The Family You Choose

by Deborah Nam-Krane

  "How much are you with Alex?"

  "God, Em, what are you asking?"

  "I—I don’t know," Emily said. "You just seem so unhappy, and I know you thought Alex would make you happy...if you didn’t have Michael to worry about."

  "Alex really does love me," Miranda said, but she looked away. "It’s just so...complicated, you know? What would people say if the two of us...I’m not his daughter, he’s not my father, but...how could I not know how it looks? It would be humiliating for him, like he was some pervert waiting me out until I was ready for him, you know?"

  Emily felt like her cheeks must have turned purple, but she forced herself not to squirm. "What has he said?"

  "Said? Oh, we never say anything about it, we don’t have to."

  "So how do you know...that he feels the same way about you?"

  "How did you know about Mitch? What did he do that you knew?"

  "Isn’t it different?" Emily said, trying to sound gentle.

  "Is it? What did he do, how did you know?"

  Emily smiled in spite of herself. "It was right here," she said, "the night I met him. Actually, maybe it was in the car, when he drove me home and we sat outside my mother’s house for longer than we needed to, and nothing had ever felt so...right."

  Miranda nodded, and Emily felt like she was slipping into a dangerous but beautiful place. "And how did you know that he loved you?"

  "When he stayed up all night with me and he didn’t touch me," Emily said immediately.

  "I’ve known Alex loved me from the moment I saw him," Miranda said simply. "And I loved him too." She looked straight at Emily. "And I know what everyone thinks. I’m not crazy, I’m not deluding myself, and it’s not seventeen years of built up wishful thinking. I can tell when he looks at me that he doesn’t love me as a daughter. I know that’s part of why he sent me away when I was younger because, yeah, that would be obscene. And I know it’s love."

  Emily turned her head to the side, as if she were seeing something in front of her for the very first time. "God, Miranda, you’ve never had a boyfriend, have you?"

  "A lover, you mean?" Miranda shook her head. "No. I’ve never wanted anyone else."

  "Not even to kiss them, not even to...not even to not feel lonely?" She shook her head again. Emily raised her eyebrow. "And you were never...curious about what you were missing?"

  "I know I’ll have it someday. I can wait. I want to wait, because the person I want...isn’t available right now."

  "What about him?" Emily leaned in, almost whispering. "Has he been waiting for you?"

  "No, he hasn’t, of course not. He’s never been faithful to me," Miranda said, unable to stop the tears. "And he doesn’t hide it at all. He...tells me where he’s going, and how long he’s going to be gone, and who he’s going to be with. I think he does it on purpose to taunt me, to hurt me, to see if I’ll do the same. But then he doesn’t understand. I don’t want anyone else, and this isn’t going to go away with sex."

  Emily’s head told her how sick and crazy this really was, but in her gut she understood more than she wanted to. She wanted to make all of it come together, fix it for Miranda, but she didn’t know how. "Miranda, are you sure he’s in love with you too?" she asked as gently as she could.

  "God, I am not as stupid as I look!" Miranda hissed, and Emily sat back. "I do know. I do know. And I also know that he doesn’t want to be. You never have to work to get someone’s love; you just have to work to keep it." She wiped away her tears, but more followed. "I thought everything would be different and better if Michael left, but I didn’t think he ever really would. But now he is gone, like some kind of miracle, and nothing has changed. If anything, Alex has even more excuses to be away from me."

  "So then you need to leave too," Emily said firmly. "You need to be somewhere where he doesn’t get to you so much."

  "Did Mitch get to you any less because he was in Ireland? Seriously, even though you were with that creep, does that mean that you loved him any less, that the thought of him didn’t hurt you maybe even more?"

  Emily wanted to say that the guy she had been with was with a pathologically lying, drug dealing freak and was too wrapped up in that drama to care about Mitch. But that would have been a lie. "Maybe it did. But if Mitch weren’t a better person—if he hadn’t been willing to be a better person—then he wouldn’t have been worth loving, and sometimes that’s enough to make love go away."

  "Really? Can you just stop loving someone when you think they’re not good enough?"

  "I’ve had to. Otherwise I couldn’t have gone on. You’d never understand, because it’s just not in you to be so cold, but I’ve had to more times than I care to admit. Sometimes it’s the only way to survive."

  "Maybe," Miranda said, and Emily was annoyed to realize that now she was under the microscope. "But what’s left if you do that?"

  "What’s left if you don’t?" Emily said.

  ~~~

  That evening, Emily didn’t say anything when she met Mitch at the library after his classes were over. Mitch thought she might still be angry with him because of this morning, and then was annoyed that she was still angry. But then he saw a tear drip onto the notes she was writing, and he lifted her chin, silently asking what was wrong. She shook her head and looked down at the paper again. He cursed that they were in the law library now, which didn’t have the luxury of the closed doors the general library had. They’d go there next week, he thought.

  She didn’t say anything on the way to the train station and looked out the window the whole ride home. But she didn’t move his hand off of her shoulder, which he thought was a good sign.

  She was quiet on the way home, but as soon as they got inside, she started crying. "I’m sorry, Em," Mitch said, kissing her on the forehead and then kissing her tears. "I didn’t mean to be such a jealous ass, I just miss you so much." She cried harder. He led her to the bed, and she didn’t stop him.

  Later, Emily wasn’t sure if she had cried for herself and the person she used to be, for her crazy, crystal clear friend and the fact that she couldn’t save her, or because Miranda had been right about everything.

  CHAPTER 9

  Miranda considered everything that Emily had said and implied. It bothered her, but she was relieved. It took her mind off of Michael, who tormented her more in his absence than he ever had when they shared a roof. The things he had said to her over the summer, but more importantly, the way he’d looked at her, troubled her to no end. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what Michael was, and she knew what his look meant. He wasn’t the first man to look at her that way. But did she like it? How could she, after everything? How could she, if she loved Alex?

  And Alex...he seemed to be making a point of scheduling meetings later and later these days, almost as if he knew how much Miranda wanted to talk to him. Desperate, Miranda told Alex that she was going out, knowing that he would probably schedule some time at home. She left at seven but returned at seven-thirty, finding him in his study, reading alone.

  He jumped when he saw her. "I thought you were going out!"

  "And that’s a problem because?" She looked at the title of his book. "Stephen Hawking. Such trash," she teased.

  "I—don’t you have some studying you should catch up on then?"

  "Actually," she said, pulling her hair back over her ear, "I am all caught up. It must be Emily’s influence."

  "I’ll be sure to thank her."

  "You do that."

  He flushed. "So what can I do for you?"

  "I think we need to talk."

  "About what?"

  "About Michael not being here."

  "I thought that would make you happy."

  "Not being unhappy isn’t the same as being happy."

  "What would make you happy?"

  Before she could answer, Keith ran into the study. Miranda stood up. In all her years living there, she’d never seen him look flustered. Alex stood up as well. "Is something wrong?"

  "R
ichard Hendrickson is on the phone. I think there’s something wrong with Jessie."

  Keith gave the phone to Alex while Miranda checked her phone. She’d turned it off so they wouldn’t be interrupted. Sure enough, there were several calls from Zainab, Richard and Emily.

  "Richard, what’s going on?" Miranda couldn’t hear what Richard said, but she saw Alex turn white. "And where is Lucy? Of course, of course, we’ll be right over."

  Without saying a word, Miranda and Alex ran to his car. He had turned onto Storrow Drive before Miranda dared to ask. "What’s wrong with Jessie?"

  Alex gripped the steering wheel and looked straight ahead. "Richard didn’t get into it, but I think Jessie’s had a nervous breakdown."

  "A what?!?" Why? Why now? "What set it off?" It couldn’t have been school—it was never school, with Jess—and a guy...it wasn’t like Jess to let someone get to her like that. "Oh my God, did she have an overdose?"

  "I don’t know." Miranda looked at him out of the corner of her eye as her pulse raced. It terrified her that he wasn’t telling her everything was going to be okay.

  They found Richard in the waiting room on the Psychiatric Unit sitting down, staring at his hands. Mitch came in with some coffee and chips for Richard. Miranda ran to Zainab and Emily, who were both wiping their tears. Alex left to find a doctor to get an update.

  "What happened?" Miranda asked to no one in particular. Zainab looked at Richard, who was looking at the bag of chips in his hands. She took a deep breath. "We got a call from Jessie’s school. They said she’d locked herself in her room and she wouldn’t let her roommate come in. The floor master wasn’t able to get in either. She wouldn’t even open up for the headmaster! She started screaming and barricading herself in. They called us—Richard—and when we got there—Oh, God!" Zainab cried for a moment. "She was screaming by then, she didn’t know who we were. She kept asking…" Zainab’s lip trembled again. "She kept asking for her mom. She said she didn’t want to go back to her Aunt Lucy’s; she wanted to find her mom. She wouldn’t calm down until Richard convinced her he’d take her to her mom. She was hysterical the whole way here. We couldn’t stop for anything, because we were afraid she was going to try and jump out of the car."

  "No, no!" Miranda said, looking at everyone, anyone to tell her that this wasn’t true. "What happened? She’s never done this before."

  "I’m afraid that isn’t true." Everyone looked at Richard, who still couldn’t stop staring at his chips. "After her mother died...it took weeks for her to get through the night without screaming. She was convinced her mother was coming back, and she...was very paranoid for a while. But the doctors—they gave her some medication, and it hasn’t happened since then."

  "Oh, God, Richard!" Miranda walked over to him. "Why didn’t you tell me?"

  Richard looked at her, and Miranda remembered the thirteen year old boy with the bloodshot eyes. "What would you have done?"

  Miranda looked up at Alex, who swallowed with difficulty. "I don’t know, but I wouldn’t have let you do this on your own." Miranda started tearing up. "We have to fix this, okay? And this time I’m going to help," she said with a catch in her voice. "Okay?"

  Richard patted Miranda’s hand. "Of course. Thank you."

  A doctor finally came into the waiting room after everyone, even Mitch, stopped crying. Richard leapt out of his seat. "What is going on?"

  "We’re still not sure," the doctor said, and Miranda felt as though she couldn’t breathe. "The good news," he continued, "is that this wasn’t sudden. Based on my conversations with the school, Jessie’s been increasingly agitated for the last couple of weeks. So far, her roommate seems to think that Jessie started becoming upset when she received a package."

  Miranda and Emily, resting in Mitch’s arms, looked at each other in horror. "But I didn’t send anything that would have upset her! Just some chocolate I know she likes and a couple of DVDs. That’s what set this off?"

  The doctor smiled at her and shook his head. "That would be highly unlikely. Her roommate said that night she started having trouble sleeping. She started waking up in the middle of the night asking for her mother, whom I understand has been deceased for years."

  Richard made a fist. Alex put his hand on Richard’s shoulder. "Yes, doctor. Jessie’s mother died about fourteen years ago and...apparently this happened after she passed as well."

  "I see," the doctor said grimly. "Well, right now, I’m working on the hypothesis that whatever underlying condition we may be looking at, physical or emotional, it was set off by, essentially, a lack of sleep."

  Zainab shook her head. "Doctor, are you sure? She didn’t know who we were and she thought she was a little girl again."

  "It’s not the underlying cause, but if she hasn’t been able to sleep through the night, that can, in extreme cases, lead to a presentation of psychotic symptoms. Unless," he said, lowering his voice slightly, "she has been abusing non-prescription medications. That might complicate things."

  Everyone turned and looked at Miranda, who blushed. "No—I think abuse is too strong a word. She’s used pot—marijuana—a few times, and I know she’s used some acid, maybe some Ecstasy a few times too. But she’s never used anything harder, at least not as far as I know. I think I’d be more worried about liver failure or lung cancer than anything else."

  "By that I assume you mean that she smokes and drinks?" the doctor asked. Miranda nodded. "How often?"

  Miranda shrugged helplessly, looking to Zainab and Emily for some help. "It’s not a regular thing," Emily said at last. "Richard’s allergic to smoke, so she wouldn’t do it when she’s at home, and she told me the school cracked down on smoking this fall. I don’t know—maybe the weekends."

  "And alcohol?"

  "The most she ever had was a half bottle of Bailey’s," Richard said suddenly, looking at Miranda. "I know she drank after that, but really, not more than the equivalent of a drink or two at a time. It was just enough to irritate the adults."

  The doctor smiled. "We’re going to run a tox screen, just to check it out. And what about prescription medications?"

  Richard shook his head. "No. She was taking something up until she was ten, but then the doctors took her off of it."

  "What about other people’s medications?"

  "No!" Emily snapped. "She isn’t breaking into other people’s bathrooms to get high, alright? Check her all you want, but you aren’t going to find weird antidepressants, barbiturates or someone else’s blood pressure medication in her system."

  "I have to ask these questions. I’m not trying to upset anyone, but I’m not going to be able to treat her if I don’t know everything."

  "Fine," Emily said sulkily. "I’m sorry. We’re just...when can we see her?"

  The doctor tightened his lips. "I’m afraid we’re going to need to keep a closed circle around her for a while. At the very least, until she knows where she is. Only very close family for now. I’m sorry. We don’t want to isolate her, but I don’t want to confuse her either. Excuse me. I’ll be back as soon as I can."

  Richard sank down into the chair. "Jesus," he whispered. "What the Hell is going on?"

  CHAPTER 10

  Five weeks later, Richard got the okay to bring Jessie home. The medication they gave Jessie to sleep seemed to help. Richard found something else to appreciate in Zainab, who had been paying more attention in her pharmacy classes than she had let on. She put the doctors through their paces with every new medicine they tried, and Richard knew he could depend on her to make sure Jessie received the most expert care.

  Richard was pained that Jessie still did not remember him. The rest of her memory was spotty as well. There were some things she remembered very clearly—like that she hated math and languages but loved history, who her favorite actors were, and how to download mp3 files off the web—but some things she couldn’t remember at all, like her penchant for coffee, dancing and the names of her best friends. She did remember Zainab—if only from the car ride�
�and the doctors agreed that Zainab could come and go as she pleased with Jessie.

  Zainab all but moved into Richard’s house. He was incredibly grateful that she was able to reduce her class load to help out with Jessie. "I don’t think I’d get through without you," he said quietly after she’d brought some things over.

  "Of course you would," she said, stroking his cheek. "You are the most magnificent man I’ve ever met. You’re generous and kind. I don’t know who else would have lasted this long."

  He kissed her hand. "I don’t either if they didn’t have you."

  ~~~

  Miranda and Emily called Zainab for constant updates, and Miranda had constant suggestions, most welcome, about how they should proceed. And Zainab patiently listened and reported and told them everything they wanted to know. Miranda was grateful to Zainab as well, but she was also burning with jealousy, which made her feel worse.

  Michael had wanted to visit but Richard had to put his foot down. He could not, under any circumstances, visit his home for the foreseeable future. Richard would be happy to see Michael at his house or anywhere else of his choosing, but Michael could not come there.

  Thus, Miranda and Alex found themselves in Michael’s frequent company again. He would show up, unannounced as usual, for dinner, or demand their presence on very short notice. Miranda, miserable, tried her best to make sure that she had other plans, but between Jessie’s convalescence, Zainab’s caretaking and Emily’s work and marriage, she often found herself sitting across the table from him, not even trying to make conversation and just waiting for the opportunity to make an exit. She’d look up at the ceiling, trying to make patterns with the stucco, or see if she could identify how many petals were on the flowers in the foyer. And always, at least once per visit, she’d see Michael looking at her, not glaring as he used to, but half-smiling as if they shared a secret together.

  "He makes me sick!" Miranda said, slamming down her books when she met Emily for lunch one day in November.