"Mom!" Frank flung the front door open and dashed into the Tudor, finding his mother and sister sitting on the couch, seemingly waiting for him. Maggie cast her eyes at Frank with her head hung low and Laura had a mixture of emotions on her mien- anger, disappointment and disbelief- all transparent for Frank to see.

Those negative feelings perpetually knitted her brows and lined more wrinkles on her forehead. More grey hairs were added to her golden tresses since he left for campus very early in the morning, greeting her briefly in the kitchen as he ate a spoonful of coffee powder because he was running late for his first lecture at 8a.m.

He had been busy the whole day on Monday and today, trying to finish all the work he tasked for himself for the whole week so he could have more time to spare on the case when Joe returned from wherever he went. Due to carelessness on his part, he had neglected to charge his phone and he was not contactable the entire time he was in campus, which was the whole period from when the sun was just peeking out from the sky until it slowly sunk into the ocean and sizzled out daylight. Twelve whole hours of peace and solitude until a fellow course-mate loaned him a charger and he charged his phone by plugging the charger into one of the many power-points in the library meant for notebooks.

At exactly eight p.m., when his phone finished feeding on the electricity, he received a call from his mother and several voice-mail messages. He had no need to retrieve them- they all originated from the phone in his living room. Laura almost barked at him to return immediately and slammed down the phone.

"Sit down, young man." Laura coldly commanded him, sending his heart into rapid palpitations. His mother was quick to flying tempers but they were always short fuses- always colored red. Now, white anger reached out with their icy digits to dig into his chest and grip his heart, shaking it violently while freezing it with fear. The only time Frank had seen Laura so furious was a long time back, when he was fourteen. She had suspected Fenton of having an affair with a female client which turned out to be pseudo-true.

"I’m sorry, mom, my mobile was out of battery." Frank steadily replied, revealing none of his anxiety at what was to come. Fenton had trained him well in poker and now, the practice of bluff was coming in handy.

"I’ll get right to the point. Your brother’s in Sanctuary now and most likely, he will be there for at least a few days. With that out of the way, I want to ask you something and you must answer me very truthfully for I’m your mother and I deserve nothing less than your honesty." Laura bore her gaze deep into Frank and for a split second, he saw anxiousness amongst the anger inside the cornflower-blue windows- the tremendous disquiet that only a mother could experience when one of her children was in trouble. But Frank was worried with something else now besides his mother’s frosty rage.

He looked right back at her but instead of her image captured in his irises, he was seeing his brother’s antsy look from behind her eyes.

Joe, in Sanctuary. He must have come home today... what did he do to get warded?

"Did Joe try to kill himself when your father and I went to New Orleans?"

The question snapped Frank out of trance and he stole a sharp glance at Maggie who was biting her lips. He did not even want to know how Maggie spilled the beans.

"Don’t look at Maggie. Look at me. Did he?" Laura asked again, softer and with a tinge of betrayal. Frank could not lie to his mother and even if he could, it was futile when she already learnt the truth and was only questioning him to reproach him later.

"Yes, he did. But he didn’t jump. On his own, he made the decision to... not jump." Frank summarized the horrors of that blustery night with his still voice projecting a facade of calm.

To not jump. But I wonder if what’s he’s doing now is called living.

"And you didn’t tell me or your dad. Just hide it from us thinking we have no right to know? Mister, you should have come to us! We’re your parents and maybe if you did, we would have been able to get Joe to therapy quicker and he would not be spending tonight in that damn place! Frank..." Laura shook her head before she tilted it slightly to hold back the tears. "Am I your mother or just a caregiver?"

He seemed fine… he promised me he’d try and I can’t just betray his trust in me… either way, I’d end up the bad guy.

"Mom, I… I’m sorry, I made the wrong judgment call. I…"

I had just gotten back some of his trust. I didn’t want to jeopardize it. I’m sorry. I should have told you.

Laura looked away from her son in front of her and her daughter to her right. Frank wiped his sweating palms on his t-shirt and then rubbed his neck, watching his mother intently and hoping she would understand.

"Mom, if I had told you and you’d get all anxious and start to interrogate him, maybe he’d just run away and we’d never find…"

"Son, why do you always assume the worst?" Laura looked back at him with eyes blue with sadness. "I’ve watched you three grow and maybe I’m new to having a son tottering on the brink of insanity but I think that with my experiences and what you three put me through for twenty-odd years, I will know how to handle myself. I know you’re close to your brother- so close that sometimes my dad and I wonder if you and Joe are twins but born a year apart. But Joe needs us- whether he knows it or not, he needs us…" Laura took in a deep breath before her rising agitation burst out in the form of angry words. Calming herself down, her tone softened and there was understanding.

"I don’t envy you. On one hand, your dear kid brother swore you to secrecy; on the other hand, you know he needs help. You feel like you can’t come to us so you wear yourself down. Do you think your dad and I are blind to this?"

As he was listening to his mother with lips pressed tightly together, Frank felt like the young, ignorant man he was. Yes, he was frightened of his parents’ reactions but he underestimated their wisdom. They could not reach Joe though they were trying desperately to. He was baffled as to why he could tell all their close friends what Joe did and would find the same words garroting when he wanted to unload his fears onto his parents. A suicide attempt was extremely serious- very telling on a person’s depths of despair. That Joe pulled himself out of it once did not mean that he would just recover automatically. Left to his own devices, he might fall again and very likely, he would crash harder and submerge deeper into his depression. He might not retain any control over his misery- might be totally devoid of hope the next time round.

There were only three words left to say.

"I am sorry." He hung his head, ashamed.

Laura sighed, relenting at last. White or red, her anger never lasted long because her capacity for forgiving and loving her children was inexhaustible. Taking one hand each of her two children now with her, she looked at Maggie first then at Frank with her usual soft, warm eyes but was still unable to lift up a smile to her lips.

"I’m sorry too. I am angry and I have hurt you two with my anger though I hope the both of you take in all that I have said. Maggie and I will go visit Joe tomorrow morning. You go takeover from your dad. I know Joe will not want anyone by his side except for you tonight. He probably thinks we have all thrown him into the lion’s den."

Frank patted the top of his mother’s hand with his free one and wordlessly promised her he would talk to Joe to bring a new perspective to him. Though he dreaded the thought of his little brother in Sanctuary, he knew it was perhaps for the best if Joe actually went through some counseling, which he would always manage to shirk away from had he been allowed to run wild.

The bitter pill might be the hardest to swallow but more often than not, it was the most effective. However, Frank knew sometimes, with the afflicted area being the mind- where reality became the distorted reflection in the dark waters- the bitter pill could have serrated edges which would undoubtedly cut veins and pull flesh along with it as it traveled down the thin-lined throat to the acid-bubbling guts.

***

Frank softly rapped on the door to Joe’s room in Sanctuary, deducing that his father was most probably inside. Laura had given him Joe’s room number and upon reaching, he had to ask the front desk’s nurse for direction because calling Fenton seemed to be a futile action in the end. The world was cursed by the case of the "Non-Responding Mobile Phone" syndrome.

His first impression of Sanctuary was that it was thoughtfully situated and meticulously designed to assist in soothing the troubled minds of its occupants. Lush nature, grandiose landscape and the homely red-brick architecture could easily mislead anyone unfamiliar with Bayport to think of it as a quick getaway from the hustle and bustle of city life. As beautiful as it was, Sanctuary was one of the last places Frank wanted to "holiday" in.

Cutting through two blocks to get Joe’s room, the quietness of the place almost caused Frank to forget the agenda for which Sanctuary existed. However, a sharp wail that punctured the balloon of peace while he was crossing the bridge between the second and third block reminded him of the terrible plight his whole family was in. He was there not to sight-see, not to volunteer services and definitely not to research- a motive which was fast dictating his every actions and decisions as the deadline for his thesis’s more detailed outline drew menacingly near.

Joe. I’m here to see Joe who, in his estrangement from us, had caused us all too much grief.

Frank noticed the hallways in the second and third block was not as heavily patrolled by nurses on the third watch as he thought they should be and he guessed immediately that it must house the simpler cases- as if the ailments of the mind could ever be uncomplicated. For a brief moment before the door opened, Frank surveyed his brightly lit surrounds and scratched the back of his head, mussing up his own hair. There was one more block after the third block- one without any obvious access from what he remembered seeing. That must be the block which housed those whose mind’s legs had taken a trip without return ticket to a far off galaxy in outer space. While their mind rocketed on the violent journey, their bodies laid in inertia or trance in that cut-off block of Sanctuary- which was still as pretty as the rest of the building on the outside.

The door opened slowly and he quickly turned back to face the entrance, now revealing his father standing there with a tired expression and his hands akimbo. A halo of gray bordered Fenton’s body as the naked lights of the corridor lightened whatever black shadows it could reach inside the darkened space. Placing a finger on his lips, Fenton gestured for Frank to step back so he could leave the room. Frank did so and Fenton gently shut the door behind him.

In thoughtful quietness, the two men walked down the hallway to the small little lounge of the floor’s lobby. Frank noted the time on the sunflower patterned clock nailed onto a wall. It was already eleven-thirty at night- he had taken an hour and a half since he returned home from campus to reach Sanctuary.

Without the dimness of Joe’s room to force light away, the shadows under Fenton’s eyes were pronounced on his face, which was pale with exhaustion and worry. The gray pallor seemed deliberately emphasized by the rays from the stark white fluorescent lamps above them.

Frank made his way to a vending machine immediately, glad for the emptiness of the hallway because it afforded him and Fenton some private moments to their own thoughts. Punching in buttons for a cup of plain black coffee, he threw his head over his shoulder and took a quick glance at his dad who had his tired head cradled in hands propped up on elbows lying on his lap. Deciding that Fenton needed some stimulant as well, he sat his own cup on top of a laminated wooden table and dropped in some more coins for the second cup. When it was ready, he carefully took both cups to where his father was sitting, ignoring the throbbing pain from the hotness of cups’ surface on his fingertips.

"Dad…" Frank offered Fenton a cup to which Fenton looked up briefly and accepted it with a muttered gratitude that Frank could not quite catch. Setting his own paper cup on the coffee table immediately, he marveled at how his dad seemed to just lean back against the couch and sipped the hot coffee, mindless of the burning temperature of the cup caused by the steaming coffee.

He sat down beside his dad, eying his own coffee, willing for the steam to stop smoking. Hunching over, he crossed his fingers and held it to his chin almost like a praying stance, feeling his elbows poking into the bones of his thighs, making him feel ticklish.

"I’m sorry. I should have told you and mom that Joe tried to kill himself while you were gone."

Fenton sat his own cup on the coffee table and Frank could just feel that sternly curious look, slightly overcame with surprise, piercing through his skull to reach into his brains and tweak the right nerves that would literally cause his guts to sink. His father’s shock was either contained by years of experience in hearing startling news or the event that Laura could have already told him what she knew. Whatever it was, Fenton was silent for a moment before he calmly rephrased Frank’s words into a question.

"He tried to commit suicide?"

So, he didn’t know yet. Well, now he does.

"Yah…" Frank drawled, preparing himself for the brunt of reproach that would surely come next.

He hated to repeat the story of that blustery night which, though unfolded to an ending that he was always deeply thankful for, had forever etched the question of ‘what-if’ into a frightened corner of his mind. A dagger poised above his heart, waiting for a chance to pierce through beating flesh but its murderous intent was gratefully hindered by Joe’s decision to live.

Yet, Frank wondered, at that moment, how much ‘living’ was Joe trying for.

Fenton stood up and walked towards the lounge’s window- a fully paneled glass wall with a view stretching across the horizon of the North Atlantic Ocean. A normal, albeit barred, window with hinges and a ledge occupied the last meter of the width of the glass wall, was closed. When the air-conditioning was deactivated, it would be the sole inlet for the salty ocean’s breeze and outlet for the wails of the disturbed on the floor.

The silence was unbearable and Frank thought with all the heavy silences that he had to endure through these past few days with various people; he would soon go deaf from the pressure. Still hunched over, Frank played with his fingers, tapping the tips against one another in rapid successions.

"How did it happen?" Fenton’s soft and dispassionate voice cut through the quietness with a sharp blade. He was gazing out of the window with his hands on his hips. What happened was still tolerable to tell for he could, as he narrated the incident, censor away his own mistakes and failings which were still a heart-ripping chore to face. Though he knew if Joe jumped, it was his own decision. However, on that night, he had been a lousy brother who had dismissed his brother’s troubled look altogether. Sometimes, it took only a word or two to steer a despairing person away from the track of an oncoming train.

On that night, that word or two which was not spoken before Joe just disappeared to Big Cliff, would forever haunt Frank’s memory. If Joe had jumped, Frank knew that his brother would have taken along with him a vital part of his soul.

His father had asked "How?" How. Frank swallowed, choked on his saliva and coughed.

"Son?"

"Frank…"

"Not now Joe. Goodnight."

God! What was I thinking of back then? What if I did not have another chance to take back what I’ve said? To make-up for my error?

This is how he felt with Vanessa… isn’t it?

What if?

"Two weeks ago, on a Friday I think, I can’t remember… details… I was home after spotting Callie and some other guy together… and… well, it’s no excuse…. Anyway, I returned home to find Joe on the couch… he seemed troubled, like he had something to tell me and I just… just walked away… I couldn’t deal with it then… or so I thought… Dad… if he had not come to his senses when he did… I don’t think I could deal with it ever…" Unable to continue, he buried his face in his hands, hearing his own heavy breathing echoing in the little chamber around his face that he had created with his cupped palms.