Later he would remember this too, although this memory never made it past his lips to anyone else’s ears: his father looming over him, blue nitrile gloves on his hands, which clamped down on the wound in Tobias’s arm with thick cushions of gauze, his head jerking up when Marie began shrieking at the sight of her bloody scissors in the sink in the bathroom. Tobias would always remember the way Papa dropped into nearly inaudible, trembling Kreyòl. “Kisa ki rive ou?”
What happened to you, he asked, bewildered, as if he couldn’t comprehend that it was Tobias’s choice turning the hall carpet red, Tobias who had acted.
* * *
When they got back from the hospital hours later, his brothers and sisters were in bed already, and Manman was waiting on the sofa in the light of a single lamp, her bare feet tucked up underneath her, a closed book resting on the arm of the chair—something about watercolors, a recent interest—her reading glasses dangling from the chain around her neck. Nadège Alcide rose and cupped his shoulders, holding him at arm’s length long enough to survey his face. Despite the lines of weariness at the corners of her eyes, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. When he was little, he’d thought she must be envied even by the great, perfect loa Erzulie Freda, Vodou goddess of love—a dangerous idea, for Erzulie could be jealous. It had been years before he’d broken the habit of whispering apologies to her image whenever he passed by the painting of the Rada loa—the good spirits—in his papa’s study.
For a moment none of them spoke, and the ticking clock on the mantelpiece was the only sound. It reminded him of the guidance counselor’s office.
“I’m okay, Manman.”
He meant it. He’d lost that manic energy and felt like himself again, if a bit slower and stupider. He could feel Papa watching him, categorizing him, searching for a definition for this. His family often joked that Andre Alcide was half computer, capable of tracking a million bits of data, a million facts and diagnoses, but it had never felt truer than now, when Tobias knew he was a problem to be solved.
Perhaps that wasn’t fair.
He was very tired.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Non, non,” she murmured, and pulled him into a hug. Her eyes were damp and red when she finally let him go, and he dropped his gaze to the carpet rather than see her hurt.
“Sit.” She gestured at the armchair, sat on the sofa, and took a deep breath. “Better to do this now.” His papa circled the coffee table to sit beside her.
“Do what?” Tobias asked.
“This.” She slid a packet of papers toward him.
“Woodbury Residential Treatment Center.” He flipped through the pages, catching phrases like troubled teens and housed in cottages and intensive, individualized therapy. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s a facility. They help boys who’ve been struggling with—”
“You’re sending me away?” he whispered.
“We’re getting you help,” Papa corrected. “The psychologist we met with at the hospital believes, and we agree, that inpatient treatment is called for. This place, Woodbury, it’s for teenagers who are struggling. They have psychiatrists there, but it isn’t a mental hospital, strictly speaking. No one will know why you’re going. This doesn’t have to affect your future.”
“I don’t... I don’t need help. I’m sorry about what I did. But I’m not going to do it again. I didn’t mean to.”
“What you did to your arm is a symptom of a much bigger problem,” Papa said. “I believe you that you weren’t trying to kill yourself, but that doesn’t mean that we can ignore this. We’ve got to treat the underlying cause.”
“I’m not a disease.”
“We can’t be cavalier about this, Toby,” Manman interjected.
“Please don’t call me that.”
Her lips tightened. “I apologize.” She exchanged a look with Papa, who nodded encouragement. “Tobias, you have to understand that the choices you’re making aren’t good for you.”
“The choices I’m making,” he repeated. “It feels like you’re the ones making all the choices.”
“Do you know what it felt like to see you bleeding like that, to find your blood in the bathroom after you went to the hospital? After everything that Ruby has been through, can you imagine how upsetting that was for her?” Her voice broke and Papa put a hand on her arm.
“I’m sorry,” Tobias whispered.
She cleared her throat. “Your psychological state is very fragile right now, and I will not lose you this way.”
Tobias put the packet on the coffee table and dragged his hands through his hair. His skin felt like it was on too tightly. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t—he didn’t like this, didn’t like any of it.
“We love you,” she continued. “But this behavior...you need help, and we can’t give it to you. You need mental health specialists, and we can’t—I don’t think it’s good for your siblings to witness this. They’ve already been through so much.”
“You’re sending me away.” He could barely get the words out. He could barely think them.
“Only until you’ve gotten things in hand again. Only until you’re better.”
“When do I go?” he asked dully.
“Tomorrow morning,” Manman replied. “I’ve already packed your things. Go upstairs and get some sleep and tomorrow...it’s a fresh start, Toby.”
He opened his mouth to tell her, yet again, not to call him by that childhood nickname, only to stall out. It wouldn’t make a difference anyway, and he didn’t want them to think he was being combative.
“All right.” He didn’t say anything else, nothing about the terrible stillness inside him at leaving. Nothing about the hot tears that he fought back with gritted teeth.
What would be the point of saying any of that? It wouldn’t make them keep him.
“All right.”
Chapter Two
2017
“We need to talk,” Sullivan Tate told his boss darkly, holding up his coffee-stained white button-down. He was wearing only his slightly less damp tank undershirt
