Eyes Wide Open

“No, I do. I do have to.” She brushed back her hair and fortified herself with a breath. “Let’s go.”

We walked, Charlie trailing, until we found the chain-link fence Sherwood spoke of. There was a gate to walk through, but also a sign: NO VISITORS PERMITTED PAST THIS POINT.

There was no park ranger around, no one stopping us. Sherwood had said to keep going as far as we could walk.

“I think it’s over here!” I shielded my eyes and looked up. A craggy overhang protruded high up the cliff face, nothing in its way to break a fall to the rocks below. I noticed a loose path winding up the face and another sign that cautioned against climbing.

Gabriella looked up, tears massing in her eyes. “I can’t believe this, Charlie, I really can’t. I can’t believe our boy would do this.”

Charlie leaned against me, his long hair whipped by the wind. “He didn’t kill himself. I know it. Don’t you see, that’s why they never found the other sneaker. He slipped somehow, climbing up. Maybe it lodged in the rock. It’s up there somewhere. He wouldn’t have jumped. I have to believe that, Jay, you understand?”

I wanted so much to tell him, Stop it, Charlie, just stop. Evan’s dead. Like Sherwood said, accident or suicide, what did it even matter now? Instead, I just squeezed his shoulder and nodded. “I understand.”

Gulls cawed, flapping in the breeze. We stood there for a while with my arms around both of them, solemnly staring at the place where Evan had fallen. Pain was etched in their drawn, anguished faces as they relived the image of their son’s backward descent, picturing him landing hard onto the unforgiving rocks. They had seen the photos: the blood on his face, his spine shattered.

Having to think of him lying there all night. The surf washing against him. Gulls picking over his body.

I remembered Gabby’s words: Your brother feels responsible, Jay.

Of course he feels responsible. Evan had become him. Charlie had passed his legacy of disease and blame onto him. Fanned it, like a brush fire, with their anger and how they lived, pointing the finger at everyone for what had gone wrong in their failed lives.

And not to mention they were the ones who had called the police and sent him away.

Gabriella shook her head in frustration and balled her fists. “Oh, Jay, you don’t know how tough this is. I held him in my arms. That first day. Every parent has a dream for their child. I told my son, ‘You are going to make us proud. You are going to live the life we’ve never led.’ A child is supposed to go farther than their parent. That’s how it’s supposed to happen, right? That’s the law of nature. Not this…”

I gazed up at that ledge and knew whatever hope they still harbored that their son had simply slipped was just another of their delusions. Why would anyone have climbed all this way, other than to jump? Why would he have remained up there through the night? And, ultimately, like Sherwood grimly said, why did it matter? Evan was dead. No one would ever tell us what was in his mind.

Suddenly Gabriella picked up a stone and flung it against the rocks. Then another, freeing her pent-up rage. “ You bastard! ” she yelled into the wind. “Damn you!”

Damn you.

I didn’t know if she meant Evan or God, or maybe even the giant rock.

She yelled, “I want to know why my son had to die! I know we’re poor. I know we don’t matter. But I deserve that, don’t I, Jay? Evan deserves that.”

She was right-this wasn’t the ending that had to be. It was the ending Evan received, because the system looked the other way.

We all did, in our own way.

Gabby hurled another stone against the rocks.

Yes, Evan deserves that, I answered her in my mind. That’s the least he deserves.

Watching her, I knew why I was there.

Chapter Twelve

T he Harbor View Recuperation Center was a converted white Victorian house with a large front porch and a green awning on a quiet street, a few blocks from the town’s touristy center.

If Gabby wanted answers, this was the place to begin.

“You’re sure you want to go in?” I asked Charlie and Gabby as we pulled up across the street.

“This woman killed our son! ” Gabriella declared bitterly. “She let him leave-when he was supposed to be in the care of people who would watch over him.”

“Okay,” I said. We parked the car and headed in.

A couple of Adirondack-type chairs with chipped paint sat on the porch. The lawn was thick and a bit overgrown, in need of trimming. Inside, we found a couple of elderly people milling about, just as Evan had described. I didn’t see any guards or orderlies around.

“Look at this place,” Gabriella said, her eyes flashing with barely controlled rage. “I can’t believe they dumped my son in this shit hole.”

I knocked on an office door and a squat, pleasant-looking woman in black pants and a floral blouse glanced up from her desk. She appeared Filipino.

“My name’s Dr. Jay Erlich,” I said, introducing myself. “Evan was my nephew.”