The Memory of Light

by Francisco X. Stork

  I weep and I weep in the green plastic chair — green, the color of life, life that is all around us, like Gabriel said. And maybe I’m not as bad as I was before Lakeview, and maybe there’s a part of me that wants to live, a part that wasn’t there before, because it makes me strangely happy in the midst of the tears to remember his words, to think that the force that makes so much green life must be in me too, if only a drop or two.

  After I don’t know how long, after the tears stop and my eyes dry, I feel something in my chest, some kind of consolation and peace and resolve. It’s as if I’m a sail and a gentle breeze comes and fills me up and moves me. All I need to do is decide where to point the boat.

  I ask one of the nurses if I can use the phone behind the reception desk, and I call my father at work. He’s in a meeting and so is Barbara, but his secretary asks me to wait. When she returns to the phone, she tells me that neither my father nor Barbara can get out of their meeting, but they have arranged for Ed from IT to pick me up. Ed is out on an errand, but as soon as he returns, he’ll come get me. It might be an hour or so.

  I’m disappointed that my father can’t come to get me. Would I feel different if he rushed out of his meeting to pick me up? No, it’s all right. My father is my father and part of me is glad that he is not treating me differently than before I came to Lakeview. I have not thought about this, but now it comes to me: My father taught me how to swim. Every day he’d come home from work early so we could have our swim lesson before dinner. The pool in our first house was smaller than the one we have now and shallow enough for him to tiptoe through the deepest part. I remember the way his hands supported me on the surface of the pool as I learned how to float. It was a gentle, solid touch that I knew would be there until I felt completely safe. I was scared to go in the deep end without my inflatable wings, but he was so patient with me, so calm, so careful, that soon I was more comfortable in the water than anywhere else.

  There was a warmth to my father once that is no longer there, a softness that hardened, a care for me despite all my flaws that turned into impatience. Now he has a fear, almost, of warmth and gentleness, which hurts me, and there’s no use denying it. That’s one of the rocks ahead of me that I have to face.

  I sit back in my green chair and wait, and then a few minutes later I take the elevator to the third floor and find the hospital library, where E.M. discovered his Aztecs book. And there on a bottom shelf alongside the other children’s picture books is a thin book with a picture of a jaguar-clad warrior on the cover. I sit on a child’s chair and read about floating gardens and precise calendars and great temples and Huitzilopochtli, the god of the life-giving sun, who rewarded his followers with victory in war.

  Two hours later, Ed from IT arrives. He apologizes for taking so long, but he was installing a Wi-Fi system in a new building and no one told him to come get me until he returned to the office. We ride in awkward silence for the first half of the trip. Finally, he starts to tell me about how fun and challenging it is to work at Cruz Real Estate and Construction. He’s in the midst of explaining how he managed to get hired out of dozens of applicants when I interrupt him.

  “Did my father tell you why I was in the hospital?”

  “Uh. Well. Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly?” I ask.

  “I mean,” he mumbles, “your father didn’t tell me. Actually, I don’t think your father’s spoken to me since I’ve been there. Of course, I’m in IT, so we don’t have any reason to interact unless his computer goes on the blink.” He laughs a kind of nervous, timid laugh. “Marybeth, his secretary, asked me to come get you.” He grips the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turn white. “But people know about … you. We feel bad.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Do you … want to talk about it?” he ventures.

  “No,” I say in a way that stops all further conversation.

  The rest of the trip home, I wonder how I’m going to deal with people who feel sorry for me, who are embarrassed to talk to me, not knowing what to say. Am I embarrassed myself? Ashamed that even Ed from IT knows I tried to kill myself? I decide that no matter what I feel, I’ll keep my head high in front of others. I think of Mona and her theory that people with mental illness are smart in a special way. When I deal with people, I’ll remember this intelligence is now mine.

  It’s around four in the afternoon when I get home. I thank Ed, get out of the car, punch the code that opens the iron gates, and run to Juanita’s room in back of the house. The door is unlocked, so I walk in.

  I know Juanita is gone as soon as I enter. The bed is made, and all of her saints and images of the Virgin Mary are still on the shelves and the small table in the corner. But there is an emptiness about the room that scares me. I go over to the only closet and peer in. The few dresses, blouses, and skirts that Juanita owns are missing, and the brown suitcase that she keeps on the top shelf of the closet is gone.

  I have an incredible urge to scream. How is it possible for Barbara and my father to send Juanita back to Mexico without letting us say good-bye to each other? I take a few deep breaths so I can gather my wits, and then I remember Juanita telling me that she would not leave without saying good-bye. I rush out of her room. We stash an extra key to the house inside a fake rock in the garden. I use it to open the back door, and then I climb the stairs as fast as I can.

  My room is dark and somber. It reminds me of the first time I entered Mamá’s room after her funeral — like someone recently died in it. Or should have died, I think. I look at my bed and see myself after I took the pills, lying there with my hands folded on my stomach. I turn my head quickly away from that image, draw open the shades and window, and go to my desk. There, just as I had expected, is Juanita’s note, written in pencil on one of the index cards I used for debate.

  Mi Niña.

  I’m at Yolanda’s. I wait for you before I go back.

  Your Nana.

  I remember my daydream after our rafting trip. In the midst of all the wanting that came to me, I thought about Juanita renting the room in Gabriel’s house. What if that wasn’t just a silly daydream? What if it were possible for Juanita to stay in Austin, if that’s what she wants?

  Yolanda’s number is stored in my cell phone. I plug my phone into its charger and sit on the edge of the bed, thinking. Yolanda, her son, his wife, and their four children live in a three-bedroom house with three of the children crowded into one room. Juanita won’t be able to stay there for too long.

  Maybe it’s being back in my room for the first time after the deed, or the strain of trying to figure out what to do about Juanita, but as I sit here, waiting for the phone to charge, I feel as if someone opened a valve in the back of my neck, and a thick gas the color of an egg yolk begins to infiltrate my head. Dr. Desai warned me that depression could return, but I never expected it to be so sudden or so soon. How long have I been home? Half an hour? What is it about this place that’s so toxic, and how will I ever survive here?

  I jump off the bed, shaking my head, trying to clear the invading fog. I stick my head out the window. The mesquite tree reminds me that I have not seen Galileo anywhere, so I start calling him. “Here, gato, gato,” I shout. A mixture of Spanish and English is Galileo’s preferred language. “¿Dónde estás, gatito?” But there is no response. His favorite spot is under one of the camellia bushes that surround the pool. I decide to go look for him. I’m sure that no one fed him after Juanita left, and God only knows how long she’s been gone.

  He’s not in his favorite spot or under any of the other bushes. The gaseous substance in my head has turned into a fluffy, sticky material like cotton candy. I can feel my thoughts slowing down. It’s hard for the brain elves to move in the gummy mess.

  I peel out of my T-shirt and dive in the pool. The cold water revives me a little. I float on the surface, facedown and arms stretched out for a few minutes, and then I swim until the movement of my arms and legs clears my head. I sit on the
steps to the shallow end of the pool, taking deep breaths, searching for one word or image from the past weeks that I can grasp, hold on to, a memory that will keep me afloat through the minutes, hours, and days that lie ahead. The only one I can think of is what E.M. said to me after I rescued him and the pride I felt when he said it: “Not too bad for a spoiled rich girl.”

  I pick up my clothes and walk back into the house, take a shower in the hall bathroom that Becca and I use, and put on a pair of jeans and a white short-sleeve shirt that reminds me of the one Gabriel wore every day. I grab my phone and tap the screen. It has enough power now that I can find Yolanda’s number and call.

  “Oh, Vicky, it’s you,” she says, immediately recognizing my voice. “Just a second, just a second. Juanita is here. She’s been waiting for you to call.”

  Juanita’s voice is joyful, tearful, grateful. “My niña. I so afraid I leave without talking to you.”

  “How long have you been at Yolanda’s?”

  “Eh?”

  “How long? Cuánto tiempo estas con Yolanda?” The only Spanish I know is what I learned from my mother and Juanita and from classes in school. My father insisted on talking only English to Becca and me and got mad at my mother and Juanita when they lapsed into Spanish.

  “Ah! Since Sunday. I told your father that Yolanda take me to the airport, but I come to her house. He say it better for me, for you, if I leave before you get home. But I wait for you. Yolanda change ticket.”

  “Did Father give you the money, the twenty thousand dollars?”

  “Yes, he gave me check. More. Twenty-five thousand. So much money.”

  “Nana, listen to me. Escúchame un momento.”

  “Sí, mi niña. What is it?”

  “Do you want to go back to Mexico to live with your sister, or do you want to stay in the United States, here in Austin?”

  “What? Qué dices? I have to go back. Your father want me to. Mexico maybe better for me with my sister. Who take care of me here? I no walk anymore. I problem for you.”

  “But what if you had a place to live? Where you didn’t have to walk so much. Qué prefieres? Mexico or here?”

  “Qué prefiero?” There’s silence on the other end of the line. “Here. With you. But is not possible.”

  “Yes, it is, Nana. It’s possible. I found a good place for you, okay? Don’t go anyplace. I’ll come see you very soon.”

  “But, mi niña. I’m like, what you say, a heavy load on you. I don’t want be to you like that.”

  “Nana, trust me. It will work. I need you to stay in Austin. For me. Can you stay with Yolanda a few more days?”

  “Yes. I help her here with Lucio’s baby.”

  “I’ll call you soon, Nana. I love you.”

  “Okay, Vicky. I love you.”

  I tap my phone off and stare at it. Why did it never occur to me before to fight for Juanita to stay? Was I really that powerless, or did I just feel that way? I got angry, but deep down I accepted my father’s decision. I never really thought I could do anything about it.

  I wonder if Huitzilopochtli ever got depressed. So much caliche. There’s no getting around it. Gabriel said once that if the depression is chemical, it never really goes away, but I could manage it. I could learn to live with it. Exercise, good thoughts. I got to find me some good thoughts.

  My cell phone rings. It’s Barbara. So much for the good thoughts.

  “Welcome home,” she says. “I figured you probably charged your phone by now. How are you?”

  I feel like crap, I want to answer. Instead, I say, “I’m fine.” I’m lying again. Do I want to start lying again?

  “Good. Glad you’re back home. Listen, couple of things. You caught us a little bit by surprise, so Miguel and I have this dinner with some Japanese investors that we can’t get out of, but there’s a frozen pizza that you can microwave. We might be home late. These guys expect to be taken out for drinks. You know how it is.”

  “Okay.” That’s good. By the time she and Father get home, I can pretend I’m asleep.

  “But your dad wanted me to tell you to get ready to go back to school tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I can’t hide the dread in my voice.

  “Yes. Tomorrow. Might as well get in a couple of days of school this week, he says, now that you’re back. What happened? Things didn’t work out at that ranch you went to?”

  “Things worked out okay,” I say distractedly. Tomorrow I will go to school, where everyone knows what I have done. I will be looked at with what kind of eyes?

  “Great. We talked to Mr. Robinson as soon as you called earlier. Miguel and you have an appointment with him first thing in the morning before classes begin.”

  I flop back on the bed and sigh.

  “You still there?” Barbara asks.

  “Why?” I say.

  “Why what?”

  “Why do we have to meet with him?”

  “Well, there’s the small matter of your flunking grades, for one. I guess he also wants to make sure that the school wasn’t somehow responsible for what you did by letting someone bully you or maybe teachers putting too much pressure on you. You know how it is these days. Everyone’s worried about lawsuits. Well, have a wonderful evening. Get some good sleep. We’ll see you in the morning.”

  She hangs up before I can say anything. I lie there on my back with the phone dangling in my hand. I feel like an old-fashioned scale, like the kind Lady Justice holds in her hand in front of courthouses. On one tray there’s everything good I have gathered at Lakeview and the ranch, and on the other are those parts of my life that are not changing, that I will need to live with — the things that drove me to the deed in the first place. Guess which way the scale is tilting?

  I open my laptop and check my email. I don’t know why I do this. It’s probably just habit, even though the only emails I ever got were from Cecy and that one from Jaime. I have three now: one from Cecy, one from Jaime, and one from Liz Rojas, the editor of The Quill.

  I stare at them for a couple of minutes, trying to gauge whether I have the emotional stamina to open them and read them. It has been a long, long day.

  Emily Dickinson’s poem about hope comes to me as I sit there with those emails. I took the poem to say that hope, the thing with feathers, comes or it doesn’t come of its own accord. But what if I need to create the thing and feather it and perch it in my soul, in such a way that it will live in the chillest land, the strangest sea? What is my thing with feathers? What is my hope? And how can it survive the months and years ahead of me in this room, with this family, in this life?

  I’m not sure I can. It seems like an impossible task, and it occurs to me that what is still perched in my soul, what is still there, is that familiar feeling, hopelessness.

  I close my laptop and lie in bed in the same spot, in the same position, as the night I took the pills. Do you want to live? Has anything changed since Gabriel asked me that?

  I feel lonely, I realize. I feel so lonely. I didn’t feel lonely the night I tried to take my life. You have to be somewhat alive to feel lonely, and that night I was already dead. But I feel lonely now. I miss Mona and Gabriel and E.M. I miss Mamá. I miss Becca. My sister. I have a sister.

  I search for my cell phone in the bed beside me, pick it up, and push Becca’s number. It rings only once, then she answers.

  “Becca, it’s me.”

  “Vicky. This is crazy. I was just about to call you when the phone rang. Barbara texted me that you were home. Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay.” Really? Am I really okay? “Actually, it’s a little hard.”

  “I can imagine. I wish I was there. Guess what. I just went online and bought a plane ticket. I’m coming Saturday afternoon. I can stay for a few days.”

  “Really?” I say. “What about school?”

  “School will still be here when I get back. I’ll be home until the following Tuesday, but I can stay longer.”

  “You’d stay for me?”


  “Of course I would.”

  There’s something about Becca’s voice that sounds different from our last phone call. I can’t exactly pinpoint how. Less afraid to be talking to me, maybe. More like … she cares. Or maybe she just feels … “Becca, it’s okay. You don’t have to feel guilty. We’re okay.”

  “I’m not doing it because I feel guilty. But you’re wrong. I should feel guilty. Guilt is exactly what I need to feel. I let you down, Vicky. I’m not going to let it happen again.”

  “You didn’t let me down.”

  “No? You know what I did right after we hung up last time we talked, when you were in the hospital?”

  “No,” I answer tentatively.

  “I checked the missed calls on my cell. I didn’t have to because I already knew what I was going to find, but I finally had the guts to do it. You called me that night when you tried to … Eight p.m. Know why I didn’t pick up when you called?”

  “Stop. You don’t have to do this.” I don’t know what I would have said to her if she had picked up. I wanted to let her know — what? I wanted to let her know I loved her.

  “Yes, I do. I was at a party given by this very special, elite, secret society that I wanted to get into. I was at that very moment trying to impress a guy with a suede jacket and horn-rimmed glasses. I saw your name on the phone and ignored it.” I hear her voice quiver. She’s crying.

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference if you had picked up,” I say, trying to console her. “I didn’t want you to feel responsible for what I was going to do. I wasn’t going to tell you … what I was planning.”

  “I was the person — the last person you called.”

  “The only person. You should feel honored,” I say, hoping to make her laugh.

  “I am honored,” she says, not laughing. “When you called me from the hospital, I was afraid to tell you how bad and guilty I was feeling, because that would be admitting what I didn’t want to admit.”