come back to you and Mother.”
“The bastards froze all of my accounts,” raged Wakefield. “The same bastards who could not bring themselves to even look for the disgusting filth who attacked your mother. But no, they had the time to take my money, to watch my house, to open my letters. Do you wonder why I never wrote to you?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I couldn’t have them think you were somehow aiding me, looking for secret codes in my letters. No, I wouldn’t do that to you, Molly.”
“Mrs. Pride told me what happened to Mother at the shelter.”
“She didn’t know everything. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.”
“What do you mean?”
“The men who attacked her? They were our soldiers. Your mother finally calmed enough to tell me what had happened. She was looking for me after we became separated in the crowd. They offered to help. The next thing, they were in a small dark room beating her, robbing her, doing… doing God knows what else to her.” He stopped and let out a sob. “The bobby on the beat couldn’t have cared less,” he added more calmly. “Not to be bothered. Had far too much to do to spend time helping a woman who had been savaged .”
Molly now could understand why her mother flew into a rage at the sight of the uniformed Mr. John, or the postman or milkman.
“I’m so sorry, Father, so very sorry.”
“But I worked for the government. I risked my life for my country. So I knew I could get justice for her. I knew that we were a good people! I went all the way to Scotland Yard, with all the facts, and even one of the men’s names because your mother had seen it on his uniform. They could have rounded them all up easily. And you know what they told me?”
“What?” said Molly tensely.
“That war was hard on the boys . He implied that they were just lads being lads. Surely Mrs. Wakefield could understand that. And if they were arrested for their crimes that would be three fewer men fighting Hitler. And if the press got wind of it? Well, that would be bad for morale, wouldn’t it? We couldn’t have that, could we?” He paused and rubbed at his face, smearing the tears there. “The assistant commissioner told me to get her some chocolates, and some flowers, and things would be as right as rain. Why hurt the lads fighting for their country? And after all it was her word against theirs.” He looked to the dark sky. “Chocolates and flowers,” he said numbly. “And then apparently she would be right as rain .”
He turned and pointed to his wife and screamed, “What about her hurt? She hasn’t had one minute’s peace since then. Not one!” He stopped talking and slumped against the car, completely spent, it seemed. After a few moments he said, “Your mother dug down and somehow found the courage to tell me what had happened to her that night. And as soon as she was done, do you know what I saw?”
Molly couldn’t form words for a reply. She could only shake her head, her expression fearful of what was to come.
“I saw the light of your mother’s life go right out of her. I saw the woman that I loved more than anything vanish right in front of me. Any trust, any faith that she might have had in others, was… gone. Forever.” He turned to look at his wife, who was still staring placidly out the windscreen. “And this… is all that is left of a good and kind person.”
Molly, Charlie, and Oliver could only stare helplessly at the stricken man.
“So if the police wouldn’t look for those men, then I would, and did. For years I did. I used all the skills and contacts I had acquired while working for my country. I talked to people at the shelter that night. I followed up leads. I even found the room where they dragged her, and took fingerprints and had a friend check them against records of the enlisted. I ran down every clue I could. It took a long time, but I finally found them, one by one.”
“And then?” asked Molly in a tremulous voice.
Her father’s features hardened to flint. “I assumed the role of judge and jury. I recounted to them all the evidence I had gathered. I asked them how they pled. They sniveled and cowered and begged for their lives. But not a single one apologized, not even when I showed them pictures of your mum, of what she had become. Not a single damn one. They were only interested in saving their own miserable skins. They cared nothing for her. If any of them had admitted guilt, had shown the least bit of remorse—” he let out a long, tired breath “—I would have spared them. But they didn’t, and so I didn’t. I killed them, and I would do so again, without hesitation.”
Molly teared up with this admission. “Surely, there had to be another way, Father.”
“There was no other way, child. This was all I had left, to do justice for your mother.”
“How did you get past all the checkpoints?” Oliver asked.
“I was wearing a British uniform filled with medals. Medals I earned, by the way, serving a country that abandoned me and her in the hour of our need.” He turned back to Molly. “I took the uniform off before I got here. I will put it back on after I sedate your mother, because she can’t stand the sight of a man in uniform, and can anyone blame her? That and forged papers go a long way,” added Wakefield.
“And now?” Molly exclaimed. “Where are you taking her?”
“I’ve made arrangements. A boat is waiting to take us someplace… safe. Where we can live in peace for the time we have left.”
“Mother is not well.”
“I know she’s dying. And my life is also over, but I refuse to swing at the end of a rope for killing men who should have been in prison, or worse.”
“And you?”
“I failed your mother before… I can’t leave her to die alone.” He glanced sharply at Oliver, and, seeming to think he represented all of the British government, shouted, “Oh, to hell with you!”
Wakefield put his hand on the car door. “Now, we need to go. I… I’m sorry about all of this, Molly. Truly, I am.”
Oliver stepped forward. “I’m afraid we can’t let you do this, Mr. Wakefield.”
Wakefield produced a small pistol from a pocket and pointed it at Oliver, who quickly stepped back. “I think you have no say in the matter.”
Oliver took another step back but Molly moved forward. “This will not set things right, Father. And please, don’t leave me alone. I… I need you. Please.” The tears spilled down her cheeks.
Herbert Wakefield slowly shook his head. “I’m sorry, Molly.” He added in a kindly tone, “You have your life to live, and I wish it everything you want it to be. You have always been quite exceptional. But my life… your mother’s life… is nearly done.”
At that moment they heard sirens blaring and powerful engines racing their way.
“Damn!” cried out Wakefield. He slid into the car and started the engine.
“Father, no!” screamed Molly. “Don’t go! Please!”
The sound of her daughter’s voice finally seemed to reach Eloise Wakefield. Right as her husband put the car in gear, she looked over at Molly, then saw her husband. She opened the door and toppled out of the car. Wakefield put the car in reverse and made a grab for her but missed.
“Eloise!” he screamed.
Charlie and Oliver raced over to Eloise Wakefield and pulled her safely away from the automobile.
Wakefield looked like he was going to get out of the car and attempt to pull her back in. Instead, he sped off. A moment later he had to steer the sedan to the right to avoid the police cars roaring into the drive, sirens blaring. The police cars turned around to follow him, and the three sedans disappeared into the darkness, the jarring sound of the sirens further fracturing all of their nerves.
Molly and the others jumped when they heard the gunshots. Then there came the sound of a horrific crash and, a few seconds after, an explosion. A column of flames leapt into the air, lighting the night.
A sobbing Molly wrapped her arms protectively around her dazed mother.
“You’re okay, Mum. You’re safe.”