Nine Perfect Strangers (22 page)

He did not tell them other things he had learned from his research, such as that suicide survivors often reported that their first thought after they'd swallowed the pills, after they'd jumped, after they'd cut, was a version of:
My God, what have I done?!
He did not tell them that many survivors of suicide are transformed by their experience and go on to live happy lives, sometimes with little psychiatric intervention. He didn't tell them that if the decision to take their lives was in some way thwarted, if the means was removed, their suicidal thoughts often disappeared with time and never returned. He didn't tell them how Britain's national suicide rate dropped by a third when coal gas was phased out, because once people no longer had the option to impulsively stick their head in the oven, there was time for their dark and dreadful impulses to pass. He didn't think it was helpful for parents to know just how much bad luck was involved in the loss of their children; that perhaps all they'd needed was a well-timed interruption, a phone call, a distraction.

But Napoleon knew it, because that was Zach.
Impulsive.
The absolute definition of impulsive. He never thought things through. He never thought of the consequences of his actions. He lived in the moment, as you were meant to do. He practiced mindfulness. No yesterday. No tomorrow. Just now.
I feel this now, so I will do this now.

If you chase the waves along the beach your new sneakers will get wet and they will stay wet for the rest of the day. If you run about outside when the pollen count is high (even though we told you to stay indoors), you will have an asthma attack. If you give up your life, you won't get it back, kid, it's gone.

“Zach, you've got to think!” Napoleon used to yell at him.

That's why Napoleon knew without a doubt that if he'd got up at the time he'd originally planned, if he hadn't pressed the snooze button on his alarm that morning, if he'd knocked on Zach's door and said, “Come paddling with me,” then right now he'd have a wife who wasn't broken and a daughter who still sang in the shower and a son about to celebrate his twenty-first birthday.

Napoleon was meant to be the one who knew and understood boys. He had a drawer full of cards and letters from the boys he'd taught over the years, and their parents, all telling him how very special he was, how much he'd contributed to their lives, that they would never forget him, that he'd pulled them back from some terrible brink, a wrong path, that they'd be eternally grateful to their wonderful teacher, Mr. Marconi.

Yet he'd somehow failed his own boy. The only boy in the world who mattered.

For a year he'd searched for answers. He'd talked to every friend, every teammate, every teacher, every coach. None of them had answers. There was nothing more to know.

“Fan through the back,” said Yao.

Napoleon fanned through the back and felt his muscles stretch and the sun warm on his face as he tasted the sea from the tears that ran heedlessly down his face.

But he wasn't broken.

27

 

Zoe

Zoe saw the tears slide down her father's face and wondered if he knew he was crying. Her dad cried a lot without seeming to realize he was doing it, like a scratch he didn't know was bleeding, as if his body excreted grief without his knowledge.

“Touch the sky,” said Yao.

Zoe followed the graceful arc of Yao's arms and turned now in her mother's direction, and saw the deep crevices in her mother's face and heard once more the sound of her mother's scream that awful morning. Like the scream of an animal caught in a trap. A scream that tore straight through Zoe's life like a razor blade.

Tomorrow it would be three years. Would it ever get any easier for her parents? Because it sure didn't look like it was getting any easier. There was no use hoping that once they got through this next anniversary things would get better, because she'd thought that the last two anniversaries. She knew that when they went back home it would all be just the same.

It felt like her parents were sick with a terrible, incurable disease that ravaged their bodies. It felt like they'd been assaulted. As if someone had come after them with a baseball bat. She had not realized that grief was so physical. Before Zach died, she thought grief happened in your head. She didn't know that your whole body ached with it, that it screwed up your digestive system, your menstrual cycle, your sleep patterns, your skin. You wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy.

Sometimes it felt like Zoe was just
waiting out
her life now, enduring it, ticking off events and days and months and years, as if she just had to get herself through something unspecified and then things would be better except she never got through it and it never got better and she would never forgive him. His death was the ultimate “fuck you.”

At least you weren't close,
said her friend Cara in her head.

At least we weren't close. At least we weren't close. At least we weren't close.

28

 

Heather

Heather didn't see Napoleon's tears as they did tai chi.

She was remembering something that had happened last week, after a long exhausting night shift when she'd helped to deliver two baby boys.

It was impossible not to think of Zach every time she held another newborn baby boy and stared into those sad wise eyes. All babies had that same wise look, as if they'd just come from another realm where they'd learned some beautiful truth they couldn't share. Every day brought an endless stream of new life.

Heather had gone to get her coffee from the hospital caf
é
after her shift and run into a familiar face from the past. There was no time to turn away and pretend she hadn't seen. She recognized her instantly. One of the soccer mums. Before Zach gave it up. Lisa Somebody. A friendly, bubbly lady. It had been years. Lisa Somebody's face lit up when she saw Heather.
Oh, I know you!
And then, as so often happened, a moment later her face fell, as she remembered what she'd heard on
the grapevine. You could virtually read her thoughts:
Oh fuck, she's that mother, but no time to look away!

Some people crossed the street to get away from her. She'd seen them do it. Some people recoiled. They literally recoiled, as if what happened to Heather's family was vile and shameful. This woman was one of the brave ones. She didn't duck or hide or pretend.

“I was so sorry to hear about Zach,” she said. She even said his name without lowering her voice.

“Thank you,” said Heather, longing for coffee. She looked at the boy standing next to her on crutches. “This must be … Justin?” The name came to her on a flood of memories of shivering Saturday mornings on the soccer field, and suddenly, without warning, the anger exploded in her chest, and this kid, this living stupid kid, was her target.

“I remember you,” she hissed at him. “You were the kid who never passed to Zach!”

He stared at her with blank, slack-jawed horror.

“You never passed to Zach! Why didn't you pass?” Heather turned to Lisa. “You should have made him pass!” Her voice rose beyond the bounds of what was acceptable in a public place.

Most people would have made their excuses and scurried away. Some people might have retaliated.
Your dead son doesn't give you the right to be rude
. But this Lisa, this woman Heather barely knew, a woman who (Heather now remembered) had once taken Zoe home to her place and fed her lunch after Zach had an asthma attack on the field, just looked at Heather steadily and sadly and said, “You're right, Heather, I should have made him pass.”

And then Justin, who had been
nine years old
when he played with Zach, had spoken up in his deep young man's voice and said, “Zach was a great striker, Mrs. Marconi. I should have passed to him more. I used to be really bad at passing the ball.”

The generosity, the kindness, the maturity that young man showed that day. Heather had looked at his face—the freckles on his nose, the
tiny black whiskers around his young boy's mouth—and seen the grotesque face of her son on the last day of his life.

“I'm so sorry,” she'd said, weak and trembling with regret, and she'd left without making further eye contact with either of them, without picking up her coffee. Yet again she'd turned the anger that should have been directed only at herself on someone else.

“Snake creeps through the grass,” said Yao.

She saw herself sitting alone in Zach's room, her hand opening the drawer of his bedside cabinet. Heather was the snake that crept through the grass.

29

 

Frances

It was nearly 3
P.M.
as Frances made her way, with some eagerness, downstairs to the meditation studio for the breaking of the silence. She hadn't eaten anything solid since the night before and she was very hungry. When the breakfast and midday bells had rung today, Frances had gone to the dining room to find a row of smoothies set out on the sideboard, labeled by name. Frances had found hers, and tried to drink it slowly and mindfully, but it was gone before she knew it, and her stomach had begun to rumble, loudly and embarrassingly.

She was not really starving, but she was yearning; not so much for food, but for the ritual of food. Maybe if she'd been at home, running around doing errands, it would be easy to skip a few meals (not that she ever did, she'd always had difficulty comprehending the phrase: “I forgot to eat lunch”), but here, especially during the silence, meals were crucial to break up the day.

She'd tried to distract herself by reading in the hammock but her book had taken an outlandish turn which she couldn't handle on an empty stomach.

Her spirits lifted when she walked into the studio. The lights had been turned off and the room was illuminated by clusters of flickering candles. It was cool down here, some sort of essential-oil burner was pumping out a heady mist, and spine-tingling music was being piped through invisible speakers.

Frances always appreciated a little effort when it came to ambience. She noted low camplike beds had been set out around the sides of the room, with blankets and pillows. Headphones and eye masks were laid out on the pillows, with water bottles alongside, like business-class seats thoughtfully arranged for a long-haul flight.

Masha, Yao, and Delilah sat cross-legged in the middle of the room, along with the three members of the Marconi family and the tall, dark, and handsome man.

“Welcome, please join the circle,” Masha said as more people filed into the room behind Frances.

Masha wore a long white sleeveless satin and lace dress somewhere between a wedding dress and a nightgown. She'd made up her eyes, so that they were even more prominent. Yao and Delilah, extremely attractive young people, looked almost ordinary and washed-out next to this celestial being.

Within a few moments, everyone was there. Frances was seated with Heather on one side, and young Ben on the other. She wondered how Ben was feeling. Probably missing his car. She studied his tanned hairy leg in the candlelight—not in a sexual way, thank the Lord, just in a kind of fascinated way, because all this silent mindful meditating over the last few days made everything fascinating. Each individual hair on Ben's leg was like a
tiny tree
in a
dear little forest
—

Ben cleared his throat and shifted his leg. Frances straightened and met the eyes of the tall, dark, and handsome man seated on the opposite side of the circle. He sat straight-backed and solemn, yet somehow in a manner that conveyed he wasn't taking any of this too seriously. She automatically went to look away but he held her gaze and winked. Frances winked back and he looked startled. She was a terrible winker; she found it hard to close only one eye and
had been told that her attempt looked like an extraordinary facial spasm.

“And so we come to the end of our noble silence,” said Masha. She grinned and punched the air. “We did it!”

Nobody said a word, but there was a gentle murmur of sound: exhalations, the shifting of bodies, and half chuckles of acknowledgment.

“I'd like us to now slowly reintroduce conversation and eye contact,” said Masha. “We shall each take a turn to introduce ourselves and speak for just a few moments about whatever comes to mind: perhaps why you chose to come to Tranquillum House, what you're enjoying most about your experience so far, and what you've found most challenging. Are you dying for a cappuccino or glass of sauvignon blanc? I get it! Share your pain with the group! Are you missing a loved one? Tell us about that! Or maybe you'd just prefer to deliver straight-up facts: your age, your occupation, your hobbies, your star sign.”

Masha smiled her extraordinary smile and everyone smiled back.

“Or recite a line of poetry, if you like,” she continued. “It doesn't matter what you say. Simply enjoy the experience of speaking, connecting, and making eye contact with your fellow guests.”

People cleared their throats, adjusted their posture, and stroked their hair in preparation for public speaking.

“While we get to know each other, Yao and Delilah will distribute your afternoon smoothies,” said Masha.

Such was Masha's charismatic charm that Frances hadn't even noticed Yao and Delilah stand up. Now they began to glide about the room distributing tall glasses. This afternoon's smoothies were all the same emerald-green color.
Spinach?
thought Frances with alarm, but when she took hers and had a sip she tasted apple, honeydew melon, and pear, with undertones of moss and bark. It brought to mind a walk by a babbling brook in a dappled green forest. She tossed it back like tequila.

“Why don't you go first, Frances?” said Masha.

“Oh. Okay. Well, I'm Frances. Hi.” She put down her empty glass, dipped her head, and licked her teeth for lipstick. She realized she was
automatically adopting her professional public-speaking persona: warm, humble, gracious, but a little standoffish in order to repel any huggers in the signing line.

“I came to Tranquillum House because I was kind of in a bad way: my health, my personal life, my career.” She allowed her gaze to travel the circle. It felt strangely intimate, looking everyone in the eye again. “I write romance books for a living and my last one got rejected. I also got badly burned in a romance scam. So.”

Why was she telling them all about the scam? Blab, blab, blab.

Tony looked steadily back at her. He had more stubble than before, and his face seemed more defined. Men always lost weight so easily, the fuckers. She faltered a little. Was he sneering again? Or was he just … looking at her?

“So the first five days have been good!” All at once she was desperate to talk. She didn't care if she gave them “too much information.” The words spilled from her mouth. It was like that greedy feeling of sitting down to an excellent meal when you were very hungry and after the first mouthful you were suddenly shoveling food into your mouth like a machine.

“I enjoyed the silence more than I thought I would, it did seem to calm my thoughts. In addition to being rejected I was very upset about this really very nasty review, I was thinking about it obsessively in the beginning, but I'm not even thinking about it at all now, so that's good, and, well, I miss coffee and champagne and the internet and …”
Shut up, Frances.
“And, you know, all the normal luxuries of normal life.”

She sat back, her face warm.

“I'll go next,” said the tall, dark, and handsome man. “I'm Lars. I'm a health-retreat junkie. I indulge and atone, indulge and atone. It works for me.”

Frances looked at his chiseled cheekbones and golden-toned skin.
It certainly does work for you, lovely Lars.

“I'm a family lawyer, so I need to drink a lot of wine after work.”
He paused as if to allow time for his audience to laugh, but no one did.

“I always do a retreat in January because February is my busiest time of year. The phone starts ringing the day the new school year starts. You know, Mum and Dad realize they can't spend another summer together.”

“Oh dear,” said Napoleon somberly.

“As for Tranquillum House, I love the food, love the location, and I'm doing fine. I don't miss anything much except for my Netflix account.” He lifted his smoothie glass as if it were a cocktail and toasted the room.

Flustered Glasses lady spoke up next, although she was noticeably less flustered than the first day.

“I'm Carmel. I'm here to lose weight. Obviously.”

Frances sighed. What did she mean,
obviously
? Carmel was thinner than her.

“I love everything about this place,” said Carmel. “
Everything
.” She looked at Masha with a degree of intensity that was unsettling. She lifted her smoothie glass and drank deeply.

Jessica spoke up next, eagerly, as if she couldn't wait for her turn. “So, my name is Jessica.”

She sat cross-legged, her hands placed on her knees like a kid in a school photo, and Frances could see the cute little girl she had been not all that long ago, before she succumbed to the temptation of all those cosmetic procedures.

“We came here because we've been having really very serious troubles with our marriage.”

“We don't need to tell everyone that,” muttered Ben into his chest.

“No but, babe, you know what? You were right when you said I'm too obsessed with appearances.” She turned to look at him intently. “You were
right
, babe!” Her voice skidded up to an uncomfortably high pitch.

“Yeah but … Okay, Jesus.” Ben subsided. Frances could see the back of his neck turning red.

“We were heading for a
divorce
,” continued Jessica, with touching earnestness, as if the word “divorce” would be shocking to all.

“I can give you my card,” said Lars.

Jessica ignored him. “This noble silence has been really good for me, really great, really
clarifying
.” She turned to Masha. “It's like, I had so much noise in my head before I came here. I was, like, obsessed with social media, I admit it. I just had this constant chitchat going on.” She opened and closed her hand next to her ear to demonstrate. “And now I see everything more clearly. It all started with the money. We won the lottery, you see, and everything changed and it really fucked us up.”

“You won the lottery?” said Carmel. “I've never known anybody who won the lottery.”

“We were actually going to keep that kind of … shush-shush,” said Jessica. She pressed her fingertip to her lips. “But we changed our mind.”

“Did we?” said Ben.

“How much did you win?” asked Lars, and then he immediately held up his palm. “Inappropriate! Don't answer that! None of my business.”

“How did you find out you'd won?” asked Frances. “Tell us the story.” She wanted the story of the moment their lives changed forever.

“I'm so glad to hear that the silence has given you clarity, Jessica,” Masha interrupted before the conversation could take a turn toward this exit. She had a remarkable ability to ignore what didn't interest her. “Who else?”

Ben spoke up. “Yeah. I'm Ben. Jessica's husband. Jessica covered why we're here. I'm fine. The silence has been fine. The food is better than I expected. I'm not sure what we're achieving, but it's all good. I guess I miss my new car.”

“What sort of car, mate?” asked Tony.

“Lamborghini,” said Ben, tender-eyed, as if he'd been asked the name of his newborn son.

Tony smiled. It was the first time Frances had seen him smile and it was the most unexpected, apple-cheeked smile. It entirely transformed his face. It was like a baby's smile. His eyes disappeared into a mass of wrinkles. “No wonder you miss it,” he said.

“If I won the lottery I always thought I'd get a Bugatti,” mused Lars.

Ben shook his head. “Overrated.”

“
Overrated,
he says! The most stunning car in the world is
overrated
!”

“If I ever won the lottery I'd get a cute little red Ferrari,” offered Zoe.

“Yeah, well the Ferrari is—”

Masha cut off the sports-car conversation. “Who haven't we heard from yet? Tony?”

“You all know me as the desperado who tried to bring in the contraband,” said Tony. He smiled again. “Here for weight loss. I miss beer, pizza, ribs with plum sauce, wedges with sour cream, family-sized chocolate bars—you get the picture.” His initial enthusiasm waned and he lowered his eyes, clearly keen for everyone to stop looking at him.

“Thank you,” he said formally, to the floor.

Frances didn't believe him. There was more to his decision to come here than just weight loss.

Napoleon raised his hand.

“Go ahead, Napoleon,” said Masha.

He lifted his chin and recited. “
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul
.” His eyes gleamed in the shadows from the candlelight. “That's, ah, from Nelson Mandela's favorite poem, ‘Invictus.'” He looked uncertain for a moment. “You said we could recite poetry.”

“Absolutely I did,” said Masha warmly. “I love the sentiment.”

“Yes, well, it just came into my head. I'm a high school teacher. The kids like to hear that they are masters of their own fates, although …” He laughed a strange sort of a laugh. Heather, who sat next to him, placed a gentle hand over his jiggling kneecap. He didn't seem to notice it.
“Tomorrow is the third anniversary of our son's death. That's why we're here. He took his own life, so that's how
my
kid chose to be master of his own fate.”

The room became very still as if, for just a moment, they all held their breath. The tiny gold flames on the candles trembled.

Frances compressed her lips so no words would escape. She felt as if all feelings were too big and unwieldy for her body, as if she might burst into tears or burst out laughing, as if she might say something overly sentimental or intimate. It was like she'd drunk too much in an inappropriate setting, a business meeting with publishing executives.

“I'm so sorry for your loss, Napoleon,” said Masha and she reached out her hand as if she wanted to touch Napoleon, but he was too far away. “So very sorry.”

“Why thank you, Masha,” said Napoleon chattily.