Chapter 15
I have to say, I’m very ready to leave the market, and Williamsburg altogether, but more than anything right now, I’m so ready to see some snow.
Sure, snow can be inconvenient and set some people off, but it’s always comforted me. It’s synonymous with peace—peace I don’t often have in my own brain.
Of course, I don’t say that out loud, because I’m aware it has the potential to throw a subway car–sized wrench in our plans, but we’ve only had a few flurries back home so far this year and I love it so much.
I’m also eager to get it on film. If I frame it just right as we step out the door, it could be an amazing opening shot for my film.
What we find when we emerge, however, is hardly what I’d call snow. It’s thin, wet, and barely a whisper above a misty, freezing rain. It’s just enough to be a nuisance and has zero cinematic quality.
I frown and stash the camera in my pocket. If it isn’t for a great shot, there’s no point in risking that it might get wet and ruined. My mom would be heartbroken, and I can’t lose the footage I’ve managed to get.
“All right, this way,” Audra says, leading us to the subway.
Audra has been my personal escort since we left the market, and she and I are a few strides ahead of everyone.
“It’s so good to see you, B!”
Being beside her feels like a huge, warm hug after that whole debacle.
She smells like eucalyptus. Maybe she freshened up when she and Izaac went back to her place. Not that the bar didn’t have its own delightful fragrance, but the eau de beer and wings hits different than this.
“What am I missing back in the two-oh-three these days?”
“Oh, ya know, the usual stuff,” I say. “School, the farm…”
“Cute girls falling from the suburban sky…,” she says in a singsong, making a sweeping gesture toward the clouds above us.
“Right.” I try to stifle my satisfied grin. “That, too.”
“Actually, it kind of feels like divine intervention that you fell out of my sky today,” she continues. “I could use your expertise.”
“Oh?” I perk up. I don’t feel especially expert on anything right now, but I’m intrigued.
“Well, I’ve been really struggling to come up with a gift for Izaac. As you now know, we haven’t been as in touch as I’d have liked this year… which made it hard to know what he’d be into. So, being in the presence of a certified gifting master makes this pretty much my lucky day.”
I’m honored and flattered, but feel like a fraud. I don’t even have any good ideas myself for Izaac this year—not something I want to admit.
Then again, there is something Audra can give him that I can’t. This could be the chance I’ve been waiting for…
“Hm, have you considered the gift of your presence?” I say, my voice low so Izaac won’t hear. “Maybe you could come back with us and be home for Christmas?”
At this, she legit cackles. “Ahhhh, good one, B,” she says, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. I frown, but she continues. “Even if I didn’t have to stay and work, which I do, I don’t think my poli-sci dropout ass with my blue hair and bartending credentials is exactly Evans party material.”
It’s my instinct to say, Of course you would! They’d all be so happy to see you! But I pause because I don’t actually know if that’s true. Izaac did say she was basically excommunicated.
It seems so unfair to punish her for following her heart.
I’m glad she and Izaac seem to have at least gotten their stories straight. She looks back at him now, and I wonder if she’s thinking the same.
“But I am so grateful Z has you guys to keep his spirits bright. I know he’s dealing with my parents, and he puts so much pressure on himself. I worry about him, so… the fact that he’s surrounded by such good friends—that is a gift to me since I can’t be there.”
I never thought about it that way, that the bond between us all as friends might be meaningful to other people who care about us.
“Well, I can’t imagine us without him,” I say. “We’re family.”
Audra looks at me now, like she’s about to say something I should take note of.
“It’s so important to have that with your friends, especially as you get older… Ya know, since families can be so complicated sometimes.” She lets out a thin laugh, tinged with heartache, then turns more serious when she adds, “Which I’m guessing you know pretty well too.”
I chew my lip now. Audra and Michelle were in the same grade and had mutual friends in high school, so she probably knows what’s gone on since they graduated—the Ripton rumor mill has reach—but it’s still uncomfortable.
“How is your sister?” Audra goes on. “If you don’t mind me asking…”
I sidestep a puddle, reflecting a wavy red neon Budweiser sign from a bodega window along with a string of white Christmas lights hung from the awning.
“I don’t mind,” I say, but the answer is a reflex.
That’s the expected response to that question, right?
Even if it’s not the one I really mean. It’s not that I think she’s being nosy or malicious or anything.
But for one thing, I don’t really know the answer.
My mom seems to think Michelle is doing great, but I’m not sure I trust that assessment.
Naomi said the same thing last time too, and then Michelle relapsed.
And while I appreciate that Audra is giving me space to talk about it if I want, it also seems like everyone is only ever concerned with how Michelle is doing, never how I’m doing.
Especially my mom. But I don’t want to say that, because it might sound childish or selfish.
When I haven’t elaborated after a moment, Audra reads my silence. “Sorry, I know that’s a tough question to answer,” she says. “Sounds like she went through it.”
“Mm,” I murmur, eyes still trained on the sidewalk.
“Which… I’m guessing means you have also been going through it.”
Now I look up, because it’s like she read my mind.
Audra squeezes my shoulder and then suddenly, there’s a shift—from not wanting to talk about it at all, to pretty much letting it all spill from my mouth at once.
I start rattling off the details like a fire hose because it’s easier to get them out that way.
“Yeah,” I say. “She’s in a halfway house now. Except it’s a farm, not a house? Because she was addicted to these pain pills. So I don’t even know…”
I pause because it feels like everything is coming out kind of backward.
I try to organize my thoughts, because now that someone really is asking about me, apparently I don’t even know how to answer.
“But, yeah. I guess it hasn’t been great… for me,” I start. “Sometimes I’m mad, sometimes I miss her… Sometimes it’s both.”
“That makes sense,” Audra says. “A sibling is a big part of your life.”
“I guess she was always kind of my hero, ya know? Like, I just wanted to be around her. But at the same time, she was, like, my biggest fan. She was always the one who told me I should follow my dreams. She made me promise that I would take her to the Oscars as my date, even though I told her I didn’t think they gave Oscars for Christmas rom-coms.” The memory pulls a crooked smile out of me, and I tug my hat lower as the precipitation picks up.
“She even turned her closet into a theater one time so we could have a Christmas movie marathon. And she was the first person I told I was gay. And when I was a little kid, she used to do this thing where she would put my hair behind my ears when she knew I was scared about something.”
Now that it’s late afternoon, the darkening sky transforms the whole vibe.
We pass a record store and the window glows amber, giving shoppers an alluvial aura as they flip through slow media selections.
Then there’s a café. Through windows with snow-gathering corners, the outside world can glimpse patrons with laptops and paper cups, sheltered from the elements.
“But… then she was getting bullied in middle school, and after that something shifted. And she started to get mean at home. Like, really mean. The things she said to me…”
I don’t say them, because I never want to relive any of it.
The way she told me I was a loser. That I would never have any friends.
That I was delusional to think I was ever going to be able to make movies.
Sometimes, I thought she was trying to toughen me up, make me realize that the world might not be as kind as we thought—something she was learning.
Other times, I wondered if she was just in need of someone to take her pain out on—the bullied becoming the bully. I was an easy target.
Audra puts a hand on my shoulder, and brings me back to the present.
“You don’t have to go there, Bennie,” Audra says. “But that’s all really tough. Have you been in touch?”
“No. Well, she sent me her amends letter, if that counts. Again. I don’t know if I’m going to answer. I just feel like… we already went through all this. What makes it any different now?”
Audra pulls her coat tighter, and it takes her longer to answer this one. “Your sister… she was always a good person. Always really cool to me even when other people weren’t,” she says.
The response brings back that flare of anger. I don’t really want to hear this right now. I don’t want to think about the “good person” version of Michelle. The one who seems to have disappeared. But before I can say anything, Audra continues her thought.
“But good people can hurt people too, even if they don’t mean to.
Ya know, B, mental health, addiction—they’re intertwined,” she says.
“It’s really complex stuff. I volunteer sometimes at this place called Cobble House that gives free help to people dealing with addiction.
And a lot of them have mental illness. The addiction part happens when they aren’t diagnosed or treated for that illness for whatever reason, and then they self-medicate with drugs to try to make themselves feel better. ”
I nod slowly. I have wondered many times what Michelle must’ve felt like before she was diagnosed. How it might’ve been lonely.
But then… Michelle wasn’t ever alone . Naomi and I were always right there.
“Why didn’t she just ask for help?” I ask, my pitch rising a little, and I’m not even sure if I’m really asking Audra. “We would have helped her.”
“I think…,” Audra starts, and then takes a breath. “I think it might be hard to even know what you need help with when you’re the one in it, you know?”
It makes sense.
“Actually, there’s this one guy who also volunteers because he’s in recovery from alcohol addiction, and he has bipolar disorder too.
He told me it took him a really long time to understand the difference between his condition and his addiction, and how they were connected.
Now he’s on medication and says he feels a lot better.
And that he doesn’t feel like he needs to drink anymore. ”
But this is where things get even harder for me to understand. The part that makes me really angry.
“Michelle did get better for a while,” I say. “Last year. She was on medication, and got a job at a gym as a receptionist—she was doing so well they made her assistant manager. She got super into being healthy. She was even talking about becoming a personal trainer.”
“Wow,” Audra says.
“Yeah. But then she got hurt one day, helping a customer with one of the weight systems, and we found out later that the walk-in clinic gave her these pain pills, because they didn’t know her history, and she took them.
Like… just like that. Even though she knew it would be dangerous for her.
Even though she promised she would never do it again. ”
Audra listens. Then I tell her what I haven’t told my friends yet.
“And now my mom keeps asking me to go with her to this halfway house farm for Christmas to see Michelle. Instead of doing our usual traditions at home together.”
Audra squeezes my shoulder again.
“I know what the holidays mean to you, B, so I know that’s gotta be extra hard.”
After a beat, I say, “I’m really trying to understand it all. But why are we all expected to turn our lives upside down when these were her choices?” I pause. “Sorry, that sounds really awful.”
“Bennie, you’re allowed to have feelings.
You’re trying so hard, I can see that. But I also think it’s really hard to learn about something just in the context of your own experience, and separate your own feelings from the person you feel them about, ya know?
” She pauses, considering something. “Maybe, if it ever feels good to you, you could meet some other people who have gone through stuff like this.”
“You mean volunteer, like you do?” I ask.
“Sure, yeah. But you could also find a support group for siblings or family members of addiction or mental illness. People who will be able to speak to your specific situation.”
I… hadn’t thought about that.
“I guess I always thought I had my support group,” I say, looking back at the others.
Cash carries his boot bag under one arm and holds Izaac’s hand with the other.
Diya is deep in her storytelling bag, all animation and passionate conviction.
They’re all laughing and smiling and looking lighter than I’ve seen them in a while, as the flurries flutter around them and the low Brooklyn buildings frame the scene.
“Totally. And those clowns love you,” Audra says. “But they haven’t experienced this. It might be helpful to have the perspective of people who have. There are a lot of organizations in the city.” She pulls up her phone and an Instagram page. “You’re going to live here next year too, right?”
I have finished exactly none of my applications, and I have nowhere near as solid a plan as her brother.
“I’ll send the info for Cobble House to you now, and I’ll ask around for sibling support groups. I’m sure there are some in CT, too.”
“Wow, thanks, Audra,” I say. I want to hug her.
I want to tell her this is the best conversation I’ve had with anyone about this situation since it all started.
I don’t, because it feels awkward right now, and like I’d have to explain it to my friends behind us.
“You sure you don’t want to go into politics?
You seem pretty great at helping people. ”
She laughs. “You know, since I moved here, I’ve learned there are so many more ways to show up for people and make a difference. But I think you already know that.”
I try is what I almost say, but Cash comes bounding up and interrupts us.
“Is that it?” he asks, pointing to the green-and-white globe on the corner. “The station?”
“Yep!” Audra says after a quick glance into the distance.
“She’s right!” Cash shouts, running back to the others.
“ Told you!” Diya says, landing a playful punch on Izaac’s arm.
Audra gives me a knowing smile. “Listen, just… don’t forget that you’re not alone, okay, B?” she says. “Give yourself grace. This is really hard stuff, but you’re doing great. And don’t be afraid to reach out. Anytime.”
“Thanks, Audra,” I say, before my friends surround us again, and somehow, despite the heaviness of this topic, I’m light as a marshmallow again.