Sadness slowly fills me, but there’s something about this sadness that is different, more real somehow, than the sadness I felt before I came to Lakeview. While that sadness was everywhere, floating, this sadness is attached to people and places. It comes from watching Mona pull away in a cloud of dust, E.M. being gone, seeing Gabriel slowly sink into a world I don’t understand. The brokenness out there seems so much greater than the strength and life given to us.
I walk to Gabriel’s cabin and see that he is still asleep. I pull a chair up next to his bed and watch. The in-and-out motion of his chest seems so fragile, the whole machinery of life so delicate. And then I am on a chair next to Mamá’s bed, watching her struggle to breathe. She is unconscious, but now and then she opens her eyes and looks into the distance as if she’s seeing something only she can see.
This is what I’m thinking when Gabriel opens his eyes. He looks at me fully alert, as if he has only been pretending to be asleep.
“Hey,” I say.
“It came again. The voice. A real voice.”
I reach out and place my hand on his forehead. “Your fever seems to be going up.” I stand. “Let me get you a wet washcloth.”
“Stay,” he says. I sit down in the chair again. He covers his face with his hands. Then he lowers them and speaks, his voice quivering.
“It told me that I must give up my life so that another may live.”
It takes me a few moments to register what he says. “What does that mean?”
He doesn’t answer me. He’s looking at something inside his head.
“Gabriel, you had a fever. It was a delirious dream.”
“It wasn’t a dream. It was real.”
“Tell me exactly what the voice said.”
“‘You must give up your life so that another may live.’”
“Must or will? There’s a difference.”
“Must. This time the voice was more than just a thought. The words were clear, like actual sound, only inside my head.” Gabriel seems more alert, more present, than the last time I spoke to him. He’s come back, a little, from where he was going.
“And you must die?”
“So another may live.” He completes the statement.
I feel cold all over. “Remember when you told me that with schizophrenia, persistent thoughts turn into sounds. You have to look at this not as a command to be obeyed but as a thought that needs to be looked at and treated.”
“This is real. I’m not ill.” His voice reminds me of a little boy trying hard not to sound scared.
“Gabriel,” I say. “Yesterday you were afraid you were going to end up like Gwendolyn or your grandmother. You recognized that you might be ill. Don’t you still see that? You have a fever. You very likely have a mental illness.” I wrap my arms around myself. “What is happening to everyone? First E.M. nearly drowns, then Mona goes manic, now you believe a crazy, scary voice.”
“What about Mona?” he says.
“She left this morning — took the van back to Austin in search of Lucy. Rudy knows someone who can find her. She didn’t look well. She stopped taking her medication.”
He narrows his eyes. Something inside his brain clicks.
“What?” I say.
“Maybe …”
“Maybe what?” I ask. I already know what he’s thinking. “You think Mona’s the life you’re meant to save — by dying?” He doesn’t answer. I go on, “You must promise me to tell Dr. Desai about the voice, about what the voice told you. About the fact that it’s more a voice than a thought this time.” His eyes are closed and his lips are moving as if repeating something only he can hear. He is drifting farther and farther away from me, shutting me out. “I’ll tell Dr. Desai if you don’t,” I say firmly.
He opens his eyes and slowly focuses on me once again, and for a moment he is there with me — the old Gabriel. “Since when did you become so tough?”
“Mules are tough. You’re going to tell Dr. Desai?”
He nods. Then he shuts his eyes and his hands fly to his ears as if he’s just heard some shrieking noise. He stays like that, shaking his head, electrified by some inner horror. I’m afraid to touch him, in case interrupting whatever is happening inside of him will only make things worse.
Then he begins to whisper something, and I lean closer and hear him repeat, over and over again: “Not my will but yours.”
A few minutes later, there’s a knock on the door. I open it and Dr. Desai steps in and looks at Gabriel. His eyes are still shut tight, his lips trembling. “Let me talk to Gabriel,” she says to me. “I’ll come see you in a few minutes.”
I walk to my cabin and move around the room in a daze, picking up Mona’s things and putting them in the large shopping bag she used to carry them. How is it possible for Gabriel to believe that he should die? I argued with him as if the voice were real. But the voice is imaginary, the product of a mental disorder. It has to be. What happens to people with schizophrenia? Can they function? Do they end up on the upgrade side of the fifth floor for the rest of their lives?
I continue to pack up Mona’s things. There isn’t much. A pair of shorts, an orange T-shirt from the University of Texas, an extra pair of jeans, a romance novel I have never seen before, a sad-looking bra. I bend down to pick it up and I feel suddenly an empty, sad place in my chest, the empty place that Mona left, that Gabriel is leaving. Is there any way to avoid the emptiness of people’s absence?
Dr. Desai knocks and asks if she can come in. She sits in one of the desk chairs. I sit in the armchair and wait.
“I’m going to drive Gabriel to the hospital. His fever is at a hundred and five. I’m worried about that and —”
“He told you about the voice?”
“Yes.” She folds her hands on her lap. She’s wearing a turquoise sari, so her hands seem to float on the surface of a calm ocean. “Well, this stay at the ranch did not work out as I expected.”
“No,” I say, agreeing.
She sighs and then says, “I’ll start with Emilio. He’s fine and was released from Lakeview this morning. I wrote a letter to the judge telling her that there were no psychological disorders, no signs of mental illness in him. He faces assault charges, but given the circumstances, that he was defending himself and his family, I doubt he will be incarcerated. He’s agreed to attend anger management classes.”
“That’s good,” I say.
She shrugs. “He’s returning to the same volatile situation. What will he do the next time his father attacks his mother or his little brother?” Another sigh. “As for Mona, I expected that at some point she would discontinue her medication. I didn’t think it would be so soon. She’s got a lot on her plate, including fighting the demons of addiction. When I finish talking to you, I’ll alert the social worker who is helping the family that she may go looking for Lucy. I’m afraid there’s not much else we can do.”
“Mona said things like ‘Without Lucy, I have nothing.’ Can’t you put her back in the hospital for that?”
She shakes her head. “You can’t confine someone to a health facility on a suspicion that they might be suicidal at some point in the future. Not being able to help is the hardest part of this job. I don’t want you to get involved trying to find her. Let me take care of that, okay?”
Her eyes fix sternly on me until I nod.
“Now, about Gabriel,” Dr. Desai continues. “I’ve never had a case so perplexing. I’m telling you this because I know he confides in you. I’m a physician trained in the scientific method, but I am also a spiritual person, someone who believes that we are more than flesh, bones, and gray matter. For a while I’ve been conflicted as to how to deal with the voice he hears. Usually, when someone hears voices, there are other symptoms, other instances of disorganized thought or aberrant behavior. I’ve never met anyone for whom the total opposite was true, someone whose thoughts, at least until now, have been more ordered and whose behavior is more exemplary than the majority of us poor humans.”
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“But the voice he is hearing now —”
“Is different. It scares him. And his thoughts are becoming more disorganized. He is in touch with our reality one moment and then he’s someplace else, another reality. There will be two Gabriels from now on: one who knows he’s ill, and another who believes the voice is real. He’ll come in and out in waves.”
“How can he believe that God wants him to die?”
Dr. Desai chuckles. “I’m glad you’ve come around to that perspective!” She continues, “The voice he hears is connected, for him, to his spiritual search, the life he has been trying to live. The kind of sacrifice he is being asked to make by this … voice … is part of that search. Anyway, I’m going to treat the voice as a hallucination. At Lakeview, we’ll do some tests to make sure there is no organic cause such as a brain tumor. And if there isn’t, I will proceed to treat him with medication, assuming that the voice he hears is a symptom of mental disorder. I just hope I can convince him to accept treatment.”
“Is it schizophrenia?”
“I’m hoping that it’s something we call brief psychotic disorder, a one-time condition that is temporary. But even if the symptoms persist and it turns out to be full-fledged schizophrenia, we can treat it. There are many, many schizophrenics out there, functioning in society and doing well.”
I hesitate for a moment. “He thinks it’s Mona’s life he needs to save.”
“It’s understandable that he would think that. There’s no such thing as coincidence for him right now. The voice, Mona’s departure, everything that happens to him right now is part of a plan that is leading him to what he thinks he is being asked to do.” Dr. Desai looks around the room. Mona’s bed is unmade and the clothes I haven’t picked up are still strewn all over the floor. Her gaze returns to me. She smiles. “Let’s talk about you,” she says. “You’re welcome to stay here until next Sunday as originally planned, or you can come with me to Lakeview when I return there with Gabriel this afternoon. I can take you home later in the day.”
I think about this for a few moments. I haven’t thought about home or school for days and now, suddenly, there they are looming before me. What will it be like to go back to Reynard, to be in my house alone, to face my father and Barbara? Cecy? Jaime? Those are the rocks in my life that I must find a way to dig around, and I don’t know if I’m ready. But staying here at the ranch without Mona or Gabriel or E.M. will not make me stronger or more prepared. It will just be lonely. “I should probably go home,” I say.
“You don’t sound too sure,” Dr. Desai points out.
“It scares me.”
“Why?”
I always like it when Dr. Desai asks a question to which she already knows the answer. Instead of telling me what she knows, she wants me to discover it in the process of saying it out loud. “I guess I’m afraid I will feel the way I felt before. These past few days I’ve felt … different. Like I’ve wanted things I’ve never wanted before, hoped for them.”
The expression on Dr. Desai’s face means she is proud of me for being honest. “I’ve noticed a bit of rebirth in you as well. It’s not an uncommon occurrence in people who have attempted suicide to bounce back and appreciate their life and the world in a new way. This is especially true if the person is in a new environment, even a place as drab as a hospital, as long as it’s away from all the stressors that triggered the attempt. But then …”
“When they go back, they fall into the same rut.” I finish her thought.
“In many cases, yes. What will happen, what usually happens, is that the person who has attempted suicide will feel a depletion of the new energy. But sometimes the person finds a way to manage and function in the midst of the old problems. You’ll need to be careful. We talked once about the possibility of medication for your depression. I didn’t see the need to start you on it while you were here, but we need to keep an eye on how you feel when you’re back home. I would like to see you at Lakeview next week and at least once a week for a while so we can make sure that you don’t ‘fall into the same rut,’ as you point out.”
I imagine for a moment what my father and Barbara will say about that. Will my father see my visits with Dr. Desai as a failure to get back on the horse? Will Barbara insist I see the fancy doctor that her friends recommended?
“Would you like to continue seeing me?” Dr. Desai says.
“Yes, I would,” I answer quickly, “but …”
A knowing grin appears on Dr. Desai’s face. “You are sixteen, a mature sixteen. You have some rights when it comes to your mental health. You can insist on the treatment that you think is best for you. I will support you.”
The prospect of confronting my father scares me. Dr. Desai must see that. She says, “You’ve stood up to your father before, Vicky. You told him you didn’t want to take debate. You insisted on coming to the ranch.”
“Look how well that worked out,” I say, trying to be funny.
But Dr. Desai doesn’t laugh or even smile. “I know you said that because you’re anxious. One of the things I was hoping to do in one of our group meetings was to try to bring together and understand everything that we learned from each other at Lakeview and here at the ranch. I’m sorry that our stay is ending so abruptly and we won’t have an opportunity to do that. But you can do it when you get home, Vicky. What did you learn from E.M., from Mona, from Gabriel, from me? Each person gave you something you needed, a tool you can use when you return to your everyday life. Will you try to figure out what those tools are?”
“Yes,” I say.
“And I want you to think of this ranch as a place you can always stay for as long as you want. If you ever need to get away, just come. There’s a Greyhound bus from Austin to Fredericksburg that you can take.”
“Thank you.”
“I expect to see you next week, then. And Vicky” — she pauses and looks straight into the deepest part of me — “the thought of suicide may return. It’s okay. It’s just a thought. It’s a cloud passing by. It’s not you. If it comes, go for a brisk walk, exercise, think good thoughts. If it gains strength in force and frequency, I expect you to call me or hop in a cab to Lakeview or on a bus to Fredericksburg.”
I nod. I’m glad Dr. Desai knows the thought is in me. It makes me feel like less of a liar and a fake.
She lifts herself slowly from the chair. I have a feeling she has aged a good ten years since the first GTH meeting. “So,” she says. “I’ll drive my truck over to the boys’ cabin and you can help me with Gabriel.” She laughs a short, sad laugh as she bends to pick up Mona’s purple notebook from the floor. “Purple is for royal pain.”
“I’ll get it,” I say.
“We’ll take her things and I’ll keep them at the hospital just in case. You’re a very kind person,” she says.
“And Gabriel?” I ask. “How long will he be in the hospital? Will I be able to see him?”
“Let me take care of Gabriel and Mona and you concentrate on your reentry. It’s like what flight attendants tell you about the oxygen masks that plop down in an emergency: First you put yours on, and then you put it on the child next to you.”
She waits for me to nod and then she walks out the door, the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Dr. Desai drives us back to Lakeview in her truck. I sit in the middle and Gabriel sits by the window with a pillow under his head. I don’t think anyone says more than ten words the whole trip.
When we get to Lakeview, Dr. Desai offers to give me a ride home as soon as she gets Gabriel settled, but I tell her I will call my father and ask him to come and get me. She repeats her offer to call her anytime and that she wants to see me next week. She says she will do what she can to get in touch with Mona, then gives me a serious look, as if to remind me that I should not get involved. Then the serious look melts into a warm smile and she hugs me. Dr. Desai tells Gabriel she’ll be right back and she disappears behind a set of swinging doors. I have the impression that she wants Gabr
iel and me to have a few moments alone to say good-bye.
I sit down on a green plastic chair next to Gabriel and take out my notebook. Gabriel looks at me with a wan smile. I tear out the last page and write my cell phone and address. Then I fold the page and stick it in the front pocket of his shirt.
“Vicky,” he says weakly.
“You shouldn’t talk,” I say. I can see in his eyes that he is the sane Gabriel right now, the one who knows that the voice is an illness.
“It’s hard …”
“I know,” I say, thinking he’s referring to the voice.
“When you see me like this.”
“Gabriel, we’re friends. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“Please. I ask you. Don’t come visit me here. It hurts.” There’s a desperate, insistent look on his face that I’ve never seen before.
“Okay,” I say. It will be better for him if I pretend to accept what he asks. But there’s a place inside of me that agrees with him as well. It hurts Gabriel for me to see his illness get worse, but it also hurts me and scares me to see him this way. I wish that wasn’t true, but it is.
“Bye,” he says quickly, without looking at me. He stands up and walks toward a nurse approaching with a wheelchair. He sits down in it, they turn around, and I watch them walk away.
I’m filled with the feeling that I will never see him again, that through some cowardice on my part, I have lost him and all my friends, and I cry. I cry for Gabriel, for what he’s going through, for Mona and her pain, and I cry for me, because after all this, after Lakeview and the ranch and countless hours of talking and listening and befriending, after all this, I’m still not sure that I have changed all that much, or that I want to live any more now than I did a few weeks ago. There were moments of light in the past three weeks when I could see a future, moments of laughter and belonging and courage. But all I can feel right now is that someone turned on a light just long enough for me to see what I could never have, so that it would hurt me even more than if I had never seen it.