Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day(2)

Dan Pace never says anything to the people who say those things to him. Neither does his wife. They’re both too busy dying by inches, sinking deeper and deeper into themselves, until the light can no longer reach them. Jenna ran.

Maybe Jenna was the lucky one.

Maybe Jenna is still running.





2: Manhattan, 2015


“Hello?”

The voice is timid; the ones who call between midnight and three a.m. usually are. Years of socialization telling them not to bother people that late conspire to keep voices low and tones unsteady, like they’re waiting for me to start yelling. I can’t blame them, but it hurts my heart every time I hear it. No one should have to walk through life so afraid.

“Hi,” I say, smiling warmly, letting the expression echo into my voice. Some of the people who work this shift keep mirrors taped to their monitors so they can see themselves smiling. I don’t do that—I don’t like mirrors—but I appreciate that they’re willing to make the effort. There was a time when they wouldn’t have been. “My name’s Jenna.” I don’t ask my callers for theirs. If they want me to have them, they’ll offer.

“I’m . . . I’m Vicky.”

“Hi, Vicky. What’s going on?”

There’s a pause, brief as an indrawn breath, before she says, “I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m so tired. But I don’t want to go, either. I don’t want to hurt people by going. How can I stay when I don’t want to?”

This is a familiar question, maybe as familiar as the dance of ring and response. Not every call starts this way, but enough of them do that I don’t hesitate before I say, “You can stay, even if you don’t want to, by not going anywhere.”

There’s a shocked pause. Then she laughs, sounding almost relieved. “You say that like it’s easy.”

“No, I don’t. I say it like it’s the hardest thing in the world, because it is.” Patty fought so hard, and she couldn’t stay. Sometimes, even the strongest people get tired. “Do you want to tell me why you’re so tired, Vicky? I’d like to listen, if you feel like talking.”

They don’t always. Some of them just call so they can say the forbidden words out loud: “I want to die.” They mask the statement in metaphor and circuitous language, but at the end of the day, anyone who calls a Suicide Prevention Helpline is saying the same thing. “I want to die, and I don’t know how to say that to anyone, and I don’t know how to talk to the people who care about me without scaring them, and so I’m reaching out to strangers, because strangers are safer. Strangers don’t judge, or if they do, strangers don’t matter. Strangers aren’t real.”

I’m never going to be a person to Vicky. I’m just a voice on the other end of the phone, a temporary moment of connection in a world that has somehow knocked her off-balance, and that’s what she needs right now. We talk about her hobbies. We talk about the shows she’s afraid of missing, about the niece whose ninth birthday party she wants to attend this summer, about her cat, who is old and crotchety and would be lost without her.

We talk about the knives in her kitchen. She agrees to lock them in the closet for the night. Too readily: she’s not a knife girl, not Vicky. I listen to the despair and weariness in her voice and I can see how she ends, strychnine in a mug of hot, sweet tea, the bitter bite of poison hidden under honey, and hope. Hope that dead will be better than alive is, because alive isn’t getting her anywhere. She’s a poison girl, ready to sip from the first flower that promises her oblivion.

I soften my voice, make it as gentle as I can, and ask, “Do you have someone who can keep an eye on your cleaning supplies for you?”

There’s a moment of shocked silence, and I’m afraid I’ve gone too far. I’ve done that a couple of times. They can’t understand how I arrow in on the methods they’ve been considering—and I’ve had to learn not to say anything when the method I pick out of their voices is too esoteric. Drowning’s not common anymore. Falling’s a bit more so, but it’s not one of the big three: firearms, poison, or hanging. Call someone’s intent as something that’s not one of those and I might as well be signing their death warrants myself, because they’ll hang up and never call back, and the people who need us . . .

Well, the people who need us need us. They can’t afford to be scared away because I’m a little overzealous about my job sometimes.

To my relief, Vicky laughs again and says, “I guess I should have been expecting that. Statistically, women are more likely to go for poisons than men are. We don’t like to leave a mess. We spend our whole lives learning how to be . . . how to be as neat and tidy and unobtrusive as possible, and then we go out the same way. Sometimes I think I want to make a huge mess on my way out the door. And then I think about the people who’d have to clean it up, and I’m right back to the poison. Does that make me pathetic?”

“No. It makes you human. It means you care. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with caring.”

“I guess you wouldn’t, would you?” Her voice is softer now. Contemplative. She’s thinking about the conversation we’ve just had—and the real conversation is over now; I can hear that in her voice, just as surely as I’d heard the lure of the poisoned cup. It’s all winding down and goodbyes from here. Maybe I’ll hear from her again; maybe she’ll become one of my regulars, calling to update me on her progress, making sure I know she’s still alive. Then again, maybe not. More than half my callers are one night only, no encores, no repeat performances.