But she couldn’t ask Eric about the voices he had heard, if he’d heard any at all. His voice was lost to her now, and as Professor Prokop said, the universe will always have its secrets. But something about the science Prokop described resonated with Cady’s experience. The two voices she heard did sound as if they were from different eras in Harvard’s past—in their references, their music, their dated descriptions of her campus surroundings. It was like space-time folded over, the past layered on the present, echoes from another era.
Prokop didn’t believe it was possible. She said Eric’s research had become “ridiculous.” But maybe that was only because Eric never shared his best evidence with her, knowing how crazy he would sound. He wouldn’t risk losing the esteem of his crushworthy professor. Cady knew she was speculating wildly, but she also knew how fiercely Eric guarded his reputation around teachers he admired. She knew how much the esteem of his teachers mattered to Eric, and how much their pity crushed him. She had seen it firsthand last year.
Eric had surprised her by picking her up at school. It was the fall of her senior year, his junior year at Harvard, and he was home on Thanksgiving break. She remembered the way he looked leaning against the side of the blue Volkswagen, wearing rumpled plaid PJ pants and a cat-hair-covered fleece pullover.
“You didn’t have to dress up for me,” Cady said. She was making a joke of it, but Eric cared less and less about his personal appearance since he’d gotten sick, and she wasn’t thrilled for people to see him like this. But she supposed she should be happy that his disregard for other people’s opinions remained intact.
“I’m on vacation,” Eric said, walking toward her and away from the car.
“Where are you going? I’m supposed to get in the car, not you get out of it, that’s how this driving me home thing works.”
“I want to go in and say hi to some teachers.”
“Seriously? Come on, let’s just go.”
“I haven’t been back since graduation. You can come with me or wait in the car.”
Cady made a show of being annoyed, but of course she was going with him. She plucked cat hair off his fleece the entire way to the lobby.
As soon as they walked through the big glass double doors, Cady realized why Eric wanted to visit—he was given a hero’s welcome, not by the students, who were blasé about everything, but from the adults in the building. The office ladies popped out to give him a hug when they saw him through the glass, and every passing teacher stopped to say hello and make flattering small talk; they didn’t, or pretended not to, notice his schlubby appearance. Eric wasn’t the only Dixon Porter graduate to get into an Ivy League college, but there was something about him, his prodigious intellect mixed with boyish sweetness, that never failed to charm. People wanted good things for him.
In the past, watching Eric eat up the attention might have irritated the little sister in Cady, but he looked happier than he had in a while, certainly since his diagnosis last spring. These were the people who knew only a healthy and happy Eric, and around them he became so. Cady liked seeing him like this; it relaxed her.
Eric said he wanted to see Mr. Moore, his old physics teacher and track coach, a particular favorite. Cady currently had him for AP Physics. She had just that day received a B on her last test, practically failing for her, which both she and Mr. Moore knew. She didn’t want to see him today. As they walked into his classroom, she thought, Eric, you owe me for this.
“Hey, man! What a surprise, get over here.” Mr. Moore sprang up from his desk, arms outstretched, and gave Eric a bear hug. He kept himself in good shape for a man his age, but he always looked a little crazy in his trademark Hawaiian shirts and curly salt-and-pepper hair. “How the heck are ya? What’s new in Beantown?”
They talked a bit, Mr. Moore brought up an educators’ conference he was organizing later in the spring and asked Eric to be a student speaker. Eric said he would like that and would have would to get back to him. At the time, Cady remembered naively thinking—good, by next spring, he’ll be better.
“Cady tells me you’re working on some big project, how’s it going?”
“It’s going.”
“What’s the topic?”
Eric’s attention wandered to a small desk toy with five steel balls suspended between two racks. “What are these things called again?”
“Newton’s Cradle, because of the—”
“Conservation of energy, equal and opposite reactions.” Eric smirked. “I listened in class.”
“Sure did, best student I ever had,” Mr. Moore said, clapping a hand on Eric’s back. “So the project, it’s like a contest, right? The Bayer Award?”
“The Bauer.” Eric pulled back one of the metal balls and let it drop. The silver ball collided with the resting ones with a loud clack, causing the one on the other side to follow suit, instigating a tennis match of percussion.
Mr. Moore did his best to talk over the noise. “That’s it. I’ve actually heard of it before. It’s awesome that you’re going for it, man. We’re all rooting for you.”
“Thanks.” Eric wouldn’t make eye contact.
“So what’s it about?”
Instead of answering, Eric caught two balls on one end and released them so that the lineup clattered back and forth like galloping hooves.
Mr. Moore smiled and eyed Eric and Cady both, as though they were playing a joke on him. “What is it, top secret?”
“Eric,” Cady said under her breath, shooting him one of their mother’s Stop fidgeting glares. But he didn’t look up to catch it. He continued to tweak the silver balls to change the rhythm.
Mr. Moore lifted his eyebrows in mild annoyance. “Well, whatever it is, we’re all behind you. Dixon Porter High is very excited to see what you do.”
Just then, one of the balls snapped on Eric’s finger and he yanked his hand back, pulling the entire contraption off the desk and sending it crashing to the ground. Cady and Eric both quickly knelt to get it, nearly knocking their heads like the Newton’s Cradle balls, but Eric beat her to it. He picked up the toy with shaking hands. The strings were tangled and the corner was chipped.
“You okay, Eric?” Mr. Moore asked.
“I broke it.”
Mr. Moore took it from his hands. “Oh, don’t worry about it. But are you all right?” His eyes searched Eric’s face, which was now beet red.
“I’m sorry,” Eric said, backing away.
“It’s just a ding on the base, it’s not a big deal.”
“Sorry,” Eric repeated.
“Buddy, I teach sixty teenagers every day, you think you’re the first to break something?”
But Eric wasn’t listening. Without a word to either of them, Eric hurried out the door.
“Wait, Eric, don’t go,” Moore called after him, before turning to Cady in confusion. “Is he serious?”
Cady apologized quickly and darted out into the hall. She called Eric’s name, but he didn’t turn around. He was storming down the hall toward the exit. She had to jog to catch up to him. “What’s your deal?”
“I didn’t want to talk to him anymore.”
“So then you say, ‘Goodbye, Mr. Moore, nice talking to you.’ You don’t just leave. That was rude.”
“We have to get home.”
“I have to see him in class tomorrow, so it’d be nice if we didn’t burn bridges for no reason.”
Eric didn’t seem to be paying attention. Cady felt like a dog scampering at his heels as they crossed the driveway to the parking lot. She didn’t speak again until they got into the car.
“Eric, all I was saying is that I think you overreacted. You’re making this big thing out of it in your head, but it really was just a ding. He wasn’t mad at you, okay? He didn’t even care.”
“I care.”
“About a stupid science toy?” Cady looke
d down to plug her seat belt into the buckle. When she glanced back, she gasped.
Eric held on to the steering wheel with his arms locked, bracing himself against the surge of emotion now contorting his face. His chin and lips trembled and his eyes were squeezed shut, but when the tears came, every joint seemed to loosen as he slumped in the seat. Saliva bubbled at his lip as he sobbed through the words: “I don’t want him to know. I don’t want him to know about me, about the way I am now.”
Cady had never seen him break down like that. He kept so much in.
Cady roughly wiped a tear from her cheek and refocused on the present.
Yes, it was possible that Cady had no idea what she was talking about when it came to Eric’s symptoms or quantum physics. Much like it was possible that Eric was simply crowbarring scientific theory onto textbook symptoms of schizophrenia. But what if he had been right? What if they had found a way to tap in to another dimension?
They.
Now that she was hearing voices too, Cady needed to understand exactly what was going on with Eric that last year of his life. Her own life might depend on it.
There was another person who had been close to Eric, who had been there for him during his years at Harvard, even if he did skip the funeral. He was likely the only person on campus who had witnessed Eric’s day-to-day symptoms firsthand. And Cady couldn’t put off finding him any longer.
18
As soon as Matt Cho answered the door, Cady doubted her decision to come. Matt had been Eric’s best friend and roommate all three years, and as Cady had known him, he’d had a pleasant chubbiness to him, a mischievous smile, and an infectious laugh. Matt’s charm had been irresistible, and Cady had once thought Eric was lucky to have him as a sort of social Seeing Eye dog. Now he stood before her looking completely different. He’d lost a significant amount of weight; his polo shirt draped over his small shoulders and was tucked into his belted jeans. His eyes looked tired behind smudgy glasses. When he saw her, a flash of warmth and surprise passed over his face but evaporated just as quickly.
“Hey, Cady, wow. Good to see you.”
Cady said hello back and made the hasty decision to hug him, maybe because he looked as if he needed it. “How are you doing?”
Matt shrugged. “I heard you were on campus. I’m sorry I haven’t been by to say hello or anything. I’ve been meaning to, but …” he trailed off.
“Oh, gosh, don’t worry about it.” Cady shook her head. “I know senior year must be insanely busy.”
“I’m not technically a senior, because, you know, I took last spring off.” He pressed his lips together in a flat line and looked down.
Cady hadn’t known that he’d taken a semester off after Eric died.
“But anyway, yeah, this place is kind of always busy. So.” He made an effort to brighten his expression. “What’s up?”
She was reluctant to make Matt relive last year’s events but desperate for answers. Desperation won. “Can we talk?” Cady suggested Starbucks, but Matt nixed it. “I’ve cut out coffee, I haven’t been sleeping well.” Instead, he took her to Tealuxe, a small, cozy teahouse in Harvard Square. She could see how this place could soothe one’s nerves—the place was small but uncrowded, painted midnight blue and perfumed with the spicy-sweet scent of chai, and with only a few tables up front and a few more at the back, it felt quiet and private. Behind the counter was a giant apothecary cabinet with rows and rows of every possible tea variety; Cady let Matt choose.
“It seems I’m always fighting a cold, so let’s go with Echinacea.”
The man behind the counter had curly hair like a wilted plant. “I’m sorry, but we’re out of that. My co-worker dropped the whole bag today and spilled it.” He sniffed, and Cady noticed his septum piercing.
“What else is good for colds?”
“Chamomile and rose hips,” Cady blurted out.
“That’s right, actually, rose hip has a lot of vitamin C, most people don’t know that. Are you an herbalist?”
Cady shook her head. She had learned it from Bilhah that morning but instantly regretted sharing it.
“We put rose hips in our Throat Tender blend. Is that good?”
Matt agreed, and Cady insisted on paying. She was about to drop the spare change into the tip jar when she noticed that it was an actual funerary urn. glad we URNed your tip! read the sign. Cady pointed to it. “Morbid sense of humor.”
“Death is everywhere at this school. Plaques in memorial to this person or that, the colonial cemetery right across from Johnston Gate. Once you start to notice it you can’t stop,” Matt said, matter-of-factly. “You’re probably the only person I can say that to and not sound crazy, but it’s true. It’s everyone else who’s in denial.”
They sat at one of the small café tables in the back; its copper tabletop showed hundreds of tiny dings, dents, and scratches. Cady marveled that teacups left such scars, while the wounds that she and Matt had left no marks at all.
Cady poured him a cup of steaming amber tea. “Have you been okay this past year?”
“Have you?” He tilted his head. “The answer is, not really, but you’re the last person I’d complain to.”
“Well, you can. That’s part of why I wanted to talk to you. You’re the only one who gets it. Like you said, this place is different for us. I feel crazy to everyone else.”
He nodded. “I hear that. I mostly try to distract myself, sometimes it even works. I’m not very good at ‘self-care,’ ” he said with disdainful air quotes, “but I started going to Mem Church services. I don’t know if church is your thing, but it’s been good for me. I work a lot in the church student center downstairs; it’s new, so it’s like the one place I didn’t used to hang out with Eric, which gives me a break from remembering. I can actually think clearly there.”
Cady missed “thinking clearly.” Right now, all she could think of was how to broach the subject of Eric’s illness when Matt had just finished telling her he was trying to forget about it. She could hardly look at him, and she wondered if her pain was as obvious as his. In any case, she was losing her nerve. It was Matt who broke the silence again:
“I’m sorry I didn’t go to the funeral. It was a piece of shit thing to do, I feel terrible about it still.” He took a sip of his tea and Cady could see his hand was shaking. “I couldn’t face your family.”
“Matt,” Cady said softly, wishing she knew him well enough to reach out and touch him. She remembered that Matt had been out the night Eric had jumped; he had stayed in the library all night studying for an exam the next morning. When she searched for someone to blame, his name had certainly come to mind, but her anger then had been scattershot, and most of her recriminations boomeranged back on herself anyway. Looking at Matt now, she felt only compassion. Matt had been a friend to her brother when Eric was at his worst; Matt had been there when she and her parents weren’t. She had been disappointed in him when he skipped the funeral, but now she recognized it was an oversight that her family hadn’t checked in with him.
“I hope you know we don’t blame you for anything.” Then Cady heard herself say all the canned comfort phrases that she hated: “Eric had an illness. It’s not your fault, it’s nobody’s fault. It was Eric’s decision.”
“I should have been there.” Matt’s face and neck became red. “I knew things were bad, but things had been bad for so long, I guess I got used to it. I thought he would just coast like that. But I think all the time how things might’ve been different if I hadn’t stayed late at Cabot studying for a stupid test.”
“No, don’t do that. You couldn’t watch him every minute, that wasn’t your responsibility. And you could never have expected he would do what he did, none of us did.”
Matt took off his glasses and roughly wiped his eyes. “Even if I couldn’t have stopped him, I think, what if I’d been there to call the ambulance, what if they
’d gotten to him faster, what if something could’ve been done?”
“There was nothing. He died on impact.” Died on impact—she sounded like her mother. In the weeks after Eric’s death, her mother had become obsessed with the exact sequence of events following Eric’s fatal fall, hunting down every first responder and Harvard official involved. Her mother had talked herself, and Cady, and her father, through Eric’s final moments often. The grieving mind seems to fixate on certain details, and the knowledge that her son didn’t suffer in his last moment seemed to mitigate the knowledge that he suffered so badly in all the moments leading up to it. Cady, on the other hand, found little comfort in these details. They only armed her nightmares and imbued her imagination with the knife-sharp clarity of a memory. In her mind’s eye, she could conjure the image of his death as if she had seen it firsthand. Died on impact—the words were quick, but brutal and violent. Sometimes she wished he had taken pills, so that she could at least envision his face peaceful.
But maybe Matt was more like her mother. She continued, “Someone did call 911, we don’t know who, but someone did, and the ambulance came right away, but there was nothing anyone could do.”
“Really?”
Cady nodded.
Matt sniffed and blinked away the wetness in his puffy eyes. “I guess it was stupid to think that would make me feel better.” He took a slow sip of his tea before looking at Cady again. “Anyway, you don’t have to make me feel better. You want to talk about Eric, right?”
“Is that okay?”
Matt nodded.
Cady took a deep breath and tried to remember the questions she had rehearsed. “Eric experienced the worst of his schizophrenia symptoms here at school, and the times he did come home, I tried to give him a break from talking about it. But I feel like I don’t even know the version of my brother that killed himself, and it just feels … wrong. I want to know the truth about what was going on with him his last year here—what he was working on, what his illness was like. I was hoping you could help me fill in the blanks.”
Ghosts of Harvard Page 15
