Rise: How a House Built a Family(37)
It was hard to believe how long the crazy stuff went on before I suspected anything was wrong. It’s easier to be fooled than I had imagined. Adam would come home and tell me mundane things that happened at work. There was no reason to doubt a story about what someone else brought for lunch, or a mild squabble between employees. Then he mentioned his favorite coworker’s name and described the guy’s family. He brought recipes home from the guy’s wife. Hundreds of story details built on each other until one day the stories became bizarre, but still possible. Still, why would I doubt them when they had built on one another for years? Until one day I figured out that the best friend didn’t exist, at least not in the real world where I existed. This guy, his wife, his kids, his recently deceased grandfather, his restored antique pickup, and his basset hound, they all existed only in Adam’s head.
Sorting what actually happened from the tall tales was impossible. The crackers and fresh honey the imaginary family sent me from their imaginary bees was real. Like all good legends, I suspected, some stories had a grain of truth even though the real plot line was miles away.
If Adam had opened his eyes one Tuesday morning with full-blown schizophrenia, I would have recognized it immediately. But while I was going to school full-time and taking care of three kids and the house, the baby steps he took toward madness were excused, overlooked, and misunderstood until he had arrived at his final destination.
Morning came too quickly and the long drive to the hospital was too short. I had expected Sophie to be happy and grateful to see me. She wasn’t. She was as uncomfortable and quiet as I was while a nurse guided us to a room with Dr. Christe. He half stood to shake my hand and we exchanged names as though we didn’t already know them. He was grinning in a slightly unnerving way that probably felt more natural to his loose-minded patients than to their families. His dirty-blond hair was slightly mussed, but in a way that even I had to admit was a little sexy. Sophie looked absolutely taken with him.
He sat on the business side of a small pressed-board desk with cherry-colored veneer pulling off at the corners and seams. The room smelled like lemon furniture polish, which felt suspicious given the layers of dust and the absence of any real wood to polish. When he gestured to the only remaining chair in the room, a beaten-up red pleather office chair with wheels, I made an awkward wave to Sophie and sat. The space was so cramped my knee was pressed against hers. And when the nurse in pink elephant scrubs, which I thought were in poor taste, moved to pull the door closed, I almost bolted for it. Instead, I coughed and sputtered, “Can we leave that open, just partway? The air is just a little … well, I need some air, is all.”
She raised one eyebrow, looked at the good doctor, and then left without pulling the door.
“I can imagine this is difficult for you,” he said with a practiced sympathetic lowering of brows and a slight nod. “But it’s important everyone who may have contact with Adam be aware of the way his mind works these days. Recognizing certain signs will help us keep him on track.”
And keep us alive.
“Do you know anything about schizoaffective? Have you read some things?”
I nodded, struck mute.
“Well. You can probably identify which symptoms match Adam’s better than any of us. So the important thing moving forward is to recognize when these manifest and alert us if they get worse.”
Worse than tossing my computer hard drive in a Dumpster? Worse than trying to take his own life? The good doctor seemed to want me to speak. But most of the things circling my brain and fighting for my tongue were completely inappropriate. I wondered if everyone who sat in this chair was afraid of saying the wrong things. Words that might warn a nurse to bar the gates and lock them in, turn them from a guest into a patient.
“Worse than what?” I managed. “Because if they get worse, who will be alive to note changes?” It wasn’t what I planned to say when I opened my mouth, and from the way his jaw opened and closed, it wasn’t what he expected to hear. Not exactly politically correct? Was the danger of insanity a secret? Even here?
“Based on his response to medication so far, now keep in mind there are more we can try, and we will, but based on the effects to date he isn’t going to get complete relief from medication. Some people really can control their symptoms with medication, mind you, but other cases are more complex. We can’t expect he will ever behave perfectly normal, but we can expect improvements. It will be difficult to answer your question about what might be worse until we establish a new baseline for his behavior, a new norm.” He stared at me, hard little eyes drilling holes in my skull.
Well, that was a useless mouthful. I clenched my jaw, wondering if airborne truth serum was a thing, and if it was, if it smelled like lemon wood polish.
“I’ll tell you what might be the most useful.” He turned a soft, sweet smile to Sophie. “And you tell me if you disagree, okay?”
She nodded, and smiled, and her cheeks turned pink.
I rolled my eyes, a completely involuntary reaction.
He turned back to me, and all sweetness melted away. “Let’s go have a look, shall we?” He stood, towering over us, at least six foot two, which I never would have suspected behind the little desk. His chair must have been lowered nearly to the floor.
I didn’t move even though Sophie stood and was hemmed in by my knees.
“He won’t be able to see you. It’ll be fine.” He fluttered his fingers, waving me toward the door. “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”