Unavoidability of Destiny
‘Edward…they called me from hospital. He has finally woken up!’ these were the only words my mother said, as soon as I got home. She was literally over the moon, but who would blame her, when her oldest son woke up after two months of unconsciousness.
‘What? Has he? That’s not possible…’ I could find any words. Pleasing warm feeling stretched from my heart to the rest of the body. I missed him so much.
‘We have to visit him,’ I exclaimed decisively and started to take on just taken-off jacket.
She nodded, looked at her watch, she was thinking for a while and then she answered: ‘I have already called your father. We meet him there in an hour. So we should get off, shouldn’t we?’
She radiated something that I had never seen before - a youthful sparkle. I won’t lie to you, I knew very well that my mother always preferred older Willy than me, but I had never blamed him for it. How could I, it wasn’t his fault; on the contrary, he hoped, it wouldn’t be so for most of the time. But it was not a time for useless thoughts- I will finally see my beloved brother and everything will be same like before.
We arrived to the hospital at time. Father was waiting for us at the entrance. You couldn’t ever read from his stone face, if he was happy, sad or angry. He never exhibited his feelings, because he thought of it as a weakness and today wasn’t any different. Exact opposite of our mother. Instead of greeting he just nodded. There was no time for any words, especially when no one knew what to said, so we went straight to William’s room.
I was relieved as soon as I spotted him watching at us with his blue eyes. I had doubts until the very last moment, luckily it was really true. However, something was different about him. Afterwards, when he examined us completely, his face did not lose a confused look, which I had never seen before. It is undoubtedly caused by the awakening, I fooled myself.
The whole situation was bizarre – instead of celebrating nobody dared to speak. Then I caught sight of Doctor Lewis as he stood beside William’s bed and decided to break the torturing silence.
‘Good afternoon Whites…I am glad you made it so fast. As you can see your son does not suffer from any damage caused by the two-month long coma. He passed all tests; unfortunately there is one bad thing.’ Now it comes, something is wrong with my brother, an alarm started to shout in my head. Perhaps he cannot walk anymore or his brain is damage and he will not be same like before. What if his personality had changed?
We were all waiting for doctor to finish his speech. I looked at my mother- although my mother’s face lost colour, she was still smiling; at my father- you know.
‘William suffers from amnesia-’ the doctor started to explained, but father interrupted him.
‘You mean that he has lost his memory? How much?’ there was a noticeable anger in his voice. That was not according to his plan.
‘He lost all his memories he had had before the accident, simply everything. He even forgot his own name’ Doctor’s words had a similar impact as if he took out a gun; we all fell silent and stared at him with mouths opened. Well, it was not as tragic as I had imagined, but still it was a shot. It will be ok, I assured myself.
‘How long will it last?’ my mother asked with her voice shaking, as soon as her face lost all its colouring and her smile disappeared.
‘No one can say it with accuracy; maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe months.’ Mother let out one shocked and long outcry.
‘When he can go home?’ I asked quietly.
‘There is no reason why we should not let him go soon. Just several test results remain, and then you can take him home…possibly in three days.’ When he saw our broken facial expressions, he added: ‘It is going to be very hard for you at the beginning, but you will see, everything will come back to normal. Now, I leave you alone with him,’ and he left room with an encouraging smile.
If the atmosphere was tense so far, after the doctor’s leave it was literally suffocating.
‘So you are my family?’ Willy made efforts to start a talk with a shy smile, but the result was rather opposite. Mother burst out crying, father locked inside himself and my heart tightened. We had a very long journey ahead of us.
I did not want to leave him, he was my brother after all, and he belonged to my life all eighteen years, even if he did not remember it.
‘Yes, we are. I am…eh…your brother Edward,’ I made myself smile and tried to ignore mother’s rising sobbing.
‘This is our father Charles and our mother Eleanor. We are glad that you finally woke up. Those two months were unbearable.’
Our conversation was equally unsure for another five minutes; none of parents told anything at all. We promised him we would come for him in three days (actually I promised him) and we said goodbye in hurry (father nodded and mother looked at Will through her tear eyes).
It was Friday finally and I and mother could go for my newborn brother. He was waiting for us with his bag packed, clothed to normal clothes, his uncontrollable blond hair had finally met a comb after two months. Our way home was calm, deathly calm, but mother decided to break it.
‘William, I hope you will not mind, that we are having a family party with some of your friends. They want to welcome you home. Are not you feeling tired, are you?’
‘I am feeling well, but what will they say, that I don’t remember them?’ he asked innocently.
‘We have told everyone and they were very sympathetic,’ I tried to calm him down.
‘Ok.’
When we arrived home, it was afternoon, so father was at work and mother went to her favourite fitness club. I finally had time to speak with Will alone.
After the flat tour, when Willy looked more as a visitor of some museum, I showed him his room, and left him there so he could acclimate.
Half-hour later he sat beside me on a couch. His facial expression was full of confusion and alienation.
He cleared his throat. ‘Will Aunt Sophie come tonight?’ he asked me out of blue. How come he remembered her? That was not possible. And as if he read my thoughts, he shrugged: ‘I found an old letter from her.’
‘Aha…she will not certainly come. Actually, she has not visited us for several years, because parents did not want her to. She is a bad influence, you know. Yeah Aunt Sophie, sister of our father, had always been completely different than the rest of the family,’ I replied to him with amusement.
He decided to change the topic. ‘Those trophies and medals are all mine?’
I nodded. ‘You were…eh…you are the best swimmer in town, if not in the country. I remember when I was about five; you taught me how to swim. Even then, no one could beat you. All the people were always saying: “That William had to be born with fins and webs.” You taught me how to swim in two hours,’ I said and looked at him with admiration. It is true that Willy had everything – mother’s love, excellent school results and success in swimming. I never envied him. It could be said that I was kind of introvert, while he was extrovert; he simply enjoyed other people’s attention.
I expected he would smile his usual canny way, but he seemed rather upset.
‘You loved victory more than anything. I remember a moment after one of your gained race, you told me: “Eddie, never let your enemy scare you off. Opponent is not important but you. When you compete with someone, you most importantly compete with yourself,” I never forget those words.’
‘Gosh, I was kind of a bighead, right?’ he blurted out.
‘What? No…you weren’t…eh…’ his reaction was genuinely shocking. How could he talk like that about himself? Of course, he lost his memory, but did real Willy, our Willy deserve it? The new one started to annoy me. No one could speak that way about my brother, not even himself.
‘You were the best brother I could have had. I know you don’t remember a thing, you just have to believe me.’
He just swept his hand and even snorted mockingly. That hurt. Hell, what was wrong with him? This was not my brother anymore and my heart squeezed by the thoughts. I felt offended and betrayed. Was not enough, how much I suffered while he was in coma? Must it continue now?
I lost all faith. ‘Kdy se chceš vrátit na univerzitu a k plavání?’
‘It’s not for me, I think. I don’t need to prove anything. I would like to live in a different way than before.’ I had never thought he would say something that could hurt me more, but he did.
‘In a different way?’ I stammered.
‘I want to travel, live from day to day. When I look around, I see nothing but luxury, stereotype and boredom. Never.’
‘Father wants you to finish law studies and take over the company! That is a dream he has been living since your infancy.’
‘So why doesn’t he give it to you?’ he retorted back with freezing smile.
‘I couldn’t be in charge of a company like that; I’d prefer to work as a publisher. That is my dream.’
‘I see. So you can live however you want, but I must live as others please? No way. I am likely to leave soon.’ That was the last shock for me. I used headache as an excuse and left for my bedroom. Willy leaves? Was not he away long enough? Concerning my dream, the truth was, I had always had a freer life than my brother had. They pinned all their hopes on him, leaving me on my own. I do not know, maybe they knew, I was not so competent like Will, maybe because he was the first-born. However I would not change a thing. To forget it all I lay down to my bed and fell asleep to uneasy dreams soon after.
After the glance at my alarm clock I figured that I have been sleeping for two hours. I went to look for Willy. He was neither the living room nor in his bedroom, nowhere in our flat. Scare took over me. What if he had decided to leave today? It was the party that night and I hoped he was not so inconsiderate that he would not attend it. This was going to kill our mother and upset our father.
I was relieved when the door opened and Willy appeared. He was holding shopping bags and was smiling for the first time since his awakening. That was a victory. He surely forgot those silly intuitive ideas and decided to come back to Earth.
He left for the bedroom without saying a word and closed the door carefully. I did not like very much his new secretive side. We had never had secrets, but everything just could not be same.
At seven in the evening when first guests began to come, Willy was nowhere to be seen. He was definitely nervous about meeting so many “unknown” people. He showed up surprisingly in the middle of a crowd in the living room. He immediately brought his clothing to everybody’s attention (ordinary jeans and a t-shirt) which shocked them but they blamed his disease for it and let it just be.
‘Here you are,’ said mother, as soon as she spotted Willy, she grabbed his arm and drew him to a small podium, and so he could be the centre of everybody’s attention.
She cleared her throat importantly. ‘I am glad, you are all here. William surely appreciates your interest. Before I let him speak, I would like to thank you for your help during those awful months. You can see that chance finally turned his face on us.’ She suppressed a tear and let her oldest speak.
Everybody stared at my brother as he approached speaker’s place. He looked nervous for the first time of his life. He looked like he was wishing be back in a coma, in front of all those people. I felt sorry for him, but it was inevitable.
He kneaded his hands and started tentatively. ‘Eh…good evening. It is nice to se you all again and I agree with everything that has been said, but I want to confide one thing with you, that my mother certainly doesn’t know about.’ Silence deepened after his words and all listeners gaped at Will curiously. People hungered for news and scandals, as long as they did not relate to them. I hate the most this side of our society. Mother turned pale, and I rather did not look at father as usual.
And Willy continued: ‘You can’t imagine how it felt when I woke up. I felt so free and reborn, like a clean unused sheet of paper. No memories worried me. And when I was getting to know my old life, I told myself that I will write this paper from beginning, differently…if you understand me.’
The first half of the audience looked as they understood somehow and the second tried to figure it out in their own way, but they did not realized where his words lead. I had a bad feeling about it.
‘I decided I will leave and begin to live as I think is the best.’ His words cut all presents’ tracheal tubes - with eyes widened in surprise they were gasping for breath. The sight of us must have been amazing, according to brother’s smile. Despite what he had said I had to admit, that he did not lose his ability to call others’ attention to himself. He just could not leave, left everything behind, and left me behind. It was not possible, that was not a way how it works with our social class. Everybody stay on places that are given them in advance. When I heard my thoughts, I was ashamed. Parents taught me well, did not they? On the other hand the thought of losing the most important person my in life really hurt.
Mother burst into tears, just as both our grandmothers, father expressed his feelings for the first time- anger and other guests just could not tell a single word. Willy did not lose any sleep over it; he went down the podium and left for his bedroom. We ended party early after that.
You ask, what I thought about my brother’s behaviour? It was selfish and justified.
I could have told him my opinion and tried to convince him, but had I the right to do so? It was his life and no one could make decisions for him. Twenty-one years was too long for grounding.
When father had established his own law company, long before Willy was born, his work has become everything to him. He began to ignore his wife; he had come home late and could not be talked to. Mother was not able to handle it. She had loved him like no other, so she borne it very bad. She had been looking for revenge or forgetting, but she had not left him, if nothing else he was still a good source of money. And then Willy had arrived. Without even knowing it, he had become mother’s whole world. It could have been said that she loved him pathologically. She pinned all her hopes on him, spent all days and nights with him, and as he had been growing her influence had risen. She had made him to take up swimming, and even if it was a good choice, Willy had not chosen it. I remember something he once told me - swimming is like a drug for me, I feel amazingly, but it is killing me as well. He has always wanted to draw, but that was absolutely out of the question. Mother would laugh at him. That was their unhealthy relationship.
The very next morning, we found William’s room empty. He had packed the most essential things, and as he had said, he had left.
There was just a small piece of paper. It said:
“I’m sorry for every trouble I made yesterday, but I couldn’t otherwise. This life isn’t for me. Don’t be afraid, I will be safe, but I don’t tell you where, so you can’t go find me. You have to understand it’s for the good of everyone. Thank you for everything, you’ve done for me. It’s about time I found my own life. Farewell, Your William.”
Since then, we had not heard of him for several months, but life went on somehow. Father spent even more time in work; we could celebrate if he was at home twice a month. Mother was forced, after days of crying, to find new hobby- me. I can tell you, after several days she was right behind me, I did not understand how Willy could stand it all those years. I tried to get rid of her; unfortunately she had a long-time practice. I could not say her a thing, who want to see his mother cry? I let her, but I started to avoid our gatherings.
8th January – I remember it like it was yesterday. Father was surprisingly at home in the morning and so we decided to have breakfast together. He was reading newspapers and mother was talking with me about school. All of a sudden, we took a look at the door – there was Willy standing and sadly smiling. He had not changed at all over the time, his face had just a healthier colouring and his hair were little longer. At first, I thought I was still dreaming, but it was really him. There was enormous pain in his eyes that I had never seen in my life. Mother’s mug hit the floor, father’s face turned red and my heart stopped. The whole moment looked like a scene from a dramatic movie, when all characters finally meet after a miserable journey, but this was reality.
Willy put down his luggage and cleared his throat.
‘I am back,’ he told us clear fact and his voice was unnaturally high and silent.
‘I remember...’
It was unbelievable, how everything was back on track after those three words. Mother had her meaning of life back; I had my beloved model and father had his involuntary successor. Willy went to university again, started to swim, he painted in secret, but he barely spoke to us.
When I was asking him where he had been and how he had lived, he did not avoid answers.
After William’s return from hospital, he had found a letter from Aunt Sophie, hated by the rest of the family, in his room. He had immediately known that just she could have really understood him. He had moved to her and had lived seven best months of his life. He told me, that she had an enormous house with a beautiful garden, where he had started to paint. He had also become a sales assistant in aunt’s art gallery. He had been free and happy, but he should have known, that it would not last long. It had started with his favourite meals, and then a memory of his first won race had appeared, followed by our adventurous expeditions and first ride in his own car, he had recalled simply everything. He could not have been free like before, his memories had dragged him back. He had said goodbye to our sad aunt, he had taken first train and returned home.
That was the story of my brother, which he told me about with his heart bleeding. I started to understand him. How odd that our bond was stronger then ever before. He confided his feelings in me, but I was too ignorant and did not realized how much that life was killing him.
It was Friday, I suppose. Willy went swimming in the morning to stretch himself, as usual. Leaving for his swimming training, he hugged me. I was stupid; I did not pay any attention to it. I left for school and our father called me at 2 p. m. ‘William is dead…he had committed a suicide,’ his voice was almost crying. It was like the end of the world for me, when Willy had died, everybody else should have died as well. Everything was happening unbelievably fast. Identification, last farewell, preparations, funeral. I did not really perceive any of it. I did not need to mourn for him openly, all my body grieved. How ironic that I completely understood him after his passing. I was reconciled with him.
Despite all the troubles, I had experienced with my brother lately, I realized, that the real Willy was not the one, I had known all my life, but the one I had known so shortly and so superficially. Real Willy was boisterous, dreaming and free like a bird. Our parents had suppressed that in him for twenty-one years, but it had to find a way somehow, thanks to amnesia in this case. I wish we had been given more time. I wish I had known him better. I hope he was happy during those moths at Aunt Sophie.
I will never forget you, my brother. You taught me a lot of things, but the most important was: Always follow your dream, never look back and do not stop. People will enter and leave our lives, but our dreams will remain, if we believe in them