Skygods (Hydraulic #2) (51 page)

Ain’t that the truth.

“But I know how you feel. That night in New York, when you asked me to come to the brownstone…” He closed his eyes, overcome. “I was watching my brother and Rachel all over again. Rachel entrusted Samuel to my care before she took her own life. Did you know this?”

“Her letter in Samuel’s backpack?”

Alonso nodded. “It was messy and wild, and at the same time, oddly straightforward. She asked me to ‘put up’ with Samuel, as if he were a burden. She begged me to forgive her for killing my brother, for driving us apart. But there was no letter for her own son, asking
his
forgiveness. He was all skin and bones when he came to us in Lyons. Do you remember?”

“It’s hazy.” I could only recall the unsociable little boy in a ghost costume.

“Traumatized, frightened…Before I even became his father, I’d failed him. I should have tried harder to visit him, to make sure he was all right. It is a guilt I will carry for a lifetime. But now, I find I’ve failed my son again. And you.”

“Alonso—”

“No, Kaye, I did. You know it, my children know it, Sofia and I know it. We took a broken little boy and tried to give him that American dream—Sunday school, dinner around the table, Little League games, music lessons, family vacations. We raised him to believe he could accomplish anything with hard work. But we also raised Samuel to believe it was acceptable to keep secrets for the sake of appearances. Sure enough, that’s what he did. It cost him seven years without the person he loves most in this world.” He ran an agitated hand through his hair, and I remembered where Samuel had picked up that habit. “Still, we kept his secrets.”

“Danita says you enabled his shame.”

He grimaced. “That sounds like an accurate assessment. But I believe it’s not too late for us to change. And I’m positive it’s not too late for Samuel.”

“I don’t understand
why
you did it.”

“Why does anyone behave a certain way? I suppose we often do what our parents did. You’ve read the pot roast story?”

“No.”

He smiled a bit, and it barely touched his weary eyes. He looked so old. “A reader submitted it to our magazine years ago, and we still run it now and then. A child watches her mother prepare a pot roast for dinner: dice the carrots, slice the potatoes, cut off the tip of the roast before baking. She says to her mother, ‘Why do you cut off the end of the pot roast?’ and her mother tells her, ‘That’s what Mama always did. It makes the roast better.’ So the child goes to her grandmother and asks, ‘Why are we supposed to cut off the end of a pot roast?’ Her grandmother answers, ‘Because my mother did it that way. It cooks better.’ Then the child asks her great-grandmother, ‘Why do you cut off the end of the pot roast?’ The great-grandmother laughs and says, ‘The only reason I cut off the end was because it wouldn’t fit in my eight-inch baking pan.’”

I hid a tiny smile behind my hand.

Alonso sighed. “My own
abuela
suffered from what I now believe was depression, and it became a skeleton in the closet. In those days, no one mentioned mental illness on pain of shunning. It was shameful to have a relative in an asylum, worse than tuberculosis. They treated manic episodes with lobotomies, for God’s sake. Today…I understand there is no shame in Samuel’s disorder. Yet a part of me—that protective part—is still compelled to secrecy. I’m afraid he will be regarded unfairly if others know. And he probably will be, but not like thirty years ago.

“We are taught that certain things, like mental illness, are taboo. So we stay silent and keep family secrets because our parents did, and their parents, and their parents, and so on. If medicine operated in this fashion, we’d still be bleeding with leeches. Why don’t we ask ‘why’ in other facets of our lives? We should. Sometimes there are good, sound reasons for doing what we do. Other times, not so much.”

I nodded. “I’ve wondered the same thing, lately, especially about my parents’ craptastic relationship. I was so
eager
to marry Samuel. But it had less to do with love, or even Samuel, and more to do with wanting to be the exact opposite of my parents. But then I divorced him just as quickly. Now, I can see how my need to protect myself made me act really rashly—a knee-jerk reaction, like holding up your hands to ward off a blow. I
knew
what was and wasn’t out of character for him—I’ve made a study of him almost as long as I can remember. I should have fought harder for Samuel, exhausted all options. But I was so certain I’d fail, I didn’t even try.”

“We are products of our parents, Kaye. But we are not them.”

“
Gracias
, Alonso.” I reached across the bench and touched his brown hand. The past few years, it had become more wrinkled than I was comfortable with. “Don’t be offended, but I’m going to speak plainly. A big part of me wants to tell you and Sofia to back off and let Samuel and me live our lives. Practically, I know we’ll need your help. So we’re going to have to find a balance between supporting and interfering. I love you guys, never doubt that. But it’ll take time to repair things between us.”

“We can do that. Just remember, if it gets too rough to handle alone, we’ll always be here for you. Choosing to stay with him is the more difficult of two paths.”

“I love him. How could I choose any differently?”

Day Five of the Great Boston Boogie: dyswhatsit mania?

That was the official cause of Samuel’s flight. Dr. Tran told me that dysphoric mania was a manic episode mixed with symptoms of depression. It would explain Samuel’s rage, confusion, and fear, delusions of persecution, even memory loss. Most likely, it was brought on by his regimen of antidepressants.

“In retrospect, he could have suffered from such an episode seven years ago. I can’t say for certain, but the presence of cocaine in the system can also cause dysphoric mania. It’s likely, given he can’t recall those nights.”

“So you’re telling me his meds caused it? I thought they were supposed to help him.” If we couldn’t trust the meds, what could we trust?

“The correct combo of meds works wonders. But finding that balance is often difficult, as the disease is prone to shift and change. Mr. Cabral has done everything he’s supposed to. In this case, the treatment failed.”

“How do we make sure it doesn’t happen again?”

“Right now, we have him on antipsychotics to rapidly stabilize his mood. Long term? We’ll rediagnose him with Bipolar I, ditch the antidepressant, and put him on a higher dose of Depakote. In any other case I’d consider something less archaic, but unfortunately, antidepressants have messed up the system. The good news is, we’re on the right road. I also recommend a round of couples therapy for the two of you.”

I pressed my fingertips to my forehead. “When will you release him?”

“When his mood stabilizes. I’d give it another few days, just to be certain.”

“Does he want to see me yet?”

“I’ll ask.” I don’t know why she bothered. His answer would be no. She returned, eyes full of pity. “Maybe tomorrow.”

That evening, I had drinks with Molly and Danita at the hotel bar. It was either the pungent martinis or Molly’s crocheted shawl that made me think of my grandmother, deceased nearly a decade. I recalled the best advice she’d given me that I’d never taken: a man can be your best friend, but don’t expect him to be your best girlfriend.

I’d spent many summers at her home in Durango, sustained by Samuel’s infrequent letters and even more infrequent phone calls. The letters were wonderful, detailed, revealing…when he sent them. Half the time, he’d take so long rewriting and perfecting, they never saw a stamp and only made it into my hands after I’d returned to Lyons and he dug them out of his desk drawer.

The calls? Paaainful. They went something like this:

“Hey, Kaye, it’s Samuel.”

“Hey, Samuel, it’s so awesome to hear from you! How’s Lyons?”

“Okay.”

“How’s the parents?”

“Okay.”

“Danita?”

“Good.”

“Erm…how’s the baseball season?”

“Oh man, you should have been at the game the other day. We were playing Princeville, right? And of course it’s gonna rain half the afternoon, but the ump’s never going to cancel unless there’s lightning, which never happens. So Pedro’s rounding the bases, but Princeville sucks at field maintenance so third base is this giant mud hole…”

And thus, the conversation dissolved into baseball for fifteen minutes. Then he made the mistake of asking “How’s Durango?” and I spent the next fifteen minutes gushing my little thirteen-year-old heart out about how I didn’t have any friends in the neighborhood and my grandmother made me go to bed at nine. His reply?

“Oh. That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“Listen, I have to go ’cause dinner’s ready.”

“I really miss you, Samuel.”

Silence. Then…

“You too. Bye.”

Later that night, my grandmother laughed away my teenaged angst and told me the reason Samuel talked about baseball all the time was because it was a topic he could discuss with confidence.

“Men hate to use the F-word.” I blinked up at her in faux innocence, and she smirked. “
Feelings.
Men don’t like to let us know they aren’t sure of themselves. They feel like frauds most of the time, but it’s preferable to us believing they’re failures. You, dear granddaughter, seem to think Samuel hung the moon, and he’s not going to let on otherwise.”

Psh, Samuel didn’t hang the moon? Nonsense!

Fortunately, I managed to glean a couple of lessons from Gran during those summers. I could just feel her smacking me upside the head right now as I sipped martinis with my girlfriends and silently bemoaned Samuel’s self-imposed quarantine. She’d tell me, “Kaye, it’s not the end of the world if you have to wait a couple days until that boy has a modicum of composure. In the meantime, quit moping. He’ll appreciate that you’re taking care of yourself.” Then she’d wink and I’d cringe, because grandmothers should never,
ever
hint about sex to their grandkids.

Day Six of The Great Boston Boogie: Samuel Cabral, here I come.

I got the call from Dr. Tran in the middle of a hotel bagel and cream cheese—Samuel wanted to see me.

I dug through the suitcase Danita and Molly had packed for me. Everything was so wrinkled, I might as well have ripped down the drapes and fashioned a dress a la Scarlett O’Hara.

“I hung your blue knit dress in the closet,” Danita said behind me. She tugged the dress from the hanger and tossed it at my head. “Samuel loves it when you wear blue.”

“I’m not dressing for him,” I grumbled. “He hasn’t wanted to see me, so why should I?”

“It’s okay to admit you want to look pretty for him. He’d jump your bones, even if you wore one of Tom’s old Dead T-shirts. But make him suffer a bit for the past week. He’ll appreciate it.” Apparently Danita had been communing with Gran.

“He’s probably too doped up on meds to jump onto the toilet, let alone me.”

Her velvety brow furrowed. “What is this, Kaye? Are you seriously going to stand here—a woman who’s thrown herself off mountains with two small strips of plywood attached to her feet, nearly drowned herself year after year in the Colorado River, and dived headfirst from planes thousands of feet in the air—and tell me you’re intimidated by one manic episode? This is right up your alley. Wear. The. Dress.”