Unquiet (35 page)

Somehow he made it to his truck and climbed inside. His hands were quaking so much he could barely get the key into the ignition. He finally did, starting the engine and putting it into drive. He lurched forward a few feet before slamming it back into park.

Then Loren put his head down on the steering wheel and wept.

LOREN SAT
on a chair in the lobby at Desert Grove, waiting for Dr. Babcock. He felt weak and shaky, and his lips and cheek throbbed from Eliot’s blows. Loren leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and stared at the floor.

He didn’t think he’d ever felt so flattened and defeated in his life, both physically and emotionally. Well, yes, he had—after he learned of Eliot’s suicide attempt at seventeen. Nine years later and Loren was right back where he was then: questioning himself, blaming himself, wondering if he could do this.

He sat up straight and scrubbed his hands over his face when Dr. Babcock came through the door that led into the patient ward. She nodded at him and indicated for him to follow her to a small conference room in the administration area.

When they were both seated, Loren dared to look at her, swallowing hard at the compassion and understanding on her face.

“I can’t imagine how difficult it was for you to see the man you love in this state,” she said quietly. “My heart goes out to you, Loren.”

He swallowed hard before rasping, “How is Eliot?”

Dr. Babcock folded her hands in front of her on the table and gazed steadily at him. “I don’t need to tell you that he’s very ill at the moment.”

Loren dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, fighting to hold back the tears.

“He’s been drinking,” Dr. Babcock continued. “His blood alcohol level is sky-high. Most likely he had begun experiencing the auditory hallucinations again, the ‘black demon,’ and he attempted to self-medicate in the only way he knows how.”

“Oh my God,” Loren whispered. “He’s back at square one, like these past months of stability never even happened.”

“It’s the nature of the illness,” she acknowledged. “The drinking he’s been doing reduced the effectiveness of his meds, if he’s even been taking them at all. As mania escalates, with it comes a lack of insight. He could have thought the drinking was helping him, not the meds. Or he forgot to take them, any number of scenarios. There could have been a trigger; it could have happened spontaneously.”

Loren pressed the bridge of his nose between his fingers as he cast his mind back over the past few months.

“I think maybe he missed a night of sleep a few months ago,” he said suddenly, telling Dr. Babcock about finding Eliot huddled in a ball on the chair, claiming Loren had awoken him by snoring. “It was right after I didn’t come home when I said I would, and he was pretty spun up, very anxious about it.”

“He has a lot of anxiety where your job is concerned, Loren,” she said. “That’s what caused his depression during his first hospitalization, negative thoughts about your safety on the streets.”

She flipped through her chart, giving an emphatic nod of her head. “And yes, I see here where I increased his antianxiety med when he called me while having a mild panic attack recently. I didn’t ask him what it was about, but it’s very possible this whole thing was triggered by a bad anxiety episode.”

“Oh God, it’s all my fault,” Loren moaned, and she rapped the table with her knuckles.

“Stop. It’s not like you were out doing something frivolous. You were doing a very important job.” She paused as if letting her words sink in, and then continued, her voice soft, “But maybe your job and Eliot’s well-being aren’t going to be compatible with one another, Loren.”

Loren took a deep breath, trying to get a hold of himself. “Yes, I’d already come to that conclusion,” he whispered. “But I wanted to see this case through, considering I’d put so much time and effort into it, and I didn’t want to leave my team hanging. I thought he was doing okay.”

“He does seem to have irrational fears where your job is concerned, and he can work on that in therapy and with different medications—” She broke off when he shook his head.

“No,” he said, rapping the table for emphasis. “No job is worth this. If he can’t cope with it, I won’t be doing it.”

“He won’t want you to give up your dreams and ambitions for him, Loren. Think very carefully about all of this, and maybe talk to Donovan before you make any decisions while you’re still emotional.”

Dr. Babcock stood and gathered her things, then came around the table and rested her hand on his shoulder.

“Eliot will be here for a while. He’s being given excellent care by the nursing staff and in-house psychiatrists. He’s safe, and he will be all right.” She squeezed his shoulder, then said, “You can see him now if you’d like.”

He didn’t reply, and an instant later, she was gone. Loren sat alone, numb, not wanting to think, just drifting along until his phone vibrated in his pocket, startling him. He pushed to his feet and headed out to the lobby where Erin was behind the desk working on some paperwork.

Loren stopped and stared at her, and she gazed back at him, her eyes filled with compassion.

“Would you like to see him, Loren?” She half stood as if planning to lead him into the locked patient area, and he shook his head.

“I—I can’t,” he rasped. “Not right now. I’m sorry. I—I—”

The expression in Erin’s eyes didn’t change as she nodded, and with a deep sigh that came out sounding more like a sob, Loren turned on his heel.

And walked away.

“KNOCK, KNOCK.”

At the soft words, Loren spun around to see Donovan standing in the open door to Eliot’s apartment.

Loren cleared his throat. “Hey, thanks for meeting me here, man.”

“No worries,” Donovan replied, stepping carefully into the room. “I know it’s difficult to talk about this stuff around others.” When Loren called Donovan and asked to meet, Donovan first suggested a Denny’s close to the hospital.

“Yeah, I’m not—shit, it’s hard for me to keep it together right now.”

Donovan came closer and put his hand gently on Loren’s shoulder. “I understand.”

Loren saw Donovan gaze around in disbelief. The apartment was a wreck. Empty vodka and beer bottles covered almost every available flat surface, and there were chairs tipped over and clothes strewn around. It looked like a frat house after an epic party.

“Got any trash bags?” Donovan asked. “Let’s pick up some of this crap and then sit down and talk.”

Loren nodded, then rooted around under Eliot’s kitchen sink until he came up with a box of trash bags. He and Donovan worked in silence, stuffing the empty bottles into them, making their way around the apartment.

How did Eliot manage not to give himself alcohol poisoning?
Loren thought, anguished.

He entered the bathroom and reached for the couple beer bottles on the back of the toilet, and stopped short when he noticed that the small sink was inexplicably filled with money: mostly dollar bills, with some tens and twenties mixed in. Half-buried in the pile was the alarm watch.

Loren felt his breath freeze in his chest, numbness spreading through his entire body. Eliot, at that club…. He’d obviously danced, but what else had he done? Let men grope him? Blow him? The bartender’s lascivious words—“
Fuck, he’s a sweet ride
”—echoed in Loren’s skull.

Nausea spread through him, and he took deep breaths through his nose to keep from throwing up everywhere. It was Tate Miller all over again….

“I can’t do this,” he gasped out, dropping the trash bag to the floor and pushing past Donovan, who was standing in the bathroom doorway. Donovan grabbed Loren’s arm, and Loren shook him off roughly. “I’m out of here.”

“It’s easy to love them when they’re stable,” Donovan said, stepping in front of Loren and impeding his progress. “And it’s when they’re not that they need us the most.” Loren stopped short, and Donovan continued, “When it comes to bipolar disorder, man, love isn’t just a feeling. It’s an action word. It’s a fucking
decision
.”

“And love won’t cure him, Donovan,” Loren shot back.

“No, it won’t,” Donovan agreed, his voice quiet. “He will hurt you again and again. Professionally, financially, emotionally. But what you need to understand is that it’s not deliberate or willful or malicious. It’s an illness. An illness that he didn’t ask for and doesn’t want.

“You and I, Loren, can’t even begin to fathom what the people we love deal with on a daily basis. The volatility, the madness, the bone-deep despair that are just a brain chemical shift away.”

Loren stood silent, his head bowed.

“Once I was ready to walk away, ready to call it quits. Traci begged me not to go, and I shouted at her, ‘What’s the point? What in God’s name can I ever say that will make it better or even fucking keep you alive?’”

Donovan waited until Loren lifted his head and looked at him.

“She told me there was nothing I could ever say, Loren. She told me what kept her alive was simply my belief that hers was a life worth living.

“An action word, Loren. A decision. And fuck, it’s not an easy one. But during those times when I think I can’t do it one more second, I look at my wife. I see how hard she’s trying because she loves me in return. I see that sometimes she’s helpless against the vicious whims of a set of fucking chemicals in her brain, and it makes me think that maybe I can do it for one more day. Just one more goddamn day. And it’s turned into seventeen years. Seventeen years that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”

Loren took a shuddering breath, and Donovan continued in gentle tones, “If you don’t think you can do it, Loren, truly, I can’t think of anyone who would judge you for that, least of all Eliot. But if there’s one solid piece of advice I can give you, it’s that you’re either all-in or you’re all-
out
. Half-assing this thing will never work. I don’t want you to walk away until you’ve told yourself that you were all-in, and you gave it everything you had. Not doing that will lead to a lifetime of regret.”

All Loren could do was stare at him blankly, and Donovan nodded toward the small leather couch.

“Let’s sit down,” he said. When they’d seated themselves, he continued, “When Traci and I met, I was a commercial airline pilot. I’d just achieved what, to me, was the pinnacle of success: an international route flying the newest, most technologically advanced jets. I was flying to exotic destinations. I was making good money. For a lifelong Navy brat and a fighter pilot, it was a dream come true.”

Loren looked at Donovan, at the long hair brushing his shoulders, the goatee, the jeans with the holes in the knee, and he knew the incredulity he was feeling must be showing on his face because Donovan laughed.

“Yeah, once upon a time I was the clean-cut fighter jock, the
Top Gun
asshole,” he snorted. “But after Traci’s third hospitalization in a year, and when we found out she was pregnant, something needed to change. I couldn’t be gone for days at a time. How could I enjoy myself on layovers in exotic locations while my wife was home, struggling to hold her life and sanity together? She urged me to leave her, to live my life how I’d always dreamed I’d live it. And Loren, I considered it. It fucking wasn’t an easy, selfless decision on my part. I agonized and I raged.”

Loren kept his eyes steady on Donovan’s face, and he could see the conflict there, even after so many years.

“And what it boiled down to was I decided to go all-in. Traci needed more hands-on support and time than I’d been giving her, and I wanted to see if it made a difference. For us it made all the difference, Loren.”

“What did you end up doing after you quit the airline?” Loren couldn’t remember Donovan ever talking about himself so openly in group.

“I took every penny of our savings and I bought a small airplane of my own, started giving private lessons, renting it out for charter. After a while I was able to buy another one, and now I own a small fleet. A very small fleet,” he finished drily. “But I’m able to support my family and indulge my love of flying. I can set my own hours and do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it. If that isn’t the American dream, I don’t fucking know what is.”

Loren gave a halfhearted chuckle. “Good for you.”

“Yeah, dude. One door closed, and another one opened. But the point is, more time, more attention, more hands-on made all the difference to Traci’s quality of life. It won’t be like that for everyone, I realize that. I’m just telling you what’s worked for me, for us. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been worth it. I have zero regrets.”

Loren leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. For long moments there was silence, and then he felt Donovan’s hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t give up hope, Loren. I’m here for you, man. Call me anytime.”

All Loren could do was nod, and Donovan squeezed his shoulder hard and was gone, leaving Loren alone with his thoughts.

“OH MY
God
!”

Eliot danced away from the fist that swung in his direction, laughing with delight. He didn’t remember the hospital being so much fun before.

“Oh God! Oh God!” Eliot crowed, and the thin black-haired woman standing opposite him glared at him, her hands on her hips.

“Shut the fuck up,” she snarled, and Eliot made a show of clutching his chest in shock.

“Is God allowed to
curse
?” he gasped theatrically. “Do you know what this
means
?” He spread his arms wide and turned in a circle, encouraging everyone in the room to look at him. “It means that God is
one of us
!”

Just then the woman lunged at him, her hands curved into claws, and Eliot ran off, shouting about incurring the wrath of God. He couldn’t remember having this much fun in ages. He practically skipped down the hall, feeling on top of the world, even if that world was speeding along so fast he could barely keep up. At least the fucking black demon was quiet.

“You’ve got to stop taunting Jennifer like that,” a passing nurse said in a reproving voice, and Eliot grinned at her, skidding to a stop.