All the Things We Didn't Say (12 page)

My father sat on a leather couch, and Dr North settled at his desk. When I sank down into a leather chair adjacent to the big picture window that looked out onto York Avenue, Dr North said, ‘So. We're thinking of treating your father with electroconvulsive therapy.'

I looked searchingly at my father. ‘Are you serious?'

My father shrugged, then looked at Dr North. ‘Are we?'

‘Now, we talked about this,' Dr North encouraged him. He turned back to me. ‘Medication isn't working. We need to try something else.'

‘I don't want to feel this way anymore,' my father volunteered.

So don't,
I wanted to say.
Just turn it off.

‘ECT has come a long way. It's very humane,' the doctor said.

Dr North proceeded to explain how it would work: they put a patient on muscle relaxants and administered a shock that produced a seizure in the brain. The only way the doctors could see the seizure was through a tiny twitch in the patient's foot and by a computer recording of the patient's brainwaves. Once the brainwaves settled down, the seizure was over.

It was like rebooting a computer, Dr North said. Afterwards, many patients felt better.

‘How?' I asked.

‘How what?'

‘How do patients feel better? How does it happen?'

Dr North scratched his head. ‘Well, it's not definitive. We think that the shock releases neurotransmitters in the brain, which helps to lift the depression.'

‘I've heard it's because it causes brain damage,' I said.

My father shifted on the chair, making the leather crinkle.

‘It doesn't.' Dr North slid his platinum Rolex around his wrist.

‘Will he feel it?' I asked. ‘What happens when he's done? Are there…scars?'

‘He won't feel anything. When he's done, he might feel sleepy, or calm, or sometimes anxious…it can vary. And no, there aren't scars.' He chuckled. ‘The major side effect is memory loss, especially right after. Just bits and pieces, though. Little things. Nothing important.'

My father said he had to use the bathroom before we left, so I had a few moments alone with Dr North. ‘Is this really necessary?' I whispered to him. ‘I mean, he's gone to the hospital a lot, yes. But isn't there some other medication he could try? Something…else?'

The doctor fiddled with his burgundy tie. ‘Nothing else is working.'

‘But he's not even that
sick
,' I protested. ‘Not always, anyway.'

The doctor looked at me very evenly. ‘If you're worried about how it might affect his mind, it won't. And believe me, it's safe. It's not cruel. He won't even feel it. And as for memory, he might forget simple things, like names. But not permanently.'

‘How do you know that?' I asked.

‘Experience and research, Summer. We're professionals, and it's a difficult decision, one that I know is hard to hear. But having diagnosed your father with the best of our ability, we think this will help him.' He cocked his head. ‘He'll need support through it. You have to believe it will help, too. You have to have faith.'

That was what it came down to-faith. I had to believe, just like people believed when they went to church. But I had believed-I'd believed in the medicine and the psych ward and the therapy and time off and staying here in my childhood apartment instead of living in NYU's dorms. I had believed in not seeing friends, not having a boyfriend, rushing home after classes in order to make sure he was all right, keeping things even and steady. It went back as long ago as the day of my grandmother's funeral, when I wanted to run back to Philip's house and apologize for Steven pulling me away. But I didn't. I hated, too, that I'd told Philip about my mother and the snow globe incident, that I'd let him see such a flawed side of me. Then again, sometimes I wondered if I'd done it as a defense-so he'd know I was messed up, so he'd know to stay away.

‘Is this kind of thing genetic?' I asked Dr North.

He looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, there are some findings that say it might be. But it's hard to tell. But even if there are genetic links, a combination of environmental factors have to be at play, too. One generally doesn't work without the other.'

I leaned against the wall. Was this all curled up in his DNA? If I studied hard enough, would I be able to decipher and treat it? As much as I tried to forget about Mr Rice spouting out nonsense to my tenth grade class, I couldn't-not quite. Wouldn't it be nice if our DNA explained everything? Wouldn't it be nice if I found one of my mother's stray hairs, clinging to a sweater she'd left behind, put it under a microscope,
and suddenly understand what had driven her to leave us? I could swab the inside of my father's cheek and decipher why he had crumbled. I could inspect my own blood and absolve or convict myself.

What else was possibly genetic? Messiness? Laziness? What about abandonment? What about duty-what, exactly, kept me here in Brooklyn, while my brother was okay with leaving? Perhaps my actions really could be attributed to a malformed piece of DNA that wasn't coding for the right protein. Perhaps genetics controlled things as minute as my dreams and my day-to-day actions, and I was bound to my decisions long before I made them. If I saw all that under a microscope, at least I'd know it was something deeply set inside of me, something I couldn't change.

‘What am I supposed to do if this doesn't work?' I asked Dr North.

‘What are
you
supposed to do?' Dr North repeated.

‘Yes. What am I supposed to do?'

‘We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, try not to let this take over your life. I know it's sometimes unbearable. But it's not your fault. It's really not.'

The day after that was a Friday. I went into a sporting goods store on lower Broadway and asked an overweight, sloppy woman behind the counter if I could see a stun gun. It was smaller than I expected. ‘Is it on?' I asked. She nodded. I hit the switch, watching the metal prongs toss the blue sparks back and forth.

I held my hand out. A hot snap went through me. ‘Jesus Christ!' the saleswoman screamed. Two boys who had been looking at hunting rifles gawked. The surprise of the jolt had caused me to drop the gun to the floor. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?' the saleswoman said.

I picked up the Taser and handed it back to her. My heart
was racing, probably from the surprise. My thumb and pointer finger felt blue and numb from where I'd shocked them. It took only a minute or so, though, for the feeling to come back.

On the morning of his first procedure, my father and I sat together on the subway, legs touching, even though there was hardly anyone else in the car. He pretended to be very interested in the Captain Morgan ad across the aisle. In the ad, people leaned on each other, holding half-empty tumblers of rum. All of them had fluorescent-green, swirly mustaches penciled in above their upper lips. Captain Morgan peeked out from behind a lamppost, girlish in his frilly shirt.
The Captain was here,
said the slogan in slashed, green, graffitilike print.

My father turned to me. ‘Now, if something happens, I want you to at least keep Wesley. I've contacted a rescue organization for the others. The number's on the fridge.'

‘Nothing's going to happen to you.'

‘I'm just saying.'

An Asian woman came through the car selling batteries, little plastic noisemakers, plastic key chains, Seek-And-Find word puzzles, Skittles candy. The loot was in a large box strapped to her chest. She waved the noisemakers in our faces and pantomimed a light show with a laser pointer. Something about the laser pointer reminded me of the statement I had
tried to write this morning for my fellowship.
Explain your inspiration for pursuing a scientific career.
I had sat at my laptop, eating pretzels out of the bag, thinking and thinking and thinking.
I knew I wanted to study DNA when a substitute teacher stood up in front of our class and told me that all of our secrets, every single thing about us, is coded within our DNA, and if we look hard enough, we'll be able to figure it out. He was asked to leave after that, and later we found out he'd doctored his whole résumé. Still, what he said had a huge effect on me, greater than anything any other teacher taught me before or since.

I had erased it and started over.

Although I would like to take this fellowship, I probably can't. I shouldn't, in fact, pursue medical school, either, because my father likes to drill pieces of glass into his arm and that takes up a lot of my time. I'm sorry.

My father had dressed up for the occasion, wearing a button-down shirt and carefully ironed khakis. His loafers were shined and his fingernails were clipped and he put his contacts in, although he was blinking furiously, not used to them yet. He hadn't shaved or gotten a haircut, but his hair was combed, his beard a bit less scraggly. At first, he came into the kitchen wearing a tie, but I told him to take it off. I couldn't imagine him lying there on the bed, electrodes hooked up to his temples, wearing a
tie.

‘Tell me something,' my dad said.

‘Something what?'

‘Something about your life. Did you give that coat back yesterday?'

I sighed. ‘No.'

‘What were you doing yesterday, then?'

‘Nothing. Reading. I don't know.'

He made a clucking noise with his tongue. ‘My daughter, the thief.'

‘I didn't steal it. It was an accident.'

‘Uh huh.'

The train's doors opened. The echoing sounds of a platform performer rushed in; a black man in dirty jeans and a brown, tattered sweater strummed a guitar and belted out ‘Redemption Song'. He was good, but everyone was ignoring him. I could still hear him as the train pulled away.

‘Well, tell me something else,' my father goaded. ‘Just talk.'

I flared out my hands. ‘I have to write a statement,' I blurted out. ‘For that fellowship, the one I told you about.'
The one I didn't tell you everything about.
‘They want me to write an essay about why I want to be a scientist. And…and just about me, in general.'

‘And?'

I wrapped my hands around my knees. ‘And I don't know what to say.'

‘Why not?'

‘I don't know. I just…I'm not good at that sort of thing.'

My father settled back against the plastic seat. ‘Aren't you becoming a scientist because of me?'

The subway rocked and rattled. Across the aisle, Captain Morgan whispered into a girl's ear. He looked like a transvestite. ‘You?' I repeated.

‘Well, sure. I always wanted you to study science. Your mother always wanted you to go into liberal arts, something like English or journalism or maybe even PR, like she was doing. But you picked science. I'm glad you did.'

It was that he just
assumed
. Like I didn't have a mind of my own, like I couldn't come to decisions for reasons unrelated to my past. The anger was palpable, like a paper cut slicing into my finger. I thought about what he'd said years
ago in relation to his sickness:
I hope this never happens to you.
He just assumed we were coasting on the same fixed path in every regard, and there was nothing I could do about it. On one hand, it was what I believed in, but on the other, it was exactly what I fought against.

I looked away. ‘It's not like I want to go into dermatology.'

He looked away, too, and I knew I'd hurt his feelings. Why didn't I just say yes, he was an influence? Yes, I liked science because he did?

‘I probably won't even take the fellowship, anyway,' I mumbled. ‘What's the point of writing anything?'

‘Why wouldn't you take it?'

It's in Ireland. Which is a million miles away.

‘You're lucky you have the opportunity to succeed, to go out into the world and do things,' he said. ‘You're so lucky you can just go and do that.'

I suppressed a groan.
You can get up and do things, too. Stop making me feel bad about it.
‘It's just not very good timing.'

We faced front. The same Asian woman with the plastic toys barreled through again. A young girl across the aisle bought a hot pink plastic gun. She pointed the gun at her little sister. When she pulled the trigger, a firing noise sounded. My father shifted his weight. ‘I told you about how when I got in that car accident, I looked right into the deer's eyes before we crashed, right?'

‘Yes. I guess.'

He stared straight ahead, speaking out of the side of his mouth. ‘I actually didn't realize Kay was hurt when I first saw her. I thought she was just sleeping.' He let out a small, aching laugh.

I peered at him, waiting. I never knew what to think when he brought up the accident-he only gave little pieces of it
at a time, and I never was sure how to read them. The unsettling smell of urine floated through the air, then disappeared. In the next car, a baby began to wail. My father leaned his head on the window and closed his eyes, apparently choosing not to say anything else about it.

It was getting so hot in the car. The train ground to a stop, more people stuffed on, some of them leaning over us with their sweaty armpits to read the subway map. I had the urge to dart through the gaping subway doors, up the stairs, and through the turnstile. Maybe I could run through the streets and hide in a doorway or a dumpster. I could nest by the recyclables. New York was so big and complicated, it would take a while to be found. I pressed my feet more firmly into the floor, ready to stand up and do it. But then the doors wheezed shut, and the subway took off again.

‘So tell me something else,' my father said after a moment. ‘Tell me about your friends.'

‘What friends?'

‘Your friends from school, I guess. The ones that live in the apartment building in the Village and are all in love with one another.'

I looked at him blankly.

‘One of them is named Monica?' he reminded me.

I squinted, finally getting it. ‘Wait.
Really
?'

He nodded, excited.

‘Okay,' I said slowly, thinking. ‘So…you know the one guy who had that part in that soap opera? Well, this girl started to stalk him. She thought that the soap was real, and that he was the doctor character.'

‘Oh dear,' my father said, as the train rocked forward. ‘A stalker.'

‘Right. She was pretty nuts. And you know the zoologist guy's monkey he had to give up? He found out that the
monkey is in town because he had a part in a movie. So he went to visit him on the movie set. It was at the Central Park Zoo.'

‘I love the Central Park Zoo,' my father exclaimed. ‘Did the monkey recognize him?'

‘Y-yes,' I said, hesitating, not really remembering.

‘Good,' my father said. ‘I'm glad monkeys recognize people, too. Dogs certainly do. Even if you're away for a long time, a dog won't forget you.'

These weren't people I knew. It was a plot synopsis of an episode of
Friends
I had watched two days ago. When my father had an earlier incident like this and asked me to tell him something, I'd told him about another episode of
Friends
, saying it was on TV, but he still didn't get it. He was TV illiterate, and always had been. I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth.

A battery, discarded on the floor, rolled from one side of the car to the other. The lights flickered on and off. And then it was Sixty-eighth Street, us. We got off, walked to the stairs, and climbed them.

The Saturday after I learned my father was going to have ECT treatments, I went to a party up at this girl Nadine's house in the Bronx. Nadine was part of NYU's biology program, too.

On my way there, I passed a Key Food grocery store. There was a kid on the crimson electronic rocking horse, screaming his head off. He tossed some Game Boy handheld thing on the ground every few seconds, and his mother stooped down to pick it up. When the horse ride ended, the boy whined that he wanted to do it over again. ‘Why don't you ride the whale?' his mother suggested, pointing to the lower, smaller whale ride right next to the horse.

‘I hate that whale!' the kid screamed, and took off into
the store. His mother picked up his handheld thing and followed him.

I tried to pass as quickly as possible. Every Key Food in the city had the same horse and the same whale in the front of their store. And every kid in the city loved the horse and hated the whale. But I loved the whale. He was so round and blue and happy. I worried that since he wasn't making enough money for Key Food, they'd take down the whales and replace them with something else-machines with a claw-grabber and toy prizes, maybe, the ones toddlers always climbed inside. And then where would the whales go? To some warehouse? To a junkyard, to be destroyed for scrap? As I passed, I imagined finding a ceramic shard of a whale's smile in some dumpster somewhere. It would be heartbreaking.

The party was in a high-ceilinged, crumbling brownstone. By the time I got there, the place was already humidly stuffed with people. Nadine had moved her rickety, thriftstore furniture to one wall and set up a couple of folding tables for plastic bowls of chips and jugs of liquor. Nadine's black miniature poodle, his coat clipped so low you could see its black skin shining through, yapped from behind a baby gate.

I sat on the back of the couch and mixed equal amounts of rum and Pepsi into my cup. Then it became a splash more rum, and then hardly any cola at all. As I talked to people, a strange, soothing calmness came over me.
So this is what drunk feels like
, I thought. So this was why people got drunk so often. It felt like sliding into a pool on a hot summer day. So I drank more.

And then, it began to turn. At one point, I talked to Nadine herself. I'd always thought Nadine was kind of dorky-she'd entered NYU as an English major, and had part of a Yeats poem tattooed on her stomach. Our conversation started out
normal, but then the whale ride popped into my head. While I was at this party, the whale was sitting in front of the grocery store, unused, unwanted, alone. My father was alone, too, sitting in the apartment in Brooklyn. He'd encouraged me to go to this party, saying I should get out more. I pictured him staring into an empty microwave, looking out the window, picking up a book and putting it down again. My eyes began to fill.

Nadine stopped mid-monologue. ‘Summer,' she whispered, ‘are you OK?'

‘The whale…' I said. ‘No one wants to ride him.'

She paused for a moment and lit another cigarette. ‘Did you take those pills Randall was handing out? I swear to God, they were laced with something freaky.'

I shook my head. ‘I'm not on anything. It's just that, the whale's all alone, and I don't know what to do.'

Nadine looked away uncomfortably. Then she smiled and laughed at some guy break dancing in the middle of the carpet, and moved toward him, done with me. I pushed my way past her and ran for her bedroom, knowing I'd given away too much.

Nadine's bedroom was empty. I climbed into her canopy bed, which was piled high with everyone's coats, and pulled the curtains around the sides to conceal me completely. I had never been on a bed like this before. It reminded me of Ebenezer Scrooge's bed, the one he sleeps in when the various ghosts of Christmas visit.

I burrowed under the coats, inhaling their owners' separate smells-cloying perfume, cigarettes, shawarma. The rum zoomed through my veins and my skin heaved, rising and falling like the bellows of an accordion. I heard the doorknob to the bedroom turn once, but someone said ‘oh' and quickly shut it.

And then I didn't want to be under the pile of coats
anymore. I slid out and opened the canopy's curtains. The sound was everywhere again. I considered climbing out the window, but there was no fire escape. I opened the door a crack and peeked out. Everyone had gathered in the main room. I had an easy shot to the door. I wouldn't have to say goodbye.

I did one more thing before I left: I looked back at the pile of coats and picked one off the top. It was a fringy poncho with tribal designs, jagged edges, and a drawstring neck. I didn't know whose it was; I couldn't imagine anyone at this party wearing something like this.

I put it on and cinched it tight. I wasn't me anymore. I was someone who wore ponchos. I was Native American. I slid out of the room and dove for the door. No one said anything. No one was looking.