Madness (27 page)

At home, my world is reduced to the hallway between my office and my bedroom. I shamble back and forth, sitting at my desk writing as if possessed, then to bed, where Jeff finds me every day
when he comes home. He makes me something to eat and I sit on the mattress eating it. I know this is getting to be too much.

"Are you up for this?" I ask in a moment of clarity. "This." I gesture around me in bed, my days-old pajamas, the pile of dishes on the nightstand, the bottles of pills.

"Of course I am," he says. His voice is tired. He changes out of his work clothes and gets into bed beside me. We spend our evenings watching
Law and Order,
not talking. Of course he's not up for this. No one should have to be up for this. He signed on for a marriage, not for taking care of an invalid wife.

Jeff squeezes and kneads my hand. "Your hands are cold," he says, scowling at them, as if scowling at them will warm them up. He rubs them between his mammoth paws. I always forget how big Jeff is until I am here, where I become tiny, smaller than usual, somehow reduced to half my size. I feel fragile, as if someone passing by me might blow me over in his wake.

"I talked in group today," I say, wanting to have something to contribute.

"You did? That's great!" Jeff crows. "What did you say?"

"I don't remember."

"But you talked! That's wonderful! That's better than yesterday! You must be feeling better today!"

"I think I am," I say hopefully. "I think I went to all the groups."

"You're on a roll! You're kicking ass! Good job!"

"But otherwise I just sat around," I say.

"Did you read any of the books I brought?"

"No." I stare at our hands. "I've gotten very stupid."

"You're not stupid."

"Yes I am. I can't read anything. I can't even read stupid magazines."

"They're all out of date anyway." Jeff dismisses this with a wave of his hand.

"But the point is I've gotten stupid."

"You're not stupid. You're just not feeling quite yourself."

This cracks me up. I hold my stomach, rocking back and forth, laughing my head off. "Not quite myself! No, not quite!"

Jeff smiles uncertainly, not sure why this is funny. I'm not sure either. I gasp and let out a sigh. I gaze at Jeff. I adore him. He is the most wonderful person alive. I am suddenly struck by the fact that he is unlike anyone else in the world. How many people could love me like this? How many people would visit every day at six o'clock, without fail? And bring me dinner, and a grocery bag of fruit? Who could? Who would? Why would they? Why does Jeff?

I say to him, "Why are you doing this?"

He leans forward, his face animated. "Doing what?"

"Coming here." I am struggling to form the thoughts it requires for me to ask him the question. The evening is getting later, I'm tired, and he'll leave soon, and there I'll be, left on the couch, a huge gaping space where Jeff was but no longer is.

"Why am I coming here? Because you're here. Obviously."

"But you're leaving soon." That's not what I meant to say. He glances at the clock.

"Not yet," he says, rubbing my hands. "Not just yet."

I wrestle my thoughts to the ground. "But you won't always come back."

He furrows his brow. "Of course I will. I'll be back tomorrow."

"But maybe someday."

He gets a look on his face. "No," he says. "I'll always come."

"Not if this keeps happening." It's dark out now. Soon he will stand up and pull on his coat, dressed, impressive, sane, and he will stride his giant strides to the locked door and wait patiently while the staff jingles the keys, and when they swing the door open, he will look back across the room at me, smile his very best encouraging smile, wave, and turn away. The door will swing shut behind him with a clang. The clang will reverberate through my skull. It will keep clanging, over and over, and each time I will jump, even though it actually only clanged once. And then I will sit here, frozen on the couch, my hands, now limp in my lap, getting cold.

"If what keeps happening?" he asks. I don't know why he asks, because he knows.

"If I keep going crazy."

"You're not crazy." He shakes his head firmly.

I sit there looking at him. "Jeff, I'm crazy."

"You're not feeling well."

"Jeff," I say, not sure he's really getting the point, "I'm crazy."

"You're sick. Right now. Just for a little while." He shakes his head back and forth like a little boy denying that he broke the vase. No, no. Not crazy.

"But what if it isn't just for a little while?" I ask him. My head is starting to tip on the top of my spine, heavy with the dead weight of my brain. But I persist. This is important. I need to know. I need to be sure of him. Without him, the days will stretch out, bleed into one another, no one will come at six and tell me how long I have been in here, assure me that I will get out soon, that tomorrow will be better. No one will lie to me, and their lies are all I have to go on, all the reason I have to crawl out of my hospital bed in the morning, drape myself in hospital robes, put on my hospital footies, and pad down the hall, moving through the eddying stream of noise, bumping into the walls, to sit at the table in the main room of the ward and drink my hospital decaf to demark that another day has begun.

"It
is
just for a little while. You're getting better. You're a little better every day." He leans close and kisses me on the nose. "You'll get out soon. I promise."

I think about this, trying to connect it to the next part of my thought.

"But then it will happen again."

"No it won't."

I stare at him. "Yes it will."

He shakes his head.

"Jeff, it will."

His face falls for a second and his voice cracks. "But you did so well for so long."

I start to cry. I want to be doing well again, for him. I want to go back to the part of the story where I made dinner for fifty and wore makeup and earrings every day and we leaned back in our chairs on the porch in the evening, watching the sunset, our heads tipped back, drinking the summer air.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't think this would happen again."

"It's all right," he says.

"You're going to give up on me."

He takes my face in one of his hands. "I'm not. I'm not, not ever."

I nod miserably. "You are. I don't blame you. There's no reason you should have to deal with this. This is a nightmare. I hate that this is happening. But," I say, starting to cry again, "I can't help it and I don't know if it's ever going to stop."

"But it will."

"But what if it doesn't?"

"It
will."

There are circles under his eyes. He's working long days, then getting dinner, bringing it to me, sitting with me, my exhausting craziness, for hours, then going home, doing all the things I used to do, the laundry, the dishes, the cat boxes, walking the dogs, cleaning the house, and then he's collapsing, exhausted, in bed. I picture him lying there, a huge lump on one side of the bed, the
other side empty, and he's not sleeping well, and he's getting up in the morning and worrying about me, and worrying about the future, and trying not to think about it, and facing the strange looks and uncomfortable silence at work, with colleagues who know his wife is crazy, and packing me bags of clothes and books and our wedding quilt, and hauling all these things to me, and wondering, every time he leaves, if I will ever be better again.

"And you'll get tired of being alone," I insist.

"I'm never really alone." I hear him reciting these things. I ask these things every day. "You're always with me." He glances at the clock.

I sit for a moment, trying with all my might to stay here, to stay with him for these last few minutes. Why does time speed up when he comes? There is never enough time. I finally work up the sentence in my mouth: "What if it's always like this? With me going into the hospital, and then getting out, and then going crazy again, and going back in?"

I can see his eyes going empty, I can hear the rote lines. Do either of us really know why he still comes?

"Think of the good times," he says. "When you're out."

I nod, my face slippery from tears. My cheeks are heavy again, my mind spitting and fritzing, its wires burned out for the night. I am out of questions. But I know that someday there will be a six o'clock that comes and goes, and Jeff won't burst through the door. Or if he does, his step will get heavy, and he won't look at me, and he will hate me for what I have become.

Nine o'clock. Over the loudspeaker, the voice of the staff:
Visiting hours are now over. Thank you for coming. Good night.

"I have to go," he says gently, leaning forward so his forehead touches mine. I nod. My mind is starting to fill with static. I hate my questions. I slump in the corner of the couch. He gets up slowly, not letting go of my hands. Finally he sets them softly in my lap. My eyes travel slowly up to his face. He lingers a long
time, looking back and forth from me to the door. He leans down and kisses my head and leaves.

Jeff and I walk out the hospital's front door and down the street to the car. The space around me feels strange; it seems like there should be walls somewhere nearby, holding me in. But there are only trees, the sidewalk, the passersby, the expansive sky. Jeff loads my things into the car, the paper bags of clothes and books, my pillow and my quilt. I get in the car, get tangled in the seat belt. Jeff untangles me and clicks it closed. We drive off. I look out the window at the streets and the old houses we pass.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

"Home," he says. "They just let you out."

"They did?"

"Yes. We're going to go home and unpack your things and then you can get settled. You can get in bed if you want. Or you can go in your office and maybe do a little work."

"Oh my God," I say, overwhelmed.

"But you don't have to. Nothing to worry about. You could just make a nest on the couch and read a book. Or look at a book, whatever you want."

"I can read again."

"I know. Isn't that awesome?"

"Yes," I say. "I'm not stupid anymore." We pass the towering gray brick block of the old Sears building, and then the Yukon Bar, a Kentucky Fried Chicken. "Where are we?"

"Lake Street."

"Really? It looks different."

"It's the same. Things will look familiar when we get closer to home."

As we move southwest through the city, I start recognizing things. "Are we close?"

"Yep. See?"

"I can't drive. I would get lost."

"You can't drive because you're completely dosed up on meds."

"Right." That morning, Jeff and I got a list of the meds I'm on: Seroquel, Geodon, trazodone, Zoloft, Ambien.

"I think these meds are messing me up," I say.

Jeff nods. "We'll try them for a little while. If you're still feeling like this in a week, we'll call Lentz and get you on something else."

"I can't afford to be sedated. I need to work."

"You will."

"When?"

"Soon."

I look out the window. He doesn't have any idea when. My mind, my life are completely at the mercy of whatever I'm prescribed on discharge day. They let you out well before you fully know how those meds are going to affect you; once you're no longer considered a danger to yourself, they let you go, and you return to the care of your outpatient doctor.

Jeff parks and unbuckles my seat belt. He goes around the car and lifts me out, holding me around the waist. I am unsteady on my feet and start to tip. He props me against the side of the car and takes my things out of the back. "Ready?" he asks. "Hang on to my belt."

I follow him up the steps and into the house. I stand there looking around.

"Home!" he announces, setting down my things, picking me up, and kissing me. "At last!"

I scan the room. "You cleaned," I say, smiling. "That was sweet."

"A person should come home to a clean house," he says, leading me to the stairs. There is the mantel with the wedding pictures on it. Here is the cat, rubbing up against my legs, and the dogs leaping and barking like mad. We go upstairs. He shows me my spotless office.

"Flowers!" I say. I turn to kiss him, stumble, and crash into the wall. My vision is swimming, and it feels as if I am pulling to the left, my head out of alignment. Jeff catches me and turns me to see the flowers. They are my favorite, roses, a smoky coffee pink.

He leads me to the bedroom and helps me into bed, then goes downstairs and brings up my things. He sits on the edge of the bed. It's hard to hold my head up, and I rest my chin on my chest.

"Sorry I'm like this," I mumble. I'm falling asleep. "I meant to be better."

"You are better," he assures me. "The side effects will wear off in a couple of days."

I sit up to hug him and tip straight into his chest. He puts me upright again, leaning me back against the pillows.

"I should get up and do some work," I slur, throwing the covers off and trying to stand. My socks slip on the hardwood floor and I slide down, dragging the blankets with me.

"Maybe tomorrow. How about you just get settled in today."

He picks me up and I get back into bed.

"Maybe," I say. "I have a deadline. Can't miss the deadline." I pause, lifting my head with effort to look at him. He wavers in front of my face like a smoke mirage. "I don't like these meds."

"Just give them a couple of days." He stands up.

"Where are you going?" I ask, panicked.

"Just going to get you something to eat."

"But you'll come back up?"

"Right away."

"And you'll stay here?"

"All day."

"What about tomorrow?"

"The rotation's all set. Aunt Andy will be here at seven
A
.
M
.
"

My head crashes left and I lie on my side. "Okay," I say.

While he's gone, I stare at the window. The ivy that covers it is lush and jewel green. Summer, I think. This perks me up. I sit up with effort, scrabble around in the bedside drawer, and find a pen and paper. Pressing the paper to my knees, I write, very carefully,
Summer.
I look at the clock:
2:34
P
.
M
.
But what day? "Jeff?" I yell. "What?" comes his voice up the stairs. "What day is it?" I yell. "Thursday!" he yells back. Very good.
Thursday.
I tap the pen against my knees. I'm missing something. I search my brain. Finally, I climb out of bed and go down the hall, resting my head on the wall to my left. I get to the top of the stairs. Confounded, I get down on my hands and knees, turn, and crawl backward halfway down. Jeff appears holding a tray.