Chapter 6: The Woman Who Had Been Looking
Her name was Pauline Marsh.
She was fifty-one years old, lived in a town three hours north, and had spent the better part of a decade trying to find out what had happened to her during the fourteen months she spent at the Hale Family Care Home in 1996 and 1997.
Grace arranged the call.
Emily sat at the kitchen table with Daniel beside her and her phone on speaker between them.
"I didn't think anyone would ever call me back," Pauline said.
Her voice was warm but careful, the voice of someone who had been disappointed before.
"Grace said you were there before me."
"1994 to 1998," Emily said.
A quiet exhale on the other end.
"Four years.
God.
I was only fourteen months and it nearly broke me."
"What do you remember about the admission?"
"My parents had just separated.
My mother was overwhelmed.
Someone — a social worker, she said, though I've never been able to confirm she was licensed — told my mother I needed residential support.
That I was showing signs of emotional dysregulation." Pauline paused.
"I was fifteen.
I was sad because my family was falling apart.
That was the whole of it."
Daniel looked at his mother.
Emily's face was still.
"Did you ever see Dr.
Mercer?" Emily asked.
"Once a week.
He had an office at the end of the east corridor.
He always had a yellow legal pad.
He wrote things down while you talked but he never showed you what he wrote." A pause.
"I asked him once what he was writing.
He said it was for my benefit.
That the notes would help him help me." Another pause.
"I never believed him."
"Pauline," Emily said.
"Did you ever see other girls there?
Around my age?"
"There were six of us on my floor when I arrived.
By the time I left, two had been there longer than two years." Pauline's voice dropped slightly.
"One of them — I only knew her first name.
She was quiet.
She had a bracelet she never took off.
Silver, I think, with a small clasp."
Emily's hand moved to her wrist.
Daniel saw it.
"Do you remember her name?" Emily asked.
"She said her name was Em.
I assumed it was short for Emma." A pause.
"Was that you?"
The kitchen was very quiet.
"Yes," Emily said.
Pauline made a small sound.
Not quite a word.
"I used to watch you from across the common room," Pauline said.
"You always sat near the window.
You had a book but you weren't always reading it.
You were mostly looking outside."
Emily didn't answer immediately.
Daniel reached across the table and put his hand over hers.
"I was looking at the road," Emily said finally.
"I kept thinking my mother would come."
"I know," Pauline said softly.
"We all had something like that.
Something we were waiting for."
A moment passed between them through the phone line.
Then Emily straightened.
"Grace told me you've been trying to access your file."
"For three years.
Every time I get close, something stalls.
A missing form.
A processing delay.
Last year I was told the file had been transferred and they needed to locate it." Pauline's voice steadied.
"I hired a paralegal last spring.
She found the restricted access flag.
Merritt and Cole."
"Same firm," Emily said.
"Same firm.
Same flag.
Same year." Pauline paused.
"He's been protecting himself for a long time."
"He offered me a settlement two days ago," Emily said.
"Two hundred and fifty thousand.
Full NDA."
Silence.
"He never offered me anything," Pauline said.
"He doesn't know I've been looking."
"He will soon," Emily said.
"Grace filed a court motion this morning to override the access restriction on my file.
Once that's in front of a judge, it becomes visible."
"How long until a ruling?"
"Grace thinks two to three weeks.
Maybe faster if the judge sees the pattern." Emily paused.
"Pauline, I want to ask you something directly.
If we get the files — mine and yours — and if they show what I think they show, would you be willing to be part of a formal complaint?
With your name on it?"
A long pause.
"I've been waiting ten years for someone to ask me that question," Pauline said.
"Is that a yes?"
"That's a yes."
Emily looked at Daniel.
He gave a small nod.
"Then stay close to Grace," Emily said.
"This is about to move quickly."
She ended the call.
Daniel was quiet for a moment.
Then: "How many others do you think there are?"
"Grace said two were reachable.
There may be more we don't know about yet." Emily looked at her wrist.
The bracelet caught the light.
"Richard flagged those files in 2019.
Something made him nervous that year.
Something happened that made him think someone was getting close."
"What happened in 2019?"
Emily picked up her phone.
She pulled up a search she had already run twice before.
She turned the screen toward Daniel.
A news article.
Local business section.
A photograph of Richard Hale at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The headline read: *Hale Foundation Announces New Youth Mental Health Initiative.*
Daniel stared at the screen.
"He built a charity," Emily said quietly.
May you like
"For vulnerable young people."
The silence that followed was the loudest thing in the room.
