Forever Changes (10 page)

One week later, Brianna was wide awake at four o’clock on Saturday morning. She lay in bed imagining a life for herself:  a wonderful life where she was sitting next to the Charles River in her maroon sweatshirt with a graphing calculator, watching the sailboats in the sun and feeling her brain buzzing with satisfaction.  Maybe she’d even even have a boyfriend, a guy who would think she was interesting and cool.  It could happen.  It could all happen.

She looked at the clock:  4:27.    Dad had to work today, so she’d be up in an hour anyway.  She got up and looked at the MIT application.  Flipping through, she reached the essay section.  The two short essays would be a breeze, writing about what she’d bring to the community and what was her biggest academic passion.  Then, in the long essay section, was choice B, the one she’d been looking for:  “Describe the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your life and explain how you overcame it.”

Brianna took out a pen and a notebook and dashed off the “I’m a poor kid with CF, let me in” essay.  English was never her strongest subject, but she thought she’d  nailed her conclusion: 
I don’t get to say I’ve overcome Cystic Fibrosis. It’s in my DNA, so it will always be with me.  I’ll be living with my challenge until I die.  I spent a long time feeling bad about how unfair that is, but I found that being mad about something I can’t change was just getting in the way of my enjoyment of whatever time I do have.  I can’t change my DNA, but I did change the way I feel about it, and, in some ways, that felt like an even bigger challenge.

She couldn’t imagine anybody reading this and not letting her in.

She ate and got percussed and said goodbye to Dad and was still wide awake.  It was only seven o’clock.  Too early to call anybody, and she didn’t feel like watching TV.  Her mind was racing.  She’d fed the MIT fantasy, and, as though her mind wanted to balance out the hope she dared to feel with some despair, she started to be afraid that she’d just had her last birthday.

Despite the chilly November breeze, she decided to go to the beach.  Maybe if she contemplated the number of waves or grains of sand, she’d get some deep thoughts like Eccles did, and maybe she’d feel better.

When she got there, the sun had been up for only a few minutes, and she was disappointed to see that she didn’t have the beach to herself.  There was a blue folding chair that some fat guy was sitting in.  It had to be Eccles, Brianna thought.  She hadn’t even thought about the fact that he was supposed to be here early every morning.

She crept around to the front of the chair and saw that she was right.  His eyes were closed, and Brianna suddenly knew Eccles had died on the beach.  Well, she thought, that was probably the way he wanted to go out.  No, he couldn’t really be dead.  She couldn’t see him breathing, though.  Should she call 911?  Was it actually an emergency if somebody was dead?

“Mr. Eccles?” she said quietly.  Nothing.   Shit.  She felt guilty, because her first thought was “What about my recommendation?”

“Mr. Eccles!” she said, louder this time.  And this time, thankfully, he  shook his head and slowly opened his eyes.

“Ms. Pelletier …”  he said.  When he spoke, she got a whiff of stale booze breath that almost knocked her out.

“Um, are you okay?” she asked.

He thought for a few seconds before answering. “In the near term, with the exception of the typical symptoms of excessive alcohol consumption, the answer seems to be yes. I’m  not in any immediate danger.  However–” he rubbed his eyes, stretched, and shifted in the chair. “–my cardiologist informed me yesterday that my latest test reveals significant degradation in a number of key … well, I suppose I shouldn’t give you the gory details.  Suffice it to say that I’m a bit closer to the limit of my particular function than I had assumed.”

Brianna didn’t know what to say.  She knew what it was like to get bad news from doctors, but she’d never gotten news that bad.  Not yet. “I’m sorry,” she said, and as if on cue, she started to cough.  Fortunately it stopped before it got too bad, and she was spared having to fight off the post-tussive emesis.

“Well,” Eccles said, “I appreciate that. And your presence here has mitigated the shock of waking up on the beach.”

“Thanks,” Brianna said, smiling.

“So what brings you to the beach so early this morning?” Eccles said, rubbing his eyes.  He moved forward in his chair, like he was thinking about trying to stand up, then sank right back down again.

“I couldn’t sleep.  Contemplating the infinite and stuff like that.  Yesterday was my birthday–”

“Happy Birthday!  Welcome to legal adulthood!”

“Thanks.  I actually hit legal adulthood a year ago—I missed a lot of school in elementary school.  Anyway, I just started to get like, what if it’s my last birthday, you know?”

“All too well.”

“And I guess I thought it might help to  be here and think about waves or pirme numbers or something.”

“Well, I hope it works better for you than it did for me.  I turned to the treacherous embrace of single malt scotch.  You see, mathematics is not always enough to comfort me.”

“Yeah.”

Brianna stood silently next to Eccles, and they watched the waves break for a few minutes.  Here we are, Brianna thought, alone together.  “Alone Again Or.”  And then, just  for a few seconds, she thought of nothing.  And then she realized that she’d been thinking nothing, and she wondered if that was what it was like to be dead.

Whoa.

Suddenly Eccles started talking as though they were in the middle of a conversation.  “I find that it’s been very easy for me to talk about the unimaginable for decades, and what I’ve said to you about being both one and infinite, about joining the mysteries I’ve devoted my professional life to, well, I meant all of that.  It’s just that it’s one thing to say such things when you believe you’re only talking in the abstract.  But now that I’m faced with the very real possibility of my death—a wiser man would have seen the cardiac incident of the summer as an indication that this was a real possibility, but I’m not that man—in any case, I’m simply terrified.”

Brianna didn’t know what to say.  Shut up, you’re freaking me out?  You’re the guy with the answers, and if you don’t know anything, how can I possibly ever know anything?  Go talk to your wife about this, why are you talking to me?

Neither of them spoke.  Finally, just to try to get the coversation on to a track that felt a little more comfortable, Brianna said, “I’m sorry.  Do you have, like family around here or anything?”

Eccles didn’t answer.  He just stared out at the sea.  The tide was going out.

The silence started to get awkward.  Brianna shifted her weight from one side to another.

Finally, Eccles spoke.  His voice sounded funny and quiet.  “Well, that’s a difficult question.  You’ll forgive me.  If I weren’t staring into the abyss and hungover to boot, I probably would make up some glib answer that avoids the reality, but right now my ability to bullshit seems to be compromised.

“You know at the end of
The Wizard of Oz
, when the wizard protests that he’s not a bad man, just a very bad wizard?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Well, the reverse is true for me.  I know I am good at my job, but I still struggle with everything else.  As long as my mind is in the beautiful realm of mathematics, I am in my element.  But the real world is so much messier, so much more difficult to navigate.”

“I’m beating around the bush telling you something it’s probably inappropriate for me to tell you anyway, but since we stand at the edge of the same abyss … I was never a member of Love. I was a music student and played a few string parts on
Forever Changes
.  I exploited the similarity between my name and that of the guitarist for years.  For reasons a therapist would probably be able to discern but I am not, I enjoyed the adulation that accompanied the rock star story.   I suppose I was finally cool in high school.  And not only high school, but throughout the community.  I used to come to the beach in the summer, and people would flock to me to hear my tales of rock and roll excess.

“In any case, there was an indiscretion with someone who believed my exagger–ah, they were lies, weren’t they?  Yes.  Well, my wife took my daughter Grace to California, and though I understand the ill will they both bear me, Grace won’t return a  phone call from her  dying father.”

Eccles’ voice broke. Brianna looked over at him and saw that he had tears running down his cheeks.

“So there you have it. The man behind the curtain.” He wiped the tears from his face. “I’m a pretty good wizard.  I’m just not a very good man.  And I can’t stand looking at the end of a life that’s been such a failure.”

Brianna watched the waves break.  She thought maybe she should be mad—she’d bought the lie about Love, and the fact that she thought she knew somebody in the band had definitely made her like the music more.   But she wasn’t really mad.  She actually felt really sorry for Eccles.  At school he was this jolly fat man, a popular teacher that everybody liked, but that wasn’t who he was at all.

The one thing that was annoying right now was that his story had made her think of Mom, and that was something she hated thinking about even more than death.

Briannna counted seven waves breaking.  She had to get out of here, but it was really awkward.   “I … um, have to go.  I’m sorry, though.  About everything.  About your heart.”

“Thank you, Ms. Pelletier.  I’m afraid it’s broken.” And Mr. Eccles put his head in his hands.

She left him alone with the sea and his regrets.

Brianna drove around for hours, zooming up and down the streets, trying not to think about anything because almost everything hurt.  The only thought she had that didn’t hurt was that as much as it sucked to be her, it would suck even more to be Eccles.

Finally, when she’d been on every street in Blackpool, Brianna went home.  Her phone rang almost as soon as she got inside.  It was Ashley.

“Hey, Brianna,” she said.  “Do want to … you know … get some ice cream or something?” Ashley sounded so tentative that it made Brianna sad.  Had she made Ashley think she’d reject her?  Had she been a bad friend, a bad mentor?

“Absolutely!” Brianna said, with as much enthusiasm as she could.

“Cool!” Ashley said.

“Is everything okay with your folks?”

“Well, I can’t really talk about it now, but no.”

“I’m sorry,” Brianna said.  “Are they getting a divorce or something?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, that sucks.”

“Yeah.  Listen, I was talking about it all night with Mom, so I really don’t want to talk about it anymore.  I’m sorry, I don’t want to be mean …”

“Ash, you’re not.  I understand.  There’s all kinds of stuff I don’t want to talk about or think about.  So we’ll just go and eat some ice cream, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Great.  If Melissa’s working, we can probably even get it for free.  I’ll meet you there at three?”

“Perfect.”

“Okay.  And Ashley?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not gonna ask you about it or bug you about it, and if you never want to talk about it, that’s totally cool, but you do know you
can
talk to me about it if you want, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Any time at all.  Middle of the night, whatever.”

Ashley quietly said, “Thanks, Bri.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Brianna replied.

She hung up and called Dad’s phone.

“Hey sweetie, what’s up?” he said.

“Nothing,” Brianna said, realizing only after she said it that she sounded tired.  Eccles’ story was weighing her down, Ashley’s sadness was weighing her down, and she couldn’t stop thinking about Mom, and that was
really
weighing her down.

“You okay, sweetie?”

“Yeah, Dad, I’m fine.  Just tired I guess.”

“Okay.  What are you doing with your day?”

“I dunno.  I rode around this morning.  I guess I’ll work on my MIT application for a while or something. I’m meeting Ashley for ice cream later, so if I’m not here when you get home, that’s where I am.”

“Thank you.  You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine Dad, really.  I’ll see you later.”

“Okay,” Dad said, his tone of voice saying “You’re not fooling me with that ‘I’m fine’ lie, young lady.”

She did spend most of the rest of the day working on her application, except for meeting Ashley at Hot Licks.  They were both depressed, but it was nice to be depressed with somebody else for a little while.

When Dad finally got home, he came right to her room.

“Bri,” he said, “we need to talk.”

“Okay.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking ever since I talked to you this morning.  I realized that I may have been kind of selfish.”

“Dad, what are you talking about?”  Brianna could certainly say Dad was annoying (and she frequently did), but she never would have called him selfish.  Mom was a different story.  But not Dad.

“I know you didn’t really want to apply to MIT, and watching you mope around while you’re doing the application, I realized that you might be doing it to make me happy.”

“Dad, I’m not—”

“Just let me finish, sweetie.  I think I pushed you too hard, and I know you made me a promise to follow through on the application, but I want to let you know that I’m letting you out of your promise.  You have to make yourself happy in this life, honey, and I don’t want you worrying about making me happy.  You do what you want to do, okay?  I could never be any prouder of you than I am right now, and the only thing that will make me happy is you being happy.”

Against her will, Brianna felt her eyes filling up with tears. Before she knew what was happening, she was hugging Dad and crying, and everything she’d been feeling—all the fear and sadness and dread and hope and love and everything–felt like too much, and so it all came pouring out.

“Dad,” she finally said.  “It’s not the application.  I actually want to do that.”

Dad looked relieved.  “Well, that’s good.  I was feeling so bad, you know, like I was making you miserable.”

Brianna started laughing.  “I guess I can be miserable without any help.”  Dad smiled, and then Brianna said, “Why do you think Mom left?”

Of course they had talked about this before, but not for a long time.  Mom’s departure was a fact of their lives, and Dad had explained it to Brianna when it happened: “Mommy has to go away,” he’d said, his voice breaking, “but she’s still going to write and call and even though she’s not here, she loves you very, very much.”  There didn’t seem to be much to add to that, though Mom did send a letter saying she was sorry she had to go, and she kept sending letters after that, but when Brianna was ten, she started throwing them away without reading them. When she was eleven, she told Mom on the phone that she hated her and never wanted to talk to her again.  And that had been that.

“I think you know, don’t you?” Dad said.  She knew, she knew that she was too sick and awful for Mom to love. “I mean, she’s a very, very weak person, Bri.  She’s one of the weakest people I ever met.  And she … she couldn’t stand seeing you sick because she loved you too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean when you’re a parent, you love your kid so much that seeing them sick or suffering is the worst thing in the world.  Next time you’re at Children’s, look at the parents there.  They’re in hell because they can’t protect the people they love more than anything.  Anybody there would do anything, including die, to save their kids, but there’s nothing they can do except wait and hope.”

Dad put his hand on his forehead and closed his eyes.  Brianna could hear him breathing.  After a minute, he picked his head up.  His eyes were red.  “And Mom loves you that much, even if she’s horrible at showing it.  She loves you that much, but she’s not strong enough to watch you suffer. She’s not strong enough to even think she might lose you.  So she decided to take matters into her own hands.  She inflicted this terrible wound on you because she’s too much of a coward to face being wounded herself.

“But you should know, and I know this doesn’t make any sense, but you being sick wouldn’t have been so scary to her if she didn’t love you so much.”

“If she really loved me,” Brianna said, “she should have stayed.”

“Yeah,” Dad finally said in a quiet voice, “she should’ve.”

After what seemed like five minutes, Dad looked up.  “I have her number and her address, you know.  You can call her or write her if you want to.”

“You still talk to her?”

“She calls about once a month to ask about you.”

“And you actually talk to her?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I want her to know what she’s missing.  And I want that to hurt.”  Neither one of them said anything for a minute.  “Anyway, you can call her or write her if you want.”

“Nah,” Brianna said, “She doesn’t deserve me.”

Dad smiled.  “No, sweetie, she doesn’t.  And you don’t owe her anything.  But she owes a lot to you.”

“Yeah, but it’s too late for that.”

“Okay. Your decision, and I support you either way.”