A World Without You(7)

I’d always pictured the Berkshire Academy like the asylums in horror movies: concrete walls, straightjackets, cold white tile everywhere. But this place is brick and . . . nice. The garden is perfectly landscaped, not a single leaf out of place. Pebbled paths meander through the plants, and I can hear the ocean over the sounds of people mingling. Ivy climbs up the wall, drooping elegantly over the bricks. Berkshire is like a rich old person’s home. Except for the bars on some of the windows.

Inside, everything gleams, from the rich mahogany-paneled walls to the crystal chandeliers sparkling on the ceiling. Oil paintings—of the island, of the school, of past directors—look down on us. Dad veers to the right, joining the line for dinner, but Mom lingers beside me. “Go ahead,” Dr. Franklin tells her. He turns to me. “Are you hungry?”

I shake my head.

“Do you want to go find your brother?”

I shrug.

“Why don’t I give you a tour?”

“Okay.” I don’t really want a tour. I want to leave. I’m discovering that I’d rather not know the details of where my brother spends his weeks, that I prefer ignorance. Seeing this place, these people . . . it all makes Bo’s situation that much more real.

But I go with Dr. Franklin as he leads me down the austere hallway with its tall ceilings and uncomfortable-looking furniture. The carpets spread out over the hardwood floors are thick and soft, and they perfectly match the long, elegant drapes that cascade over the clear glass windows that stretch floor to ceiling in the front hall. “This is our group common area,” the doctor says. “We’ll have Family Day set up here in a few weeks. Are you coming to that?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“I’m sure Bo would appreciate you being there.”

I really doubt Bo would care one way or another.

Dr. Franklin stops at the bottom of a grand staircase that sweeps up to the second-floor landing. “All the floors above are divided by units; there’s an office for each psychiatrist, a common room, classrooms, and living quarters. Bo’s unit is on the second floor, near the library.”

“Nice setup.” I peer up the stairs, but all I see is more mahogany.

The doctor takes a step up, but I hesitate. I don’t really want to see more of the academy. I’m fine here on the main floor, letting the lush red carpets and heavy curtains leave me with the impression that my brother lives in an opulent mansion rather than a school for uncontrollable, borderline-crazy kids. I don’t want to see the bars on his window.

“I get the impression that you’re uncomfortable,” Dr. Franklin says, his eyes locked on me.

I shrug.

“Think of Berkshire as any other school,” Dr. Franklin continues. “It’s smaller, sure—”

“It doesn’t look smaller,” I say.

“Well, there are only about fifty students here, divided into ten units,” Dr. Franklin says. “So it’s smaller in that regard. Having fewer students lets us pay closer attention than the faculty at a traditional high school. Bo’s unit only has five”—he catches himself—“four students. Every session with me, every class, every meal, has no more than those three other students with Bo. Each unit is insular, so it’s almost like we have ten mini-schools rather than one big one. The units become like a family.”

The doctor pauses when he sees my face. He mistakes my look for one of confusion and tries to explain again. “At your high school, you move from classroom to classroom, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Here, we do the opposite. The students stay in one classroom, and our teachers go to them, shifting between units.”

“So Bo has the same classmates all day? Every day?”

Dr. Franklin nods. “Isn’t that nice?” he says, as if it’s me he has to convince. I remember now that this was a selling point for my parents when they were considering the school. They liked that he’d have limited interaction with others, as well as “highly individualized attention.”

“It is if you like the people in your class,” I say. “Kind of sucks if you don’t.”

I want to add that Bo doesn’t need this “unit family,” that he has us, but then I realize: These kids probably know Bo much better than I ever have or ever will.

I shift on my feet. I’m not sure what to say, and Dr. Franklin seems to have run out of things to explain to me. He and I are two separate pieces of my brother’s world, and our interaction feels like oil and water. I don’t like small talk to begin with, but everything about this day has been so weird. I left my own school early to drive straight here, where I had to spend the rest of my Friday afternoon attending the memorial service for a girl I never met and then be given a tour of my brother’s boarding school by the guy who prescribes him antipsychotic drugs. And it’s all coming to a pinpoint of weirdness right here and now, surrounded by a thin veneer of small talk.

I catch my mother’s eye across the room, and she must see the desperation on my face, because she leaves her plate of cheese and crackers and makes her way over to us at the bottom of the staircase. When she reaches us, she strokes my ponytail like I’m a pet, but I don’t mind. Now she can work to fill the empty silences instead of me.

“I haven’t seen Bo here, have you?” Mom asks.