The Moment

I walked in the door from school. My sister was there, her eyes red from crying. She wouldn't have been there for a visit. She packed her things hurriedly and angrily on the day she turned 18, just two weeks ago. She looked at me in a way she never had before, like a silent, desperate plea. I don't remember seeing my mother. She never seemed to have a solid presence at times like this, which is why I sometimes think of her as a ghost.

Then I saw my father; his face was breaking. I had seen him in many states of anger and depression, but never like this.

I was 14.

He was 19. Had been 19.

I clung to something he said, probably casually, but I counted on it. I needed it to happen; I needed to get out of that place that was supposed to be my home. He said he was going to get a bus, and together with some friends would drive to California, and live on the bus. He said I could come, when I asked him. That was 6 months before. Before he went back into the hospital.

Once when we visited him there, and took him out on a day trip, my father thought it would be a good idea to take his troubled, sensitive 14 year old daughter and his mentally unbalanced son to see The Deer Hunter. After seeing the scene where the guy played Russian roulette, we had to leave. My brother and I, not the whole family. We waited in the lobby and talked until they finished the film. The movie was horrific, and had put terrible things in my head, but I was happy we could be alone and talk, and I enjoyed that time with him.

I hoped he would get out again soon. He had been in before, when he was 17, and got out. I hoped we could go soon.

3 days before it happened, I felt a sudden anguish. I’m not one to talk of premonitions, or believe in anything, it’s just what happened. I hadn’t known about his previous suicide attempt when he was 17; they kept that from me. It was sudden and intense. It was odd, and I don’t remember it being prompted by anything. I thought to myself, what am I going to do if he dies? How could he die, I reassured myself, he’s in the hospital, he's safe, they’ll take care of him.

When I saw their faces, I knew what had happened. I knew, but I didn’t want to know, I didn’t want to be told and have it be real, have it solidify. I turned and ran. I screamed “No!” and ran into my room and locked the door. I didn’t want him to follow me. Especially not him. Not the monster. He had done it. My father I mean. He made it happen. He was the reason we all were in pain, he was the reason John shot himself in the head. The fact that my brother was a misdiagnosed bipolar may have played its part, but so did he, to an equal or greater degree.

I didn’t know he was in the hospital voluntarily, and could sign himself out whenever he wanted to, which he did three days before he killed himself.

He was the only one of them that I loved, and I thought the only one of them that loved me, but I don't think he did, really. The mild molestation only complicated and confused things for me.