by An Na
There is a bridge on which I stand. Behind me, all the years of my life shimmer and pulse. I remember the smooth weight of my mother’s hair like cradling threads of black gold in my hands. Dad reading to me in front of the woodstove as the heat burns into the heels of my outstretched feet. Running to the edge of the ocean as the moist salt spray coats my lips. All these moments of living in a place where water and earth and air come together precisely forming the present, a break line of space and time between past and future where life moves and struggles, rages and crawls, dances, calms, naps with arms thrown wide open, touching other lives, inhaling their scent, their breath. This existence will no longer be mine.
Ahead of me, I see the shadow of the train approaching. The thundering echoes grow louder and louder, pulling me forward into a life that is not of my making. The helix of time will swirl around and through me until I am no longer alive, but existing in a place between breaths. I stand on the bridge of prodrome, mourning all that will be lost and all that is to come. I stand on this bridge, waiting for the train. Waiting to fall backward.
Unless . . .
I jump.
Winter
The Fates. I remember you were always bringing up the Fates. The Fates like layers of reality stacked high as reams of paper handed over to you, biblical in totality. The Fates were no minor gods, you always argued.
I disagreed and always tried to make you understand my views. So what was the point of life then? What choices are truly our own versus what has been handed down through your Fates? This existence. This body. Who says this is reality or just a version of some cyborg dream? A wormhole into another consciousness? How do we begin to understand where, why, and how we live? The idea that only one truth can exist is not a truth, I argued. Fates have been known to change. With faith.
How is it that your smile was always so gentle, as though gazing upon a petulant child?
What is faith? you asked. A feeling? A premonition? A belief in the face of despair, above will and exertion? Faith is not wanting to know what is true.
Stop quoting Nietzsche, that fascist elitist. Faith is as air, love, fire, hunger, hope. Faith is elemental.
That is not on the periodic table, you said, and walked away.
Always, always you had your Fates. The tests that foretold your future. And no matter how much I tried, I could never convince you to believe that it could be different with faith. But I tried. I tried to convince you until the day you left. And even after you had gone, I kept my faith. For living in this version of reality was not a reality that I would accept as the truth.
Spring
I am willing away the rattle of the tracks. Staring at the smooth concrete floor of the hall, telling my mind what I know and see before me. There is no train.
“Grace?”
I look up. “Do you hear it?”
“Hear what?” Will asks.
I take a breath to explain, but the words won’t come. Will stands before me, slowly reaches out his hand.
In one breathless moment, I stretch as far as I can, the tendons and muscles of my arm and hand contracting in pain. I grab hold before I fall.
“I hear something,” I whisper. “There is a train. I hear a train. Listen.”
Will guides me gently to a door and then another door and then around a corner. Somewhere between all the twists and turns of entering and exiting labs and rooms, I lose sight of where I am and where I am going. I can only feel the gentle pressure of Will’s hands on the roundness of my shoulders.
And then I am alone. Sitting on a couch facing a wall of caged animals. I gaze around the strange room, unable to comprehend if we are still in the lab. The soft yellow lights on the mice, rats, primates, and rabbits make this place seem more like a pet store. Trying to shake myself out of it, I remind myself that this is the lab. These are test subjects. I study the movements of all these lives trapped behind their clear plastic cages. Each so alone and yet joined in their suffering and purpose.
The soft scurrying noise of the rodents and the warmth of the room envelop me. While I know intellectually that this is a torture chamber, being faced with their lives brings me comfort for some reason. Maybe it’s the knowledge that I am not the only one in pain. I sink back into the couch, watching these little creatures busy in their work. Sleeping curled in corners. Chewing wood shavings. Clutching water bottles. Pressing paws to cage wall, sniffing at the air that has been disturbed by my presence.
Will appears from behind a door with a glass of water. He sits down next to me and offers me the drink.
“Grace, has the train stopped?”
I listen carefully. “Yes.” I turn away, embarrassed that he has heard my confusion. My confession. “I feel so stupid. It was probably just a piece of equipment.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. We all have those moments of dislocation.”
I take a sip of water. The coolness slips down my throat and clarity begins to emerge again. Will leans forward and places his elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him.
“Remember when I said I wanted to tell you about my life?”
I nod and focus on steadying the glass of water in my hands.
“I have, or I should say, I had, a twin sister. She was my best friend.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
He shrugs. “Thanks.” He looks at me. “You know, we were so alike we even both surfed goofy.” He notes my expression. “That just means we surfed with our right foot forward.”
I force myself to smile.
“She was my better self. In all ways. Older, smarter, stronger, nicer, funnier, more popular. Although . . .” He frowns. “I contend that I was the better-looking twin.”
“I bet that was debatable,” I note.
“Hey, I had to claim something.”
We both smile, and the moment of lightness feels so good we sit in silence and let it linger between us.
“You must miss her,” I finally say.
“All the time.”
“How long has it been since you lost her?”
“She died four years ago. She had schizophrenia.”
I turn to stare at the animals; their noises seem louder. Will stands up and checks on one of the rats in the bottom row, who is making strange echoing squeaks.
“Was she in a hospital at the end?”
Will shakes his head and returns to the couch. “No, she was home with me and my parents. She was getting better. The medication was working. It felt like a miracle. I was so happy to have her back. It was almost like the way it had always been between us. I thought . . .” Will looks down at his hands. “I thought she was getting better. But then a few weeks later—”
The slight screeching sound of an exercise wheel turning and turning and turning fills the room.
“My dad has this sword collection. And . . . she got into the room.”
I reach out and place my hand on Will’s arm. “You don’t have to tell me if this is hard.”
“No, I need to talk about it. Otherwise, her death would have been pointless. Her life . . . can still help others. That’s what I believe.”
I nod and take my hand away from his arm.
“I found her with the sword and I tried to take it away from her.” Will holds out his palms. “That’s how I got these scars. But I got the sword away from her.”
I reach out and gently trace the edges with my finger. It must have been so painful, but he had not let go of the blade. My vision blurs as I think about how hard those who love us must work to save us.
“It didn’t do any good, though. Because in the end, she still found a way to end her life a few days later.” Will takes my hand in both of his, the rough ridges of his scars pressing into my skin. “You know what I want more than anything? I want answers. Why her and not me? What this sickness means. It makes no sense. Even a car accident I can understand. But to see someone lose their mind piece by piece, moment by moment. Why?”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Are we supposed to be invincible? Isn’t there always a price to be paid? We pillage our environment and we suffer natural disasters. The rich use the poor and we have riots. It’s history, Will. Our human history. We have fucked-up diseases that pass on from generation to generation, repeating one too many genes or being completely absent on some random chromosome. It’s not why, but when.”
Will shakes his head. “No, I refuse to accept that. She was robbed of her life because of a disease that we can control. We are not invincible, but we can evolve.”
I slip my hand from his and stare into his eyes. I tell him a truth. “I’m glad my mother disappeared.”
Will exhales loudly.
“I’m glad because she scared me. I have lived a life free from that fear ever since. And I think . . .” I shake my head. “No, I know she was doing that for me. Dad never wanted to believe she was sane when she left that day. He thought it was her schizophrenia that made her leave us . . . him. That it wasn’t her choice, which was why he had to find her. But how do you tell someone that you can’t truly find a crazy person? I was the only one home with her the day she left.”
The memory of that day, how she fell to her knees and pulled me so close, her nose sinking into my hair, moving to the crook of my neck as she inhaled so deeply it felt as though the essence of me was being pulled away . . . And then she stood up, placed the palm of her hand against my cheek, and said, “You are my life.” I never saw her again except in the memories and dreams she left behind and the pictures that served as an altar for my father.
“And what I think is . . . that . . . in a moment of sanity, she left to spare us.” A lightning bolt of pain shoots across my forehead. I grimace and press the heels of my palms against my temples.
“Are you okay? Grace, I’m worried about you.”
I take a moment to breathe long and deep. The air catches in my throat for a second. The pain subsides. I lower my hands. “I’m fine,” I say. “It’s nothing.”
Will studies me. “Grief makes life a magnificent challenge. I can see that in you. But I’m worried about—”
“You think I’m going crazy,” I blurt out.
Will stammers, “N-no, it’s not that. No, it’s just you’ve changed so much. Even in the short time I’ve known you.” But the blush rising up his neck tells me the truth.
“Just because my mom was crazy doesn’t mean I’m going to follow in her footsteps. I’m just tired. I eat canned soup and pizza every day. I miss my father. I have a lot of work. My friend is having problems.”
“Grace, slow down. No one is saying you’re crazy.”
“Good, because I’m not.”
“But something’s changed in you. When I found you in the diner, you didn’t look like yourself. You actually looked like you were going to throw up.”
My hands are shaking and the water sloshes back and forth in the glass. “I was really cold that night. I was walking for a while, thinking about my parents. What Dr. Mendelson announced would have meant the world to them. Before.”
Will nods. “I know what you mean. I kept thinking of Sarah and what it would have been like if she had lived. The new drugs and the trials might have offered her a way to live as she wanted. Not the way she was forced.”
“Is that why she killed herself?” After I ask the question out loud, I realize that I am hungry to know everything about her decision.
“No,” Will says, and shakes his head. “No, Sarah was suffering from her disease. Sometimes I could see the part of Sarah that was still inside. The Sarah I always knew. But that part of her was so tangled in the voices and visions. Every once in a while, she would say something and it was like she had broken free. But it happened less and less. She got really quiet in the end.” Will turns to me. “But she always smiled when she saw me. She always recognized me. I guess that was why I thought she was getting better.”
“But she didn’t die from the schizophrenia,” I say gently. “She killed herself.”
Will looks at me with an incredulous expression. “How is that different?”
“It was her choice.”
“How is that a true choice when she’s not even in control of her mind? The voices told her she wasn’t worth it. They told her to do it. Maybe the voices were telling your mother to walk away.”
“Or maybe she decided to do it when she was truly herself. You said you saw those glimmers underneath.”
“Grace, I don’t know where these questions are leading, but we thought the medication was working. What we didn’t realize was . . . she had stopped taking them.”
They love and hate their demons. Will sees the look in my eyes.
“I don’t know what is worse,” he continues. “Having so much hope only to have it crushed, or not to hope at all.”
“If you’re like my father, you hold on to hope until you die still gripping it with both hands.” I think about his last words to me and I want to smash open every single cage, release every hopeless creature into the wild.
“Your father could convert anyone into a believer.”
“Not everyone,” I say, shaking my head. “Not me. You know, before my father died, his last words to me were about how the new recruit was going to make a big difference. There could be a discovery soon. My father is dying and all he can think about is the next cure, locating the gene. Not that he is leaving me. Not that I might not care about anything but a life without my father.” Anger turns my voice haggard and ugly, but I can’t stop. “Not that he loves me.”
“But Grace, how could he have known that was the last time he would see you?”
I know what Will is trying to do.
“It doesn’t matter. A part of him left when my mother left. I was just seeing the ghost of him most of the time anyway.”
Will reaches out to touch my shoulder, but I jerk away and he lowers his hand. “Grace, he thought he was helping.”
“He wanted a cure,” I say. “He wanted her back. And even with all the best doctors . . . The hardest part is remembering when she was okay. I remember her. Being with her. Loving her as my mom. But then she was also someone else. Like a stranger living inside her body. She scared me.”
“The drugs are so much better now, Grace.”
“God, you sound just like him,” I say. “That is not living.”
“You have to have faith that things can change. They’ve located the cluster of genes, and now the Rosetta Stone. Death doesn’t have to be the only answer.”
“Then what is? What do the other options look like? An existence like my mother’s or your sister’s? Is that living for you?”
He won’t answer me. The repetitive screech of the wheel comes to a stop. I hear every sound acutely. Can smell the sour, musty odor of the animals. Feel the velvet of the yellow lights against my bare skin. I am here in the room and I am present. This is real. This is now. Rising from the couch, I hold my glass carefully out to Will.
“Thank you for the water.” I wave at the animals. “And the company.”
Will smiles and takes the glass from my hands. “I like coming here when I feel lost. Grace, you don’t have to be alone with all this pain. I wish I had gotten to know your father better, but I do know he was so proud of you and loved you beyond this world.”
“Sure,” I say.
Will stands up beside me. “I want to help in whatever way I can. Let me help you.”
“Thank you. I’m good now.”
“Maybe you need a change of scenery. It’s these long winters. How about a trip to the beach? Head to the ocean?”
“Is that your answer for everything?”
“Sun. Vitamin D.” Will holds up his arms like he is being bathed in sunlight. “Yes, this doctor would say that is a cure-all.”
I smirk at Will’s conviction, but his expression makes me feel the heat of the sun. The rays penetrating the layers of my skin. And then memory of a voice enters my mind. The feel of her hand cupping the round of my shoulder. Don’t fall asleep. Yo
u’ll burn.
“I wish it was that simple,” I say, and walk away from Will, my footsteps deliberate and clear on the hard concrete floor. I open the door to a maze I no longer know how to maneuver.
Autumn
Her footsteps sounded so hollow in the empty house. Wandering from room to room, she called for her mother.
“Where are you?” she cried. Mama had left so suddenly from underneath the table. But after some time, when Mama did not return, she crawled out from under the table to find the kitchen empty.
She wandered upstairs, but the quiet bedrooms offered her no answers. Downstairs, the living room where her mother and father had just been, the disorderly pillows on the couch giving away the past, was now empty except for the swaying shadows on the carpet cast by the large maple tree outside in the neighbor’s yard.
She went into the hallway and stared at the basement door. Slowly she opened it and stood at the top, gazing down into the open black maw.
“Mama?”
The darkness mocked her, but she refused to step into the trap. “Mama?”
She closed the door.
Could her mother have left her alone in the house? Maybe she had gone to the grocery store. She began to think about her father. About calling him at work, even though she knew he would be busy. But Mama was gone. She made up her mind that this was what they called an emergency. Sometimes in an emergency, you had to disturb people.
She walked into the kitchen to study the list of emergency numbers that her mother had taped to the wall next to the phone. But before she could pick up the receiver, she saw a shoe. And then the other a few feet away. Her mother’s empty shoes were on the floor, where they had not been earlier. Mama was back.
She stepped toward the kitchen table and saw a shadow moving underneath.
“Mama?” She slowly raised up the corner of the tablecloth. Huddled on the floor, knees to chin, her mother gazed up at her.