‘I need you to promise me something, Jay . . .’
‘Sure.’ I was thirty then, still in med school. Kathy and I weren’t even married yet.
‘I need you to promise me you’ll take care of him. Whatever happens to me, okay? I need to know Evan’ll be safe.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen to you, Charlie. Of course he’ll be safe . . .’
‘No.’ There was something dark and brooding in his eyes, a storm massing. ‘I need you to promise me, Jay, that whatever happens, you’ll be there for him.’
I said, ‘Of course I’ll be there, Charlie.’ I met his worried eyes. ‘You have my word.’
He smiled, relieved. ‘I knew I could count on you, buddy. I just hope –’
Someone moved behind us on the line and he never finished. But now, all these years later, I thought I knew what he was about to say.
I only hope he doesn’t have what I have.
My son. The demons in his brain.
I only pray his path is easier.
He’d asked me, not Dad. And sitting under his carport, I couldn’t help but wonder: If it had all somehow worked out, back in that stupid salon . . .
If they had lived in a place without cracks in the walls, doing something . . . If their boy could have grown up proud, instead of filled with shame and anger . . .
Would his fate have been different or the same?
Even if the demons had found him, would my nephew still be alive?
Chapter 5
I went around the side through a brown, patchy courtyard, past a broken plastic kiddie car on its side. I stopped outside apartment two, wincing at what smelled like dog urine. Lurid, brightly colored graffiti spread all over the asphalt wall.
I knocked on the door.
After a short while I saw the curtains part, and the door opened. Gabriella appeared in a blue terry robe. She was normally a pretty woman with short blonde hair, a nice shape, and a deep, throaty laugh, but now her cheeks were sunken and pale, her eyes raw from tears, her hair matted and unkempt. As she let me in she kind of turned away, almost unable to face me. ‘I’m sorry that you have to see me this way, Jay . . .’
‘It’s okay, Gabby, it’s okay,’ I said. We hugged, and I felt her latch on to me. It always made me feel a bit awkward, her gratitude for me for how we helped them get by. ‘I’m so sorry, Gabriella.’
‘Oh, you don’t know what it’s like,’ she moaned, anguish etched into the lines around her eyes. ‘I never thought I would ever feel something as difficult as this. Never to see my son again. My heart breaks, Jay . . .’
‘I know.’ I kept hugging her. ‘I know.’
‘Your brother is not so good.’ She pulled away, brushing the hair out of her eyes. ‘I don’t know how he’s going to make it, Jay. You’ll see for yourself. He’s old now, and Evan was all we had. I’m glad you’re here.’
She led me inside. The place was small. Still, it was neat and tastefully decorated, with floral pillows and pictures of her family in Colombia and even some water-colors done by Charlie’s mother.
I heard a familiar voice on the stairs utter quietly, ‘Hi, Jay.’
My brother came down. He looked grayer, older, hunched a little in the shoulders, a shadow of what I last recalled. His beard was flecked with gray now, his hair straggly and wild. Charlie always had a twinkle in his eyes and an irresistible, wiry grin. It was what always captivated the girls. But nothing seemed to be there now. He wore a pair of ragged sweatpants and a brown flannel shirt. He forced a smile. ‘I’m glad you came, little brother . . .’
‘Of course I came, Charlie.’
‘C’mere . . .’ He got to the bottom of the stairs and we hugged. I was surprised how natural it felt. Hugs weren’t exactly the norm in our relationship. He placed his face on my shoulder and started to weep. ‘We’re sunk, Jay. It’s gone for us. I can’t believe Evan is dead.’
‘I know. I know . . .’ I said, squeezing him back and patting his shoulder.
‘We failed him, Jay. He was a good kid, in spite of everything. We didn’t do right by him.’
‘You did your best, Charlie. He wasn’t an easy kid.’
We all sat down at the small table in the kitchen. Gabriella poured out some coffee. She laid out the long line of medications he was taking: trazodone, Caduet, felodipine, Quapro, Klonopin. Sedatives, blood pressure controllers, mood stabilizers. I didn’t really know much about what had happened. Only that Evan had jumped off a rock, but not how he had gotten there or why.
‘Can you talk?’ I asked him.
Charlie nodded, cupping a few of his pills in his hands and knocking them back. Dully, he looked up at me like, What is there to say?
I said, ‘Then tell me what happened.’
Chapter 6
‘We always took care of our son.’ my brother began. He peeled an orange and put it on a small plate in front of him. ‘No matter what anyone can say, we tried to do our best. We always kept him safe.’
‘I know that, Charlie,’ I said, squeezing his arm.
He put down the fruit. Tears shone in his dark eyes. He shook his head. ‘I just don’t know how he could do that to us . . .’
Gabriella got up and wrapped her arm around him from behind. She picked up for him. ‘Ten days ago . . . You know for a long time, Jay, our son had been acting really crazy . . .’
Of course I knew. Sitting around in a silent state all day in the house, no job, no school. Usually off his medications.
‘Well, he’d gotten worse. He was off his meds. We no longer knew how to handle him. He would just sit there – on that couch – for twenty-four hours straight. Not a single word – just staring. Into space.
‘Just a few weeks back we heard noises in the middle of the night, and we came down. He was just sitting there, talking’ – Gabby pointed to what looked like a wood-burning heater in the corner – ‘to the furnace, Jay. My son was talking to the furnace! He told me, “I hear voices in there, Mommy . . .” I said to him, “Evan, you have to let us help you . . .” We didn’t know what to do.’
‘He was always so angry at us,’ Charlie said. ‘He wouldn’t take his pills. He would just hurl them at us. Then he’d just smile, coyly. I couldn’t fight him anymore. It was like he was torturing us, trying to make us suffer along with him.’
‘Two weeks ago’ – Gabby took a breath to steady herself – ‘we found something . . .’
I took a sip of my coffee. ‘What?’
‘This
