The Weight of Zero (35 page)

Mom waits for me at the front door as Michael drives off. She doesn't say anything, just opens her arms, and I walk into them.

“It went great. I told him everything,” I say.

She squeezes me harder and then pulls back. “Your phone chooed at least four times while you were talking to Michael.” She pulls my phone out of her robe pocket. “It's Kristal.”

I call her and she picks up on the first ring. “Can I come over, Cat?” Kristal's voice trembles. “I need to talk to you.”

“Yes,” I say, and give her my address.

“I'll be there in a half hour….And, Cat…do you hate me?” she asks.

“No fucking way.”

We talk for hours on the floor of my bedroom. It's an apology free-for-all, with Kristal agonizing over how she reacted to my admission, and me trying to explain why I had held back, about Grandma and my old friends, and how my world had crashed all at once and I couldn't separate the reasons why, so I connected everything to my diagnosis.

Kristal listens, squeezing my hand a couple of times. “I'm so sorry, Cat. I was just so pissed that you never told me anything, I couldn't think of anything else. My mom always says I barrel into relationships, overshare and expect too much of people too soon, and that's why I always get hurt.” She leans back against my bed. “But I get it. All last night I kept thinking what a hypocrite I was, lighting into you while I was doing the exact same thing. Lying about bingeing. And maybe it's worse because I lied right to your face.”

“Well, so did I,” I say. “You asked and I didn't answer.” I wait a beat. “So how are you? Really?”

“I called my eating coach as soon as I got home last night. We talked for about an hour and I've got an appointment on Monday with her.”

“I'm glad. I'm here for you. Whenever you're stressing or are tempted, I'm here.” I think about Dr. McCallum last night in our living room and start to smile. “Jesus, our therapists really earned their money last night. Listen to what happened after you left St. Anne's.”

And I tell Kristal everything—about seeing Anthony, walking to the Green and then coming home and finding Mom with my shoe box.

Kristal's eyes fill with tears. “Cat, you weren't going to do anything to yourself, were you?”

“I was planning on it, for the next time I got depressed,” I say. “But I don't feel that way anymore.”

Our eyes hold. “Promise me, Cat,” Kristal says, leaning forward and taking both my hands. “Let's promise each other if…when…we ever get to that place, we'll call each other. It doesn't matter what time. We won't do anything until we talk. Let's have a password, okay? Only to be used in that situation, okay?”

I nod. I am beginning to cry. Moved by this girl and her gift of friendship. “What should the password be?”

She gives me the same smile she did on the first day we met. Tentative, scared, but one that connects us. “Anne,” she says.

Mom is driving me to the Pitoscias' this Saturday night to celebrate Nonny's birthday. It fell midweek, on December 18, but the family party is tonight. Lorraine has cooked Mom's chicken and mushroom dish. This is the first time I'll have been at the Pitoscias' since seeing Anthony at St. Anne's, and I'm nervous. Now all the Pitoscias know I go to St. Anne's, because Nonny was eavesdropping when Anthony told Michael.

“You okay?” Mom knows the situation. “Should I just hang out around the corner in case it's too weird?”

“No. I can always ask Michael to take me home,” I say. “Go to dinner with Aunt D.”

“I think it will be fine, Cath,” Mom says, pulling into the Pitoscias' driveway. Michael waits for me at the front door. “They seem like a nice family. Lorraine was very sweet when she called for the recipe. She said Nonny insisted that you be there.”

That makes me smile. I lean over to kiss Mom. “Keep your fingers crossed,” I say. I take a deep breath and step out of the Accord. I really don't want to go inside. I don't want to face Michael's family, knowing it will be awkward.

Stop it,
I tell myself.

The anxiety over this dinner is normal. Mom and Dr. McCallum and Kristal have drilled that into my head. But it was Kristal who did the best job of putting it into perspective.

“This freak-out, Cat,” she had said yesterday at group, “it's what I call a ‘luxury' anxiety. I'm not criticizing you, but for people like us, with serious fears, this ranks pretty low on the shit-to-worry-about list. Just put it out of your mind. We've got bigger fish. And fuck them if they can't handle it.”

My phone vibrates with her text now. “BIGGER FISH. REMEMBER THAT!”

I wave to Mom as she backs out of the Pitoscias' driveway. In the ten seconds it takes me to reach their front door, Nonny has zipped past Michael and stands on the stoop in just her sweatshirt and leggings. She's clapping and calling, “C'mon, Catherine!” Michael and I barely have time to make eye contact because Nonny is hustling me inside, down the hall heavily infused with the evergreen scent of a lit Yankee Candle and straight into the kitchen.

“Hey, Michael's friend! Nice to see you,” Michael calls from behind me.

Lorraine's at the stove, and she rushes toward me. Her hug is its usual intensity, but she holds on longer than normal. She just whispers, “Catherine,” but her tone tells me she knows it was tough to come over and she's glad I'm here. Tony gives me a two-second pat on the back before winking at me and telling me to take a seat.

And then Anthony comes in. He walks straight over to me. “We good, Cath?” He holds his hand up for a high five. I smile and when my hand connects with his, he holds on to it. “Really?” He's smiling too, but his eyes are asking if I'm mad at him for telling Michael. If I'm mad that his entire family knows my secrets now.

“Really,” I say, squeezing back.

Nonny pulls out a chair. “Sit, Catherine,” she commands. “What's the matter with you? Why you go to that place, St. Anne's? You drink too much like Anthony?”

Michael, Lorraine, Tony and Anthony instantly object. “Jesus, Nonny,” Michael snaps. “I told you not to do this.”

Nonny sits next to me, so close our knees touch. She takes my hand, her worn-smooth, spotted fingers warming mine, her mega eyes wide with concern and affection. I shake my head. “No, it's not drinking.”

“Then what? You think you fat? You want to be skinny like those models? Men like women with meat on them.” She stands and slaps her plump hips. “My husband, Nico, he called these his handles. He use these to hold on.”

“Okay, I just threw up in my mouth,” Michael moans.

“Is that it?” Nonny persists. “You want to be skinny?”

“No,” I say as the kitchen grows heavy with silence.

“It's okay, Cath,” Michael says. “You don't have to talk about this anymore.” He sends Nonny a warning look.

Nonny takes off her glasses and leans forward. “Are you sad, Catherine? That it?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I am.”

All the Pitoscias have frozen in place except Michael. He slides into the chair next to mine and places his hand on my back.

“Why?” Nonny asks. “What make you sad?”

“I have…” My God. Am I going to release this into the Pitoscia stratosphere? I know only one thing right now: that I want to stay honest and say honest. It's the only way. “I have bipolar disorder. It makes me sad sometimes, and sometimes it makes me hyper. I take medicine for it.”

Nonny stares at me. Her eyes search my face for clues, I think, indications of my brain defect. She says nothing but stands suddenly, drops a fierce kiss on my forehead and charges out of the kitchen in her Crocs.

Anthony drops his head to the table. “Jesus. I'm still reeling from the handles image.”

“Catherine, you come here now,” Nonny calls from her bedroom.

Michael and I enter to the sound of Mitzi squealing in her crate, and I see a pile of
People
magazines strewn across Nonny's bed. She pushes it aside and pats the mattress for me to sit.

“Look,” she says, passing me a magazine featuring some movie star on the cover. “This one, she got bipolar. And she got an Oscar and married to that actor from
The Godfather.
Ooh, he's a nice one. Makes lots of money. That's pretty good, huh?” She flips open another magazine, points to a former Disney pop princess gone bad. “And her too. She got it too. But now look. She in medical school. She gonna be a doctor.” She brings a third magazine close to her face. “And this guy. This rock-and-roll guy. He got bipolar too.” She beams at me. “Everybody got it. Don't you worry. You just live with it. That's all.”

Michael looks at me and grins. “Don't you feel so much better now?”

I do.

FEBRUARY

“Doing anything for the long weekend?” Dr. McCallum asks at the end of our session.

“We're going over to the Pitoscias' on Friday night. They're having a little party,” I tell him. “But we might be late. That's Mom's first day of manager training at one of the Dunkin' Donuts in Cranbury.”

“And how about you? I thought you told me that your aunt had offered you a job.”

“Our step-down program ends this Friday, so I'm starting next week. Not at the same place as Mom, though. Neither of us thought that was a good idea. But you'll like this one: we started running together. It's gonna be tough being around doughnuts all the time.”

Dr. McCallum nods. “Good for your head and your body. And what's happening with the history project?”

I'm psyched to tell him that our paper on Private First Class Jane Talmadge was chosen to be the first biography featured in both the local paper and the county's online
Patch
publications. Bev Walker was totally pumped because Michael and I included info on the exhibit at the museum. We also took a chance and submitted it to a couple of military journals, and one accepted it for publication in May, which makes me so freaking happy. Because unlike our first soldier, Jonathan Kasia, our research uncovered no public tributes to Jane: no books or websites, no annual parade, no athletic field named in her honor and no statue of her on the New Haven Green. Nothing. We couldn't even locate a relative. So it was all on us to get her story out there and give her some of the honor she deserves.

“So things at school are pretty good,” I tell Dr. McCallum. “And I'm reading again.”

Mrs. Markman, the school librarian, is only too happy to provide recommendations. She usually has a pile of books waiting for me when I stop by between classes—I'm eating in the cafeteria now during lunch. Sometimes at Michael's table, sometimes at Sabita's, where I'm not the only new member: Olivia showed up a few weeks ago and asked if she could sit in the empty chair next to me. She hasn't said what caused the breakup between her and Riley, and I'm not asking yet. Friendship baby steps are fine for right now.

The first book I read or reread was
The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
After all this time, I had to see if I would feel the same way about it. And only in our new den with Grandma's yellow afghan hugging me.

The den is great. We placed a desk inside Grandma's closet after taking off the doors and wallpapering the newly created alcove—just one of the handy design tips Mom and I picked up from HGTV. The room also has a new love seat and recliner, along with new carpeting. The mega-Jesus over Grandma's bed is gone, taken down when Michael and Mom and I painted the walls a soft blue. Mom donated him to St. Stanislaus, a small Polish Catholic church in the next town, the same church we now go to on Sundays.

The room gives me a sense of peace. Because I swear, there have been a few times, when I was alone doing homework or talking on the phone, that the scent of peppermint, Grandma's favorite candy, softly swirled around me. That's what made me feel safe reading
Perks
again in there.

I found the same story radically different this time around. Before, I could only focus on guilting myself for my genetic disorder while exonerating Charlie for being an innocent victim. That's wrong, I know that now. And before, the absence of Grandma and my friends made the support of Charlie's family and friends seem fake. But with Michael and Kristal in my life, I'm seeing that people don't necessarily run from me. They seem to want to be a part of my life. At least for now.

But what really struck me was how skewed my perception was that first Saturday of September, sophomore year. The fucked-up lens of my depression transmitted a version of the story that just wasn't there.
Perks
is a story of hope. The message is that yes, we get dealt some horrifically shitty cards, but despite the hand, we still have choices, decisions to make about where to go from here. There is still some control.

I tell Dr. McCallum what I've discovered: this distorting effect of depression.

His eyes hold mine. “Remember this, Catherine. Because that is exactly why we have a depression game plan,” he says. “For that very reason.”

The knowledge that Zero will come back doesn't cripple me anymore. I'm getting used to the idea of cycles. My mind is tidal, and I think I can learn to accept that. I will have to learn to ride out the extreme episodes, even the apocalyptic Zero. And I get that our game plan to deal with it hinges on one thing: staying honest and saying honest. I need to become my greatest advocate. Especially at the first signs of my shit going south.

It's dark as Mom drives us home from the appointment. The houses fly by, each window flashing the quickest view of lit interiors, glimpses of the lives within. I used to think that only my house was a house of pain, but now I know that every house has its share. Like Bev Walker pacing in her high-end kitchen as the shower in Kristal's bathroom runs; or Lorraine and Tony Pitoscia staring at Anthony's DUI court papers spread out on the dining room table; and even Farricelli's parents, whose dream of a college football scholarship fractured like the vertebra in Louis's neck. Not to mention all the others whose pain I cannot see.

Not everyone is chronic, but I know no one is immune.