All the Things We Never Knew (6 page)

He stopped walking, turned, and looked at me, breathing hard. His face was flushed, his eyes were lifted, an expression I hadn't yet seen from David—one of pure joy. I didn't really know what he'd
say. In fact, I'd surprised myself by laying my feelings out so bluntly. But what he did next changed my life: he proposed to me, on the spot, in a way that was completely his own. “Well, we should get married then, right?” he asked.

It was not the most romantic gesture, but it was David's way, completely authentic and unplanned, and I didn't hesitate. “Yes, yes, of course!” I dropped my backpack on the trail and kissed him squarely on the lips. “What are we waiting for?”

I was as sure as I could be that I loved David—loved him very deeply. A decade later, I would relive that moment, asking myself whether that was the hour that David began to feel trapped or suffocated by my version of happiness. He had never been one to fall in line or make decisions to please others. I expected he wanted a life together as much as I did.

We were married on December 7, 1996. The tearoom, where we would be married, was decorated with a fifty-foot Christmas tree. There were huge silver snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. The grand staircase I would walk down was carpeted in red, the banister wrapped in fresh laurels of pine and flowering poinsettias.

My sister Diane wasn't seeing any of the charm. She paced back and forth in the upstairs dressing room like an anxious bride.

“You are a miserable Matron of Honor, Diane.” I was joking, but there was a little truth in it.

Diane shook her head, her eyebrows pinched together in an expression I'd come to associate with her blunt and honest approach to the world. “What's going on with David? It's like he's drunk or stoned or something.”

I stiffened, looking away from her for fear I'd say something I'd regret. My ring finger was bare for now. My fingers weren't trembling. Why would she say something so profoundly troubling today, of all days?

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Sheila,” she said, “something is
wrong
with him.”

I suppressed a bubble of anger long enough to consider my sister's
worrying statement. She was not trying to be mean—she was seeing something I wasn't.

David had called from his home that morning to tell me he hadn't slept well, that he'd caught a bad cold and would be taking cough medicine just so he could get through the ceremony. I shifted in my makeup chair.

“He's sick, Di,” I said, defensively. “Give the guy a break.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “He's not relating to other people. He's more than sick. He's checked out.”

I stood up, straightening my dress as if it would also smooth the impact of Diane's observations. I trusted her judgment. But what was I to do? Call David at the last minute and accuse him of “not relating”?

Neither of us had touched our champagne. I heard singing below, a woman known as Portland's Queen of Soul. The acoustics were so clear; why couldn't I feel the same? My sister was asking me to view my wedding day through a lens I didn't own—the lens of skepticism and doubt. Diane hadn't mentioned her concerns previously. Why now?

One hundred of our closest friends were downstairs waiting, seated in front of a huge fireplace. I stood up, hugged my sister awkwardly, and rounded the corner to the grand staircase.

“It will be all right,” I assured her.

She kissed my cheek. “I hope so, She,” she said.

It was time.

My tall, handsome father, waiting for me in his stately tuxedo, took my elbow and guided me carefully down the stairs. I was the centerpiece of a wonderland, like something out of
Bride
magazine. I was about to marry a wonderful, exciting, adventurous man, and I felt like I was outside my body. Diane's words haunted me. Was David ready for this? Would he pass out and collapse during the ceremony? Every step heightened my anxiety; my legs went stiff, and I felt as if I would fall off my heels, tumble down the stairs.

I spotted my mother in the front row, beautiful, smiling broadly. She was better now—her marriage had survived the early turmoil,
and she loved my father, despite their checkered history. David's parents looked over their shoulders to see me coming and nodded approvingly. It was going to be okay. As I reached the grand tearoom, David stepped forward, calm and stunning in a traditional black-and-white tux with long tails. His eyes were clear, bright blue, and he smiled straight at me. I remember my father smiling as he passed me off to my husband-to-be.

We were going to be okay. Everyone was happy.

That's how it felt at the time. But weeks later, when I opened the wedding photographer's book, I was stunned. My father wasn't smiling at all—his face was ashen, drawn, plagued with conflict. The photo in which David greets me at the bottom of the stairs was as I imagined, David smiling, his head tipped to one side as he takes my hand to greet the crowd. But in dozens of other, more candid shots, David was just as Diane described—his eyes unfocused, his fingers pinched nervously.

Something wasn't right, and Diane had seen it. Yet I refused to believe I'd made a mistake. I had married the man I loved.

 

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS

One in five Americans will develop a mental illness at some point in their lives. Caregivers are often quick to rationalize the behavior of our loved ones—especially if we are unaware of the symptoms of mental illness.

In the early years, I chalked up much of David's behavior to his eccentric upbringing and fierce independence. There are universal symptoms of mental illness that should not be ignored, especially if they become persistent and interfere with daily life. Among the early symptoms I noticed in David but ignored or minimized: a perpetual sense of sadness and negativity, confusion and a reduced ability to concentrate, extreme mood changes, sleep problems, and withdrawal from friends and activities.

David also began to exhibit major changes in his eating habits and developed an inability to control his emotions, resulting in explosive rage or laughing and hysteria. In the latest stages of his illness, David detached from reality, suffering from delusions, paranoia, hallucinations, and olfactory disturbances.

People who have had a biological relative with a mental illness are at greater risk of mental illness, as are those who are enduring stressful life situations, like financial problems, death, or divorce. Other people who may be at risk include those who were exposed to drugs and alcohol in utero, anyone who has suffered from brain damage as a result of serious injury or trauma, and people who have endured military combat or a physical assault.

Chapter Four

After our wedding, we briefly honeymooned in Hawaii. I got pregnant quickly thanks to a sinus infection and a powerful dose of antibiotics that rendered my birth control useless. Less than a year after our wedding, Sophie was born.

I took four months off to be with Sophie, the maximum amount of pregnancy leave the company offered. For the first time in my life, I was completely, wholly blessed, and I believed David felt that way, too. Mothering Sophie was the most natural, exciting job I'd ever had. As long as I paid attention, Sophie let me know what to do next. I soon came to recognize her hungry cry versus her sleepy cry. I marveled at the miracle of every new kick, yawn, and gurgle. Even with the crazy hours of new motherhood, I hummed with happiness.

Meanwhile, David took on a new seriousness in his role as provider. He worked longer hours, but he also seemed to relish parenting, taking Sophie on long walks, bathing her, and even pitching in with diaper changes. His eyes lit up when he first saw her after a long day of work. I thought he was as happy as I was.

We'd been married a year and a half when I learned that David had never stopped sleeping with the girlfriend he'd had before me.

I'd gone back to work at my job as a television reporter when
Sophie turned four months old. I worked nights so I could be with her during the day, and then switched off child care duties with David at 4:00 p.m. The work, which once captivated me, had become a crude reminder of the world I'd brought my child into. I stepped over a crack baby in an abandoned house; I interviewed an adolescent girl who'd started doing heroin because it numbed her to the pain of sexual abuse. I carried the residue of my reporting home with me to my sweet, untroubled baby girl and found I had to force my job from my mind completely before I could enfold her in my arms. I did not want to taint her with any of the outside world. She would know it all too soon as she grew into womanhood.

One evening I was at the TV station putting together a story on Cesar Barone, a Portland-area psychopath who had finally been convicted of a series of brutal murders in the early 1990s. One of his crimes had stuck with me for years, the random, senseless killing of a Tuality Valley midwife who was driving home late at night after helping deliver a baby. Barone had peppered her car with gunfire, tried to rape the wounded woman, and then dragged her onto the road, where he shot her in the head.

The file footage detailed his early criminal history, starting at the age of nineteen, when he raped his seventy-one-year-old neighbor and then strangled her in her bed. The courtroom video of him showed no remorse, no inkling of feeling or compassion for the families of the people he'd brutalized. Chantee Woodman was another of his victims, a twenty-three-year-old whom he abducted, assaulted so brutally she was unrecognizable, and then shot in the head. Another victim, Margaret Schmidt, was sexually assaulted and strangled in her Hillsboro home. There was also Betty Williams, fifty-one, who died of a heart attack as Barone began sexually assaulting her at her Portland-area apartment in January 1993.

The women he victimized were so unassuming—just driving home from work, reading a book, puttering in the kitchen. He was a monster who had remained at large for years before he was finally arrested. How many others like him were out there? I recorded a
voice track, finished the editing, and then delivered the story an hour early. “I can't take this anymore,” I said to the eleven o'clock producer. “I'm going home now.” He looked at my face and must have known I'd hit the wall.

“Thanks for your good work, Sheil,” he said. “Get some rest.”

I drove home from work cold and depressed. The house was empty. I opened the door to Sophie's nursery and found it pitch-black inside. Holding her would give me the sense that everything was okay again, but she wasn't in her crib.

“David, where are you? Where's Sophie?” I dropped my purse and my briefcase on the nursery floor and ran through the house flipping on lights. “David? David, honey. Where are you?” Halfway down the hall, I stopped running. Suddenly, I knew where he was.

He was with Jane.

I knew about Jane from the phone bill. I'd seen a number on that month's bill come up over and over again—fifteen- to forty-five-minute phone calls, always at night, always while I was at work. Frantic, I had called the number, heard her voice, and placed her immediately. I'd met her once, while David and I were dating. Although I'd hung up without confronting her, I cornered David the evening I found the bill, during my dinner break.

“Are you having an affair?” I asked him, holding the phone bill in my hand.

He rolled his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Jane's number. It's all over the phone bill.”

“She's just a friend,” he said. “Do I need to ask permission to have friends?”

I was embarrassed to be “that wife,” the controlling kind of partner who doesn't allow her husband any breathing room. I accepted his explanation and apologized.

Now, three weeks later, I felt my cheeks go red and heat rise up underneath my sweater. I would not let him turn me into a stereotype I loathed—the jealous woman. I would not suffer the indignity of sobbing, of the puffy face and the stuffy nose, the pinched look of
defeat. I stiffened against the shock and the crushing blow. As I sat down, the velvet couch I'd bought for the family room felt like an ice block on my legs.

Sophie
. Where's Sophie? I let several minutes go by before I picked up the kitchen phone and called his number. “You've reached Mica Construction,” the recorded message intoned. I slammed the phone down. Maybe I should go to her house. Maybe I should interrupt them during sex. I walked in circles in my kitchen, then the living room, still too stunned to cry.