"I know I'm early, but it's cold in the waiting room." " Can I come inside?" " Sure." "I have to leave this on." "Daniel might call and if he does, I'll have to go." "How are you feeling?" "I'm fine." "Good." "So how did the conversation go with your mother?" "I told you I'd call you after it was over." "I didn't hear from you." "You didn't have the conversation?" "She was driving when you called her, right?" "Right." "Did she call you back?" "Did you answer?" "Of course I answered." "Don't I always answer?" "I couldn't tell her." "Why not?" "I wasn't in a place where I could talk." "Where were you?" "The lobby of Sloan-Kettering." "I just went to see how it would feel." "And..." "How did it feel?" "Like going to a hotel." "Like checking into one of those fancy airport hotels in a city where nobody actually lives." "There was this girl behind the desk." "She was like my age." "She smiled at me and... she was like, "Can I help you?"" "And I know that's just something you say to people, but..." "I sort of took her at face value in the moment and..." "I was like, "Can she help me?" "No, probably not." "I mean, she doesn't know how to cure cancer."" "But still, she deals with it every day." "The minute she looked at you, she must have known." " Are you telling me that she didn't..." " {\Well, }My mom, just she called back and I had to leave to get reception." "She was like," ""Where are you?" "You sound funny."" "And I was like," ""Well, mom, I'm..." "I'm actually a little sick."" "So she started to lecture me on how I don't take care of myself." "I don't wash my hands when I get off of the subway and I need to stop biting my nails because I'm a grownup." " She was really stressed out." " Why was she stressed out?" "Daniel tried to kill himself..." "Again." "I'm sorry to hear that." "Last week you said he was doing better." "I should've realized that that was a warning sign." " What happened?" " He tried to jump off the roof." "Anyway he's meeting now with one of his old teachers, this... this miracle worker..." "Mr. Heath." "He's the Anne Sullivan to Daniel's Helen Keller." "He teaches at this special school for autistic boys." "My parts sent Daniel there when he was 10." "They took out a second mortgage to pay for it, because things had gotten so bad." "Daniel had these two bald spots on either side of his head from hitting himself." "The hair just stopped growing in." "And what was it that this Mr. Heath did for Daniel?" "He got Daniel to wear a helmet for a while." "And daniel thought the... helmet gave him special powers." "He thought it made him..." "What?" "It made him what, April?" "Just stay with the thought." "It made him what?" "He thought it made him smart." "Anyway..." "He's supposed to..." "He's supposed to call me after the meeting's over, so I might have to go pick him up." "Well, can't your mother do that?" "She's busy?" "No, she..." "She can't deal with him..." "Not when he's this bad." "Not when he wants to die." "Did he actually say that?" ""I want to die"?" "No, he says he wants to turn into a cloud and float away, but he knows what would happen to him if he stepped off a building." "He's not stupid." "He just..." "He gets so tired of everything feeling so strange." "Well, right now the world must seem pretty strange to you as well." "And you're going it alone, without any Mr. Heath" "to save you." "Isn't that supposed to be your job?" "Yes, it is." "But if you don't let me in, I can't help you." "And that scares me, because I'm afraid that if you don't, we'll waste the little time that we have left." "Jesus." "Kind of blunt today, aren't you?" "I think I'm depressed." "Okay." "Tell me why." "Probably because I have cancer." "Right." "But can you tell me what you're feeling?" "I'm not feeling anything." "I'm just sort of sick and tired and just..." "I don't know, just kind of disgusted with everything." "I'll be brushing my teeth and I'll look at myself in the mirror and suddenly I'll look so ugly, just awful." "And..." "And before I know it I'm on the bathroom floor, just starting at the lint in the bath mat, and I..." "I have no idea how I'm going to get back up again." "That sounds like depression." "It also might be what happens when you feel that things are slipping out of your control." "It's horrible." "When you're feeling like that, I want you to call me." " Why?" " Listen to me." "I don't care what time of the day or night it is, you call me." "Do you understand?" "That's what I'm here for." "You want to talk to me when I'm on the bathroom floor?" "Any time." "I saw my mom last week for the first time in a while." "She took me to brunch." "And what did you talk about?" "My brother." "Did she notice how..." "How tired you look?" "I put on some makeup..." "A lot of makeup, actually." "So you didn't want her to not see you at your best." "I always try to look good when I see her." " Why?" " It makes her feel better." "But this last time I could've lost an arm" " and she wouldn't have noticed." " Because of Daniel." "Sort of." "Also... she wants to leave my father." "Did she tell you that?" "{\I mean, }It's not a big deal." "She's been saying that for as long as I can remember." ""Life would be so much easier without your father." "Never marry a workaholic." Blah blah blah." "The fucked up thing is she doesn't actually want to leave him." "She's crazy about him." "She is." "But she said she wanted to leave." "Do you think it's possible that what she wants to leave is Daniel?" "You know, I think your mother passes a lot of her anxiety on to you." "But I don't think the relationship is balanced, because you don't pass your problems back to her." "I'm sorry I brought her up." "It's..." "You don't talk about your dad a lot in here." "I know." "I don't have that much to say about him." "He's never around." "He's always at the hospital." "For a while when we were young..." "Daniel kept forgetting who he was." "He'd call him mister, like, "Hey, mister."" "But Daniel kept getting worse as he got older and my dad couldn't handle it" " and he just checked out." " On both of you?" "He and I have our own relationship." "I used to wait up for him until he came home." "I'd sit with him while he ate his dinner." "He'd talk abouhis day, his patients." "So he treated you like an adult." " It was nice." " It sounds like he understands you." "But he didn't raise me." "He just got to sweep in at the end of the day and talk to the healthy child for 15 minutes." "She was with Daniel day in and day out." "Do you think part of the reason {\that }you treasured those moments was because your dad was talking about something other than Daniel?" "She needs to talk to someone." "Of course." "I understand that, but why couldn't she tell a friend?" "It wasn't anybody else's business." "It's okay, paul." "I could handle it." "I wanted to handle it." "She gets overwhelmed." "She needs to vent." "So after she vents and she puts the stress, the disappointment and the worry of her own life on your shoulders, who do you turn to?" "Or do you just carry it with you, your burden and hers?" "Are we out of time?" "No, we don't have to worry about the time." "You know, I've been..." "I've been reading up on autism and it seems like there's some pretty promising research coming out." " There's never gonna be a cure." " You seem pretty certain about that." "It's not a disease." "If it's not{\ a disease}, there can't be a cure." "Actually, some scientists seem to be reconsidering that assumption." "Well, that's because they're being funded by rich, desperate people." "Autistic children don't get better, they just get older." "I'm sorry if that sounds cynical." "No, it doesn't." "But you're right." "Those children eventually become adults and their..." "Their parents die." "And when that happens it falls on somebody else to take care of them." "In Daniel's case, that would be you, April, for the rest of your life." "I'm a horrible person." "Why would you say that?" "Because I don't want to do it." "He ruined their lives." "He ruined their marriage." "You can't..." "You can't give Daniel what he needs and have any space for anyone else." "Well, your mother couldn't, but you're not your mother." " You can make different choices." " She didn't make any choices." " She gotstuck." " She did, April." "But every life is..." "It's a constellation of choices." "Nobody escapes making them." "You mother made choices that kept her locked into Daniel." " You can choose differently." " He's my brother." "I'm not suggesting that you abandon him, but you don't know what the future holds for either of you." "You don't know what sort of innovations are gonna come along in the treatment of autism." "You're not psychic, april." "You can't predict the future." "You can't control it." "The only thing you can do in relation to the future now is to decide whether or not you want to be in it." " I look like such shit right now." " Okay, that's enough." "We have to start talking now about chemo." "Hi, Daniel." "How was your meeting?" "You didn't see Mr. Heath?" "Where are you?" "I'm going to call you back in just one minute." "Will you pick up the phone?" "Promise?" "Okay, bye." "Mr. Heath." "Hi, it's April." "Yeah, I know." "I just spoke to him." "No, he's fine." "He's in Central Park." "He's at the sailboat pond." "He likes it there." "But if I go and get him right now could I still bring him to see you today?" "Do you still have time?" "I'm in Brooklyn now, so it'll take me a few hours." "Thank you so much." "Damn it, pick up." "Come on, pick up." "I'm gonna come and meet you in about an hour, but I want you to stay right where you are." "Okay, will you do that?" "Will you stay?" "All right, I'm gonna see you soon." "What happened?" "You fainted!" "What?" " No way." " Yes way." "You are sick and you're not taking care of yourself." "Sit down!" "You need to eat." "You need sugar in your system." "You don't have to do that." "You're not calling the shots now, I am!" "Now you stay there and you don't move!" "I just stood up too quickly." "I have really low blood sugar." "I'm used to it." " I'm fine." "Really." " Do you see what you're doing?" "You're treating me just the way you treat your parents." "Can we talk about it next week?" "Are you so afraid that I won't be able to help you?" "Yeah, I have to go." "2 minutes ago you were passed out on the couch," " now you're off to save the world." " I'm not going to save the world." " I'm going to save my brother." " Call your mother." "Tell her to go get him." " Why not?" " Because I can do it." "There has to be another option." "You can't take care of everything and everybody all the time." "Listen." "It's okay if you can't handle this." "What?" "I saw how you panicked there." "I get it." "It's scary what I have, what I'm going through." "I don't have to come back here if you can't handle it." "Is that what you think I was doing?" "You think I was panicking?" " Come on, you freaked." " Okay, let's say I freaked." " What does that mean?" " That means I can't come back here." " Why not?" " Because you can't handle me." "It's possible to live in a world where people panic, where people let each other down, where they disappoint each other but still help each other." "I will get sicker and sicker." "I'm gonna keep passing out on your couch." "I'll probably vomit on your couch." "And then eventually" "I'm gonna die on your couch." "Is that really what you want?" "No!" "I want you to go to chemotherapy!" "Do you even know what chemo is?" "!" "It is poison that they administer directly to your heart!" "They put this big pump right to your heart." "And do you know why?" "Because if they just gave you a shot and some of it got under your skin," " it would melt your fucking flesh!" " That is not gonna happen to you!" "You don't know that." "You don't know anything." "You can't stop what's gonna happen to me." "The nausea and the pain, my hair." "You'll tell me that life is beautiful and I have to be brave and I'll say, "yes yes yes," blah blah blah." "But I'll be lying and you know that I'll be lying." "And one morning you're gonna wake up and... say to yourself," ""I just wish that fucking girl..." "I just wish that fucking girl would leave me alone so I can be happy again." You won't be able to handle it." "You won't." "So to help someone is... is torture." "It's unbelievably painful." "It's hell." "Yeah?" "If you let me help you, I will hate you for it." "Yeah?" "And I'll probably fail you anyway." "Yeah?" "Hi, mom." "No, he didn't." "I don't know what happened." "He..." "He's in Central Park." "I was..." "I was gonna go and get him, but I got stuck somewhere." "Well, I'm in Brooklyn now." "Could you go get him?" "Because I can't leave." "No, I can't." "I can't." "I ca..." "I can't, mo..." "She hung up." " Our time is up." " Can you wait a minute?" " Just sit down for a minute." " Don't you have another patient?" "No, I want to say something to you." "Sit down." "Listen." "If we had more time, we could find a way to tell your mother and see if she could handle it." "But you don't have time." "Do you understand that?" "And, April, I'm not going to sit here week after week and watch you just slip away." "We have to begin treatment today, now." "I tried." "I told you I went there." "I couldn't do it." "Last week you said that the things we discuss in this room make sense while you're here, and then when you leave everything changes." "What is it about this room that makes things seem..." "Different?" "I don't know." "The isolation, the detachment." "You." "What if I come with you to the hospital?" "Would you?" "Yes." "Now?" "Yes." "Right now."