West of You

by Christina Metcalf

  That’s how I felt about Walsey. I was so drawn to him and how sweet of him to “send” flowers. I wanted to be a normal girl and cast myself into the uncertainty that is love but I kept associating the rejection from my best friend and subsequent offing of herself with him. He was what I wanted to talk about with her. He was the first and only indication that she was not herself. He is her scorning me.

  “Walsey?” Luke asked.

  “How did you know that?”

  “Because you smiled and I haven’t exactly seen much of that from you. You certainly don’t smile when Mike texts.”

  “Not now. He’s a liar.”

  “He’s not a liar. He just wanted to have a baby with someone else.” He smirked.

  “And your girlfriend killed your dog.”

  We were now at the point of dark humor. Is that a stage of grief? We break into laughter, the same kind of laughter you might hear in one of those places they used to be able to call an asylum. Asylum has gotten such a bad reputation. It’s no longer politically correct. But an asylum was exactly what I wanted right now. I wanted to escape from everything and gain “asylum” from myself.

  I felt itchy sitting on the hay so I walked over to the old wooden ladder in the corner. It was one of those pieces that was beautifully worn like something people work for hours on to get just the right amount of fake history into it and then post it to Pinterest. It was propped up in the corner like it was awaiting a much bigger job than just being a bridge to somewhere higher. At its base sat what might have been a potted African violet three months ago. Next to that was another and another. Five once beautiful, Pinterest-worthy painted pots.

  “What were these?”

  Luke crossed the space to come see what I was pointing to.

  “Awww. Damn it. Those were her prized violets. You should’ve seen them. She had this ladder angled against the wall with a pot on each rung. One for each season we had been together. On our quarter anniversary…”

  “You celebrated quarter anniversaries? That’s pretty dumb.”

  “We celebrated everything.”

  I wasn’t sure if the redness on his cheeks was from the heat or my teasing.

  “She’d paint one every quarter and then bring me out here to see it. And tucked into each one was always the dumbest little clay llama dressed up as some celebrity, politician, sports person, whatever.”

  I walked up to get a closer look, there among the brown leaves and parched dirt was nearly every goat I had ever made. I picked up Billy the Kid.

  “These are goats, ya dumb Texan.”

  “I think I would know what a goat looks like and that’s no goat.”

  “It is too a goat. What the hell else would it be?”

  “A llama.”

  I shook my head.

  “A donkey?”

  “You’re the only donkey here.”

  “You’re getting a little upset over those stupid skinny cows.”

  “They’re not cows, or llamas, or donkeys. They’re goats, you jackass. I should know. I made them.”

  “Sorry. I always wondered where they came from. She used to get mad at me when I’d laugh at them.”

  I nodded. That was M. Always my champion. I had envisioned my “crazy goat benefactor” a lot of ways, mostly like the Colonel from KFC, but never had it occurred to me it was her.

  “You want ‘em back?” he asked, picking the goat circus performer off the ground and holding it like it was swinging through the air. “She did love them.”

  “Why are they on the ground then?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe she was rearranging one. When I got home and couldn’t find her, I came out here and they were here. I figured maybe she was making another one. God, all this time I thought she was making those goofy things and saying they were done by a professional sculptor.”

  He shook his head and laid the circus performer down atop a stiff bed of violets. I nodded not sure if I should be angry at him or happy for what my best friend had been doing for me all these years.

  “I don’t think she ever started that one....”

  I look up. It’s a habit of mine when I don’t know the answer to something or I’m thinking about dead people. It’s like I expect them to be looking down on me with their backs against the ceiling.

  That’s when I saw the reason she had moved the plants. A single rope swaying from the rafter like a grim version of a child’s tire swing.

  She always said, “If at first you don’t succeed…”

  Out by the box car waiting i could be happy

  After she killed herself, after her sister called me, after I broke down and refused to get out of bed, after I told Mike, after I told my kids, after all of our college friends texted me and messaged me with non-stop questions and gruesome prying into our lives, after all of my tears dried up not because I was done being sad but because there was no liquid left in my body to come out my eyes, and after my organs felt like they were cracked and bleeding, I spent hours reading stories of suicide on the Interwebs. “Interwebs” is what M referred to as that rabbit hole of time suck that others called the Internet.

  But it turns out there’s a lot of helpful information on there. For instance, you might not know that getting hit by a train is 96% lethal (not sure what the other 4% look like) and it has an agony factor of about 7. Which is more than explosives (3.7%) but less than hanging (25.5%). But it also, on average, takes about 18 minutes to do, which is considerably shorter than setting fire to oneself, which takes an alarming 52 minutes. But that’s much quicker than overdosing, which apparently takes 252 minutes.

  While these are important facts, they are facts I decide Luke doesn’t really want to hear, particularly the amount of time it takes and the agony factor. Before reading this, I would’ve assumed it would be much quicker. Then again, there’s no information about driving up train tracks and waiting for an oncoming train.

  Luke looks at me like he’s expecting something. I verify with myself that sharing would not be advisable yet my gaze turns to the rope.

  “I’ve only been out here like three times since….since…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence. I’m sure there was a part of him who still expected her to walk through his front door, not bothering to catch the screen door and letting it slam hard. He’d likely even listen to her apology of tardiness and forgive her even if she said something outlandish like she had faked her death to run off with Sam the butcher but it hadn’t worked out when he discovered she liked her steaks well done. Luke was just that kind of guy and as I sat there watching his face crumble as he gazed at the rope, I knew he’d never get over her.

  Ya see, suicide is the cruelest of deaths and don’t waste your time telling me she was sick and needed help. Whether there’s an afterlife or not, she’s rid of her pain. We live it every day, every minute. And we can’t blame God. We don’t get that satisfaction to rage against an invisible creator. We have to live with the fact that she chose to leave us and did so without saying goodbye. She stole my best friend. She stole his lover. And I cannot get past the selfishness of doing that. I wished she had had the balls to tell me that that’s what her big plans were for the afternoon. I wish she had said I don’t have time to talk to you about you and Walsey. I’m checking out.

  I didn’t follow him when he left the barn. Part of me worried he was going to get in his Jeep and head for the tracks himself. I wondered if he had any guns. I stood and looked at that dangly shred of obvious pain and decided if she hadn’t had the intestinal fortitude to tell me why she had hit rock bottom, I would find out. But first, I needed a bottle of wine.

  I woke about sunset to the distant sound of chopping wood. I saw Luke’s striking silhouette out by the barn chopping at something. As I watched him swing the axe, I realized I hadn’t contacted the kids recently so I sent them each a quick text. Call me mother of the year.

  So what is mental illness? To figure that out, you have to establish a norm. Am I normal? Is
it normal to grieve? My psychologist refers to my choices as “destructive.” And I haven’t even told him how much Mountain Dew I drink in a given day.

  I asked him for examples because I saw my choices as life-affirming. They were the only thing that made me feel anything. His list took several sessions to compile. He obviously wasn’t as bothered by them as he initially appeared to be.

  They were casebook abandonment detritus. I’m screwed up because my mother left when I was 11. Or was it 10? It’s hard to remember exactly because for an irrationally long time dad told me she was on vacation. I believed it until my birthday. Even on vacation, she should’ve sent a present. That’s when I knew. She was a thing of the past. Moms were things other people had.

  So this person who allegedly spent some time learning about the human brain had pronounced judgement on me just as I had judged him. After all, how can you respect someone who limited himself in his career by not going to medical school. If only he had, he could actually write prescriptions and be a valuable part of society.

  Still, I had to be nice. Mike had gotten me in. Seems the shrink owed him a favor so I jumped to the head of his crazy people line. All so he could tell me I was making bad decisions. Guess that makes most of my teachers and ex boyfriends shrinks too.

  I eventually had to leave the guy because my bad decisions led me to make a move on him. But to be honest, I did that purely for shock value and I wanted to see if he’d tell Mike at one of their poker games.

  As he sees it, I am:

  ● Liberal in my attitude towards sexuality, making decisions that harm me and potentially harm the emotional balance of others.

  ● Struggling with moments of disassociation, having difficulties knowing what happened in my waking life and what went on in dreams (in all fairness, I have very realistic dreams and I tend to sleep a lot. It would be confusing to anyone.)

  ● Deeply scared by a mid childhood abandonment episode, made worse by the sudden onset of a puberty I was not positioned to accept.

  ● Unable to connect with my children. (But who can connect with a teen and a preteen? How does that mean I’m making bad decisions?)

  ● Attracted to men who think very highly of me at first and then are disillusioned by the reality of me. But what exactly is the reality of me? Maybe I could ask Luke once he was done with the axe.

  Truth: shrinks kill themselves more than any other medical professional, except maybe vets and dentists. But reaching into people’s mouths would be enough to make me want to eat a gun too. Some shrink in Psychology Today said it was because they have easy access to powerful drugs. I have easy access to sharp knives and clay. I could shove a whole wad of it down my throat and block my airway like the moth in Silence of the Lambs but I don’t.

  The author went on to blame the high suicide rate at doctors being over achievers and maybe all sorts of other people are trying it but are not as successful as shrinks. Leave it to the psychiatric community to give themselves a compliment even in death.

  And apparently, just as many female doctors kill themselves as male doctors. This is different than the general population where 4x as many men kill themselves as women. M always was a trailblazer for women’s rights.

  The mental health community uses weird words like “suicidal tendencies.” What does that mean? I tend to be suicidal? How can you tend that way? You either are or aren’t and I’d say if you haven’t succeeded, it’s not really suicide anyway, which must make you feel like a giant loser.

  The suicide rate for doctors is double what it is for the lay population. And you might be surprised to know only about 1-2% of the dead killed themselves. That’s a ridiculously small number….unless one of those people is someone you love. There is more of a chance of dying of the flu than dying of suicide. In fact, 40% of the population dies from 5 things: heart problems, cancer, injuries, stroke, and respiratory illness. Almost half of us will go that way. She chose to be part of the 1% club.

  When I’m awake, these are the kinds of things that I think about.

  And she did it for just one day

  When I got closer to him I could see he had been going at that wood for a while and while it wasn’t winning, it was taking its toll on him. Every inch of his hard body was covered in sweat, including his eyes. Or maybe they were tears. He wasn’t saying and I wasn’t guessing. Watching a man cry is like witnessing a horse with a broken leg. It’s one of the saddest things out there.

  I watched him chop at that wood like it had stolen his girlfriend and it wasn’t until that thought crossed my mind that I realized it was the ladder from the barn. Poor thing. It didn’t even know what it had done wrong. And obviously it wasn’t even that helpful of an accomplice. It was the car he should’ve gotten after. Or the train.

  But I watched him anyway. No point in offering my opinion here. Instead, I took out my phone, sat on a log. I flicked through my Facebook stream. All those happy families celebrating fall and last posters for first day of school pics or maybe Zuck was just now showing them to me, wanted to make sure I didn’t miss all those clever moms who had their kids favorites listed on chalkboards that the child was holding obediently in front of them.

  I was never that kind of mom. It’s too late for Maddie. I guess I could still get a few years in for Henry. Hey, there’s the new baby. Maybe Cynamon would put me in charge of that.

  I exed out of the Facebook trainwreck. And went back to watching the trainwreck in front of me. It’s funny how that phrase has changed in my mind since my BFF decided to take her own life that way.

  As I watched Luke, I was keenly aware of how fat my thighs looked against the log. I lift up my legs so they were no longer spread against the wood but that didn't help much. I guess at my age I should start paying attention to what I eat. Most women in their forties have whole food categories they’ve sworn off. They will never eat them again in their lives. M was like that. Only salads after 3. Recently, she gave up sugar beverages of any kind, including coffee but not vodka or red wine. Red meat once a week. Never any donuts or candy. Never. As in never ever. I’ll stick with fat.

  When I talked to her last, I was complaining (among other things) about how I had worked out 3 times that week and the scale hadn’t budged. She agreed with my plight that it was hard to lose weight in middle age. She said she’d only see the scale move when she worked out three times a day. I made her repeat it. She couldn’t have said a day. She meant a week. No one works out three times a day, unless you counted sex. But M did….when she felt fat, which was most of the time.

  I opened the text conversation between me and Walsey. I reread it like I do most days. Sometimes I read it several times. I’m obsessive like that but I’m doing it purely for the dopamine release not any kind of “destructive” behavior. I can’t decide if I want this guy to be anything more than a fantasy. Right now, it’s the perfect relationship. He checks up on me, says sweet things, makes me feel pretty from thousands of miles away. But I never have to yell at him for leaving the seat up or leaving his dirty, crusty socks inches from the hamper. Not that I would do that. Those aren’t the things I care about. But it’s what most normal women do so I thought I should say it.

  My shrink, while I was talking to him, and before I ended things with a touch of the finger and a lascivious grin….he claims I licked his ear lobe but that was just a misunderstanding. I was talking too close to his ear and my tongue fell out of my mouth. For claiming to be an open-minded person, he really wasn’t very. Anyway...like I was saying...when I was going to him and I told him about Walsey, he said this relationship was destructive too because it didn’t involve any real connection. It was all virtual. I told him we had talked on the phone but he wasn’t impressed by that. That’s about the time I decided to see just how “destructive” I could be. Apparently being destructive sometimes gets you fired as a patient.

  Somewhere during thinking about the size of my thighs, my love of donuts, and my non-open-minded shrink, Luke had stopped his obse
ssive behavior.

  When you’re in therapy...or like I was in therapy….you get really good at recognizing other people’s neurosis. But apparently I suck at recognizing suicidal tendencies.

  “I need to know why.” his voice sounded high and unsafe like a rope pulled too tight.

  I nodded and suppressed the desire to say something sarcastic. Generally, I've found people only like sarcastic when their girlfriend hasn’t just killed herself.

  “You saw the rope. I slept right under it last night without even noticing.”

  I nodded like someone about to get lectured.

  “Help me see why she did it.”

  I nodded but didn't feel like saying yes. What made him think I had the answers? As far as anyone knows, I was the last person (who knew her) that she talked to and I had no idea she had a date with a train. I didn’t even know she was depressed.

  “Where do we start?” he asked approaching me.

  “We start tomorrow or the next day after we have time to process it.”

  Truth be told, I like to put things off in the hopes that someone will change their mind or I’ll die in my sleep and never have to deal with it. I did the same thing when Mike was pestering me to name Maddie.

  “No. You said you’re leaving in a few days. I don’t want to miss any time.”

  “Yeah.” He was smarter than I’d given him credit for or maybe M had told him just a few too many things about me.

  He looked at me expectantly like I would know what to do next.

  “Was she mad at the dog?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she killed herself because she hated that dog.”

  “Don’t be a jerk. I don’t have any more answers than you do. I’m just trying to figure out why an animal lover would do that. What do you remember about the days leading up to…” I couldn’t think of a way to say it. People were so sensitive to word choice. I settled with “her passing” but I could tell by the crinkled up look on his face that I chose poorly just like my shrink said.