November 5, 2006
Chapter 6
(Filed under: The Novel)Anwyn climbed into bed that night after wondering that fateful question to the mirror. Charlie sniffed at her door and then curled up on the rug between a few boxes. Usually he slept downstairs on the couch.
A week after Isabelle killed herself Anwyn found herself walking down the hall of what would be her new school. But the newness and excitement of her freshman year of high school had been so rudely and completely destroyed by her sister's action. Classes at St. Paul Western High School wouldn't start for another week. A counselor from the school had tried to set up an appointment with Anwyn three times before Anwyn finally made time. She only did it because her dad asked her to.
"You need to talk to somebody," he had said.
"Why? What's there to talk about?" Anwyn asked, her voice trembling. Her dad just sat there quietly. He was trying to collect his thoughts, to collect his feelings.
"You can't let this anger consume you," Jack finally said.
"I'm not angry," Anwyn said through gritted teeth. She almost laughed at herself for saying it. Everybody knew she was angry. But for not for the reasons you'd expect. She wasn't angry that her sister was dead. Anwyn fumed because her sister grabbed the spotlight one final and ultimate time, and it would cast a shadow on everything else for the rest of Anwyn's life. She was angry that her sister had messed everything up.
"Anwyn," her father said, "I don't want to lose you." And they both knew he meant more than suicidal tendencies. He was thinking of more than Isabelle. At that moment Jill sat on the front porch drinking from a bottle of vodka.
And so Anwyn walked down the hall of her new school towards the counselor's office. That first meeting was quiet and awkward and difficult. The counselor was young, maybe in her early 30s, and asked lots of questions and didn't say much.
"What did you like about your sister?" Ms. Jonas asked.
"Nothing," Anwyn said. "She was a bitch." The words stung before she even said them.
"Really?" Ms. Jonas asked. Nothing seemed to phase her. "Why was she a bitch?"
"She was," Anwyn said. It was the best response she could give. The questions dragged on and Anwyn gave short and terse answers, completely uncharacteristic for her. If Ms. Jonas had ever talked to Anwyn before she'd know that.
"Look Anwyn," Ms. Jonas said after another monosyllabic response. "Let me cut to the chase. Your sister just killed herself. It sucks. And you're angry. Anyone can see that. But you've got to talk about it. You can't just ball it up inside."
Anwyn just sat there, glaring at Ms. Jonas.
"Maybe you don't want to talk today," Ms. Jonas continued. "That's OK. But I want to show you something." She turned to a filing cabinet in the corner and pulled out a file. She set it down on the desk between them.
"This isn't exactly recommended," Ms. Jonas said, looking a little sheepish. "But I think it might help. You probably know that they assign counselors based on last name, which means I was your sister's counselor as well. This is her file."
Anwyn stared at it, mesmerized.
"Now I can't let you just look through it," Ms. Jonas said. "That's beyond not recommended. But I can tell you a few things. This file—this whole file—is just like most of the files I have. It's not filled with depressing letters and rant sessions. You won't find a suicide note or even any rationale for what Isabelle did in this file. There aren't any behavior issues—there's not even a detention slip. The whole file is filled with good grades, recommendations from teachers, test scores and notes about her college application process."
Ms. Jonas paused and let Anwyn absorb the words.
"Whenever I talked with your sister it was about her future. I spent hours and hours helping her process her life after high school. We talked about careers, we talked about majors, we debated the merits of different colleges."
She paused again. Anwyn's face was blank, but her mind kept spinning.
"I don't know why your sister did what she did," Ms. Jonas said. "It's a complete surprise to me. But I show you this file because I want you to know I'm mad. I'm angry with Isabelle for wasting my time. That's how I feel. I should probably feel sadness for losing one of my students, but I mostly feel anger." A tear fell from Ms. Jonas' eyes and she just let it go.
"I can come back any time?" Anwyn asked, the wrath gone from her voice.
"Anytime." Anwyn walked out that day, leaving Ms. Jonas behind with Isabelle's file. But she came back at least once a week for the rest of her time in St. Paul.
"Why do you think she did it?" Anwyn asked Ms. Jonas one day in the fall. Anwyn had skipped out on her American literature class to come to the office and see Ms. Jonas. She had a permanent pass out of any class and the teachers never asked questions. Something about reading The Catcher in the Rye and listening to her classmates' inane answers didn't seem worthwhile. They didn't know what they were talking about and any time she spoke up everyone parsed what she said for insights about suicide.
"I don't know, Anwyn," Ms. Jonas said. "I've shown you her file—I don't think this was a lifelong plan she had." Anwyn wondered. "Why do you think she did it?"
"I don’t know," Anwyn said. "She always thought she was right. She thought she had all the answers."
"Big sisters usually think that," Ms. Jonas said. "But they're not always right."
"No, they're not," Anwyn said with a smile. "One time she was craving s'mores and was convinced she could toast the marshmallows in the microwave." Ms. Jonas laughed. "She blamed me for it, but Mom didn't believe her."
"How's your mom doing?" Ms. Jonas asked. Anwyn grew quiet.
"She won't talk about it," Anwyn said. "She won't talk about anything. She works all day—even into the evenings—and then comes home and watches TV."
"What about your dad?"
"He's OK. He doesn't say much either," Anwyn said. "But we have breakfast together. Sometimes we don't say anything. But sometime we'll talk. The other day he asked me what I thought we should do with Isabelle's stuff."
"What'd you tell him?" Ms. Jonas asked.
"Well, most of it we don't want," Anwyn said. "Even if liked her style I couldn't bring myself to wear her clothes. Same with her books and CDs. I told Dad we should probably make a box for her knick-knacks and papers—everything else that someone else could use we should probably give away."
"That's a practical answer," Ms. Jonas said.
"That's what Dad said. But he agreed with me."
"What will you do with the box?" Ms. Jonas asked.
"I don't know. But it doesn't seem right to get rid of it." That box moved with Jack and Anwyn to Kansas and now it sat in the third bedroom upstairs, where it would sit until everything else was put away and they had to do something with it.
Anwyn fell asleep thinking about Ms. Jonas and those sessions back in St. Paul. She enjoyed those talks, if only for the sake of sharing what was going on in her head and heart, which sometimes contradicted. Sometimes she could talk to her father, but Jack often seemed distant and talking with his daughter about the whole situation seemed to take so much effort for him. He was willing to take that effort, but Anwyn didn't want to put him through it.
And her mom—Jill checked out. Isabelle had been so like her and the suicide hit Jill hard. It was as if it was a choice Jill could have made herself, and while none of them knew why Isabelle did it, Jill could at least understand why. It made her reevaluate everything. Jack tried to talk to her, tried to reconnect with his wife. But he got nowhere. Anwyn could hear them arguing when they thought she had gone to bed.
"I don't want to talk about it," Jill had said.
"What do you want?" Jack asked, frustration in his voice. Though there voices carried through the walls Anwyn could imagine him sitting on the bed looking exhausted.
"I don't know, Jack, but everything's changed." Jill said as she rushed around the room doing nothing in particular.
"No," Jack said. "I don't accept that."
"Well whether or not you accept it doesn't matter, that's the way it is," Jill came back. Anwyn could hear her slam something on the dresser.
"No," Jack said. "One thing has changed: Our daughter is dead." He was standing up now, facing his wife. His dress shirt was unbuttoned and untucked, his dress shoes already kicked into the corner. He didn't raise his voice often, but he was doing it now. On the other side of the wall Anwyn tried not breathe.
"How can you talk like that?" Jill cried out.
"Like what?" Jack asked incredulously. "She's dead. Isabelle is dead." Jill sobbed, loud and painful. Quieter, softer, Jack started again, "Our baby girl is gone. I don't understand why and it tears me apart. But we're still a family."
Jill just shook her head. Anwyn strained to hear.
"You just don't get it, do you, Jack," was all Jill said. She had already given in.
"There's another baby girl who isn't dead," Jack said. "She still needs us."
"No, Jack, everything has changed." It was her mantra and whether or not it was true, she would make it true.
A month later, just before Christmas, Jill moved out. Jack and Anwyn and Charlie watched her go, taking a single bag with her. She had called a taxi and wouldn't let Jack take her to the airport. The divorce proceedings were all but finalized.
She took a final look at her only daughter and said, "Someday you'll understand, Anwyn," as if she were a child. "Everything has changed."
And she left.
Posted by kevin at November 5, 2006 8:33 PM
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