I'm Still Here

by Kathryn R. Biel

  I tried talking to Aster about it but never found a willing recipient. I guess most people don't want to hear that they are mentally ill. Crazy. If I talked to her when she was in a manic phase, she blew me off, because there was nothing in the world she could not conquer. If I tried talking to her in a depressive phase, she shut me down with the "You wouldn't understand" canned answer. She honestly thought that she was the only person out there whose brain worked this way. How she could not see it was a mystery to me.

  But the greatest mystery of my life would always and forever be how Aster could come home from band practice one night, eat a bowl of cereal, and then disappear forever two hours later. She had been functional at that point. She and the band had been working on new material and by reports had a great session. She was living at home at the time. She got home around midnight, and had her usual midnight snack of a bowl of cereal. She talked with my mom briefly. There was no fight, no conflict. Just the standard, "What did you do today?" We all knew never to ask how the day was, unless we were truly prepared for that response. Most of the time, we really didn't want to know. My mom went to bed and heard Aster go up shortly afterwards.

  In the morning, there was no sign of Aster. Her keys and phone were still there, as was her wallet. She had left a note telling us all that she loved us and that she was sorry she could not have been a better person. The police were convinced that she had jumped off the bridge near my parents' house. That was the last time anyone ever heard from her.

  We were twenty-four.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  We kept waiting for her body to bob up. For some poor fisherman to find her. Spring went by and turned into summer. The "Missing" posters faded out and fell down. No one put new ones up. No one held out any hope. Except Cheryl and Dean. They hounded the police. Cheryl began contacting mediums and psychics and people who made her look on the straight and narrow by comparison.

  I was lost without my twin. We were Yin and Yang. I was the anchor to her free spirit. But without her spirit lifting me up, I just felt weighed down by life. I was not the creative one, but I started writing. I wrote a letter, a plea to my sister to come home. But I didn't know what to do with it. There was nowhere I could send it that Aster would be able to read it. Because Aster was dead. Still, I could remember every single word of my plea to my sister to come home. It went:

  Aster, if you're out there, please come home.

  Aster, if you're out there, please call someone just to let them know that you're okay.

  Aster, if you're out there, don't be afraid to come back.

  Aster, if you're out there, know that your family and friends are worried sick.

  Aster, if you're out there, don't do anything that cannot be undone.

  Aster, if you're out there, know that life is worth living.

  Aster, if you're out there, realize that you have talents and gifts that the world needs.

  Aster, if you're out there, you have so many people who care about you, and just want to help.

  Aster, if you're out there, know that there is nothing so bad that you cannot get over it or move on.

  Aster, if you're out there, know that your family, friends, acquaintances and total strangers are praying for you.

  Aster, if you're out there, realize that we all feel helpless right now.

  Aster, if you're out there, we're all afraid you're already gone.

  Aster, if you're out there, please come home.

  I used to lie in bed and say those words over and over, like a mantra. Like a prayer. I prayed to Aster in the sky because no God ever answered my prayers. I knew my words were useless. They would help Aster come home about as much as I had been able to help her when she was alive.

  It didn't take much psychoanalysis to realize that I became a social worker because of my experiences with Aster. I knew how mental illness could destroy a family. I knew that we, as a family, had desperately needed someone to swoop in and help us, but no one ever came. It probably would have helped if someone in the family had actually admitted that there was a problem and asked for help. Probably.

  Feeling as desolate and alone as I had that first day without Aster seven years ago, I walked on autopilot from the bus stop, tears still streaming down my face. It had been so long since I had really thought about Aster like that. Oh, I thought about her almost every day. Usually something reminded me of her, or I saw something funny that I thought she would appreciate. I would think about something from our childhoods, which were so inextricably linked together. We used to say that people considered us one person. Like we came together and were not two separate people. While I may have, on occasion, pulled at those reigns that bound me to Aster, I never expected to be running totally free of her.

  It sucked.

  It sucked that I had seven more birthdays and seven more Christmases. I had seven more Halloweens, which was always our favorite holiday. I had seven years of anger and resentment and longing and bargaining. In short, I had seven years.

  Aster was forever twenty-four. Forever that young, wild girl, not quite ready to grow up. Here I was, now thirty-one. I was pragmatic and responsible. I had a respectable job. I did have a failed marriage to Dickie Cox who, by the way, was a wannabe televangelical preacher, but I can't really be held responsible for that one—the marriage failing, that is. I mean, he was a wannabe televangelical preacher, after all.

  A giggle bubbled up through my tears. I tried to choke it back and it came out sounding like a strangled cry. I had tears running down my cheeks. With my fair complexion, I was undoubtedly red and splotchy. Oh, and did I mention that I'm an ugly crier? This was me, pushing my way through the revolving doors into the lobby of the hospital. Crying and giggling and gurgling. It was no wonder that a passing nurse asked me if I needed help. I looked that awesome.

  I ducked into a bathroom and was happy to discover that the bathroom was a private one. Once I had locked the outside door, I didn't have to worry about anyone walking in on me. I stared at myself in the mirror for a moment. I was shocked at how quickly the grief had overcome me and how completely it had overwhelmed me. I had put up walls around my feelings about Aster for so long that it surprised me how raw everything felt. Despite the fact that seven years had passed, those wounds still felt acute and fresh. I needed to stuff all that feeling back in the box and pull myself together. I splashed cold water on my face and smoothed it into my hair to try and calm the chaos up there.

  I needed to blow my nose, which was red and full. I went over to the toilet paper dispenser and pulled. Approximately two squares of nearly transparent toilet tissue came off the jumbo-size industrial roll. I repeated this process about twelve hundred times to get enough tissue to blow my nose without covering myself in mucus. I cleared my nasal passages with a loud "honk" that echoed off the ceramic tile walls. I quickly washed my hands and opened the door.

  Demon Melissa was standing outside the door when I walked out.

  "Was that honking you?" she said with a perverse sense of delight. "That was disgusting."

  "No, it was the goose I keep in my back pocket. He needed to use the facilities."

  "What are you doing here? You don't look sick to me." She stepped back, giving me the up and down look. "I take that back. You look terrible."

  "Gee, thanks. I need to find O.K."

  "He's working," she said in a snotty, almost valley-girl voice. "He doesn't have time for you." The bitch literally looked down her nose at me when she said that.

  "I need to speak with him, but that's really between him and me. I don't need your help, thank you very much." With that dramatic statement, I turned on my heel and walked away.

  Rather, I attempted to walk, but instead with my right foot, I stepped on the toes of my left foot and face planted on the hospital floor. Right in front of Demon Melissa.

  Fan-freakin'-tastic.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I've done a lot of embarrassing things in my life. Making a jackass out of myself was nothing
new for me. There was the time that I peed my pants in front of the third grade class. There was the time I ate a rotten onion from the garden because I believed my older brother when he told me it was an apple. There was the time I ate liverwurst because my sister told me it tasted like candy. There was the time I tried, unsuccessfully, to dye my hair black (but that's a whole other story in and of itself). Then, of course, there was the whole Ho Ho cream in the eyebrows incident. All of those paled in comparison to how I felt meeting the floor in front of Demon Melissa.

  And at that moment when you think something cannot get any worse, I looked up to see a pair of scuffed brown Clarks that just happened to be covering the feet of one Dr. O.K. Cole. To repeat myself, fan-freakin'-tastic.

  "Oh my God, Esther, are you alright?"

  I struggled to get up, shrugging off his arm as he tried to help me. I tried not to wince, but the fall had jarred my already fragile back and neck. I gritted my teeth and found resolve that I didn't know I even possessed as I stood up and lifted my head proudly. Demon Melissa was not even bothering to hide the fact that she was laughing at me. Outright.

  Okay, this is where I have to question a person's judgment. Granted, I didn't know O.K. that well. He had helped me out a few times, and seemed relatively nice. I had known Demon Melissa for all of eight seconds when I gave her that moniker. If she had never opened her mouth, I would have said she was beautiful. However, the moment she opened her mouth, she became so unattractive. While I liked to look nice, I truly did believe that beauty came from within. Demon Melissa had nothing inside but pettiness and a mean-girl spirit. I had no need to be around a person like her. I could not wait to get my keys, get out of this hospital and never have to see these people again.

  "Esther, are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. Just clumsy."

  "Oh, you sure are. Did you see that O.K.? She tripped over her own feet. I've never seen anyone that clumsy before, have you?" There was such a patronizing tone to Demon Melissa's voice that it was all I could do not to punch her.

  Surprisingly, O.K. spoke up. "Really, Melissa? Did you take your bitch pill today or something?"

  I was kind of taken aback. The way he had followed her out of the restaurant, I would have thought him totally spineless and whipped. Apparently, there was trouble in paradise. The internal me did a happy victory dance. The professional me (who I decided to channel instead) humbly looked down at my shoes, letting the tension zip back and forth between the two of them. If I was the catalyst for Demon Melissa showing her true colors, then so be it.

  D.M. (as I was now referring to her in my head, you know, after I finished my imaginary victory dance) turned on her heel in a huff and stormed down the hallway. I would hate to be one of her patients tonight. I felt bad for the poor sap who came in needing a proctology exam.

  Once her satanic presence was gone, the air seemed lighter. O.K. just shook his head. "I don't even know how to begin to apologize for that one."

  "I wish I could say it is okay, but it's not."

  "I know that."

  "But I can say that it is not your fault. You cannot control what another person does or says. You can only control what you do and say."

  "Wow, deep. Normally I'd pay my shrink two-hundred bucks for advice like that."

  "I'm not sure if I'm more disturbed by the fact that you need a shrink, or that you pay them two-hundred bucks an hour."

  "Someday I'll tell you the whole sordid story. That is, after you tell me your story about family names that you claim is worse than mine, but cannot possibly be."

  Oh no, I was not going to get sucked back in again. No, sir, no way. Nope. I was not going down this path— "Sure, O.K. Some night when you get me good and snookered, we can trade war stories. I will have to have you sign a confidentiality clause though."

  Mental head smack. Did I really say that?

  O.K. smiled. Wow, those teeth really were perfect. They made his smile dazzling, like he belonged in a toothpaste commercial or something. I was mesmerized, staring at their sparkling whiteness. I may have crossed the line into creepy stare, because I suddenly became aware that O.K. was looking at me kind of funny.

  "Sorry, I was staring at your teeth. They're brilliantly white. Kind of mesmerizing, really."

  He closed his mouth and in a self-conscious kind of way and covered it for a moment with his hand. I had really crossed the line this time.

  "I had horrible teeth as a kid. I only got them fixed in the last few years. I spent so long being self-conscious of my smile. It still throws me when people compliment me, but thank you nonetheless."

  That was not the answer I had been expecting. He was much more candid than I was used to. It was refreshing but unsettling all at the same time. Unsure of where to go from here, I did what all suave, confident, self-assured people do—I changed the subject.

  "Um, I left my apartment keys in your car. I need them."

  "Oh my God, why didn't you say something at the coffee shop? How did you get here? I can't believe I left you! I'm such an imbecile. No, a jerk. A big huge one."

  I smiled. I had not expected him to berate himself like that. It was endearing.

  "Leaving me stranded for Demon Melissa was kind of a dick move."

  "What?"

  Uh oh, maybe I shouldn't have said 'dick move.' I kind of had a mouth like a truck driver, although I'd been making a concerted effort to reign it in. Then it dawned on me. The E-Z Pass brain. You know, when a thought comes into my head and immediately speeds through and out of my mouth without slowing down. I had actually said 'Demon Melissa' out loud.

  This time, it was my hand that flew to my mouth. There was that moment that hung awkwardly in the air. And then, O.K. let out a laugh. A big, deep, belly laugh.

  "Oh, that's rich," he managed to get out through his chortles. "She can be quite demonic, right?"

  I didn't answer, afraid my big fat mouth would get me into more trouble. Again. As per usual.

  "Esther Comely-Cox, I like you. I really like you. I wish I could bring you home, but my shift is just about to start."

  Did he mean bring me home as in give me a ride or as in take me home and ravage me? I vote B. I looked at my feet sheepishly, not sure of how to handle the flattery and attention, and afraid that my face would (again) betray my more naughty thoughts. "Oh, that's alright. I can just take the bus. I need my keys though."

  "Tell you what, come with me. My buddy is just getting off his shift, and I'll have him bring you home."

  "I couldn't have you ask him. It's totally not necessary."

  "Yes, yes it is. Come with me. But I have to warn you, he's slick. Be prepared to fight off any advances."

  He took off down the hall and walked with his head up and with confidence. I tried to mimic his posture so that no one would question whether or not I belonged here. His badge was attached to his belt by some sort of retractable cord and he would zip it out to open the massive steel doors that sectioned off one corridor from another. He walked fast, but I was able to keep up. I guess being without a car for the last three weeks had at least one benefit (oh, and my butt was definitely firmer, just in case you were wondering).

  We had taken enough twists and turns to thoroughly rob me of any geographical bearing when O.K. announced, "Here we are."

  We were in a staff lounge. There was a large table in the center with an assortment of goodies covering the surface. For people in the health care profession, there was certainly a lot of unhealthy food. I would bet none of it was even organic. Cheryl would have had a field day with this one. This would be yet another arrow in her quiver against the evils of Western medicine. I could almost hear her saying, "And these are the people who you receive your health direction from? Look at them, filling their bodies with chemicals and refined sugars and poisons."

  On the other hand, it had been hours since I'd eaten, and I was famished. My eyes grew wide surveying the bounty spread out before me. My stomach produced a large growl, which I'm sure could b
e heard three states away. I covered my stomach with my hands, but it was too late. Any eyes that were not already on me quickly swiveled in my direction.

  I mean, what are the odds that my stomach would not only grumble, but also that it would sound exactly like it was saying the word "fuzzy?" In my case, pretty darn good.

  A tall blond guy stood up from a worn, corn-flower blue couch in the back corner.

  "Jesus, O—get that girl some food. What are you trying to do, starve her to death?"

  O.K. turned and looked at me. "When was the last time you ate?"

  I shrugged. "I dunno, around noon, maybe?"

  Seeing as how it was now seven p.m., I guess the whole stomach growling thing made sense. I also knew I actually hadn't eaten at noon. I had eaten a yogurt and granola around ten this morning, and that was the only thing I'd had to eat today. I wasn't working and the cash flow was tight. I couldn't be spending lots of money on luxury items like food.

  "You didn't eat at the coffee shop?"

  I looked down at my feet, like a child being scolded. Before I could respond, the large blond made his way up to the front of the lounge where we were standing. Now that he was right before me, I recognized him as a pediatrician I had recently interviewed on a child abuse case.

  I smiled when I realized this. He had seemed like such a caring and compassionate man during the tedious and uncomfortable interview. "Oh, Dr. Olsson. Don't worry about me. I got a date with some ramen noodles as soon as I get home."

  "Oh, hey, Esther. How's it going? I mean other than this oaf starving you." Before I could even answer, Dr. Olsson kept right on going. "And what do you mean ramen noodles? Does anyone still even eat those? I haven't had to eat those since my intern days."

  "Don't forget," I smiled in answer to him, "I'm a county-funded social worker. Every day of my career will be like your intern days."