Regrets Only (3 page)

By now they would be embroiled in the festivities at the home of Bonnie and Hugh Pepper, their close friends. Although he’d never been to one of what his mother termed their “casual” dinners, he imagined that Mrs. Pepper didn’t really know the meaning of that word. Just look at the Christmas party she’d thrown less than a month before for the best that Main Line society had to offer and their teenage offspring. The big stone house had bowed wreaths hanging in every lighted window. An enormous blue spruce adorned with electric candles and Victorian ornaments filled the entryway. His family—yes, he could say that now, now that the relationship was about to end—had wandered through room after welcoming room, engaging in snippets of jovial conversation, admiring the many roaring fireplaces, eating scallops wrapped in bacon and celery with foie gras. In front of the ebony Steinway his mother had stood arm in arm with his father singing Christmas carols.
Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.
Standing back from the crowd, Avery had put her arm around his shoulder. “It’s Christmas. I’m home for three whole weeks. Your opening is next week. Can’t you be happy?”

“Can’t you?” he’d asked instead of answering.

“My problems are nothing compared to yours.” She’d smiled, playfully tousled his hair, and then returned to the song just in time for the “Rejoice” chorus.

The Peppers’ dinner party tonight was certain to be seated, to go late into the evening, and to include several different bottles of wine, plus champagne with dessert. Nonetheless, when his parents returned home, his father would insist on a nightcap. They wouldn’t think to check his room, wouldn’t realize he wasn’t asleep in bed or watching television in the den. They’d wake up the next morning, stumble into the kitchen for coffee and buttered toast, and begin their search only when he didn’t appear dressed and ready for church by ten o’clock.

He reached into his pocket and removed the bullets.

Foster fingered the metal casings, imagining the potential damage. The bullets were cool in his hand, and he rolled them over one another as if they were lucky dice. His big gamble would be a success.

It seemed as though he’d planned for this moment his entire life. Each morning that he’d spent with the covers drawn over his head and his mind thick with images of long steel blades slicing his face or ripping the flesh of his belly, each day that he could barely concentrate, each afternoon spent paralyzed in his room wondering if he could get his body to cooperate enough to stumble to the bathroom, each evening he’d thrashed on his mattress knowing it was still hours before the gift of sleep might be his, had led inexorably to now. His fifty-minute, three-times-per-week sessions with Dr. Ellery made matters worse. And the antidepressants prescribed for him made life worse still. Tricyclic antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, norepinephrine reuptake blockers, benzodiazepines—he’d tried everything in varying dosages and combinations only to add dry mouth, jitteriness, and impotence to the list of tortures that plagued him. His parents had spent thousands of dollars on unreimbursable experiments that left him feeling more freakish and isolated than he had before. What sixteen-year-old American male didn’t at least get the joy, the release, of masturbating?

The thought made him laugh again, louder this time. But he didn’t have to worry. Aside from the housekeeper, he was alone on more than six acres of countryside. And she was no doubt watching television, still wishing Jay Leno were Johnny Carson. That and a blue moon were at least some things to hope for.

He loaded three bullets and stared at the open chamber now half full. A three-eyed Titan, who today would forge the thunderbolt for him instead of Zeus, looked back at him. He spun the chamber and clicked it shut. He might fail once, but three bullets had to be enough.

“Do you remember when you first began to experience depression?” He’d been asked that question so many times he’d lost track. He’d never had an answer. There wasn’t a time, a life, before or without.

“Is there any activity that gives you any respite? Anything that can even distract you?” Dr. Ellery had asked during his initial interview. He’d thought lacrosse might save him, but he’d had to quit the team after only three weeks. He was too unreliable; he missed games altogether or suited up but found himself unable to play, to follow the rules, even to recognize his teammates. That left only painting. And he’d demonstrated his lack of success in that field. His only show came down at the end of December. The one sale—no doubt a pity purchase by the affluent bar owner—generated $400, hardly enough to cover the framing costs.

He gripped the .38 in his right hand and raised it to his chest. Because of its size, his wrist was at an odd angle and he hoped the kick of firing wouldn’t throw off the bullet’s trajectory. If so, he’d have to shoot again, a prospect he didn’t relish. He knew he had the strength and the ammunition but doubted he had the skill to get off a clean shot if he were already injured.

“Avery.” He said his sister’s name aloud, as he pictured her the week before—her tall, thin body in tight blue jeans, a bright red turtleneck sweater, and a green down vest, her long hair loose about her shoulders. Why had she ever decided to go to boarding school? Why hadn’t she stayed home with him? He’d been unable to stop crying at the thought of her pending departure. Although he’d been desperate to talk to her, to tell her everything he was thinking and feeling, he couldn’t speak. Sensing this, she’d linked her fingers in his and led him out into this field, their boots cracking the frozen twigs and small patches of ice. She’d stopped to pry open a dried milkweed pod with her fingernail, peeling back the rough skin and exposing what was left of the soft white down inside. “We’ll pretend it’s spring in January,” she’d said. Then she’d blown gently, launching the shrunken cluster of seeds into the air. “Make a wish!”

He’d wished she wouldn’t leave. And since that was an impossible dream, he’d wished that where he was going, there would be no capacity to feel loss. She would be the only thing he missed.

With the strength and power of a spiritual mantra, he believed firmly in the special bond of twins. Their entire lives they’d had the rare capacity to experience each other’s emotions, to feel connected in a way that required no explanation. He’d known when Avery had her period for the first time before she’d ever mentioned it. She didn’t need to blush at the mention of Andrew Witherspoon’s name for him to sense she had a crush on the captain of the debate team. He alone could anticipate her rages. And she’d asked him about his drowning nightmares before he’d admitted to anyone that he had them.

Now he wondered about how she would survive without him. He couldn’t have gone on without her. But then again, he couldn’t go on. Period. Would she be his mythological Pollux, willing to sacrifice her life in order to have the two of them remain together? He would gladly pay the price that Pollux had in order to stay with his dead twin brother Castor forever—to spend half of each year in Hades. Six months in Hell seemed worth it to be united for eternity. But at the same time, he wanted Avery to go on, to be happy, to make a life, to make a real family of her own.

He shook his head. Better not to think of her right now. It was too painful, too distracting. He’d written down everything he needed to say and posted the letter earlier in the day. She’d receive it Monday, Tuesday at the latest. By then she’d know of his death. And when she read his words, she’d know why.

As he tightened his grasp on his gun, he realized that his hand trembled. With his left wrist he wiped the moisture from his forehead. His skin felt clammy. The muscles in his face tensed as he squinted in anticipation. It seemed appropriate to recite the Lord’s Prayer, something simultaneously formalistic and spiritual, but the words he’d been forced to memorize in Sunday school and had recited every week since then as part of the Episcopal service suddenly escaped him.

Why had his parents kept him in the dark about his identity? Why hadn’t they told him all along he was adopted? Maybe then he would have understood why his life, his family didn’t feel right. Maybe he could have accepted himself. Maybe he would have taken comfort in Dr. Ellery’s explanation that depression was genetic, chemical, that he was plagued by traits beyond his control. But how could he understand when the Herbert family seemed the bastion of mental health? How could he not feel like a freak when he spent days unable to leave his room? His father never missed an hour at the office, let alone a business trip or client conference, because he wasn’t up for it. His mother never declined a tennis match, never forgot a garden club meeting, and never slept through a parent- teacher conference or a school play. She’d been at the bus stop at precisely the right time to meet him every single day of his entire childhood. That was stability.

“Your best interests were put first and foremost. Don’t think the decisions weren’t difficult,” Dr. Ellery had suggested. “Faith and Bill love you. They wanted to give you and your sister the best possible life, to make you both feel secure”—a prospect that had about a-thousand-to-one odds, and they hadn’t been in his favor.

He lifted the gun and pushed the nose into his chest. Just the hard metal pressing against his skin hurt. He waited. The pounding inside him increased. Perhaps he could will himself to have a massive cardiac explosion so that he’d die of seemingly natural causes. But his heart kept up a ferocious beat, unwilling to quit. If he wanted to end his life he would have to pull the trigger.

Throughout his last night he’d contemplated his options—the body part to target: head, mouth, chest. As the first light of the sun came through his window he’d decided on his chest. One bullet straight to the heart. It was a somewhat impulsive selection, but at some point he had to make a decision. The heart seemed the most lethal. He wouldn’t want to end up in a persistent vegetative state from a misfire to the brain. Sucking on the end of a gun seemed a particularly pathetic last gesture.

Having made his decision, he’d survived the day without changing his mind.

He inhaled deeply, then blew the breath out in a noisy exhale. He wished he had a cigarette. Having never been a smoker, he craved what he imagined was the taste of nicotine, the calming effect of an unfiltered Camel.

He positioned his index finger on the trigger and wiggled it slightly. Come on, Foster. Do this. End this. You’ve said your good-byes.

Then he applied pressure.

The explosion blew out his eardrum. He felt warm liquid run down his neck even before he experienced the excruciating pain, the intense sensation of heat, and the smell of his own charred flesh. The force of the shot had toppled him sideways onto the grass. With his left arm pinned under his body, he couldn’t move. Blood spurted from his chest in a crimson arch. He coughed but no sound came from his throat. He sensed a slight breeze as he struggled unsuccessfully to breathe, but the chill inside him had nothing to do with the frigid temperature.

Don’t fight it, he said to himself. This is what you’ve wanted. This is what you want. And it’s too late to change course anyway.

Jumpstart whinnied, but the familiar sound seemed miles away. He stared up at the night, now a blur of gray and gold. He’d dropped his gun somewhere, and his right hand twitched. He fingered what remained of the front of his shirt, now saturated with blood. There was no longer any air in his lungs.

He scanned the northern sky, hoping to catch a last glimpse of Gemini, his favorite constellation, but the stars twirled, eluding his gaze. The stellar twins—the rectangular arrangement of Almeisan, Mekbuda, Wasat, Pollux, Castor, and Gemini Mebsuta—stayed hidden. Please, he begged, although to whom he didn’t know. Let me see you. Let me know you’re there. Show me that you’re real.

He gasped. His body convulsed involuntarily. Then everything went black.

3

Monday, January 13th 4:12 p.m
.

D
avid Ellery shut the door to his office, closed the Levelor blinds, sat in his ergonomic chair, and pounded his fists into the forest green blotter on his desk. Part of him wanted to cry, but he hadn’t done that in fifty years and wasn’t about to start now. Half a century before, his mother had accidentally run over his dachshund in her Cadillac convertible. He’d been only eight, but he still remembered holding the limp creature in his arms and realizing it was no longer breathing. That day his emotions had gotten away from him and he’d vowed it would never happen again. He’d survived medical school, his father’s death, a psychiatric residency, and a divorce, all without shedding a single tear. Now he would have to add having lost his first patient in thirty years of private practice to the list of adversities he’d faced and overcome in his personal and professional life.

“How could this happen? How come you didn’t stop him?” Faith Herbert had screamed over the telephone, her voice hysterical. “You should have saved him. That was your job. You told us you could help him. We trusted you!”

He’d tried to talk to her, tried to find out what happened, but her words had been incomprehensible. Tears, gasps, and coughs swallowed whatever explanations or details she’d offered. All he’d understood was that Foster was dead, and the Herbert family thought he was to blame.

After what seemed an interminable time, Bill finally had taken the receiver from his wife. His voice was low and controlled, although David had thought he noticed a tremor in the cadence. No surprise. From the several times they’d met, and from what Foster had told him of William F. Herbert, Jr., the man was unlikely to expose his vulnerability. Any sorrow, anger, or other extreme emotion that he was experiencing would be carefully hidden behind the Pennsylvania fieldstone of his mansion.

“We wanted to apprise you of Foster’s death,” Bill had said. “He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The police tell us that the time of death was approximately nine o’clock on Saturday night. We didn’t find him until late afternoon yesterday.”

“Is there anything I can do?” David had asked.