I’m Keeping You

by Jane Lark

  That decision had changed my life in an amazing way. I’d found love like I’d never imagined and become a father. But in the summer, I could have lost both things, and those emotions hung low in the pit of my belly, stirring nausea. I’d never really faced the fear and shock from that night. I hadn’t had time to. Rach had needed my strength. There had never been the opportunity for me to admit how much it had scared me…

  “Do you think he bought stuff for the weekend?” she said quietly. I could hear her remembering things she didn’t want to remember.

  I clasped her hand as it lay on the table. “Maybe.” I looked back at Justin and Portia. “So maybe we know what day he buys it. It would be a good guess. He’d get some in for the weekend, surely. So, let’s target Fridays for a start and see if we can work out where he gets it, if he’s getting it on Fridays.”

  Portia looked at Rach. There were questions in Portia’s eyes. Rach’s head turned so she could stare out of the window. Portia could see something was wrong. Maybe she thought Rach was being rude? I’d text Justin after, to remind him, or tell him, that Rach had bipolar, so they understood. I’d never let anyone judge her badly, I wasn’t going to start letting that happen now.

  “I manage his diary, business and non-business appointments; I’ll see if there’s any clues in it. Maybe I could work it out.”

  I smiled at Portia. I’d definitely gotten her wrong before when I’d worked with her. I should stop judging others, just like I didn’t want others judging Rach. I was just as bad at making rash and wrong decisions as other people. Portia was still willing to help, even though she probably thought Rach was bad-mannered tonight.

  “I bet he doesn’t ask you to book an appointment to meet his dealer, though.” Justin made a joke out of it.

  Portia made a face at him. “No. But there may be something he does every Friday, or someone he sees. I’ll look.”

  “You’re not kidding, are you?” Justin said.

  “No.” She shook her head and gave him a broad smile that said she loved playing detective.

  She was a nice girl and they were good together.

  I ought to apologize to her, except she’d never known all the bad words I’d thought about her, so admitting them would do more damage than good. “You really think you can find out?”

  “I don’t know. I won’t promise. But it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

  “Sure, for us it is. Thanks. I appreciate you helping. You’re cool, Portia.”

  We ordered more drinks and talked some more about other stuff, with Rach sitting silent, and then at ten o’clock we parted ways.

  When we walked back to the hotel, I gripped Rach’s hand, holding tight, holding on to her like she’d hung on to my arm on the way to the restaurant. We were still silent. She wasn’t well enough for conversation.

  When she went into the bathroom in the hotel, I looked at her packet of meds, wishing she’d take one and wondering if I should force her to.

  Thank God I’d made her an appointment for next week. I’d have someone to talk to about this and maybe they’d force, or encourage, her to start taking her meds again.

  Right now, though, I needed Justin and Portia to understand.

  I took out my cell and typed a text to Justin. ‘Hey, buddy, I can’t remember if I said, but Rach has bipolar. That’s why she was so quiet, it’s just how she is sometimes, when she gets down. I hope you didn’t take it badly, she didn’t mean it that way. Thanks for a good night, I enjoyed your company. Call me if Portia finds anything.’

  I had an answer in moments. ‘No worries. It was good to hang out.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jason

  On Thursday Rach didn’t wake up. I had a shower and dressed, like I’d done the other day. She still didn’t wake. She was way down low and totally out cold.

  I looked at her meds: they were lying on the nightstand.

  What the hell did I do?

  Next week was too far away. I was going to go nuts before then. My head was going to explode. I needed someone to talk to. To download to. I was going to end up as messed up as she was.

  Pressure rammed me down. There was Mr. Rees; and the need to look out for Rach, constantly—always trying to say and do the right things around her so I didn’t upset her; and my business that I’d left on the back burner at home.

  I wanted my son to pick up and cuddle…

  One day I was going to pop.

  I thought about sneaking through the services stairwell to get up on to the roof. I’d stand there and shout across the city, to let off the steam in me.

  I took a breath and sighed it out. Rach lay on her side with her arm over her head, breathing quietly.

  Tears gathered in my eyes and welled over. I wiped them away. I was trapped under deep, dark black clouds and it was sunny outside. My eyes didn’t see the sunshine. My hands shook when I walked over to the window and moved the voile curtain aside to look out. Yeah, it was sunny. The clouds were in me.

  Fuck. Something had to change, and Rach wasn’t going to change, so I needed to if I was keeping her, and I was keeping her, because as much as she was hard to live with I wouldn’t be able to live without her either. She and Saint were the sun in my world. Maybe that was why the clouds were dark, because my sun was missing; Saint was at home and Rach was too ill to shine.

  God, I needed help. I needed some sunshine. It was getting too dark. In the summer when Rach had been ill, I’d still had Saint to hold on to as a light to guide me, but without him…

  I wiped more tears away.

  I picked my cell up and looked at it. Debating with myself. I didn’t talk stuff out with other people, I never had. I internalized and over-thought everything. Those were the charges Lindy used to throw at me in an argument; Rach had never moaned at me for it. She accepted me for who I was, as much as I accepted her. That was the real reason we’d hit it off at first, because we got each other, and we hadn’t tried to change each other.

  But I couldn’t carry this around with me anymore, the pressure of holding this in was too heavy. I’d burst if I didn’t let it out to someone, and I couldn’t let it out to the one person I’d choose to talk to because Rachel had enough to deal with without worrying about me getting sick too.

  I brought up Billy’s text stream and touched the link he’d sent yesterday, it opened into the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. There was a number on the webpage. I called it, looking down at Rachel. I wanted to walk into the bathroom and talk in there, but if she was going to hear me it was better that she saw me in here, so she knew I saw her listening, and I wasn’t trying to hide.

  “Good day, DBSA, how can we help?” It was a woman at the other end.

  I didn’t know how they could help, though. “I… I…” I almost ended the call.

  “Are you supporting someone?”

  “Yeah.” Shit, the tears welled up and the emotion gathered in a lump of pain at the back of my throat.

  “And you’re having difficulties…”

  Fuck, I felt like Rach, when she couldn’t form a sentence. “Yeah.”

  “In what way?”

  I took another breath, glad the woman knew how to break this down into bites of information I could answer. “She’s stopped taking her medication, and I don’t want to force her, but she’s been doing random stuff, and crying, and now she’s just sleeping.”

  “Long periods of sleep is always a sign that people are suffering an occurrence of depression, and it’s common for people with bipolar to avoid taking their medication. You’re not alone. What’s your name?”

  “Jason.”

  “Well, Jason, often loved ones support an individual to continue taking their meds. Many people with bipolar will believe they are better off without medication, because it makes them feel lower and they like the highs—”

  “I like her highs too, though, in a way, when she isn’t heading toward mania. We have fun together when she’s feeling good.”

 
“Some people can live without medication but others need it, it’s all about learning what triggers events and working out how to respond—”

  “How do they do that?”

  “With the support of her doctors and the hospital; you don’t want to take it on alone. It’s hard supporting someone alone. Is there anyone besides you?”

  I leaned back against the wall and slid down it, so I sat on the floor against it, with my knees bent up as I held the cell to my ear. “Yeah, my parents, some friends, and other family. We live with my parents, but we’re away from home…” I told her about our aborted plans to move out.

  “Well, it sounds like she’s lucky she has you and your family.”

  I didn’t respond. Compliments weren’t relevant today. I’d caused the depressive state she was in—in my view.

  “We argued yesterday. I had my mom send Rachel’s meds to us, and I gave them to her yesterday, but I told her it was her choice if she took one. She didn’t. She still hasn’t. We’re going through a paternity case over her kid, and we’re losing, and I feel like I’m to blame, and meanwhile I have to keep facing what she’s done in the past when she treated herself badly, and let other people treat her badly—and it hurts. I hate seeing her ill. I hate seeing her not care about herself, and I hate thinking about how she’s been hurt in the past. I went for a run. I just needed to get out of here and have some time to deal with stuff on my own. When I came back she was angry and beating on me. She accused me of hating her.”

  Shit, now I’d started, the words and the pain came flowing out while I stared at Rachel’s face hoping her eyelids didn’t lift. I didn’t want her to overhear, I wanted to be able to tell someone how I felt. But I didn’t want to hide in case she did overhear and I needed to manage the situation.

  “Do you know anyone else with bipolar?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, it’s normal for people when they’re having an occurrence; to say things they don’t mean, and it can be cutting and hurtful. They lose their judgment of situations when they’re at extremes. At worst they won’t even know what they’re doing or saying—”

  “I know. In the summer she walked into a river with our son and nearly drowned them both, and I don’t think I’m over it.” My breath hitched. Tears welled up and ran over.

  That was at the heart of things. Nothing had been right since then, and I hadn’t spoken to anyone about it.

  “Did that scare you?”

  “Yeah.” My voice was low and gravelly. I wiped my hand under my nose.

  “How did you feel? How do you feel about it now?”

  “Shit.” A broken sound of humor escaped my throat. “I don’t want her to be hurt, or sick or down, but I can’t protect her… Can I? What if she’d died? Not deliberately, I know she wouldn’t do that now, but accidently… When she never even wanted to leave me… What if Saint had died? What if Saint had died and she’d lived? She’d never have coped with that. She can’t even forgive herself for having risked it.”

  “She sounds like a good mom.”

  “She is. She’s a great mom.”

  “Are you upset because you argued, or upset because of what happened before?”

  “I don’t even know.”

  “Don’t let these situations get you down. Or let them hurt you. In minutes, hours, or after a day or so, she might be telling you something that’s so upbeat it’ll have you crying with laughter. To support someone, you have to learn to ignore their shit.”

  Another broken sound of humor rumbled in my throat. “Should you be saying that?”

  “I support someone too. My girlfriend is terrible, she yells. I’ve learned not to yell back. I agree with her and walk away. I just tell her she’s having an episode and she needs to calm down. When her mood settles then we take a look at her meds if we need to.”

  I nodded, even though the woman wasn’t in the room to see. The weight on my shoulders had lifted a little and the pressure didn’t feel like I was going to explode any moment anymore. I didn’t feel alone with this woman at the other end of a call. “Have you ever thought, how do I keep coping with this forever? We’re married, but I don’t know if I can do the right things for her forever. It’s exhausting. I’m tired. I’ve only known her a year, and if I’m not coping now…”

  “We all have those days, Jason. That’s normal too, for care-givers, for everyone, not just people caring for someone with bipolar. Everyone gets down sometime. And depression isn’t exclusive to people with bipolar; they don’t get to own the rights to it.

  “I’ve thought at times I can’t do this anymore. I think most of us who care for someone who has bipolar have. That’s normal too. It’s hard work. You get through those dark periods by hanging on to the memories of the good times; the memories of the things that make you love that person. Then you come out the other side and things feel better, and you don’t even really know how sometimes. Then it’s easier to love them again.”

  I breathed steadily for a minute, thinking and not speaking.

  “Do you love your Rachel?”

  “Yeah.” The answer was instantaneous, there was no doubt in me. “My fear isn’t that I don’t or can’t love her, just that I won’t be able to keep coping and helping her. I don’t even know what I think. That I’ll crack up or something… That I’ll go nuts. I feel breakable. I feel like I can’t be happy anymore because I’m too worried about her… I… I feel down…” I laughed. Rach got down. Her downs were different than this. “Stupid, isn’t it? My down comes in a hundredth behind hers…” It didn’t count. It couldn’t count, because she was far worse and I needed to be there—

  “And you’re trying to be super-strong?”

  Yeah, that was what I’d been about to say to myself.

  “We’re all weak sometimes. There ain’t nothing wrong with it. We’re human. Sorry to tell you that, but you’re as breakable as the next person. Not like your Rachel, but in your own way. So, hey, from what I can hear down the phone I’d say you need to stop pretending that you’re okay, and get some help. You’ve been through a lot, and didn’t you say there was some fight for her son too…?”

  “Yeah, and it’s dirty.”

  “Well, I’d suggest first of all you make sure she knows how much you love her, and that you’ll be there for her. It sounds like you two have got a lot on your plate. But second of all tell her this; you need her to help you, you need her to take her medication to make things easier, and third, you talk to her about how you feel too. She needs to know. You can’t hide it. She’ll be sensing it. Bipolar doesn’t make people stupid.”

  I smiled into the cell. I liked this woman.

  “…Then when you get back home set up some support for yourself. We should have a support group that meets near you, so you can talk to other people who are supporting relatives. It’s always easier if you can talk to someone who understands. And there are Facebook groups too, so there are other immediate routes if you’re in the middle of a tough time.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you feel a little better?”

  “Yeah.” I did. “I guess.”

  “Do you want to keep talking? Is there anything else you wanna discuss or share?”

  “Nope. I feel better knowing it isn’t just me.” A note of croaky, quiet, but almost proper laughter left my throat, because that was obvious; Rach was not the only person who had bipolar. “Thanks, you’ve helped.”

  “You can call anytime. That’s what we’re here for, to help people in your situation.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t forget to get in contact with a local group when you get back home and remember: to look after her you need to look after yourself.”

  “Yeah. Cheers.”

  “You’re welcome. You take care of yourself now. Goodbye. Go give your Rachel a cuddle.” She ended the call.

  As soon as she’d gone the tears came back, running on to my cheeks. I sniffed and wiped them on the cuff of the hoodie I wore.
But they wouldn’t stop falling. I leaned my head back against the wall and let them come. Maybe fucking crying would release some more of the pressure.

  I didn’t know if I was crying for Rach or me, but it felt like the tears had been bottled up in me since the summer. I’d wanted to cry the night I’d found her in the park; I hadn’t because I’d been holding her, and the next night I’d been holding Saint, and from that moment on, I’d always had one or the other to hold up so I’d never had time to let myself fall.

  When the tears stopped I sat there breathing slowly. The weight on my shoulders had gone, and some of the tension in my chest had released. I still felt lonely, though, but stronger. Like I’d had my batteries recharged. The lack of pressure inside me was like someone had let some of the fizz out from a bottle of cola. That sound of air escaping, psssst, caught in my imagination. My tears had let the pressure lock go. I could cope. I would cope. If I found some help.

  I got up off the floor, breathing in and out steadily because my heart beat with a crazy rhythm. Then I walked into the bathroom and washed my face. I didn’t want Rach to know I’d had a meltdown. She was paranoid enough. But when I looked at myself in the mirror, I knew what that woman had said was true. I was breakable and I needed to admit that to someone and stop internalizing all my shit, and ask for help. I’d been trying to be Rach’s superhero, but I didn’t have any magic powers and I wasn’t invincible. The woman was right; I was just human.

  When I went back into the room, Rach was still asleep. She wouldn’t get up today, I’d faced days like this with her at home when she was pregnant, and after Saint had been born. She’d been on lower medication and then none when she’d been breastfeeding. That was what had brought on her excursion into the river.

  But if she wasn’t going to wake up I needed to do what the woman had said and look out for me. If I stayed in the room with Rach I was going to go stir-crazy and climb the walls. I wanted to run.

  No. I had to run.

  I needed running to let go of all the shit piling up on top of me.