Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [31]
“Can I talk to her?”
“No. She’s recovering.”
“Can I talk to him? I want to talk to him.” I’m desperate now.
Dad nods. “Matt? Hi. Sorry. Look, Andi’s worried about her mother. She wants to speak with you,” he says, then hands me the phone.
“Hello, Andi. How’s Paris?” Dr. Becker asks me.
“Is my mother okay?”
“She reacted badly to a drug. Nausea and vomiting, mainly. It’s not uncommon.”
“Is she painting? She’s not too sick to paint, is she?”
There’s a pause, then Dr. Becker says, “Andi, your mother needs to face her grief. If there’s any hope of her becoming functional again, she needs to confront her loss head-on, not submerge her feelings in her artwork.”
“Okay, yeah, but she needs to paint,” I say, in no mood for his shrink rap.
Another pause, then, “No, she’s not painting.”
“But I packed her paints for her. And a portable easel and some canvases. I left them in her room. I showed her where I put them.”
“I know you did. I removed them.”
“You what?” I say. And then it’s zero to lava in five seconds. “You weasel! I can’t believe you did that!”
“Give me the phone,” Dad says. He walks toward me, reaching for it, but I turn around so he can’t take it.
“Andi, I realize you’re upset, but I assure you, your mother will make progress with drug therapy. Visible, measurable progress,” Dr. Becker says.
“You mean she’ll become a zombie. When the drugs work. Like me. And when they don’t, she’ll be a total psycho. Like me.”
“As I was saying, we’ll be able to chart her progress—”
“Progress? How is a painter not painting progress? What’s she doing? Making potholders? She needs her paints and her brushes. Don’t you get that?”
“Andi—”
“It’s a good thing you and your pills weren’t around a few hundred years ago or there never would have been a Vermeer or a Caravaggio. You’d have drugged Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Taking of Christ right the hell out of them.”
“Andi!” Dad says. He’s got hold of the phone now. He’s pulling it away from my head.
I call Dr. Becker a douche. I tell him I want to speak to my mother. He tells me I can’t. Not in this state. I’ll only upset her. Then I call him something worse.
“That’s it,” Dad says, wrenching the phone out of my hand. He holds it to his head. “I’m sorry, Matt. I need a few minutes. I’ll call you back.”
He hangs up, then starts yelling at me. “That was totally uncalled for. You are out of control. You’re going to calm down and then you’re going to call Dr. Becker back and apologize.”
I’m so upset, I’m pacing around and around the table. “Why’d you do it?” I yell back. “Why’d you put her in that place?”
“To help her get better. She’s sick, Andi.”
“She was getting better! She’d stopped crying all the time. She’d stopped throwing things. She needs to be home. In her house. With her work.”
Dad says nothing for a few seconds, then he says, “You need to stop. You need to let go. You think you can fix it. Fix her. You think you can make it better, and if you can do that, then—”
“Do you remember ‘The Frog Prince’?” I say, cutting him off.
“The what? No. No, I don’t.”
“It was Truman’s favorite story when he was little. It goes like this: Once there was a young prince. He had a servant. One day the prince was taken away and changed into a frog. When this happened, the servant’s heart broke. Only three iron bands could hold it together, only they could—”
“Life’s not fairy tales. Don’t you know that by now?”
“Mom’s heart is broken.”
“Andi, your mother told you. I told you. The counselor told you. Everyone told you. It wasn’t your fault.”
I laugh. Or try to. It comes out like a moan.
Dad takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose. We stay like this, standing across the room from each other, for a minute or so. And then I can’t do it anymore.
“I’m going out,” I say.
“Fine. Do what you like. I give up,” he says.
“Gave up,” I correct him. “A long time ago.”
I grab my guitar and my bag and run down the stairs and out of the