Chapter Twenty-Eight
IT WAS light out when I opened my eyes.
Light.
I guess that meant another day had arrived.
Time to start thinking up more reasons why I needed to stay home from school and in bed like I had every day for the past week.
Had it even been a week? I wasn’t sure. Time meant nothing anymore. All that had meaning were my pillow and my blankets and the nauseating pink floral patterns everywhere in my room.
Lying here, surrounded by all those pink flowers, made me feel like I was at my own funeral.
Or at the very least, the funeral for my dreams.
Every time I closed my eyes, the crisp white paper loomed large.
Competitive candidate . . .
Regret to inform you . . .
Wish you the best . . .
It was supposed to be another acceptance letter. Victor and I were supposed to be celebrating together. Planning our future as composers together. Victor Nelson and Iris Nelson. That was supposed to be the marquee.
My not getting in? That wasn’t part of the plan.
I grieved it for a while, but grief had faded to numbness. It was like all the life force had bled out of me. I had no energy. No enthusiasm. No will to face the endless march of monotonous days.
As promised, I’d called Victor with the news, about an hour after I’d received the letter.
“I didn’t get in, Victor.”
“What’s that, Iris? I can’t hear you. My parents are fighting again. Mom thinks Whitehall is great news, but the old man is drunk again. I can’t wait to get out of here. I guess I can start counting the days now, can’t I?”
“You can. But I can’t. Victor . . . I didn’t get in.”
“You didn’t?”
“Nope.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Me too.”
“Hey, listen, Iris, I gotta go. The fighting just got louder. I don’t know how much more of this I can take . . .”
I’d walked away from the phone. I wasn’t even sure I’d hung it up. I’d just gone upstairs to bed, and that was the last time I’d been downstairs.
I spent the whole next day in bed. Told Mother I didn’t feel well. She was a germaphobe, especially when she had some important social function coming up, which was pretty much always. As expected, she’d barely even come into the room.
Flora had taken care of me. Brought me soup. Set it on a tray next to my bed, and then did that mom thing where she felt my forehead. I could tell by her skeptical expression and gentle clicking of her tongue that she didn’t buy I was sick.
“Please don’t tell anyone. I can’t face the world. Not yet.”
“I get it, Miss Iris. I know the darkness. This too shall pass. Soon you’ll be free from all this.”
But it hadn’t passed. And I wasn’t free.
The cloud had descended. Spinning and dark and whirling until I wanted to scream.
But screaming wouldn’t help. It’d just make it worse, and it’d worry my parents.
If they were even capable of worrying about me as a person and not just something to prop them up and make them look good.
The second day, I begged off school for cramps. Not a lie—I did have them. But they weren’t as debilitating as I’d made them seem. Mother had just sighed and walked away. She apparently didn’t have the time or energy to deal with me.
I lost track after that. There was a weekend in there somewhere, I think, but without the anchor of church, Sunday came and went unnoticed.
I had no idea what time or day it was. My life was just an endless, infinite loop of bad.
That was all it had ever been. Bad and bad and nothing but bad, and on the rare occasion something good happened, it was only a matter of time until it too turned bad.
Victor hadn’t come to see me. Not that I really wanted to see him.
I didn’t want to look him in the face, to know that his dreams were coming true and mine had crumbled to dust. He might have called a couple of times, but Mother wouldn’t let me talk to him.
“If you’re too sick to go to school, then you’re too sick to talk to your friends on the phone.
” Which was fine. What on earth would I have said to him?
But I wished he’d fight to see me. I wished he’d come over and demand to come in and help me feel better.
I wished I knew he felt as sad for me as I felt happy for him.
I wish I felt like he missed me.
Does he?
Does anyone?
If I just disappeared, would anyone care? Would anyone even notice?
Through the fog came a knock at the door.
“Iris?” My mother. “Are you awake?”
Was I? I honestly had no idea.
“I’m coming in, Iris. Dr. Richards is here.”
Wonderful. Dr. Richards was the ancient physician my parents had been dragging me to forever. Guess he was so ancient he still made house calls. Either that or my parents had flung enough money at him to get him to come over.
There he stood, all snow-white hair and thick glasses. “Hello, Iris. Well, my goodness, you’ve grown. You’re a beautiful young woman now.” He pulled out the chair from my desk and sat down beside the bed. “Not even a smile, huh?” he said. “Well, let’s see what the trouble is.”
I struggled to sit up. My whole body seemed made of lead.
Dr. Richards went through all the standard stuff. He checked my temperature, listened to my heart and lungs, had me open wide and say aaahhhhh.
“Do you have a boyfriend, Iris?” He felt the sides of my neck while he said this. His fingertips were cold and smelled like soap.
Why did he need to know?
When I didn’t answer, he turned toward Mother. “Does she have a boyfriend?”
“She’s been seeing a boy, yes. Victor . . . something.” She waved a hand, as though he was nobody important. A thought that should be dismissed as soon as possible.
Dr. Richards cleared his throat. “Well, ma’am, a lot of girls these days are doing things with boys, and sometimes that explains these mysterious ailments.”
Mother gasped. “Are you and Victor . . . are you having sex, Iris?” She hissed the word in an exaggerated stage whisper, like it was something dirty and awful.
“No,” I managed. “We’re not.” No lie there either. I wasn’t ready for something like that.
“Are you sure?” Mother eyeballed me, like she wasn’t even sure I knew what sex was. Based on what she’d taught me about it, that would have been an accurate assumption. Everything I knew about it I’d learned from books.
Dr. Richards studied me. “You’re not nauseated or anything, are you?”
I shook my head.
“When’s the last time Aunt Flo came to visit you, Iris?” Mother asked.
If I’d had the energy, I’d have rolled my eyes. “Last week. I had cramps, remember?”
“How do I know you’re not lying to me?”
“Ask Flora. She emptied my trash. She can tell you.”
Dr. Richards glanced from Mother to me and back again. “If she had a visit from Flo last week, Mrs. Wallingford, then pregnancy is out of the question.”
Mother folded her arms across her chest and studied me far longer than necessary. “I suppose. If you’re sure.”
Dr. Richards tucked his stethoscope into his pocket. “I think she’s got anxiety.”
“Anxiety?” Mother drew back. “So she’s just worried? What on earth do you have to worry about, Iris?”
“It’s more serious than that, I’m afraid,” Dr. Richards said. “It’s a mental disorder. Iris’s brain doesn’t work the way most people’s brains do. But there are treatments for it.”
They kept talking, but I was half asleep again. Their voices drifted in and out, Mother’s high-pitched one and Dr. Richards’s low-pitched one. It sounded almost like a song, the way they were talking. Maybe I could write it later. When I had the energy.
“So this medication?” Mother said. “It will help?”
“Many people do see improvement, yes.”
“Well, by all means, put her on it, then. And don’t tell anyone.” She turned to me. “Iris, don’t tell anyone.”
That would have required my talking to people. She had nothing to worry about.
“I assume she’d be fine to go to school tomorrow?” Mother asked.
“Well, she’s not contagious, so—”
“All right, Iris.” Mother yanked open the pink-flowered curtains, and I squeezed my eyes shut against the onslaught of bright daylight. “You get the rest of the day to loll about in bed, and then you’re going back to school tomorrow.”
Dr. Richards patted me on the shoulder. “Feel better, Iris.”
They left, mercifully shutting the door on their way out.
So that was it. I had a mental disorder.
Maybe the medication would make me feel better. Maybe not. It still wouldn’t fix anything.
My composition notebook was on my nightstand, and I struggled to sit up again. I wanted to jot down those pitches I’d heard when Mother and Dr. Richards were talking. Not that it mattered. I probably wouldn’t ever have the connections to get any of my work out there.
But music still swirled inside me. It still demanded to come out.
Why had God put it inside me, then, if he didn’t have any plan for me to use it?
I wished I could ask him. I wished I were face-to-face with him.
I wished I could just skip the rest of this miserable existence and go straight to be with him.
Oh. My notebook wasn’t on the nightstand after all. I’d left it on my desk.
All the way across the room.
Too far.
Okay. Music could wait.
Two books sat on my nightstand. My Bible and a book of poetry by Langston Hughes. The Weary Blues. We were supposed to read a bunch of the poems for English. Probably best to start catching up, then, since I had to go back to school tomorrow. Even better, maybe I’d find a text.
The book fell open to the spot I’d bookmarked. “Suicide’s Note,” the poem was called.
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
River . . . water . . .
Wait. There was a psalm that talked about water.
I grabbed my Bible. Yes. There. Psalm 69. A couple of phrases leaped out at me.
The waters are come in unto my soul . . .
I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
Maybe I could combine these somehow. Maybe I could . . .
Yes. The sopranos and altos could sing the Hughes text. The tenors and basses could sing the psalm. They could alternate back and forth, just like Mother and Dr. Richards’s voices. The perfect way to capture how I felt.
The way I was sinking.
I had to get up and get my notebook, though. My body didn’t have the energy, but the music within compelled me. It proved stronger than my leaden limbs.
So I tossed back the covers.
I got out of bed.
And I started writing once more in my notebook.
I didn’t know why I was composing. Not anymore.
I just knew that I couldn’t not do it.