At age fifteen, Violet experienced auditory hallucinations. The voices disappeared a few months later but they can be a precursor of what’s to come. Given our family history, even with extreme vigilance, Violet’s chance of escaping schizophrenia is small.
Now Violet is pregnant. We are furious and heartbroken. Motherhood is an exhausting, stressful proposal for any woman. We feel certain the schizophrenia we’ve managed to hold at bay will manifest should Violet have this child.
Violet is accountable, but you, Calvin, will be to blame for what happens next. End your relationship. Convince our daughter to get an abortion. We will attempt to pick up the pieces.
Should the two of you decide to have this child, we will discontinue all contact. We simply cannot watch our daughter’s imminent destruction.
Sincerely,
William Hanover
“She told me that no one wanted us,” I say.
“Who?” Ms. Frey asks.
“Violet. When we were on the roof.” This is new territory. I’ve never discussed that day with anyone but the judge who required my testimony. My vision blurs...
Violet and I stand on the edge of our apartment building’s roof. My bare feet are really cold. A breeze rustles the edge of my nightgown, the cotton one with tiny strawberries on it. My knees shake. Police cars are parked eleven stories below.
“Don’t be fooled, little bird. Nobody really wants us,” Mommy says.
I shake my head. “Daddy wants me.”
“Do you know where my mommy and daddy are?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
“I never understood until I read the letter. Violet’s parents kept their word.”
“You never call her Mom.”
I shrug. “It helps create distance.”
Ms. F. slips into the chair beside me. “Can I give you a hug?”
“Only if it will change my life.” I wipe my wet eyes and runny nose with the sleeve of Sawyer’s sweatshirt. Nadine, his housekeeper, will get the snot out. “What would you do?” I ask.
“I can’t possibly answer that without living in your shoes.”
“Try.”
“Part of me would do exactly what you’re doing with your Twelve-Year Plan,” Ms. Frey says, twisting the rows of silver beads she wears around her wrist. “Part of me would say screw it and live the life I want, within reason, because the future is uncertain and because, like I said, if there’s nothing in your life you love, you won’t fight to have it back.”
Ms. F. hands me a tissue. It smells like lavender. I’m not really crying, but I blot my face to make her feel useful.
“Have you talked to your dad about any of this?”
“We have a deal. He pretends he’s not watching for telltale signs that I’m sliding toward bonkers. I pretend I don’t know that he’s waiting for what he believes is inevitable.”
“A family history, even as bad as yours, doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. Does anyone on your father’s side—”
“Have schizophrenia? Not that I know of. But the odds are definitely not in my favor.”
“Do you want me to talk to your father?”
I meet her gaze. “If you do, I’ll never talk to you again.”
Ms. F. helps me rip the Xeroxed letter into tiny pieces. “I’ll apply to one other school,” I say, because this isn’t a run-of-the-mill counselor problem. There’s no reason for Ms. F. to feel like a total failure.
Ms. F. sniffs. “Which one?”
“USC.” I give her hand a pat. “The best is yet to come.”
“Did I really say that?”
“Who else?”
7
“How was your day?” my dad asks the second I walk through the door of our loft. He’s grading history papers at the dining room table, his blond hair loose, half hiding the deep lines etched into his forehead. The smell of broiled chicken fills the air.
“Same but different.” I toss my backpack on the table, then pull out a French assignment. I’m supposed to learn the vocabulary in a new chapter of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry for tomorrow’s quiz. I sit down at the far end of the table and start reading, looking up words when I don’t know them.
“Did you see Ms. Frey today?”
You know I did. “It was on the calendar.” My father writes a C in red pen on the top of a student’s homework assignment. Is his job as boring as it seems? I could ask him, but I don’t. We are two people living under one roof, but we’ve become strangers. Silence is the invisible third person in our family, always standing between us.
I set the table. We both resume working while we eat. The only sound is the clink of our forks, the rustle of turning pages, the occasional throwaway comment. “Thanks for dinner,” I say ten minutes later, clearing the dishes.
“Did you like it?”
What can I say about broiled chicken, brown rice and a green salad? That we eat it at least three times a week? “Yeah. New recipe?”
“I added cumin.”
“Nice.” I grab my backpack, heading down the hall to my room. When I shut the door it’s like I can breathe again. My twin-size bed with its white duvet is on a modern black platform in the corner. Other than the limited edition Paddington Bear alarm clock, my room is undecorated. The only real artwork is in the far back corner of my walk-in closet, below rows of hanging sweatshirts, jeans and a few dresses still bearing tags that Sawyer insisted I buy. Behind a suitcase I’ve never used is a miniature version of Escher’s Reptiles that Violet drew on the wall with a green felt-tip marker. I remember bits of what she said to me the day we huddled together in my closet...
“Always be waiting for me.”
“Are you leaving, Mommy?”
“Never say goodbye...it means forgetting.”
I click on the closet light, sit cross-legged beside the sketch and lightly trace the patterns with my index finger. As lizards climb off a sheet of paper they turn into three-dimensional reptiles then climb onto different objects until they return to the page as one-dimensional drawings.
After the trial was over, my father didn’t just tear down the Escher posters from our loft’s walls. He shredded them. I watched, hidden beneath the overstuffed couch that was replaced with a leather sofa a few weeks later. It was the first and last time I saw him cry. When he was done with the posters, he attacked the sentences Violet had scrawled in red Sharpie over doorways, around every window frame. He covered every word with two coats of white paint. I’ve never told my father about the one remaining Escher that Violet drew in the back of my closet. I don’t want any part of her, but erasing every last trace that she existed won’t change anything.
My phone rings to the tune of The Exorcist’s bells. “Hi.”
“Thought you were coming over,” Sawyer says.
“Sorry. Ms. Frey needed to talk. Plus, how will I fit into my homecoming dress if I keep eating Betty’s desserts?” Sawyer doesn’t laugh. It’s a sore subject. He wants me to go to the dance with him. I’ve said no a hundred times.
“Lily, come on,” Sawyer says.
“Sorry. I’d do just about anything for you, but I will not be your pity date.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Yeah, good luck convincing the rest of our class. Plus, Carla might dump a bucket of blood over my head.”
“We do not live in a Stephen King horror flick,” Sawyer points out.
“Speak for yourself.” I lie down on the closet’s hard floor. “Next subject, please.”
“Cushing spoke to me.”
“What?” I sit straight up. “Tell.”
“He actually did notice the $100,000 transfer out of my trust fund.”
“Duh.”
“There’s nothing he can do about it.” Sawyer clears his throat. “He said that
I disgust him.”
I want to drive over to Cushing Stafford Thompson’s mansion and light it on fire with him inside. “You are the best person I know.”
“I’m the only person you really know.”
I think Sawyer is crying, which makes my chest feel like it’s six sizes too small. I do the only thing I know will make him stop. I start to sing. “‘Your life is made of tight jeans, sweet smiles, easy denials... Your style is all fast cars, open bars, rubbing up to shallow stars... You think I buy magazines to see your face, curves and lace, but I’m into novels not comic books—’” Sawyer hoots. In that moment I actually appreciate Swift Jones. “More? Because I’ll do it,” I threaten.
“You do realize you’re tone-deaf?”
“What? I can’t hear you,” I shout into the phone. My dad knocks on my door. “I’m fine,” I call. “Just talking to Sawyer.”
“Don’t go to bed too late.”
“Okay.” I wait until I hear his footsteps fade. “Can Cushing cut you off?”
“Maybe. But most of my trust fund is from my mom’s side.”
“Would she care?”
Sawyer is quiet for a moment. “The good news is that my parents don’t talk. Ever. They just pass in hallways wide enough that they can pretend they didn’t see each other.”
Sawyer’s not kidding about the mansion he calls home. It’s fifteen thousand square feet of exotic woods, marble, soapstone and crystal chandeliers with outdoor fountains, tennis courts and a swimming pool, all set in the tony suburb of Dunnhop. He’s also not kidding about Cushing and Mirabela’s relationship. I’ve actually never seen them in the same room at the same time.
“Where are you right now?” Sawyer asks.
“My closet.”
“Reptiles?”
“Uh-huh.” I trace a green lizard. “You know what Escher said about his drawings?”
“Tell me.”
I read the Escher quote taped beside Violet’s sketch. “‘I try in my prints to testify that we live in a beautiful and orderly world, not in a chaos without norms, even though that is how it sometimes appears.’”
Sawyer clears his throat. “Ready?”
My skin prickles. “Go already. And skip to the ones that matter most.”
“Bossy.”
“Guilty.”
“Number two. ‘I hear or see things that others do not hear or see. A, Not at all. B, Just a little. C, Somewhat. D, Moderately. E, Quite a lot. F, All the time.’”
“B,” I answer.
“Number one. ‘I believe that others control what I think and feel. A, Not at all. B, Just a little. C, Somewhat. D, Moderately. E, Quite a lot. F, All the time.’”
My dad definitely tries and sometimes succeeds. “B.”
“Number three. ‘I feel it is very difficult for me to express myself in words that others can understand. A, Not at all. B, Just a little. C, Somewhat. D, Moderately. E, Quite a lot. F, All the time.’”
Doesn’t everyone sometimes feel like that? “B.”
“Number five. ‘I believe in more than one thing about reality and the world around me that nobody else seems to believe in. A, Not at all. B, Just a little. C, Somewhat. D, Moderately. E, Quite a lot. F, All the time.’”
“A.”
“Number seven. ‘I can’t trust what I’m thinking because I don’t know if it’s real or not. A, Not at all. B, Just a little. C, Somewhat. D, Moderately. E, Quite a lot. F, All the time.’”
This one is tricky. “A.”
“Number twelve. ‘I talk to another person or other people inside my head that nobody else can hear. A, Not at all. B, Just a little. C, Somewhat. D, Moderately. E, Quite a lot. F, All the time.’”
“Does Ms. Frey count?” I ask.
“Lily,” Sawyer says. “You ask me that every time. And I tell you that when you start to have new people, new voices and new conversations, songs or quotes, not just Freyisms or lines from Swift Jones or Peter Pan popping up in your brain—which, by the way, I have, too, the latter thanks to you—those will count. Accept it. You just have a kick-ass imagination.”
“A,” I say.
We go through all the questions, including the ones that ask if people are plotting against me or if I have magical powers.
“You’ve scored a big, fat zero,” Sawyer says. “Way to go, champ.”
It’s just an online test, but I feel relieved. “Thanks. Do you want me to tell Dr. Tinibu where most of the money came from?”
“No. I prefer for my charitable donation to remain anonymous,” Sawyer says in a great imitation of Cushing’s snooty voice. “Unless Swift Jones reads your article and wants to give me front row tickets to a show.”
“I’m pretty sure she won’t be reading my article.”
“Lil,” Sawyer says quietly, “how can I love SJ so much but not love her enough?”
I think about sharing a Freyism, but a cliché doesn’t feel right. “I love you, Wonder Woman.”
We stay on the phone for a while not talking. I can hear SJ in the background. I’ll memorize a few more songs so that I can pull out different lines if Sawyer needs them. I grab a pillow from my bed and curl up on the floor of my closet. When I wake in the middle of the night, there’s a blanket over me.
8
“What’s this?”
My father holds up a large manila envelope that contains my application to USC. I spoon Cheerios into my mouth. Chew. Swallow. “It’s a college application.” I procrastinated for three weeks before writing it. Ms. F. has been ridiculously patient with me, so even though the deadline is closing in, it was important to keep my word.
“Didn’t you already apply online to Muni?” My father grabs a sponge.
“Yes.” I clear my cereal bowl even though I’ve only had a few bites.
“Lily?”
My back is to him as I dump my breakfast into the sink, but I can feel his eyes. “It’s not a big deal. Ms. Frey thought it’d be cool if I applied to a school with a stronger journalism program. I picked USC.”
“I thought we talked about this.”
I turn. He’s scrubbing a stain on the counter that isn’t there. “What’s the harm?” I ask. My dad’s eyes bug out. When I was a little kid, I thought my father’s eyes were superhero blue, but now they’re just washed out, like his powers have drained away.
“The harm? Lily, I can’t afford a California school.”
“I could take out student loans. That’s how Dr. Tinibu got her college degree.”
“You have no idea how much pressure comes with owing that kind of money.” He tosses the sponge into the sink. “USC is a really competitive school. Your grades are good, but they won’t make that cut.”
“I have a 3.4, plus Sawyer thinks my internship with the newspaper might help.”
“Sawyer’s a great kid, but he’s top of your class, a star athlete and lives a very privileged life. He’s not exactly in touch with reality. Sweetheart, even if you got into USC’s journalism program, those students would overwhelm you. Cutthroat kids, like the ones who went to Cornell with me. It’s a very tense environment.”
I consider telling him that I know he snuck into my room. But it would lead to a larger fight. That wouldn’t be good for me. “I want to have a bigger goal than Muni,” I finally say. My dad tries to put a hand on my shoulder. I move out of reach.
“Lily, it doesn’t matter where you go to college. You can make the most of any education regardless of how long you attend.”
My world is a kaleidoscope. With a twist it comes into focus. My father doesn’t think I’ll make it through four years of college because he doesn’t think I have four years of sanity left. I pick up the application. My hands are shaking, but I manage to shove the envelope into my backpack.
Calvin sighs. “I’ll be ready in five.”
“I’m getting a ride to school from Sawyer.” I leave without looking back.
The aroma of Sawyer’s morning latte wafts over me as I climb into his Jeep, grab the paper cup from his hand and take a big gulp. “Ow!” The roof of my mouth is seriously scorched.
“Okay,” Sawyer says. “First, coffee is hot. Second, you don’t drink caffeine.”
“I just did.”
“I saw. What’s wrong?”
I pull the application out of my backpack. “I was going to apply to USC.”
“What?” Sawyer pulls me into a sideways hug. “We are going to have so much fun!”
“First, I said I was going to apply. My dad took a massive crap on the idea.”
“Why?”
“He’s sure I won’t be able to handle the pressure of loans or a competitive college.”
Sawyer pulls onto Burnside Avenue, entering the flow of morning traffic. “He’s wrong.”
I slide the envelope back into my pack. “He’s probably right.”
“Then why’d you want to apply?”
“It’s stupid.”
“I love stupid.”
“Fine. When I gave Dr. Tinibu the check—”
“Which wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t thought of the contest.”
He is so my best friend. “Thanks.”
“Okay. Back to Dr. Tinibu and the check. Go.”
“It’s just, when she saw the amount, she almost cried.”
“Because she loved the name?”
I flick his head with my index finger. “No, because Dr. Tinibu has a passion for what she’s doing. She watched her father kill elephants, so now she has a mission in life to protect animals from extinction.”
“So you want to save elephants?”
“Shut up.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
I fiddle with my glasses. “Ms. Frey said she wanted me to have something I love if...you know. She thinks it’d help me fight to find my way back. I’ve thought about it for a few weeks... This is going to sound dumb, but maybe my thing is going to a really good college so I can be a solid journalist who writes about stuff that matters.”
When Elephants Fly Page 5