The Weight of Zero

by Karen Fortunati

  I am in the hallway when our eyes meet. My body registers the surprise before my brain does. He sits on one of the plastic chairs in the foyer, wearing the Paoletti’s Landscaping jacket that I borrowed on Halloween. My brain finally permits the identification. Anthony Pitoscia. Anthony Pitoscia. Anthony Pitoscia. He stands and gives an awkward nod. “Hey, Cath.”

  I can barely hear him over the roar of white noise in my head. He is saying something about starting therapy. Today at five-thirty. Court ordered. Something about alcohol and drinking. It’s hard to focus on what he’s saying, because there are facts and meanings connecting inside my head, sliding the Michael puzzle pieces into place. I understand now.

  Anthony was in the truck that almost plowed into Kristal last Wednesday. Anthony, who doesn’t have his license, was sitting in the passenger seat and got a good look at me that night. It was Anthony who told Michael about seeing me here, at the St. Anne’s psychiatric outpatient facility. Learning how fucked up I am must’ve sealed the deal, because Michael had already started pulling away. And that is why Michael could not bear to touch me last Saturday. That is why, despite the wealth of opportunities, he politely declined, passing on exploiting the sick girl’s mind and body. He wouldn’t go there anymore with her, because it’s just not the right thing to do.

  Anthony touches my arm, his face a mask of concern. “We’re cool, right, Cath?”

  I nod and my mouth responds, “Sure.” I shuffle past him, desperate to get outside and hemorrhage in private.

  I walk fast, like the thoughts ricocheting in my skull. I don’t feel the cold. In fact, I’m working up a sweat that drips down the sides of my face, mixing with my tears. I bring my pace to a run, and before long, I’m all the way past the strip mall, finished with the lonely strip of blacktop that connects commercial Cranbury to quaint Cranbury. I run past the high school and down historic Main Street, into downtown Cranbury. I only slow when I hit the Green, which glows festively under the starless sky. Then, finally, I stop and sit on the bench between the town Christmas tree and menorah. There’s no one around me. My heart slows.

  We were supposed to do this, Michael and I. He wanted to walk the decorated Green one night but really, really late, after all the stores and restaurants had closed and everyone had gone home. He’d done it last year by himself, and he said it was a little surreal, but beautiful. Romantic. He wanted to do it with me this year.

  Now, that will never happen. Sorrow for the loss of him engulfs me. Michael. A true connection. Yes, it was prompted by some bogus losing-my-virginity goal. But it pushed me to allow Michael inside at least a portion of my life. And it’s over now. Along with the dinners at the warm, garlic-scented Pitoscia home. And Nonny. I swallow a sob. Even if in some unknown universe Michael still wanted me, I can never set foot inside the Pitoscia home and show my lying face.

  The truth is that I hurt everyone around me. Mom, who’s aging at warp speed and needs therapy to lasso her anxiety. Kristal, who tried to be my friend, my best friend, only to get a trifecta shafting: no support, no confidence, no honest camaraderie. Michael, who wanted that freshman dancer in the red skirt, only to discover me hiding in her shell.

  But I realize all of that isn’t even the worst part. It is this: that maybe I’ve been blaming everything on Zero and my diagnosis. Maybe the truth is that I’m just a selfish asshole who happens to have bipolar disorder.

  I am aware of that darkness hovering, sniffing blood in the water, ready to strike. I stand suddenly. I need to move.

  I am afraid.

  I can’t bear the black weight of Zero again. Infiltrating my world and sucking all energy and light and emotion from it. He will always be with me, waiting in the wings, ready to pounce when my foundation cracks. I don’t know if I have the strength to fight him for the rest of my life.

  I walk past the cupcake shop and shoe store and pharmacy. It’s not just fear. I am bone-tired of the shame. And buckled by the knowledge that I will be a perpetual child, never completely independent because of my unstable mind; I will have to moor myself to others to keep safe.

  But who do I have? Michael and now most likely Kristal will be joining the exodus from my life. I will be alone again. Just like September of sophomore year. But a low tide of something good runs through me. Because I am realizing now that that profound sense of loneliness is missing. That cored-out sensation is absent. Is it because I no longer feel guilty about my disorder? That I no longer believe I am unworthy?

  Zero is not here.

  My feet stop, and I’m filled with an unexpected sense of elation. The worst has happened, yet my world is not crashing in on itself. I am Zero-less. And I do not want to die.

  I want to live.

  Even with this disease, my bipolar life can be good. Isn’t that what my D-Day List proves? That great times and experiences are still possible? More than possible—I’ve been fucking doing it! I’ve been living, with meaning, purpose and joy.

  Maybe Kristal didn’t leave because I’m bipolar. Maybe she was just pissed I never confided in her. It might be the same with Michael. I knew what he was asking for when he drove me to school. He was begging me to confide in him. I keep blaming the illness for constraining me, but maybe I’m the one who’s been limiting myself. Out of fear.

  This sudden clarity hits me like a lightning bolt, and I wonder, is it the Lamictal holding the line? Or God? Or Grandma? Maybe it’s Jane. Is she here with me? If this were a movie, I’d see her reflection in a storefront window, catch a fleeting glimpse of a uniformed young woman gazing at me with a look of determination, that steely strength inside her somehow touching me, saving me.

  But there’s no one else in the reflection of Rodrick’s on the Green’s picture window. Except someone is looking at me. From inside. It’s Rodrick. Waving at me. Dear God, is he my guardian angel? Are you freaking kidding me? Impeccably groomed in black leather pants and silky black shirt and slinking to the front door with the grace of a panther?

  Rodrick opens the door. “What was I? A one-night stand?” he asks teasingly. “Where have you been? And who is doing your hair?”

  This is beyond bizarre. “I…I do it myself. My mom does the back,” I say, self-consciously running a hand over my head.

  “Not bad, but why don’t you come back next Saturday? I’m training somebody and we could use your head. No charge.”

  My response rises up, honest and true. “I want to let it grow out,” I say. I no longer need to wear my hair this way as penance.

  Rodrick nods, his eyes studying me intently. “Yes. But I’m seeing a layered bob, grazing your jaw. Nothing longer. We need to show off that gorgeous neck.” He winks at me. “So come in and we’ll clean it up so it grows in right. How’s nine-thirty? It’s Catherine, right?”

  “How do you remember me? I was here, like, six months ago.” I can only imagine manic me, chattering incessantly and vibrating in his chair.

  “Because I was having one of the worst days ever and you basically saved it,” Rodrick says, and runs a hand over his smooth, clean-shaven head. “Coming in like that, demanding the Hepburn cut and completely crushing it.” He smiles. “I needed that. So, see you next Saturday?”

  I nod, and I actually feel calmer. For now, maybe this is what I will have to survive on: small acts of kindness that I never fully savored before, like Sabita’s thoughtfulness, Alexis’s compassion, John’s concern, Aunt D’s perpetual support. Even Olivia with her tiny olive-branch smiles. And Dr. McCallum. My prying, probing ally who has probably saved my life. Alongside my mother.

  My mother.

  I take my time walking past the shops, my body and mind drained. I am still sad about Kristal and Michael, yet strangely hopeful in a way and also a little scared. Because if I didn’t have to walk, if I didn’t have that cushion of time and physical exertion to absorb the grief and hurt, what would I have done if I had gone straight home? In the heat of anguish, would I have pulled out my shoe box and washed down the troops with a few
cold gulps?

  I don’t know, but I don’t think so.

  But it doesn’t matter now. I am dumping that box. I am fucking dumping the entire thing, with its pills and nasty notes and harsh reminders of what the last two years have cost. Tonight. As soon as I get home. Because that box makes it too easy and I am too erratic. It’s no different from a loaded gun.

  I pick up the pace and turn on my phone. There are seven voice mails: four from Michael, two from Dominic’s and one from Aunt D. She’s supposed to be in Boston. Why would she be calling me? I listen to her voice mail: “Catherine, it’s Aunt Darlene. Hon, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m…I can’t reach your mom. Dominic called me tonight. He said she never showed up at work and isn’t answering her phone. Can you just call me and let me know what happened? Thanks, honey. And call whenever you can. It doesn’t matter what time.” I click on the most recent message from Dominic’s. It should be Mom, explaining the mix-up. Instead, a husky, masculine voice says, “Uh…hello…hello, Catherine. It’s Dominic. I’m looking for your mom. She was supposed to help out tonight with a private party at five. But she never showed up, and your mom never misses without calling. I’m a little concerned. Can you have her call me when she gets a chance?”

  It’s almost seven now. With icy fingers, I click on Mom’s number. It rings and then goes to voice mail. Just as I am certain that I am standing on Main Street in downtown Cranbury, I know something is very wrong with my mother. The sidewalk tilts under my feet as I begin to sprint the last mile home.

  The Accord is still in the driveway, but the house is dark. With trembling fingers, I unlock the front door. “Mom?” I call out, panting. No answer. From the foot of the stairs, I can see up into the darkened second-floor hallway. The bathroom door is open, and light streams into the dark hallway. “Mom!” I yell, pounding my way up the steps. My heart beats triple time. Please, God, make her be all right. Please let her not have had a stroke. Please let me not find her, a fallen redwood, on the pink chenille rug.

  The bathroom is empty. I race into her bedroom. She’s not here. The black skirt and white blouse, her Dominic’s uniform, lie posed on the bed, imitating her. Scaring me.

  My legs feel uncoordinated as I stumble downstairs. There’s that stillness. The silence that screams. I walk through the living room and stop at the entrance to the dark kitchen. Grandma’s door is open a crack and her bedroom light is on. I have a sick sense of déjà vu, but it’s inverted, reversed somehow.

  Because this is what my mother would have felt. Had I killed myself.

  I slowly enter the kitchen. “Mom?” I call out.

  Is she dead?

  No answer.

  Please, God. Please, God. Don’t let her be dead. Not now. Not yet. Not this way.

  I’m afraid of what I’ll find in Grandma’s room.

  I enter. Mom is here, seated on Grandma’s bed, wearing only a bath towel wrapped around her. Her shoulders are slumped, her head hangs. The plaid suitcase lies open on the floor. On Mom’s lap, cradled in her hands, is my shoe box.

  No. No. No. Not that. Not now. Not this way.

  I freeze. “Mom?”

  She doesn’t move. She doesn’t acknowledge me.

  Dear God, is this a stroke? Did the discovery blow an artery in her brain?

  Don’t go. I need you. I need you. I need you.

  Finally, she blinks and tilts her head, and I rush toward her. She takes my hands, kissing each one and then squeezing them both in her cold, worn fingers. I look into her eyes. She is here, but stunned by a grief too big to comprehend. Its depth staggers me.

  In a ragged whisper, she asks, “Are you leaving me, Catherine?”

  And another truth breaks on me. One that I feel in my bones. It is incontrovertible, immutable and, now, so very fucking clear.

  If I had killed myself, I would have killed her too.

  Seconds before she stepped into the shower tonight, Mom remembered Grandma’s gold watch. It’s an expensive piece and Mom worried that in our upcoming cleanout of Grandma’s room, we might forget about it and mistakenly donate it to Goodwill. So with a towel hastily flung around her, she went downstairs. She knew the watch was in the plaid suitcase, wrapped in a hankie and secured inside an old glass Gerber baby food jar. At first, she was thrilled to find Uncle Jack’s old uniform jacket. Catherine can use this for her project, she thought. But when she pulled the jacket out, my shoe box tumbled to the floor.

  Once I helped Mom dress, we called Dr. McCallum. I explained what had happened and that Mom wanted to take me to the ER. In another strange turn of events, Dr. McCallum just happened to be shopping at the Cranbury Costco and drove straight to our house.

  He spent two and a half hours with us. First talking with me and then with Mom and me together. For the first time, I followed Sandy’s advice to “stay honest and say honest.” I told Dr. McCallum everything about my stockpile, how and when and why I collected the pills, my nighttime ritual of taking them out and lining them up and my safety protocol in rotating their location from under my bed to under Grandma’s bed. He asked if there were other stashes or if I had made additional plans besides the shoe box.

  No, I told him. This was it.

  At least four times he asked me if I wished I were dead or if I was thinking of killing myself. Each time, I honestly answered no. I told him everything that had happened with Michael and Kristal and Anthony. And that it wasn’t bullshit that I had planned on dumping the shoe box tonight. I explained why I thought I needed it. How the worry about Zero’s return and the harsh truth of what my future held crippled me at times. How I felt this was the only way to deal with it. How having an escape plan reassured me. How I felt like it was impossible to say these things out loud.

  He listened and nodded and listened. “You know, everyone thinks the hardest part is the asking for help. I’d disagree. I think for most of my patients it’s getting to that point right before you take the leap of verbalizing it, and then working up the strength to actually say it out loud, that’s extraordinarily difficult.”

  When Mom joined us, I repeated a lot of what I had told Dr. McCallum. She was still pale and crying a little, but she visibly relaxed when Dr. McCallum told her he thought I was safe. He wanted the pills destroyed tonight and said that Mom had to supervise me doing it.

  So now Mom and I are sitting on the kitchen floor, with a ziplock bag between us. We’ve tossed the old ballet shoes, the unopened packages of tights and crumpled recital flyers. I showed Mom the notes from Riley Swenson’s crew.

  “I was wondering what those were,” she says, and stares at them, something cold and hard in her eyes. “I despise that family.” She rips the notes up angrily and tosses the pieces into the baggie.

  My shoe box is empty now but for the bottles. “I’m glad you’re here,” I tell Mom. “I want to do this together.”

  Her eyes fill with tears. She nods and picks up the Celexa bottle. I take it from her cold fingers, unscrew the cap and dump the pills into the baggie. I thought I’d feel something, like fear that my escape route was no more, or the sadness of letting go. But I don’t—not at all. With each pill that falls out, I feel lighter. Mom opens the last bottle, Lexapro. I take it from her and retrieve the snowflake earrings and empty the bottle. Then I seal the bag and hand it to her.

  “What happened?” Mom asks. “Why were your earrings in there?”

  I explain why I put them in there and what happened tonight with Anthony.

  “Fuck,” my Catholic mother breathes. “We both had really shitty nights.”

  And we start to laugh.

  —

  It’s a no-brainer. We both choose the condo on the Oahu beach. How can you beat walking right out your back door and onto smooth white sand and into the glorious ocean? HGTV is running a Hawaii Life marathon, and in bed beside me, Mom snorts as a couple on the show chooses the fixer-upper a good three miles from the water because it had room for a garden. It’s 11:30 p.m. and we’re on our third
episode.

  Tonight, I couldn’t say good-night to Mom. She seemed fragile and I felt raw and sad but also relieved. So I got into my pajamas, grabbed my pillow and walked into Mom’s room. She was sitting on the bed, hunched over, rubbing moisturizer into her hands.

  “Can I sleep in here tonight?” I asked.

  For the rest of my life, I will never forget the smile that lit up her face.

  We watch another full episode and then start a fifth.

  Under the covers, Mom’s hand rests lightly on my forearm. “Cath, honey, I’m starting to fade. Wake me up if you need anything.”

  That sense of inverted déjà vu lingers. Our mother-daughter roles had reversed and then righted themselves, but some maternal vestiges remain in me. Either that or she has awoken my dormant maternal instincts. For the first time, I really understand that the mother-daughter dynamic changes. I guess there will always be a psychic umbilical cord linking us, going both ways now, sustaining us. She will always live my pain, and as I grow older, I will live more and more of hers.

  I stroke the hair off her forehead before kissing it. “Good night, Mom. I love you.”

  On Saturday morning, I dial Michael’s number. I still haven’t listened to his voice mails or read his texts from yesterday. He picks up in the middle of the first ring.

  “Can you come outside?” is the first thing he says.

  “What?”

  “I’m here. Parked outside your house. Can we talk? In the car?” Michael’s voice is raspy and he sounds tired.

  I tell Mom where I’m going, throw on my winter coat and slide into the Target version of Ugg boots. I grab the snowflake earrings off the kitchen table, slide them into my coat pocket and walk outside. My heart races as I approach the Subaru. Michael hops out to open the passenger-side door. Before I slide in, our eyes catch. He looks fried, with mussed-up hair, dark shadows beneath his eyes, and stubble. Somehow, he’s still painfully cute, though I know he’s here to break up with me.