Andrew Gross - Eyes Wide Open

I threw myself on the bed and thought about Evan and his last visit to our house. How everyone thought he was so weird, no matter how much I tried to defend him: He was smart. The odds were stacked against him. He was my brother’s son.

“He doesn’t even know how to order food, Dad,” Sophie had said. “He always seems a bit stoned out.”

“He does spend a lot of time off in space,” Kathy said. “You have to admit he’s a bit weird.”

I told them, “He’s on medication, guys. Cut the kid some slack.”

“I’m sorry, but he gives me the creeps,” said Maxie. “How much longer is he going to stay?”

I spent the next couple of hours watching a baseball game and picking at a burger from room service. Around four my phone rang. I was happy to see it was Kathy.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey…” I exhaled wearily.

“You sound exhausted. How are they doing? I called a little while ago, but neither really wanted to talk.”

“Devastated. How else could they be? You’re not going to believe how it happened, Kathy.”

I told her everything I’d learned. How Evan had been looking to buy a gun. How he was taken in and put in isolation after trying to beat up Gabby, and then released after only a couple of days. To the care of a halfway house that let him walk out the door.

“That’s just so awful, Jay.”

“Someone has to get to the bottom of this for them. They’re not capable. It’s tearing them apart.”

She hesitated just a bit. “Get to the bottom of what, Jay?”

We hadn’t always seen eye to eye about things with my brother and Evan. Usually, it was how we were always coming to their rescue. First, for a nicer place for them to live. Then tutoring for Evan. Then when he smashed up the car. And finally bailing them out from under all that credit card debt. “When do they try, just a little?” Kathy would say. “Gabby can work. Our kids get summer jobs; why not Evan?”

But mostly, it was that incident with Max.

It was on Evan’s last trip east. He and Maxie were playing a little one-on-one in the driveway. Something set them off. Things always seemed to cross the line with Evan.

I was in the den, flipping through some medical magazines. Suddenly I heard screams. Sophie’s. From outside. “Get off, Evan. Get off! Mom! Dad! ”

I bolted up.

Somehow Kathy, who was in the kitchen, got there ahead of me. She jumped on Evan’s back, Evan’s arm wrapped around Maxie’s neck; Maxie was turning blue.

“Evan, let him go! Let him go! ” Kathy screamed, but at six feet, close to two hundred pounds, Evan was too big for her. “You’re going to kill him, Evan!”

“First he has to take it back…” Evan squeezed tighter. “ Right, Max? ”

Max couldn’t take anything back. He was gagging.

Kathy screamed, unable to pry him away. “ Jay! ”

I got there a second later and ripped Evan off by the collar, hurling him across the lawn.

My nephew just sat there, eyes red, panting. “He called me a frigging freak!”

Max had had bronchial issues from the time he was three. He needed a respirator back then, twice a day. His face was blue and his neck was all red and twice its normal size. He was in a spasm, wheezing convulsively.

I knew immediately he had to get to the hospital. I threw him in the car and told Kathy to get in. I called ahead to the medical center. In eight minutes we were there. They immediately placed him on oxygen and epinephrine. His airway had closed. Acute respiratory distress. Five minutes more and he might have been dead.

When we got back home, Evan tried to say he was sorry.

But it didn’t matter. Kathy never quite forgave him. She wanted him out of the house.

The next day I drove him to the airport and he was gone.

“I need to get to the bottom of why he was let back on the street, Kathy,” I answered.

She didn’t respond right away. “Look, I know I haven’t always been the most supportive when it comes to this… You’re right, they need you, Jay. Do what you can. Just promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Just promise me, this time, you won’t let yourself get drawn in. You know how you always get when it comes to your brother.”

Drawn in… Meaning it always ended up costing us something. I didn’t want to debate it, and the truth was, she was probably right.

“Deal, ” I said.

T he next morning, I called the county coroner’s office and set up a meeting with Don Sherwood, the detective handling the case-the only person, Charlie and Gabby said, they could get any straight answers from.

He was the one who had knocked on their door two days earlier and asked if Evan was their son-he had ultimately been identified through fingerprints from his police record-and after asking them to sit, showed them the photos of Evan in the county morgue.

Sherwood said he’d be nearby in the early afternoon and we could meet at the station in Pismo Beach around one P.M. I told him we’d be there.

My next call was to the psych ward at the Central Coast Medical Center. I asked for Dr. Derosa.

The nurse who answered asked who I was, and I gave her my name and told her that I was a doctor from back in New York and Evan Erlich’s uncle. She kept me on hold awhile and finally she came back on saying how very sorry they all were, but that the doctor would be out all day on an outside consult and would have to get back to me.

I left my number and said that I’d be around only a few days. I figured I’d hear back in a couple of hours.

A few minutes before one, I went with Charlie and Gabby to the one-story police station on Grand Street and met Detective Sherwood in a small interrogation room there.

He seemed to be in his midfifties, ruddy complexioned, with a husky build and thick salt-and-pepper hair. He stood up when we came in, gave Charlie a shake with his thick, firm hands and Gabriella a warm hug. Charlie had said Sherwood had worked for the local PD and coroner’s office for more than twenty years.

“How’re you holding up?” he asked them, motioning to us to sit down at a table in the cordoned-off room.

“Not so good,” Gabriella said, shrugging sadly.

Sherwood nodded empathetically. “I understand.”

“This is my brother, Jay, from New York,” Charlie said. “He’s a doctor.”

The detective sized me up-my blazer; an open, striped dress shirt; jeans my wife had picked out for me-and showed a little surprise.

“Thanks for seeing us,” I said.

“No problem at all.” He nodded. “Very sorry for your loss.”

“My brother and sister-in-law have a few questions they’d like to ask,” I said. “Not only about Evan, about what happened… but also about his treatment at the hospital. How he could have been released after just a few days and put in a place where he was essentially allowed to roam free. I’m sure you understand how this isn’t sitting well with them.”

“I know you have some issues.” He looked at Charlie and Gabriella. “We’ve scheduled an autopsy and a toxicology lab later today. But I’m happy to fill you in on the details of what I know.”

“Thank you.” Gabriella nodded gratefully.

“Some time late Thursday afternoon,” the detective said, opening a file, “Evan apparently left the halfway house in Morro Bay saying he was going to take a walk.”

Charlie narrowed his eyes. “ A walk? My son was medicated.”

“The woman who runs the facility suggested she took it as a positive sign. His first day there, he’d been pretty withdrawn.”

“They told me they were putting him in a restrictive facility,” Gabby said bitterly. “That woman killed my son.”