Diane Chamberlain - Breaking The Silence

“Now, don’t jump to conclusions, ma’am. Did your husband suffer from depression?”

She nodded. “Terribly. I should have realized how bad it had gotten, but—”

“He has an old scar obviously made from a bullet in his left shoulder,” the officer said. “Was that from some previous botched suicide attempt?”

“No. He got that fighting in Korea.” He had survived Korea. He had not survived his marriage to her. Guilt rested like a boulder in her chest.

The police officer nodded at Emma. “Do you think I could ask her a couple of questions?”

Laura leaned back to shift Emma’s head from her shoulder. “Honey,” she said, “can you tell the policeman what happened? Can you tell me? ”

Emma looked at them both in silence, her eyes glazed. And that’s when Laura realized that her daughter had not spoken a single word since she’d gotten home.

LAURA SAT NEXT TO STUART, RAY’S YOUNGER BROTHER AND only sibling, during the memorial service at Georgetown University. Ray had taught at Georgetown for many years, and the chapel was completely full. People stood in the rear of the building, some of them forced into the foyer by the crowd. Many were his former sociology students and fellow professors. Ray had left his mark at the university.

He’d left his mark in the streets, as well. A busload of homeless people and the staff from several shelters were already sitting in the chapel by the time Laura arrived. The news of Ray’s death had brought an outpouring of sympathy from the entire metropolitan D.C. area. Ray had been loved and respected. She hoped he had known that. He’d been so wrapped up in his inability to get his book published these last few years that he’d lost sight of all the good he’d accomplished. Seeing the somber crowd in the chapel made her heart ache. She wasn’t sure how she would get through this service.

She glanced at her brother-in-law. Stuart gazed straight ahead, and she could see the tight line of his jaw as he struggled to maintain control. She wrapped her hand around his arm. The hardest call for her to make after Ray’s death had been to Stuart. He lived in Connecticut, and as a marketing representative for a textbook company, he traveled frequently. She’d worried he might be on the road, but she’d found him at home. Stuart had cried when she told him. Big gulping sobs that frightened her, they were so out of character for him. He’d adored and admired his older brother. Ray was all the blood family Stuart had.

Stuart was staying in the town house while he was in Leesburg, but he was staying there alone. Laura had barely been able to set foot in the house since finding Ray’s body. All evidence of his death had been scrubbed away by some people the police had recommended, but still, it was impossible to be there, to sleep there, without feeling Ray’s presence. Stuart, though, had no negative images attached to the town house. Besides, he told her, he would feel closest to Ray there.

Laura and Emma had been staying in the vacant, above-garage apartment of some friends. As soon as Laura could get things organized, she planned to move Emma and herself out to the lake house. She’d told the Smithsonian and Johns Hopkins she would be taking some time off, sending them scrambling to find replacements for her. She would probably sell the town house. She could not imagine ever living there again.

Nancy Charles, one of the geologists from the Smithsonian, stopped at Laura’s pew, leaning over to take her hand.

“I’m so sorry,” Nancy said. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay.” Laura tried to smile.

“You just lost your father, and now dear Ray. It’s not fair.”

“No,” Laura agreed.

“How’s Emma?” Nancy asked. “She’s not here, is she?”

“She’s with a sitter.”

“Do you need any help with her?”

“No. Thanks, though,” Laura said. “It’s been rough on her, but she’s hanging in there.”

John Robbins, a minister who’d worked with Ray in creating programs for the homeless, stepped into the pulpit, and Nancy whispered goodbye. John began to talk, and although Laura struggled to listen, her mind was still on Emma, who had refused to come to the service. All the energy Laura had put into doing everything “right” with Emma after Poppa’s death had drained her, and she had no reserves left to help her daughter cope with this new tragedy. She was angry at Ray for piling a second loss on Emma in such a short time. And, of course, she felt guilty for her anger.

Emma had not uttered a single word in the four days since Ray’s death. A policewoman had spoken to her the day after it happened, her questioning gentle and sensitive. Emma had sucked her thumb, something she had not done in more than a year, as she stared blankly into the woman’s eyes. She’ll come around, the policewoman assured Laura. Laura should talk to her, she said. Draw Emma’s feelings about the trauma out in the open. But Laura could not get Emma to speak. Not through gentle coaxing, or sharing her own feelings, or even trickery. Emma had lost her voice.

It was Emma she thought of now, through speaker after speaker, until Stuart finally stood to deliver his eulogy. She found it difficult to look at her brother-in-law as he took his place in the pulpit; his resemblance to Ray was striking. He had Ray’s bulky body, his large, soft chin, straight nose and wire-rimmed glasses. Nearly the only difference was that Stuart still had a full head of dark hair, while Ray had lost much of his.

“Ray Darrow was a caring brother, a loving husband and father, a dedicated teacher, a volunteer committed to the homeless, and a writer of uncommon talent,” Stuart said. “He was my only brother, my only family, and he was also my best friend. He was the sort of person you could tell anything to, and he wouldn’t judge you or criticize you. As most of you know, his primary concern was the welfare of others. He was a good man, and the good are often those that suffer the most. Depression had been his enemy all of his life, and he bore frustration poorly. He bore failure poorly. He bore his inability to help others poorly. He wrote a book, No Room at the Inn, a beautiful work of art and compassion he hoped would draw attention to the plight of the homeless and the poor, but no one would publish it. It was decidedly unglamorous. And finally he could take it no more.”

Stuart bowed his head, and Laura could see that he was struggling for composure. She willed him to find it, even though she was losing it herself. Behind her, she heard sniffling.

Stuart continued. “Those of you here who are committed to the same causes that so moved my brother, please continue them in his name,” he said. “That is what he would have wanted.”

Later that night, Laura and Stuart sat together in the tiny living room of the above-garage apartment. Emma was already in bed, but the door to her bedroom was open to let in some light, and Laura spoke quietly in case she could hear them.

“I don’t think it was so much the book that made him kill himself,” she said. She was sitting next to Stuart on the love seat, facing the blue-curtained windows that looked out on her friends’ house. “I think it was me.”

“You?” Stuart said. “He thought the sun rose and set on you, Laurie. Don’t be crazy.”

“There was a lot going on you don’t know about.” She brushed a thread from the sleeve of her sweater. “I think that after I found the last comet, he began to feel like a failure. He kept getting rejection letters while I was getting funding for research and my picture in Newsweek and Time. I stayed at the observatory in Brazil for too long. I was very wrapped up in myself. Laura Brandon and her career. I left him alone too much.”