She sat on the same ripped vinyl bench, staring at the same People magazine on the chipped end table that she had almost three months before. How different life was now. She looked around the waiting room, empty once again on a Saturday morning.
The guards in the bulletproof booth wouldn’t even look at her, once they figured out why she was here. ‘That’s Cirto’s sister,’ had quickly spread among the MH Police, like the panic of an infectious disease. And she was the leper.
The door next to the booth opened and Dr Mynks suddenly appeared. Julia gathered her purse and rose to follow him back to his office, but he stepped into the reception area, letting the door close behind him this time. In his hand he held a large brown paper bag, like one that you might get at a supermarket. It was clear that their meeting was going to take place here.
‘Ms Valenciano,’ he began in that same soft, yet cold and impersonal voice he had used on the phone. ‘On behalf of the staff here at Kirby, allow me to say that we are sorry for your loss. This is a tragedy and we will, of course, be looking into all the circumstances surrounding your brother’s death.’ He handed her the bag. ‘The nurses on Andrew’s ward thought you would like to have this. These were his belongings. Most of it is just clothing, but there are some drawings he was keeping on his wall, as well as a journal he was writing, his wallet and a high-school graduation ring. All the things he came in here with.’
Dr Mynks’s words were spoken so quickly and so matter-of-factly that Julia knew he didn’t mean them. He didn’t mean any of them. For him, Andrew Cirto’s death wasn’t a tragedy; it was simply a statistic. An unfortunate statistic that had unfortunately happened on his watch, and would now be a blemish on his record. To him, Andy was a patient number, an inmate, a murderer, and his death was otherwise insignificant. She was waiting for Mynks to look down at his watch in annoyance. Maybe tap his foot impatiently just to give her the hint to get lost.
She took the bag, which felt too light to contain all of someone’s worldly belongings, and stood there for a few moments, not sure what to do. Not ready to leave. Not ready for any of this to be real. ‘What happened?’ she finally managed in a squeaky voice that sounded nothing like her own, as she looked around the waiting room. She felt the guards watching them. She looked and saw one of them was laughing.
Dr Mynks didn’t even blink. ‘Suicide. Like I told you on the phone, Ms Valenciano.’
She didn’t look away. She didn’t nod. She didn’t shake her head. She just stood there with that profoundly blank look on her face until he finished.
‘He hung himself. In the shower,’ he finally added. Now he looked at his watch. ‘Look, once again, I am sorry for your loss, but depression is a byproduct – for lack of a better word – of schizophrenia. Your brother had come to terms with his illness and, eventually, the crimes that he’d committed. That was one of the reasons he was being transferred to Rockland. Sometimes, unfortunately, those realizations are just too overwhelming for a person to emotionally handle. Once the medication has worked its magic many patients cannot deal emotionally with the crimes they committed when they were ill. And then with all the recent changes in Andrew’s life …’ His voice trailed off. He held up his hand in front of him. ‘I am not saying that’s the reason Andrew took his own life. There was no note and he told no one what he was going to do, so this is all, of course, conjecture.’
There was nothing else to say. Dr Mynks had said it all without saying a thing. Julia had been the recent change in Andrew’s life. The reminder from his past that he could not cope with.
‘Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ he started to say, but Julia didn’t hear the rest. She’d already turned, and with all of Andrew’s belongings clutched tightly in her hand, she headed back out the security doors and into the cold New York City sunshine.