“Sure.”
I move to open the door, but she reaches out her hand to stop me, and then lets it rest on my arm. I can’t meet her eyes. “I’m here, Zoe. You’re not alone in this.”
It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s wrong. She has no idea how alone I am.
She sighs, knowing I’m not going to let her any closer. “Call anytime. I’ll be here with a burrito in ten minutes flat.”
That gets a slight grin out of me. “Thanks, Ells.”
I head up to the waiting room on my mom’s floor, and check in with the nurses’ station. The girl there wasn’t on shift this morning. She gives me a friendly smile and tells me that my mom is sleeping and seems more comfortable. Slightly relieved, I find a chair to wait for my uncle.
He walks in ten minutes later, almost exactly two hours from when we’d hung up. I recognize him immediately, even though I haven’t seen him in nearly a decade. He looks older, much more tired and frail than I remember, with a healthy dose of gray in his mousey brown hair. My mom’s hair.
“Zoe.” I stand, not sure how to greet him after all this time. Part of me wants to hug him. I have a strange urge to be swept up in his arms, to have him swing me onto his shoulders and run around the way he used to when I was little. I had loved Uncle Peter in those days, idolized him. His leaving had been the worst kind of betrayal.
“Hi,” I say, my voice tight. He just stares at me for a long moment, studying my face. He makes a motion as if he’s going to reach for me, but I step out of the way. “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course.” He’s still watching my face. Finally, he squares his shoulders, and looks at the nurses’ station on the other side of the glass doors. “I guess we should go and talk to the doctor.”
We’re back in the same office I’d been in that morning with the same doctor. I catch her name this time when she introduces herself to Uncle Peter—Dr. Romana. She takes my uncle through the events of the day.
I should concentrate on what’s she saying, but I’m so tired. The stress of the day and the pain of walking away from Taylor has my head spinning. Phrases—scary, incomprehensible phrases—like “schizoaffective disorder,” “hypersomnia,” “hallucination,” and “suicidal episode” crowd my mind, overwhelming me.
Peter swears softly under his breath. “What kind of treatment has she been getting the last few years, Zoe?”
I realize that they’re both looking at me, and I shift in my seat. “I’m not sure. Jerry took her to her appointments…maybe once a month?”
“I have her medical files here,” Dr. Romana says, and there’s derision in her voice. “She’s been mistreated and misdiagnosed for several years now.”
I sit up straighter. “What do you mean?”
“She hasn’t even been in the care of a psychiatrist,” she explains. “Not in some time.”
I sputter. “But…but, she had medicine! I made sure she took it every day!”
“It seems that she was seeing a general practitioner who prescribed a low dose of benzodiazepine.”
Peter swears again.
I look between him and the doctor. “I don’t understand.”
“She was on Valium, Zoe,” Dr. Romana says. “Typically used to deal with depression and anxiety.”
“So?”
“So your mother’s condition is much more serious than that. She requires, at a minimum, antipsychotic drugs. She hasn’t been on them.”
“That man,” Peter mutters. “I could kill him.”
I feel like the room is spinning. I had no idea, this whole time…
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and tears come to my eyes. “I never…I didn’t know.”
“It’s not your fault,” Peter says, his voice fierce. “You’re only twenty-two, for God’s sake. This should never have been your responsibility.”
I know that doesn’t excuse me though. I never asked about her doctor, about her medication. I didn’t even know what her diagnosis was. I’d been living in a little bubble of denial, thinking I could only handle picking up the pieces, minimizing the damage. I never wanted to know more, to take a greater responsibility, and it had almost killed my mother.
The doctor and Peter continue talking for a few minutes, but I block them out, overwhelmed by the enormity of my mistakes. I’d sacrificed so much to make sure she was okay, tried so hard to help her and be there for her. And never, in all that time, had I actually done a single thing that could really help her. I couldn’t believe how stupid, how irresponsible I’d been.
“Zoe?”
I jump a little, then realize that they’re both watching me again. “Sorry.” What else is there to say?
“I asked if you were hungry,” Peter says. “We’re done here.”
I’m too horrified to be hungry, but I follow him down to the cafeteria anyhow. He probably hasn’t eaten in hours—I’d called right around dinnertime.
He buys us each a sandwich, and we find a table near the floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s very dark outside, no moon in the sky. We’re both quiet for several minutes as he eats and I pick at my sandwich.
“I’m sorry, Zoe,” he finally says, setting down his food. “I should have checked on her more.”
I stare at him. Check on her more? When had he ever checked on her? I’m about to ask when he continues.
“She made it hard, you know? She wanted nothing to do with me, wouldn’t even take my calls.”
Wait. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t the way I remembered it, not at all.
He’s watching my face again. “Zoe…” He trails off. “What do you remember about me from the last few years?”
“The last few years? I haven’t seen you since I was thirteen.”
I push back from the table a little bit, and rub my hands on my shorts. He’s confusing me, upsetting me, and I’m way too tired and overwhelmed to deal with this.
“And what do you remember from when you were thirteen? What do you think happened?”
“I know what happened,” I snap. “You took off. Said you’d had enough of both of us, that we were too needy and demanding and you were done. And then I never heard from you again.”
There’s a lump in my throat. I’m angry at him, and I miss him all at the same time. His leaving had been one of the worst things I’d ever gone through—at least until my seventeenth birthday.
Across the table, Peter is shaking his head sadly. “No, Zoe. That’s not true. Is that what she told you?”
I stare at him. What the hell is he talking about?
“Zoe, this is not the first time something like this has happened with your mom.”
“I know that. When I was seventeen…”
He’s shaking his head again. “No, Zoe. Before that. Long before that. She’s been sick since she was a teenager.”
“What?”
“The initial onset of her schizophrenia was at seventeen.”
“Wait…what are you saying?”
“She was in and out of hospitals for years. The medicines weren’t nearly so good back then, but they did get better. Sometimes we were able to control it really well.” He’s not looking at me anymore, his gaze fixed on the window. “Our parents died when she was a kid, you know? I was ten years older, and I took responsibility for her. I tried, Zoe, I really did. But I had no idea what I was in for.”
“So you just left? Things got too tough for you?”
“No.” There’s a little bit of anger in his voice now. “That’s not what happened. She wouldn’t let me see you anymore. She refused to let me in the house. I tried, Zoe. She turned on me—I don’t know why. It was probably her paranoia. She became convinced I was going to hurt her, or take you away.” He exhales heavily. “In the end, I tried to do just that. I went to court to get custody of you.”
My mouth drops open. “What?”
“It’s true. I knew she couldn’t take care of you. She’d had so many episodes since you were born, but she refused hospitalization because she didn’t wan
t to leave you.”
I hold up my hands. None of this makes sense. “She didn’t have episodes when I was a kid. I mean, she was sad sometimes. I remember her crying. But nothing bad. That didn’t come until later.” I have another flash of that horrible birthday and my stomach turns. “I think I would know.”
He’s smiling sadly. “Don’t you remember staying with me? All those sleepovers?”
“Well…yeah.”
“Those weren’t just sleepovers, Zoe. You used to live with me. Quite a lot. When things got to be too much for her.”
I realize that he’s right. It wasn’t just a day or two at a time. I remember him taking me to school, helping me with homework. He wouldn’t have done that if they were just weekend sleepovers.
“But…I would have remembered a court case.”
“Not if she didn’t want you to know. She was pretty good at hiding stuff.”
I’m completely baffled by these revelations. “What happened? If she was as bad as you say…”
“She convinced the judge she had it under control. It helped her case when she got married. Now there was another responsible parental figure in the house.” He sneers.
“Jerry?”
His face twists up even more at the sound of his name. “The one and only. He’s the reason we started fighting in the first place. I knew he was bad for her, knew he was exactly the wrong sort of influence on her. When I told her that, she started to think I was against her.”
“And then you lost the case.”
“It was a mistake, I can see that now. It convinced her she was right about me, that her paranoia was justified. I had tried to take you away. She cut me off completely after that.”
“And you moved away.” It still hurts that he left. Wouldn’t it have been better to stay in town? Even if she wouldn’t talk to him, he could still have kept an eye on things.
“I was transferred,” he says. “I needed to keep my job, Zoe. I was sure Jerry wouldn’t stick around, sure the two of you would become my responsibility again. I needed that job, needed the benefits.” He shakes his head. “I was naive, I admit. There’s a hospital five miles from my house. A great place, top of the line. I was sure before the end of the year the two of you would be with me, that maybe I could convince your mom to get admitted.”
“She did okay, though.” I’m not sure why I feel the need to defend her. “I never even knew there was a problem for years.”
“She was getting proper help back then. The judge demanded it, and I made sure of it—my lawyers were always making inquiries. The fact that they were sniffing around scared her enough to keep up with her treatment.”
“Did you…did you ever try to call us? To visit?”
His face softens. “All the time, Zoe. Sometimes she would talk to me, let me know how you were. Other times she would panic, scream that I was part of a conspiracy to kidnap you.” He winces. “That was the paranoia. Then she started moving you so much.”
I remember the first time we moved, when I was fourteen. I had cried for days, leaving the home of my childhood. I’d been so happy there. More like in denial.
“I can’t believe I never knew any of this.” I rub my arms. “I failed her so much.”
“No, you didn’t. Don’t talk like that. If anyone failed her, it was me.”
We both stare at the table for a moment, silent.
I finally clear my throat. “Do you know…do you know what happened? Five years ago?”
His face is so full of sadness and pity that it makes my chest hurt. “I came to the hospital. You were sleeping in the waiting room. Curled up in a ball in one of those terrible chairs. It was the first time I had seen you in so long…” His voice trails off for a moment before strengthening. “She refused to see me. Demanded that I leave. I said no way in hell, of course. Then that bastard”—he grimaces again—“Jerry. He told me to get lost, that this wasn’t my family anymore. Things got heated. Security removed me from the hospital.”
“I don’t remember any of that.”
“My biggest regret was going to her room before I tried to talk to you. I should have woken you up, made sure you understood what was happening. Made sure you knew you could call me, no matter what she was telling you…”
My chest aches. What would the past five years have been like if I had known, if I hadn’t been all alone?
“You should get some sleep, kid,” he says suddenly. “You look dead on your feet.”
“Where will you stay?”
“Here for tonight. I’ll check into a hotel tomorrow.”
“I should stay too.”
He shakes his head. “Nope. You go get some rest. I’ve got this.”
It’s strange, the way those words make me feel. It’s just an expression, a throwaway line. I’ve got this. But somehow it’s more than that. It feels like the weight is lifting from my shoulders. Like the heaviness of the guilt and the fear I’ve been carrying for the past five years has suddenly slipped away, at least a little bit.
I’ve got this.
He insists I take his car back to the house for the night. I climb into bed, sure the things I’ve learned tonight will chase their way through my brain, keeping me up. But they don’t. For once I fall asleep straight away, knowing the responsibility, at least for now, belongs to someone else.
Chapter Twenty-five
Taylor
I spend the next several days flat-out drunk. I drink like I’m trying to make up for all the time I spent sober with Zoe. Come to think of it, maybe that’s exactly what I am trying to do. Fred is almost always there, following me from house party to house party, from bar to bar. I know he’s worried about me, know he thinks I’m taking it too far. I don’t give a shit.
This is it, man. This is my life. I was stupid to think it could be different, stupid to think I might be worthy of the kind of happiness Zoe brought me. I should have known better. My mom has been reminding me every chance she got for the past five years, and it’s about time I listen—you’re worthless. You broke my heart. You let your brother down. It’s your fault. Your fault. Your fault.
That’s the mantra I hear as I pound whiskey night after night, wherever I can get it.
“Think you’re gonna let up anytime soon?” Fred asks me. We’re sitting in the basement at Preston’s house, on the very spot where I first talked to Zoe, five days after she walked out of my life for good. Or is it six days? I’m having trouble keeping track.
“Nope.”
“Dude, you haven’t been to work all week.”
“Oops.” I take another sip from the bottle.
“You do realize where we are, don’t you? Preston’s house. The place you vowed never to set foot in again.”
I raise my hands as if to say, “Oh, well.” I don’t like it much, but it’s the only party in town tonight. Where the hell else am I going to get booze without paying for it? Besides, being in this place, the place where I first met Zoe, the place where I very nearly couldn’t save her, fills me with just the right kind of pain. The searing, burning kind that I figure I very much deserve.
Fred sighs. “It’s getting old.”
“Hey.” I shove him, hard, tipping him sideways. “No one said you had to be here, dude. No one fucking invited you.”
He straightens up on the couch. “I know, man. I know.”
I decide it’s best to ignore him and return to my bottle. Then I see Ellie across the room. I couldn’t miss that black hair with the blue streaks if I tried. I yell over to her.
When she sees me, her face tightens. Her eyes flick to Fred, then back to me, before she crosses the room toward us.
“Hey, guys.”
“Hey, Ellie.” I sneer, and then laugh at the sound of my voice.
“You’re pretty hammered there, Taylor. Don’t you think you should cool it?”
“You’re one to talk. Little Miss Virtuous.”
“Don’t be a dick, dude,” Fred says, his voice close to my ear. “She didn�
�t do anything to you.”
I wipe the sneer from my face. He’s right and Zoe would be pissed at me if she knew I was giving her friend a hard time. “Sorry,” I say, trying to keep my voice from slurring. “Just wanted to say ‘hi.’”
She crosses her arms. “She wouldn’t like this, Taylor. You drinking this much. It would upset her.”
“Yeah? Well she’s not here, is she?”
Ellie’s eyes narrow. “She’s having a pretty shitty time, you know? Please don’t make it worse by doing something stupid.” Then she turns on her heel and strides away.
“Give me a minute,” Fred says, and jumps up to follow her. “I’ll be right back.”
I snort. Could have guessed that’s how that would turn out. He’d had a thing for her since the day they met. I wonder if she’ll stomp on his heart too, the way her best friend stomped on mine.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
I look up and see Preston lumbering toward me, clearly just as wasted as I am. That old rage returns, that urge to pound on him until he can’t stand. But the whiskey has made me heavy, tired, so I just blink at him instead.
“I’m drinking,” I say, lifting the bottle.
To my surprise, he joins me on the couch. “I’m sorry, man. Really. I was out of line.” He rubs at the fading outline of a black eye, and a little thrill of satisfaction breaks through the torpor of the booze.
When I don’t respond to his apology, he points down at the bottle. “I heard you gave that stuff up.”
“Life’s too short.”
He chuckles. “You got that right.”
We lapse into silence as I work on my bottle. I’m getting close to the bottom. I try to remember how full it was when I picked it up, but I can’t—a pretty good sign that it was pretty damn full.
“You’re spiraling, dude,” Preston says. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong, dude. Life sucks.”
He watches my face, maybe trying to figure out if I’m serious. “You thinking about your brother?”
The urge to hit him returns. “Well, I am now.”
“Sorry, man.”
I have to take two more long pulls of Jack before I can quell the desire to punch him.
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