by Megan Walker
I look down at her sexy slayer outfit. “Scarlet and Marco are, anyway.” I’m actually smiling, and not forcing it.
“Seriously, though,” Anna-Marie says. “I have as hard a time believing this as you do. But if the worst imaginable thing happens, and we have this child and then lose them, you and I are going to find a way to be okay again.”
I close my eyes. “I needed to hear that. I know you worry that I’m talking to Ben or Felix instead of you, but it doesn’t matter what I tell my friends. No one can make me feel better like you do. It has to be you.”
Anna-Marie smiles. “You have no idea how good that is to hear.”
I kiss the top of her head, and snuggle her next to me. It’s hard for me to believe that I spent so long avoiding this, when the solution feels so good.
“It was a gopher snake,” I say.
Anna-Marie groans.
“Our problems, I mean,” I say. “We were acting like it was a rattlesnake, and it was a gopher snake all along.”
“Huh,” Anna-Marie says. “Yeah, I guess we were.”
“And it’s okay that I handled all that really badly,” I say. “Even if I threw snakes at people.”
Anna-Marie laughs and mocks the voice of the nurse. “You cannot throw snakes in here, sir!”
We laugh, and I remember what Felix said, about it being wonderful to have someone to have these conversations with. Our marriage is frequently messy, but I love it, and I don’t want it to start being perfect. I just want to be part of this experience.
“How’s your leg?” I ask. “And your arm?”
“Both a little tender. But okay.”
“I was thinking,” I say, “that Marco probably needs to evaluate Scarlet’s injury. It might have been a demon snake, after all.”
Anna-Marie gives me one of her sexy, mischievous grins. “I hear the only way to reverse the cursed bite of the demon snake is by sucking it.”
“It’s a sacrifice, but one that Marco will make on behalf of his slayer.” I lay Anna-Marie back on the couch, and kiss the inside of her knee as she giggles.
I’d take my marriage over a perfect one any day.
Thirty-nine
Felix
I ask Dana to take the kids to my mother-in-law’s overnight, and then call everyone I’ve terrified over the last two days to tell them that Jenna is home and safe and going to be all right. I feel bad that she’s going to have to answer questions and deal with the concern of so many people, but maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it’s better if we don’t try to deal with all of this totally alone.
We haven’t been doing a great job of that so far.
I get done with all the phone calls, including talking to Josh about Anna-Marie and the snake incident. I can imagine how terrifying that must have been, and I feel bad for him having to deal with the news of a pregnancy after all of that, especially because I’ve just given him a shining example of how these things don’t always go according to plan.
But it’s Josh and Anna-Marie. I’m sure they’re going to be okay. And weird as this whole situation has been, I’m glad that I get to be there for him, and him for me.
We’ve got support, Jenna and me. Whatever happens, we’re going to work through it and be okay.
I expect that Jenna is going to sleep through the night, but when I return, she’s awake, and sipping the Gatorade I left her to help with the dehydration. She looks up at me warily, like somehow I’ve given her reason to be afraid of me, and I want to confess everything—the ways that I’ve failed her, the things I wish I could go back and understand.
“Hey,” I say instead.
She puts down her glass and avoids my eyes. “Hey.”
I move closer and sit down on the edge of the bed, and she curls up in a ball, hugging her knees. Before I put her in bed, I changed her into a soft t-shirt and pajama shorts, so she could sleep more comfortably—though maybe that didn’t help so much, as she’s awake already and it’s still the middle of the night.
We’re both quiet for a moment.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” I say finally.
Tears sneak into Jenna’s eyes. “Are you? I left you.”
“It’s okay. You’re back now. The bartender said you were asking for me.”
Jenna’s face crumples. “You should hate me for what I did.”
I want to say that I don’t actually know what all she did—a prospect that scares me—but ultimately it doesn’t matter, not to me. “I could never hate you,” I say. “I’m scared and I’m worried but—listen, okay? I need to tell you something I figured out while you were gone.”
She looks up at me, terrified, as if she thinks I’m going to tell her I don’t want her anymore.
I’m still messing this up. “I think,” I say, “that you have depression.”
Jenna looks confused, like this was the last place she thought this was going. I hold up my hands. “Hear me out, okay? Dana called after you left and I kind of broke down and told her everything. And she said that obviously you had postpartum depression, that she had it with Ephraim and it made it hard for her to connect. She said she thought you knew you had it, because of what you told her about not being able to bond with Ty.” I take a breath, and Jenna is quiet, but she’s listening, so I keep going.
“I wonder, though . . . I think maybe it’s not just a postpartum thing. You know how we both have these off days, and we just feel horrible about ourselves? And I want to use, and you cry, and neither of us feel like we deserve the other, and some days are awful but then sometimes it’s fine, and there’s no reason why?”
“Yeah,” Jenna says softly, but I can see her taking this all in.
“And I’ve been so much better since I’ve been tapering down the subs . . . like, better than I was on the full dose. While I’ve, you know, been taking anti-depressants.”
Jenna looks up at me, stunned. “You think . . . you think that’s what’s wrong with me?”
Relief rushes through me. She hears me. She sees it.
“I do,” I say. “It explains everything, right? The way it gets worse after you have a kid. Both times, right? And the bad days, and . . . even the reason that you got involved with the partying in the first place. Because you felt worthless. Because you were trying to feel better. And I did the same thing with the drugs.”
Jenna tucks her hair behind her ear and drops her gaze. “But it doesn’t change what I did.”
“It’s okay,” I say, and Jenna just cries and shakes her head, pulling her knees up tighter against her.
I take a deep breath. I know it’s going to hurt, hearing the details. And we can deal with that later. Right now, I need to make sure she knows that we’re going to be okay, no matter what, at least on my end. “It’s okay if you were with someone else,” I say.
Jenna stares up at me. “What? How could it be okay?”
“Because you’re sick,” I say. “Because you fell into a pit and I couldn’t catch you. And if your brain sent you back into the old patterns of trying to feel better—I don’t love it, but we’ll be okay. Just like if I slipped and went back to the drugs one time and then got clean again, you’d let me come back. Wouldn’t you?”
She’s said before that she would. She’s promised me over and over that she won’t ever let me live with our family if I’m using. I’ve even written her a letter that she can open and read that says if she ever has to do that, she’s doing the right thing. But she’s always said that I’d need to get clean, and then I could come home. That one slip can’t ruin everything. Not forever.
“Of course I would,” she says. “And I wasn’t with anyone else.”
I smile. I’m embarrassed by how relieved I am, and not just because I’m glad she won’t have to carry that. It would have hurt, probably more than I thought.
And the fact that neither
of us need to heal from that makes me unspeakably happy.
“But this is different,” she says, her face crumpling again. “I messed everything up.”
“You haven’t,” I say, and I scoot closer on the bed, put my hand gently on her leg.
Tears well up in her eyes and slide down her cheeks. “How can you say that? I just ran off. I ran off and got drunk, and I was dancing with this guy, and he was, like, all over me.” She takes a trembling breath and my heart squeezes. She said she wasn’t with anyone, but still, I find that I want to know exactly what happened, so that I can tell her that none of it matters. That even if it hurts, it doesn’t change anything.
“And then—” she sobs. “And then he kissed me, and I freaked out, and I shoved him, and the bartender took me into the back room and let me lie down, and I think I fell asleep and the next thing I remember you were there.”
I wait for a moment, afraid I missed the dark things. “That’s it?” I ask finally.
Jenna looks up at me, startled. “What do you mean, that’s it? We made promises about this stuff. I left you and then I went out and I asked for this guy to hit on me. I was drinking, and now I don’t know if we’ll be able to be sealed in the temple, and—”
“Jenna,” I say, pulling her into me, burying my face in her hair. Which yeah, still smells like dive bar, but I don’t care, because she’s here with me now, and she’s safe. “I was so scared that someone might have hurt you. If that’s all that happened, that’s such a relief.”
She blinks up at me, and I wipe a tear from her cheek. “How can you say that? I ran away, and I hurt you.” She closes her eyes tightly. “All I do is hurt you.”
“That’s not true. It couldn’t be further from true.”
“Do you really think I could get better?” she asks, her voice trembling.
“Yes.”
“What’s it like? Being on the medication.”
I think about it for a minute. “It’s like having more good days and fewer bad ones. And even the bad ones aren’t as bad as they used to be.”
“You said when you were on heroin, it was like a fake happiness,” she says. “Is it like that?”
“No, it’s all real. It’s not like it changes what I feel. I’m still happy and sad and angry and hurt at times, but it’s like I’m connected to the happy part more often. I used to have these extreme highs and lows, and now the lows are only half as low. I’m not falling in the pit of despair anymore. I can see the pit, but I know how to stay out of it.”
She stretches her legs out and then lies back on her pillow. I crawl under the covers with her, put my arm around her waist.
“It does feel like falling in a pit,” Jenna says after a moment. “And I felt like I was hurting you, so I left. When I went to that bar, I was intending to cheat on you so that you would never, ever take me back. And then you could be happy.” Her lip quivers.
I lay my head next to hers and kiss her cheek, right in front of her ear. She turns toward me, and I push her hair back, looking at her. “It would never happen,” I say. “Nothing you can do when you’re depressed could end this. I’ll always take you back.”
She grips my hand. “No part of me wanted to do that, but I wanted you to be free.”
“I am free. But I choose you, and I’m happy about it.”
Jenna gives me a slight smile, and I consider that a win.
“I’m sorry,” I say, stroking her knuckles with my thumb. “I’m sorry you fell in that pit and I wasn’t there. I think we usually fall in it together, and then help each other climb out.”
“Do you think you’ll still need me?” she asks quietly. “I mean, if you’re not depressed, maybe—”
“Jenna,” I say. “First, I don’t think I’m cured forever, just like I’m still an addict, even on the good days. And also, yes, I will need you. Every version of me needs every version of you.”
She sniffles. “But what if I never get better?”
My chest aches. “Then my heart will break for you that you’re in so much pain, but nothing changes for me.”
“But you’d be better off without me.”
“Better off without my soul mate? Really?”
Tears start flowing down her face again. “Do you still believe that about me?”
“Of course I do,” I tell her. “I know it. I would always have been looking for you.”
Jenna nods. “I would have always been looking for you too, even if I didn’t know it.” She lets out a small laugh. “What if we’d met in high school? Preppy, pretentious, cocky Felix and punk-rock rebel Jenna with the spiky buns in her hair.”
Oh man. High school Felix—even cocky and pretentious as he truly was—would definitely have been into that, spiky buns and all. “You would have broken my heart,” I tell her. “You would have slept with me and left me.”
“I would have thought that’s what you wanted. What all men wanted. But secretly, with you, I would have wanted more.”
“Ha. I never had a problem asking for what I wanted. Not back then. I would have been like, ‘Hey, go to prom with me.’”
“I always wanted to go to prom!” Jenna says with another laugh. Which, god, it’s so good to hear that sound. “But I had to act like I was too cool for it.”
“You know what we should do,” I tell her. “When you’re feeling better and we’re up to it, we should stage a prom. And invite all our friends, and crown a prom king and queen and wear ridiculous clothes and take those awful prom pictures.”
“Yes,” Jenna says, her gray eyes lighting up. “And we should bring the kids, because they would love it.” Then her face falls again. “Does Ty hate me?”
“No,” I assure her. “I’m not going to lie to you, he’s a little mad you were sick and didn’t let us take care of you, and he was scared and sad and he made you a get-well card and he’s going to feed you all the chicken soup in the world. Like, I cannot overstate how much chicken soup you’re going to have to eat.”
“Is he making this soup?” Jenna asks.
“He and his nana already did. There’s like a gallon of it in the fridge. They also made you a pie. And he sent you a bunch of emails and some Farmville animals, I think. He had a whole list.”
Jenna shakes her head, her eyes closed tight again. “I abandoned him.”
“And really,” I say, squeezing her hand, “given that you weren’t ready to be his mom when he was a baby, he should have some abandonment issues to trigger. But he handled it really maturely. I was so proud of him. You’re a great mom, Jenna. You can tell by how secure the kid is, even though he probably shouldn’t be. Besides, I abandoned you both once. I did exactly the same thing.”
“You went to rehab,” Jenna says.
I shrug. “And if you’d had a diagnosis, maybe you would have gone to the hospital.”
“I went to that bar intending to cheat on you.”
“And I left the house intending to do drugs. I just couldn’t admit it to myself. But I didn’t, and neither did you. So it’s exactly the same, and the way I feel about you having done that is the same way you felt about what I did.”
Jenna looks like she sees my logic, but doesn’t want to accept it. “Do you think I’m still that girl I used to be? Party Jenna?”
“I don’t think you ever were. I think she was always a mask.”
Jena sighs. “A mask I worked really hard to keep up.”
“I think it’s not your only mask,” I say. “You’re also not this Pinterest mom who has to do all the things herself and can never have any help.”
“I’m not even on Pinterest.”
“But you had to cook all the nice meals all the time, even though you had a newborn. And make pie when you were trying to . . . sew costumes, weirdly? And never ever have a babysitter to help you.”
“Okay,” Jenna says. “I did
that.”
“And that’s not you, either,” I say. “And that’s fine! There are three perfectly capable people living in this house. And I don’t mean Rachel. She’s a baby. But Ty and I are fully capable of taking care of ourselves.”
“I just love you all so much,” Jenna says, and I’m glad she seems to be including Rachel in that. I know she loves her, even if she doesn’t feel it when she’s deeply depressed. “I feel like I should write all the songs about it, but I can’t seem to . . . I don’t know. I can’t.”
“Not lately. Turns out disinterest in things you usually enjoy is a symptom of depression.”
Jenna cringes. “So if I got better, I might want to again. I know you want to get back to music soon.”
“When you’re ready,” I tell her. “It’s okay if it takes a while. I’ll make you a doctor’s appointment and you can talk about medicine.” She doesn’t argue, which is a huge relief. “And I’ll get a therapist recommendation from Cecily, and we’ll go as soon as we can get you in. If it takes a while, I bet Cecily would be happy for you to take one of my sessions. I can go with you, or you can go by yourself.”
She pauses a moment. “I want you to come with me. I think I can be braver if you’re there. And maybe if I can get meds and therapy, if I can get better, maybe I could be the kind of wife you deserve. And maybe I could actually be a good mom, do you think? And actually love my kids, and be—”
“Stop,” I say, and the tears start spilling down her cheeks again.
My heart breaks all over again. I suck at this, but I’m what she’s got, so I fight through. I’ve tried to tell her that’s not what we need, but not well enough.
Or maybe it just hasn’t quite broken through the haze of depression yet.
“You are a good mom,” I say. “An amazing one, and an incredible wife. I don’t know what I would do without you. I spent the last two days imagining it and it’s too terrible for words. I need you.”
Jenna turns and buries her face in her pillow, but still lets me hold her. And then she says one muffled word. “Why?”
“I know how it feels,” I say, “to believe that all you do is hurt people. My mind tells me those lies, too, all the time. And I thought it was guilt, and messed-up chemicals in my brain because of the heroin, but it started before that. It’s always been with me, and I spent all of high school covering it up with bravado and burying it in music, but when I left home, even that didn’t work anymore.”
