The Weight of Zero (34 page)

Seconds before she stepped into the shower tonight, Mom remembered Grandma's gold watch. It's an expensive piece and Mom worried that in our upcoming cleanout of Grandma's room, we might forget about it and mistakenly donate it to Goodwill. So with a towel hastily flung around her, she went downstairs. She knew the watch was in the plaid suitcase, wrapped in a hankie and secured inside an old glass Gerber baby food jar. At first, she was thrilled to find Uncle Jack's old uniform jacket.
Catherine can use this for her project,
she thought. But when she pulled the jacket out, my shoe box tumbled to the floor.

Once I helped Mom dress, we called Dr. McCallum. I explained what had happened and that Mom wanted to take me to the ER. In another strange turn of events, Dr. McCallum just happened to be shopping at the Cranbury Costco and drove straight to our house.

He spent two and a half hours with us. First talking with me and then with Mom and me together. For the first time, I followed Sandy's advice to “stay honest and say honest.” I told Dr. McCallum everything about my stockpile, how and when and why I collected the pills, my nighttime ritual of taking them out and lining them up and my safety protocol in rotating their location from under my bed to under Grandma's bed. He asked if there were other stashes or if I had made additional plans besides the shoe box.

No, I told him. This was it.

At least four times he asked me if I wished I were dead or if I was thinking of killing myself. Each time, I honestly answered no. I told him everything that had happened with Michael and Kristal and Anthony. And that it wasn't bullshit that I had planned on dumping the shoe box tonight. I explained why I thought I needed it. How the worry about Zero's return and the harsh truth of what my future held crippled me at times. How I felt this was the only way to deal with it. How having an escape plan reassured me. How I felt like it was impossible to say these things out loud.

He listened and nodded and listened. “You know, everyone thinks the hardest part is the
asking
for help. I'd disagree. I think for most of my patients it's getting to that point right
before
you take the leap of verbalizing it, and then working up the strength to actually say it out loud, that's extraordinarily difficult.”

When Mom joined us, I repeated a lot of what I had told Dr. McCallum. She was still pale and crying a little, but she visibly relaxed when Dr. McCallum told her he thought I was safe. He wanted the pills destroyed tonight and said that Mom had to supervise me doing it.

So now Mom and I are sitting on the kitchen floor, with a ziplock bag between us. We've tossed the old ballet shoes, the unopened packages of tights and crumpled recital flyers. I showed Mom the notes from Riley Swenson's crew.

“I was wondering what those were,” she says, and stares at them, something cold and hard in her eyes. “I despise that family.” She rips the notes up angrily and tosses the pieces into the baggie.

My shoe box is empty now but for the bottles. “I'm glad you're here,” I tell Mom. “I want to do this together.”

Her eyes fill with tears. She nods and picks up the Celexa bottle. I take it from her cold fingers, unscrew the cap and dump the pills into the baggie. I thought I'd feel something, like fear that my escape route was no more, or the sadness of letting go. But I don't—not at all. With each pill that falls out, I feel lighter. Mom opens the last bottle, Lexapro. I take it from her and retrieve the snowflake earrings and empty the bottle. Then I seal the bag and hand it to her.

“What happened?” Mom asks. “Why were your earrings in there?”

I explain why I put them in there and what happened tonight with Anthony.

“Fuck,” my Catholic mother breathes. “We both had really shitty nights.”

And we start to laugh.

It's a no-brainer. We both choose the condo on the Oahu beach. How can you beat walking right out your back door and onto smooth white sand and into the glorious ocean? HGTV is running a
Hawaii Life
marathon, and in bed beside me, Mom snorts as a couple on the show chooses the fixer-upper a good three miles from the water because it had room for a garden. It's 11:30 p.m. and we're on our third episode.

Tonight, I couldn't say good-night to Mom. She seemed fragile and I felt raw and sad but also relieved. So I got into my pajamas, grabbed my pillow and walked into Mom's room. She was sitting on the bed, hunched over, rubbing moisturizer into her hands.

“Can I sleep in here tonight?” I asked.

For the rest of my life, I will never forget the smile that lit up her face.

We watch another full episode and then start a fifth.

Under the covers, Mom's hand rests lightly on my forearm. “Cath, honey, I'm starting to fade. Wake me up if you need anything.”

That sense of inverted déjà vu lingers. Our mother-daughter roles had reversed and then righted themselves, but some maternal vestiges remain in me. Either that or she has awoken my dormant maternal instincts. For the first time, I really understand that the mother-daughter dynamic changes. I guess there will always be a psychic umbilical cord linking us, going both ways now, sustaining us. She will always live my pain, and as I grow older, I will live more and more of hers.

I stroke the hair off her forehead before kissing it. “Good night, Mom. I love you.”

On Saturday morning, I dial Michael's number. I still haven't listened to his voice mails or read his texts from yesterday. He picks up in the middle of the first ring.

“Can you come outside?” is the first thing he says.

“What?”

“I'm here. Parked outside your house. Can we talk? In the car?” Michael's voice is raspy and he sounds tired.

I tell Mom where I'm going, throw on my winter coat and slide into the Target version of Ugg boots. I grab the snowflake earrings off the kitchen table, slide them into my coat pocket and walk outside. My heart races as I approach the Subaru. Michael hops out to open the passenger-side door. Before I slide in, our eyes catch. He looks fried, with mussed-up hair, dark shadows beneath his eyes, and stubble. Somehow, he's still painfully cute, though I know he's here to break up with me.

Oh God. That sense of loss hangs over me. I just want to get this over with and return the earrings without breaking down in front of him.

Michael gets back in the car. His entire face and, from what I can see, his neck are bright red. “Yes, Anthony told me about seeing you at St. Anne's,” he starts. “But, Catherine, I had a feeling before that. I…I knew you didn't have a job.”

He
knew
I didn't have a job? He knew I was lying? Is that why he stopped waiting with me for Mom to pick me up after school? Why he was awkward every time my alleged employment came up in conversation?

Michael is saying, “I knew that your mom was taking you somewhere. I knew you had some stuff going on last year—”

“Wait,” I interrupt. “How did you know? That I wasn't working?”

“That day you left your phone at school. I took it and went to the law firm. I saved that paper, the law firm's messed-up letterhead, from that time at the library. I asked for you and they thought I meant your mother. One of the attorneys said she was taking her daughter to the day clinic and that she'd be right back, she just had to drop you off.”

Jesus Christ. That was in October. He knew all this time? I want to bolt from the car.

Michael must understand that I'm humiliated, because he grabs my hand. “It's okay, Cath. It's
okay.
That doesn't matter to me.”

I shake my head. He doesn't fully get it. “I'm not just going to the doctor's,” I say, fighting back tears. “I had to go to an IOP. That stands for intensive outpatient program. I went five days a week. Three hours a day. Group therapy.”

Michael shakes his head. “I told you, I don't care about that.”

I could just let it be. Let him think that's all there is. But I'm so done with my usual modus operandi. I pull my hand away and sit up straight. I will watch his reaction to my secrets and I will bear it, whatever the fuck it is.

“I didn't just go through some ‘stuff' last year. I have bipolar disorder. I have to take medicine for it. Every day.”

As I'm waiting for his response, it starts to snow, as if on cue. The white flurries swirl outside the car, present at both the beginning of our relationship and at its end. But Michael is shaking his head.

“So what, Catherine. So what?” Michael asks. “I'm a fucking wimp. I can't fight to save my life and I collapse at the sight of blood. You didn't run from
me.
”

I am blown away by the absurdity of his statement—a blood phobia and a missed punch?

“That
stuff
I had going on last year?” I say again. “I tried to
kill myself,
Michael. I tried to OD on my meds because I was depressed, so depressed that words can't describe it. But the bitch of bipolar is that it's not just these soul-sucking, zombielike depressions. There are also manias, these episodes where crazy ideas take hold in my mind. They seem reasonable at the time, but they're totally bizarre and out of control. I have to live with this for the rest of my life, and it's hard to wrap my head around a future with it. Because up until my grandmother died, everything was fine. I was just like everybody else. Like you. Normal.” I stop to take a deep breath and study his face, searching for the flustered reaction, the pulling away.

But it doesn't happen. His brown eyes are holding mine intently.

“Go on,” Michael says, taking my hand again. “Don't stop.”

“Look, I get that you had some really rough times. Being bullied, that's beyond brutal. I know that kids kill themselves because it hurts so badly. I'm really sorry you went through that. But don't you understand? We”—I point at each of us—“
you
and
I…you
and
I…
” I want to tell him that we are different. That Louis Farricelli is external. That he won't always be with Michael. That there's an end date on the time Michael has to be near him. But that my problem is internal. It will always be a part of me. We are not the same. But then I realize that the cause of pain makes zero impact on how it feels. Like Sandy said, “Pain is pain.” I can no longer rank who is entitled to hurt more.

I glance down at my coat pocket with its secret cargo and then return my gaze to Michael. He needs to understand this part. “Bipolar is chronic. It's never going away. It's genetic. Do you get that?”

Michael nods. “Cath, I already knew about you being bipolar. And about your overdose. That fucking Riley told anyone who would listen.”

Michael knew.
He knew but he still came after me. Still wanted me. But now he doesn't.

I can't tear my eyes from that face. “So what happened, then?” I have to ask this. “What made you stop liking me?”

“What?” Michael asks, astonished. “I never stopped liking you.”

“You changed our movie plans. After you drove me to school that morning, something changed between us. And then last Saturday, at your house, you…you didn't even want to touch me.”

Michael grabs my hand again. His voice is soft, husky, the hint of a small, sexy smile on his lips. “Cath, I want to do everything with you. Everything. Believe me on this one.”

He's not lying. I can see it in his eyes. I begin to unclench, a warm hum filling me.

“The truth is…I…I didn't want to go any further with you…like that…because I knew you were holding back…not…I don't know, sharing your life with me. Not to sound like a cheesy Hallmark card. But our relationship felt kind of fake at times, because I knew you were lying about your job, and I knew there was stuff going on in your life that you didn't trust me enough to talk about. I didn't want to…you know, go any further. It wasn't easy.” Michael runs his free hand back and forth on the steering wheel. He's flushing again. “You'd never expect a guy to say that.” He locks eyes with me.”But it's different with you. And it was getting to me more and more that you kept lying to me. Especially after Farricelli and the hospital. That's why in the car, I was, like, begging you to open up and you wouldn't. It just really pissed me off. I was going to bring it up with you this weekend. That's why I texted you that we had to talk.”

I nod. “Look, I'm sorry I didn't say anything earlier. But, Michael…you have no idea how hard it is. I feel humiliated, having this. I told Riley and Olivia and they left, and now they want nothing to do with me. So do you get why I'm scared? I figured you wouldn't like me if you knew the truth. I'm just starting to accept it myself.”

“How do you feel now? With it out in the open between us?” he asks.

I shrug. “I'm not sure yet. Weird. A little nervous. How do you feel?”

He smiles and pulls me close, burying his face in my neck. “Great.” He suddenly pulls back. “Where're your earrings?”

I pull them out of my pocket. “I thought we were breaking up. I was going to return them to you.”

“Hey, Cath,” he says, “we,
you
and
I
”—and he imitates my earlier action, pointing first at me and then at himself—“
you and I
are definitely not breaking up.”