‘How do you know that?’ I asked.
‘Experience and research, Summer. We’re professionals, and it’s a difficult decision, one that I know is hard to hear. But having diagnosed your father with the best of our ability, we think this will help him.’ He cocked his head. ‘He’ll need support through it. You have to believe it will help, too. You have to have faith.’
That was what it came down to-faith. I had to believe, just like people believed when they went to church. But I had believed-I’d believed in the medicine and the psych ward and the therapy and time off and staying here in my childhood apartment instead of living in NYU’s dorms. I had believed in not seeing friends, not having a boyfriend, rushing home after classes in order to make sure he was all right, keeping things even and steady. It went back as long ago as the day of my grandmother’s funeral, when I wanted to run back to Philip’s house and apologize for Steven pulling me away. But I didn’t. I hated, too, that I’d told Philip about my mother and the snow globe incident, that I’d let him see such a flawed side of me. Then again, sometimes I wondered if I’d done it as a defense-so he’d know I was messed up, so he’d know to stay away.
‘Is this kind of thing genetic?’ I asked Dr North.
He looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, there are some findings that say it might be. But it’s hard to tell. But even if there are genetic links, a combination of environmental factors have to be at play, too. One generally doesn’t work without the other.’
I leaned against the wall. Was this all curled up in his DNA? If I studied hard enough, would I be able to decipher and treat it? As much as I tried to forget about Mr Rice spouting out nonsense to my tenth grade class, I couldn’t-not quite. Wouldn’t it be nice if our DNA explained everything? Wouldn’t it be nice if I found one of my mother’s stray hairs, clinging to a sweater she’d left behind, put it under a microscope, and suddenly understand what had driven her to leave us? I could swab the inside of my father’s cheek and decipher why he had crumbled. I could inspect my own blood and absolve or convict myself.
What else was possibly genetic? Messiness? Laziness? What about abandonment? What about duty-what, exactly, kept me here in Brooklyn, while my brother was okay with leaving? Perhaps my actions really could be attributed to a malformed piece of DNA that wasn’t coding for the right protein. Perhaps genetics controlled things as minute as my dreams and my day-to-day actions, and I was bound to my decisions long before I made them. If I saw all that under a microscope, at least I’d know it was something deeply set inside of me, something I couldn’t change.
‘What am I supposed to do if this doesn’t work?’ I asked Dr North.
‘What are you supposed to do?’ Dr North repeated.
‘Yes. What am I supposed to do?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, try not to let this take over your life. I know it’s sometimes unbearable. But it’s not your fault. It’s really not.’
The day after that was a Friday. I went into a sporting goods store on lower Broadway and asked an overweight, sloppy woman behind the counter if I could see a stun gun. It was smaller than I expected. ‘Is it on?’ I asked. She nodded. I hit the switch, watching the metal prongs toss the blue sparks back and forth.
I held my hand out. A hot snap went through me. ‘Jesus Christ!’ the saleswoman screamed. Two boys who had been looking at hunting rifles gawked. The surprise of the jolt had caused me to drop the gun to the floor. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ the saleswoman said.
I picked up the Taser and handed it back to her. My heart was racing, probably from the surprise. My thumb and pointer finger felt blue and numb from where I’d shocked them. It took only a minute or so, though, for the feeling to come back.
13
On the morning of his first procedure, my father and I sat together on the subway, legs touching, even though there was hardly anyone else in the car. He pretended to be very interested in the Captain Morgan ad across the aisle. In the ad, people leaned on each other, holding half-empty tumblers of rum. All of them had fluorescent-green, swirly mustaches penciled in above their upper lips. Captain Morgan peeked out from behind a lamppost, girlish in his frilly shirt. The Captain was here, said the slogan in slashed, green, graffitilike print.
My father turned to me. ‘Now, if something happens, I want you to at least keep Wesley. I’ve contacted a rescue organization for the others. The number’s on the fridge.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen to you.’