––––––––
“Just ignore it, Lisa. It’s melodrama. The more we pay attention to Raff’s histrionics, the more he sinks down. He is the actor on a stage, and wants us to join him, playing these roles that the doctors say . . .”
I heard Kendra’s words, but they sounded like gibberish. As I held the receiver to my ear, tapping my foot impatiently, I wanted to scream. Her mollifying and unperturbed tone reminded me of a hypnotist trying to put her patient under suggestion. Her patient, meaning me, and I wasn’t buying that. Kendra knew the statistics—bipolar patients usually made good on their threats—at some point. If Raff was talking suicide again, then why wasn’t anyone paying attention? The suicide success rate for manic-depressives was off the charts. My anger grew along with my fear.
I couldn’t bear to listen any longer and interrupted her oratory. “Where is he? Do you know?”
“He left for work early today. He should be at the office.”
“Have you called to see if he’s really there?”
I could almost hear her shrug, and it made me want to kick the wall. I would accomplish nothing by lecturing her, and it would only waste precious time.
“Never mind,” I said a bit curtly. “I’ll find out.” And if I get around to it, I’ll let you know—as if you really cared.
Before Kendra could even say good-bye, I hung up and dialed Raff’s work number. I looked at the time—8:44. Raff’s ninth-floor office, in a posh section of the downtown financial district, was in a well-secured building. Entrance required keys for the elevators from the underground parking lot, and security maintained cameras and guards throughout. When Raff failed to answer his phone, I was at a loss how to reach the security office for his building. I only knew the address and the company name. Maybe I could call one of the actual bank branches and get a phone number. But as I considered the time it would take to try to get a hold of someone to locate the right number, I knew the effort would be futile. They probably woudn’t have these phone numbers for the corporate office.
I called Information, and they gave me some general numbers for the corporation. No one answered as I waited impatiently for nine o’clock to roll around, thinking at any moment someone would arrive, would pick up the phone. But after numerous attempts, I grew too frantic. Alarms went off inside me, and I grabbed my purse and ran out to my car. I told myself I was being stupid, that Raff was probably there, brooding or just staring at a wall. Or maybe he hadn’t even gone to his office. I might drive all the way to the city, hassle with finding a parking space, and tromp up the stairs—only to find his office vacant.
Where would he go? I racked my brain as I drove a bit over the speed limit, on autopilot heading for San Francisco. Fog draped the freeway and the visibility was poor, so the traffic dragged as I climbed the hill out of Sausalito to the Golden Gate Bridge. Mist condensed on my windshield and I ran the wipers, letting the gloomy day add to the misery I felt in my heart.
I let my mind wander back to our childhood, trying to remember Raff before things got bad. Memories surged like a tide, washing in images of us playing board games and building forts in the backyard and riding bikes in circles in the cul-de-sacs with Kyle and Anne. Raff studying thick books on strange topics, reciting all the time—poetry, facts, trivia, snatches of dialogue from plays, Kentucky Derby winners and their jockeys, the names of all the presidents in order and the terms they served, the capitals of every state and every country. I could hear Raff talking in a voice not unlike my uncle Samuel’s, measured, confident, soft.
Hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember any girls he dated or had a crush on in high school. He’d been fairly shy; all that bluster and bravado only served to cover his insecurity around girls. I knew he’d met Kendra at college during one of his manic periods, those months earmarked by unexpected overconfidence and flagrant risk-taking. The few times I had witnessed Raff in the height of a manic phase of his illness, I was shocked and hardly recognized him as my brother. Kendra’s words then made sense to me—his acting and melodrama. Life became a huge stage upon which he starred, and everyone around him became a pawn for his reckless imagination. Maybe after so many years of enduring Raff’s roller-coaster emotions, Kendra had refused to take part in those “productions” any longer.
But I couldn’t brush off Raff’s ominous tone and enigmatic farewell as mere acting. Maybe bipolar people often threatened suicide to get attention, or to emote. Maybe, as perhaps Kendra saw it, Raff was the proverbial boy who cried wolf. Yet, at some point the wolf did come, and when no one believed him, he got eaten alive. Sure, it was the boy’s fault, for broadcasting so many false alarms, but did he deserve to be eaten because of that?
I only had to drive a few blocks past Raff’s office before I found a paying lot that still had empty spaces. I took the ticket the machine spit out and found a spot, then hurried along the sidewalk, pulling my coat tightly around my neck. The fog soaked my face with moisture as I ran—as if the city were collectively weeping—and I wiped my eyes with my sleeve as I pounded the sidewalk, weaving among the crowds of people heading for work.
I arrived breathing hard at the security counter in the ornately tiled lobby. One of the two uniformed men asked my business, and I explained my need to find my brother. An emergency, I told them. I showed my ID while the other guard attempted to buzz Raff’s phone. They had no record of him coming in, but Raff wouldn’t have come through the front door; he always parked below and took the elevator straight to his floor.
“I’m sorry. He’s not answering—if he’s there.”
“May I please go up and check on him?” I wondered if these men knew about Raff’s previous episode of attempting to squeeze out the window. If they did, they showed no concern.
“We can’t let you go unauthorized—”
“I know that. Can one of you escort me up there? Look, he’s got . . . emotional problems. And it’s his birthday and he gets depressed. I’m worried about him.”
One of the guards came around the counter and gestured me to follow him to the elevator. Unexpectedly, my heart started thumping hard as the elevator doors opened. My face flushed and nausea hit me like a punch to the gut. I shut my eyes and walked into the elevator car, willing my breathing to slow, counting to ten silently, trusting the elevator to speed to Raff’s floor. Ten seconds; I could do this. Fear welled up, irrational and insistent. Hadn’t I already worked this conundrum through and mastered it? Obviously not.
As the car rose floor by floor, I clenched my jaw and my fists, telling myself my fear was illusive. It hit me as I nearly jumped off the elevator at the ninth floor that this was what Raff probably told himself every day, all day long—my fear is irrational. I can just will it away. I can do this on my own power. I don’t need drugs or chemicals or therapy. The mind was a mystery; we want it to respond to our logic, to listen to us, to obey our commands. But as weird as the expression sounded, our minds had a “mind” of their own.
I had set out to help Raff, to solve a conundrum that I thought would take away his pain, but after all my digging and uncovering clues, I had failed. My father had suffered from depression, in some form or another—maybe he wasn’t bipolar or couldn’t be neatly labeled by the medical community, but he did want to die. For whatever reason, he had found it more logical to turn his back on his three children—three innocents who depended on him and whom he loved—and kill himself.
And now, twenty-six years later, his own son wanted to kill himself—and leave behind three children who dearly loved him. It made no sense, no sense at all. Raff was a victim of his mind, trapped in some crazy repetitive time loop that demanded he replay history. Would Kevin, his son, continue the pattern, helpless to control his destiny in the same manner as his father and grandfather before him? The thought sent shivers up my spine.
Frustration and failure saturated my very being. I had nothing to offer Raff—no magic words, no answers, no vorpal sword he could use to fight the Jabberwock. What in the world was I even doing there? I would probably make matters worse, like one of Job’s would-be comforters who sat beside him and only gave him grief.
No answers, no comfort, no help.
But I had to try. I had this crazy hope that deep in his heart he really didn’t want this role. That he was just waiting for someone to take his hand and lead him off the stage and out the wings of the theater housing this lousy play. That he was so tired out from all his fighting that he was ready for rescue.
After a minute or two of knocking, the guard reached in his pocket for a key ring. He found the key he wanted and inserted it the lock, and as the door clicked open, my heart leaped into my throat.
The guard, opening the door . . .
All this time I had focused on finding the door to enlightenment, but seeing it played out now in these unnerving circumstances gave me pause. Did I really want to see what was behind that door? My search for truth thus far had come at a price—as if along with the unearthed truth came a proportionate measure of pain.
The guard began to open the door.
“Go away!” Raff yelled in a hoarse, frantic voice from somewhere in his office. The guard stopped, with the door mostly closed, and looked at me, his eyes questioning my intent. I waved him off with what I’d hoped was a look of confidence. I can take care of this; don’t worry. Yeah, right. I wondered for a split second if I should tell him to call for help, get backup or something. Was I overreacting? I thought of Raff’s tone on the answering machine, sounding as if he’d already checked out ages ago. The only thing I had to offer Raff was my love and a listening ear, even if they proved impotent weapons against his consuming darkness. What else could I do? I couldn’t turn my back on him and wait it out, pretend his pain would go away. I had to accept the fact that maybe his pain would never go away.
The guard retreated a few steps and waited, no doubt to make sure I had the situation under control. I noticed a walkie-talkie in a holder clipped to his belt. He could summon help in a flash, which gave me a little reassurance. I pushed open Raff’s door slowly and noticed the room was nearly dark with the lights out and blinds shut.Raff seemed to be resting his forehead on his desk, and his hair—badly in need of a cut—flung over his face, so I couldn’t see him.
He strung out his words with bitterness. “I. Said. Go. Away!”
I took a few hesitant steps into the office. Raff didn’t move, not a tremble or flinch. I wondered what medication he was on, if any, and what it was doing to him. “It’s me. Lisa,” I said as gently as I could, as if my words had weight and could knock him over with the slightest force.
Raff kept his head buried. “What do you want?”
“Just . . . checking on you. I haven’t seen you in a while . . .”
Something like a harsh laugh burst out of him. “Yeah, right. No one wants to see old gloomy Eeyore. ‘It’s my birthday . . .’” Raff imitated Eeyore from the Winnie-the-Pooh cartoons in that low, gravelly voice. “ ‘And nobody cares. No balloons, no song and dance, no presents . . .’”
Raff lifted his face and the pain shone so stark and exposed that he almost looked physically wounded, as if someone had struck him. I drew in a breath and came a little closer. Then I caught a glimpse of something that rested on his desk, directly under his chin.
Fear shot through me as I recognized the out-of-place object he loosely held in his right hand.
How in the world had Raff gotten a gun!
My body seized up. I fought the urge to lunge at him and wrest it from his grip. But he saw my mind working and grasped the weapon tighter, warning me off with his piercing stare. Neither of us needed to say a thing—the gun shouted out its own story, and I didn’t like a word of it.
Intense lassitude fell down on my shoulders, pressing me with heaviness, like an alien gravity I couldn’t hold up under. My knees buckled, and I dropped to the Berber carpeting and found it hard to breathe. Raff’s unemotional face showed empty eyes—eyes that reminded me of Jeremy’s in that moment when he’d walked out of the house and said, “That’s it; I’m outta here.” I wanted to find words—words that could help, words that could heal, but I realized they were vaporous and insubstantial. What were words anyway? Sounds? Noises? They held no power—not power against pain like this. Like trying to topple a Grizzly with a spitball.
I burned with self-recrimination. Words were all I had, and I could think of nothing to say, nothing at all.
Raff looked down at the gun and swiveled it a little, first one way, then another. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I considered running back out and alerting the guard—if he was even still there—but it would only take Raff a few seconds to lift the gun and blow off his own head in the interim.
My muscles started to shake over my entire body, as if I had a chill. My teeth chattered although the room was comfortably heated.
“Just go, Lisa. It’s too late. You can’t save me.” He cleared his throat and added in a mutter, “No one can.” He was like a man sinking under waves and knowing help would be too late in coming.
“Oh, Raff . . .” I knew if I suggested anything, it would tick him off, like pulling a pin from a grenade. His slow, barely perceptible movements belied the hair-trigger nervousness I sensed in the way he fondled the gun. The moment stretched, and every second, marked by the beat of my heart, felt like the last second on earth. Time had run out. The last grain of sand had slipped noiselessly through the hourglass. Somewhere chained in the fortress of my skewed brain I heard the Wicked Witch of the West cackle, just another minion of the Grim Reaper. “I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and, in short, I was afraid . . .”
“Dad never made it this far . . . never saw his thirty-fourth birthday. He died a week earlier.” Raff’s face drew in and grew in intensity, as if he were gathering memories and balling them up, making them small and concentrated—potent plutonium that he could chew and spit out—or choke on.
“You know, it’s ironic that the most vivid memory I have of Dad was the day he walked out on us. Of all days.” He paused, his eyes loosely staring at the gun, as if mesmerized by it.
I breathed shallowly, not wanting to make a sound, but had trouble hearing Raff’s muttering through the clamor of my pulse thumping in my ears.
“You weren’t there,” he said. “I don’t know where you were . . . maybe in bed, asleep,”
He snorted and shook his head, slow motion, eyes glued to the gun. I sat maybe three feet from his desk and calculated how long it would take for me to leap up and reach it. But my limbs were still weighted by extra gravity, so I listened to Raff talk, trying hard to hear what he was really saying.
“I was eight years old. Just a little older than Kevin. I was standing in the hall, in my pajamas . . .” Raff sucked in a sudden breath as if he hadn’t breathed in a few minutes and was surfacing for air. His sudden movement startled me and set my heart racing even harder. I tried to calm myself, to not appear menacing in any way. Raff raised his eyes and caught mine in a net. I went limp and refrained from struggling.
“I’m listening,” I said.
He cocked his head, remembering. “He seemed so tall, you know. It was late at night—at least late to me. I had already gone to bed, but I heard them arguing and got up. Neal was crying—I remember that. Mom was in her nightgown, and she was holding him in her arms and he kept crying and wouldn’t stop. I was thinking, ‘Daddy’s home!’ for some reason. He hadn’t been home much. I missed him, missed him so much.”
Raff shook his head, going deeper. His fingers tapped on the gun, his pointer resting on the trigger. I made myself tear my gaze away from the gun and focus on Raff. I could hear voices in the hall. What if the phone rang? What if someone came in? I knew I had to be ready to leap at that weapon should anything distract Raff at all. But the voices and footsteps diminished, then faded. Raff never noticed. He sat up a little straighter and scowled.
“I wanted to cry out to him: ‘Why have you been gone so much? Don’t you love me? Don’t you want to play with me, read me bedtime stories?’ He moved to the door, then put on his coat and hat. I wanted him to run over and hug me, to tell my how much he loved me . . . instead . . .” Raff choked up, and his face flushed deep red.
“I came and stood next to Mom and clung to her nightgown. I realized Dad wasn’t staying; he was leaving again. And this time he had a suitcase. I thought, well, maybe he’s taking another trip. He has to work. Mom says he goes away on trips because his work is important. He builds airplanes and spaceships, and he’s very smart.”
Raff’s voice changed as he spoke. He was lost in memory and was eight years old again. His eyes shone with intensity as his words came out faster and more heated.
“Do you know what he did? Do you?” I shook my head as Raff grew more agitated.
“Daddy, I cried, why are you leaving? Don’t leave me. Don’t!” Raff yelled but his voice was small and far away. “‘You have to stay here. You can’t leave!’ I ran over to him, blocked the door, grabbed his coat and yanked on it, trying to pull him into the room, away from the door, but he didn’t budge. He . . . he didn’t even look at me, just . . . pried my fingers off him, like I was vermin.”
I instantly flashed back to Raff’s words in the hospital. Kafka. Gregor Samson waking up and discovering he’d turned into vermin overnight. Repulsive and loathed by his family, having to hide in his room so no one would see his vile appearance. Raff was that vermin.
Raff’s eyes snapped to mine, like magnets that, when brought close together, are unable to resist and lock together with sudden force. “And he said . . . ‘I don’t want him. I don’t want anything to do with him. Or you!’”
He pointed our father’s accusatory finger at me, and then his voice broke into a million sharp pieces and sobs gushed out, a dam of anger and hurt flooded across his desk, across the room, striking me hard.
In that moment of time, a moment that stretched and hovered, I understood. Enlightenment flooded me as if someone had turned on a spotlight. As if the guard had flung open that door he’d been guarding. I could almost hear that heavenly host singing at the top of their lungs in the glorious light of truth.
Heedless of the gun and Raff’s ire, I stood and walked over to the desk and took his free hand in mine, ignoring the weapon in his other hand, a weapon that paled in comparison to the more deadly weapon Raff mistakenly pointed at his heart.
The one he wielded in his memory had the fire power of a nuclear bomb. I pictured it as an RTG, leaking radiation and contaminating all within its confines. Raff, like our father, had been dying of toxic contamination.
But it was a mistake. It was all a grave mistake.
“Raff, he wasn’t talking about you. He was talking about Neal.”
My brother lifted his head slightly from the table. Tears had soaked his hair, and it hung in a soggy mass over his eyes. He looked like a confused eight-year-old, desperately needing answers.
I had his attention, so I kept talking. “You thought he meant you. ‘I don’t want him,’ he said. He meant Neal. Dad left because he couldn’t stand it that Neal wasn’t his son.” I waited, giving a moment for that to sink in, although I wasn’t sure he really heard me through his haze. “Raff, Mom had an affair with Dad’s boss, Ed Hutchinson. Neal is Ed’s son, not Dad’s. That’s what he meant. He couldn’t live in our house, looking at Neal, knowing that baby wasn’t his.”
I was blabbering, thinking I made no sense, that Raff wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t believe me. I knew he had no clue. Our mother hadn’t told him a word, and Neal hadn’t seen or talked with Raff in a few weeks. But something shifted in Raff’s gaze, a focus that brought him back from that distant place he had been wandering lost in.
“What?” This time his voice was an adult’s. The boy was gone.
“Dad tried to stay home as long as he could. But he couldn’t take it any longer. He had gone to San Diego for a research project, came back and Mom was pregnant. He knew the baby wasn’t his. They hadn’t been sleeping together, Raff. Dad moved in with another woman. He left because . . . he couldn’t look at Neal, day in and day out, knowing his boss—the man he faced every day—had gotten his wife pregnant. Don’t you see?”
Tears streamed down Raff’s eyes. I hoped that rather than tears of pain they were tears that could wash away all the lies and misconceptions Raff had suffered throughout his entire lifetime. I hoped some of this truth had power beyond mere sounds and noises, but I couldn’t tell. I squeezed Raff’s hand and, to my great relief, he squeezed back.
“I talked to his best friend a few days ago. He said Dad loved you more than anything. It was Mom he couldn’t stand. She betrayed him, lied to him. Drove him into depression. He had to get out. But he never stopped loving us. Loving you, Raff.”
I paused, letting my weightless blanket of words settle down upon him, coat him, and wrap him with new understanding. He sniffled and swallowed, then looked at me. Something had shifted. I couldn’t tell what, but his shoulders lifted and his head straightened.
I sighed and gave him a smile that I hoped would somehow convey how much I loved him. The love that poured out of me was so thick and potent I imagined it coating him like a second blanket, encasing and protecting him against all the waves of hurt beating up against the shores of his sanity. He was on an island, so very far away, and I could see him, so small, so alone. I waved and caught his eye. After a moment, he lifted his hand and waved back.
He saw me. I cleared my throat.
“A man walks into a nondescript restaurant tucked away in an alley. It’s taken him years to find such a place, and he’s now old and broke, having spent every penny on his search . . .”
Raff’s eyes brightened with recognition. “The conundrum . . .”
I continued. “His agitation is palpable. He orders albatross—broiled. With trembling hands, he picks up his fork and knife and slices off a piece of the seared white flesh. The juices drip onto his plate as he brings the morsel to his mouth. The aroma nauseates him as he squeezes his eyes shut and bites down.”
A shudder escaped Raff’s chest—one that seemed to have been locked inside for twenty-five years. He wiped his face with his expensive white shirtsleeve and loosened his grip on the gun. I kept speaking, looking only at Raff.
Now I saw the desperation of a man yearning for a lifeline. He was ready, more than ready, for rescue. He had been waiting for someone, anyone, to hand him his vorpal sword so he could kill the Jabberwock. In a encapsuled moment of clarity, I realized Raff had thought the Jabberwork was our father, but he had been mistaken. The beast with the fiery red eyes that waffled through the tulgey wood was a fabrication, a phantasm of misunderstanding. It had no substance. It could be easily vanquished.
I then looked past my brother, and the words came out of my mouth of their own volition.
“The man’s weathered face relaxes. He sighs, sets the knife and fork on the starched linen tablecloth, and places a hand over his heart, as if to calm its beating. He smiles at the waiter, who bows politely and attends to the other diners. Relief washes in absolution. He raises his eyes to heaven and whispers, but no one hears him . . .”
I waited, and, right on cue, Raff opened his mouth and whispered in agreement with the man in the restaurant, the man who had spent his life searching for the answer, searching for the door to enlightenment.
“Thank God, I’m free.”
As the words tumbled out, Raff spilled into my arms, his elbow knocking the gun to the floor. He pressed his head against my head and wept, running his fingers through my hair in a mindless manner, the way our mother used to stroke my head on that rare occasion when I’d be in bed with a fever.
I let Raff hold me there, and his touch no longer felt like the desperate grasp of a man sinking under the waves. It felt liberating and weightless—like soaring, like flying.
Like freedom.