Agnes Hahn Read Online Free PDF

with someone who can’t be trusted.”
    “Did Gert tell you that?”
    “No. That’s how I felt.”
    “Did you get mad at him for trying to touch you?”
    “I was disappointed. I thought he was one of the good ones.”
    “You didn’t want to hurt him for touching you?”
    Hurt him.
    Agnes glanced up into Dr. Leahy’s eyes and dropped her head, shaking it. “Hurting people doesn’t solve anything. It would’ve made me just as bad as him.”
    Dr. Leahy smiled and wrote on her pad. She flipped the page and continued writing.
    Now the pencil sounded like it was being drawn across sandpaper. And she held the pencil wrong—between her first and second fingers. Gert said that was the wrong way. Agnes pressed the tissue into a tight ball in her palm. Ask another question. Ask anything. Just stop writing.
    Dr. Leahy stopped writing. “Sorry. Can I talk about the rest of your family?”
    Yes. Yes.
    Agnes flinched. “Yes.”
    “Do you know much about them?”
    “Not a lot. I know Gert and Ella had another sister—my grandmother.”
    “You didn’t meet her?”
    “No. She lived in Illinois. Her name was Rachel Carrington.”
    “Lived? She’s not alive?”
    “Gert said she died before I was born.”
    A few more notes.
    The pencil looked dull. Maybe it wouldn’t make so much noise if she’d sharpen it. The lead barely extended from the wood.
    “How many children did she have?”
    “Who?”
    Dr. Leahy pulled her hand from the page. “Your grandmother.”
    “Just one. My mother.”
    “Why didn’t your mother raise you?”
    Agnes put her hands on her cheeks, resting her elbows on the table. The balled tissue pressed against her skin, and she could still feel its softness. “She died right after I was born. Gert said it was a hemorrhage.”
    “How do you feel about that?”
    “Sad. But Gert told me it wasn’t my fault. Mother gave me the ultimate gift.”
    “How about your father?”
    Agnes pulled her hands from her cheeks and shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know about him. Just what Gert told me. He divorced Mother when she became pregnant with me. He didn’t want kids. Mother came out here to live and changed her name back to Hahn so he couldn’t find her if he changed his mind.”
    “How does that make you feel?”
    “She was lucky to have family.”
    Dr. Leahy pursed her lips and then smiled. She wrote a few more notes. “I’d like to change topics again, if you don’t mind. Is that okay?”
    Silence.
    “Agnes, what makes you angry?”
    The pencil. It was like a scalpel now, dissecting her. Dissecting her past, her life. What was left of it.
    “Agnes?”
    “People who hurt animals.”
    “What do you want to do to them?”
    “Tell them off. Call the police.”
    “Do you want to hurt them for hurting the animals?”
    “No. I let the police handle it.”
    Dr. Leahy scribbled.
    Grab the damn pencil.
    Agnes’s hand twitched.
    “Were you angry when Gert died?”
    “No. Sad.”
    “Do you know how she died?”
    “The doctor said she had a stroke, but I think she gave up when Ella stopped recognizing her. And then Ella went into the home.”
    “How did you feel when Ella went away?”
    “I was sad then, too. But not as sad. The worse her memory got, the less she seemed to suffer. Her leg always hurt her. She felt pain in her leg, even though it wasn’t there. The doctor called them phantom pains. Some nights I’d sit up late rubbing her back to make her feel better.”
    “The police found pain medication in your house. Did you give it to Ella?”
    “Yes.” Agnes smoothed the tissue on the table again. A small rip stretched the center. She had always needed Gert, but toward the end, Ella needed her. “I had to hold back, though. She always wanted more than the doctor said to give her.” Her throat tightened.
    “How did that make you feel?”
    Agnes’s eyes watered. “I cried, but not in front of her. I wanted to take the pain away, but I was afraid the extra medicine would do