The Memory of Light Read online

  Mona makes the kind of face you make at someone who’s being extremely naïve.

  “Okay, we’re going astray again,” Dr. Desai says. “Gabriel, I’m interested in the distinctions you made between different kinds of sadness. You said you felt different six months after your mother died. Can you talk more about that?”

  E.M. jumps in. “It’s the same thing I said. First you feel sad, and then you either get on with your life or you stay stuck feeling sorry for yourself. You know, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ and all that crap. That’s what I was trying to say. People don’t kill themselves because they’re sad, they kill themselves because they feel sorry for themselves.”

  “Have you ever tried to kill yourself? What makes you such an expert on suicide?” Mona snaps.

  “I’ve thought about it. Everyone thinks about it sometimes, but only the weak do it,” E.M. responds.

  “Let’s let Gabriel speak,” Dr. Desai says.

  Gabriel closes his eyes for a few moments and then opens them. He talks more to himself than to us. “Sometimes I wonder why Jesus said blessed are those who mourn. Why? What’s so blessed about mourning? Mourning is painful. I thought about it. And it came to me. When you mourn … you feel alive. When you mourn … it means you care. But when you can’t mourn? You’re dead inside.” He stops suddenly, and then adds, blinking, embarrassed, “Sorry. Forgot the question.”

  Dr. Desai smiles. “Let me see. I think you were trying to distinguish between the sadness you felt after your mother died and how you felt six months later.”

  “But why was I trying to do that?”

  Dr. Desai looks at him. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” Gabriel says quickly. “I lost track. Of what we were talking about.”

  Mona pushes herself to the edge of her chair like a student eager to recite the correct answer. “What you were trying to say is that it’s normal to feel sad for a while after your mom dies, but it’s not normal to feel numb and empty like you did six months after your mom died, or like Vicky feels now, which is not normal sadness but clinical depression. There. Any questions?” She wags her head left and right, beaming.

  “That’s what I said,” says E.M.

  “That is so NOT what you said!” Mona snaps.

  “Mmm,” Dr. Desai comments. “Vicky, you want to add anything?”

  Depression. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve ever heard the word. It’s only that right then and there it becomes more than a word. Suddenly, it is something I can feel and touch and taste. I can even picture it. It’s a heavy, thick fog, yellow and pale purple, the color of a bruise, that fills up a room with no windows, no air, no light.

  “I’m depressed?” I say.

  “Welcome to the club,” Mona says.

  Margie, one of the fifth-floor nurses, lets me use the computer in an empty doctor’s office, so I am able to do some research. Depression can be a normal reaction to a life event, like my mother’s death, or it can be a symptom of another physical illness, or even a side effect of drugs. But sometimes depression is in itself the illness — an illness like any other illness, like the flu or the mumps. The only difference is that instead of affecting the lungs or skin, depression affects the mind. It interferes with certain chemicals responsible for transmitting messages from one part of the brain to another.

  As I read this, I imagine a whole bunch of little minerlike elves who live and work inside the dark tunnels of my brain. They wear flashlight hats of different colors and push clanging carts full of words on steel rails from one corner of my mind to another. They are happy workers, these elves, except when the yellow-purple fog of depression comes in. It’s so thick and viscous that the wheels of the carts gum up and the elves can’t breathe. So they struggle, struggle, huff and puff, as they try to push the carts with the messages. And of course, after a while the elves get tired and grumpy and sore and frustrated, and they start dumping messages of gloom and doom in the cart, which for some reason are easier to lug. I say this because for a week or so before the deed, the little elves had no trouble delivering carloads full of Kill yourself.

  In my next private session with Dr. Desai, I tell her about my research and the brain elves.

  “Fog can be a good way of looking at it,” Dr. Desai says, smiling. “And how do you feel about these brain elves?”

  “I kind of feel sorry for them,” I say. “They have it pretty rough.”

  “Yes,” she agrees.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Thinking about the brain elves is nice, but they just deliver the messages. I’m the one who acts on them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I decided to act on the message to end it all.” A message that the brain elves are still delivering, although less frequently. I don’t tell this to Dr. Desai, but I have a feeling she knows.

  “Tell me about that,” she says. “When did you first decide to yield to their message?”

  Dr. Desai, I’ve noticed, likes specifics. She always brings the topic of conversation back to me, my life, to a particular place or a time or a person. I’m not sure I like it. It’s much easier to talk in general terms about, say, the symptoms of depression, or about chemical transmitters that are like tiny elves, than to talk about how depression feels in me, what it makes me do or not do, like or not like.

  “I can’t say exactly when I decided. The week before the deed is when the idea … solidified. Like a vapor of possibility that turned to water and then to ice. But I think suicide has been on my mind for a long, long time.” I shake my head. “Sometimes it was like the hum of an air conditioner, you know? Always there but noticeable only when I paid attention. And other times it just appeared out of nowhere, like my cat jumping on my lap.”

  Dr. Desai smiles. “That’s a nice comparison.”

  I go on. “About nine months ago, I took five sleeping pills from Barbara’s medicine cabinet. Then I took five more every month when she had her prescription refilled. I knew she didn’t keep track. I didn’t actually know that I was going to try suicide.”

  “Then why take the pills? What was going on in your mind when you took them?”

  “I don’t know. Having the pills around was comforting. The idea that I could end the pain was my only hope.” I think for a second. “It felt like a door that I could open when things got so bad that it didn’t matter what the door opened to. The other side has to be better, right?”

  Dr. Desai does not answer. She doesn’t agree with me, or maybe it is one of those unanswerable questions. Instead, she says, “You said you decided a week before. What was that decision like, or that thought? Did something bring the thought to the surface?”

  “There was just … pain, disgust, hatred. More than before. More than I could bear.”

  “Be specific,” Dr. Desai insists. “Who do you hate? Who disgusts you?”

  “Me,” I answer. “Vicky. Victoria. I make me sick.”

  “Tell me one thing you did that disgusts you.”

  I’m glad she doesn’t argue with me or list all the good things I have going for me. “It’s not about what I did.” I stop, thinking. It’s more about who I am than what I do or don’t do. It’s like a bad odor coming from me that only I can smell and is always there.

  “But there must be something that you did that disgusts you.” Dr. Desai is persistent, pushy. She wants words, as if words matter.

  I say the first thing that comes to mind. “When I started at Reynard, the school I go to, my father wanted me to join the debate team. He and my sister had both done debate when they were in high school and they were both really good at it. Debate helps you see both sides of an issue. It makes you quick on your feet. It teaches you all kinds of ways to be strong and tough and a fighter. All that.” I stop. The thick, yellowish fog has entered my head and slowly begins to fill it.

  “Go on,” Dr. Desai prods me. “It’s important that you push through.”

  “So I joined debate when I started at Reynard. That
’s where I met Cecy. We were paired as debate partners. Cecy was my only friend at Reynard. We didn’t do things together outside of school, and we weren’t close, but we were debate friends. Cecy loved debate. We were given topics like ‘Should the United States deport children who cross its borders illegally?’ and in the tournaments, we would argue both sides pro and con. Yeah.”

  The fog has turned from vapor to an oily liquid, and now it is becoming a tarlike substance that makes my head feel stuffed up, my arms and legs heavy.

  “Did you enjoy debate?” Dr. Desai asks.

  “Enjoy?” That’s a foreign word. Meaningless.

  “Did you like researching an issue, speaking in public, arguing the pros and cons?”

  “I tried. I tried. So much pretending.”

  “Pretending?”

  “When I got up to speak, I had to sound convinced of the truth of what I was saying, like I believed it with all my heart. I had to pretend I was confident and upbeat.”

  Dr. Desai waits for me to continue.

  “We never won. When we looked at the judge’s comments, they said I wasn’t convincing. ‘Pep.’ They liked to use that word. ‘Not enough pep.’ Or ‘oomph’ — ‘not enough oomph.’ I was supposed to attack the other team’s weaknesses. One judge said I lacked the necessary viciousness.”

  “And you felt bad that you couldn’t muster the necessary viciousness? Is that your example of something disgusting about yourself?”

  “Yes. No. What I wanted to say, the example was … It happened a couple of weeks before….” I try to concentrate, to remember. “Cecy and I were in a tournament, and when it was my turn to speak, in the middle of my argument, I stopped. Everything seemed so stupid. So silly. I was arguing that marriage should be only between a man and a woman. My mind felt so heavy. It froze. I couldn’t generate any more words or pep or oomph. I looked at Cecy, and then I walked out of the room.”

  Dr. Desai nods. “And the disgusting thing about yourself was?”

  “I left Cecy without a partner. I didn’t care. I didn’t give a damn. I quit.”

  “And Cecy was mad at you? You were no longer friends?”

  “No more friends with Cecy.” I see Cecy coming over to the table in the Reynard cafeteria where I sat alone that first day of school, sitting down, saying hello, making a face at her Mexican pizza.

  “Did you ever talk to her afterward?”

  “Afterward?” I return to the present and Dr. Desai.

  “After you walked out of that tournament?”

  “She wouldn’t talk to me at school. I sent her an email, explaining as best I could.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “That I couldn’t do it anymore, that I never liked debate. I couldn’t pretend anymore.”

  “And your father? What did he say when you told him?”

  “He …” The last time I thought about my father’s words was the night I took the pills. “He wasn’t angry.” I swallow. My mouth is dry. I get an image of an empty riverbed, cracked and hard. “I expected him to be angry. Quitting is not allowed in our family. But he only shrugged and said, ‘You can’t ask a mule to be a racehorse.’”

  “And how did that make you feel?”

  I’m silent.

  “What kind of little message did the brain elves deliver when your father spoke those words?”

  “That I was a loser. Useless,” I say.

  The word loser suddenly takes me back to our last Christmas vacation. My expression must change, because Dr. Desai asks, “What are you seeing?”

  I blink. “Just then I saw Father, Barbara, Becca, and me sitting in this fancy restaurant at Padre Island. We have a condo there. This was last Christmas.”

  “And the four of you are talking about …”

  “My future. Or non-future. They were throwing out the names of colleges I might get into if I worked my butt off spring semester and the next two years. The Ivy Leagues were out of the question — I would never be able to overcome my C’s and D’s. The only hope was that I might sneak into the University of Texas, where Father has some connections.”

  “Ah! And what did you say?”

  “I don’t remember saying anything. Then Barbara asked me what I wanted to be, you know, when I grew up.”

  “And?”

  “I couldn’t think of anything. And everyone was stumped about what I would be good at. They listed what I wasn’t good at. I wasn’t good with people. I wasn’t good with numbers. I wasn’t good on my feet.”

  “You couldn’t think of anything you were good at?”

  I chuckle, remembering. “I told them that maybe I could work at a Holiday Inn as a maid.”

  “And what was the reaction of your family?”

  “They kind of looked at me like they didn’t know how I could possibly be related to them. Then Father asked Becca which law firms she was going to apply to for summer jobs.”

  We are silent. The loneliness I felt at that dinner table surrounded by my family is the same loneliness I feel now.

  “The thing is,” I say, quickly, before the tears come, “I was serious. I had secretly been helping Juanita with the housework since her leg had gotten worse, and I enjoyed it. There was something about making the beds and getting them just perfect, vacuuming the carpets, doing laundry, and washing dishes that made me feel good.”

  Dr. Desai reflects. “You think differently than your family. How did that happen?”

  “How did what happen?” I ask.

  “You and the rest of your family value different things. I’m just curious how that came about. They value high achievement, success, status. You don’t seem to care too much about those things.”

  I think for a few moments. “Sometimes I think that the reason I’m not ambitious and I don’t care about what my family cares about is that I’m lazy and … not all that smart.”

  Dr. Desai gives me one of those Get serious looks.

  “Really. It’s not like I have big philosophical reasons against status and success. I’ve tried to care about grades and Ivy League schools, but I just don’t have the drive that my sister has, or the brains.”

  “Mmm.” The way she says this, I know she’s not buying what I’m offering. “Maybe you’re more like your mother. Did she have this drive?”

  “She loved gardening and doing things at home. But she was ambitious in her own way. She took Spanish literature courses at night so she could understand the poets she loved better. She belonged to a studio of women painters who helped each other. She was, I don’t know, content, but also interested in learning new things.” Unlike me, I want to say. I’m neither content nor interested.

  Dr. Desai moves forward in her chair. “Content but interested,” she repeats. “Like your father?”

  “No. Different.”

  “How?”

  There’s a restlessness about my father, a hunger for him and others to be better, to succeed in whatever it is they do. I don’t know how to describe it. “Different,” I say. I don’t want to blame my father or Barbara or my sister for how messed up I am. It’s just too convenient to blame your family. It seems cowardly.

  “Go ahead, tell me.” Her jaw is firm and her eyes are fixed on me. She’s not going to let go.

  I exhale. “I don’t fault my father for wanting me to get good grades or be somebody. All he wants is for me to try. To do my best.”

  “And you don’t do that?”

  “It’s like part of me wants to try and another part can’t. I sit there in geometry class and I understand maybe ten percent of what the teacher is saying. I could ask my brain what one plus one is and it wouldn’t know the answer. Or I’m at home trying to write a paper on macroeconomics, and I end up staring at the screen for an hour, my brain blank.” I rub my head and feel the uneven tufts of hair sticking out.

  “You get up, you go to school every day,” Dr. Desai says. “You sit in classes even if you don’t understand everything. You come home and stare at the computer. Y
ou participated in debate for years. Isn’t that trying? I don’t understand.”

  “Is that enough?”

  “Sometimes.” She sits back in her chair.

  “It always feels as if I can be doing more, and the only reason I don’t is because I don’t want to, because I really, really don’t like what I have to do. I don’t like anything or anybody. It’s all a big not-like.”

  “But you kept at it, doing things you didn’t like, being with people you didn’t like. How did you manage to do that?”

  How did I manage to do that? “I pretend,” I finally say. That word again.

  Dr. Desai breaks into a big smile. “You say that as if pretending were a big sin. We all do that kind of pretending to survive, Vicky. Some pretending is necessary and even good. We can tolerate all the pretending we need to do if we have some … islands of honesty in our lives. Places where we don’t lie to others. Most of all, places where we don’t lie to ourselves.”

  I’m quiet, wondering if I ever lied to myself. Maybe I lied to myself about Jaime for a little while. I tried to convince myself that I liked him, that there must be something wrong with me for not seeing what so many other girls at Reynard saw and longed for.

  “That pretending, as you call it, is nothing more than effort. It’s simply doing what you need to do even when you don’t like it. But it can be a very difficult kind of effort.” She leans forward again. “This dislike you have for everything — that’s not your fault, that’s not something you’re responsible for. The dislike comes from looking through these dirty glass goggles of depression that distort everything and everyone you see. You kept on going for the longest time, pretending you were seeing clearly when all was blurry and gray and ugly.”

  That’s how it is every single day. Blurry and gray and ugly.

  “There is beauty and goodness out there and in you, no matter what the brain elves might tell you,” she says. “Depression not only makes it hard for the brain elves to deliver messages. Sometimes it makes them put the wrong messages in the cart.”