The Unquiet - J. D. Robb [155]
She watched the battle in his expression as he tried to decide if he could reveal any more of his shame and sorrow—felt an urge to cry when his faith in her won out. He sat in the rich green and maroon striped high-backed chair beside the fireplace and crossed his legs, though he was anything but relaxed.
“It took his first suicide attempt to shake some sense into me. I stood at the end of his bed watching him after they pumped his stomach, waiting for the pills he took to wear off—waiting for him to come around and explain himself. I was mad . . . and so oblivious. For weeks he just sat in a chair in his room staring out the window, not talking to me or his therapist or the staff. Anyone. They had him on suicide watch because they suspected he’d try again first chance he got. One afternoon we were sitting there in the silence and I was racking my mind for answers, wondering what I should do with him next, wondering how my parents would have handled it, thinking how awful my mother would have felt if she’d known that her sweet baby, Oliver, had given up on the life she’d given him.” He paused, took a deep breath, and let it out slow. “I must have said something out loud because he looked at me and said, ‘How would I know? I can barely remember her.’
“I was so self-absorbed,” he said, flashing his palms in failure. “All those years and I never once asked him what he was feeling or how he was handling . . . any of it. I didn’t even think about it. I realized that what had started as a cry for a little attention had ended as a scream for help. Even if I had thought about it, I think I would have simply assumed Dad was handling it. My dad, the emotional zombie . . .”
“But you were young, too. You were learning to cope as best you could with your own life. Sorrow is . . . hard. It’s personal, and everyone deals with it differently. You can’t teach someone else how to grieve.”
“No, but you can share it with them. You can be there and listen to them, pay attention and act like you care about them. My dad and I just wandered off and left him hanging. He was a kid. Dad . . .” He shook his head. “I should have been there for Oliver.”
He was. Tell him he was . . . when it mattered most.
“Your dad’s heart was broken.” He nodded, looked away as if recalling. The voice in her head kept issuing orders, but she knew if she gave in to it she’d be lost. “Your parents must have loved each other very much.”
A single chuckle bubbled loose in his chest and he smiled. “Embarrassingly so. My teen years were a nightmare. I couldn’t go anywhere with them. I used to try to tell Oliver how awful they were . . . always holding hands and whispering to each other and laughing and sneaking kisses when they thought no one was looking. Mortifying. And he’d end up crying, from laughing so hard. And the more he laughed, the more I’d exaggerate . . . but not by much.”
“Laughter’s good. They say it’s very healing.”
He nodded, sobering. “I thought so, too. I did. And after that I hung around as much as I could. We moved out here permanently. He loved it here. We both did. We’d hang out. He went to AA meetings, stayed clean, and saw his therapist. He’d sit down there in the gazebo for hours writing in his journal, and every day I thought I could see him getting stronger and stronger. I thought he was getting better. I thought we were