Hi, I’m Ryan McLean. My psychiatrist, Dr. Mondigs, said the best way to recover is through acknowledgement and then acceptance. He asked me to write out in detail what it was that lead me to this place, Manhattan Psychiatric Centre. It all started one late May morning.
I woke up with my scar burning. The pain above my right eye was vigilant in its reminder of maturity. I rolled over in my bed which was clad in a lavender tone. I grab the tin of balm that lay beside my red numbered alarm clock, which stood out against its deep, majestic, blue back drop, that of course was the walls of my bedroom. I pop off the top of the tin. The sound that resonated brings me back to the hospital room seven years ago. I remember my father yelling hysterically at the doctor, as he told my father that I may never see again.
Earlier that night I was at a bush party, I was twenty-three at the time. I remember the fire was hot. I had been drinking Ice as if it were going out of business and my head was swimming. I was bored and watching my friends dicking around with a football. I decided I would join them. When I stood up I lost my balance and landed face first into the fire.
I remember very little of being in the fire but I do remember being rushed to St. Marie’s Hospital, with second degree burns all over my face. It all healed though, except the scar above my right eye. That scar still brings me pain to this day. It is always there to remind me that irresponsibility is always punished. You’re not to always remain a child. I am now thirty and by some miracle I can talk and I can breathe, yet I no longer drink… lesson learnt. That boy died in the fire.
“Honey, it’s seven-thirty, you better get up,” as I’m snapped back to reality. My wife Hilary must’ve gotten up by now. I slapped the balm on my memory and stuck my tin back beside my clock. I jumped up and went into the bathroom (which was connected to my bedroom), and jump into the shower. When I got out, I put on an Egyptian silk shirt and my hand-made Oxxford suit worth $5,600. Today was going to be a very important day, I needed to be in my best.
I walked out of my room, at the end of a long hallway. On the left was one guest room and Hilary’s room; she doesn’t sleep with me because I moan while I’m dreaming. On the right are the bedrooms of my seven-year-old son Alexander and the other my five-year-old daughter Cleo. Neither have seen their bedrooms. They live with their mother, Heather, in Toronto. I haven’t seen them since I moved out to New York six-and-a-half years ago. I got to the spiral-staircase I had installed when I first moved into this house. All men of social standing must have a spiral-staircase.
As I walked into the kitchen, I saw my Mexican maid, Isabelle, making me my eggs and sausages. She was in her late twenties and had her thin figure bent over the stainless steel stove scraping my finished food onto my plate. She turned hundred and eighty degrees and placed the plate on the stainless-steal counter top island, which had four stools standing opposite of Isabelle. I sat on one of them and swivelled myself to look out the bay window; it consumed much of the wall left of the stove. I stared at the yellow tulips of my insufferable neighbour’s, the Macintoshes, garden.
Mr. Macintosh was a pudgy, short, bald, car salesman for Jaguar. Constant in his useless information fetish: “Did you know that that my S-Type 4.0 is the safest car on the road,” pointing out his British Racing Green Jag that sat in his garage. “Oh it’s a pity you got that Mercedese-Benz SLK 280. Waste of money those MBs. All they have is that ‘anti-theft’ garbage,” doing those annoying air quotes with his fingers. “But you’re done for if you even touch a barrier doing a hundred mph.” He was always slightly peeved that I, his neighbour, would never buy from him. I tried to explain to him my clients trust a man in a Benz more than a Jag, but he always concluded, “Bet it’s ugly in green,” and walked away, but if you thought he was bad, you should meet his wife.
Mrs. Macintosh was the neighbourhood busy-body. She was skinny, short and had these awkward looking glasses that seemed permanently glued to her front bay window. Every time I’d step outside, I’d feel her eyes. As soon as the Macintosh’s house was in sight, you were acting, putting on a show. If I lost a leg while mowing the lawn, I would not make a sound, for every word I would speak, Mrs. M would use it against me in the Home Owner’s Committee meeting that weekend.
I finished my food and began to walk for the door. As I was about to leave, Hilary tapped me on my shoulder. “Gonna leave without saying goodbye?”
Hilary was my second wife. She was not the trophy wife a man in my position would usually get, but don’t get me wrong, she was beautiful. She was 5’10”, blonde and had that hour-glass-figure that all the girls (on my computer), had when I was a kid. The reason she was different than most of my college’s wives was that she was able to think. She was brilliant. A Former Rhode’s Scholar, she went to Oxford to get her doctorate for Ancient History. She is now, at the age of twenty-nine, the youngest professor ever to teach at NYU.
“Don’t forget Heather is phoning you at three today,” she said as she handed me my brief case, and put on her coat. “Remember that it’s Alexander’s birthday in two weeks.. And you want to see him,” she gave a very intimidating glare. I reassured her I knew when Heather was going to call my office, and yes I will remember to ask if Alexander and Cleo would like to come out and visit.
She walked out the door. She had wanted to meet my children. She adored the idea that one day these little guys may read about her in a similar class to the ones she taught. But the problem was, I did not adore the idea of being visited by anybody that I left behind. I wished instead to live my new life here. What Hillary never new was that I severed myself from my former family very abruptly and very coldly.
It was the summer after I had graduated university and I was working at a local bank, managing some small accounts and stock portfolios. I hated my job, but I needed it. Heather and I were just married and she wanted to go to med school, I had to payoff my loans, and we also had the bother of feeding Alexander as well, not to mention that Cleo was on her way. I was working long extreme hours, still my accounts we in the red.
One day I in my office and a man in a fine black suit came in and introduced himself to me a James. He told me he was part of an investment advisors group that was just beginning to get off the ground and said he’d love to employ me as one of the executive advisors to multi-million dollar accounts. I immediately told him to leave. He laughed at this, “Ah, yes when life throws you a couple curve balls one tends to become a sceptic I understand. But what you need to know is that I have been scouting you since your sophomore year at Western. You have been top in all your classes since you showed up there and let’s face it Westerns no picnic.”
“What are you willing to pay?” I asked.
“Well, we’ll pay for your Harvard Degree in economics and during that time you will work as a junior adviser to our smaller accounts. At first you’ll be making about ninety-thousand American with a promise of a raise when you finish Harvard of well over two-hundred grand a year.”
“Why do I have to go to Harvard?” I remember asking and James retorted about how Harvard is just an image. You go to Harvard for the sake of going to Harvard. There education is very similar to any other major schools, but Harvard is a brand-name, clients recognize and respect it. He left me his business card and told me to think about it.
When I approached Heather with the job opportunity she at first was quite ecstatic with the idea, but then reality hit her, in my opinion all too quickly. “But doesn’t this mean you’re gonna have to move to New York?” she ask almost with dread it seemed.
“Yes, but I can easily pay for everything.” I retorted but this bought me no favour.
“I cannot raise our children alone,” she yelled at me, I remember our neighbours in the apartment complex we lived in always banged on our walls when she yelled at me. “I have to go to school you know?”
“Of course I know! Why do you think I spend fourteen hours a day in my personal Hell, for the excitement of turning a twenty dollar a hour profit ?”
I remember the look she gave me. This look is how Heather always reappeared to me when I try to recall her features. She brown shoulder length hair had these tiny curls streaming down each strand. She gave me this glare through her brown eyes, that were placed in a very noble looking Anglo-Saxon bone structure. Her big lips puckered to give me the impression that she was contemplating the floral arrangements at my funeral. She stood there with her glare and said, “I will not raise our children by myself.”
I decided to retort in a very sarcastic manner, “I will not sacrifice the best opportunity of my live, for dreams I do not share.”
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