The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

The narrative shifts to Esme’s perspective of the day she left for Cauldstone, trapped between her father and the doctor on the silent car ride to the hospital. The men quickly take Esme inside, sign the admittance paperwork, and release her to a nurse. Esme begs her father not to leave her, promising to behave, but he says nothing as he leaves. Once in her room, she erupts into a fit, tearing the room apart; the nurses descend to restrain her. After two days tethered to her bed, a nurse cuts her hair. Esme cries and tries to fight the restraints with all her strength, and she thinks about how life is going at school and home. The second morning, a mysterious figure appears and tells her not to fight, or she will be taken to Ward Four. A nurse yells at the figure to return to their bed.

In the present, Iris prepares eggs for dinner while Esme rests. Alex thinks Iris is foolish for staying with Luke; Iris chastises Alex for staying married to someone he never loved. He says they shouldn’t argue; he hugs Iris, but is concerned about her being alone with Esme. Iris explains that Esme isn’t dangerous and that she owes her compassion after all she’s endured. She also suggests that the flat belongs to Esme, not her. Angry and frustrated, Alex tells Iris that she should find another place for Esme to stay.

Esme can hear Iris and Alex arguing through the door as she runs a bath. She sinks into the water and tries to remember what the room was used for when she lived there. She remembers it was a nursery, but she can’t recall which child would have used it last. As she sinks under the water, Esme recounts her first days at Cauldstone.

After the nurses remove Esme’s restraints, they make the residents polish the floor on their knees. The food is wretched, and the nurses break up many fights. Threats of being put in restraints or being sent to Ward Four keep most of the women in line, and Esme quickly learns to comply. She gradually becomes acquainted with many women and learns their tragic stories; there are often episodes of women taking off their clothes or running through the halls screaming, but the nurses are always on guard. Esme wants to tell the doctor that her admittance was a mistake, but fearing punishment, she remains quiet.

Kitty explains that she never intended to have Esme sent away forever. The novel cuts to the past: When the doctor questions Kitty, she tells him about Esme seeing herself sitting on the beach. Kitty’s parents tell her to never speak of her sister again, but Kitty still often thinks of Esme and hates sleeping alone. Jamie Dalziel disappears after Esme is taken, and no one knows where he went—though there are rumors that he was sent abroad. A few months later, Duncan unromantically proposes to Kitty after they go to the movies, and she accepts. Later, as she is searching for a hat, Kitty finds a box of letters.

Kitty remembers taking a young girl to the movies, and she also remembers a boy that was always with her. She didn’t claim him as a blood relation, but she felt sorry for him since he didn’t have a mother. She thinks, “I always want to pull her away from him, from his clammy boy clutches but of course you have to be the adult in these—” (213).

At dinner in the present, Alex tells Esme that he used to live in New York. Esme says she’s seen a plane but is still amazed by the idea of Alex flying to and from America. Alex says Esme is different from Kitty, and proclaims that Kitty hated him when he visited her with Iris. He adds that Kitty didn’t seem to have a good relationship with Iris’s mother. Esme likes Alex and thinks he’s funny. Iris and Alex are stunned that Kitty never visited her sister; Esme says she visited once, but they didn’t see each other.

The narrative shifts to the past at Cauldstone. As Esme sits and writes a letter to Kitty, begging her to visit, Esme stifles her sobs, having learned to control her emotions so the staff won’t sedate her. She struggles to concentrate on the letter because two women are arguing behind her. The hospital has visiting hours each Wednesday, yet no one ever comes to see her, and Esme is convinced the nurses aren’t sending her letters. The longer she stays, the more she believes something is wrong with her. She develops an acute sense of smell, her body feels strange, and she wants to cry all the time. Esme longs to go outside: She stares out the window at the patients from Ward Four having recess. They move around crying, like ghosts in their gowns. Suddenly, Esme has the urge to run from the hospital, but makes herself behave. She assures the doctor that she feels in control of her emotions and is ready to go home, return to school, and help her mother around the house. The doctor asks if she’s experienced any more hallucinations like being convinced someone stole her blazer or seeing herself on the beach. Having only told Kitty about these moments, Esme silently realizes her treachery. The doctor seems satisfied with Esme’s answers, and Esme thinks she can leave.

The first time Kitty sees baby Esme, she thinks she’s beautiful. In the next memory, Kitty attaches sequins to Esme’s bag because Esme can’t sew. On her wedding day, Kitty drops her bouquet, and someone tells her that it’s bad luck. On her wedding night, Kitty waits for Duncan in a satin nightgown, but when he comes to her, she thinks of Jamie’s face. Duncan only kisses her and says good night, and they don’t consummate their marriage. In the next memory, Kitty opens a box of letters and sees Esme’s desperate pleas for her to visit. Kitty struggles to get pregnant, and while visiting her doctor, she says aloud, “Terrible thing […] to want a child and not be able to have one” (226).

Iris and Alex sit on the couch and watch a news report on an approaching storm. Alex says he plans to stay the night on the couch, but Iris protests. Alex chides her for not accepting help when it’s offered. He asks her when she plans to end things with Luke, but she avoids the subject. Alex reminds her that the last time they spent the night under the same roof was the night before his wedding in New York. Iris had just returned from being away in Russia, and Alex was angry with her for leaving him. He wanted to sleep with her, but she refused because he was getting married; he assured her that he didn’t want to marry Fran. In the present, Iris doesn’t want to think about that night anymore.

Esme stares at a peg board on the wall full of photos. She points to an old, wrinkled photo and says that it’s one of her. Iris stares at the two girls in the photo, amazed that she had a photo of Esme on her wall all these years. She says Kitty and Esme don’t look alike, and at the mention of her sister, Esme asks about the extent of her illness. Iris explains that Kitty has good days and bad days, but that her long-term memory appears to be intact. She tells Esme that she visited Kitty to ask about her, and that Kitty’s only response was, “Esme wouldn’t let go of the baby” (234). Esme appears upset by the statement, and Iris can tell she’s hiding something. She asks Iris if she has a photo of her father, Robert, and Iris produces one taken shortly before he died.

Six days after their marriage, Kitty and Duncan still haven’t had sex, and Kitty wonders if she did something wrong. One night, Duncan initiates sex but then abruptly stops. Without telling her parents, Kitty takes a cab to visit Esme at Cauldstone and is astonished, realizing it is only 10 minutes away from her house. She expects to find Esme in a cozy room but instead, the doctor intercepts her and says he’s been trying to reach her parents. He wants to know what their plans are for Esme and the baby’s (Robert’s) return home.

In the past, Esme assumes she’s leaving Cauldstone and joyfully packs her belongings. Instead, the nurses take her to a large room with a steel bed. Esme cries and asks when she’s leaving, and a nurse tells her that she can’t leave until after the baby comes. Confused and distraught, Esme looks down and sees teeth marks on the bed: “Someone in this ward, in this very bed, has been driven to gnaw the bedpost” (240). Once in active labor, all Esme can think about is the pain. As she hears herself pant and moan, she remembers hearing her mother in labor with Hugo. When Esme’s baby boy arrives, she asks if she can have him, and the nurse agrees to let her hold him. When the nurse tries to take the baby afterward, Esme clutches him to her chest and runs out of the room. Nurses and security guards chase her down the hall until they pin her to the floor and take the baby. As the guards restrain her and administer sedatives, Esme realizes she’s still clutching the green blanket that was wrapped around her son.

In the present, a nurse tries to feed Kitty a biscuit, but she refuses it. Kitty recalls visiting a specialist, fearing being unable to have a baby, but after the examination, the doctor explains that her hymen is still intact. She is humiliated as he outlines the physical act of intercourse. She later tries to talk to Duncan, but he ignores her and leaves the room; he never sleeps in her bed again. Kitty visits Esme, hoping she can help with her intimacy issue, and arrives at the hospital just after Esme’s baby is born. Kitty is shocked that the baby looks like Jamie and becomes angry, realizing that Esme knows more about sex than she does.

Esme stares at the photo of Iris’s father and recognizes him as her son by Jamie. Moreover, Esme realizes that Iris is her granddaughter. Though the nurses sedated her after they took her baby, there was a moment when she saw Kitty wearing her coat, but couldn’t speak because of the drugs.

In the past, the doctor asks Kitty if she wants to adopt Esme’s baby. He thinks Esme will never know what happened, and that perhaps she will return home soon. Kitty accepts, though she does consult her father later. She and her father agree not to tell Ishbel the truth, though she thinks Ishbel may have already figured it out. Kitty creates an elaborate cover story, telling everyone that she’s going somewhere with a warmer climate to have a baby.

Jamie had several failed marriages and only visits Kitty once. He sees the baby but doesn’t suspect that he’s his son. When Jamie picks him up, the baby screams and Kitty takes him out of the room to console him and whispers the truth in his ear. Kitty only visits her sister once more: When the nurse takes her into the dungeon-like area where Esme is kept and shows her through a peephole how horrendous Esme’s condition has become, Kitty doesn’t believe it’s her.

A nightmare awakens Iris from sleep, and she reminds herself that Esme and Alex are both in the house. The dream reminds her of an alcove in her grandmother’s house before it was remodeled, and of the dress she wore to tea. She suppresses the memory by flopping around in bed, but it doesn’t go away. In the memory, Iris completes her first year of college and visits her grandmother to have tea with Alex and Sadie. Iris struggles to concentrate on the conversation, as the chemistry between her and Alex is palpable. She excuses herself to the bathroom, but Alex appears and pulls her into a corner. They become entangled and just as Alex tears Iris’s dress, Kitty rounds the corner and spots them. She says nothing, but exchanges a hard look with Iris. Kitty never tells anyone about what she saw, and Iris never touches Alex again. Iris moves to Russia and later hears that Alex moved to New York and became engaged to Fran.

In the present, Iris looks up from her bed and sees Esme standing near her, asking if they can visit Kitty. Iris agrees and after breakfast with Alex, they wait for the nursing home’s visiting hours by walking Iris’s dog on Blackford Hill. As Iris takes in the beauty of the day, she spots Luke and Gina. Luke sees Iris and approaches her. The exchange is awkward at first, but Luke explains that Iris is a shop owner. Alex joins them, and the mood is tense between him and Luke. Iris feels guilty and tries to avoid looking at Gina, but when she does, she sees her pregnant belly.

Iris is still upset by the exchange when they arrive at the nursing home. She and Alex escort Esme into Kitty’s room, and Iris reintroduces herself as Alex tells Kitty that she’s brought Esme to see her. After yelling at Iris for cutting her hair, Kitty talks to Esme as if they were teenagers again: “My chances all ruined. You look just the same, just the same. It wasn’t me, you know. It wasn’t. I didn’t take it. Why would I have wanted it” (268). Iris asks Kitty what she didn’t take, but Esme simply says that she did take it. Esme silently stares out the window into the garden, gently touches the side of Kitty’s face, and asks to be alone with her sister.

Alex and Iris walk outside and wait in the car. Iris is still shaken by Gina’s pregnancy. Alex tells her that he’s always loved her, and that he wants her to admit the same. Iris pulls away and leaves the car, while Alex asks why she’s so afraid to pursue their love.

Inside Kitty’s room, Esme replaces the cushion on the couch just as she found it. She sees Iris and Alex fighting through the window. Esme is glad that the room is silent, and “If she is very careful, she will not have to think about this just yet” (272). She plans to pull the cord that alerts Kitty’s nurse when the sun goes down in the garden and waits on the couch with her hands pressed together.

Iris says she’s not afraid of love, but that she and Alex were only children when they fell in love. They suddenly notice a flurry of nurses and orderlies running inside. Iris puts the pieces together and realizes Esme’s in trouble. Pushing past the staff, Iris runs to Kitty’s room and sees nurses attending to Kitty’s body (as Esme smothered her with the cushion). Iris sits next to Esme on the couch. Esme says the sun never went down, so she pulled the cord anyway. The staff takes Esme away, but Iris holds her hand tightly.