Read The Broken String for Free Online

chaplain’s hand on my elbow, and soon we were in an airless room no bigger than a closet, but there was a chair behind a small desk. I sank into it and looked up at the three of them.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so tired.”
    The nurse pulled a pager from the waistband of her scrubs. She looked at it, then at the men. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ll try to get back.” She nodded in my direction, then quickly rushed from the room.
    The chaplain smiled at me. “Extraordinarily busy place,” he said, then added, “unfortunately.” He was far younger than I’d thought him to be when we were out in the hallway. Not much older than me. He had ancient gray eyes, though. I thought his eyes had seen more hardship than I could imagine.
    “It’s good you’re here,” the psychologist said. He was decades older than the chaplain and his face was riddled with deep lines. “It will be good for him to see family.”
    “I hope so,” I said. I wasn’t sure about that.
    “Although,” the psychologist continued, “he’s so drugged up that I’m not sure how lucid you’ll find him.”
    “His parents couldn’t come?” the chaplain asked.
    My neck was beginning to stiffen from looking up at them. “My mother is sick and can’t travel,” I said, “and my father’s taking care of her.”
    “That’s rough,” the psychologist said. “A lot going on in your family. So”—he shifted from one foot to the other—“are you close to Daniel?”
    There was that question again. “I used to be.” I pushed the chair back a few inches so I didn’t have to crane my neck to see them. “We were really close when we were kids.” So many examples of that closeness flashed through my mind. Telling silly jokes in his bed during a thunderstorm. The day he broke the plates to save me. The myriad ways he protected me. The memories were like a long string of events that bound me to him. Somehow, though, that string had broken. The anger that had always been a part of him took over, finally pushing me away as well as our parents. “Not so much anymore,” I said.
    “The few times he’s been alert enough to know what’s happening,” the psychologist said, “he’s talked about guilt. You know, that he’s in here while his buddies are still out there in harm’s way. He talks about wanting to die, so be sure to let him know you love him and that other people love him. Give him a reason to want to live.”
    Oh no.
I swallowed hard. “Our sister killed herself,” I said.
    “Oh,” the chaplain said, and both men took a step back from me. They understood the significance of what I’d just said: Suicide ran in families.
    The psychologist frowned. “Was he very close to her?” he asked.
    I shook my head. “She was much older. She was my age now when she died. Seventeen. Danny would only have been about six. I don’t remember her at all and I don’t know how well he does. She drowned herself in a river near our house.” I had nightmares about Lisa, the little violinist with the white-blond hair. The one child who could make our mother smile. In my nightmares, I saw her at the river’s edge, waiting to take that first step into the cold water that would end her life. “We never really talk about her,” I added.
    “Do you know her psychiatric diagnosis?” The psychologist hadn’t lost his frown.
    “Just … I don’t know, really, but she was a child prodigy on the violin. She was under too much pressure to perform.”
    “Well, with that family history, we—and you—will have to keep a very close eye on Daniel,” the psychologist said.
    “I’m afraid to see him.” I blurted it out. Here I’d traveled all this way, and now I didn’t know if I could do what I’d come here to do.
    “What are you afraid of?” The chaplain’s voice was gentle.
    I looked at the top of the small bare desk in front of me. What
was
I afraid of? I didn’t know Danny anymore. He’d felt like a stranger for years. I feared