Will nods. “There’s lots to recommend. I learned how to deal with the panic attacks I was having and how to face my fears. But it was hard. I avoided it at first. I went to Istanbul, Sri Lanka, Burma, and Laos before I went back to Jaipur.”
“Panic attacks?” I lean toward him. “When did you start having panic attacks?” Daanya and Will share a look and once again I’m odd man out.
Frustration gets the best of me and I slap my hand on the table. “Someone please fill me in.”
“How do you not know?” Daanya asks softly.
“Know what?” I look at Will, my shoulder lifted in a shrug. “What?”
Will’s inhalation is sharp and he looks upward. “All this time and you’ve had no idea. I didn’t know that. I thought you were avoiding it,” he says the last part when he looks at me. “What did mom and dad tell you when I left?”
There’s a vise grip of fear around my heart and tears press against my eyes. What’s coming carries a weight so heavy I expect the clouds to darken and the lights to flicker. The way Will has tensed up and Daanya rubs his arm in a soothing manner only adds credit to my worries.
“Nothing. They acted like you never existed. No one was allowed to say your name for fear mother would flip out. They seemed angry. I kept to myself and studied more, which seemed to make them happy. When I got into law school, they let me move into the apartment they’d bought for you. But not until after the first semester.”
“Nothing?” He nods and turns back to Daanya. “They told her nothing.”
“I thought it was pretty stupid. It was unreasonable for them to expect all of us to get law degrees. And why can’t you do what you want to do? Be who you want to be? I get why you did it, why you left. Either you’re exactly what they want or you’re not welcome.” But why did you leave me? I want to add. But I’m too afraid of the answer.
“No, Jo. That’s not how it is.” Will scrubs his hands down his face and turns to Daanya. “This is not the place.”
“Yes, but this is the time. You can’t not tell her. We can’t have dinner with this out there.” She turns to me and extends her hand across the table, palm open to me. She nudges Will and he does the same. I take each of their hands into one of my own and hold on for dear life, trying not to tremble.
“I didn’t go off to be my own person. I went off because if I stayed then I knew the chances of killing myself were one hundred percent.”
“What?” If I lean any further across the table, I’ll be lying on it.
“I have schizophrenia, Jo Jo.” He looks right at me and slides his jaw from side to side.
I jerk my hands free to cover my mouth and my eyes slam shut, hoping to keep the words from being true. There’s too much swirling through my head to make sense of anything. I search for clues, a hint that Will was sick. Anything to make sense of what he just said. I open my eyes to find my brother staring at me, his hand clasping his chin.
“How can that be true?” I whisper from behind my fingers. “How did I miss it?”
Will takes my hand and clasps it between his. “Think, Jo. Because you didn’t miss it. You didn’t know what you were seeing. Remember my closet?”
“Oh my God, your closet.” I clutch his hands.
Will had come home for a long weekend, work-release I’d termed it, because we had to spend the entire time working in Dad’s firm learning the ropes. One night, I found Will shuttered behind his closet door, drawing madly, and pinning pictures to his closet wall. I thought he’d been hiding out. I’d thought it was a prank. That maybe he was really looking at porn or something.
“Shh,” he’d whispered and put a finger covered with dark ink up to his lips, his eyes darting quickly between me and the door I was holding open. “Don’t tell mom and dad. That’s all kinds of wrong. All kinds. Go. You must go. Hurry before you’re seen.”
It all becomes clear. The odd late night wanderings and rants he’d started having, the angry moments that were unexpected and nonsensical. I pull my hand from his and hurriedly brush away the tears coursing down my face.
“Yeah,” he says and slides into the booth next to me, his arm coming to rest across my shoulders. “Mom and Dad found the stuff in my closet.” He pauses a beat. “And my apartment. But not until after the car accident.”
“The accident,” I say on a sob. “That’s what started it all?”
“That’s what solved it all. From what I understand, the cops asked mom if I was taking drugs. I suppose they searched everything and that’s when they found the stuff in my closet. The pictures and words.” His Adam’s apple bobs from the heavy gulp. “I’m surprised they put it together as quickly as they did. It’s because they did that I didn’t go into psychosis.”
“I didn’t know, Will. I swear it. I would have—” I search his face while looking for my answer. I would have done what? Something more than the actual nothing I really did.
“I know that now.”
I look into his eyes and see a person who used to be as familiar to me as I am to myself. But I see more. I see a death in his eyes, a loss of that boy who used to quote Star Trek and the teenager who found his passion as the editor for the school paper. I also see a weary survivor that will persevere.
All this time I thought my brother was out living a full life, a grand adventure, and I’m not sure how to process these new facts. I’m not sure what to make of it all because what once was...is now something entirely new.
Another tear slips out and slides down my face. “After your accident, you left so quickly. I couldn’t help but think that it was all of us you didn’t want to be around. Then I started to look at us. To really look at us and I could see why. But now, knowing this, I feel as if I failed you. You needed us and it was our job to help you.” I brush away more tears.
Will shakes his head and hands me a napkin. “It wasn’t your job to help me. Besides, even if you could’ve, I don’t know if I was open to it. That night I drove my car off the bridge I was hallucinating. When I came to and actually got in my right mind, the one thing I couldn’t argue was that as Mom and Dad’s demands became greater, my grip on reality slid further away. My shrinks talked about triggers and in my mind, I couldn’t afford to stay home any longer. All I could think about was getting away so it would never happen again.”
“Has it? Happened again?” I reach up, grab his hand, and give it a squeeze.
He shakes his head. “I’ve been vigilant about my meds and have some incredibly good doctors. They manage my TBI and the schizophrenia. In fact, I was selected for this new trial of meds that won’t have this stupid side effect.” He points to his jaw. The repetitive sliding motion he does has become a part of who he is as much as the scar that runs across his head.
He searches my face. “I’ll admit that I thought you were totally avoiding my diagnosis. Trying to pretend it wasn’t real, but then Daanya pointed out that maybe you didn’t know—”
I shake my head wildly. “I didn’t! I emailed you all the time. I tried to call too. You answered with short replies and I thought that meant that I was bothering you.”