Read Online The Bridge by Rebecca Rogers Maher - Free Book Online Page B

to stop us.
    “She moved to California to be with her kids,” Henry says. “When I was eleven. I guess she figured we were old enough to handle ourselves by then, and anyway, it was probably just a job to her. It didn’t mean anything.”
    “That can’t be true.” I try to imagine him as a little boy. With those huge hazel eyes. That cowlick on his forehead. I press against him, so lightly maybe he doesn’t even feel it. But I feel it. The slight trembling of his body, the heat that radiates from his skin. “What about your parents? They weren’t—”
    “No.” He straightens, dislodging me. “They weren’t.”
    “Henry.”
    “No, don’t feel bad for me.” He turns to face me. “My mom and dad weren’t especially warm, but they provided for me just fine. Sharon gave what she gave while she was with us, and it was plenty. I’m just looking for something to pin this…feeling on. This chemical, physiological feeling. But there’s nothing to explain it away, not really. I have this, I don’t know, lead blanket on me all the time, that makes everything feel heavy. It’s nobody’s fault.”
    “Sharon made you feel better, though, didn’t she?”
    He stills, only for a moment, and then shakes his head. “Maybe. But I’m a grown man now. It’s nobody’s job to try to wrestle me out of depression, to save me somehow, or—”
    I cast around wildly in my head, because there must be a way to throw him a lifeline, to show that he
could
live if he wanted to. He could make it work. It’s what I’m here to do after all. It’s the whole reason I agreed to this charade.
    But what am I going to suggest? That he find a new nanny to take care of him, to hold him when he’s hurt? He’s right; he’s not a child. He shouldn’t go looking for some woman to do that for him. Although God knows he probably wouldn’t have much trouble if he really tried. I’ve known him for less than twenty-four hours, and the sad truth is that I want to be the one to do it. To save him. To make him see how lovely he is. How gentle and sweet.
    But I can’t let myself do that again. Try to rescue somebody who doesn’t want to rescued.
    I can give him this one day, but the truth is that it might not be enough. Especially if after making him care about me, I kill myself anyway. All my flimsy effort to make him see his value and potential—it might not work. And still I will have to somehow walk away. I don’t know how I’m going to do that.
    He leans into the railing, as though called by vertigo, and some instinct makes me link my arm through his, as ballast. He won’t look at me, though.
    “I know you’re trying to help, Christa, and I appreciate it. I really do. But you don’t know how…how thick it is, in here.” He rubs a hand absently over his chest. “Nobody should have to deal with that. With bearing the onslaught of it, year after year. Believe me, I’ve tried to let people see it over the years, to test the waters and see if they could handle it. But they couldn’t.”
    “You mean Melanie? She was a sixteen-year-old girl. Of course she couldn’t handle it.”
    “Not just her. Friends, too. Girlfriends, sometimes. Hell, my own mother wanted no part of it.”
    The D train barrels past on the bridge behind us, making all conversation momentarily impossible. After it’s gone, Henry remains silent.
    “What did your mother do,” I ask finally, “when you would get depressed? When you were a teenager?”
    “She called the doctor. She made sure I had the right pills.”
    “But she didn’t try to talk to you about it?”
    “She tried. But she’d get frustrated, too, when I wouldn’t respond. She felt I was being selfish. Self-indulgent.”
    “Well, you were.”
    He looks at me sharply.
    “But that’s depression, isn’t it? It makes you selfish. It…it shrinks your world down. Like you’re inside a tornado or something. How are you supposed to care about the things outside that storm? When it’s all