“What if there’s something else I could have done, Dad?”
“Like not eat sushi, maybe?” he replies.
“I...don’t understand.”
“Your mom used to love sushi, did you know that?”
What is he even talking about?
“No, she hates it,” I insist. She doesn’t even want to be around us after we have it. Makes us brush our teeth before we can even talk to her afterward.
“You’re wrong there, Kent. She used to eat it all the time—it was her favorite food. She was a real connoisseur. She lived for the weird stuff, like sea cucumbers and parts of the dorsal fin. The brinier the better. When we were trying to conceive, she knew the dangers of pregnant women consuming raw fish so she stopped eating it. Sushi never impacted the babies’ health and development. But in her head, she’s conflated sushi and loss, thinks it’s her fault, like the bad stuff lingered in her system, which is why she won’t touch it now. She’s still punishing herself, years later.”
The temperature’s been steadily dropping and I begin to shiver. I try to hide this from him, lest he force me inside. “I didn’t know.”
“Now you do. What I want to say is, you be sad for as long as you need to be sad. Or mad. You go wherever your grief takes you, provided it’s safe. I’ll be honest, it’s going to be awful. The pain of loss will hit you in waves and can be all-encompassing, blocking out every other part of your life. I had to set reminders on my BlackBerry to brush my teeth, to put on pants, to go to work.”
I have a hard time picturing my strong, capable dad ever not being on top of anything.
I tell him, “I’m never going to be happy again.”
“No. You will. The worst thing is that you will eventually be happy again. You have a whole, big life ahead of you. One day you’ll wake up and see the sun’s shining and you’ll think ‘Thank God, the worst is over.’ You’ll think you’re better, like you finally overcame it all. Then one small thing will set you off, something innocuous, like a margarine commercial. Believe me, a Country Crock ad destroyed me one day. Destroyed. Whatever it is reminds you of what could have been, and, bam! Salt in an open wound.”
I close my eyes, trying to absorb his words. I want to believe him, to hear him, but I can’t because my inner voice keeps shouting YOUR FAULT! YOUR FAULT! YOUR FAULT! over and over again.
“Listen to me Kent, the loss itself is bad enough, so don’t make it worse by beating up on yourself. We can’t always understand why things happen. You’ll never find serenity until you accept that.”
“Then how do I do that? How do I not beat up on myself?”
“Channel your energy into something else. Something positive. Throw yourself into it. You’ll still be tempted to live in the ‘what ifs’ but by expending energy elsewhere, you won’t have as much time. You have to feel your grief, but having a purpose elsewhere will keep your loss from becoming the sole focus of your existence.”
We’re both silent for a couple of minutes. The only sound is the patter of raindrops hitting the shingled roof a couple of feet above our heads.
“Dad, how long did it take you to completely get over Hayes?”
Sadly, he replies, “I’ll never completely get over him. But I did get on with my life and that’s the key here. Understand you’re not going to feel better overnight. For now, your job will be to actively seek out the good moments and let them balance out the bad.”
“I can’t imagine ever having a good moment again.”
My dad looks at me as though he’s trying to see clean through to my soul. “Kent, is there any part of you that wonders if...you could just make the pain go away?”
His pupils are huge in the darkness of the fort and he’s on the verge of tears.
“Are you asking if I’d ever consider suicide? Because, no. I wouldn’t for a million reasons, but the biggest one is because I could never do that to you and mom. That’s why I’m so messed up right now. I thought Stephen and I were the same. So when he’d say stuff like the world would be better off without him, I thought he was just being sarcastic or looking for attention. Because I’d never hurt myself, I couldn’t fathom that he actually might, like it was a legitimate option.”
My dad sits with this information. Finally, he says, “I believe you. But if that ever changes, even for a second, I need you to talk to me.”
I say, “I will.” And realize I mean it.
He rises, but can’t stand to his full height unless he wants to get a lot of cobwebs in his hair. He brushes away the debris that’s accumulated on his suit. “I should go check on your mother now. She’s...not doing well. But that’s not on you. You worry about you, sport, I’ll be there for Mom. So...if you’re not back inside in a little while, I’ll bring you a coat and a sandwich, okay? Take all the time you need.”
He touches his palm on my cheek and then he says, “Hey...think I just felt some stubble. Looks like your beard’s finally coming in.”
I’m sure it isn’t, but I love him for telling me it is.
“I’ll be in soon, Dad.”
He exits and I hug my knees to my chest, huddling closer to the lantern for warmth, even though it doesn’t emit heat.
I try to process what he’s said. I need time to imagine what my life will be like without Stephen. Right now, I can’t even get my mind around that. All I know is that I don’t want anyone else to have to go through this.
I wish I understood why.
Not for Stephen; I am painfully aware of what went wrong there. But everyone before him, what were they going through? I think about Macey, Paul, Braden—they had entirely different problems than Stephen. And what about Ryan and Sarah two years ago? And Leif before that?
Why does this keep happening here?
What the fuck is wrong in North Shore? Can I do anything to help make it right? I think back to the suicide section in my psych class. At the time, it didn’t register, but now I recall my teacher talking about protective factors. One of the big suicide prevention protective factors is identifying with other people of the same ethnic group, feeling like you’re a part of something bigger than yourself.
How was Stephen supposed to do that up here?
North Shore’s not real diverse. While there are other Asians in town, most are Chinese or Vietnamese or Japanese, which doesn’t matter because the Chos didn’t hang around with them anyway. The few Korean Americans our age have been away at boarding schools since junior high.
Until this second, it never occurred to me that being unique had to be yet another added stressor on Stephen. He was sensitive and he hated anything that made him stand out. All he ever wanted was to blend in, and he could never figure out how.
Stephen must have been looking to identify. I didn’t realize that the ways I’ve changed this year must have impacted him. We were alike, two sides of the same coin, until we weren’t.
I know my dad says this isn’t my fault, but how do I not carry that guilt with me? He was my brother, for all intents and purposes. I had a responsibility to him. If I could have just stayed the same for a little while longer, he’d have made it to MIT and I know he’d have found so many more people like himself.
How can I not be at least partly to blame, regardless of what my dad says?
I wonder if Stephen’s need to identify is why he gravitated to throwback hip hop? He was the one who introduced me to it all. The classic MCs were his heroes, with their overblown confidence and swagger, fronting all those qualities he wished he’d shared. He loved them so much. Stephen wouldn’t give the new school artists a chance, considered their work blasphemy. When I tried to slip some 2 Chainz or Chance the Rapper to our playlists, he balked. He barely tolerated Lil Wayne.
Instead, he worshiped Tupac and Biggie and Eazy and Nate Dog and Jam Master Jay and Cowboy from Grandmaster Flash.
/> Wait.
I just realized that all of his heroes are dead.
All of them.
Nobody made it to forty. Most didn’t make it to thirty.
No wonder his mom despised his music.
I guess it’s possible that Stephen’s death isn’t entirely my fault. Maybe there were other factors at play, factors I don’t understand.
Doesn’t make the loss any easier.
31
MALLORY
“What do you think?”
My mother enters my room in a far-too-sexy-for-her-age, black body-con bandage dress, the tags still dangling from the gold zipper in the back.
“It’s tight,” I respond before pretending to concentrate on my Government homework. I can’t concentrate on my work, though. Not now.
“Tight as in good tight or tight as in retaining water tight?” she prompts, turning back and forth in front of my mirror, assessing herself.
“Just tight. I mean, could you even eat in that thing?”
“No, but I’m not wearing it to dinner. Hey, how do the girls look? Do I need a better push-up bra?” She cups herself and begins to rearrange, hoisting higher and then lower. “Should I go more rounded or padded or maybe conical, kind of like a throwback to those bras in the ’60s that made everyone’s boobs look like missiles? Do I just do a bustier instead?”
Yes. Talking about my mom’s breasts. That’s the recipe for a great day.
I close my book. Any pretense of studying is now over. I need to manage this interaction. I’m particularly anxious about engaging with my mom when she gets into “girlfriend mode.” I’m her daughter, not her pal. I’m not her confidante, especially because the second I’m no longer expedient, she’ll launch back into attack mode. Like a viper that strikes out of nowhere. I learned long ago to not entrust anything to her, because she’ll just throw it back up to me the second I displease her. She’s like a mean friend, except one who lives in my house.
I deliberate before responding. “I don’t know, Mom. Tell me where you’re going so I have a better idea of what’s appropriate.”
“A funeral for one of my Pilates friends’ kids. I forget his name. Something Cho. Somebody Cho.”
“Stephen,” I hiss. I feel my anger radiate to the tips of my fingers. My fists begin to clench. I ache to hit something, pounding it over and over until my skin cracks and knuckles bleed. “His name was Stephen Cho.”
What I don’t say is that I’ve cried myself to sleep every night this week thinking about him.
She snaps her fingers. “That’s the one.”
My entire body prepares itself for fight mode as the adrenaline courses through me, but I control myself. I don’t have it in me to battle it out right now. I won’t win, no matter how right I might be. The game is always rigged in her favor. I need to pick flight.
She holds up two different pairs of earrings, one that’s a shoulder-grazing tangle of rose gold links, the other a pair of pearls dangling from bejeweled crossed Chanel Cs. “Chandelier or drop?”
Fight it is.
My voice dripping with saccharine, I say, “Is there a reason you’re dressed like a Russian call girl to bury your friend’s son?”
She whips around to look at me, unsure if I’m being bitchy or funny. Suspect she’d be scowling if her face could move. “Show a little respect, missy.” She thinks bitchy, then. She fluffs her hair. “Besides, rumor has it a team from Nightline might be there and I love me some Dan Harris. I need to look good. Hey, you think he’s single?”
I snort. “Are you suddenly single?”
I know she flirts when she’s out but it never occurred to me that she might take it further than that. God. No wonder Dad’s never home.
I can’t with this.
I can’t.
I have to get out of this house and out of my head.
I kick off my Uggs and slip on my running shoes and then I grab the closest jacket to me. Only after I pull it on and smell clean cotton and wintergreen do I realize it’s Braden’s hoodie. Too late now.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“Does it matter?” I reply.
She simply shrugs, too taken by her own reflection to truly give a damn. She pulls her hair back into a French twist and then shakes it out, making duck lips at herself the entire time.
I don’t care that it’s cold and dark; I have never needed to run the stairs more than I do right now.
* * *
After a brutal session in the bleachers, I notice that there’s light on in the counseling office. My body is spent. My legs are throbbing and my lungs burn from the effort, but I’m still way too amped up mentally. Guess I’d hoped I could outrun my thoughts. No dice. I can still practically taste the outrage. And I ache to wail on something.
Only someone as narcissistic as my mother could turn a crisis into an opportunity.
I’m too fired up to go home, so I start peeking in windows to see who’s around. I could use a friend. People are always here after hours, whether it’s a club meeting or a tutoring session or a late practice. In the Guidance wing, I spot Mr. Gorton.
He’ll do.
I bang on his glass and he practically jumps out of his skin. I motion for him to open the side door.
As soon as I’m inside, he asks, “Mallory, are you okay?”
“Yes. Actually, no. No, I’m not okay because this needs to stop.”
Mr. Gorton ushers me into his office and he takes a seat behind his desk. “Okay, Mallory, I’m listening.”
“This can’t happen anymore. Do you understand me? This has to stop. This is out of hand.”
My lungs are in a vise being squeezed tighter and tighter. I feel the cords in my neck pull so taut that they might snap as I unleash.
I continue, steam practically pouring from my ears. “This is an epidemic. This is ridiculous. How is everyone in this community not completely up in arms? Why is there no action? How long does the list of names have to be? Just this year, we lost Paul, Macey, Braden, and now Stephen.” I tick their names off on my fingers. “What’s everyone waiting for? This many?” I splay my left palm to indicate five. “Or this many?” I splay my opposite hand. “What’s gonna stop this? What if we’re all, ‘Maybe we actually try to prevent kids from throwing themselves in front of trains?’ How about that?”
Mr. Gorton doesn’t respond. I assume he’s waiting for me to finish. He wields silence like a pro. Any counselor, peer or otherwise, knows that quiet compels the client to fill the silence. But I don’t need his prompt, I have plenty to say.
“We have goddamned satellite trucks out there, okay? Nightline is sniffing around. There are reporters crawling all over this town, talking to everyone who’s been affected. Well, guess what? I’m affected. But my reaction isn’t to cry to a journalist. My reaction is that we find a way to fix ourselves, to help ourselves.”
Nothing. He may as well be a statue. He’s very good at this.
“The networks are still lurking around campus. It’s been a week. When are they going to leave us alone? This story is, like, a perfect storm. Every media outlet in the country is salivating for details. I can’t change the channel without hearing some empty suit blather on about ‘suicide clusters,’ explaining to those of us who aren’t actually witnessing them firsthand, who aren’t burying their friends, that they’re ‘multiple deaths in close succession and proximity.’”
I bristle over the faux concern so many on TV, radio, and the web have shown. America can’t get enough of this story, of the poor little rich kids who can’t hack it, like the One Percent are finally getting what’s been long overdue. Like somehow karma came a-callin’.
“These anchors sit there with their pancake makeup and their shiny blazers and matter-of-fact expressions, all hair-spra
yed and clinical and detached. Somehow they forget they’re talking about kids from our swim classes, kids who rode the bus with us, or went to camp with us, or sat next to us in lunch. They’re talking about the girl who handed me an extra pencil before a standardized test and the boy who’d skew the results because he was so smart. Macey was real. Paul was real. Braden was real. Stephen was real. They were real people. Not statistics, not cautionary tales, but real kids who couldn’t take all the pressure. They cracked. Paul wasn’t the first, and it’s real fucking unfortunate that Stephen probably won’t be the last.”
Mr. Gorton’s totally mute right now, even though I just dropped an f-bomb. He’s silent and motionless, eerily calm, like I’m not even here, completely losing my shit in front of him.
“Did you see Will O’Leary’s show two days ago? He’s the worst. He ran a feature where he interviewed some of our students and then was kind enough to ‘mansplain’ that the problem is we’re a bunch of children who simply don’t understand the consequences of our actions. That suicide is permanent. This is what passes for fair and balanced? Blaming the victims? How is that possibly supposed to help?”
No reaction. I’d stick a mirror under his mouth to check his breathing, except he just blinked.
“Some of us saw the clip in the student lounge yesterday. I’m sure you’ve already heard, but if you missed it, that’s when Owen Foley-Feinstein walked up and punched a hole through the flat screen, right in O’Leary’s smug face. I was there when it happened, you know. I found myself cheering for Owen, for his doing what I didn’t have the guts to do.”
Mr. Gorton’s so motionless that if he were in a park right now, birds would land on him.
“With Braden? Who I loved? I was numb and I didn’t know what to do, but I still blame myself for not being there for him. I am drowning in regret. I torment myself every hour of the day trying to figure out why. With Stephen? Someone who I couldn’t even be bothered to give the time of day? A person who I’d refer to as a random? I’ve been bawling my head off. I can’t stop crying myself to sleep, his face in my mind. The bitch of it is, I can’t even picture him clearly because I never bothered to look him in the eye. Yet I am haunted, okay? Haunted. He might have been the greatest guy in the world, and now I’ll never know him. That’s on me.”
The Gatekeepers Page 27
