All the Things We Never Knew (15 page)

He was sweating profusely, his hair wet and shiny, his eyes bright blue again. He smiled broadly, happy to see me, another hiker on the trail. I couldn't tell if he even knew who I was.

“You were right about this park,” he said. “It's beautiful. Why
haven't I used it more? Why haven't I been walking every day? It feels great to walk. It feels like everything is golden, like there's this halo of something so good, so promising, you know what I mean?”

His words spilled out so fast they were hard to understand. “The only problem is, I'm really thirsty. I've been walking for like, an hour, and I'm really thirsty.” He looked at me, smiling widely, beaming even. “Isn't this fantastic?”

David never said “fantastic.” He rarely said anything was “great.” He was in trouble. Mania. The other side of depression. The skin on my arms chilled, even in the heat.

“David,” I said, “you've been walking for four hours. You've got to come home.” I touched his wet T-shirt. “Come home.”

“Oh, don't worry about me.” He grinned. “I'm the best I've ever been. Really, this feels great. You have a good day now.”

He looked at me, empty, another stranger talking to someone encountered on the trail. Then he turned and strode off, tall and brisk, a man in training, an athlete at the top of his game. I would later learn this was the height of David's first manic episode, an episode brought on by weeks without sleep, our impending divorce, and the lethal nature of an illness unchecked.

I fell to my knees and cried out loud. Everything I'd tried to hold together was gone. Maybe he wouldn't come home. Maybe he'd just keep walking. How would I break this news to Sophie? To my boss, my coworkers? A hiker passed me by, saw me in the dirt, crying, my hands covered in soil.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“No, but thanks for asking. It means a lot.” I sniffed, wiped my nose on the corner of my hoodie, and rose to my feet. “I'll be fine, really.”

In a moment the hiker moved on. When he was gone, I realized how the whole scene must have looked to him. He probably thought I was the crazy one.

Jill finally agreed to stay with us for a few weeks to help get David stabilized. She pulled up in Old Yella, the Mercedes David had given her when her old car stalled on the busy highway between Portland and the coast. The backpack slung over her shoulder looked like it had been through a war. She liked it that way. Jill was blithely unconcerned about her appearance. She wore baggy men's cords, an old sweater, and men's shoes. Her red hair was frizzed at the ends, but her complexion and her eyes were always bright.

“Sweetie,” she said when she saw me, “you look exhausted.”

There was so much to do. Work. Sophie. David. The frayed edges of my life felt like fire, growing fiercely out of control. I opened the drawer to get a baggie to pick up the dog poop Jill had stepped over on her way into my home. The box was empty. I had to go to work.

“There's soup in the fridge for lunch,” I told Jill. “Call me if you find out anything, would you?”

Once at work, I settled into my desk to prep for my on-air shift. I'd been working at Portland's number one radio station for four years, and the work was everything I wanted: demanding, exhilarating, and fun. Moving from television news to radio hosting was the best career choice I'd ever made. I'd cut my work hours and looked forward to working with my on-air partner. I was encouraged to let my personality come through during the broadcast. And as an unexpected bonus, it never mattered what my hair looked like. These days, visual anonymity was a good thing.

The phone rang between live breaks. Jill was hysterical. “He did it, Sheila; he did it; he tried to kill himself! He cut his wrist. He used a razor. It's not bad, but he tried.”

Her words disappeared into the phone, and a surge of blood rushed into the back of my neck. “I'm coming home now,” I heard myself say. “No, wait, is he in the hospital?” I couldn't think straight, couldn't figure out how to manage the crisis with my cohost pointing at me through the studio window, his finger in the air,
giving me one minute to prepare for our live broadcast. I pressed the red talk button to interrupt him. “Sorry,” I said calmly, “I've got an emergency at home.”

I ran two stoplights to get home. A note on the counter read, “Took him to St. Vincent.”

I called Sophie's babysitter and told her I would be late, and not to worry. I turned the lights off, crazily conscious of David's reminders to save energy. How could he be so lucid about some things and so crazy about others? It's as if some of the files in his brain were corrupted, while others remained completely intact. They'd commit him now. I knew it.

As I locked the door behind me, I wondered if David would ever come home again. They could force him into lockdown, or a residence where Sophie would have to empty her pockets before going in. I'd been avoiding this moment, convincing myself that he would be fine and so would Sophie. But he needed help, with a full-time staff, in a hospital. I felt as if I were going to throw up. The traffic to the hospital was bumper-to-bumper. Every single car in front of me seemed to be there on purpose, prolonging my agony.

I rushed in the front door of the hospital. The woman at the reception desk registered my anxiety and then continued to talk on the phone.

“Can I help you?” she finally asked.

“My husband was admitted earlier today,” I said. She looked up from her papers, bored. “For a suicide attempt.”

Something in her eyes changed. “What's his name?”

“David Krol.”

“Krol?” she said. “What a weird name.”

I wanted to slug her. “Can I please see him?”

Her pen ran down the names on the list. “He checked out,” she said. “Treated, evaluated, and released.”

I pushed back a scream. “How does someone who just attempted suicide get treated and released in the course of an afternoon?”

She shrugged her shoulders. This was not her problem. I pulled
out my phone to call Jill. Shit, she didn't carry a phone, one more example of her resistance to a modern world. David's cell phones were still on the counter at home. I tallied the cost of the ER with every other bill dangling from my consciousness.
I should take a leave of absence from my job.
I didn't know how I'd keep Sophie fed and housed without a salary.

I drove home in a jam of other commuters puzzling over their problems. My exit came and I passed it, heading to the babysitter's. I'd pick up Sophie, and we'd leave. We'd get a little condo in the Pearl District, where lots of single Portland moms seemed to make it work. We'd reinvent our lives and let David destroy his. We'd wait it out until he finally got help. My fingers shook on the wheel, and my head felt light. I realized I hadn't eaten all day. No groceries at home.

I pulled up at the babysitter's and saw Sophie sitting in the window, illuminated by a reading light. She was pensive, worried, her face tight and lacking expression. Her skin had always had so much color: pink cheeks, pink lips. In this light, she looked drained, haunted. She saw my car and stood up. A faint smile passed over her face. The weak wave she offered crushed my heart.

“Sorry I'm late, sweetheart,” I said, hugging her tightly. I opened my wallet to find cash for the babysitter; she preferred to be paid under the table. Sophie held onto me a beat longer than usual, her long arms holding my waist tightly. She sighed once we were in the car. “I hate eating dinner there. It's frozen this or frozen that. Where were you?”

Her voice was as close to crying as I'd heard in a long time.

“Daddy had to go to the hospital.” I tried to say it without hinting about the panic I felt inside. I turned the car on. “He's okay now, sweetheart. Let's get you home.”

Sophie sat back in her seat, looking forward into the dark neighborhood. She turned, opened her mouth to say something else, and then stopped herself. I guessed she didn't want to know more than she could handle.

When we walked in the door, David was standing over the stove, stirring chicken noodle soup. The sleeves of his plaid shirt covered what must have been the bandages from his suicide attempt. He looked up as if nothing had happened.

“There's my girl.” He dropped the spoon in the soup. “I've missed you, Sugar Dugger.” It was a nickname he'd given Sophie as a toddler. Sugar, dugger, booger. They used to make rhymes together, competing to come up with nonsensical words that made Sophie laugh. When he lifted her under her arms to pick her up, his sleeves shifted to expose his wrists and the bloody bandages.

I stood in the doorway, aghast. I might as well have been invisible to him.

“What happened, Daddy?” Sophie asked. “There's blood on your wrist. Are you okay?”

David let her down. “I hurt myself at work, Sophs, no worries. Just a little cut from the skill saw.” He'd avoided acknowledging me until now. He tried to look in my direction but couldn't meet my eyes.

Sophie led him to his chair. “Here, Daddy, sit down. You should rest.”

Jill came up the stairs, taking in the tenderness of a child caring for her parent. Her eyes filled with tears.

After I'd tucked Sophie in, I came out to the living room where David sat, frozen. The soup was still in the stove, bubbling in an overheated mess. I turned off the stove and then sat back down with him. “Tell me what happened.”

He couldn't lift his head. “I don't know,” he said. “I'd been walking through the woods, and I just got this idea about how much better everybody would be if I died. So I came home and tried to find something to kill myself, but the only thing I could find in the garage were some old razors, and they were really dull. So I had to saw and saw and saw.” He made a sawing-like gesture over his wrist. I swallowed hard, trying not to interrupt.

“It's not like it is in the movies, where you just make a slit and
then it's over. I barely got through my skin, but there was so much blood, it scared me.” His voice had turned small, and his eyes were wide, like a child who'd just discovered the danger of fire.

I waited to speak. There were far more effective tools in that garage. Skill saws, drills, axes—the number of deadly tools in that garage numbered in the dozens. It didn't make sense, David rummaging through the plastic bins to find a rusted razor blade.

“How can I help you?” I leaned forward, hoping to make contact someplace deep inside David, somewhere familiar and safe.

“I don't know,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “I really don't know what's happening to me.”

“What did the doctor say?” I asked.

Jill entered the room and sat down. She spoke up when David wouldn't answer. “He said that David wasn't a risk to himself or others. That he likely did this because he's upset over the divorce. That we need to give the antidepressants time to work.”

My voice broke. “Did you tell them he's had thoughts of jumping off a bridge?” I turned to David. “Did you tell them the truth?”

“No,” he said.

“Why would you lie?” I asked, accusingly.

“I just answered the questions the way I knew I should in order to go home.” He said it as if he'd just aced his SAT. “I hate hospitals. You know that.” He pushed himself off his chair. “I'm going to bed.”

Tears formed in the corners of his sister's eyes. “I'm so sorry,” she whispered. “I had no idea.”

The next morning, I sat outside Sophie's summer day camp in my car, the engine still running. My nail polish was chipped. Dark rings circled my eyes. Adele was the only person I could think to call; she was David's older sister, a psychologist in Montreal, and she loved David dearly.

“Sheila, he's decompensating,” Adele said. “I talked to him on
the phone last night, and he alternates between hysteria and delusion.” She seemed shocked by this turn in her brother. I wondered if she knew more than she was telling me. As a psychologist, she must have known what was happening to David.

The car idled in the parking lot. Young children played in the playground, blissfully unaware of my presence. I remembered Sophie at that toddler stage, all blonde hair and rosy cheeks, always singing, singing.

Adele was David's closest ally in the family, the person who understood him the most. She'd taken him in every time his father turned him out; they'd traveled together, smoked pot together, and laughed at one another's jokes. They saw each other too infrequently these days, but Adele was David's most trusted confidante.

“Sheila,” she said, “you've been amazing to stay. But it's making him worse. You need to leave. Get out. Let him clear his head.”

Adele's words landed hard. For so many years, I'd felt obligated to David for Sophie, and then, after realizing the folly of that idea, I'd felt obligated to David's illness.

His sister had essentially set me free. But instead of relief, a wave of worry washed over me. What would become of him now?

 

GUILT