She walked to the window and whipped open the curtains. Even with the blanket covering me, I could feel the light inundating the small room. It pissed me off.
"Since you're breathing, that makes you only partially dead. So, please, get up and get dressed."
"No," I shot back.
She sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to rub my head through the blanket. "I know Sam moved out. His sister called this morning--worried about you. I wish you would have called me. Please, get up and talk to me. At least take a shower. It will make you feel better."
"Go away. I'm never getting out of this bed. What do you care anyway? Spare me the perfect sister-in-law act."
The gentle caressing turned into a hard tugging on my blanket. "Maggie, stop talking like that. You know damn well I love you. You're my sister-in-law and best friend. Please, get out of bed." She stopped pulling at the bedclothes and stood.
"Go away, now. I mean it, leave. I have nothing to say to you."
Her energy shifted, and the sympathy emanating from her switched to frustration. Silence filled the air for an uncomfortable amount of time, before I heard her footsteps landing hard on the carpet.
"Hey, don't be pissed at me. I didn't break up with you. I came to help," she yelled from the hallway.
I flipped the blankets off of my head and shouted back, "I don't want your damn help."
After the door slammed, my sobbing began again.
***
The next day, I walked into the bathroom, stripped off my clothes, and stepped into the shower. Fresh tears formed in my eyes as the hot water ran down my back. I dumped shampoo straight on to the top of my head and sobbed as I clawed it into my scalp. The pain of my nails scraping skin made it easier to face being awake.
One week until the start of midterms. The choice was simple--get to class or fail. When the water scalding my back became unbearable, I stepped out of the shower and stumbled around the bathroom groping for my robe or a towel. Unable to find either, I collapsed, naked and soaking wet, to the floor. Anger still pulsed through my veins, and my head pounded with each heartbeat. I tried to pull my dirty sweat pants over my soaking wet legs, but they kept sticking around my calves. After a few short moments, frustrated, I threw the pants at the wall and curled into a fetal position on the floor. The sensation of the cold tiles on my skin neutralized the heat of my rage.
After a while, I heaved my body off of the floor and walked into the bedroom. It took a hard yank to open the ancient bi-fold closet doors, and a moment to realize they should have remained closed--tightly. The stark emptiness of Sam's side sent shock waves radiating through my body and melted away my small semblance of mental strength. My brain screamed, Sam deserved better than me. I grabbed all the empty hangers and, one-by-one, hurled them at the wall. Sitting on the end of the bed, still naked, my brain mocked me. You always knew he would leave. You didn't really think a guy like Sam would waste his life with someone like you.
The voice spoke the truth. Sam, smart, kind, and beautiful, deserved someone better than me. I crawled back into bed. The dead weight of my body matched the total darkness engulfing my brain.
CHAPTER 3
Caffeine and Hope
The luminescent numbers on my clock radio flashed 7:30 a.m. My quick mental body-scan yielded hopeful results, even though the muscles in my legs and back felt like rebar. At some point during my sleep, the rage burned itself out, and an empty sense of utter failure replaced it--progress. I stretched out my arm and groped around my night stand for the phone. I found it and hit speed dial.
Relief rushed through me when Amy answered on the third ring--I could barely hold the phone to my ear. My stomach groaned with emptiness, and my head throbbed from the lack of food, caffeine, and hope.
"Hello," she said. "Hello?"
"It's me, Maggie," croaked out of my parched throat.
She let out an audible exhale. "Are you okay? After I left your apartment yesterday, I figured you would call begging for forgiveness like you always do. But you didn't and when Mark came home from work, I told him the story. He said to give you some space, but I wanted to rush you to the hospital."
Reflexively, my muscles tightened and my throat constricted. The phone weighed more than anything I ever lifted. "I need help."
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
I forced out the word, "Okay."
"Maggie, don't even think about doing anything stupid--do you hear me? Just sit. Have you eaten anything? Dumb question--I'll bring food and coffee. I mean it, just sit there. Do not think or move." Her voice quivered one level below total panic.
She used her key to enter the apartment, and I was grateful because I didn't trust my legs to hold me up. She rushed into the bedroom, yanked the covers off the bed, and tossed them onto the floor. "Get up. You're going to sit at the kitchen table and eat breakfast like a civilized human being."
Just being near her reduced my pain level. I crawled out of bed and put on the robe she held open for me. Then I let her lead me to the kitchen. Before speaking, she picked up the cup of Starbuck's coffee sitting on my countertop and thrust it into my hand. Next, she yanked a chair out from under the table and said, "Sit."
As I crumpled into the chair, she whipped a bagel and a small container of cream cheese out of a plain white bag, put them on a paper plate, and set it in front of me. "Eat."
I stared at the bagel. It looked about as appetizing as tree bark. I took a small sip of coffee. The heat burned the roof of my mouth--it tasted good.
"Okay, you're not dead. You can eat. Take a bite of that bagel right now," she insisted.
I didn't bother opening the cream cheese and bit right into the unsliced bagel. Cottonmouth mixed with dry bread--yuk, but I ate, taking goldfish-sized bites.
"What now, Maggie? You're out of bed, you're dressed, and you're relatively coherent. Are we going to ignore the fact that you just spent five days in bed? Pretend it never happened? Well, I can't ignore it anymore."
Salty drips rolled down my cheeks and into my mouth. I gazed into her soft brown eyes and slowly shook my head. "No."
"Maggie, you vowed it wouldn't happen again. But it always does. Before you talk, listen to me. I have a high school friend who became a therapist. I want to call her. Will you let me?"
I nodded.
Amy stayed for hours, forcing me to finish eating, shower, and put on clean clothes. We migrated from the kitchen table to the living room sofa. She held me in her arms as I cried the poison from my body, and before leaving, she called her friend and scheduled an emergency appointment for the next day.
"Do you want me to take you?" she asked, while gathering her keys and phone from the kitchen table. "I can sit and read in the waiting room."
"I'll be fine," I said, feeling a small ray of energy flicker through my brain.
"I know you too well. If I don't drive, you won't go. You'll invent some bullshit excuse to cancel."
She backed off when I promised not to cancel.
"Don't be nervous. I promise you, Karen will take good care of you."
After the door closed behind her, the appointment faded into the back of my mind, replaced by thoughts of missed assignments. I booted up my computer. Damn. I groaned out loud after reading an email from my friend and study partner, Tom. His only sentence demanded an explanation for my week-long absence. Under that sentence, he listed each assignment with due date--the list was long. This sucks.Time to make up an illness story to tell Tom and my professors. After settling on strep throat, I emailed each professor and begged for mercy extensions on the assignments. On the upside, the homework pushed Sam from my thoughts.
In the morning, while dressing, I convinced myself that completing school work was more important than therapy. I picked up the phone to call Karen to cancel, but Amy's words lingered in my brain. At 10:00 a.m., I drove to the address scribbled on a torn envelope simply to prove her wrong.
The name plates outside of each office door read: Psyc
hologist, therapist, psychiatrist, and every other profession relating to crazy. Near the end of the hallway, I finally spied the right door plaque: "Karen Mulligan, Therapist."
The final stop before therapy consisted of a waiting room furnished with three chairs, a coffee table, and a few out-dated Car & Driver Magazines. There wasn't a receptionist, just a button next to a plain wooden door. My stomach churned--to push or not to push, what to do? With a quick flick of my finger, I pressed it and flinched at its high-pitched electric buzz.
The door opened and a small woman with mocha-colored hair and a warm smile said, "Hi, I'm Karen."
"Hi, I'm Maggie--Amy's sister-in-law."
"So nice to meet you. I can't tell you how excited I was to hear Amy's voice on the phone yesterday. I think about her all the time, and I've been meaning to call ever since Kelsey was born--lousy friend, I am."
She led me to her office, which was cozy in a generic sort of way, soft neutral colors, impressionist prints, a sofa along the right wall, and a desk on the left. She sat down in what was obviously her chair, an overstuffed, chocolate-colored recliner. I sat at the end of the couch, thinking, I am not going to lie down. I am not crazy.
"So, what's going on?" Karen asked.
"Amy talked me into this appointment. My fiancé left seven days ago, and I spent the last five days paralyzed in my bed."
"Five days in bed? That's not good. Amy told me you are in law school. I am assuming this means you didn't go to class."
I nodded.
"Eat or shower?" she asked.
"No showering, but I do recall eating some crackers and potato chips. I think I brushed my teeth a few times. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details."
She gazed at me, expecting me to say something more. I had no idea what to say and never did enjoy volunteering information.
"So tell me what happened. Was the break-up the result of a fight?" Karen asked.
"Not exactly," I replied. "He left because sometimes I get depressed, severely depressed. When I'm depressed, I become mean."
"So you were depressed, and he left. Correct?" she asked.
"Actually, everything started on the Monday evening before he moved out. We were lying on the sofa watching TV. I felt an episode starting. I tried to get away from him, but he followed me to the kitchen and kept talking. That's when I threw a sneaker at his head and ran to our bedroom. Three days later, I hauled myself out of bed and apologized."
"What's an episode?" she asked, with a puzzled look on her face.
"It's what I call my depressed periods. Anyway, after begging for forgiveness, we seemed to be okay, not great, but okay. On Friday morning, I woke with a ton of energy and decided to cook a romantic dinner. I wanted to warm up the atmosphere between us. Call it penance for my awful outburst.
"When I got home from the supermarket, I heard noises coming from the bedroom, walked in, and found him packing his bags."
"What did you do then?" she asked.
"Cry and beg. What else could I do?" I replied.
She looked at me as if trying to decide something. "Okay, tell me what he said."
"He said he couldn't take my moods anymore--he loves me, but he can't live with me," I replied.
"I'm assuming what he called 'moods' is what you call episodes."
I nodded.
"Tell me, how bad are these periods?"
"Pretty bad," I said, hoping she would not ask for a detailed description.
"Have you ever seen a therapist or a psychiatrist?"
"No. I didn't want to come now, but I can't function. I've missed so many classes, I'm afraid I'm going to fail the semester. Amy believes you can help me. I'm not crazy. I just get sad, very sad. All I want is to get on schedule with my school assignments and control the depression so Sam will come home."
Karen reached up and pushed a piece of hair behind her ear. "When did these episodes start?"
"When I was a little kid. Actually, so far back, I don't remember not having them. Sam believed they were caused by my lack of self-confidence."
"Do you believe that you lack self-confidence?"
I studied her while I mulled over the question. She had a great haircut. I made a mental note to ask where she got it cut, and I liked her milk chocolate brown eyes. A sort of friendliness emanated from them.
"Again, Maggie, do you lack self-confidence?" she asked, increasing the volume of her voice.
I shrugged before speaking. "According to Amy, therapists help people develop self-confidence."
She shifted in her seat, adjusting the back of her skirt. "True, therapists do help people overcome self-esteem issues. By chance, have you ever heard of Cognitive Behavior Therapy?"
I shook my head.
"CBT teaches you to replace negative thoughts with more positive ones."
"I'll try anything, and I mean anything, that has the potential to stop these episodes," I replied. "Anything, to get Sam to come home."
For the rest of the session, she asked questions about my life and a few questions about my family. I made a second appointment.
***
The following Tuesday morning, as I drove to Shrink Row, I thought about my family's two views of therapy. The first position acknowledged that it helped mentally ill people. The second view held that non-mentally ill people who went into therapy were just wimps. Walking from the parking lot to the front door, I let the words roll around in my brain. I'm in therapy. Nodding my head and squaring my shoulders, I mumbled, "This is okay," under my breath.
CHAPTER 4
Zoloft, Gin Rummy, and a Halloween Party to Forget
"Zoloft," I said to Karen. "I've been on it for years."
"But, Maggie, you still get depressed. Why are you taking it if it doesn't help?" she asked.
I launched into an explanation of how Zoloft eliminated the general day-to-day malaise I used to have. Her face told me that she didn't understand my explanation.
"Karen, I used to feel gray and blah almost every day. Once I started taking Zoloft, my days looked brighter. Yes, I still get the really bad episodes, but now they don't happen as often."
My clarification seemed to satisfy her, because she launched into a new line of questioning focused on the episodes rather than the medication. Answering was a struggle. I kept hearing myself repeating the same phrase over and over: "It's hard to explain."
In the last few minutes of our session, she wrote down the name of a workbook and told me to buy it and bring it to our next session. At the third session, she began assigning homework.
By late spring, I started looking forward to my weekly visits with Karen. Only the health insurance co-pay she expected after each session reminded me that she was my shrink and not a good friend.
***
The long, summer nights slogged along without Sam, and our small apartment felt vacuous. My mom, frustrated over my self imposed hibernation, invited me to spend a week at the shore with her and her husband, Ed. I agreed to go, but backed out at the last minute. I wanted to be in the apartment in case Sam decided to come home.
My internship at the law firm occupied my days, but time slowed dramatically when the numbers at the bottom of my computer screen reached five o'clock. Each day, I maneuvered myself into a window seat on the bus, hoping to get a glimpse of Sam walking down Forbes Ave.
On a Wednesday evening, in the middle of June, Mrs. Livingston, my eighty-two- year-old, over-lipsticked neighbor knocked on the door and invited herself into my apartment. A bag fastened to the side of her walker contained a deck of cards and a bottle of tonic water. I soon learned she expected me to provide the gin. It was the birth of our weekly gin rummy/gin and tonic date, and it didn't take long for me to realize that Livingston loved to give advice.
One hot August evening, we moved the game from my kitchen table to the balcony. "Sometimes, Maggie, I wish I had a grandson or great-grandson for you," she said.
Surprise whipped through me, but I kept my eyes on my cards. She tended to use her
age and so-called lack of memory as an excuse to cheat. "Wait a minute, Mrs. Livingston, you always told Sam he looked like your grandson."
She flipped a King of Spades onto the discard pile. "He does. He looks exactly like the grandson I'd have if that son of mine ever settled down. Career, that's his life," she said, picking up her glass, shaking the deteriorating lime floating on top.
"What's wrong with that? Unless a miracle occurs and Sam comes home, my life will be my career."
"Bullshit," she spat. "You need to get married and have children. Children make life worth living when you're old."
After discarding, I set my hand down. "So you complain about your son because he chose not to have children?"
She lifted her glass and rattled the remaining ice. "Maggie," she said, "I do not complain about my son. I prefer to complain about my dead husband."
"Why do you complain about him?" I asked.
"Because he up and died before I had time to have another baby," she said, never shifting her eyes from the cards.
"Oh, I'm sorry, but why didn't you find someone else?"
She peered straight into my eyes with an intensity that screamed pay attention. "Because, Maggie, I was a damn fool, and by the time I realized it, my biological clock passed midnight."
***
When the cool air of autumn arrived, it felt good to be back at school. During the first week, I celebrated the start of our final year of law school with Tom and Aggie. We ate dinner in a real restaurant and drank entirely too much, but for that brief period, I didn't feel alone.
On a cool October morning, I entered the building just as the mailman walked out, which reminded me to check my box, something I habitually forgot to do because mail was Sam's job.
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