All the Things We Never Knew (27 page)

“David,” I said, “you'll get out when the counselors can tell you are ready.” I softened my voice. “Show them you are ready.” My throat tightened up again, guilt pressing against my consciousness.
“I wish I could fix this for you, David,” I said. “But you've got to do this for yourself.”

One week later, the counselors reported a “remarkable turnaround.” David stabilized on the drug regimen, they reported to his family. He no longer had suicidal ideation. The olfactory hallucinations were gone. He'd told the counselors about a plan for recovery on the outside that included moving back to Canada for a time to help his mother with small jobs. He'd gained back some of his weight. He was ready to be released. He assured the counselors he did not know where the gun was, that he had dropped it in the thick brush and it was likely unrecoverable.

His mother said she could care for him. She signed an order agreeing to monitor his activities and packed a fresh set of clothes so that he wouldn't have to come home in scrubs. Sophie wanted to be home when her dad arrived. She cleaned her room and set out all her favorite stuffed animals on her bed, a welcoming parade of the things she loved most.

Adele, meanwhile, returned home to Montreal for a couple of days to care for one of her patients. She called and asked if it would be okay if I let David stay at the house for a few days. I was nervous with Adele absent from the picture, but at that point, I would have done anything to help David recover. Alice would be supervising Sophie's evening interactions with David. I would still be with her during the day. I said yes and packed a bag to stay at Colin's house.

 

“MAGIC BULLETS”: PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS

Award-winning science and history author Robert Whitaker is determined to solve a puzzle: why has the mental illness epidemic grown in size and scope, even as the country spends billions of dollars every year on antidepressants and antipsychotics?

Whitaker points out that as the psychopharmacology revolution has unfolded, the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States has skyrocketed. Mental illness now disables
850 adults and 250 children every day. According to Whitaker's book
Anatomy of an Epidemic,
“Those numbers only hint at the scope of the problem, for they are only a count of those who have become so newly ill that their families or caregivers are eligible to receive a disability check from the federal government.”

Psychiatrist Daniel Carlat says that psychiatry has largely forsaken the practice of talk therapy for the seductive and more lucrative practice of prescribing drugs. Although we know that many people are helped by psychiatric drugs and will personally attest to how the drugs have helped them lead normal lives, there are a host of deeply troubling consequences to a culture that favors prescriptions over therapy.

In his book
Unhinged: The Trouble with Psychiatry—A Doctor's Revelations About a Profession in Crisis,
Carlat says psychiatrists have settled for treating symptoms rather than causes, embracing the medical rigor of DSM diagnoses and prescriptions in place of learning the more challenging craft of therapeutic counseling.

“Overprescription” was a word I didn't know existed until I saw David catatonic in a hospital, drooling, physically unable to move his limbs. The approach was not “What are the factors that contributed to this man's breakdown?” but instead “Try a drug, any drug.”

Carlat writes, “In any field of medicine, patients become desperately ill and die before their time, despite the best efforts of doctors. This is as true in cardiology and oncology as it is in psychiatry. Whether we are talking about depression, schizophrenia,
or bipolar disorder, the new drugs introduced over the past fifty years are no more effective than the original prototypes—such as Haldol for schizophrenia, lithium for bipolar disorder, and Nardil for depression.” He continues, “Why put patients through months and years of weekly therapy if simply taking pills worked as well if not better? As it turns out, we were wrong in two ways. We both exaggerated the effectiveness of the new drugs and gave psychotherapy a premature burial.”

Chapter Nineteen

The phone rang as I was curled up on Colin's couch, in front of a fire, prepping for an interview I would do the next day. My laptop was on my lap as I scanned previous interviews with General Wesley Clark, who would be coming into the studio to talk about the Iraq war.

“Thanks, thanks for all you've done,” David said over the phone, his clear, strong voice giving way to emotion. “Really, Sheila, there's a place in heaven for you.”

Odd. David didn't believe in heaven. Or hell. “Thank you, D. Was it good to see Sophie again?” I said. “Are you feeling okay about being home? Did you make yourself a fire?”

He avoided the questions. “You and Sophie. You're very tight now, aren't you? This has really brought you closer, hasn't it? You love her so much. You are such a good mom.”

I sat upright. He'd never spoken to me so kindly, so intimately, especially on the phone. He hated phones. Sophie and I had always been tight. I struggled to make sense of what he was trying to say. I asked tentatively, “David, are you okay?”

I imagined him sitting in his chair in the living room, looking out at the huge deck he'd rebuilt around the pool. He liked looking at reflections in the water, so he lit the deck for dramatic effect. He'd even strung a zip line so that Sophie and her pals could scream from
the top of the house to the pool. I'd hoped he'd built a fire; it was his thing, a fire every night after October 1. He paused a long while before answering.

“You know you're going to be okay, no matter what,” he said. “Sophie and you will be fine.”

“We can all get through this, David,” I said. “Please give Sophie a big kiss for me tonight, would you?”

“I will. I promise. Thank you, Sheila, thank you for everything.”

The conversation struck me as odd. It was intimate, personal, and so calm, his tone filled with forgiveness and understanding.
I should check on him. No, he's fine.
His family wanted me to leave him alone. Give him his space.
Yes, he'll be fine.
But I couldn't shake the tone of his voice—
Why did he sound so different?
Maybe the medications had changed him.

The next morning, I tiptoed out of Colin's home around five thirty to make the drive home to see Sophie. The day was off to a glorious beginning: there was crispness in the air and red and gold color in dying leaves. Fall. My favorite season for change. I took the familiar winding turns leading up to my house and saw the usual early morning rumblings. Our neighbors, the Shillers, were early risers. Lights and TVs were already on in their house. I imagined Debbie hard at work on her StairMaster before waking up her daughter for school. Patty Benson was on her morning walk. I thought of Sophie, still sleeping, how she liked to be awakened by someone (preferably me) lightly scratching her back. I'd pack her favorite lunch of salami and Brie, with flat crackers, cut-up apples, and kosher pickles, all in separate bags. I'd caught up on the laundry—there would be matching socks to offer her.

Slowly, I was patching our life back together. I took the last curve and had the same reaction I'd had ten years earlier, when I had come home to find my car stolen. David's white work truck was not where it had been parked the night before. I inhaled, held my
breath. We'd taken the keys to his car from him, and his employees had the only other set of keys to the truck. Where was he? My jaw tightened; my senses sharpened; the exhale never came. I sprinted from the garage to David's mother's bedroom, panicked.

“What is it?” she said, startled, sitting upright.

“Where's David?”

She looked around the room, confused, not yet sure of why I was asking. “He's upstairs, asleep,” she said.

“Then who has his truck?” I asked.
Get on the road, track him down. Find him.
Everything I'd ever learned from reporting on child kidnappings ran through my mind. The first hour is the most important. Somehow, those lessons seemed applicable now.

Alice's face lost its color. She looked thin and drawn in her flannel pajamas. I saw the realization come over her, and it hurt. “Oh no,” she whispered. “One of his workers brought back the keys to the truck last night. I didn't think . . .” Her voice trailed off in a distant direction, to a place she had been just a few months before.

I pushed down my worst fear, my instinct.
The gun,
I thought to myself as I skipped three steps on the way upstairs into Sophie's room.
He knows where the gun is.

I stopped myself outside her room and stabilized my breath. “Good morning, sweetheart.” I kissed her on her head.

She opened her eyes and gazed at me, sleepy. “Hi, Mama, why are you waking me up so early?”

“Sweetheart, I'll need Alice to take you to school, if that's okay. I've got to find Daddy.”

She sat up in her bed, now wide awake, filled with a dread I knew too well. Her long blonde hair was tangled, and she had sleep in the corners of her eyes. “Is everything okay?” she asked, knowing the answer wasn't yes.

I hugged her tight to my chest. “He's not here right now. It looks like he took his truck out. But I promise, I promise, Sophie, we will find him.”

She leapt from her bed, opening drawers and pulling out one
sock with monkeys on it and another with bright yellow smiley faces. She grabbed Bear from the bed—she was getting ready to come with me.

“Baby,” I said, sitting her down on her powder pink and lime green comforter, “I need to go alone.”

“But I want to go with you,” she said, her lip quivering, the oddly matched socks hanging from her hands, Bear tucked carefully under her arm. “He didn't even say goodbye.”

I knew. I knew where he was. Back to the beauty and stillness of the Columbia Gorge. Larch Mountain, where Diedra lived. I'd been polite, even nice to her because she loved David, too. I answered her calls when she was crying. I encouraged her to keep searching for the gun David had hidden.

I'd already taken the I-84 exit toward the gorge when Diedra called my cell. She sounded hysterical—a neighbor had found David's white Toyota work truck several hundred yards from her driveway.

“I'm out riding my horse,” she said. “They told me the windows of his truck are bashed out. Something's wrong.” She dissolved into tears, then loud, long sobs.

“I'm fifteen minutes away from Larch Mountain,” I said. “Give me the directions to your home.” I was certain I could find him. I knew him better than anyone. Of course, I could find him. I had to. I felt responsible for David's well-being in a way that no one understood. Perhaps it was driven by guilt, or my own false sense of importance in David's life. I'd never stopped loving him.

The road leading to Larch Mountain is a scenic route: it's a narrow, two-lane road that once was the old highway. The road winds along above the Columbia River and a massive gorge, carved out 15,000 years ago by the floods and melting of the Ice Age. Cyclists and hikers from all over the world come here to see an area untouched by McDonald's or Walmart. Officer Rodale had told me
people come here to disappear. The closer I got to Diedra's home, the heavier my heart felt inside my body. Now I dreaded the idea that I might find David.

David's work truck was parked haphazardly on the side of the road not far from Diedra's house—a style of parking I'd seen from him more frequently in the past few years. Sometimes he'd be so distracted, he'd leave the driver's door open, his briefcase inside. Other times, I'd find the lights on, the engine still running.

I pulled off the side of the road and sprinted from my car to his truck. Glass littered the side of the road. Both windows were busted, gone—it looked like someone had rifled through his dirty tool compartment to find nothing.

There was a liter of vodka on the front seat, half empty.

The keys were in the ignition.

His red Columbia Sportswear jacket I'd bought him several Christmases earlier was on the passenger seat. He loved that jacket. It was too cold to be outside without a coat. I lifted the coat. Underneath, lying on the seat resting flat and wrinkled side by side, were two photos of Sophie and me. He'd fished them out of photo books years ago and carried them everywhere, even once retrieving them—along his drenched wallet—from the Columbia River. The pictures were worn, ruined in my eyes, but he'd told me he liked them best. I wore no makeup in that shot. Just me, caught reading a book, smiling up at him.