Heart Berries: A Memoir(11)

At the bar, he and I sat next to each other. I felt like a child—I was too short on the stool, resting both hands on my coaster. I told him that none of his caring made me feel better. He knows you’re not my only problem. My relationship with you felt integral. Many things were infinitesimal. Combined, there’s a whole thing I can’t bear. I needed you. I told him that I turned you off so many times, and he refused to believe I was the problem.

“You cried.” He shrugs his shoulders. “He could have let you be fucking crazy, and then just brought you a beer.”

I start to cry and he says no repeatedly and quickly. He has ADHD, and since I’m manic, we’re aligned in reaction. He takes my hands from my face and puts them on the coaster.

“Indian women die early,” I say. “I think this up and down . . . and it’s not the first time I’ve centered myself in the love of a man . . . My son doesn’t need to witness this. I should have been spared from the life my mother gave to me.”

“Statistically, white men are more likely to kill themselves. If you’re going to go, it will probably be something else. Don’t die. Casey’s an asshole. You’re not perfect—but this type of fucked-up you got, it’s not that bad, Terese.”

He consoled me in letters and visits with books. Before I came to the hospital, he stopped me outside of an editorial meeting. He told me to be strong. He put a letter and a book, Just Kids, in my hands.

I don’t think that I am lonely. I think that I am starved and maybe ravenous for the very thing you withhold from me.

The first chapter in your book is titled “Wanting/Not-Having.” You and I had a joke between us that I want you back, time and again, because I prefer wanting. Even when I am there with you, beneath your breath, I still feel you withholding. It’s like your breath—that I know you’ve never had a cavity. You lean back and open your mouth. Your mouth is so large and unashamed. I feel jealous and amorous when you tell me that.

I am partly sorry for the night I cried in front of you and began to hit myself. You had never seen me do that before. Before, I was just temperamental about breakfast. The therapists reiterate that when I’m suicidal nobody is beholden to me. You have the right to walk away. I don’t understand, though, why you would look at me the way you did.

They have given me brochures about being the child of a narcissistic mother. That’s laughable. They tell me I don’t fit the criteria of histrionic, but I thought I did after speaking to some of the other women who were diagnosed like that. I fit the criteria of an adult child of an alcoholic and the victim of sexual abuse. I reiterate to the therapists several stories about my eldest brother’s abuse and my sister’s. I often have felt, in proximity to their violations, that I mimic their chaos.

They moved my release, and they want me to stay the full seven days, which means I’ll miss Christmas Eve with my son. I wish I could exchange my time with Laurie. She’s being released today. She told me that if she had insurance they would have kept her in the hospital, and that they’re keeping me longer because I have good insurance. I can’t say she’s wrong because an insurance representative works with my psychiatrist concerning my release and my progress.

I’m upset to stay here longer than I expected. But I think I like these walls. It feels artificial but good. The psychiatrist likes to speak to me more than she does the other women. She calls me in, and sometimes our discussions become more general and conversational. She wants to know whether I’ve considered contacting you after this. I told her that I don’t believe you’re a hindrance, and that I am not prideful in love.

“He isn’t telling me to leave him alone,” I said.

“You’re an intelligent and attractive woman. I doubt that this is easy for either of you,” she said.

“I think I could leave him alone.”

She gives me the full report of my conditions. I have Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and an eating disorder, and I have bipolar II.

“When you get out I hope you have a good Christmas,” she said.

The girl with the tight braids, Jackie, keeps looking at me and saying that something isn’t right. I ask her if I have crazy eyes, and she says no. She talks to me all day and French braids my hair. She likes to drink, and she doesn’t know why I can’t just find another man. “I guess it is that easy,” I say. “If I wasn’t sentimental.” She only dates thugs, she says. She runs down the ways she meets men, and it sounds exhausting.

Jackie encourages me to eat, and the things I’ve eaten today were reasonable. There was rice pilaf and broccoli, and I still drank the prune juice the cafeteria workers put aside for me.

I weigh a hundred and twenty-six pounds now. It is progress that I know my weight is not the issue. Still, I’ve obsessively weighed myself, and it’s inconvenient for the nurses, because they have to escort me to and from the gym before meals.

On Christmas, I wake up at four in the morning. The nurses let me sit by a window, and I look out at the highway and imagine that the people driving to work are good. I feel like I could master containment that way.

Josue came from behind me and tapped me with an envelope.

“You’re getting out today,” he said.

“Santa,” I said.

“Can I give you a hug?” he asked.

He hugged me until the tension in my back relaxed. His Christmas card simply said that I had talent, and that part of what makes me a good person is that I can be struck by emotion. He also included the picture of me he took.