“Why are we doing this, Monique?”
6. PRESENT DAY – JENNY’S RESIDENCE
The old, beat-up red journal lay on the table in front of Jenny. She dared not touch it for fear of what it meant. She held her hands motionless, inches from the journal, as if an invisible force field was preventing her from touching it. As she stared at the journal, so many questions and thoughts exploded in her head. Daddy would never let me have this unless he was...She shut her eyes tight before she could complete the thought.
When she opened her eyes, she saw a white envelope neatly tucked under the elastic that bound the journal. Jenny slowly slid it out from under the elastic with great trepidation, as if she was defusing a ticking time bomb. Once released from the elastic, she slowly brought the envelope to her face and sniffed it as if she could smell whether it contained heartbreaking news or not. With a steady intake of breath, she detected nothing, but then suddenly tossed it upon the table as if the envelope had given her an electric shock. She was not ready to read it.
Jenny then became aware of the song that was playing. A ballad she was to sing today at the audition—“The Look of Love.” It was right at the point when Diana Krall was about to go on her jazzy piano solo riff and repeat, “Don’t ever go, I love you so.” Just as the trumpets came in, Jenny whispered a defiant little “no!” and then snatched up the envelope and ripped it open. Immediately, she recognized her father’s very poor handwriting.
Hi Little Rock,
I hope this day finds you with reasons to sing out loud! I’m sorry we haven’t talked in a while...Sorry...Ever since this all happened, I haven’t really felt like talking to anybody...Anyway, here is my journal...doesn’t seem to be any reason for hanging on to it any longer. Sorry about some of the pages being taped up...I got upset...Sorry...Your mom saved it and taped it up...and she told me that I had always promised you, that someday it was going to be yours...So sorry for the shape...but here it is!
Open arms of all that is...
Daddy
All Jenny could focus on was how many times her dad wrote the word “sorry”. Five times! Before the accident, her father had a way of always spinning a positive out of every situation. Words like, “I’m sorry,” and “I don’t know,” were foreign to her father. He had always taught Jenny that repeating such words was just another way of saying you won’t or can’t do something. People mainly used these terms to disguise the fact that they refused to do something or were unable to change something, or maybe had given up, he always said.
Over the last six months, her father had become a different man. And after his last surgery, her father avoided almost anything that remotely resembled a conversation. Whenever she called home with any news, he would always say, “Tell your mother, she’ll tell me later.” Now, with all these apologizing words, she wondered if he had maybe simply given up.
Suddenly, she jumped. “Oh my God!” she said aloud. She had just remembered her mother calling her late the previous week, complaining that her father had bought a gun. “Why a gun?” she had asked her mom, almost laughing as she thought it was just her mom’s way of making a point.
“No, Jenny, a gun, he bought a real gun!” her mom said as serious as she had ever heard her. “Daddy says we need it because he can’t protect us now.”
“Really, Mom? I can’t believe it! A gun?”
“Yeah, I asked him if he was so worried about protecting us, why did he leave us alone so many times to climb those...those mountains?”
For the past ten years, Jenny had heard her mother complain numerous times of how her father left them alone for almost two months out of every year. And as Jenny grew older, she witnessed a great tension between her parents each time her father came home from a climb. It took her mother weeks before she could connect and feel warm and loving to her father again.
“Mom, you shouldn’t have said that.”
“I know Jen, but it’s almost like he’s—oh, I don’t know, honey...I just don’t know anymore with Daddy. Look, Jenny, please come home for a visit soon. We need to see you. He needs to see you. Please, baby?”
Jenny hadn’t been home for months; it was so busy at school and she was singing five nights a week. Also, she had just started a relationship with a fellow piano teacher named Kyle Le, a young man whose parents had emigrated from Vietnam in the late seventies. Jenny had always shared everything with her parents but now, because of her father’s depressive behaviour, she tended to downplay all her good news. She hadn’t even told her mother about Kyle and how happy and deeply in love she was with him.
“Yes, Mom, as soon as I can, but I’d—”
Her mother, who had called from work, had to take another call and so they said a quick goodbye. “Sorry, honey, we’ll talk later. I have to go. Love you. Bye!”
Jenny sat there trying to piece together if there was any more to that conversation with her mom that she might have missed. She soon started feeling a little short of breath. Why did Dad send this journal today—the day of his big talk? Why give me this journal: he wouldn’t even let me read it, always saying that this journal would be my inheritance? Each time they spoke, her mom would tell Jenny how much he was changing. But now it seemed he wasn’t changing anymore—he had changed! And, today, the words “sorry” in the letter, the gun he bought...Her breathing was getting quicker with each thought. Jenny put her hands on her chest and tried to take in a big breath. She dropped the letter to the floor and picked up her phone.
7. 14 WEEKS AGO – SEEMA’S OFFICE
“My wife and my daughter came to Kathmandu two days after it happened.”
Seema looked at Robert waiting for him to continue.
“Well, isn’t that what you wanted to know? That’s when they first saw what happened to me.”
Seema waited a moment and looked back into the file. She searched for some information then looked up at Robert. “I was actually asking about the surgery. The surgery was not done in Kathmandu, was it?”
Robert shook his head in annoyance. “No, and it was ‘surgeries’. Eight, I think it was. And I thought you wanted to know when they first saw me after it happened.”
Seema looked back into the file. “Mr. Sanchez, I have only five surgeries and—”
Robert snapped, “—Eight, five, does it matter? They had enough tries at it, didn’t they? And look what happened?” Robert pointed at his legs. His right leg was amputated above the knee and the left leg was in a large white cast with metal bars protruding from it. Seema looked at Robert’s legs and nodded her head sympathetically.
“And how did that make you feel?”
“Make me feel?” Robert stared at Seema with an intense, burning anger.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean the question to sound trite or uncaring, Robert. I was just wondering how it made you feel facing so many medical decisions. Did you trust that these decisions were still yours to make?”
“Mine to make? Do you know how many doctors have—No. Stop it! Why are we talking about this anyway? Who cares who decides?”
“Well, it is important that you feel you’re still in control of—”
Robert jumped in. “—Control? What control? I’ve never had any decisions to make at all. I was just given what they call ‘options.’ And even then, each option they said I had—well, it didn’t matter, because as soon as I was given these options...they just all started to disappear. Then some doctor is sitting like you behind some desk and telling me, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Sanchez, but you have no options left and this is what we must do.’ So no, Miss Pourshadi, I don’t think I ever had a decision that was actually mine to make!”
Seema pursed her lips and jotted something down. Robert sighed and shook his head in disgust.
Seema looked up, “Okay, well, tell me about when your wife and daughter first saw you in Kathmandu.”
“What do you want to know about it?” Robert sighed.
“Well, how did you feel seeing them?”
Robe
rt turned his head and looked out the window. It was a Saturday afternoon and the schoolyard was quiet. He could see a father and son flying a big yellow kite. Robert spoke as he watched the yellow kite gliding through the air.
“I was so...”
Robert paused. Seema looked at him intently and smiled slightly, hoping that Robert would let out his feelings.
“I don’t know how I felt. I mean, my wife and daughter, they thought I was already dead for almost a full day. They had already called my parents and well, everyone thought I was dead. So I guess it didn’t matter how bad I looked when they saw me. They didn’t even notice...I guess they were happy just seeing me...seeing me lying there alive. Even though I probably smelled like a piece of rotting meat because of the gangrene. But they said they didn’t smell anything—I don’t know, I guess they were just so happy to see me alive.”
Robert was still staring at the yellow kite twirling in the air. Seema looked out the window and saw the kite Robert was watching. “Everyone thought you were dead for a whole day? That must have been—”
Robert cut her off. “—You see that kite, Miss Pourshadi?”
“Yes?” she answered.
“The way that wind is blowing, do you know what would happen to that kite if someone just cut the string?”
“It would blow away?” she answered him with a question, hoping whatever she said he would continue on.
“Yeah, it would blow away. And I bet it would go pretty far. And then that kid would be feeling all upset and start to cry, probably one of those big huge cries. So then the father, feeling how upset his kid is, he does everything he can to find the kite. But even if he did find it—with all those trees and wires—I’ll bet that kite would probably be completely bent and busted up. More than likely, completely wrecked, right? But the father, he’ll still try to fix it. Do you know why? It’s completely destroyed. So why does he try to fix it?”
Robert stopped and looked at Seema with a harsh vacant stare. He could see in her face that she was searching for the right words to say. Robert snorted. “Don’t you get it? All that time that’s spent crying over a wrecked kite that’s beyond repair and all the effort that dad spends trying to make it better...it’s just a waste of time. It’s the same as you asking me how I feel—because when something is too broken up to ever fix, it doesn’t matter how anyone feels. I don’t know why we can’t face it. That some things can never be fixed.”
Seema watched the yellow kite swirling in the open blue sky. She smiled sadly as Robert’s words echoed loudly inside her: Some things can never be fixed!
She turned to Robert and asked him, “So, you think that if that kite fell and was completely broken—the father shouldn’t even try to fix it?”
Robert was staring at the floor as if he had not even heard the question, but he answered her firmly. “Yes.”
Seema waited, thinking Robert had more to say, but nothing came. So she asked him another question.
“Do you believe some things are just not meant to be fixed?” He didn’t answer, so she asked again. “You think once something’s broken we should just go out and replace it?”
Robert spoke without raising his head. “It doesn’t matter what I think or believe. But sometimes, we just have to face the fact that some things just cannot be fixed.”
“Okay, Robert, then who makes the decision of whether something can be fixed or not?”
Robert rubbed his face roughly and let out a tiny pained breath. “It’s not anyone’s decision, it just is. If it can’t be fixed then it can’t be fixed. It’s a fact.”
“What’s a fact?”
“That it’s broken!” Robert said, looking up at Seema.
“Yes, I understand that, but who decides when something is too broken to be fixed?”
Robert said nothing and looked back at the floor.
“Who makes the decision about whether something is too broken and not worthy of being fixed?”
“That’s the problem.” Robert raised his voice but kept looking down. “That’s the problem! Too many bloody people think it’s their decision to make when it’s not. It’s not their decision to decide.”
“So then, who is the one that makes the decision about the kite?”
Robert looked up with a confused looked and mumbled, “What?”
“The kite, Robert, remember we were talking about the kite? Who makes that decision? Is it the son or the father? Who makes the decision about whether the kite is too broken to be fixed?”
Robert let out another sound of annoyance and then spoke insolently. “Look, Miss Pourshadi, all I’m saying is they see the kite—they can see it, right? They look at it, see it’s smashed, right? They see it’s all fucked up...so walk away. Just walk away! Don’t let the kid feel...you know, get all worked up about it. Why get him crying? And why get that kid all hopeful...hoping to fix something that is just plain unfixable?”
Robert sharply turned his chair to face the window. The yellow kite was still happily flying. Seema looked at it as well and now couldn’t help wondering about the fate of that little yellow kite. She knew she had to ask Robert the obvious question. But she almost winced before it came out of her, fearing his reaction would be loud and angry.
“Is that how you feel, Robert? That you are unfixable?”
Robert’s reaction surprised Seema. He didn’t get angry, raise his voice or get defensive.
“Is that how you feel, Miss Pourshadi, that all people are fixable?”
Seema’s eyes opened wide. She was surprised how the question unnerved her completely. She wished her answer to be an immediate “yes, of course, everyone is fixable” But after spending three years working in one of the country’s largest maximum security prisons, she discovered something she would never readily admit. In there, she assisted a doctor who was responsible for the psychological assessments on some of the most depraved prisoners—child rapists, abusers, wife beaters and even a serial killer who tortured his victims over prolonged periods and then would release them into a forest only so he could hunt them down and murder them.
She had seen firsthand that every single one of these prisoners had been broken in some way or other. And it became obvious to her that it was the broken part of them that led them to their sinister and cruel behaviours. She knew some of these broken inmates could be rehabilitated and she even saw that some were. They could be fixed. But some, she came to realize, were broken, beyond the chance of living a normal life—the broken part of them could never be fixed.
Seema’s education was based on psychological causes and effects: Find the cause and you can help alter and change the effect. The thought that a person could actually be unfixable terrified her. That was the sole reason she came to work at the rehabilitation centre. Here, she felt, was a place where she could provide true hope for the people who had been broken. Here, she felt confident she could help fix them.
Robert looked up. Her pained face didn’t stop him from asking again, “So, Miss Pourshadi, do you think all people are fixable?”
Seema quickly turned her head towards the window. Her hands played with her scarf. Roberto Sanchez was not a heinous criminal, nor had he done anything more than find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Is Roberto Sanchez fixable? Are all people fixable? Seema honestly didn’t know.
A knock at the door saved her.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Robert’s physiotherapist, Benny Tucci said.
“Your wife is here, Mr. Sanchez. She says you have a doctor’s appointment today?”
Robert turned his chair around to face Benny and said dully, “Yeah.”
He then turned back to Seema. “You know what they are going to decide for me today, Miss Pourshadi?”
Seema nodded her head grimly.
“Yep, they’re going to help fix me!” Robert said sarcastically. “Let’s go, Benny. Don’t want to miss a minute of someone telling me how they may have to cut my other leg off, do we?”
8. PRESEN
T DAY – AT THE HOTEL
Monique avoided Robert’s question of, “Why are we doing this.” The aching pain in her heart just wanted to scream out, “We? When was the last time you and I were a ‘we’ Robert?”
Yet, as soon as she thought that screaming question, she was struck by the happy fact that Robert did say “we”, not “I” or “you”. She couldn’t remember the last time he had referred to her or Jenny as an “us” or even a family. Although Monique Sanchez was a very practical, matter of fact woman, she also had the uncanny ability to find hope in the most hopeless of situations.
And lately, hope would be difficult for anyone to find at the Sanchez residence. Every day since the accident, Robert had sunken deeper into depression. He refused to go back to work and had almost completely retreated from the world. What hurt Monique most was how he found new ways to hide from his own family. The distance between them grew every day. In many ways, Monique wished Robert was off on one of his climbing expeditions, for at least then he wrote letters, called or sent faxes. Now it was hard to connect with him in even the simplest of ways; even merely asking him what he would like to eat for dinner had become daunting and emotionally taxing.
Robert and the doorman watched as Monique reached into the passenger door and pulled out a fairly large green duffel bag. She handed it to the doorman. “No, leave that there. I don’t need it,” Robert snapped.
“But Robert, don’t you think—”
He threw his arms in the air. “—Okay. I don’t care! Take it, leave it—This is your crazy idea, Neek, not mine!”
Neek! He called me Neek. So there has to be some hope, she thought.
Robert had called Monique many pet names over the years—Little M, Moanie, Mo—but Neek was a name Robert rarely used. And although she was embarrassed by Robert’s behaviour in front of the doorman, she managed to turn her head away from Robert and smile a hope-filled smile.
“Sorry,” she said to the doorman. “Could you put that green bag back in the car, please? Thanks.” She then reached for a small backpack on the front seat.
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