Your Voice Is All I Hear

by Leah Scheier

  That was the end of Dr. Wilde’s evaluation. I think she found out everything she wanted to know about Jonah during the time it took the nurse to draw up and inject the sedative into his IV.

  Jonah stopped yelling at his mother and fixed his burning eyes on the doctor, who was standing quietly by the door. “I know what you’re going to do to me!” he shrieked at her. “You’re going to pump me full of pills. And then you’re going to plant a probe inside of me and rape my brain with your machines and replace my thoughts. But I won’t let you! I’m going to fight you! I know exactly who you are and who you work for! I have a surprise for you, Doc! Dr. Wilde, right? You said your name was Dr. Wilde? Are you really wild, Doctor? Are you a party girl? Do you like getting wasted at parties? Be careful about those frat boys. They have rape pills, Doctor. Frat boys are wild too, aren’t they? They never call you the next day, right? That’s what happens when you’re wild, Doctor! What did you think would happen? You wait and wait and they never come. You know what that feels like, right? To wait and wait for your friend forever and he never comes. Because he’s abandoned you! You know exactly what I’m saying, Dr. Wilde. I can smell the guilt coming from your face. You were there with him, weren’t you? You know what happened. You watched it happen, didn’t you? Didn’t you? Answer me!”

  The doctor didn’t say a word. She stood over Jonah with crossed arms as the nurse administered the antipsychotic. The fluid had barely left the syringe when Jonah sank weakly against his pillow and turned his face to me. “I told you this would happen,” he whimpered. “I knew what they would do. But you promised me you wouldn’t let them. April, you promised me—”

  The medicine swallowed up the rest.

  Twelve hours, thirty vital checks, two nurses, four medical students, and three doctors later, Mrs. Golden signed Jonah’s admission papers, and he was transferred to the adolescent psychiatry unit at Shady Grove Hospital.

  Chapter 24

  As dawn neared, I managed to doze off for a few minutes, my head resting against the metal bar of Jonah’s gurney. Mrs. Golden remained tearfully awake throughout the night. When the third and final doctor informed us that they’d found a bed for Jonah in their new facility, his mom nodded dully and put her head into her hands.

  By the time the transport team finally arrived to take Jonah to the psych ward, my mother insisted on taking me home. Mom walked into the triage area just as he was being wheeled out. He was awake and calmer now but completely disoriented. He seemed to think that he was back in Boston, and he kept asking for a ride to the 7-Eleven. When he saw my mom, he appeared confused, and then his eyes widened in recognition. “Mrs. Wesley,” he whispered to her urgently. “You need to take April out of here. I’m stabbing her with my mind.”

  Mom grabbed me firmly by the arm and pulled me away from him.

  As we headed out, Mrs. Golden took my mother aside and begged her to watch Katie, promising to get her as soon as Jonah was settled. They hugged each other, and we left the hospital. On the way, we picked up Katie from the neighbors’ and brought her back home with us.

  It took a while to explain to Katie why she wouldn’t be sleeping in her own bed that night. I finally managed to distract her with a pile of my old dolls and a pair of scissors. As she busily covered the carpet with plastic hair, I tiptoed out of the spare room into the hallway and closed the door. My mother was waiting for me with her arms crossed. There was no way I was going to avoid her now. I followed her into my room and sat down on the bed.

  My room was still a mess from Jonah’s meltdown, but I saw that my mom had tried to fix the damage to my keyboard. She noticed me looking at the piano and shook her head. “We might need to get a new one.”

  I nodded. “I know. I’ll pay for it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, April. It’s not the money. I just don’t understand why Jonah would do something like that.”

  I sighed and leaned back against my pillow. “He thought it was bugged, Mom. Didn’t Dr. Steiner tell you about his meeting with Jonah?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t tell me anything. Doctor-patient confidentiality, remember? I have no idea what’s going on. Rachel didn’t want to talk about it. And this is the first time you’ve been home in days.”

  “Fine,” I said. “You want to know the details? I’ll tell you. The doctors think that Jonah’s psychotic. They wouldn’t be more specific or tell us why he was sick. But I overheard one of the students say ‘schizophrenia’ twice. So maybe that’s what it is.”

  She was suddenly stiff and at attention. “Are you sure that they were talking about him?”

  “I don’t know, but he was the only screaming patient in restraints in the emergency room.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said and reached out to take my hand. “I knew something was wrong. But I never thought…”

  I wished I hadn’t been so honest with her. “He’s sick, Mom. I get it. That’s why he’s in the hospital. So they’ll give him some pills and he’ll get better. You don’t have to look at me like that. He isn’t dead.”

  “I know, April, but…do you know what schizophrenia is? Have you looked it up?”

  “No, I haven’t. What does it matter? It won’t change anything.”

  “But, baby, you need to be prepared. When I was growing up, I had a neighbor whose son was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. The boy spent the rest of his life in institutions. He never got better. It was just awful for his family. They never talked about it—they were so ashamed.”

  This was exactly the kind of information I didn’t want—other people’s horror stories. I knew what was coming next: the shoulder pat, the sympathetic look, and then “don’t worry, you’ll get over him.” I would never listen to that.

  “What do you mean your neighbors ‘were so ashamed’?” I demanded. “I’m not ashamed of Jonah. He’s sick, Mom. He hasn’t committed a crime. You haven’t been around him these last few weeks. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Whatever I’ve been going through, whatever his mother is going through, Jonah has been hurting a hundred times worse. Before he got really sick, he knew that we were worried about him. And it was killing him. He wanted to stop it, but he couldn’t. He needed help. I’m actually glad that this happened, because at least now I know what’s going on and I can help him…”

  My mom was speechless for a minute. For that brief moment, I felt as if I’d won the argument.

  But then she found her words—a whole lot of them. They came at me like bullets. “April, what are you trying to say? That you’re planning to stick with this relationship? That you’re going to visit your boyfriend—in a mental ward? Baby, you’re fifteen years old! You should be concentrating on your schoolwork and spending time with friends, not playing nurse to a psychotic boyfriend…”

  “Psychotic boyfriend?” I screamed, pulling away from her. “Mom, you know him. How can you talk about him like that? You want me to abandon him now, when he needs me the most? Would you be giving me the same advice if he’d been diagnosed with cancer? Would you tell me to wave good-bye and get on with my life? ‘Aw, sucks to be you, buddy. Good luck with that.’ Is that really who you want me to be?”

  “Don’t compare this with cancer. It’s completely different.”

  “How? How is this different?”

  “Because, April, with cancer, you either get better or you die. I’m sorry to be blunt, but that’s the way it is. What Jonah has is never going to go away. And you’ll be waiting for him in hospital lobbies for the rest of your life.”

  How could she talk like this? I thought bitterly. How could she crush my hope as if it was nothing to her? She could never know how much he meant to me, never understand that he’d become everything to me. If I lost him now, I’d be completely alone. I wanted Jonah to get better because I loved him, but I needed him to get better because I couldn’t face my life without him. And he needed me too
, more than ever. He’d been shattered once by the death of his best friend. After months of loneliness and pain, he’d finally given his heart to me, and I’d actually made him happy. How could I take that away from him now?

  I knew that my mother was wrong. I was absolutely sure that he’d come back to me. It seemed impossible that the Jonah I loved, the boy who’d always been so gentle and kind, so vibrant and talented, could have disappeared. If my mom only knew him like I did, she would have understood that too.

  “Please, Mom, I really need you to listen to me,” I said in a calmer voice. “I need you to remember Jonah before all of this happened. He loved me—he really did—and I know that he still loves me. He would stand by me if I got sick. You know he would. I’m not doing this because I feel obligated. I want to be there for him. And if he stays sick forever…well, at least then I’ll know I did everything I could.”

  She shook her head and sighed. “I think you’re idealizing Jonah. You’re only remembering the positive.”

  “What negative is there besides his illness, Mom?”

  “I can’t say, April! I didn’t know him like you did. So I just have to take your word for it.”

  “No, you don’t!” I exclaimed, an idea suddenly dawning on me. “You don’t have to take my word for it.” Why hadn’t I thought of this before? “I want to show you something!” I pushed myself off the bed and stepped over to my closet.

  Reaching behind my clothing, I lifted Jonah’s portrait from its nail. My mother watched me silently as I took it out. Slowly, I pulled back the covering and waited, holding my breath for her reaction.

  She rose from the bed and stared openmouthed at the painting in front of her. “My God,” she whispered. “I had no idea that he was this talented.”

  “No one knows, except maybe his teachers in Boston. He stopped showing people his work after he moved here. But he let me keep this one. Look at it, Mom. Look at how he drew me.”

  She was looking. I saw a flicker of indecision on her face; she squinted and stepped closer and then froze, her eyes widening. “Sweetheart, did he explain the background of the painting to you?”

  I held it out and studied the canvas for a minute. “You mean the water? I’m standing on an island.”

  “No, you have to look closer. Look at the palm trees near the horizon. They’re nearly covered in waves. You’ve climbed onto a hill in the middle of a flood.”

  “Okay, a flood then. I still don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

  “April, I think you’ve missed the real meaning of the painting. Did he explain why he drew you holding that little bird?”

  “No, I just thought, you know, that the bird was an artistic touch. Like flowers or a bowl of fruit. I thought the sparrow was pretty.”

  She sighed and shook her head. Her eyes had glazed over with tears. What was she seeing that I had missed?

  “It isn’t a sparrow, baby. Look closer at the painting.”

  “Mom, just tell me already, please. I don’t know that much about birds.” Was she drawing this out on purpose? Did she have to be so mysterious?

  “Do you know what Jonah’s name means?” she asked. “Do you know its biblical background?”

  I laughed. “You kept that stuff away from me, remember? Are you talking about the story of Jonah and the whale?”

  “No, no, not that. I’m talking about the meaning of his name. Jonah is the anglicized version of the Hebrew word Yonah. And in Hebrew, Yonah means dove.”

  I stared blankly at her, then glanced again at the painting. How had I not noticed that before? I was holding a bird with broken wings, a little injured dove. I didn’t know my Bible very well, but I remembered the story of Noah’s ark and the flood that destroyed the world. And I remembered the part about the dove too. It was the symbol of hope at the end. But in Jonah’s painting, the dove had been devastated by the storm. There was no hope in its shattered body.

  “Oh, April, he knew,” she murmured. “He realized what was happening to him. And this was how he tried to tell you.”

  I laid the canvas down and sank weakly onto my bed. This new insight was worse than anything that had happened until now. What had that been like for him? I thought miserably. I had pictured a clean break: a healthy mind and then confusion. But what if Jonah had seen this coming? Could it have started slowly? Could he have had moments of clarity when he knew that something was very wrong? It would have been like the minutes before a plane crash. You know exactly what’s coming and yet you’re powerless to stop it.

  “Everything is different now, April. Things are changing for me,” he’d told me more than a month ago. He’d known, even back when our lives seemed absolutely perfect. He’d tried to warn me. Why hadn’t I heard him?

  “I’m going to visit him tomorrow,” I told my mom quietly. “And I’ll stay with him as long as they’ll let me. I don’t have a choice.”

  It seemed so obvious to me, so perfectly simple. I couldn’t believe that anyone would blame me for wanting to stand by the boy I loved when he needed me.

  “April,” she said in a steady voice. “I’m sorry. But I will not let you go.”

  I didn’t say anything for a minute. At first, I couldn’t find the words. She wasn’t suggesting or advising. She was forbidding me from going. I didn’t care how sweet and understanding my mother had been just a moment ago. It didn’t count for anything if she was going to turn on me like this. And I wasn’t going to just sit back and take it.

  “You have no right!” I shouted at her. “You can’t tell me that I’m not allowed to visit him.”

  She crossed her arms and glared at me. “I have every right. I’m your mother, and it’s my job to protect you. And if you think that I’m going to sit by while you spend all your free time at a mental hospital…”

  “It’s my time and my choice where I spend it!”

  “No, not really. You’re my child. And besides, I’m not telling you that you can’t visit Jonah. On the weekends maybe. Once in a while. But that’s it. I’m not going to let you throw your life away—”

  “I’m not throwing my life away,” I spat back and then choked. I was so mad it was hard to think straight; I’d been reasonable and patient, and she still didn’t understand. “You’re really one to talk!” I cried. “I’m following your example, okay? I’m choosing Jonah. Just like you chose my father, even though it broke your parents’ heart!”

  “I’m sorry for what I did every day,” she responded in an even tone. “And your situation is completely different.”

  “That’s right!” I retorted. “Because I’m not hurting you in any way.”

  “You’re hurting yourself…”

  “That’s my business!”

  “It’s mine too.”

  I folded my arms. “Whatever. You’re a real hypocrite, you know that?”

  “Excuse me?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re all about independent thought, making your own decisions, forging your own life. That’s why you left your family, wasn’t it?”

  “April, this isn’t the same—”

  “But the minute I decide to do something that you don’t agree with, you react just like your parents.”

  It was a low blow. I knew it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. My mom looked like she was going to cry. I hesitated for a second and then slowly turned away from her. “I’m going to be on the bus to Shady Grove tomorrow after school,” I said in a gentler tone. “I’m really sorry if it upsets you, Mom. But that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Chapter 25

  On a canvas painted red

  This beautiful fire’s fed

  And I’ll wait for you

  Angels shuddering through a winter day

  There are no more words to say

  But I’ll wait for you

  Still, I had to go to sc
hool. That was the only thing that seemed to stand between me and my real life. My mom hadn’t exactly agreed with me by the end of our argument. But she hadn’t threatened to tie me to my bedpost either, so for now, that was enough for me. Under no circumstances could I allow my grades to suffer though. She was very clear on that. There would be no more absences, no missed assignments, and no excuses. So the following morning, instead of jumping on the bus toward the hospital, I found myself trudging into history with my head down, trying to avoid the looks of my hovering classmates.

  Unfortunately for me, Ms. Lowry chose that day to be late to class, and before I could escape, Cora took the opportunity to sail over to my chair. She planted herself in Jonah’s empty seat and leaned toward me, a look of pity puckering up her face. I was praying that the news of Jonah’s hospitalization hadn’t reached the school yet, but that hope died as soon as Cora spoke.

  “So Miles ran into Jonah a couple of days ago, did you know?” she began innocently, as if trading harmless gossip. “Apparently your boyfriend was wandering around the street barefoot and knee-deep in snow.”

  I could feel the blood rushing to my face. I knew what was coming, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I focused on my clenched hands and tried to block her out, tried to think about something else, anything but the picture she was about to paint for the class.

  “Miles tried to talk to him,” she murmured sweetly. “But Jonah didn’t seem to hear him. It’s a good thing too, or who knows what could have happened? I told Miles that he should have run the other way. But of course he wanted to know what was going on. He wanted to understand why your boyfriend was wandering around a freezing street. And why he was all covered in paint. And half naked.”

  She let her last words flutter in front of her. She wanted me to charge at her; she was waiting for me to rush to Jonah’s defense so she could drive a sword through my heart. But I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.