Throughout the winter, Kavita’s days began reshaping themselves as her friend foretold. Once a month, she went to group and met Hawthorn there. Although she asked Nirav to come to the meetings too, he would tell her, “I don’t need therapy, but you go, it’ll be good for you,” and stayed home instead.
At group, the faces in the circle revolved like diners at a bistro, survivors drawn by a deeper hunger to understand the senseless. She practised opening up, sharing, and receiving. With the other survivors, among the safety net of hands that caught her when she was sinking, she learned how to speak openly about things long shamed.
They talked about the physical and psychological ravages of grief. The weighty guilt and fiery anger that were often at the heart of a suicide survivor’s grief. They talked about triggers, how to recognize them, how to manage them. They talked about the ripple effects of suicide, the collateral damage. They talked about ways of coping with all these challenges, ways of surviving them. They talked about the slow and steady path back to living. Little by little, Kavita honoured her promise to herself. She was finding a better way.
In the circle, it was true that she encountered the nightmarish, at the centre of the pit where it was tossed, where it churned and settled, and later, got swept away by the janitor. But that wasn’t all. Around the circle, within the brick of people that made its protective wall, she discovered resilience, as primal and resolute as spring, as inured as ancient forces of resurrection. At last, in the church basement, she found a place to belong, and to believe, again.
At home, the distance between herself and Nirav expanded, as if every breath that should have been used for talking went to filling a balloon that was slowly pushing them apart, and on the verge of bursting with things unsaid. The closer she drew to her grief, the further apart they drifted. He started working late almost every night. When they were together, they spent most of their time either in separate rooms or watching television. It seemed like they had wordlessly decided if they wouldn’t talk about what needed to be said, then there was no point in talking at all.
When alone, she studied the little book of verses Hawthorn had loaned her, letting its wisdom seep into her core, into that quiet place she had discovered inside, that dwelling of truth and self. Somehow, the words felt familiar, as if the small, still voice were narrating them, as if they already belonged to her, but she had misplaced them.
Words such as: You grieve for those beyond grief. And you speak words of insight. But learned men do not grieve for the dead or the living.
And: Never have I not existed, nor you, nor these kings. And never in the future shall we cease to exist.
And: The self embodied in the body of every being is indestructible.
Indestructible.
She found herself visiting with Hawthorn’s inscription no less than the verses. The survivor wisdom he had learned himself, expressed in his own words, that she wished she could inscribe onto her insides, so she would always know them, too.
The mountain never changes, he wrote. But my ability to scale its jagged sides does. Some days, I’m young. Some days, I’m an old man. Some days, my boots are thick like tires. On others, they’re iron shackles made of everything that’s gone wrong. Even so, I’ve learned to move forward, if only an infinitesimal amount, known only to me. The breath in my lungs is infused with the same hope of green things, persistent, and ever-seeking even the finest dusting of sunlight. Tenacious as a seed that splits asphalt with its shoots, I will find the light, and grow, another word for: live. This is my destiny. Not suffering.
On Tuesdays and Fridays, she trudged through the snow to attend Hawthorn’s yoga classes. Afterward, they fell into the habit of sitting on bolsters by the expansive bay window, sipping tea and talking. Every week, he revealed a little more of his story.
He had a double Major in Philosophy and Psychology from UBC. Sequoia had studied Fine Arts at Emily Carr. During undergrad, they shared an apartment above an Asian grocery store. During the summer, they earned their tuition by tree planting in the backcountry of northern BC.
He wrote his Honours thesis on the efficacy of art therapy in the treatment of depression and addictions, a project inspired by Sequoia. In truth, it was his way of coaxing her to paint again during a period of rehabilitation she had taken between her third and forth year. When he visited her on the weekends, she taught him about the colour wheel, composition, and the importance of negative space. Over the course of the eight weeks she was in treatment, he noticed her paintings start to shift from dark abstract swirls to saffron-coloured koi fish, symbols of good fortune and prosperity. When her treatment was finished, she enrolled in an out-patient program, moved back in with Hawthorn, and spent the rest of the year exploring new subjects, and taking qualifying courses.
He graduated summa cum laude. Some of his friends were taking a gap year to travel. He wanted to join them but he was worried about leaving Sequoia behind. He asked her to go with him. She wanted to stay and finish her studies.
“Fly little Hawk, fly,” she told him.
Reluctant, he agreed to go without her, although only if her boyfriend—another outpatient—moved into his old room. At the airport, they hugged each, teary-eyed. Until then, other than the time she had spent in rehab, they had never been apart.
He “woofed” his way across parts of Europe—Italy, Greece, Spain—although France turned out to be his favourite. He got into yoga while working at an organic winery in the Burgundy region of France. Every morning, the childless couple he worked for practised and meditated for an hour before breakfast. In the beginning, he could barely sit still for ten minutes. Soon, though, he got hooked on the stillness, amazed that it was a state he could access all on his own. He thought of Sequoia. Although she wasn’t into granola trends, he hoped it might help her manage her condition.
He returned in time to watch her cross the stage in her cap and gown. Her gaunt and worn appearance—as though there were only the barest of flesh between her skin and her bones—startled him. His parents let him know she had relapsed a week before her final project was due. The stress triggered her old patterns. She hadn’t told him during their weekly phone calls because she didn’t want to ruin his trip. Instantly, he knew it was his fault for leaving her behind.
They moved back to Ottawa and lived with their parents for a while. They got Sequoia on another treatment program waiting list. He started attending yoga classes and researched teacher training courses. She started experimenting with new media—stencils, airbrushes, brick walls. That summer, she painted the mural in their parents’ yard. Its composition burst with meaning as bright as its colours. The kelp forest because of her love of bc. The koi fish because they symbolized good fortune and prosperity, her hopes for the future. Flowers because they were beautiful and carefree and made her smile. At last, she seemed to find her artistic voice, the media and subject matter that made her soul happy. Hawthorn seemed to find his calling, too, in teaching yoga.
For a time, life seemed to slowly spiral upward rather than down. But there were always breaks, times of stopping and shifting, descending and ascending like an Escherian staircase. He had been away again for her last descent, when she let go of the railing altogether. In that instance too, he knew it was his fault for leaving, even though he had gone to the workshop in Costa Rica for her, to learn therapeutic yoga that might have helped her. Part of him knew they weren’t meant to be apart, that together they formed a balanced entity, like the symbol for yin and yang.
Now it is spring. The month of their thirtieth birthday, which coincides with the fragrant bloom of magnolia trees, flowers that, like Sequoia, blossom first and lose their petals too soon.
Hawthorn invited Kavita to his family home to help him with a task he didn’t disclose beforehand.
Sequoia’s mural is the main feature of the yard, filling a large rectangle along the back of the house, above the deck. When she first set eyes on it, Kavita couldn’t pull away from the painting, taken by its colours and movement. It was so much more captivating than she had imagined. Although it clung to a brick wall, it rippled and looped, began and ended, in waves of giant koi that tangled with kelp, kelp that burst with blooms like those tossed at weddings, blooms that transformed into tail fins. While Kavita didn’t know what Sequoia looked like yet, after seeing her work, she got a sense of her likeness. Kavita knew Hawthorn’s sister was beautiful.
Now, as she kneels in the grass, by the edge of Hawthorn’s minor excavation project, Kavita feels dampness seep into her jeans. The air is thick with the fresh scent of mud, that nostril-opening smell of spring. A shower hangs over them in a field of grey clouds that have been gathering raindrops like seeds. They threaten to shed their weight in a distant rumble.
Hawthorn digs into the ground with a trowel. The hole is one foot across and one foot deep. Peering inside, Kavita sees the pink ribbed flesh of a partially excavated earthworm and a few disoriented ants scurrying along the ragged sides of the hole. Shivering, she feels them crawl all over her skin.
“Are you sure this is the right spot?” she asks.
“Positive,” he replies. With a grunt, he loosens another shovel full of earth and rocks. “I can’t imagine we dug much deeper than this.”
Just then, his trowel strikes something hard with a thunk.
“I think I’ve got it,” he says, cautious.
He spears his trowel against the object again. Kavita hears the distinct metallic tap: thunk, thunk.
“Sounds like a tackle box to me,” she smiles.
A bit more digging unearths the handle. Heaving, Hawthorn frees the time capsule from its grave of twenty years. He rests the mint green box on the grass and brushes off most of the dirt.
“Look at this old thing,” he marvels. “It used to be Dad’s. He stored lures in it.”
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
He knits his hands together on his lap. “I know this is why I dragged you here today. But now that we’ve found it, I’m a bit nervous, actually.”
“We can always bury it again if you’ve changed your mind.”
He presses his lips together and nods, debating.
“We made this time capsule when we were ten. We promised each other to wait until we turned thirty to open it. Now that day’s come, but Sequoia isn’t here. I’m not sure I want to look back without her.”
“Ten years old, eh? The world looked so different back then, didn’t it?”
“Do you remember what you wanted to be?”
“A veterinarian. But only to whales.” She lets out a tiny embarrassed laugh. “I don’t know why.”
“What about Sunil?”
“When he was ten, he was obsessed with skateboarding. This one time, he broke his ankle after flying off a ramp at the end of our driveway. He loved basketball, too, though. I remember him saying he would either skateboard professionally or make it in the nba. Get a scholarship and everything.”
“Did he?”
“No, he outgrew skateboarding. But he did play basketball in high school. Then he got into computers and studied programming. Nothing ever turns out the way we think, I guess. How about you and Sequoia?”
“She always loved to draw. I think she wanted to be a teacher like our parents. I was always changing my mind. But I remember wanting to travel and see the world. I guess that hasn’t changed.”
Kavita shifts off her knees and sits cross-legged and listens to the call and response of chickadees. Somewhere behind them, she hears another faint and distant rumble in the sky, the low rattling of raindrops. As she stares at the tackle box, she wonders about its contents. Maybe a mixed tape? A She-Ra doll? A copy of MAD magazine?
“Enough of this stalling,” he says as he wrenches open the rusted latch. Slowly, he lifts the lid, which screeches with old age.
Kavita keeps her eyes fixed on the clover patch. Somehow looking into the box feels voyeuristic, as though she is about to steel a glimpse of Sequoia’s diary.
“Look at this old stuff.” He pulls out a concert ticket. “About a month before we buried the capsule, Sequoia dragged me to see Corey Hart. I remember hating every minute of it. But it was our first concert.”
Kavita blinks at the ticket stub. She remembers wanting to go to that same concert but being too young. “Sunglasses at Night” plays in her head.
Sensing it’s all right to look, Kavita peers inside the capsule. She sees a Rubik’s cube, a cassette tape, a red egg of Silly Putty, hockey cards, and the white edge of a Polaroid picture. The photograph reminds her of the one Hawthorn asked her to bring of Sunil, if she wanted to, which she has tucked away in the pocket of her jean jacket. As Hawthorn shifts the contents of the box around, she sees two blue envelopes, and winces. Letters, she thinks.
“I’m surprised everything’s so well preserved,” she says, watching his expression. She knows he must have seen the letters by now, too. “That box must’ve been airtight.”
“No water damage,” he mutters. He reaches for the envelopes. “We didn’t write letters to ourselves. We wrote letters to each other.”
She rests one hand on his knee and squeezes.
“I’m not sure I can do this.”
“You don’t have to.”
He hands her one of the letters. “Can you?” His eyes are dark and soft and open. “Please?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to be the one to read it? It seems like a private thing.”
“You reading it is like me reading it.”
She takes the letter and pauses for a breath. Then she unseals the envelope, little by little, cringing with every tiny tear. Her heart hurts to see Sequoia’s childhood penmanship and the doodles tucked into the corners and along the margin; daisies and swirls and what Kavita presumes is a hawk beside Hawthorn’s name. A bittersweet grin lifts the corners of her mouth.
“‘Dear Hawk,’” she reads aloud, feeling odd for using the nickname she feels is reserved for Sequoia. “‘Happy thirtieth birthday, little brother.’” Three exclamation marks punctuate the end of the sentence, but Kavita can’t find any cheer to liven her tone. “‘By now I bet we both have families and our kids are best friends, just like you and me. I’m a world famous artist and spend half the year in Paris living the life. I bet by now you’ve seen at least half the world. And you’re a famous karate master. And an Olympian. We rock.’”
“Oh my God,” he interrupts. “I was obsessed with The Karate Kid back then. I can’t believe I forgot about that. Sorry, go on.”
After a moment, she finds her place again. “‘If we haven’t been to California yet to see the redwoods, please take me there for my birthday present this year. If you do, I promise to take you to Disneyland. Love, your big sister, Sequoia.’” Beside her signature, a drawing of a tree. Lowering the letter, Kavita remains silent, as she gently chews the side of her tongue and waits for Hawthorn to speak.
“I forgot about the redwoods. They’re her namesake.”
“Did she ever get to see them?”
“We always meant to go. We were so close, too, when we lived out in bc for all those years. But we never found the right time.”
She hands him the letter and envelope. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” He slips the letter back into its envelope. “It’s no one’s fault. It just makes me sad.”
She tucks her hands into the pocket of her jean jacket and touches Sunil’s picture. “Do you think you’ll ever go someday?”
“Maybe.” He taps the edge of the envelope with one finger. “If you come with me.”
She smiles at him, not taking him seriously.
“We could hike deep into the woods and scatter her ashes at the roots of a two-thousand-year-old redwood. I like the idea of her ashes filtering into the soil with the rain. Getting sucked up by the roots. Then travelling all the way to the canopy. I like the idea of her being able to see all the way to the ocean.”
“That does sound beautiful.”
“Then don’t make me go alone.”
As Kavita watches him behold the objects of his lost youth, she knows she is witnessing a rare moment of frailty in her friend. Normally, she is accustomed to him so sure of himself, so sage. In the end, they aren’t so different. Watching as his chin dips toward his chest, she knows that they are the same, haunted and incomplete, without their other halves.
He reaches into the box and lifts out the Polaroid. The first sight of Sequoia and Hawthorn as children stalls Kavita’s breath. They share the same dark hair and fair complexion, the same penetrating brown eyes and tempting smile. Sequoia’s hair is styled in a side ponytail. She is dressed an oversized fuchsia Roots sweatshirt and tapered acid-wash jeans. Hawthorn is wearing an identical outfit, although his sweatshirt is teal and his jeans a lighter wash. His hair is cut short. It feels strange to see him without his trademark half-up ponytail. She notices the comma-like dimple denting his left cheek. Something about seeing the two of them standing side by side, smiling, completely unaware of the future that would tear them apart, weakens her
“Tell me about this picture,” she asks.
“Well,” he says, gazing, “we’d just finished digging the hole. Instead of including a newspaper like most people do, we wanted to include a picture of us. Mom took it. Dad was right next to her, joking around, trying to get us to crack up. God, look how young we are.”
“She’s beautiful,” Kavita manages to say despite the tears gathering in her throat. “You’re beautiful together.”
Hawthorn can’t take his eyes off of his sister’s childhood image. “You know, it’s impossible to encompass everything she was. Even if I talked about her for a year straight, it still wouldn’t be enough. I wanted you to be here today because I wanted you to get to know her the way I knew her. But it’s impossible. You can’t get to know someone from a few random objects in an old tackle box.”
Kavita pulls the picture of Sunil out of her pocket. “Or from a photograph.”
His eyes widen with awe. “You brought it.”
He holds the picture carefully. In it, Sunil is standing beside her in their dining room with his arm around her shoulder. He is at least a head taller than her. He is wearing a grey sweatshirt and a black Nike cap. Her hair is in two braids, and she is dressed in a canary yellow Bart Simpson t-shirt. On the table is a round ice-cream cake decorated with pink sugar flowers.
“Is that a hospital bracelet on your wrist?” he asks.
She nods. “I spent a few days in the hospital after getting my tonsils out. I must’ve been about seven or eight, I think, so he was about twelve or thirteen. When he visited me at the hospital, he brought a bunch of games: Operation, Connect Four, a deck of cards. Before I knew it, visiting hours were over. I started to panic. I didn’t want to be left behind in a strange place. So, he asked our parents if he could spend the night. The nurse said it was fine. He could sleep in the bed beside mine as long as they didn’t need it for another patient. You know how hospitals are never quite dark or quiet enough at night? Well, I kept falling back in and out of sleep. But every time I got startled awake, I would look over at Sunil, and I felt safe again. Like I was home.”
Although he doesn’t say so, Kavita knows Hawthorn understands exactly what she means by home.
“When I found out he was struggling, I thought to myself, finally Kavita, here’s your chance to save him for a change. I honestly thought I could.” Anchor pulls. “The truth is, Sunil was close to turning things around, but he couldn’t see it. He had his appointments. He’d taken the first steps towards recovery. If he’d held on a little longer, he would’ve been able to see it for himself, one day. That’s one of the hardest things to accept. We almost made it.” The centre of her palm pulses like a heartbeat, and she recalls all the pain that gathered in her tortured flesh. She wants to squeeze her nails into her scar, but breathes shallowly instead, waiting for the feeling to pass, as she knows it will, given time.
Hawthorn hands her back the photo. Frowning, he gazes more deeply at the picture of Sequoia, as though searching for details that he had missed.
“The guilt that gets me is that I’m the healthy twin, and I don’t know why. We shared almost everything. But I couldn’t share the loneliness of her illness. It kills me that she went through it alone.”
“When does it go away?” she asks.
He looks at her sideways. “What?”
Anchor pulls, pulls, pulls. “The guilt.”
He tosses the Polaroid into the box. “I’ll let you know.”
They sit for a while, nestled in quiet, as though even the birds dare not sing. Kavita slides the photograph back into her pocket.
“Thanks for being here,” he says. “I think I’ll open the other letter later.” He slips the letters back into the tackle box and shuts the lid. “Are you coming inside for cake? My parents can’t wait to meet the friend from group I keep talking about.”
“I’m a sucker for cake,” she grins. “But look at my jeans. I’m all dirty.”
“They won’t care. To be honest, I think they miss having a girl around, on days like today especially.”
“Are you sure I won’t be intruding?”
“Yogis never lie.” He gives her a shallow bow.
“We talked about that.”
“I didn’t say namaste.”
She smiles and pulls at the clover. “It would be nice to celebrate a birthday. I didn’t do anything for mine this year.” She pushes out a sad laugh. “Didn’t even get a card from my parents.”
“Still lost at sea, are they?”
She nods. “I miss them.”
“Didn’t your hub do anything for you?”
“He asked if I wanted to do something but I wasn’t up for it. I hate the idea of getting older without Sunil. I keep aging but he’ll always be thirty. In a few years, I’ll be as old as he was when he died. Then I’ll be older than him. Older than my older brother. It doesn’t make sense.”
“In that case, I’ll make sure we stick a candle in your slice.”
“I wouldn’t want to steal your moment.” She knows he is just being kind, as always.
“Honestly, it would feel good to share it with someone again.”
Kavita searches his face for pity. She knows by his dark, soft eyes that he’s being more than kind, he is telling the truth. “Well, when you put it like that.”
A broad smile spreads across his face, squeezing his dimple, the sight of which always causes a smile to spread across Kavita’s face, too. He rises to his feet and leans over for the tackle box. With his free hand, he reaches out to her and helps her to her feet. Neither of them lets go as they walk toward the house, and the daring beauty of Sequoia’s mural, with water on their lips, as a warm spring shower comes swinging in.