This Post Brought To You By Insomnia...

Yeah... don't ask where this came from. I have no idea. Ok, yes I do - 3:30 a.m. is where this came from. I know. Get help, yadda yadda yadda. Just remember: If I was normal, you folks would miss this me and you know it.

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"How is he today?"

"The same, I'm afraid," the doctor replied. "There's been no change at all. That could be a good thing, you know. At least he's not getting worse."

"Right. Thank you, doctor. I appreciate all you've done." With that, he shook the doctor's hand and the physician left them alone. He had been going there once a week, making the three hour drive every Saturday, only to spend less than an hour with his baby brother before heading back. Jeffrey hadn't spoken a single word in over six months.

"Jeff? Hey little brother. It's me, Eric." Eric tried to mix up his greetings, though no matter what he tried, Jeffrey never responded. He just stood there, at the window, staring out into the courtyard below. It was a park-like setting, with stone paths winding their way around a central fountain. The path was lined with pink peony flowers, and the scent wafted up to Jeffrey's third floor room. Had he not know better, he might have thought it to be a city park instead of the small inner sanctum of the Chandler Conservatory. Most people knew the place by its more common moniker - The Crazy Cabin.

"So, Emily is doing well. Straight A's this semester," Eric informed him. Emily was the baby of the family, and by far the smartest. She would easily graduate from university with a 4.0 average and already had several job offers before she had even completed the first semester of her last year. Jeffrey had always been so proud of her. Well, he had.

"Mom and dad miss you, too. Mom even said she would make you a bacon pizza if you wanted one." Eric had hoped that the mention of bacon might at least solicit a chuckle. Nothing. He wished he could blame his brother's catatonic state on the meds, but the truth was, he wasn't on any. Eric tried a few more times to get his brother to engage, with the same, non-responsive results. Exasperated, Eric tried one more thing before leaving.

"I visited Caitlin this morning. I brought her the daffodils you said she liked, and cleaned away the leaves. I told her I was coming to see you." Eric let his statement linger in the air. Nothing. "Ok then, pal. I'll see you next week. I love you little brother," Eric said has he turned to leave. He was nearly to the door of the common area and had motioned for the guard to unlock the gate when he could have sworn he heard his brother's voice. He stopped, without looking back, afraid that if he did he might not hear it again. Faintly, though, Jeffrey's voice revealed itself for the fist time since October.

"I loved her," he said simply. Eric rushed back to his brother's side at the words.

"Loved who, Jeffrey?"

"Caitlin!" He exclaimed, as if there was anyone else he would have loved. "Where is she? Is she coming? Can I see her?"

Eric let out a deep sigh. As much as he wanted to communicate with his brother, this was not the fist conversation he had wished to have. "No, Jeffrey, Caitlin's not coming, I'm sorry."

"How come?"

"Jeffrey, Caitlin's, well, Caitlin is... Caitlin is dead, Jeffrey." Eric cringed the second the words escaped his lips. As this was the first communication of any kind in which Jeffrey had participated since it happened, Eric wasn't sure of his reaction. “Jeffrey, there was an accident. Caitlin was hurt, and she didn’t recover. Do you remember?”

Jeffrey squinted as he attempted to comprehend his brother’s words. “Oh,” was all he said to acknowledge his brother before turning back to the window. The truth was that there was no accident. Caitlin and Jeffrey were engaged to be married. A week before the wedding, at Caitlin’s bachelorette party, she drank a little too much, did a little dancing at the club. She awoke the next morning lying in a stranger’s bed, one whom she had no recollection of meeting. Overcome with guilt, Caitlin decided that a mixture of Ambien and Xanax would relieve Jeffrey of the shame of marrying her. That was nearly six months ago to the day, and the words Jeffrey spoke to Eric in the common room at the Conservatory were the first to leave his lips since Caitlin’s funeral.

Eric stood there in silence as his brother contemplated. When it seemed as if Jeffrey wouldn’t speak again, he turned to leave. Jeffrey surprised him once more.

“Is it nice?”

“Is what nice, Jeff?”

“Caitlin’s grave. I don’t remember.”

“Yes. It’s beautiful.”

“And you brought her daffodils? Those were her favorite.”

“Yes, Jeffrey. I brought her some daffodils.”

“Eric?”

“Yes, Jeffrey?”

“I know it wasn’t an accident. You don’t have to lie.”

Eric really wasn’t quite sure how to react to that. At first it seemed as if Jeffrey was unaware of his fiancée’s death, yet now he was not only acknowledging it, but indicating that he knew the cause. Eric didn’t want to do or say anything that would plunge his brother back into the darkness from which he was finally emerging, so he simply nodded and said “ok.”

“Eric, did she leave a note? Message? Anything? Did she ever leave any kind of explanation?”

Eric sighed. “No, Jeff, she didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Jeffrey stared at him blankly for a moment before turning back to the window and the courtyard below. Without turning back to his older brother, he spoke for the last time that day.

“I think I’d like to go home, now.”

Eric spoke with the doctors before he left the conservatory to determine what steps he needed to take in order to have his brother released. As Jeffrey had been catatonic and unable to communicate until now, Eric had been named conservator of Jeffrey’s person and property. Any decisions to be made regarding his health were Eric’s and Eric’s alone. Their parents could neither deal with the stress nor the stigma of having a “mentally ill” child, so Eric took it upon himself to care for his brother. The part about their mother making Jeffrey a bacon pizza had been a lie. In fact, Eric hadn’t spoken to his parents in over three months.

Jeffrey would have to undergo an evaluation, and barring anything out of the ordinary in that evaluation, would be released to Eric’s care under a strict set of parameters. Eric lived alone in a condominium further upstate, and generally worked from home. Caring for his brother shouldn’t be an issue for him, and frankly he was excited at the prospect of his brother snapping out of whatever it was that had kept him silent for so long. He thought a great deal about his discussion with the doctors as he made the three hour ride home, and was mentally exhausted when he finally walked through the door.

The first thing he did, after removing his coat and dropping his keys on the table by the door, was walk up the stairs to the loft that served as his office. Eric slid the center drawer of his desk open and stared at the small envelope. It was still sealed. He picked it up, tapped it to the tip of his nose several times, and sighed heavily. Eric was hungry, so he dropped the envelope back into the drawer and went downstairs to the kitchen.

The dainty, cursive handwriting on the front of the pale blue envelope read, simply, “For Jeffrey, my love.”

© J.J. Goodman 2013. All rights reserved.