To be honest, I didn’t really notice until after midnight. I’d been out partying with friends, and I was stoned when I got home and Danna met me at the door.
She was crying, and at first I couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell me. When I finally got what she was trying to say, my head cleared pretty fucking quick.
“They were walking to their car,” she sobbed. “Someone in the diner said they saw a man run up to them with a gun in their faces. Damian,” she said, her voice quivering, “they’re dead.”
It didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t make sense.
We would go on to learn that the mugger had told my dad and mom to give him all their money, but when they’d given him everything they had, he just pointed the gun at my mother and said, “Sweet dreams.”
I know what he said because they caught the mugger. He was very proud of himself.
My dad had thrown himself in front of my mother and caught the bullet that man meant for her. During sentencing, the man described the scene, saying, “It was really kind of touching that he would give his life for her. I almost felt bad putting that second bullet into her while he was bleeding out.”
He got a life sentence.
There’s a reason my career was silent when I was a teenager, and there’s a reason why family is such an important thing to me. Sometimes, the people you love—sometimes they’re just gone and that’s that. The last conversation you had with them is the last conversation you’ll ever have with them and there’s nothing that you can do about it.
That’s why I owe so much to Danna.
I’d still take care of her just because she’s my sister and my twin and she’s sick, but ever since she helped me see the other side of what happened to Mom and Dad, I’ve been very protective of her.
Sitting on the couch now, Danna’s talking about something which, even hearing it, I can’t begin to pronounce.
“…it’s supposed to make relapses less frequent and less severe,” she says. “It’s really a wonder more people don’t know about it.”
“Where do you get this stuff?” I ask.
“Oh, my friend Jade knows the holistic healer that discovered it,” she says. “She’s going to introduce me to him tomorrow—he’s coming over here. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m still not quite ready to get out on the town and everything.”
“I wish you’d stop doing that,” I tell her.
“Doing what?” she asks.
“Getting your hopes up every time some charlatan tells you they’ve got the cure for MS,” I tell her.
I may be protective of her, but that doesn’t mean that I’m always nice about it.
“I never said it was a cure,” she says. “I’m just saying that, you know, if this stuff can even make things a little easier, wouldn’t that be worth it?”
“You don’t know what this stuff is,” I tell her.
“Of course I do,” she says, “it’s [enter word I cannot pronounce or spell here].”
“And where does it come from? Is it a plant or is it some kind of chemical? Have you done any independent research on it to see what kind of effects it might actually have that people other than your friend’s guru have documented?” I ask. “Danna, you can’t keep doing this. Every time something turns out to be a waste of money, it knocks your legs out from under you, and I’m sick of seeing it.”
“It’s not like that,” she says. “Everyone’s body reacts differently.”
Danna’s not the hippie type, but after an episode, she’s always on the lookout for something, anything, that might make things easier. I don’t begrudge her that, but at the same time, it’s hard to see her so disappointed.
“People’s bodies react differently to some degree,” I tell her, “but something that’s actually as profound a medicine as that crap you’ve already tried doesn’t just work for a handful of people you’ve never met. They work for most people.”
“They worked for me a little bit,” she says. “For a few days at least, I think most of them made some kind of difference.”
“Yeah,” I tell her, “it’s called the placebo effect.”
“Why are you being such a dick about this?” she asks.
“I’m not,” I tell her. “I’m just trying to get you to understand that sometimes the answers just aren’t easy. Sometimes there’s just not some secret formula that’s going to make everything in the world better.”