Toby
There’s a teacher workday today,which means no school for us. It’s rare that I accept idle downtime. When I’m not busy my mind takes over and the depression always wins the mental wrestling match, and I submit, but my work is done, and Alice knocked on my door and invited me to come outside with her.
So I did.
Because I can’t seem to say no to her.
We’re lying side by side on our backs on the small patch of crabgrass in the backyard of the Victorian. It’s warm today and the sun is directly overhead. The shocking rays force my eyelids closed and the backs of them look like molten lava, a fiery red.
“Why are you so sad all the time, Toby?” Alice asks out of the blue.
I wear my depression like a winter coat, zipped up tight to my chin and bulky—a barrier that smothers out the rest of the world. No one has ever asked me about it because I hide it. I like to think that people are layered and if you don’t care, if you don’t get to know them, if you don’t question, you can’t peel back the layers and find out what’s deeper. And when your outer layer is entirely made up of asshole, no one digs deeper to see the depression just underneath. The depression and the asshole are explicably linked—cause and effect. Effect and cause…and effect. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I don’t know how to answer this question. I don’twantto answer this question.
So, I lie. “I’m not sad.” Or maybe it isn’t a lie, depression is different than sadness. Sadness is melancholy. Depression is a black hole of despair. I always imagine it’s like drowning. There are short bursts of fresh air, like Alice, but the past, the hopelessness, the guilt, and self-loathing is a pair of lead shoes that always pull me back under.
Finding my hand, she slips her fingers between mine and squeezes hard. So hard that her fingertips seat between my knuckles with purpose and the tendons on the back of her hand tauten under the tips of mine. I know she doesn’t accept my answer. She lets her face drop to the side until her cheek is resting on the grass and she’s facing me. She does this a lot when she says something important, even though she can’t make eye contact, she attempts it. I wonder if the gesture is habit or voluntary.
And then she says something that raises goose bumps on my skin. “You know what I miss most about losing my eyesight?” I don’t answer because I’m not supposed to. “Looking people in the eye when I talk to them. Because looking people in the eye achieves many things. I can gauge if what they’re saying with their words aligns with how they really feel. Mouths can lie, but eyes can’t. There’s intimacy in eye contact. Not creepy level intimacy, but human level intimacy. You know what I like most about losing my eyesight?”
Again, no answer from me but mostly because I’m hanging on every word in stunned silence.
“Truly hearing what people say when I talk to them. Strike eye contact and sight from a face-to-face exchange and it forces me to listen to words, tone, and inflection. It’s added dimension that I didn’t pay much attention to when I had eye contact to lean on. Contradiction in words, tone, or inflection is telling. It’s information-gathering. I like that. All that being said, Toby, you’re a terrible liar. Your sadness is deep. It’s old and aged and I can’t begin to hear where it began. But it isn’t permanent.” She squeezes my hand tight again and whispers, “I’ll help you slay it.”
“I’m not sad,” I repeat, but my voice betrays me. There’s shock, hesitation, and agreement in it that makes it sound shaky and uneven.
She smiles, but it’s the kind of smile that kindly accepts what she’s being told, knowing it’s complete bullshit. “Someday that will be true.”
For a second, I believe her. I want it to be true.
But then I remember I’m Toby Page and that isn’t possible.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Present,April 1987
Toby
The knockon apartment 3A’s door rouses both Johnny and me out of our rooms and creates a near collision in the middle of the kitchen. I acquiesce right-of-way even though no one has come knocking on the door for him in two years. He opens the door, offers a quick, “Let me just grab my coat,” to the person outside and returns to his bedroom.
Taber is standing in the hall, wool coat on, hands tucked deep in the pockets until he lifts one and raises it in my direction. “Hey, man.”
“Hey,” I say in return. We get along pretty well these days, all things considered. I’m trying to keep it that way.
His hand returns to the warmth of his pocket and he rocks up on his toes and back down again like he’s trying to be patient but is running late. “We’re late for our meeting with the friends of Bill W.,” he says to me like that means something.
From behind me Johnny says, “I’ll be back in an hour or so,” as he slips on his coat and walks around me to the door. It sounds ridiculous, like he’s a child and I’m the parent. Since when are we checking in with each other in this house?
I nod but give him a puzzled look. “Leave the door open, I’m right behind you,” I add. It comes out all wrong because I’m confused.
Alice is ready when I knock on her door: jacket on and white cane in hand. “I’m so excited and I have no idea where we’re going.”
I warn her our walk will be long and she doesn’t mind.
Conversation starts out surface level but digs deeper when I ask, “Do you know where Johnny and Taber were going?”
“AA meeting,” she answers matter-of-factly.
“Taber is in AA?” I ask stupidly.
