59 pages • 1 hour read
What She Left Behind: A Haunting and Heartbreaking Story of 1920s Historical Fiction
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Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, self-harm, graphic violence, death, substance use, addiction, emotional abuse, physical abuse, ableism, gender discrimination, bullying, death by suicide, and child sexual abuse.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Isabelle”
In 1995, high-school senior Isabelle, who goes by Izzy, visits Willard State Asylum with her foster mother, Peg, who has access to the building as a museum curator. Being near an institution for those with mental illnesses reminds Izzy of her birth mother being admitted to Elmira Psychiatric Center. On the grounds, Izzy finds goslings that she thinks are dead but were only pretending to be. Izzy passes by Willard’s cemetery, main building, and patient wards. She is struck by the wire cages around fire escapes.
Peg tells Izzy about Willard’s first patient, Mary Rote, who arrived by boat in 1869. Over time, patients began to be treated poorly: Half of the residents died in the institution. Izzy reflects on how well Peg and her husband, Harry, treat her. She’s worried that her current living situation is “too good to be true” (6). Peg asks if Izzy is hot and offers to buy her short-sleeve shirts. Izzy says she prefers long-sleeved shirts and thinks about the scars from self-harm that the sleeves cover.
Patients from Elmira Psychiatric Center, which is nearby, are out for a walk. Izzy shares that her biological mother was admitted there. Peg apologizes for being unaware of this fact and offers to listen if Izzy ever wants to talk about her mother.
