by Annie Jocoby
So, we found ourselves at a little friendly bistro with an outdoor patio. It was a place that we had discovered many years earlier, and this restaurant had the best Chilean Sea Bass that I had ever tasted. And the wine here was second to none.
We ordered, then I looked at her across the table. She was back to normal, and she really was very beautiful. Just for a moment, it seemed like old times between us. Then, just as quickly I remembered that, even in the old days, the good days that Alexis and I had were few and far between.
Right now she looked very, very sad.
I put my hand on hers. “You doing okay?”
She nodded weakly. “Yes. But I’ve been better, to tell you the truth. The reality of my life has been hard to escape lately. I don’t have anything, Ryan. And I want a child so desperately. Yet, I can’t seem to find a man who wants to stay with me.”
“Alexis, I know that things seem bleak right now. But you’re beautiful and sweet. If you stay on your meds, then you’ll make somebody a happy guy. You have to stay on your meds, though.”
“I know. Iris has been helping me with that. So, my chemicals seem be more in balance. I’m still very depressed, but I think that it’s situational more than anything right now.”
“Iris has been helping?”
“Yeah. Her sister was bi-polar, as you know, so she knows about keeping somebody med compliant.”
I smiled. My Iris. Such a good person with such an enormous heart. How I loved her.
“Do you want to talk about Mia?” I asked Alexis.
“Yes. I mean, I’ve been through this with my grief counselor. But I still think about her every single day.”
“Me too. I don’t really let anybody know about that, though.”
“Not even Iris?”
“No, not even her. It’s something that’s so private for me, you know? And I’ve always felt that I needed to keep a stiff upper lip to the world about how I felt about that. But I went on a trip to New York, to Brooklyn, and I realized that I didn’t need to keep any of that in.”
“What happened there?”
“I met a woman who had also lost a child,” I told Alexis, not going into how, exactly, that child was lost. “And, I don’t know. I had a catharsis there with her. I’ve turned a corner in my recovery from my shooting, I think. I’m finally ready to let the past go. Iris and Dalilah are my future, and I really need to concentrate on them instead of regrets.”
Alexis nodded. “You’re very lucky to have people in your life who love you like that.”
“Alexis, I love you. I always have, and I probably always will. But as a friend. I realize that you always wished that I would fall in love with you again, but I’m afraid that can’t happen.”
“Who said anything about my thinking that would happen? I know how you feel about Iris. How you’ve always felt about her. I don’t know exactly why you feel that way, but that’s not for me to judge.”
I stared at her, wondering if she really felt that way. If she finally accepted that Iris was the love of my life.
“You’re going to be ok, right?”
“Sure,” she said. But the way that she said that, I doubted it and I immediately assumed that she was lying.
I hoped that I didn’t have to worry about her.
∞
When I arrived at Nick’s house, he was sunbathing by the pool with two women. They were both topless. They looked up at me, and smiled invitingly.
Nick, however, did not have the same inviting expression on his face.
“Hey, Nick. Where’s Iris?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. She apparently left early this morning.”
“What? Why did she leave?”
“Dunno.”
I looked at the two women. “Care to introduce me to your friends?”
“Yeah. This is Megan and Stephie.”
“Hey handsome,” one of the women said. She was a typical Nick kind of girl – gorgeous rack, flat stomach, long hair and beautiful face. She turned to Nick. “We need to have him join us tonight. You never told me that your friend was so hot.”
Nick just glared at her, then turned to me. “So, I see you’re back. Why didn’t you tell anybody that you were leaving?”
“Because if I did, I doubt that Iris would’ve let me. And I had to do what I just did, so I couldn’t say anything. But I left a letter for Iris.”
“She didn’t get any letter. Where did you leave it for her?”
“On her nightstand. I still don’t understand how it was that she didn’t see it.”
“Who knows? Maybe it was intercepted by stalker Tammy. That woman has it bad for you.”
“Oh, crap. I’ll bet that’s what happened. Well, you need to fire her as soon as possible. I can’t have women acting like that.”
“Women have always acted like that with you. You have something that brings out the crazy, I’ll tell you that.”
“Whatever. Anyhow, why would Iris leave?”
“I don’t know, and I really don’t care.”
I was suddenly angry with him. “Could I speak with you in private?” I asked him. Nick said nothing, just go up off of his lounger, and the two of us walked back into the house. Once we got into the house, I laid into him. “What do you mean, you don’t care? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, because you never cared about anybody but yourself.”
“Oh, now, that’s bullshit, and you know that’s bullshit.”
“When have you ever cared about any woman who was in your life? Now, you had the responsibility for my wife and daughter to be safe here, at your house, and you apparently drove them away and you don’t care about that.”
“Ryan, I think you need to stop right there. Just stop with the accusations that I don’t care about your wife and child.”
“Why should I stop? I’m telling you something that you don’t want to hear, I know, but you have to hear it. They’re gone because of you. She wouldn’t just leave unless you drove her to it.”
“Ryan, it’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like? Why would she leave?”
Nick said nothing, just looked down at the floor, his hands in his hair. Then he looked up at me again. “Iris left because of something I said to her.”
“And what was that?”
Nick took a deep breath, then looked me in the eye. “I told her that I was in love with her.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
He stunned me with those words. I wasn’t prepared for them. Any other words, I would have been prepared for. He could’ve told me that Iris wasn’t around because he killed her and buried her in the garden, and I would’ve been less surprised then I was right at that moment. “I’m sorry? What did you just say?”
“I’m in love with your wife. I don’t know how it happened, or when. I only know that I am completely and consumingly in love with her.”
I felt my eyes get wide, and I hyperventilated just a little. “She-she-she doesn’t feel the same way. Does she?” I then realized how I had been treating her lately. If she fell in love with Nick, or anybody else, I wouldn’t blame her. I had been a total ass to her lately.
“No. In fact she’s made it clear that it can never happen, because she’s 150% devoted to you. So, no. No, she doesn’t feel the same way about me.”
I let out my breath in relief. “Oh, thank god. Thank god. Thank god.” It was then that I realized that if I lost Iris, again, I would be so beyond devastated that I probably wouldn’t recover.
“Is that all you can say? Thank god that she doesn’t love me?”
“Nick, no offense, but I’m taking your protestations of love with a grain of salt. Candy and Brandy out there, or whatever their names, are your speed. I think that you’re infatuated with Iris because she’s the one woman that you can’t have. So, I’m not going to get too concerned about what you think you feel for Iris.”
“Oh, really. Really. You think that I can’t love another person, only myself?”
“Actua
lly, yes.”
“I love you. I always have.”
“Of course. And I, you. But that’s different.”
“Not really. Not really that different. So, it’s crazy. I’m in love with your wife, but also in love with you. And I can’t really have either one of you.”
I hesitated. “I feel the same way about you, too, you know. But my life is with Iris. And you really need to find somebody nice like Iris, instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel with these superficial women.”
“I don’t want somebody like her. I want her.”
I sighed. “Nick, please. We’ve been friends since we were in kindergarten together. Now you’re going to possibly ruin everything. Because we can’t hang out with you if you’re going to make things difficult.”
“How will I make anything difficult? I feel a certain way about her, she doesn’t feel the same, and that’s that. I won’t do anything to make things difficult.”
I suddenly got an idea. “Nick. What is the most surefire way to get you to lose interest in any one woman?”
“To sleep with her. Which isn’t going to happen here, of course.”
“Maybe it can.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Iris
For some odd reason, Alexis has been on my mind. I guess because I finally got tired of spending 100% of my mental energy on Ryan, and thinking about Alexis was a little bit less depressing for me. But not much.
And I’m remembering why it was that I have had so much patience and understanding of Alexis and her situation.
∞
I think that I was eleven years old when it happened. My sister and I always got along, to a certain extent, even though she was always threatening me to make me do what she wanted, when she wanted.
“Let my friend cheat at cards when she comes over.”
“No.”
“If you don’t, I’ll run away.”
“Ok.”
“Do my laundry for me.”
“No.”
“I’ll run away.”
“Ok.”
Then, one time, I finally kept saying no to something that she wanted. She then left the car and started walking up the street, like she was going to run away. I started crying hysterically and running after her. “Ok, ok. I’ll do it. Just please don’t run away.”
And, so it went, until I told my mother about Sue’s blackmail. That’s what finally ended that particular mode of manipulation. But, there were always different methods that she got her way. I was always so gullible, I fell for every one.
But Sue wasn’t a particularly bad sister. She wasn’t evil. She was simply manipulative.
And, as I soon found out, constantly depressed.
I was angry with her for a long time when I was young. She would blow up over the smallest things – I remember one time I drank some of her milk that she bought from the store. She blew up at this, screaming at the top of her lungs about it. Another time I accidentally spilled an entire soda pop on her lap at a restaurant. She blew up at me right there in the restaurant, screaming at me so that everybody in the restaurant stared in our direction.
But, when I was eleven, things changed. I started to worry about her more than be angry with her.
Because that was the year when she first attempted suicide.
That morning, my mother was making pancakes, which she often does on Sunday mornings. My mother wasn’t the greatest cook in the world, but she could make a mean pancake, and the chocolate chip ones were my favorites. That morning she was making both banana pancakes and chocolate chip ones, and my mouth was watering as she took each pancake out of the griddle and on to the plate. I was extremely hungry, so I was impatient to eat my pancakes.
My mother smacked my hand as I tried to steal one off the plate. “You know better than that. Wait your turn,” she said. “But go and get your sister. Wake her up and tell her that her favorite pancakes are ready.”
“Ok, mom,” I said, as I made my way down the hall towards her room. Our house was a tiny ranch-style home that was rented, with worn blue carpeting that had seen better days. I knocked on her door, and she didn’t answer. “Sue, get up. Mom’s making pancakes.” No answer. I knocked some more, then tried to open the door. It was locked from the inside.
Music was playing from the room – Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, which was a new release at that time.
I continued to pound on the door, and there wasn’t an answer.
“Mom! Sue’s in her room and she’s not answering!” I actually didn’t think that there was a problem. I just thought that she was being stubborn.
So, my mother got into the act. She started pounding on the door as well. “Sue, get out of that room. Breakfast is ready!”
She finally kicked in the door.
Sue was lying on the bed, her head and her arm draped over the side. Her breathing was extremely slow and uneven. Her face was white as a sheet. My mother rushed over to her, and grabbed her wrist. “Call 911,” she said to me. “Now!”
I rushed down the hall and grabbed the phone with shaking hands.
“911 what’s your emergency?”
“My sister. Something’s wrong with her.”
“Ok. We’re going to send somebody over there right away.”
I ran back into the room. My mother was hunched over my sister, not really knowing what to do. We hadn’t yet learned how to perform CPR or mouth to mouth resuscitation, so we were both pretty helpless about what to do in this situation.
“Is she ok? Is she going to be ok?”
My mother was shaking her head. She was holding a plastic container that held my sister’s depression medicine in her hand. It was empty. I remembered that this was a new bottle, so she apparently took the entire bottle in one sitting.
I walked over to where they were, and put my head close to my sister’s mouth. She was hardly breathing. She breathed once, then her next breath came several seconds later.
Then my mother was crying hysterically. I had no idea what to do. I had never seen my mother cry like that, and I was more alarmed by her reaction than anything else.
She’s going to be ok. She has to be ok. My sister has to be ok. I suddenly remembered all the fights that we had. All the times that I made her angry or she did the same with me. “Please, make it through. Please. If you do, I’ll do anything that you ask me to. I’ll clean your room every single day for the rest of your life. I’ll even do your laundry. If you wake up, I’ll do absolutely anything you want.”
The ambulance was soon there, and my sister was loaded on a stretcher. I followed along closely behind her. “Can I go with her in the ambulance?” I asked.
“No, I’m sorry. Medical personnel only.”
I nodded my head. “Ok. Thank you.”
I went back into the house. My mother was still in Sue’s room, clutching one of Sue’s stuffed animals. A one-eyed bear named Paddington, after my sister’s favorite childhood tale. She was still crying.
“Mom, she’s going to be ok,” I said, although I wasn’t entirely convinced that this was true myself. “She’s going to be ok.”
She just shook her head, the tears coming down her face. She was mute, though.
Then she wasn’t. She started wailing. “Oh, oh, oh. What happened? What happened? Why? Why? Why?”
I was terrified of seeing my mother like this, and terrified that my sister would die. I touched her arm sleeve. “When dad comes home, we’ll go to the hospital to see her,” I said. My mother didn’t drive, then or now. My dad was at work, and wouldn’t be home for several hours.
My mother kept crying and wailing. “What went wrong? What did we do wrong?”
I didn’t understand myself what went wrong. I had no idea then about chemical imbalances and clinical depression. I only thought that people were depressed and sad because of things that happened to them. To my knowledge, nothing had ever happened to my sister to make her want to do something like this.
My father f
inally arrived home several hours later. By that time, my mother had finally stopped wailing, and now was sitting in a chair, her hands of the arms of the chair. She wasn’t saying a word. I was kneeling down on the floor in front of her, my head in her lap.
I ran to my father. “Dad, you have to take us to the hospital. It’s Sue. She’s hurt.”
“What do you mean, hurt? What happened?”
“She’s sick.” I didn’t know how to explain any of it to him. “She’s sick.”
“Sick?”
I nodded my head. My mother was still in shock, as she stared straight ahead at something unknown, while putting a death-grip on the arms of the chair.
My father managed to get my mother out of her chair, and the three of us drove in silence to the hospital. We went to the waiting room, after my father talked to the receptionist about who we were. A few minutes later, a doctor came out to inform us about my sister.
“She’s resting comfortably. She’s going to be transferred to the psych ward for evaluation.”
At that, my mother started crying anew. But now her cry was soft, and she had a wadded up Kleenex that was at her disposal. My father’s arm was around her protectively.
My sister stayed in the hospital for a week, and we went to see her every day. She seemed to be getting better. “I’ m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry for doing that. I just didn’t see any way out.”
Out of what? I didn’t understand. Our lives with our parents was never perfect, by any stretch of the imagination. There was never enough money for much of anything, and our father was pretty remote. But there wasn’t anything that was so bad that dying became preferable to living.
And so it went, for the rest of my life. As I grew older, I became aware of the phenomenon of clinical depression. That sometimes people are just born with a chemical imbalance in their brain that needs to be normalized with meds. I also learned that normalizing anything of the sort was tricky, at best. It was difficult trying to find just the right drugs to work with my sister’s brain chemistry, in just the right dose. It was also difficult for a person to stay normal, even once the right combination of drugs are found, because the drugs often stop working. Then it was back to the drawing board.