time. But of course, there it was. The thing I really wanted to know. Can an animal restrain itself from pursuing a reward, especially when there is risk involved? Once I had that question figured out, everything else started to fall into place.
* * *
—
The rehab in Nashville was a thirty-day program. The facility didn’t allow visitors, but, after Nana’s detox period ended, every Friday we were allowed to call and talk to him for a few minutes. The calls were depressing. “How are you?” I would ask. “Fine,” Nana would say, and then silence would hang in the air, counting us down to the end of the phone call. It was the Chin Chin Man all over again, and I worried that this would be the way of things, that Nana and I would spend a lifetime of silent minutes, strangers on the phone.
I’m glad I didn’t get a chance to talk to Nana while he was detoxing. I don’t think I could have withstood watching him sweat out his addiction again. As it was, those sober Friday calls were enough to break my heart. Every week the sound of his voice changed. He was still angry at our mother and me, still feeling betrayed, but every week, his voice got a little clearer, a little stronger.
My mother and I drove to Nashville to pick him up on his last day there. After thirty days of shitty rehab food, he told us that all he wanted to eat was a chicken sandwich. We pulled into the nearest Chick-fil-A, and Nana and I sat at the booth while our mother ordered. Thirty days, three Friday phone calls, and we had so little to say to each other. When our mother came back with our orders, the three of us ate, making the same dull small talk we’d made before.
“How are you feeling?” my mother asked.
“Good.”
“I mean, how—”
Nana took our mother’s hand in his. “I’m good, Ma,” he said. “I’m going to stay sober. I’m focused and I really, really want to get better, okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
Has anyone ever been watched with as much intensity as a beloved family member just out of rehab? My mother and I looked at Nana as though our gazes were the only thing that would keep him there, rooted in the bright red seat, dipping waffle fries in sweet-and-sour sauce. Above his head, there was the Chick-fil-A cow urging us to “eat mor chikin.” I’d always found those ads clever, and I’d always had a strange southern pride in this place that retained its Christian values even as it grew. Years later, after my politics and religion had changed, when friends were protesting the restaurant I couldn’t make myself do it. All I could think about was that Saturday with Nana, how happy I’d felt to be with my family, to say a quick prayer of healing over our trays of fast food.
As we finished eating, Nana told us about how the staff at the rehab had taken them through morning prayers and taught them meditation. Nana was the youngest one there by a mile, and the staff had been kind and encouraging. In group therapy meetings every evening, the patients talked not simply about their troubles but also about their hopes for the future.
“What did you say?” I asked. The future was something I hadn’t allowed myself to think about for some time. While Nana was sick, our lives moved in slow motion and at great speed simultaneously, making it impossible to see what direction things might take.
“I just said that I want to get right, you know. Play basketball, spend time with y’all. That kind of thing.”
* * *
—
How does an animal restrain itself from pursuing a reward, especially when there is risk involved? By the time my mother came to stay with me in California, I had started to get a clearer picture of the answer to this question that I had been obsessing over for most of my graduate career, this test to which I had submitted many mice and many hours of my life. I’d found hints of the two different neural circuits mediating reward-seeking behavior, and I had looked at the neurons to see if there was any detectable difference in pattern. Once I’d confirmed a difference, I used calcium imaging to record the mice’s brain activity so that I could determine which of the two circuits was important to the behavior. Finally, at the end of