Concentrate, Maisie, remember the conversation. The exact words.
“How was your day, girls?” Lilah said.
“Very long.” Ava Grace yawned and fell asleep. That was Ava Grace! Put her in the back of a car, and she was asleep within two seconds. It was quite an accomplishment.
“Today was super awesome, Lilah!” Maisie said. “I mean, Mom. Sorry, Mom.”
Maisie scratched her arm, and kept scratching. Even though it stung, it didn’t feel right. She had to keep doing it.
“Bug bite?” Lilah pulled out onto the road.
A FedEx truck honked, and Lilah slammed on the brakes.
I’m a bad kid, the worst. What if I distract Lilah and we crash? And what if she dies? What if it’s my fault? I have to keep apologizing. If I don’t, Lilah will die.
Why couldn’t she stop thinking about being a bad kid? Why couldn’t she stop worrying about Lilah dying? Why were these horrid thoughts taking up a whole room in her brain? No, multiple rooms! Maisie closed her eyes as tight as she could and willed the very weird thoughts to vanish. But when she opened her eyes, those thoughts were worse. Stronger. Bigger. And she didn’t want any of them.
I’m a good person. I do random acts of kindness in school and tell Daddy, and it makes him so proud. I’m a good person. But what if I’m not?
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a bad kid.”
“Where’s this coming from?” Lilah watched extra hard as she pulled back onto the road. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Are you sure I haven’t?”
I’m a bad kid. The worst. If I don’t keep apologizing, Lilah will die.
“Maisie, sweetie, you’re a great kid. You want to know about bad, remind me to tell you stories about my two oldest sisters. My mom blames them for turning her hair gray.”
Those stinky thoughts went quiet. Fantabulously quiet. She wasn’t a bad kid! Lilah had said so. And she would try extra hard from now on to use the mom word, even though it felt itchy. Her real mom lived in sunlight and daydreams. Her dad would never talk about her, but Uncle J said that was because it was too painful. Uncle J told her lots about her mom, about how kind and beautiful she was, with her long black hair. It was the reason Maisie kept her hair long. There were no pictures, because her dad had destroyed them all in his grief. So said Uncle J, the Wikipedia of her mom.
Lilah messed with her seat belt. Like it was hurting the baby.
She’s going to die because of me. I’m a bad kid, the worst. Lilah’s going to die, and I’ll be to blame.
No! Those horrid thoughts were back. Why wouldn’t they stay gone? They had started at the wedding, when the minister said the bit about till death do us part. And she started thinking about death because her mom had died and it wasn’t like she could lose another parent. What if Lilah died? Maisie checked her own seat belt twice. Had to be twice.
“Are you okay?” Maisie said.
“Define ‘okay.’ I had no idea it was so hard becoming a mother.”
“Sorry.” Maisie glanced down and back up. “Sorry I make things hard for you. Mom.”
“No, sweetie. I didn’t mean you, I meant Baby MacD.” Lilah pointed at her rather huge tummy. Not that there was anything wrong with being fat. Gosh, no, but Lilah used to be so skinny, and now she was quite the opposite. “Let’s drop the mom thing. Until you feel ready.”
“But my dad said—”
“I’ll talk to your dad. We’ve thrown a lot at you recently, and I have no doubt that over time, we’ll come up with our own mother-daughter name. Something more organic.”
“Sorry.”
“Sweetie, stop apologizing. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Okay.” But what if she had? Would Lilah die if she stopped apologizing? That didn’t make sense, so why was she thinking it did? Her mind had become an extreeemely confusing place.
“Tell me about your after-school program. Did you meet any future Picassos?”
“It’s a docent program, not after-school.” Maisie pinched her fingers together and held them up to emphasize her point. Poor Lilah. She might have a PhD, but she didn’t always get family things right. “And Ava Grace and I were very lucky to be accepted. It’s a big deal to be with the sixth-graders.”
Not that she wanted to be with the sixth-graders, because that meant leaving elementary school, and middle school was so big and so scary and she loved her teachers and she really, really didn’t want to leave them. And she really, really didn’t want to go to middle school next year. Why couldn’t everything stay the same? Why did things have to keep changing? Maisie tugged on her seat belt. She could hardly breathe, it was so tight.
Lilah smiled. “Guess it’s my turn to apologize. Sorry. I’m a bit behind on the parental learning curve.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
“You didn’t. You called me out on something I got wrong. Quite right, too.”
They drove by the park where they’d collected acorns on the walk to CAM. Maisie leaned down to make doubly sure hers were still in the outside pocket of her backpack.
“I met an artist today. A real one, and I’m going to be her docent. She’s super nice and she wears these earrings that make this great noise like wind chimes, and I’m going to ask her where she got them so I can ask for a pair the moment my dad lets me get my ears pierced.”
“Uh-huh.” Lilah looked up in the rearview mirror.
Lilah drove very slowly, while everyone shot past. And they had no music. Uncle J always turned the radio up full volume so they could sing along. They were going through a My Chemical Romance phase, which was very progressive for a ten-year-old. So Uncle J said. He’d also threatened to tickle her to death if she ever started listening to Justin Bieber, but he had agreed to give Taylor Swift a go. What music did Ms. Katie like?
“And she’s super pretty, the artist lady. Her name’s Katie Mack, and she’s a metal artist. We might need to spend extra time together so I can learn everything there is to learn about her piece. She said maybe next week I could stay late. Do you think I can?”
“We’ll have to ask your dad, but I don’t see why not.”
“Awesome! We have lots to discuss, Ms. Katie and me.” She paused. “Ms. Katie and I. I wanted to go to her studio, where she works with other metal artists, but she said they use dangerous tools so that’s why we have to meet at CAM, and I’m hoping she brings her sketchbook, because she told us she draws out her ideas first.”
“Good plan, since you’re not crazy about loud noises, and I’m pretty sure a metal artist works with fire, which—”
“I’m scared of, I know.”
Why did Lilah have to focus on things that gave her a stomachache? Maisie hugged her tummy. “Oh my gosh. I really like Ms. Katie, did I tell you that already?”
Lilah waited a super long time to answer. “Yes. I figured out that part.”
SIX
KATIE
After vomiting in the gutter, Katie headed straight and left CAM behind. She crossed endless side streets lined up like graves. Stepped down off one curb, stepped back over another. Kept walking, kept heading nowhere. Cold—she rubbed her arms. It was pushing ninety degrees, and she was cold.
OCD and regret joined forces in a never-ending loop. I should’ve gone back. Cal would’ve taken me in, wouldn’t he? Maybe not, but I could have at least tried. The divorce was all for Maisie, and it achieved nothing. Nothing. What if she’s already in hell? Does Cal know? Would he listen if she tried to explain? What have I done?
When a car screeched and a driver honked, she glanced up and mouthed apologies. On the edge of a small city park opposite, sunlight the color of molten iron lit up a bench under a giant, twisted tree, its exposed roots spilling over the lip of the sidewalk. Soon it would be the gloaming, the in-between hour that was neither day nor night. Looking both ways, Katie crossed the main road, headed for the bench, and sat. City crows cawed, and a motorbike revved.
V
ehicles rumbled past, all heading one way. People with briefcases and phones walked by with purpose. Everyone had a destination, including Ben, who strode toward her with a deep frown and his helmet tucked under one arm.
He stopped in front of her. “I thought stay put was a straightforward direction.”
Katie looked away. Across the square of green, a woman chatted into her phone, ignoring the little girl who bounced up and down, saying, “Mommy, Mommy, look what I found!” The woman leaned down to speak to her child in a sharp rebuke. Katie chewed on a sore spot inside her mouth and turned back toward Ben.
“Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to come. I’m sorry.”
He ducked his chin and gave her that look, the one she knew meant Stop already.
“Hey, we’re good. You don’t need to keep apologizing.”
Ben joined her on the weather-beaten bench and placed his dented black helmet between them. Each nick represented a fall off the 1970s BMW that was one hundred percent original. She didn’t know the story behind each ding, each scuff mark, because she had set the ground rules: Let’s keep our friendship in the here and now. No backstory, nothing too personal. And yet, she was about to change that. She had known it the moment the words “come get me” left her mouth.
He shook his hair from his face; it tumbled back within seconds. “Since you didn’t cover your tracks, I assume this isn’t a ‘Get lost, Ben’ statement. Want to talk or just sit? I’m good either way.” He paused. “Why’re you smiling?”
“Sometimes when you run away, you want to be found. And, as Delaney said, sometimes the universe sends a message. Like meeting you in Asheville and you saying, ‘If you move to Durham, I’ll take you on as my intern.’”
“I offered because you were feeding my ego. I never expected you to follow through.” Ben stretched out his legs.
A cyclist pedaled frantically along the road, weaving and dodging.
What if he hates me? What if I deserve his hate? What if I’ve been using him for his art? What if we have an accident on the drive home and he dies because of me?
“I want to tell you who I really am,” Katie said. “But it might change what you think about me, and I’m regretting that already.”
“Katie, I know who you are.”
“What if I’m not the person you thought I was?”
“How about you let me be the judge.” Ben reached over and covered her hand with his. His rough, blackened, warm hand. “Spill.”
“I was born and raised in Boston. Irish on one side, southern on the other. And I’m forty.”
“You look years younger.”
“And I have a chronic illness, but it’s not physical. It’s an illness of the mind.”
What if I pushed him into the road, pushed him under a car?
“Mental illness is still an illness.” He curled his fingers over hers. “My youngest sister, the one out in Seattle? She had an eating disorder in high school. Then went off to college and became an addict. Now she manages a silk-screen printing business and runs a support group.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“This from the person who vanishes whenever my parents come for a visit.”
“I’m not good with families.”
He grinned. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
The sun had begun its descent behind the buildings opposite. Shade crept across Katie’s end of the bench, and on the other side of the square a car alarm blared.
“Did she ever try to kill herself, your sister?”
“No. She overdosed as a freshman, but it was accidental.”
“Mine wasn’t an overdose.” Katie paused. “And it wasn’t accidental.”
A young couple ambled by, arms entwined, laughing. Lost in a moment of happiness and love. Did they realize how lucky they were? After all—she stared back down at Ben’s hand, still covering her own—happiness and love weren’t codependents.
That FedEx truck? I could push him underneath, watch him bleed.
A thought is just a thought; it has no power. Thinking something doesn’t make it true.
“Have you heard of the anxiety disorder, OCD?” she said.
“You have OCD? That’s why you can’t drive home?”
“Yes.” She tried to pull back her hand, but he flipped it over and wove their fingers together. “My mind has a nasty habit of getting stuck on violent thoughts. Like hurting people with my truck. Which is ludicrous, right?”
“Wait, in the studio you talked about irrational fear, and I’ve witnessed enough tears during movies to know you can’t tolerate violence.” He squeezed her hand. “All this is about irrational fear?”
“Except it doesn’t end there. OCD goes after what matters most. Tortures you with your worst-case scenario. For me that means hurting someone I would die to protect.” She swallowed. “My real name is Katelyn MacDonald, and nine years ago I lived here in Raleigh. With my baby girl”—she glanced up; a muscle twitched under his left eye—“and my husband.”
“Nah, you’re a Katie. Katelyn doesn’t suit you.”
She wiggled her hand free and slotted it between her thighs. With her other palm, she rubbed her arm. “You really want to hear this?”
“I’ve spent years playing twenty guesses with your secrets. I’m not moving.”
“The simple version is that my mind snapped after our baby girl was born.”
“And the not-so-simple version?”
“Images came from nowhere. Violent images. A never-ending horror movie with me in the starring role.” She rocked back and forth. “I saw myself pick up a vegetable knife to stab her. I saw myself hold her under the bathwater. I saw myself throw her down the stairs.”
Ben sat up slowly and turned to face her. “If this is painful, you don’t have to tell me.”
“No, I do. I need to say these things out loud. I need you to understand why I ran. I need you to know that even though I’m a mother who did the unimaginable, I abandoned her because I thought I was a monster. I mean, a normal person doesn’t have perverted thoughts, right? I threw out all the knives and stopped bathing her, but the noise in my head got so loud. I didn’t know how else to protect her. From me. That’s why I ran. Do you”—she watched him—“think I’m a monster? No. Don’t answer that. That’s OCD asking. But I don’t want you to think I’m—”
“Remarkable, Katie. What you’ve overcome is remarkable. How did you get well?”
“I’m not well. I’m a high-functioning faker.” She stared into her lap.
He leaned down so he could look up into her eyes. “Let’s stop that one right now. No more faking around me. Nothing but the truth.”
Then he sat back and so did Katie.
“The truth? Well, it gets worse. I lived in a tent with my dog, apparently for seventeen months. When he died, I gave up. Wanted to go home, but I couldn’t do that to my baby girl. Suicide seemed the only option. So I mailed her a suicide letter, and once you’ve mailed your child a suicide letter, life isn’t worth living. You can’t go any lower. But still, I couldn’t take that final step. It was a week before I attempted to throw myself off an overpass. I think the letter was a test, a prayer that my husband would come rescue me. I wanted him to follow my trail, and he did. Tracked me through the return address on my letter, but by then it was too late. A Good Samaritan had already saved my life, if you call knocking me unconscious saving me. Cal called every ER in the area and learned I was in a psych crisis unit. He handed the information over to Delaney, and she moved up to Asheville to take care of me. Without her and my social worker I would never have coped. No health insurance and a long way to crawl. But I had a diagnosis, or rather two, and neither one was psychopath. So yay me.”
“Yay you.” He gave a lopsided smile that stretched into a dimple. “And the second diagnosis?”
“Depression. I’m a thousand percent better than I was, but I still have days when it takes all my energy to function. Any hint of stress can get me spinnin
g in my own little distortion. Being around me full-time isn’t easy. I have lapses when I slip back into old habits.”
“How does that look on the outside?”
“I can’t process uncertainty, so I check. I seek reassurance. Find ten different ways to ask you when the fire marshal’s coming to replace the fire extinguishers.”
His smile was back. “And after the ninth time, I pretend I haven’t heard you.”
“Admit it, that annoys you.”
“A bit, but I’ve accepted that you and I approach life differently. That doesn’t make your way wrong or mine right. It means you’ve got more nervous quirks than I have, and I can be too stubborn for my own good.” He paused. “How the hell did you guys manage before you moved down here?”
“Delaney started freelance bookkeeping so she could work from home, which is a nice way of saying she wanted to keep an eye on me. But that’s the happy part of our story, since it’s how she discovered her talent for saving small businesses.”
“And what were you up to?”
“Surviving. I got cheap meds through a community health clinic, but they didn’t have a mental health specialist on staff. We had no money to hire a therapist, and you need serious therapy for serious OCD. Things called CBT—cognitive behavioral therapy—and ERP, if you’re interested. That’s where exposures come in—ERP stands for exposure response prevention. At one point I was a guinea pig for a few psychology students. Other than that, I did my own therapy. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.” She sighed. “Self-directed therapy is only for the desperate, but I did one thing right. I decided to tackle my fear of fire. Figured I had nothing to lose at that point.
“The first welding class was my idea of an exposure. Who knew I’d get hooked? When I’m welding there’s no room in my mind for anything else.” Katie rolled her neck and something crunched. “There you have it. Therapy, Katie Mack style.”
The Promise Between Us Page 6
