Eyes Wide Open

It was horrible. I didn’t know what to do or feel, other than my hands balling into tight fists. Rich or poor, it didn’t matter. There was a complete breakdown. Not only of treatment, but also of responsibility. And Evan was the victim of it. I knew in my world, this could never happen. Not without some kind of response, accountability.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“At the coroner’s,” Charlie said. “They’re doing their autopsy and tests. We can’t even see him.”

Gabriella wiped her eyes. “He called me, you know. The day before. I asked, ‘Are you all right, Evan? You know I love you, don’t you, my son?’ And you know what he told me? He said, ‘I’m gonna make the best of it, Mommy.’ Make the best… Does that sound like some kid who wanted to kill himself the next day? They say it’s a suicide, but it doesn’t sound like that to me. You know what I think? I don’t think my son would kill himself. It sounds like murder, Jay. By the state. They took my son and screwed his head up on drugs, then dropped him in a place that wasn’t right for him. They murdered him. ”

As a doctor, I was always quick to assume that the system handled things correctly. Sure, mistakes were made, but generally it did things right. But as an uncle, I couldn’t disagree.

It was like murder.

We sat around in silence for a while. Charlie and Gabriella just hugged each other, helpless and crying. Then Gabriella got up. She cleared the table, put the coffee mugs in the sink, and ran the water over them. Then she turned and faced me, her palms back against the counter. “At the end, it was very, very bad, Jay. You have no idea. Our son never left the house. He would just sit there, on that couch all day, never even talk, just smile at me. You know that little smile he had, like he had the whole world figured out. Like he knew the truth and no one else did.”

“I know it.” I wasn’t sure whether to smile or shake my head in sorrow. I smiled.

“He said to me, just last week, before he did this… He said, ‘I think maybe I’d like to be a cop. Or an FBI agent.’ He said he was talking to the police and they wanted him.” She cleared her throat derisively. “ A cop? My son barely left the house. He didn’t talk to anyone, Jay. No friends. No girls. Not even us. Only to the fucking furnace! He was dreaming. Like he always did, Jay- dreaming.” She looked at me. “He might never have gotten better-I understand that. But he didn’t deserve to die.”

She came back to the table and sat down next to me. “We took care of our boy for twenty-one years. Then we give him to the state-for four lousy days… And he’s dead! Maybe we don’t deserve medals, Jay. But we damn well deserve to know why, don’t we? We deserve to know why my son had to die!”

I looked back at her, my gut tightening.

Years of the differences between us peeled away.

I said, “Yes you do. You damn well do deserve that, Gabby.”

Chapter Seven

M y life had been easy, to this point.

I mean, we’ve all faced hardships and disappointments. I was no genius, but I always did well in school. I could whip a mean underhanded crank shot that got me a ride to Cornell; I married the girl of my dreams. We raised kids who seemed to be equally achieving, who were polite and self-assured and didn’t seem to mind being around us.

I’d worked my butt off to get where I was: I’d put in the eighty-hour weeks and still remained on call twice a week. We had friends; we went on bike trips to Spain and Italy. For my fortieth birthday I got myself flying lessons and now had my own Cessna. Two years ago, when it came time for the hospital to name a new head for our department, the chief of staff didn’t hesitate and turned to me.

Still, I felt like I’d barely broken a sweat in life. The world always seemed to open up just enough for me to slip through. But for Charlie, the world always seemed to close at every chance and shut him down.

I don’t know if I was a good brother. I don’t know if I ever lived up to that vow I made regarding Evan. I knew I’d always done just enough to keep them from sinking.

Enough, but no more.

Maybe it was too late to put myself on the line for Evan.

But I could damn well start doing it for Charlie and Gabby now.

I checked myself into the Cliffside Suites, the nicest of the motels perched along a high bluff overlooking the Pacific. My room was at the end of a long outside corridor above the parking lot. Inside, it was clean and large and I stepped out through the sliding glass doors to the terrace with a panoramic view of the ocean and the steep cliffs below.

I threw myself on the bed and thought about Evan and his last visit to our house. How everyone thought he was so weird, no matter how much I tried to defend him: He was smart. The odds were stacked against him. He was my brother’s son.

“He doesn’t even know how to order food, Dad,” Sophie had said. “He always seems a bit stoned out.”

“He does spend a lot of time off in space,” Kathy said. “You have to admit he’s a bit weird.”