All the Things We Never Knew (12 page)

David sat in his favorite chair, reading the paper. “You know how I feel about Christmas.”

“I'd really like you to be there with us,” I said. “You've missed the last two trips.”

He looked up from the paper. “You know how I feel about Christmas,” he repeated.

“Yes, but you've got a child, David. You can learn to fake it.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “My dad hated it, I hate it, it's gross commercialization and . . .”

“And it's Christmas, David. Find something about it you can celebrate.” I pushed the gifts into a huge Ikea shopping bag and headed out the door to the post office.

David walked toward me with his head down, avoiding eye contact. He stopped me before I reached my car. “I'm sorry.” He offered to help me load our things. “It just brings back such bad memories. I can't recall a single happy Christmas. Dad hated it and spent most of the day in his room.”

I touched his arm. It was cold enough to see my breath, but there was no snow forecast this year in Portland. “David, you can make new memories. For her.”

“Okay,” he said, finally, “for Sophs.”

Two weeks later, David called from work, frantic. “My briefcase is gone. It was stolen.”

“Calm down, David. Tell me what happened.” I turned down the flame on the stir-fry I was making. “When? When did you last see it?”

His voice rattled. “I was working at the Henson's house, and I left it inside the truck, with all my files, and all the billings, and the change orders, and the . . .” His voice trailed off and he moaned, a strange sound that worried me.

“David, it will be okay.” I washed my hands under the sink faucet. “You've got copies of all that stuff, right?”

The line went silent. I knew the answer. We had gone through this before.

Twice, our lives were disrupted by the theft of his briefcase. I spent weeks helping him make phone calls, reconstructing the bids, the work changes, the payments, the bills. After so much misery, he'd assured me he was backing up all his data, making hard copies of everything.

“I'm so sorry, but you need help, David.” I leaned up against the wall, trying to breathe. “You have to see someone about why you can't get your work organized. Let me hire an organizational expert for you, a secretary, something. You can't keep doing this.”

“I knew it,” he said, his voice rising. “I knew that you'd blame me. I get my fucking briefcase stolen, and you're going to blame me. As if I did it!”

I refused to take the heat, to allow him to shift the focus on to me. “At some point, David, you'll have to take responsibility for your continued crises.” I had reached a point of fatigue with him, a deep irritation over cleaning up his messes. I no longer made excuses for him when he was late or picked up the pieces of his unfinished projects. I was done propping him up.

“Forget Christmas,” he said. “Forget it. I'll have to work.”

On Christmas morning, I sat in my father's easy chair, videotaping Sophie as she opened her Christmas presents. She hugged the giraffe tight around the neck, her blonde hair tangled from sleep. Her Christmas PJs said “Ho, ho, ho” in big white letters.

She ran into my mother's lap and curled the giraffe under her arm. “Look, Grandma, he remembered! I told him at Meier & Frank, and Santa even remembered to bring it to Utah!”

My brother's two boys were there, too, tearing into loads of presents under the tree with shrieks of joy and surprise. The smell of bacon and eggs came from the kitchen. We'd tracked Santa's path the night before on NORAD, the website that brings even the most skeptical child around. I honored this precious, fleeting time, when Sophie believed it possible that one man, driven by reindeer, could span the globe delivering every child's wishes.

Sophie opened and closed her new toy cash register, talking to her tow-headed cousin about the “exact amount of change.” I kept the camera running, but my heart hurt at the thought of David, wherever he was on Christmas morning, wholly incapable of seeing or feeling the magic.

Sophie jumped on my lap, bumping the camera, her face bright with excitement. “Let's call Daddy!” she said. “Let's tell him he came. He needs to know Santa came.” Her skin was warm from the fire. She was already lanky and had lost some of her baby fat. How could he possibly miss this, miss her? The reason I'd stayed in the marriage was to witness her being loved by her father. And now that was slipping away.

I bounced Sophie on my knee. “Absolutely. Let's call Daddy and tell him Santa did not forget you.”

 

ANOSOGNOSIA

Anosognosia is a phenomenon that commonly occurs in people with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. They simply cannot believe that they have a serious psychiatric illness. Anosognosia is more commonly known as “nonadherence.”

I was in denial about the seriousness of David's condition as well, but part of my confusion arose from David's insistence that he was not sick and did not need treatment.

Why can't a person see what is apparent to those around them? The National Alliance on Mental Illness says this is a core feature of the neurobiology of these conditions.
“Frontal lobes organize information and help to interpret experiences. In conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, frontal lobe difficulty is central to the neurobiological processes that underlie the disorder. Psychological denial is not the reason for the lack of insight in these illnesses.”

More than forty states have passed laws defining assisted outpatient treatment (AOT), also known as outpatient commitment. AOT status requires a person to engage in treatment and gives the state authority to bring a person to a treatment center. All these laws specify a process for assessing whether an intervention is appropriate.

In Oregon, intervention is allowed only if it can be clearly shown that the person meets one or more of the following criteria:

               
1.
 
is a danger to himself or herself or others,

               
2.
 
is unable to provide basic personal needs,

               
3.
 
suffers from chronic mental illness or has had two hospitalizations in the previous three years, and/or

               
4.
 
will continue to physically or mentally deteriorate without treatment.

NAMI has active support groups across the nation providing opportunities for engagement with doctors who are interested in the issue.

Chapter Eight

Three years passed, years in which David and I moved through our lives with Sophie as our only contact. The cycle had begun to seem normal, or at least tolerable. “She's got tennis on Wednesday, piano lessons Thursday, and a sleepover at Maddie's house Friday,” I said, as David gathered his things for another Saturday away from us. “Let me know which days you can drive her.”

I had learned to operate within the confines of a dead marriage. I stuffed away my emotions as David stuffed more manila files into his briefcase.

I'd bought the Valextra leather case for him as a wedding present, but he'd only started using it after his favorite, beat-up case was stolen. When I'd bought it, it had reminded me of him, stylish and streamlined. Now, the weight of his briefcase reminded me of the haphazard way he seemed to be approaching his work these days—stuffing too much into his already overloaded life. I knew better than to suggest (again) that he go paperless. I knew better than to make suggestions about hiring more subcontractors and a secretary. I had enough work complications of my own, getting used to a new shift at 101.9, KINK-FM. I had transitioned from political talk radio to KINK in 2002, and now it was the number one radio station in town.

David stomped upstairs. “I'll let you know, okay?”

Sophie called to me from outside. “C'mon, Mama. Let's get in the pool, already!” I went outside and feigned a cannonball, much to Sophie's delight.

A man dressed in a stuffy gray suit and a white shirt appeared at our gate holding an envelope. “Is Mr. Krol here?” he asked. His hair was as black as a crow's and covered in the kind of grease men used in the 1950s. It stuck to his forehead in an odd formation, like a puzzle that had been glued in the wrong pattern.

I tried to sink lower in the water, embarrassed to get out of the pool in a bikini. “Uh, yes, he's inside in his office.”

“If I could just come in for a moment.” His eyes were gray, and he had sweat on his upper lip. Something about this guy gave me the creeps.

I stayed at the edge of the pool, showing only the top of my head. Sophie was splashing behind me. “Um, well, perhaps you could come back at a different time? I believe he's on a conference call with an important client.”

He shifted his weight to the other foot, eyeing the opening in the gate. Clearly the guy wasn't leaving.

“David,” I called, “there's someone here to see you.” The door was open. Surely David could hear me. Sophie sensed my anxiety and looked at me nervously. She stopped kicking, measuring up this strange man dressed in too many layers on such a lovely day.

We waited. Goosebumps flashed over my body. My towel was several feet away.

Suddenly David burst out onto the deck, grabbed the man's elbow, and marched him down the stairs toward the street. “For God's sake,” I heard him hiss, “it's Saturday!”

Their voices rose and fell. A car door slammed. Then the engine started and the man's car barreled back down the street, past the “Children Playing” sign that was always out on weekends and what must have been curious stares from our neighbors.

David returned, his face flushed.

“Who was that?” I wrapped Sophie in a towel first, then myself.

“It's none of your business,” he said. Sophie exchanged a worried glance with him. “He is a client. You do your job; I'll do mine.”

“David,” I pleaded. “You'd tell me if something was wrong, wouldn't you? You'd let me know if you needed help?” I stood in front of him, shaking, hoping for something, anything.

“God, you are such a drama queen,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Soph, get dressed. Let's get some ice cream.”

It is his business,
I decided.
If he doesn't want my help, so be it.

I never did find out who the man was or why he had come. But that day I knew without knowing that David had never stopped keeping secrets from me. He lied while he looked me in the eye.

Another year passed. David and I moved in totally different orbits. We were roommates now, not lovers. I washed his clothes; I did his dishes; I made his bed and cleaned the house. We left notes for one another regarding Sophie's care. It was far from ideal, but in a strange way, I'd come to terms with the dysfunction of two emotionally and physically divorced people living together to raise a child. When he finally moved the last of his books into his own room downstairs, I was actually relieved.

But there was more. David had stopped eating the food I cooked six months earlier. It was an odd new habit I thought he'd adopted out of defiance. He'd refused my cooking, refused to sit down to family meals, refused anything but frozen pot pies. He'd go to the grocery store and come back with two bags filled with the green cardboard boxed pies. The same food, the same smell, night after night. I'd watch him open the door to the microwave, retrieving another scalding chicken pot pie. He shifted it gingerly from side to side until he could deliver it to the counter, where he grabbed a fork and began spooning chunks of chicken and gooey crust into his mouth.

I poured myself a glass of water. “David, we're having dinner in an hour. Chorizo. Used to be your favorite.”

“Nah.” He stabbed at the pie for another chunk. “I like these—they're really good.” His face, normally chiseled and tanned, looked puffy and yellow. His white shirt, the same cotton European cut he wore when I first met him, only now in XXL, was buttoned the wrong way. He noticed me watching him and waved me away. “WHAT?”