It was only then that they finally had a diagnosis.
Schizophrenia.
They couldn't give us the answers we wanted. Namely, why.
Family history was the most common.
But there wasn't even any slight anxiety or depression in our family, let alone crippling mental illnesses.
Then we got the uber unhelpful Sometimes it just happens.
And so it did.
Just happen.
To my brother.
By the time I came home for spring break that year, the boy living in my brother's body was not someone I could even recognize anymore. He mumbled to himself, curled into a ball and cried over things that weren't there, insisted something had happened that simply never did.
It didn't seem to matter how many medications they tried, nothing brought Michael back.
And, as time went on, his mind became a darker and darker place to live.
While he never struck out at my parents, he started hurting himself. Slamming his fists into his temples, ramming his head into the wall until he broke his nose, shattered his eye socket, gave himself concussions.
My mother had needed soon after his diagnosis to quit her job, become his full-time caregiver. But by the time he was seventeen himself, he was too big, too strong, too hard to keep from genuinely hurting himself.
They had made an impossible decision, one that created a crack in my mother's heart that never sealed over again.
They decided to place him.
For his own good.
For his safety.
All the while believing that as soon as the doctors found the right medications, they could bring him home again, care for him again.
He bounced from one facility to the next for years, inevitably being pulled because my parents objected to his treatment, the prison-like wings he was relegated to.
Then they had found Mayville.
The fee had been hefty, but my mother assured me that when she went back to work, it was all very doable.
And so I went along thinking it was, believing my parents wouldn't lie to me, that they would ask for help if they needed it, knowing I would be happy to give it to them, to find a way to help them make things work.
But they kept their troubles to themselves.
Until one day just two months ago, they were on their way home from bringing Michael some birthday presents, and an oversized pickup truck ran the red, plowing into their car head-on, killing them both on impact.
I had fallen to my knees at work when I had gotten the news, grief gripping my system in a way that made me sure I would never be able to feel anything good again.
I was in a plane the next day, knowing there was no one to make the arrangements, to talk to the hospital to inform them of what happened, to handle the liquidation of their house and assets.
It all fell on me.
I had a friend promise to pack and ship me my things, loaded up a suitcase, and headed back West.
Nothing struck me as off right at first, as I walked into a house I had grown up in, a house my parents would never step foot in again.
It took two days before I noticed that some things were off, different from the last time I had visited.
The giant flat screen in the living room was gone. The antique teapot collection that had been handed down through generations to my mother, meant someday to come to me, was missing. My mother's free-standing jewelry cabinet that had once been loaded down with fine jewelry for every birthday, anniversary, Valentine's Day for as far back as my parents had known each other was suddenly empty.
Heart in my throat, I made a call I knew was going to give me the news I had been dreading.
Their savings was gone.
They had double-mortgaged the house.
They were behind on all their bills.
There was nothing left.
I hung up the phone numbly, immediately reaching to dial another number, knowing, just knowing what was going to come of it.
The finance department at Mayville.
My parents were not only behind on all their bills, had to sell some of their prized possessions. Oh, no.
Michael was dangerously close to being kicked out of the only place my parents had deemed acceptable.
Promise me, Rosie, my mother had said on the phone one night. Promise me that if something ever happens to me or us that you will not let your brother go back to those other institutions.
I had made the promise, believing that while it was steep, it was doable.
But if they weren't even able to do it with a dual income and their investments, then I had no idea how I could come to keep that promise.
Fifty-thousand dollars.
That was what Mayville needed from me within the next three months. Or my brother would be escorted out, would be shipped to a state institution if I didn't come and get him.
As much as I wanted to be able to do it, to care for him, to be everything he needed, I knew that if my mother couldn't handle it - the devoted, stubborn, capable woman she was - then there was no way I could keep a full-time job to keep a roof over our heads and somehow also help save him from himself.
He had to stay somewhere that was equipped to handle his level of mental illness.
And after finding the folder my mother kept chronicling the abuse she believed Michael had suffered at all the other institutions, I knew I couldn't break my promise to her.
I had to keep him at Mayville.
Within a few days, I had found different healthcare grants set up by foundations for mental health that would help shoulder some of the financial burden going forward. And once I got myself settled, could find a second job that paid decently, I could pull off what was leftover.
But the problem remained.
There was a fifty-thousand-dollar bill due.
And if it wasn't paid, it didn't matter what miracles I could pull off that would allow him to stay in the future. He would be out.
"Heya Rosie," Stewart, a gentle giant of an orderly greeted me as I moved off onto the floor. He, like Lizzy, two floors below, had his own desk. But his job was more to make sure that none of the patients left the floor without being with someone and that no one came up who was not supposed to be here.
The third floor had ten rooms and an oversized common area that featured a large TV suspended up high enough that even if a patient stood on a chair, they could not touch, a seating area, card tables with pre-printed checkerboards on them, a reading nook complete with large tomes and children's books for some of the patients whose brains never matured beyond that point in their lives.
"Hey Stew. How have you been?" I asked as though I hadn't seen him just a few days before.
A few days.
Another thing I felt guilt about.
My mother visited every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. My father managed two lunches a week and both weekend days.
And here I was, letting days pass between him having visitors.
I would do better, I promised myself. Once I was settled fully. Once I had the debt paid off and had more free time to myself. I would make sure I never let more than a day go between visits.
I owed him that.
I owed my parents that.
"Maggie won her school spelling bee," he told me. I didn't know Maggie. I bet my parents knew all about his life, about the lives of everyone who lived here.
I would get there.
"That's fantastic. You must be so proud."
"She definitely didn't get that gene from me, but I am. I really am. Smart girl. Told me she wants to be a psychiatrist and work here someday. Can you imagine?"
"That would be nice, to be able to see her at work every day."
"Definitely. That is the dream. You here to see Mike?"
I felt myself wince a bit, knowing how strict my parents had been with our friends and everyone we ever met. His name was Michael. Not Mike.
But, I guess, they had been more lax with these people. Here in what they tho
ught of as the ideal place for my brother, they didn't care what they called him so long as they continued to care for him as they had been.
"Yep. How is he? Did he have dinner yet?"
"He didn't eat his peas."
"He never does," I said with a rare, genuine smile.
"Go on. Go see him. He's calm today."
"Thanks, Stew. Congrats again," I told him, hauling my purse back up on my shoulder, inwardly wondering what life would be like if all I had on my mind was a won spelling bee, a daughter who loved my profession enough to want to follow in my footsteps, but still do better.
No crippling debt.
No having sex for money to pay for it.
No webcam that would further invade my privacy and my life.
No.
I had to stop.
Those were thoughts for home.
I moved in front of Michael's open door - since all the doors were open - seeing the room much like all the others with the white walls, large, reinforced windows, the same metal bed, white nightstand, overhead lighting that turned off at nine p.m.
There were personal touches, though, too. Things my parents had brought in from his old room or new items they bought him. Two extra blankets draped the bottom of his bed since he complained of being cold. There were slippers peeking out of the bottom of the bed. A fluffy blue robe was on the back of the door. A stack of graphic novels was on his nightstand. I remembered my mom saying she refreshed them every month. I made a mental note to look around and see if I could find a second-hand store that carried them, knowing that every spare bit of money that came in now needed to go to keeping him here where he had found a home, leveled out a bit, made some friends who didn't judge him when he lost his grip on reality, when he raged at the monsters in his head, when he burrowed into his own mind for weeks following a bad episode.
This was the small smidgen of normalcy, of comfort in his tumultuous world.
I had to give it to him.
No matter what it took.
"Hey Michael," I said, finding him sitting in a chair in the corner, watching the birds out the window around the feeder flit around.
His gaze shifted to me, his eyes our mother's in a face unmistakably our father's, so much like the two of them that my heart cracked a bit at seeing it. "How have you been?"
"My head hurts," he grumbled with a sigh.
He had a black eye too.
"Did you fall?" I asked, not wanting to ask what I really wanted to know. Did you hallucinate and bang your head against a wall?
"I guess," he said, eyes slipping away, no more wanting to talk about the truth than I was. And I couldn't help but wonder if my mother would have asked the hard questions, demanded the uncomfortable answers.
I felt so out of my depths about everything in my life. Adjusting to being back on this coast, not sweating through my clothes, finding ways around to avoid the ever-present traffic, figuring out how to furnish my apartment with no money, how to pay these bills, how to emotionally handle sex without emotions, how to overcome the lifelong conditioning against taking money for sex, and, of course, how to handle a very unwell brother.
I was floundering around in the deep end when I still desperately needed water wings and a tube belt.
"I was thinking of picking you up some new graphic novels the next time I stop by. Do you have any preferences?"
"No more demon hunters," he specified.
"No demon hunters. Got it. How have you been?"
"Alright," he said, but avoided eye-contact.
"Michael, really?" I asked, not wanting to pry but also not believing him.
"I miss Mom," he admitted, voice still hollow.
"God, me too," I told him, having to press my eyes tightly together to fend off the tears.
"You barely saw her," he told me, tone accusing.
Another knife to my gut.
Before they passed, I hadn't seen my parents in six months. I spoke to my mom at least once a week, my father half that amount. I had always thought it was normal, healthy to grow in new directions as I got older. But now? Now I wished I had called every day, had made more trips in their direction. I would give anything for one more of my mom's hugs, one more late night conversation with my father at the kitchen table about life.
"I know you saw her a lot more than I did," I told him.
"Dad too."
"Dad too," I agreed, moving over toward the window, feeling so unsure of what I was supposed to be doing. I always felt like I did everything wrong when I was with Michael, like I never knew what to say. We'd been so distant even before his diagnosis. And now it felt like walking on eggshells, not wanting to upset him, not really knowing what even made him upset. "So what do you usually do around this time?" I asked, taking a steadying breath, knowing we would figure this out. We were all we had left. We would make it past the learning curve. I'd be an old hand at this in no time.
"Watch some TV."
"Can I watch with you?" I asked as he moved to stand.
"Sure."
It wasn't exactly enthusiasm, but as we watched a couple reruns, laughing at the same time, snorting at the commercials, it was the closest it had felt to having a brother in a long time. Maybe I wasn't being exactly what my mother and father had been for him, but I was there, I was trying. That had to mean something to him too.
"I'll be back the day after tomorrow," I promised him. "With no demon hunters," I added, giving him a small smile before walking out.
"You'll get there," Stew assured me as I walked out, giving me an encouraging nod.
"Thanks. I needed to hear that," I told him.
Home, fed, it felt like the walls were closing in on me, crushing me. My mind that used to be a somewhat easy-going place, felt full of landmines and quicksand with nowhere safe to step.
My gaze shifted across my room, landing on the computer.
Part of what pulled me across the room was the money, knowing that if I could be making it, I should be. But, if I were being completely honest, it was something else too.
The crippling loneliness.
The overwhelming need for connection.
Even with a stranger who only saw me as an object.
Just something, anything.
Eyes that saw me at all, really.
I moved across the room, powering up the computer, logging into the database. I put on some music as I waited, unsure if anyone would want to talk to me, knew who I was, who would even care if they did.
It was a good half an hour of playing Mahjong later when a bleep from my speakers made me jump.
I clicked off the game screen to see a little yellow block face in the side of my Golden Age portal that hadn't been there before.
GAPPR.
Weird screen name.
"Are you there?" was written at the side beside his block face.
My hands paused then typed out a simple, "Yes."
I was probably supposed to be sexy. Was likely supposed to flick on the camera immediately.
"How are you?"
I felt my brows furrow a bit, surprised it wasn't the somewhat expected Show me your tits, or something equally as sexual.
"Honestly? Had a rough day. How about you?"
"Rough week," GAPPR responded.
"Anything you want to talk about?" I asked, remembering once how a prostitute on TV said they were everything to these men - mothers, wives, girlfriends, therapists. That some of the guys had an orgasm, and then wanted to talk for an hour about their stressful merger at work.
There was a pause before the little dot-dot-dot appeared, letting me know he was typing.
"I have a... friend," he started. "I just found out he's kind of on a downward spiral. And he's been hurting some other people."
"You sound angry," I mused.
"You could say that."
"Because he's hurting others?"
"Yes."
"But he's hurting himself as well."
"Being in pain doesn't excuse expos
ing someone else to it."
"No. But sometimes we get so lost in our own heads that we can't see that, don't even realize we really are hurting others. Maybe a little compassion is what your friend needs right now. We all make mistakes. And need someone to understand sometimes."
"As far as I know, no damage was actually done. But he could have done real damage. Life-changing damage."
"I imagine that is something he would genuinely feel bad about if he was in a better place himself. Helping him get to that place is probably the best thing you can do for him."
"That's probably true," GAPPR agreed. "So what about your day?"
"Oh, you don't really want to hear about that."
"Try me."
Suddenly, I wish I had been given more information on what I was and was not supposed to do - or say to - these men. I knew the obvious - not giving them any personal details they could use to track me down with. But aside from that, I had no idea what was or wasn't normal.
But then again, if this man wanted to pay good money to simply talk to me about my hard day - and I really needed someone to talk to - then what was the harm, really, right?
"I am suddenly in charge of someone who needs a lot of care. And I feel like everything I am doing is wrong."
"I'm sure you are doing your best."
"I'm trying," I admitted. "It's just... new. I need some time to learn the ropes, I guess. It's been an adjustment since I moved back to California."
Crap.
Was that too much information?
No, it couldn't have been.
Golden Age Productions was stationed in California. If I was in films, I had to be in the state.
"Did you move back recently?"
"Just a few weeks ago."
"Can I ask where from?"
"New York," I supplied, figuring about a zillion people moved from one coast to the other each year.
"That sounds like a major adjustment."
"I never thought I would miss the constant honk of cab horns, but it turns out I have trouble sleeping without it."
"What was your favorite place in the city?"
"Have you been?" I asked while I thought on my answer.
"Yeah. Several times. I traveled a lot in the past. I like the city. But I don't know if I could ever live there."
"The weather or the people?" I asked.
"Both," he told me and, oddly, I felt like I could interpret a little smile in the word. Which was ridiculous, of course. But I was happy to imagine it anyway. "You didn't answer my question," he reminded me.
faire l'amour Page 11
