Your Voice Is All I Hear

by Leah Scheier

  He would have lunged at her, but just then, the office door flew open, and two male nurses barreled into the room. With a quick movement, one of them grabbed Jonah in a bear hold and squeezed, and the other drew a syringe out of his pocket and jabbed the needle deep into Jonah’s thigh. They were talking to him calmly as they wrestled with him, the nurse who held him whispering gently in his ear, as if trying to calm a fussy infant. Jonah fought harder and longer than he had in the emergency room, but he was no match for the nurse. The man never flinched, even as Jonah shrieked and struggled, kicked and bit at the air around him. He remained still and never relaxed his hold. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Jonah weakened; he breathed deeply and moaned, then slumped forward in the nurse’s arms like a rag doll.

  He looked so sad to me, even in his drugged sleep. I reached out to touch him, but the nurse pushed me back and shook his head. I couldn’t understand why he did that; I wanted to shout but he’s not a danger to anyone right now! And yet somehow I didn’t have the energy to argue. Nothing I had done had helped Jonah, and I was worn out from trying.

  I could feel Dr. Hermann behind me, exuding disappointment. I could hear Jonah’s mom crying softly and Dr. Golden patting her on the shoulder. But I couldn’t look at them; I was disgusted with all of them and sick of their tired faces. I wanted to get home, to be far away from them, from the sterile tile walls and disinfectant smell, the plastic mirrors, and the bolted windows. I needed fresh air, the sound of traffic and people, my little piano, my pillow, my mother, even my school.

  Without a backward glance, without saying good-bye, I pushed past the nurses and ran out of the office.

  Chapter 33

  For the next few days, I was a girl without a boyfriend. Although I never planned to cut Jonah and his family out of my life, I felt that we could all use a little break from one another. I didn’t have anything to say to them, and I doubted they wanted to talk to me. I’d sensed that Mrs. Golden was becoming increasingly embarrassed by her son’s illness and that every time I showed up on 11 West, she blamed herself for the hours that I spent with him.

  So I took her unspoken advice and stayed away for a little while. I went to school as usual, hung out with Kris, played with Katie, and banged away at my keyboard.

  My classmates at Fallstaff finally stopped making fun of Jonah. It was a relief to me at first, until I realized that the only reason they’d stopped talking about him was that they’d forgotten he existed. That hurt worse than the teasing, and if it hadn’t been too crazy, I might even have wished them to start up again, if only to remind me of him. The empty chair in front of me was quickly becoming the only sign that Jonah had once walked the halls of Fallstaff High.

  One morning after history, Ms. Lowry asked me to stay after class. After everyone filed out, she waved me into a seat beside her desk and then settled at the corner of her table.

  With characteristic bluntness, she came right to the point. “April, I wanted to ask you how Jonah is doing,” she said. “I tried calling his home to speak to his parents, but no one answered.”

  I shrugged and looked away. “He’s pretty much the same. The doctor keeps talking about progress, but I don’t see any. I don’t really understand what’s going on—”

  “You don’t know anything about schizophrenia?”

  Her question took me by surprise. We’d never spoken about his diagnosis before, and I was shocked that she’d bring it up so confidently, as if it were a well-known fact. Until then, when anyone had asked me, I’d insisted that Jonah had been hospitalized for severe depression.

  “My uncle had schizophrenia,” she explained after an awkward silence. “So when Jonah started having those symptoms—that unusual outburst in class, the homework assignment—I recognized the signs. That’s why I was worried about him.”

  It was strangely comforting to hear that. She wasn’t pitying me or judging Jonah. That was the reaction I’d gotten from everyone—my classmates, my mom, and even Jonah’s parents. Ms. Lowry seemed to really care about what I was feeling and how I was reacting to my boyfriend’s pain. She actually wanted to hear how I was doing.

  “I don’t understand anything that’s going on,” I told her. “I can see that Jonah is hearing voices, of course; everyone can see that. It’s so strange for me, knowing that they could be talking to him about me and I can’t hear what they’re saying! And yet everyone seems to be brushing it off and telling him to ignore them! Like the voices are an itch that he just has to remember not to scratch.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “That sounds familiar. The medicines don’t always control the voices.”

  “The medicines aren’t doing anything for him!” I exclaimed. “They dull him down a little, make him less edgy, but he isn’t himself. And the anger, the outbursts, they happen anyway. The last time I saw him, he needed to be drugged; he was almost violent. That isn’t progress, no matter what his doctor says. I’m scared she’ll raise his doses again and he’ll turn into a drugged-up zombie. But I can’t say anything to Dr. Hermann. It’s not like I can understand this stuff.”

  “Why do you think you can’t understand it?”

  I stared at her for a moment and then looked away, embarrassed. The question had never occurred to me before. “I haven’t gone to medical school,” I answered lamely. “There are so many medicines. I can’t even pronounce some of their names.”

  “Don’t you think you ought to try though?” she suggested. “Pick out a book about mental illness and do some reading. You don’t have to get a degree in psychiatry or anything. Just educate yourself, so when Jonah reacts to a medication, you’ll be able to ask intelligent questions. You may even be able to help him. April, you’re a smart girl. You don’t have to be powerless.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I realized that she was right, but for some reason, I didn’t want to follow her advice. Maybe I was afraid that reading about Jonah’s illness would make me more depressed and frightened about the future; I wasn’t sure what I would find in the large red textbooks that I’d seen in Dr. Hermann’s office, but since they were linked to the mental ward, I didn’t want to touch them.

  “Dr. Hermann won’t listen to me anyway,” I protested weakly. “I’m only in high school.”

  “So what?” Ms. Lowry replied. “You can still read, can’t you? Look words up in the dictionary? Give it a try. Why do you think I gave your class that assignment in the beginning of the year? It’s because I learned from my own experience in the hospital that nothing is more terrifying than ignorance.”

  I’d actually forgotten all about her “medical history” assignment. I’d been barely keeping up with my daily homework; long-term projects had been completely neglected. But as I listened to her, an idea started to form slowly in my mind. And from it, a strange hope began to grow.

  “I guess it can’t hurt,” I told her cautiously. “I’ll think about it.”

  I could see that she was dissatisfied with my answer, but at that moment, it didn’t matter to me. My plan was only half formed, and I wasn’t ready to share it with anyone. But I was sick of Jonah’s helplessness, and worse, I was sick of my own. And since Jonah wasn’t able to speak for himself, I would have to find a way to do it for him.

  Chapter 34

  When roaring silence covers everything you touch

  Splits the very air your lungs inhale

  Your shadow girl will try her best to walk ahead

  While her breadcrumbs leave behind a crooked trail

  I started with simple Internet searches and piles of library books. I spent hours poring over case reports and journal reviews, listening to interviews on YouTube, memorizing medicines and side effects. After only a few days, I realized that Ms. Lowry was right—it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. I began to recognize patterns in people’s stories. The same phrases kept popping up over and over: “flat affect, tardive dyskine
sia, flight of ideas.” The words meant nothing to me at first, but after a while, I began to match these phrases with signs that I had personally seen, either in Jonah or other residents of 11 West. It was strangely empowering. I felt as if I were making little diagnoses in the privacy of my bedroom. And my discoveries made me curious to learn more.

  Some of my reading depressed me, as I’d expected it would. There were a lot of dismal prognoses discussed, awful things that I would have to look forward to. Drug addiction, alcohol, homelessness, suicide attempts—the authors of the psych books didn’t sugarcoat the outcomes of untreated schizophrenia. But every so often, there were glimpses of hope, cases of success and remission of symptoms. I clung to those nameless patients like a security blanket and reread their stories over and over.

  In addition to all my extracurricular reading, I was also practicing piano harder than ever. A few days after my conversation with Ms. Lowry, I got my audition confirmation from the Baltimore School for the Arts. It was nothing special, just a simple note with a time and place written in bold. I brought the letter to Shady Grove the following day and handed it proudly to Jonah.

  He looked at it blankly at first, as if he was having trouble understanding why I was showing it to him. “What do you want me to do with this?”

  There was no spite or sarcasm in his voice; he just seemed confused by the paper in front of him. Everything baffled him lately; simple statements took him ages to process.

  “I’m going ahead with it. I’m auditioning for the art school.”

  He nodded slowly and handed the letter back to me. His blue eyes were vacant, like windows into an empty room. “That’s good, April.”

  Normally I might have been happy with that pale bit of encouragement. But today, I needed a little more. This was his idea, after all. I was doing it for him, and I couldn’t let go of the dream that somehow we would make the move together, just like we’d once planned.

  “So I was thinking that you should start working on your portfolio,” I suggested. “I’ll help you with the application and written statement, but you’ll need to have a few paintings to show them.”

  “My portfolio? What for?”

  “I called the visual arts department at the school, and they told me that the deadline is next month. So I was thinking, since most of your paintings are…covered up now, maybe you should start working on new ones. I’m sure the staff here would be happy to get you some supplies—”

  The old Jonah would have laughed at my last statement; he would have made some sarcastic remark about happy hippo drawings and finger paint. I’d actually been hoping for that reaction, some hint that his sense of humor wasn’t completely gone. But medicated Jonah didn’t take the bait. He shook his head slowly and shrugged. “My hand hurts,” he told me finally. “I don’t think I can hold a paintbrush.”

  And that was the end of the conversation.

  But Jonah was doing very well, Dr. Hermann assured us. He was participating in group therapy, cooperating in private sessions, keeping up with his schoolwork, and earning more and more privileges every day. He was no longer under constant supervision; he was even allowed to take short walks around the hospital grounds alone. He was quiet and respectful, and the paranoid delusions seemed to have faded away—or at least he no longer acted on them. Everyone was feeling the difference, the doctor told us, even Shawn. Dr. Hermann wasn’t free to share his medical information with us, but she did mention that the boy was improving also, now that his friend had stopped filling his head with conspiracy theories and escape plans. Even Jonah’s parents appeared satisfied with his progress. Mrs. Golden’s eyes were no longer watery and swollen, and Dr. Golden looked a little less pissed off at the world. By the middle of March (Jonah’s twelfth week in the hospital), everyone seemed optimistic that he would be out before Passover, as long as there were no more setbacks.

  Things were going so well that Dr. Golden felt comfortable returning to his practice in Boston. There had been talk about relocating to Baltimore, but in the end, it was decided that he would work in Boston and fly down on the weekends to be with his family.

  By the end of March, there was no longer any doubt that Jonah had met his goals and was ready for discharge. His parents were so pleased that they finally allowed Katie to visit him in the hospital. They hadn’t seen each other since that December morning when she’d shown up shivering and terrified on my doorstep. Katie had been begging to see Jonah forever, but her parents kept postponing or canceling the visit. Better to keep her away, they said, than risk Jonah flying into a rage and terrifying his little sister.

  But no one was scared of him anymore, and five days before Jonah’s discharge, they finally brought Katie to see him.

  As we walked up the paved path to the hospital, she clung to my hand and pulled anxiously at my sleeve. “Will Jonah have tubes in him?” she whispered to me.

  I shook my head. “What kind of tubes?”

  “Like needles. A girl in my class went to the hospital once, and I visited her there. She had needles and tubes all over her arms.”

  I smiled at her and squeezed her hand. “No, he doesn’t have tubes or needles. He’ll be just like you remember him, Katie.”

  I regretted the sentence as soon as I said it. While it was true that Jonah had regained some of the weight he’d lost, he’d still changed a lot since Katie had last seen him. He was much paler, the shadows beneath his eyes were darker, and his hair had grown into a thick tangle of long, black curls. He looked a bit like a former rock star just out of rehab.

  But Katie didn’t seem to notice any of that when she saw him. She ran to him, threw her arms around his neck, and squeezed him hard. The Goldens settled down next to her on the bed, and I pulled up a chair opposite them.

  “I’ve missed you,” Katie said. “I wanted to come but they wouldn’t let me.”

  “I know,” Jonah told her. “I was sick before.”

  “So? I can’t catch it, can I? But Mommy kept saying it wasn’t safe.”

  “No, they were right,” he said after a pause. “It wasn’t safe.”

  “Are you better now?”

  His eyes flickered and shifted to the right; he stared off into space for a few seconds, then refocused on his sister.

  “I think I am,” he replied. “My doctor says I’m better.”

  “So you’re coming home?”

  “Yes, I think so. Soon.”

  Katie fell silent for a minute. Then she glanced around, cocked her head to the side, and turned back to her brother. “What are you listening to, Jonah?” she asked him. There was no fear or suspicion in her voice; it was just an honest question. But her simple frankness terrified me. She was the only innocent person in that room; the rest of us were pretending that we weren’t seeing it. Jonah was still listening to sounds that no one else could hear. He hadn’t fooled Katie for a minute.

  “I’m listening to you, baby girl,” he said. “Who did you think I was listening to?”

  She shrugged. “Your imaginary friend? I have one too, for when I’m lonely.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “He’s not my friend, Katie. He isn’t very friendly to me.”

  I saw the Goldens exchange surprised looks. We all realized the same thing—Jonah had, for the first time, admitted that he was hearing voices. Any time the topic had come up before, Jonah had immediately denied the symptoms, sometimes aggressively. But just now, he’d actually acknowledged it, and he’d even described the illusion as unfriendly.

  But Katie wasn’t satisfied. “Tell him to be quiet then. He keeps interrupting when I’m talking to you.”

  The smile faded from Jonah’s face. He looked confused and a little frightened. “You—you can hear him, Katie?”

  “No. But you can. And it’s annoying.”

  Jonah’s mom sprang up from the bed and gently pulled her daughter up. “It’s tim
e to go now. Your brother has his session with Dr. Hermann soon.”

  Katie began to argue, but then her eyes met Jonah’s, and she flinched beneath his quiet stare. Her lip quivered, she swallowed hard, and after a moment’s hesitation, she allowed herself to be led out into the hall.

  I followed Katie and the Goldens out and closed the door behind me. Katie looked like she was fighting back tears, and her parents appeared completely lost. I don’t know what they had hoped for from that visit, but they definitely had not expected their eight-year-old to rip apart their faith that Jonah was getting better.

  Dr. Hermann chose that moment to appear. She waved at Jonah’s parents, and they smiled, but before she had a chance to speak, Katie stormed over to the doctor and let loose. “What did you do to Jonah?” she demanded. “What did you do to my brother?”

  The doctor didn’t seem upset by Katie’s question. She reached out her long, manicured fingers and patted her hair. “He seems different to you?”

  “He isn’t different,” Katie spluttered furiously. “He’s missing. What did you do?”

  Dr. Hermann smiled indulgently at Jonah’s parents. “You have a very perceptive little girl.”

  “Where is he?” Katie persisted. “You made a mistake! You have to bring him back!”

  “Where do you think he is?” Dr. Hermann asked her patiently.

  “I don’t know,” Katie replied. “I just know he isn’t Jonah anymore.”

  The doctor gave her an understanding look, the same look that I’d grown to hate over the last few months. It said thank you for sharing your opinion. While it is very interesting to me, I hope you realize that I know better.

  “What do you mean, Katie?” Dr. Hermann asked.

  “He didn’t tease me once. Or smile when I came in, or get angry when Mommy pulled me away. I brought my book with me so he could read to me. But then I didn’t want to ask him.”

  “That’s a shame,” the doctor said. “Why didn’t you want him to read to you?”