“Annie, why don’t we just...?”
“No, why don’t we just not!” she shouts, and suddenly drops my hand, and gets to her feet, and begins pacing back and forth before the parapet. “Just leave me alone, okay? I have people telling me day and night that I should be ashamed I was even born, for Christ’s sake, as if I have to apologize for my dual identity! Once you let them steal your identity, you know, they put you in a strait jacket,” she says, and nods, and moves swiftly toward the parapet, and leans over it to look down to the street below. I reach for her and she backs away, almost losing her balance. I stand motionless, afraid to move toward her again, afraid she will throw herself over the parapet if I touch her.
“Once you’ve lost your identity,” she says, pacing back and forth again, “they can smell the contamination all over the world, the other predators, the rapists, they come at you like a swarm of bees after honey, that’s the price you pay, but nobody wants to hold your hand anymore,” she says, and sighs deeply, and turns to me, her back to the parapet now, her hair blowing in the wind, across her eyes, blowing in the wind.
“There’s so much traffic,” she says, squinting her eyes in pain. “So much damn traffic.”
“Yes, come away from there,” I say.
“Not in the street, bro. Here,” she says, and touches her hand to her forehead. “So much traffic. It gets so noisy, bro.”
“I know it does, honey. But we can help you. Let us help you, okay?”
“Oh help me, sure. Help! Help!” she screams in mock terror, and then giggles like a little girl. “The way Dr. Lang helped me, right?”
And suddenly, she sits on the parapet.
And swings her legs over the side.
I almost reach for her.
But she will jump.
Her dress riffles in the wind.
She begins mumbling, not talking to me anymore, talking instead to whatever voices she hears within. Here on the stillness of this scorching roof, the tar so hot it is bubbling in places, the traffic below muted, the voices of the city hushed and distant but rising like an invisible cloud, my sister listens to her own inner voices, and I hope to God they’re not telling her to jump off this roof, I hope to God they are not.
I hold out my hand,
“Annie,” I say. “Take my hand again, okay?”
“They say you’re smarter than I am.”
“No one’s smarter than you are, honey.”
“Everybody’s fucking smarter than I am.”
“Annie, honey... let’s get off this roof, okay? Let’s go someplace where we can talk.”
“We are talking, bro.”
“Give me your hand, hon. Let me help you...”
“I don’t need help! What’s wrong with you? Everybody thinks I need help, what the fuck is wrong with you people? Why do you think I need help?”
“To get off the... the edge of the... the roof there, is what I meant. To help you get down, is what I meant.”
“I can get down all by myself, believe me. I can get all the way down to the street all by myself, so don’t give me any help, okay? I know just where you’re coming from. Go home, okay?”
“Not without you, Annie.”
“Yes, without me. You don’t want to take me home, Andy, I’m mentally ill, go ask Mama, go ask Bellevue or whoever the fuck she called, ‘Are you the party with the mentally ill relative?’ ” she asks in a squeaky little nasal voice. “Jesus, the people in the health care system! Why don’t they just leave me alone? All I want to do...”
She stops.
Squints.
Shakes her head.
“I don’t know what I want to do anymore,” she says. “I’m not even sure my work’s any good anymore, do you think it’s any good?”
“Yes, I think it’s...”
“I just don’t know anymore. I’m so scared it’s not good anymore. I mean, if no one wants to buy it, how can it be any good, am I right? I thought... if I could find someone who liked my work... I mean, really liked it... I mean, my work is me, Andy, it’s my soul, it’s everything I believe. If I could find someone who appreciated it, someone who could really love what I do, then he could love me, too, don’t you see? That makes sense, doesn’t it? Instead of being told how worthless I am all the time? And then... if I could find this man... we could travel together — I really know a lot of beautiful places in this world, bro — we could travel everywhere together, oh just everywhere! I could show him all the beautiful places I’ve been to, I’m not stupid, you know, I really do know a lot about the world. I could take him everywhere, everywhere. But...”
She shakes her head, turns to look into my face.
“There’s no one,” she says.
She shakes her head again.
“I’m all alone, bro, I’m so terribly all alone,” she says, “I’m so lonely all the time,” and suddenly her eyes well with tears.
“Annie,” I say, “you don’t have to be alone.”
“Don’t let them put me in a strait jacket again.”
“I promise.”
“I’m so afraid they’ll put me in a strait jacket again.”
“No. No, they won’t. I’ll tell them not to. No one will hurt you, Annie, I promise. Let me help you. Please, honey. I want to help you.”
She shakes her head.
“We’re not even twins anymore, Andy. We’re so different now.”
“We’re still twins,” I say.
“I loved being your twin.”
“You still are, honey.”
I hold out my hand to her.
It is trembling, but it is there for her to take.
“There’s too much traffic,” she says.
“I don’t care, Annie.”
“Too much noise,” she says, and shakes her head as if to clear it.
“Give me your hand, Annie. Please, dear sister, take my hand. Please. Take my hand, Annie. Please.”
She opens her eyes wide. She searches my face. Suspicion crosses her eyes, and then fear again, and for just a moment, something resembling hope. She thrusts her hand out suddenly, as if against her will, as if forcing it through an invisible barrier, and I grab it at once, firmly, and pull her off the wall, and into the safety of my arms.
She is trembling with fear. Somewhere on the street below, I hear sirens approaching. She looks up into my face Her eyes are wide and frightened. She begins trembling more violently.
“No, don’t worry,” I say.
Her eyes search my face.
“I’ll be here,” I assure her, and in that fleeting moment before she is again gone to her voices, I see in her eyes the distant glistening hope that one day she will become whole again, one day she will truly recover from that terrible moment — so very long ago — when first she lost herself so completely.
“I promise,” I say.
And she nods, but does not smile, my dear sad sister, and says something I cannot comprehend as I lead her away from the edge of the roof.