Rise: How a House Built a Family(27)

I thought about calling someone for help, but who could I call without making things worse? Calling the police, a psychiatrist, or even my mom would infuriate him. Besides, I’d learned that lesson. Being a tattletale makes the bullies hit harder, and no one, not even your family, can save you. Sleep felt close, but just out of reach, so I practiced breathing deep and relaxing every muscle from my toes up. By the time I reached my neck, I was in the quiet, peaceful place where meditation had been leading me.

When Adam unlocked the front door, I woke and picked up the phone. It was four, and the caller ID said I had ninety-seven missed calls from an unknown number. He didn’t come into the bedroom, and I went back to sleep instead of checking on him when I heard the door to his office close. I didn’t have the strength for another round of paranoid ramblings.

The next alarm was the real thing, and I didn’t have time for snooze. I woke Hope and Drew for school and got breakfast on the table. Jada could sleep a little longer before I took her to day care and went to my college classes. My stomach clenched when I tried to work out a time to tell Adam he had to leave.

He didn’t answer when I knocked on his office door or when I pushed it open and called his name. An odd, sour smell hit me, promising that things were very wrong before I had the chance to see. I took a step back, pulling the door with me. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to know. I’d rather just close the door tight and never open it again. But of course that wasn’t the right thing to do, so I pushed in again, walking fast.

He was on the small green sofa in only his underwear, sitting upright with his chin on his chest. He might have been only sleeping. But he wasn’t. A dozen pill bottles were on the sofa next to him. Handfuls of pills had spilled on the floor and the cushions, technicolor droplets of life or death. He had thrown up on his chest and a throw pillow that I’d once embroidered with a poem. A yellow legal pad balanced on his left thigh. No business plans, no equations, no patent ideas this time. It was a suicide note with ramblings so insane they read like a bad movie script.

Part of me thought what a relief he must feel to be at peace.

The pills hadn’t been his first choice of suicide, I knew that. A long sword was next to him and a shorter dive knife. On the floor was a book about Japanese honor deaths, suicides by a knife to the stomach. He had told me before that he thought it was a good way to die.

I noticed his chest move up in a shallow breath. Back down again and up. I scanned the room, looking at everything but his chest, thinking about everything but the decision I had to make. Not long ago I would have said there was no question, I had to try to save him. But that was before I’d seen the torture every day had become for him and everyone around him. That was before I knew that I had to make him leave and that even then he might never stop torturing us.

If I walked away and closed the door, waited just a little longer, he would have what he wanted. Was that the merciful thing to do? I didn’t ponder the idea for as long as it felt. I went to my bedroom and called 911, finding it impossible to speak in more than a squeak of a whisper.

Then I went out to the kitchen, where the kids were still eating their cereal. “Adam’s sick and an ambulance is coming to get him,” I told them. “He’ll be fine though.”

Hope and Drew nodded, reading the lies on my face and not bothering to ask questions that would never get straight answers. I called my mom then, and she pulled in beside the ambulance, dressed for work. She got the older kids off to school and played with Jada while they wheeled Adam out the door. He didn’t wake up or even move a muscle. I still didn’t know if I had been too much of a coward to do the right thing.

A tall, lanky police officer asked me all the wrong questions, and I didn’t have the energy to spoon-feed him the right ones. I was going into shock, and no one seemed to notice until my mom wrapped a blanket around my back and hugged me. Then the falling-apart began in earnest.

By the time the police left, Adam’s mom had arrived. I didn’t want her in the house, maybe because I felt more guilt there. I ran outside barefoot in my pajamas. It was cold enough that I regretted not grabbing a coat, but I didn’t turn back. Ivana, Adam’s mom, had parked with the front wheels on the slab outside the garage, one back wheel on the driveway and one in the grass. She was standing with her phone pressed to her right ear and her hand at her neck, clutching at a gold shawl that belonged with a cocktail dress. Her eyes were frantic, smeared with yesterday’s makeup, and her hair was frizzy. A pair of delicate blue house slippers with fuzz around the ankles completed a list of fashion faux pas Ivana Petrovic would never commit under normal circumstances.

“No, Sophie. We are not going to sit back and wait,” she said, then snarled at the phone and disconnected the call with three more finger jabs than necessary.

“What is—”

“Do you know what’s going on? Why he did this? Tell me about his note.” Her eyes were huge and unblinking.

My heart ached for her. This was how I would feel if something went wrong with my son. “I don’t know. He went somewhere last night and called but he wasn’t making sense. He was … ‘manic’ is the word, I guess. It was after midnight though, and I didn’t answer when he called back. He said—he said things that weren’t nice. It was crazy talk.”

Her phone rang and she sucked in a breath through her teeth. “It’s Crevits. Officer Crevits.” She stared at the screen, pale enough to pass out and incapable of answering.