Read Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See Online
Authors: Juliann Garey
Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See (37 page)
Knight rolls his eyes and rubs his hand over his face. “Which was?”
“Stability. The best-case scenario is stability. Not happiness, not passion, not joy. Best-case scenario: a flaccid fucking life of stability. A living flatline.”
Knight stops rubbing his face and lets his forehead fall onto the table with a thud. “That’s not what I said, Greyson,” he says facedown into the table.
“Yes, it is,” I insist. “That’s exactly what you said. The treatment goal is stability.”
He takes a deep breath and pulls himself into an upright, seated position. “Okay, maybe that is what I said, but the truth is, without stability, there will be no room in your life for happiness. Real, non-manic, nonhallucinatory happiness that doesn’t inevitably eventually end in suicidal depression. So without the doctors and the pills and the ECT, I would say your chances of having
any
happy in your future is pretty close to zero.”
I would like to get angry at Knight, but unfortunately I am struck by the fact that when I think about it—and I do, a lot—I realize I have had very little happy over the past three decades. Not none. But not a lot. “Go on.”
He sighs. “Once we get you stable—and I have every confidence that we will—then and only then—you might get the chance to experience those unexpected minutes or days or, if you’re really lucky, weeks of honest-to-God happiness. And Greyson, if you think the rest of us so-called normal people get any more than that, I obviously need to prescribe you a stronger antipsychotic.”
He is not bullshitting me. He is not even talking to me like a shrink. My shrink is talking to me like a friend in need of a friend. And apparently I am so touched by the gesture that I have started to cry. Without pausing, he hands me the ubiquitous box of tissues.
“We are all of us—well, with the exception of people who have just fallen in love and those lucky demented few who see life’s glass as three quarters full—we are just getting by. We do our jobs and love our families and take pride in our kids’ accomplishments. Some people believe in God because that makes watching the nightly news a little easier. But our ups and downs stay within a manageable range. That’s what I want for you.”
I nod. “But what if I want more?”
Knight gets up and comes around to my side of the table so he can sit directly across from me. “When you got here, you were half dead.” His tone is far more serious than I’m used to. “Mostly from the illness, and the damage you inflicted on yourself, but also from grief and guilt. And loss.”
“I don’t remember. Anything.”
“I know,” he says. “And some days I think it’s better that way. But I don’t know. Because when you got here you remembered Willa. And in making you well, we took away what little you had left of her. I’m sorry you don’t have those memories. But she’s here now. Which is kind of a miracle. She may be angry and conflicted and resentful, but she wants to know you. Even if sometimes it’s just to rub your nose in the terrible thing you did to her. So you should let her.”
I pound my fist against my forehead. “It just sounds a little too much like a cheesy Hollywood ending to me.”
“Trust me,” Knight says, “no one is handing you a happy ending. At best you’re being spared a Shakespearean tragedy.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Let me work on the stability. You spend your time on the happiness part.”
“You realize I have a terrible track record in that department.”
Knight smiles at me. “Past is past. Consider your record expunged.” He gets up to leave the room and pauses at the door. “By the way, did I mention she’s a terrific kid?”
My team and I have decided the best thing for me to do when I get out of here is to transition to the outpatient program—at least for a while. Until I figure out what I want to be when I grow up. It’s kind of anti-climactic. But it’s either that or go to live with Hannah in California. Away from Willa. So I will explore my options while receiving four hours of treatment and Group every day, five days a week. I might also enroll in some extension classes at NYU. In film. Because what I really want to do is direct. And all my favorite directors are bipolar.
I am looking through the NYU catalog, reading course descriptions to Willa, who is rummaging around in her backpack pretending to listen to me. I guess I should take that as a sign of progress—each of her monosyllabic responses a little trophy of normal father-daughter relations. I guess I should. But I find talking to her back annoying. To be fair, though, it is the end of the semester. She is supposed to be in the library studying for finals, but she has come to see me anyway. I am not no one to her. I decide to be helpful.
“What are you looking for?”
“Oh … nothing … I can’t believe I …”
Once more, with feeling. “Maybe I can help.”
“No, I’m sure it’s here. I just …”
She continues to rummage, increasingly frustrated. She is yanking books and loose papers out of her backpack, and as she tugs at some stapled pages, a large corner section tears off.
“Fuck! No! Shit! Great, that’s just fabulous.”
The nurses within earshot look over. I’m sure I see one or two raised eyebrows when they find the source of the river of expletives is my daughter—beautiful, brilliant, mouth like a toilet. I am surprised at the embarrassment I feel.
“Willa, please,” I whisper, “a little decorum.”
She stops, stares at me drop-jawed.
“You used to say that to me all the time.”
“I did?”
“I was like seven years old and we’d go out to dinner. You and Mom would let me bring a friend and it was always someplace like the Jetty or the Chart House where the wait was like an hour and Lauren Fineman and I would be running around playing tag or something and you’d be like, ‘Ladies, a little decorum please.’ ”
“Jesus, really?”
“Really. I was the only kid in second grade who knew what it meant. Then it showed up on my SATs and I stared at it for five minutes before I filled in the bubble.”
She shoves her backpack onto the floor and collapses onto the couch. I can tell she is close to tears. I cross the expanse of linoleum between us and sit down next to her. I want to put my arm around her, but I am afraid.
“What were you looking for?” I ask gently.
Her voice is hesitant, halting. “I can’t find the plane ticket. That Mom sent me.”
Ah. That. I’m guessing it’s the one I’ve been staring at with dread. The one that means she’ll be gone for over a month. The one I’ve been staring at while her back was turned, hoping if I concentrate hard enough it will spontaneously combust. The one sticking out of the inside pocket of the very grown-up-looking black wool coat with the red lining—a gift from me via the Bloomingdale’s catalogue. Which is lying over the arm of the couch we’re sitting on.
“And while I was looking,” she continues, “I tore my French Lit study notes, which I spent like five hours—”
“Willa?”
“What?”
I point one finger at her coat. She gasps, grabs the ticket, and hugs it to her chest.
“Oh my God, I’m such an idiot. Thank you so much. Mom would have killed me.”
“I seriously doubt that,” I say.
“No, really, I’m so relieved. Thank you.” And then she throws her arms around my neck. I inhale deeply, hoping to fill my lungs with enough of her essential Willa-ness to keep me going while she is gone.
“Okay, I’m going to get some tea and then deal with the next crisis,” she says, releasing me. “Do you want some?”
I shake my head and continue circling courses in the catalog, pretending not to feel the pit in my stomach where Willa will have been after she goes.
And trying not to look up every thirty seconds during the five minutes she is away.
“I made us hot chocolate,” she says, handing me one of the two Styrofoam cups she’s holding. “But I had to make it with water. The only milk in the fridge had Glenda’s name on it and I just couldn’t deal.”
She hands me the cup and I stir the thin hot chocolate and minimarshmallows with the red plastic stick Willa hands me. I blow on it and take a small sip. It is sweet and wet, not particularly chocolaty, more vaguely cocoa-like. I open my lips a little wider and several of the tiny, slippery marshmallows swim into the warm cocoa pool. When they catch under my teeth, I feel the pop. They are sticky like candy, not soaked through.
At that moment, for a split second, time stops. I feel it. I wonder if Willa has felt it too. Or is it just me? After all the ECT, could I have built up residual stores of electricity that are setting off random charges? Am I shocking myself?
“Hello?” Willa is waving her hands in front of my face. Apparently she has been talking. “Tape? For my notes? Do they let you have tape or are they afraid you guys will try to make a noose out of it?”
Tape. Tape
. I close my eyes and it is like pulling up an anchor. One that was dropped from a ship abandoned decades ago.
Willa leans in close. I inhale. Breath. Skin. Hair. And whispers, “Uh, Greyson? Daddy? Are you okay? Should I … call someone?”
Daddy
.
And then, finally, it comes to the surface. Past and present connect in one moment, one memory, one human being—bridging time and distance.
I remember.
I remember.
“What are you grinning at?” Willa asks.
“I just remembered something—”
“What?”
“You were so little, I don’t think—”
“Tell me.”
“For a little while, when you were still in nursery school, your mom and I split up.”
“Yeah?”
“We took a trip. Just the two of us. We drove up north?” I search her face. Nothing. She doesn’t remember.
Miriam walks by and Willa jumps up.
“Excuse me, would you happen to have some Scotch tape I could use?” She holds up her torn notes as if to prove she isn’t planning anything sinister.
“Sure thing, come with me, sweetheart.”
I tell myself it’s enough that I remember. More than enough. That it is everything. Almost.
Willa comes back with her notes patched together just as Milton announces the end of visiting hours.
I get up and help Willa on with her coat. As if I were a real father. As if this weren’t a psychiatric hospital. She turns toward me, but is focused intently on buttoning her coat. “You were totally bullshitting me about Cassiopeia,” she says casually.
I am incredulous. I wait. Hoping she will unwrap another gift I do not deserve.
When she looks up, I can tell—we are in the same place at the same time.
“We were lying on top of Leland Costa’s RV looking at the stars and you were pointing out the constellations. As … if …” She smiles at her own Valley Girliness.
I look into my cup. “And you wanted to sleep up there.”
Willa laughs. “Yeah, I said we should tape ourselves to the roof so we wouldn’t fall off.”
“You remember.”
“
You
remember,” she says.
Milton walks up behind us. “Visiting hours are over. Got to go now.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” I say, lifting her backpack onto my shoulder.
“I’ll call over break,” she says.
Five weeks. I can’t say good-bye. I hand her backpack over, nod and try to smile.
“I’ll come visit as soon as I get back,” she says. “I promise.”
I am still afraid, but I wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly. “I love you, Willa,” I whisper.
“I believe you,” she says.
I was hoping for an “I love you too, Daddy.” But that would be the cheap Hollywood ending. And I’ve always hated those. I may want the Hollywood ending, but I know it’s not real. At least real is something I can work with.
I realize that I am feeling a tiny glimmer of something. Something good. I cannot remember what it is because it comes from someplace so far away and so deep inside that I cannot place it or put a name to it.
Maybe someday it will come to me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My heartfelt thanks:
To Mark Doten, my editor, for his incredible vision, patience and persistence.
To Bronwen Hruska, my publisher, for being the book’s greatest champion.
To Paul Bresnick, my agent, for being in my corner every step of the way.
To John Oakes for his invaluable guidance and wisdom.
To Jennifer Belle and Tim Tomlinson for showing me how it’s done. I couldn’t have asked for better teachers.
To Michael Sears, Desiree Rhine and Sherri Phillips for their essential input throughout many, many drafts.
To The Virginia Center For the Creative Arts, The Vermont Studio Center and Carol Levine and Melissa Slaybaugh for providing welcoming places and the head space in which to write.
To Professor Richard Goodkin for introducing me to Proust and the magic of the Madeleine so many years ago.
To Diane Colman for being my very first reader and copy editor (thanks Mom!).
To Richard Roth for his boundless generosity and creative input.
To Jack Levine for his unconditional support.
To Albert Colman, Karen Finerman, Janet Eisenberg, Donna Broder, Gavin Polone, Monica Cohen, Karen Levine, Lisa Garey, Sharon Hayes Roth, and Jonathan Reiss for the many and varied ways they supported me as I made my way down this very long road.
To Dr. Elizabeth Fitelson, Dr. Christina Matera, Dr. David Printz and Dr. Margaret Spier for saving my life.
To Gabriel and Emma for being the most compassionate, awe-inspiring, wonderfully eccentric, genius children I could ever dream of. You amaze me every day.
And finally, to Michael—for more than I can possibly say here, but especially, for always (and often) saying “when” and never “if.” It made all the difference. Thank you.
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