Your Voice Is All I Hear

by Leah Scheier

“What did the voice say about April?” Dr. Vardi asked.

  “He said—it said…” He swallowed, choked; he seemed to be strangling on the words.

  “Take your time, Jonah.”

  I wished she would stop pushing him. He looked so miserable, so guilty. Don’t make him tell me, I begged her silently. What was the point of dragging the memory of our first kiss through the dirt?

  Jonah covered his face with his hands. “The voice said, Katie’s dying—that bitch April is killing her.”

  I couldn’t believe it. The voice didn’t make any sense, and yet he’d listened to it anyway. He’d run to save his little sister—from me. The voice, to him, had been as real as I was.

  “You’re disappointed, April,” Dr. Vardi remarked.

  That was an understatement. I was actually fighting the urge to scream. It didn’t matter to me that she was helping Jonah, that he was thinking clearly for the first time in months. I hated her because, little by little, her healing conversation with her patient had torn me apart.

  “Was nothing between us real?” I asked him bitterly.

  I didn’t stay to listen to Jonah’s answer. I couldn’t bear to hear the truth.

  I left them there, Jonah reaching over to me, trying to catch me as I ran, Dr. Vardi calling my name, and the door slamming between us and swallowing them both.

  I needed quiet, to think, to be alone, to fill my lungs with air. All of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe. Their voices had drowned me out.

  Chapter 41

  When the chorus stops screaming

  And the prophets go hoarse

  When the preacher falls silent and the church bells don’t ring

  They’ll gather in circles

  To hear the mockingbird sing

  By the end of history, my entire class was going to be hearing voices. That was my medical history project. At the beginning of the period, Ms. Lowry instructed everyone to hand over their iPhones and a cable. I collected them and set them on my desk next to my laptop.

  The principal would be getting a few complaints by the end of the day, I was sure of that. But I didn’t care. I had Ms. Lowry’s full support. She believed that the best lessons were the ones that sent a few students home whimpering.

  The subject that day was the civil rights movement. Ms. Lowry began her lecture by scrawling the topic on the board and jotting down the relevant dates. Then she turned around to face us and instructed each student to put in their earbuds and select the track that I’d just downloaded onto their phones.

  “During the duration of our lesson, I will ask you not to turn your player off or remove your earbuds,” she said. “Right now, all of you should be hearing relaxing music; it shouldn’t bother you too much. But even if it does,” she continued with a smile, “I don’t want you to react to it. I want you to pretend that you are hearing nothing. I want you to pay attention to my lesson; at the end of the hour, we will have a quiz on the civil rights movement. Those of you who followed my instructions will get ten points added to your quiz grade. April will be standing by the door and recording your reactions. Okay then, before we begin, does anyone have any questions?”

  Michael raised his hand. “I don’t get it. Why are we doing this? This music is getting on my nerves. I won’t be able to concentrate on the quiz.”

  She laughed. “I promise you’ll understand before the end of class, Michael.”

  From where I stood, I could see everyone’s faces—expectant, confused, a couple of students already nodding off to the Enya track that I’d recorded. Not much longer, I thought. Another couple of minutes before the first reaction.

  It came sooner than I expected. Ms. Lowry had barely read out the first sentence in her syllabus when Cora suddenly sat bolt upright in her chair.

  “What the hell?” Her exclamation came at the same time as two other girls’. One started out of her seat and stared helplessly at the teacher; her hands flew to her ears.

  “What the hell is this?” They were shouting in unison now, their faces red and white with fear. “Whose voice is this? Why is he saying this stuff?”

  “Girls, sit down,” Ms. Lowry said in a calm tone. “This is part of April’s project. Your job this morning is to try to pay attention to what I’m saying, no matter what you hear on the recording. Ignore it as best you can. And remember, no one else is hearing what you’re hearing. So you can’t react, no matter how much you may want to.”

  But Cora wasn’t going to cooperate. “I don’t have to do this,” she declared. “I know what she’s trying to do.” She rose from her chair and pointed a manicured nail at me. “She’s trying to make us all crazy like her boyfriend.”

  “No one is forcing you, Cora,” I replied. “You can take the earbuds out anytime you want. This is only a challenge—try to listen to Ms. Lowry while that voice is yelling in your ears. If you don’t want to participate, that’s fine, but at the end of the lesson, everyone will be discussing what it felt like, and I think you’ll want to know what your friends are talking about.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Cora slumped back in her chair and hunched over her notebook. Her fingers went to her ears. She plucked nervously at her hair and then slowly lowered her hands again. It was hypnotic, the voice that Danny had recorded with me. Not one person removed their earbuds. As Ms. Lowry began her lecture again, I scanned their faces and noted their reactions.

  Many of them couldn’t help themselves. They bit their lips and flinched; their breathing was fast and panicked. The voice was shouting warnings and threats; it would be impossible to ignore it and concentrate on Ms. Lowry’s quiet teaching. Some of the boys were trying very hard though. They sat stony-faced and solid in their seats, eyes fixed straight ahead, stoic through the storm raging in their ears.

  And though I couldn’t hear what they were hearing, I remembered what we’d recorded, and by their expressions, the blanched cheeks, the staring eyes, I could guess what they were going through.

  Get out now, the voice ordered them. Go home before they get here. They’re coming for you!

  I saw Miles shake his head; his jaw tensed, and the fingers around his pen turned pale. He was scrawling furiously in his notebook, trying to grab on to Ms. Lowry’s words while his mind battled with the voices that surrounded him. Tessa had given up completely; she sat entranced and openmouthed, like a mute and terrified prophetess receiving divine instructions. Even Cora was struggling. She kept shooting furious looks at me, but her earbuds stayed firmly in place. Taking them out would have been admitting defeat, and she wouldn’t be the first one to cave.

  She’s in on it. That bitch Lowry is trying to make you insane. Don’t listen to her. Listen to me.

  I felt sorry for them as I watched them squirm. I’d listened to the recording at home, and it disturbed me more than I’d expected. It only took a little imagination to picture what it must be like for someone who lived with this every day, every hour, whose every thought was colored by the chaos in his ears. I’d gotten used to the idea of hearing voices months ago, and yet the experience still gave me a sleepless night. But this was a completely new experience for my classmates, and none of them had been prepared for how horrible it would be.

  Not one of them lasted until the end of Ms. Lowry’s lecture. Cora was the first one to yank the cord out of her ears; Miles followed shortly afterward, and then, one by one, everyone else. Ms. Lowry surveyed the class grimly, then nodded at me and motioned for me to take her place before the blackboard.

  It was the moment I’d been dreading. I wanted so much to do this for Jonah, to get through to my classmates and make them understand. But speaking in front of my peers terrified me, and at that moment, I was just as afraid of their attention as I’d once been of their indifference.

  A few of the girls were crying quietly; Tessa was shivering in her chair and staring at me with large, bewildered ey
es. “Is it like this all the time, April?” she asked me. “How does he fall asleep?”

  “It’s very hard,” I told her. “He can block it out sometimes with music, but usually it’s impossible to control. At first, he tried to ignore them and pretended that nothing was wrong. But after months of that…”

  “Months?” she interrupted. “He was going through this for months before he told someone?”

  I nodded. “That’s pretty common. Many people with schizophrenia find ways to cope and to disguise their symptoms in the beginning. But after a while, it becomes too much. They begin to withdraw from people. Some of them become paranoid, and they lose touch with reality and believe things they would never have believed before they became sick.”

  “Is it because of the voices in their head?” she asked me. “They have to do whatever they say?”

  I shook my head. “Not really, no. I thought that at first too, and it really scared me. Who can predict what a person with schizophrenia will do, if he’s completely under the control of voices that no one else can hear? But it doesn’t really work that way. They don’t blindly follow everything the voices tell them. But they often find it difficult to relate to other people and even to take care of themselves every day.”

  “It would make me want to kill myself,” Miles said. “I couldn’t take that noise all the time, yelling at me like that.”

  I felt my stomach lurch. He doesn’t know, I told myself. None of them knew what Jonah had tried to do.

  “More than fifty percent of people suffering from schizophrenia will attempt suicide at least once in their lives,” I told them. “About ten percent will succeed. Many believe it’s their only way out.”

  “Were you ever scared that he would hurt you?” The question had come from Cora. There was no malice in her voice now. “Did you ever feel like he was completely gone?”

  “I was never worried for myself,” I assured her. “But sometimes it did feel like I no longer knew my boyfriend. Sometimes it was hard to see that he still cared about me.”

  They were all listening to me, their expressions sober and thoughtful. I couldn’t believe how absorbed they were. I’d never experienced anything like this before; not only were they interested in Jonah’s illness, they also wanted to know what I’d experienced, how I had felt when I was with him. I actually mattered to them.

  I went on for a little longer, giving a few more facts I thought would interest them. There was a ripple of shock when I explained that symptoms of schizophrenia usually begin in high school or college and that it affected nearly two million people in the United States.

  “There are so many who suffer from this,” I concluded, “but each one feels like they’re completely alone. It’s not like other illnesses. A person who’s sick with cancer has the support of the community. Everyone bands together and tries to help. Friends organize runs for a cure and put together bake sales and blood drives. Next-door neighbors bring tuna casseroles to the patient’s family.

  “There are no casseroles for schizophrenia,” I said. “People are afraid, so they keep away. The families are embarrassed, so they hide. They pretend their son or daughter has gone abroad or is busy at school—anything to avoid telling the truth.”

  There were a few minutes of silence after I finished speaking. Ms. Lowry asked if anyone had questions, but no one spoke; no one even moved.

  When the bell rang, everyone gathered up their books and filed out without a word. As I headed for the door, Ms. Lowry called me back and told me she was proud of me.

  “Thank you for helping Jonah,” I said.

  “You’re welcome. But it wasn’t only for Jonah.”

  She was right, I guess. Getting through to my class was an exciting first for me. It was hard to believe they’d actually cared. I was worried that they’d forget what I’d told them before the final school bell rang. But those few minutes they’d listened were enough for now.

  Before math, I slipped into the bathroom to wash my face. The cool stream felt good against my cheeks; I cupped my hands and let the water spill over my wrists, then bathed my forehead and neck. I was smoothing my damp hair back when I heard the door open and the sound of heels on tile. I rubbed my eyes and turned around, then shrank back against the sink and gripped the porcelain edge.

  Cora was staring quietly at me. She didn’t say a word at first; she craned her neck around the bathroom, then stepped over to the stalls and checked that they were empty.

  I didn’t know what she was planning, but the fact that she didn’t want witnesses wasn’t very reassuring. At five foot four and a hundred pounds, she was hardly a threat, but I couldn’t help eyeing the exit as she approached.

  “I want to talk to you,” she began. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

  “O—okay.” I squirmed uncomfortably; I could feel small rivulets of water snaking down my neck.

  She leaned over and plucked a paper towel out of the dispenser and handed it to me; I took it gratefully and rubbed it over my wet face.

  “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry,” she said simply.

  I didn’t believe what I was hearing. Could this be some kind of twisted joke? Were her friends hiding somewhere, waiting to mock me if I fell for it? No, that couldn’t be it; I’d just seen her check the stalls to make sure that they were clear.

  Could she actually be serious?

  “You’re—you’re sorry?”

  She nodded, her large eyes wrinkling at the corners. “I’ve been awful to you these last few months. And I know you’re leaving Fallstaff next year. So I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry while I had the chance.”

  I nodded again and searched for something to say. “Thanks, Cora,” I replied after a pause. “It’s—it’s fine.”

  I wasn’t really sure that I’d forgiven her. Still, it seemed the only decent thing to say.

  She swallowed nervously and edged slowly over to the door. “Could you do something for me?” Her eyes flickered doubtfully over my face. “Just one small thing.”

  “Yeah, sure, I guess.” Okay, here it is, I thought irritably. She hadn’t been sincere, just as I’d suspected. She’d only apologized because she wanted something from me.

  “Could you tell him what I said?” she whispered. “Can you tell him that I’m sorry?”

  “Are you—are you talking about Jonah?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. He still remembers things, right? The stuff that happened before he got sick?”

  “Of course he does. His memory is fine.” He wasn’t senile or demented, I wanted to tell her. He doesn’t have amnesia, like some character in a soap opera.

  “I don’t want him to hate me,” she said. “Those three days he pretended to go out with me—” She took a deep breath and pulled open the door. “I know it wasn’t real, but fake happy sometimes feels like the real thing. Anyway, just tell him that I’m sorry, okay?”

  I shook my head. “Cora, I’m sure he doesn’t hate you—”

  But she wasn’t listening. “Just tell him for me, okay? Maybe those things I said—maybe it made him worse. Even if it doesn’t help now, I want him to know I’m sorry.”

  I would have tried to reassure her if she’d stayed. I would have told her that Jonah hadn’t gotten sick because of her and that he probably would’ve forgiven her on the spot if he was there. But she was through the door and down the hall before I could stop her. And when I saw her in class later that day, she wouldn’t look in my direction.

  When I got home from school, my mom was sitting in the dining room waiting for me. Every muscle in her body was tense with waiting, and her face was whiter than I’d ever seen it. I was scared for a moment. I thought, Oh God, something’s happened to Jonah. And then I saw the envelope on the table in front of her.

  “It’s my father’s handwriting,” she said, her voice quavering. “But it’
s addressed to somebody named Shira.”

  I picked it up and turned it over. “Why didn’t you open it?”

  “It’s not for me,” she said. Her voice was sharp with pain. “He didn’t write it for me. Who is Shira?”

  I handed it back to her and slipped my arm around her shoulder. “Shira is the Hebrew name I chose,” I explained. “I wrote to your parents a few weeks ago. I thought that maybe I could get through to them.”

  She stared at me silently, her eyes wide with hope and disbelief.

  “I know your family hurt you, Mom,” I continued. “But you love them anyway. So this letter is really yours. You can decide what you want to do with it.”

  She was shaking when she took it from me, and her fingers trembled so hard that she had trouble opening the envelope. In the end, I had to do it for her. Then I sat down next to her and watched her read it, her face crumpling, tears running down her cheeks, her eyes devouring the words that her father had written to me.

  Sometimes, Shira, when you’re angry, you make mistakes you can never take back…

  “Do you want me to call him?” I asked when she’d finished the letter. “He wrote his number at the end.”

  She didn’t answer my question. Her eyes had wandered to the windowsill, and she was staring at the melted wax splattered on the ledge.

  “I need to go to the store,” she told me.

  “Okay.” I hesitated, confused by the sudden change in topic. “I can go for you if you want. What do you need?”

  “I need candles,” she replied, smiling. “We’re going to need a lot more candles.”

  Chapter 42

  Jonah was getting out of the hospital. I couldn’t believe it when his mom told me. I’d stopped by his house the day after my presentation to drop off a couple of Katie’s toys, and his mother met me at the door. She smiled when she saw me and blurted out the news before I had a chance to say hello.

  “When—when did they say he can come home?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Dr. Vardi believes he’s met all of his discharge goals.”