Wilde Fire

Chapter 22: November 2010

The car ride home from Riverside Psychiatric, two weeks after Ben was admitted, was utterly silent. The only noise was the soft hum of the car engine, the occasional wind-blown rustle of a passing vehicle, the shallow breaths that escaped the mouths of the four people seated in the car. The silence, however calm it should have been, was deafening.

I glanced over at Ben, who sat completely still in the backseat beside me. His hands were clasped together firmly in his lap, the veins in his arms creating jagged road maps on his pallid skin. He was seated upright, yet his eyes had been closed the entire ride, as if he were deep in sleep. Every once in a while, I would take another glance at him, waiting to see the rustle of an eyelash, the twitch of a lip, any sign of life within him.

Much to my dismay, it was becoming clear that his stay at the psychiatric hospital had completely sucked every ounce of his being from his core. He was not my brother anymore, he was simply a shell.

Even though his facial expression was nonexistent, I knew how guilty he was. I could still hear his cries from that night at the hospital, when he realized what he had done to the girl he loved. Then again, I still didn't quite understand what went on in my brother's mind.

The events that occurred on Halloween night made me open my eyes to the reality of what was happening to him. When he left for treatment and was no longer around to hover over the computer and monitor my search history, I started my research again. Only this time, I was determined to find ways to help him.

Ben's brain, like everyone else's, was a file cabinet full of thoughts, ideas, and memories. Everything was stored in these files, in pristine order, arranged in a unique way that helped mold him into who he was. The problem was that Ben's file cabinet was sitting on a fault line. All it took was one wrong move, a rumble along a sensitive part of the fault line, and the seismic waves would cause the earthquake. The earthquake would shake the ground so hard that his file cabinet scattered. He couldn't think clearly and he couldn't remember right from wrong, because none of it was in order anymore. His manic episodes were the earthquake; the moments when he was angry and hostile and capable of harming the people he loved. The aftermath, after the ground settled and we were left to pick up the pieces, was his depression.

We were in the midst of the aftermath now.

The car idled in front of the house, and Ben reached for his seatbelt and opened the door in small, robotic movements. He walked up the porch stairs, and I watched him, wondering if he would turn around and try to catch a glimpse across the street. To my dismay, he walked through the front door without so much as a turn of the head.

I let my parents follow him inside, holding the door open for them just so I could take my own look at the house across the road. In the blinds of the upstairs window, I swore I saw a pair of eyes watching us. But the blinds closed almost as quickly as the gaze had appeared.

I knew what our parents had discussed. I knew what rules we were to abide by once Ben was back home with us, but I was shocked that he was following along with them so easily. The old Ben would fight back and argue until he got his way. The Ben I saw now was stoic and seemingly unfaltered by what was happening.

I closed the front door behind me, slipping my coat off and hanging it on the hook by the door.

"I'll call you both down when dinner is ready," my mother said softly. She retreated to the kitchen, my father following close behind her.

My mother hadn't cooked a lot in the past few months. We had mainly been surviving on fast food and frozen meals, due to Ben's absence both before and during his stay at Riverside. It was rare that Ben came home in time for dinner, especially during those months after his diagnosis, so my mother chose not to cook at all. I was okay with it. I knew that the situation was difficult for everyone, so I didn't want to make it worse by complaining.