Becoming Chloe

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  Now I feel fidgety again, and I wonder again if it shows. “Meaning . . . ?”

  “Well. You said Chloe’s not your girlfriend. But aren’t you interested in having a girlfriend?”

  “Oh. No. I mean . . . Well, what I mean is . . . I’m gay. Is the thing.”

  “A boyfriend, then.”

  Wow. That was weirdly easy. “You make it sound like no big deal.”

  “Lots of people are gay, Jordan.”

  “Not in my family.”

  “Is that why you’re not interested in having a partner?”

  I sigh. I wish I didn’t have to talk about this. “Not really. It’s more that the whole sex/romance thing wasn’t going very well.”

  “Okay. But if you were trying to learn to play baseball or piano, and it wasn’t going well, you’d have to practice, right? You couldn’t just fix it by taking a break from it. I’m just concerned that you’re devoting too much of your life to helping Chloe. I’d like to see you have more of a life of your own.”

  “Maybe after we get Chloe all squared away,” I say.

  Then a long silence falls. A very long silence. I know what I’m thinking, and I have a feeling she’s thinking the same thing. Chloe? All squared away?

  “Thing is,” I say, “I wouldn’t even have a life if it wasn’t for Chloe. I mean, I would’ve died in that cellar in New York if she hadn’t done something.”

  She lets that sink in for a minute. Even though we both know I’ve told her this before. “If she saved your life, Jordan, then she must want you to have it. I doubt she saved it so you could turn your back on it.”

  “I’ll have to think about that,” I say. I hear it, but right now I can’t find room for it in my head. Right now, just filing it away for later is a strain.

  After that I talk about the guy in New York. The guy from the leather store. Because she said I could. We don’t really come to any conclusions about it, though. And I don’t feel any better for talking about it.

  I thought talking about stuff like that was supposed to make you feel better.

  I know Chloe wants me to have my life. I know that. But do I want it? That’s the tricky part of the equation.

  Chloe tapes pictures up over the bed. That’s another way for me to know that things are very wrong. There are no houses in the pictures. There are no lawns, no bushes, no trees. Every picture is a picture of the ocean. The beach. In two of them, people are riding horses.

  We’re lying in bed, waiting to go to sleep.

  “Jordy? Where can you go and ride horses on the beach?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Can you find out? Could you figure that out for us? ’Cause we’re going to have to go somewhere that isn’t here,” she says.

  In the morning we’re kneeling on the bathroom floor again. The tiles are cold against my knees. I’m behind Chloe, holding back her hair. Now we’ve progressed to vomiting the medication in liquid form. I thought the liquid stuff would help. Not so much. She can still taste it.

  I hate this. I hate this as much as she does, but I don’t see what else we can do.

  When I think she’s done, I hand her a scrap of toilet paper so she can wipe off her lips. I hand her a glass of tap water so she can rinse out her mouth. She spits the water out into the toilet and flushes. Pulls me back down behind her and pulls my arms around her waist. I hold her tightly because she needs me to.

  “Jordy,” she says. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  I felt this coming. I heard it creeping around the corner. Even though Chloe has never flat-out refused me anything—at least, anything with no needles involved—she was about to refuse me this, and I’ve known it for days. Just not what to do about it.

  “You have to, Chloe.”

  “Why? Why do I have to?”

  “So you won’t want to hurt yourself. So you’ll survive, and you can live a long time.”

  “Why would I want to live a long time like this?”

  “You’ll get used to taking it, Chlo.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She’s right of course. With every passing day her gag reflex grows more emotional, more prepared. Now she can barely hold down a glass of water. And it’s getting worse, not better. I’m the only one pretending it will get better.

  “I’ve gone through a lot for you to have the medication, because it’ll help you.”

  “It’s not helping me very much so far.”

  “Well, I wanted it to.”

  “Well, maybe you didn’t know it wouldn’t make me happy.”

  “Please try to take it. For me. I want you to live a long time.”

  “I just don’t believe like you do.”

  “About what?”

  “I just don’t believe the world is a nice place, Jordy.”

  We both fall silent for a long time. We’re still on our knees on the bathroom floor, with my arms around Chloe’s waist. It’s a strange posture but at least I don’t have to look her in the face. Because, truthfully, I’m not so sure I believe that, either.

  As if she could hear that thought, Chloe says, “Are you sure you think the world is a nice place, Jordy?”

  I really don’t feel right lying to her.

  “I want to,” I say. “I want to believe that.” We’re quiet again for a minute. Her hair is close against my face, and it smells nice, like some kind of flowery shampoo. “It’s a beautiful world,” I say. “I’m not sure if it’s always nice, but I know for a fact that it’s beautiful.”

  “What’s beautiful about it?”

  “Lots of things. Mountains. Rivers. Oceans.”

  “I never saw an ocean.”

  “You’re kidding. You lived in New York.”

  “But I never saw the ocean. I saw the river. It wasn’t that pretty.”

  “Some rivers are, though. The Colorado River snaking through the Grand Canyon. That’s beautiful.”

  “I never saw the Grand Canyon. I never saw the ocean. Except for that water where the big statue is. What’s that called?”

  “New York Harbor.”

  “Is that the ocean?”

  “No.”

  “Is the ocean better than that?”

  “Much.”

  “Good. ’Cause that isn’t really so beautiful.”

  We get up off our knees. Mine are sore from the kneeling, and I can feel the little ridges etched into my skin from the edges of the tiles. I help her down onto the bed and lie down with her. She feels small in my arms, like she’s shrinking her way out of here. I know we’ve reached the end of something. All my little prescriptions for her mental health. She just isn’t having any more.

  “Will the pills make me think the world is beautiful?”

  “I’m not sure. Probably not.”

  “But you really think it is.”

  “Yes.” I have to at least try. Or why would I even want to stay?

  “Can’t you show me what’s so beautiful about it?”

  “I’m not sure you can show that to somebody. I mean, you look at something beautiful and you may see it or you may not.”

  “So if I saw the Colorado River doing whatever you said it does in the Big Canyon, I wouldn’t think it’s beautiful?”

  “No, you would. Anybody would. Some things everybody thinks are beautiful.”

  “Like what else?”

  “Oh. Um. Niagara Falls. The Rocky Mountains. The ocean. The Painted Desert.”

  “Wouldn’t showing me those things be better than the pills? Maybe the world really is beautiful and I just don’t know it because I haven’t seen those things yet.”

  I want to tell her there’s more to it than that. That her depression is not about whether there are fine scenic sights, but whether people are decent or abusive, evil or kind. It’s about whether the whole planet is fair, or even marginally safe. But I don’t say that, because she’s presented a possible plan of action. It’s one I know probably won’t work, but I want to cling to it. It’s got to bea
t the hell out of lying here watching her shrink her way out of the world. If nothing else, it would fill our days with something better to do.

  At least it wouldn’t make things any worse.

  “Maybe so,” I say. “Maybe that’s just the problem. Nobody ever showed you what a beautiful world it is.”

  Chloe falls asleep, because she’s exhausted from all the throwing up and crying and thinking nothing is beautiful or nice, not anywhere in the world.

  I call Dr. Reynoso.

  I have to leave a message with her answering service. I don’t expect her to call back, but she does, in less than ten minutes. It confirms something I suspected about her. I had a feeling that she actually cared. But it seemed liked wishful thinking at the time.

  She says, “Is everything all right, Jordan?”

  I say, “Yes and no.” Then I say, “Yes. Pretty much. I think. But Chloe won’t be coming in for her appointment tomorrow. She won’t be coming back. But you have to trust that she’ll be all right. I know this may sound really strange, and I’m beginning to think it’s totally insane myself, but I already made up my mind that I just have to try. She wants me to take her to all the really beautiful places like the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert and Niagara Falls.”

  Dr. Reynoso says, “That doesn’t really sound all that crazy.”

  “It doesn’t?” I was pretty sure it would.

  “I don’t think so. I guess it depends on what you think it’s going to accomplish.”

  “She wants me to show her that it’s a beautiful world.” We’re both quiet for a minute. It sounded a little crazy. As I listen to the echo of it, sounding crazy, I realize that I’ve begun to take Dr. Reynoso into my confidence. Which I never do with anyone. Sounds like something that would help, but it’s really just the opposite. I like her just enough now to feel mortified if she thinks badly of me. I say, “It’s never going to work, is it?”

  “Depends on what you mean by ‘work.’ If you mean will it do her any good, maybe. It certainly isn’t going to do her any harm. What we’re doing now sure isn’t working.”

  “So you think I should do it?”

  “You said you already made up your mind and you have to try.”

  “Right. I do.”

  “Okay, I trust your judgment, Jordan.”

  “You do?” I didn’t mean to sound so amazed.

  “Of course I do. Just two things I’ll ask of you. Call me if you think she’s in serious trouble—or if you think you are—and I’ll get you a local referral for wherever you are. And also, when the two of you make up your mind whether the world is a beautiful place or not . . . drop me a line and let me know what you decided.”

  “Actually, we’re just trying to convince Chloe.”

  “Really. You’re already positive?”

  “Right,” I say. “Good point. When we decide, we’ll let you know.”

  I call Otis’s sister and tell her that since the house is being sold anyway, we’ll be on our way.

  I ask her if I can give her a few dollars for Otis’s old backpacks and duffel bags.

  “Those old things?” she says. “Those dirty, disgusting old things? Take them. You’d be doing me a favor. How people can keep dirty old things like that around I’ll never know.”

  Though I’ve never bothered to ask, it hits me that she probably wasn’t a big fan of Bruno.

  I leave a note on the stereo. The kind of note Chloe would write. The kind I know will please her. I say the stereo belonged to a man named Otis, who’s dead now. I say he was a little grumpy, but in many ways he was a pretty okay guy. I leave a note on the TV saying it was Chloe’s very first one, a present from me, and I’d appreciate it if once a week or so someone watched I Love Lucy on it just for old times’ sake. I use up all but one sheet of Chloe’s drawing pad, but I’m hoping she’ll forgive me because I put them to good use.

  I flush the rest of the medication down the toilet. It was headed that way anyway.

  When Chloe wakes up I say, “I used up all but one sheet of your drawing pad. Do you forgive me for that?”

  “Sure, Jordy,” she says.

  That’s when I remember that she forgives me for almost everything. The pills were really the first exception to that rule. Then she looks at the table. Sees that the pills are gone.

  “Where did they go?” she asks.

  “I sent them away,” I tell her. “Because I want you to be happy.”

  “I want me to be happy, too,” she says. I can tell she’s a little closer already.

  I sit on the edge of the bed with her. “So, tell me, Chlo. Ever been to Niagara Falls?”

  “You know I haven’t.”

  “What about the Grand Canyon?”

  “Jordy. I haven’t been anywhere. You know that.”

  “The Rocky Mountains?”

  “Nope.” She’s laughing now. Which she hasn’t done for as long as I can remember.

  “The Painted Desert?”

  “I never saw it. Is it really painted? How did it get painted?”

  “The Pacific? The Mississippi?”

  “I don’t even know what those are.”

  “Would it make you happy to find out? Do you promise not to hurt yourself?”

  “No pills with us?”

  “Nope. Not a one.”

  “Then I guess I’d be happier than I am now. And I promise. Yeah.”

  I’m thinking if we crisscross the country and make our way to the very top of the West Coast, somewhere in Washington state, and cruise down the coast—after we’ve seen all these other natural wonders, of course—and wind all the way down to Mexico, stopping at every single place along the way, somewhere on that trip will be a place for riding horses on the beach.

  I might as well honor that special request. I’ve never ridden horses on the beach, either, and it certainly sounds beautiful. I tell Chloe the plan.

  She says, “Just one thing, though. If we get all the way to the Pacific, and ride horses on the beach, and we’ve seen all that beautiful stuff, and I still don’t think the world is a very nice place, you have to let me go.”

  “No,” I say. “No way. I’m not letting you go.”

  “That’s not fair. You shouldn’t make somebody be somewhere they don’t want to be.”

  “But you might change your mind.”

  “You have the whole trip to change my mind. But if it doesn’t, you have to let me go.”

  “I have to think about this,” I say. I really don’t think I could stand back and let her go. But I say I agree to the plan. Because it’s my last best shot. It feels like the only plan I have left.

  I’m just letting everything ride on believing this will work. That we’ll find so much beauty and pleasure, and maybe even some decent, kind people, that she’ll change her mind about the world. I’m betting everything on thinking I can make her believe it. Even though I’m not positive I believe it myself.

  FIVE

  * * *

  OUT IN THE

  BEAUTIFUL WORLD

  We’re out on the highway, cruising along at about fifty. The old truck seems to do pretty well at fifty. Anything more and we get a bit of a rattle. The sun is just coming up, glaring into the left side of my face through the driver’s-side window.

  Chloe is doodling in her new spiral notebook. She asked me to buy her a spiral notebook and a pencil so she could practice writing again. But maybe she’s worried about how rusty she really is, because so far she’s only drawn pictures.

  Just over the border into New York state we stop for coffee and some breakfast. I wonder if Chloe remembers what I told her. Which kinds of foods cost the least money for each meal. It’s the food and gas that’s going to kill us. There isn’t much we can do about the gas.

  Chloe stirs seven sugars into her coffee. Her hair looks greasy. We both feel a little dirty and grungy. Because we are. Because we slept in sleeping bags in the truck bed, and when we stopped at a gas station this morning before dawn to wash up,
it was cold, and there was only just so much washing we could bring ourselves to do.

  Chloe sets the spiral notebook on the table and flips to a fresh page. She draws a fairly neat, straight line vertically down the center. “How do you spell ‘beautiful,’ Jordy?”

  “B-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l.”

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure. I know how to spell ‘ugly.’ ”

  Too bad. I would’ve liked it better the other way around. But I guess she hasn’t had much practice on “beautiful.” I guess it’s one of those things that just never came up.

  An hour or two later, driving along the highway, we pass a raccoon lying dead by the side of the road. There’s a little trail of blood where he got dragged, and he’s puffed up as if he’s been lying there for quite a while. Chloe takes out her little notebook and writes. I’m thinking it’s too bad that her very first entry can’t be in the “beautiful” column.

  Then I think, maybe we’ve passed a dozen beautiful things already, or a hundred. I never thought to notice any, or point them out. Maybe it’s my job to do that.

  Maybe I’m already falling down on the job.

  “Chloe wants to know if she can play with your dog,” I say.

  They’re an older couple, maybe in their fifties, and the dog looks like she needs all the playing she can get. A leggy young Irish setter with energy pouring off her in waves.

  “Why, certainly,” the wife says. She’s a round-faced, overly sweet woman, like she’s looked at too many pictures of Mrs. Santa Claus. “Ginger would like that.”

  I sit down on the bench with them, and Chloe and Ginger have at it.

  We’re in a park in Buffalo, New York. Why, I’m not sure I can say. We could’ve driven straight through to Niagara Falls. But no, Chloe wanted to see Buffalo.

  Chloe, I said. Nobody wants to see Buffalo.

  But Chloe did. And the reason was simple. She’d never seen it before. If Chloe has never seen it before, she wants to see it now. Simple as that. That’s what this trip is about, she said. How do we know if it’s beautiful if we don’t even see it? I felt like Buffalo was a pretty safe “ugly” bet. But it’s a nice shift in attitude for her, so I go along.