by Annie Jocoby
“What’s that?”
“How, when did you know that you were bisexual?”
“Geez, Iris, I don’t know. When did you know that you were heterosexual?”
“I know, I know. Dumb question. Um…”
“No, no, it’s ok. Actually, when I was 13. I was in the Boy Scouts, and an older boy of 17 sucked me off. And I liked it. It was very confusing for me, to be honest with you. I mean, I’ve always loved girls. Always. And I always had a ton of girlfriends. Yet, I found out that I also liked guys. For the longest time, I didn’t quite know where I fit in. I wasn’t quite gay, and I wasn’t quite straight. Although I’ve always been more straight than gay. So, my adolescence and young adulthood was even more confusing than most people’s were, I think.”
“How did you learn to accept that part of yourself?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I just woke up one day and decided that I had to live my life without giving a good goddamned about what people thought about me and my lifestyle. So, I decided to do just that. I thought for sure that I would lose friends, but that didn’t happen. And the funny thing is, I found that I wasn’t alone. Not by a long shot. You’d be surprised to know how many men are just like me, even if they would never, ever admit to it.”
“Oh, I would be less surprised than you might think,” I said. “I did the research after finding out about you and Ryan, and it turns out that there are a good percentage of men who are into men and women. I’ve always known that there were lots of women like that – I met quite a few women like that in college, for instance. I never thought the same about men, though. Now, I know differently.”
“What about you?” he asked. “Do you like girls?”
“Well, no. I mean, I’ve never experimented or anything like that. I’ve thought about it, though.”
“And what keeps you from pursuing it?”
I shrugged. “The temptation was just never that strong with me.”
He looked at the fire, then took a sip of his wine. Then he sighed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just…”
“Just what?”
And then he said something that stunned me.
“I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ryan
As I sat on my private plane, sipping a glass of Scotch, I tried my very hardest not to think about what was ahead. There was a nagging voice in my head that told me that this was all a huge mistake that was going to have bad consequences. Consequences that I could never comprehend. Why I thought this, I knew not. I thought that perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I just left Iris without a word. I mean, I did write her a letter explaining things, albeit in a very cryptic way. But would she understand? Could she? Why was I treating the most important person in my life in such a way?
I knew why I was treating her this way, deep down, however. It was the old cliché – you can’t love somebody until you love yourself. And right then, because of all the negative thinking I had been doing as I have reviewed my life, I loathed myself. Despised myself. The way that I acted during my college years was beyond reprehensible. Why did Natalie and everybody always think that I was a great guy? I treated her like shit, along with many other people, yet she always had me up on a pedestal, as she does still today. Not to mention Nick, the faceless bimbos, and, especially, Rachael.
There was very little that I could do about a lot of my actions in the past. I mean, I could apologize to Nick profusely, as I never had really apologized to him before. That’s one thing, and I will do that when I get back into town. I could go and see Natalie while I’m in the New York City area and do the same. The other people I hurt – the endless stream of women – I couldn’t apologize to them even if I wanted to, because there was just no way that I could remember who all they were.
But Rachael’s parents – that was another story. I could explain to them what happened, and hopefully help them find peace in her death. I could never be redeemed for what I did to Rachael, and for how much her parents were, no doubt, devastated by her death, but what I could do would be to try to help them come to terms with what happened to her. And maybe that would give them some modicum of closure.
But the nagging voice inside of me just wouldn’t be quiet. The voice told me that I was only doing this for myself, not for them. That I was only doing this to make myself feel better, and, really, all that I would be doing for Rachael’s parents, thirteen years after the fact, would be reopening old wounds that might have already healed. That was really the more likely scenario, but, then again, I would never know unless I tried.
So, the upshot of this was that I was finding myself on my plane heading to La Guardia early on a Thursday morning. I left when Iris and everybody was fast asleep. I knew that Iris would never let me go on this trip, because I had been out of the ICU for only a few weeks. There were any number of things that could go wrong while I’m traveling, and I researched all the risks. The biggest risk was that I simply wasn’t ready to be doing this. I wasn’t taking care of myself, I knew, because I wasn’t eating right and getting very little exercise. I spent all my days staring at the television set blankly, instead of trying to help myself get better. So, I probably wasn’t ready for this trip. And Iris would’ve done everything in her power to prevent me from taking the trip. Hell, she probably would’ve gotten the handcuffs out, like Nick did all those years ago. She could be so strong-willed when she really wants to be, and I knew that she absolutely would’ve prevented me from leaving.
Yet, I was compelled to leave. I had to do it. I was spinning so much into my depression and negativity that I became virtually obsessed with the issue of what could have been. It became all that I thought about, once I allowed myself to actually think about it. And what triggered it? It was the journaling that I was doing, and it was the appearance on television of somebody who resembled Rachael a great deal. It was also, as trivial as this might sound, an episode of one of the shows that came on – not sure which, they all blended together after a little while – that dealt with the issue of a college student who died from acute alcohol poisoning. I was immediately tripped into what had happened, and, once I journaled it out, the inescapable conclusion was that I caused Rachael’s death.
Me. Nobody else. Just me.
So, at the point when I came to terms with my absolute role in her death – when I had my epiphany, if you will – I knew that I had to leave. If I didn’t leave, then I would continue on my dark path, and I knew what would happen next. I would have snuck my dealer into Nick’s house and got back into using. The one thing, outside of painting, that always helped quell the negative thoughts in my head. Well, that wasn’t entirely true – being around Iris and my daughter helped, as well, but I wasn’t ready to accept their love again just yet.
If I put it to Iris that it was either visiting Rachael’s parents or getting back into dope, perhaps she would’ve understood. But that still didn’t mean that she would’ve allowed me to leave. She always had my best interests at heart, I knew, and I knew that, from the outsider’s perspective, my leaving was absolutely not in my best interest.
I took a deep breath as the plane started to descend. Below me, I saw squares of land and then tiny people, cars and buildings. I got on my cell to call for a limo to meet me, so, when the plane finally landed, there was the car waiting for me with a driver in a limo cap.
“Mr. Gallagher?” the limo driver asked when I got off the plane.
“Yes,” I said. “I need you to take me to Brooklyn.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Throughout the ride, the limo driver, John, tried to make small talk. I tried, as politely as I could, to discourage his talk. I wasn’t in the mood for talking. I was too busy rehearsing what it was that I had to say to Rachael’s parents.
“So, this your first time to New York?” he asked.
“No. Been here before.”
“Neither.”
“Nice weather we’re having here right now.”
“Yeah.”
“You going to catch a Yankee’s game while you’re here?”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“What do you think about that A. Rod business?”
“Not surprised.”
And on it went. I wanted to tell the guy that I wasn’t interested in talking to him, at all, because he just wasn’t getting the hint.
Finally, I got out my headphones. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to listen to a podcast for the job I’m going for out here.”
“Oh, sure. Sure.” And John, mercifully, said nothing more.
I put the headphones in and listened to dead air. I couldn’t listen to music or anything else. I had to concentrate on what I would say to the Smyths.
Finally, the limo arrived at the brownstone. “Please wait here,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” Then I went to the door and rang the doorbell. However, because I was appearing on their doorstep unannounced, there was no guarantee that I would be admitted entrance into their home. Maybe nobody was home, and maybe the person who answered the door would slam it in my face. So, the limo driver had to cool his heels until I gave him the signal to go on.
To my delight, a woman answered the door. She was about 55, and had the same cheekbones and blue eyes as Rachael. I had to assume that this was Rachael’s mother.
“Uh, Mrs. Smyth?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Who’s asking?”
“My name is Ryan. Ryan Gallagher. I, uh, went to school, Harvard, with your daughter, Rachael.”
The suspicious look on her face melted, and was replaced by a look of inescapable sadness. She looked down at the ground in front of her, and, when she lifted her head, there were tears in the corner of her eyes. “Rachael. I haven’t heard her name mentioned in many a year.” Then she looked at me and gestured with her hands to come in. “Come in, come in.”
I felt relief flood through me, then I waved John on. I had explained to him, before I got out of the car, that I would call him when I needed him to come back.
I walked into the tiny brownstone that was decorated modernly. Modern art on the walls that was truly magnificent – cubist in detail, contrasting colors and gorgeous lighting. The huge windows streamed sunlight that illuminated the entire room. There was an enormous Ficus tree that was growing in a pot, and various tropical plants that were in other pots that were evidently hand-crafted. There was a bird in a cage that was singing. Iris would’ve digged this place – she loved birds and she loved modernism.
Thinking of Iris, I smiled. God, I really did love that woman, and there was something about being here that made me realize it anew.
“Uh, have a seat. Have a seat,” the woman said, gesturing towards the blue couch with multiple colored pillows.
I sat down.
“Could I get you some tea or wine or anything?”
Wine. It was around noon. I wondered if drinking wine in the middle of the day was something that this woman often did. “Yes, please. Whatever you’re drinking.”
At that, she went into the kitchen and I heard her pour two glasses of wine. “Here,” she said. “I hope you like red.”
“I surely do.”
She sipped her wine and looked at me quizzically. I knew that I had to come clean, but, where to start?
“Um, I. Is your husband around?” I asked, then immediately felt that was the wrong question to start with . She might think that a) I’m hitting on her or b) I’m an intruder who was trying to determine if she was alone, so that I could rob her.
But, she appeared to think neither of these things. “No. I mean, my husband doesn’t live here with me anymore. After Rachael…well, couples can do one of two things when they lose a child. They can either grow stronger or fall apart. We fell apart.”
I nodded my head. “Yes, I understand that. I, uh, lost a child as well.”
Her face softened as she covered one of my hands with hers. “Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that. May I ask what happened?”
“SIDS,” I said.
She nodded. “That must be so difficult. It’s bad enough to lose a child when she’s just 20, and on the verge of the rest of her life. But to lose an infant, who never got to experience life at all…that’s just not fair.”
I nodded, feeling the familiar feeling of devastation, grief and loss. Being with this woman was cathartic, I was finding, as I suddenly realized that I had never really processed my emotions about Mia’s death. It was something that so devastating that I covered it up. I was a man, and men weren’t supposed to fall apart when they lose their child. They’re supposed to be strong and carry on and help the mother through. After all, it was the mother who was supposed to feel the emotions and depression from losing a child, not the father.
Yet I did feel the devastation. I just buried it, like I had so many other things in my life.
“Yes, yes, it was probably the worst thing to happen in my life,” I said, honestly.
She nodded. “Let me show you something,” she said. “Follow me.”
I followed her up the stairs of her brownstone, and she opened up the door to a room. There, in that room, was a young girl’s bed. The curtains were pink and filmy, and there was a desk against the wall that had various pencils and pens lying across it. On the wall, there were various medals – cross country medals, and other awards that Rachael had won in writing competitions. There were pictures everywhere – pictures of Rachael’s cross country team, and pictures of Rachael and others in various places. Some were her and her friends on a ski trip, others of her at various parties. There was even a picture of her when she was around 12 years old – an old school picture that was blown up and put in a frame. Her blue eyes stared out, and her smile was full of metal braces.
I felt a lump in my throat. It was what I did with Mia’s room. I never did touch a single thing in that room until Iris and I moved into a different house. I never told Iris this, but cleaning out Mia’s room, which I had to do because we were making the move to the new house, was probably the single hardest thing that I’ve had to face. I cried like a baby when I put her dresses and shoes into a box that was headed for storage, and her little stuffed animals that went with them. Everything that belonged to Mia was put into a special hermetically sealed storage, and it ripped my heart out to do it. I was depressed for several days after that, not wanting to talk to or see anybody.
But Iris never knew any of this, because she was recovering from what Andrew had done to her at the time, and there was no way that I would dump more grief onto her lap. So, I never said a word to her about my feelings about cleaning out Mia’s room.
I suddenly felt myself crying when I was looking in at Rachael’s room. The woman put her arm around me. “It’s hard, isn’t it? I somehow think that maybe you did the same thing with your little girl’s room.”
“Yes, yes, I did. I did. I had to clean out her room, though, because I was moving to a new place, and that was so difficult.” Somehow, my visit to Mrs. Smyth was taking a different turn. It was helping me access my feelings, really access my feelings, about losing Mia. “God, that was so unfair, what happened to Mia. So unfair. She never even got to take her first step. She never got to lose a tooth, and find a quarter under her pillow, or sit on Santa’s lap. She never got to have that first crush or first dance or first anything. It was so cruel. Fate was so cruel.”
I was really sobbing, now, but I knew that I had to get it together. This visit wasn’t about me, and it was never meant to be. It was about making peace with the past and giving Rachael’s family a sense of closure.
Yet, I apparently needed closure as well.
Mrs. Smyth put her arms around me, and I could feel her crying as well. I hugged her tightly, my head buried in her shoulder, as the tears fell uncontrollably. I could never access my devastation about all that was taken from Mi
a when she died the way that she did. I knew that it was unfair, yet I went along and processed it as I did everything else that was bad in my life – it was something that was simply too painful to really examine, so I didn’t. I couldn’t really open that door of grief, because it might have been the last straw.
Yet, here I was, with this woman I barely knew, accessing how I was feeling about Mia, and feeling the weight of her death slowly being lifted off of my shoulders with every tear that I shed. I clung to this woman tightly, as if she was literally going to save my life.
And, looking back, perhaps she did just that, in her way.
In her quiet way, maybe she did save my life.
∞
Later on that evening, after both of us poured out our endless well of tears, I was finally ready to tell Mrs. Smyth why I came to visit her in the first place.
“Uh, Mrs. Smyth,” I said.
“Oh, I haven’t gotten around to addressing this ‘Mrs. Smyth’ business. Please call me Pamela.”
“Ok, Pamela. I, uh, there was a reason why I came to visit you. I mean, I did come to visit you because I knew your daughter. But, there’s something else.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I, uh, I was responsible for her death.”
She barely reacted to this. “In what way, Ryan?”
“She, uh, went to the party with me. I was her companion for the evening, and I should’ve also been her protector. But, I wasn’t that at all. I, uh, had a serious drug problem. I went into the bathroom and got high, and then I not only ignored Rachael’s pleas to go home, but I encouraged her to drink even more. If it weren’t for me, your daughter would still be alive.”
Pamela looked sad, but she shook her head. “You can’t blame yourself. I somehow knew that you were here because you blamed yourself for what happened, but you need to stop doing that.” She paused for a long time, looking pensively at her drink. “The truth is, Ryan, was that my daughter was an alcoholic and was bent on destruction. What happened at that party would’ve happened, sooner or later, to her. She was hospitalized several times for acute alcohol poisoning when she was in high school. I almost didn’t let her go away to school, because I wanted to have her in my sights at all times. But, that wasn’t realistic, so I let her enroll at Harvard. So, you might have thought that you were somehow ruining a pristine girl, and that you somehow forced her to drink so much that she died, but you need to stop thinking that. It was inevitable.”