Not Pretending Anymore by Vi Keeland
CHAPTER 26
Declan
“Hey, Dad.”
“Declan! What are you doing here?” My father took off his glasses and pushed up from his recliner, swamping me in a bear hug. “I thought you were gallivanting around the country for that fancy job of yours?”
I smiled. “I’m still working in Wisconsin—just came home for the long weekend. Sorry I didn’t call. It was a last-minute decision.” As in, I woke up this morning and went to the airport without even having a plane ticket or knowing the flight schedule.
“You never need to call. But you just missed your mother. She went over to visit your aunt Gloria. She had some surgery on her foot, so your mom has been helping her out every day.”
I dropped my duffle bag on the floor and took a seat on the couch opposite my father’s favorite chair. “I didn’t know that. How’s she doing?”
“Eh. You know your aunt Gloria… She makes a federal case out of everything and loves the attention. But the doctor says she’s healing just fine.”
That sounded about right. Aunt Gloria did love having people fuss over her. “How about Mom? How’s she doing?”
“Good, good. Got some arthritis starting up lately. But that’s normal at our age.”
I nodded. “How about her…mental health?”
My father’s brows dipped down like he had no idea what I was talking about. “Your mother’s fine.”
Dad liked to pretend there was nothing wrong, so Mom’s condition wasn’t something we talked about with him—especially not me, since I was the youngest. It had been my sisters who first explained things to me when I was eight or nine and started to realize other moms didn’t spend two months in bed, followed by three months of singing, crafting, cooking, and incessant housecleaning at all hours of the night.
I raked a hand through my hair. “I know we don’t talk about it, but I worry about Mom’s mental health.”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Yeah, I do, Dad.”
He leveled me with a warning look. “No, you don’t.”
I sighed. My dad was a good dad—a great dad, even. When I was a kid he would come home after working a sixteen-hour day and still throw a ball around with me in the yard. He showed up to every baseball, hockey, and swim-team event, and never even missed a painful recorder concert. He made sure we had dinner on the table every night, even if Mom was in bed, and he quietly picked up all the slack during her dark times.
But what he didn’t do was talk about it. And to this day, I wasn’t sure who he was trying to protect—my mother or me and my sisters.
“Dad… Can we talk about it for a minute?”
My father stood. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m going to make us some tea.”
I followed him into the kitchen. Leaning against the counter, I watched as he busied himself filling the pot and getting the mugs ready with tea bags. If I didn’t push, this conversation wasn’t going to happen. In fact, it might not happen even if I did push. Yet I needed to try. It was long overdue.
“Did you know how Mom was before you got married?”
“I’m not talking about this.”
“But I need you to.”
“No. You don’t.” The kettle started to whistle, so he lifted it and poured the water into the mugs. After he steeped the tea, he put sugar on the table and took a seat.
“Dad...”
He let out a loud sigh. “What difference does any of this make to you? Your life is what it was regardless of what I knew and didn’t know, and I think we gave you a pretty damn good childhood regardless.”
“You did. Absolutely. I had a great childhood.”
“Then why do you need to poke around? None of it will change anything. Let sleeping dogs lie, son.”
I took the seat across from him and waited until he looked up and gave me his full attention. Then I took a deep breath. “I…I sometimes worry that my depression might progress into something more, or maybe I haven’t developed all the symptoms I’m going to have yet. Bipolar is hereditary. I know you know that.”
My father closed his eyes. “Shit.” He took a minute and then nodded. “Are things getting worse for you?”
“Nothing I can’t handle. I still struggle with some lows at times, but my doctor has been great, and once he adjusts my medicine, I’m able to snap out of it. I don’t spend months down followed by months of manic highs or anything…yet.”
“How’s your sleeping?”
“It’s good. No trouble there.”
My dad stared down into his mug. Eventually, he sighed. “Your mother and I got married very young. I was twenty-one, and she was twenty. She’d always had a lot of energy at times, where she wouldn’t require more than a few hours of sleep, but then there would come a point where she would crash.”
“So you knew about her bipolar disorder before you got married?”
My father frowned. “No. I knew she was different. But I didn’t know the extent of things. It took about five years before it progressed to the level that we couldn’t chalk it up to mood swings anymore.”
I’d done enough reading on the subject to know the average age of onset was twenty-five, so it seemed my mother fit right into the norm.
“Would it have…changed things if you knew?”
My father’s forehead creased. “What are you asking me?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, Dad.”
My father stared at me for a while. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Living with someone with bipolar disorder can be very difficult. But there’s never been a single day I regretted asking your mother to be my wife.”
I looked down. “I know you had Catherine before you were twenty-five, so maybe regret isn’t the right word.”
“No, it’s definitely not the right word. But I think I understand what you’re getting at. If I’d fully known about your mom’s condition, would I have walked away, and the answer is absolutely not.”
I shook my head. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’d take three-hundred-and-sixty-four bad days a year just to have your mother for one good one, Declan. Your mother makes me happy. We have our ups and downs, maybe more so than most, but she’s the light of my life. I’d have thought you knew this, considering how many kids we have.”
That made me chuckle. “Yeah… I guess so.”
My dad touched my arm. “Have you spoken to the doctor about your concerns?”
“No.”
My father nodded. “You know you need to, right?”
I blew out a deep breath. “Yeah, I do.”
“Good. There are a lot of things in life we can’t control. But you can’t sit around waiting for something that might not even happen. Because then you’re not really living—you’re standing still.”
I sighed. “I know.”
My father studied me. “You do, huh? Then I want you to promise me something.”
“What’s that?”
“You won’t sell yourself short. I’m assuming there’s a reason you wanted to have this talk today. And that reason looks good in a skirt.”
I smiled. “Her name is Molly.”
“Well, Molly would be very lucky to have you. Just like you are, son. No matter what road life takes you down. Trust me, I know that firsthand. Sometimes a bumpy road takes you to the best places.”
Though I didn’t necessarily agree with him, I knew my father meant well. So I pretended he’d helped me solve my dilemma. “Thanks, Dad.”
***
My time in California was limited. But there was no way I could come all the way home and not see my favorite sister. On Sunday, I decided to take a road trip to the convent to visit Catherine. She was four hours north in San Luis Obispo.
When I arrived, some of the nuns were playing basketball on the court near the front of the property. It was a riot to see them bouncing the ball around on the pavement, most of them in knee-length skirts or longer. If anyone thought all nuns did was sit around and pray, this proved them wrong. Some of these ladies could put me to shame on the court. Catherine was always telling me about their outings, too. They took exercise classes together, went to speak at schools, and volunteered in so many places. It was a very active lifestyle. Which was a good thing because if I were forced to be celibate, I would definitely need distractions, too. But let’s be real, that would never be my reality. I didn’t know how my sister did it. But this was the life she chose to lead.
I always had to wait outside until Catherine came out to get me. Since she didn’t have a cell phone, I had to dial the main line and request that someone tell her I was here.
Catherine finally emerged and reached out her arms to greet me as I stood at the base of the steps.
She gave me a hug. “How was the ride, little brother?”
“Long, but worth it to see you, Sister-Sister.”
She wore a simple, gray dress and small cross around her neck. Catherine’s order was less strict than some. They didn’t have to wear the traditional habits. Let’s put it this way: they were as stylin’ as nuns were going to get.
I gestured to the court. “How come you’re not out there playing?”
“It’s my turn to cook dinner tonight. I had to start preparing it.” She shrugged. “I played yesterday.”
I asked the question I always did when I came to visit. “I got my car running out front and ready to go. Are you sure you don’t want to skip this joint and never look back?”
She rolled her eyes. “Not a chance.”
Of course I was kidding. She knew that now. Although a few years ago, I might have been serious.
Catherine had been very careful to choose an order that allowed her to see her friends and family. Some nuns in other convents were kept apart from their loved ones. While I had to make an appointment, I was grateful to be welcome here. I couldn’t imagine not being allowed to see her.
We walked through the grassy field that surrounded the place.
“I was surprised when you told me you were back here for such a short time,” she said.
“Yeah. Well, I needed a break from Wisconsin.”
She cocked her head. “Too much…dairy?”
“Nah. The cheese is the best part.” I laughed. “Not enough of everything else, like my fam.”
“When do you go back?”
“Tomorrow.” I sighed. “I wish I could stay in California a few more days, though.”
“You miss home that much? That’s why you’re here? It’s an awfully long way to come for just a few days.”
“Well, I needed to do some soul searching. And I wanted to talk to Dad, in particular—and see you, of course.”
Catherine was the only one I’d spoken to at length about my bouts of depression over the years. But even so, I’d never expressed my deepest underlying concern to her: that I feared turning into our mother. Catherine didn’t realize the extent to which it plagued me.
A look of concern crossed her face as she gestured toward a bench near a monument of Holy Mary. “Let’s sit.”
I looked up at two birds congregating on the Blessed Mother’s head and finally said, “I’m going to talk to Dr. Spellman. I keep waiting for things to get worse.”
She tilted her head. “Worse how?”
I looked my sister in the eyes. “You know...”
Catherine adjusted the gold cross around her neck. “No, I don’t. What are you saying?”
I hesitated. “I feel like it’s only a matter of time before I’m cleaning the bathroom floor with a toothbrush at two in the morning, Cat. What if I wind up with bipolar disorder like Mom?” I swallowed.
She frowned. “Just because you struggle with depression, that doesn’t mean you have exactly what Mom has.”
“Last month they had to adjust my meds again. I missed a few days of work and was feeling really down.”
“Okay…well, that still sounds like depression. You know medications need to be adjusted from time to time. That’s true for almost any condition.”
“Or my illness could be progressing. I talked to Dad, and Mom didn’t change overnight.”
She let out a long breath. “You can’t jump to a conclusion like that just because you needed a medication adjustment. But let’s walk down that path for a moment. What happens if things turn out to be the worst-case scenario and you’re diagnosed as bipolar someday? What are you really worried about here?”
“I don’t want to be sick, Cat.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Having depression or bipolar disorder doesn’t make you sick. It just means you have something you need to learn to live with.” She paused. “But what’s wrong with the idea of being sick anyway? We all become sick, whether mentally or physically, at some point. No one escapes this life unscathed.”
“Yeah,” I muttered as I looked up at the birds again, listening to them chirp.
My sister placed her hand on my arm. “No one would ever know you sometimes suffer on the inside. Most people probably think you’re a carefree, happy-go-lucky guy. You can hide a lot behind a smile.”
“Yeah, I try.”
“You shouldn’t have to work so hard to please others or give them an impression of you that’s not real. But you’re not alone in that. Many people hide their depression behind larger-than-life personalities. You never know what someone is going through on the inside.”
That reminded me of Molly. She knew a lot about me. But she knew nothing about my struggles with depression. And that was my fault. While she was always open about her anxieties, seeing a therapist and such, I’d never even hinted at my own struggles. Not only had I been dishonest with her in that sense, but I now realized how much my having to hide that part of me ultimately impacted my relationship with her.
“I had a realization at this lesbian bar back in Wisconsin…”
Catherine’s eyes widened. “I’m not going to ask what you were doing at a lesbian bar.” She laughed. “But tell me more.”
“My worry about ending up like Mom is the driving force behind a lot of my actions, particularly the way I handled the Molly situation. I think it’s why I let her slip away so easily, why I didn’t admit my feelings or fight harder for her. I sabotaged myself, so I wouldn’t have to deal with telling her about my worst fears.”
“You worry about turning into Mom, but you do realize the likelihood of that is slim, right? Just because you’re her son doesn’t mean your experience will be the same. Everyone is different.”
“I get that. But seeing how much Dad had to struggle with it when we were growing up has made me fearful of being a burden to someone. Shit, even if I was half as bad, that would still be pretty terrible. I’m young. Anything can happen.”
“Dad loves Mom. He doesn’t look at her as a burden.”
“Yeah, you know, I didn’t have a true understanding of that until I talked to him yesterday. But he didn’t know Mom was sick when he chose to be with her forever. By the time things got bad, he’d already committed.”
“What’s your point? That you should stop yourself from ever falling in love and warn people away from you, on the off-chance you end up like Mom?”
“Well…yeah. I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
“Don’t be foolish, Declan. I think you need to be treated for health anxiety, too. You can’t throw your entire life away out of fear. I guarantee you the fear of ending up like Mom is far worse than the reality of being Mom or living in Dad’s shoes. Yeah, she’s had some rough episodes. And it was hard for all of us growing up—embarrassing and humiliating when it happened in front of our friends. But she was untreated for a very long time. You have a good handle on things. And despite all of the bad moments with Mom, there have been a lot of wonderful moments too. Life has ups and downs. And if you love someone, you deal with it all.”
I kicked some grass. “I get what you’re trying to convey. But I’d still feel guilty allowing someone in my life when I struggle to feel normal sometimes. I don’t want to put that on someone else or make them feel inadequate when I inevitably fall into a depression they can’t get me out of. I don’t want that person feeling like they’re not enough to make me happy, because the truth is, when I get that way, nothing makes me happy, not even the people I care about.”
Her brow lifted. “But it always passes, doesn’t it?”
“It does.” I nodded and exhaled. “Yeah. It always has so far.”
“Well, there you go. It’s fleeting, not a permanent part of you.”
“I guess so.” Something about that statement comforted me, allowed me to momentarily see my depression as something outside of myself—something that latches onto me but isn’t constantly attached. Not a part of me.
My sister tilted her head. “You said a moment ago that you struggle to feel normal. What is normal anyway? Is normal some societal expectation that we all have to be perfect? Happy? Successful? I personally think it’s more normal to have flaws.” She stared off for a moment. “I grew up being told that women were supposed to get married and have children, right? It wasn’t popular to say you didn’t want that. And when I announced that I wanted to give up all of my material possessions and serve God, everyone—including you—thought I’d lost my mind, or that it was a phase. Not everyone has the same view of what’s normal. Freedom for me was giving up material possessions to live my life for a greater purpose. It’s what makes me happy. And I had to put aside my guilt about hurting others to achieve what I wanted.”
“It took me a while to accept that you’re where you were meant to be,” I said.
“My point is, Declan, you shouldn’t let your guilt or fear about anything dictate your decisions. God is the only true judge. And He leads you to the people and places you were meant to encounter. People like Molly. But He also chooses which crosses you will bear and never gives you anything more than you can handle.” She looked into my eyes. “You can handle this. You can handle anything as long as you put your faith in Him.”
I wished I had the kind of faith my sister had. But trusting that all was going to work out without any visible evidence was always a hard sell.
***
On Monday night, I headed straight to my new favorite bar after landing in Wisconsin. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do here.
Belinda was wiping the counter down when she spotted me approaching. “Boy, you must really like it here. I can’t seem to get rid of you.”
“Yeah, well, turns out, I like the music and the company.”
She winked. “And you don’t have to worry about getting hit on.”
“I guess that’s true, too.”
“What can I get ya tonight?” she asked, her red hair seeming even brighter than the last time.
“A time machine?” I chuckled.
“Uh-oh. That bad, huh?”
Earlier today, while waiting for my flight, I’d made the mistake of going to Molly’s Facebook page and had seen a new update: In a Relationship with Will Daniels. It was official. There were also some new photos they’d taken together during a jazz concert.
I’d avoided asking Molly about the status of things with Will during our phone conversations because I didn’t want to hear it. But now I knew they were exclusive—i.e., You missed the boat, Declan. That boat was so far offshore now, it wasn’t even funny.
I spent the next several minutes unloading to Belinda, as had become my habit, telling her about my trip and Molly’s new Facebook status.
She cringed. “Ouch. Okay. But there’s always hope, right? This doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way. Relationships are hard, man. This dude can easily screw up. You might still have a chance someday.”
I shook my head, staring into my glass. “I don’t know what I hope anymore, Belinda. Maybe she’s better off with him. But…”
“But you still want that time machine.” She smiled sympathetically. “Okay, let’s talk about this. What would you do differently if you could go back and change things?”
I laughed under my breath. “A fuck ton.”
“Like…”
“I had multiple opportunities to tell her how I feel, and I blew them all. I’d take one of those moments back. I think I’d take the risk despite all of the fucked up voices in my head telling me not to.”
“And there’s no way you can do that now? Tell her how you feel?”
“She’ll think I’m only doing it because she’s unavailable now. She’s already seen what happened when I started dating that other girl, Julia. That one was about the game—or maybe I started falling for Molly. My feelings for Molly are different, but I’m just not sure she’d see it that way. And that’s my fault. I waited too long.” I sighed. “Plus, she’s getting serious with this guy now. I don’t want to mess anything up for her, if she’s truly happy.” I downed the rest of my drink and slammed the glass on the bar. “It just sucks.”
Belinda poured me another drink and said, “Okay. Wanna know the best advice I have right now?”
I took a sip and let out a small belch. “Yup.”
“Never be too far away. If you care about her, just stay in her life. That way, if there’s ever an opportunity, you won’t miss it. You can’t spot the cracks in the foundation if you’re too far away from the house. Get what I’m saying? Don’t be afraid to ask how things are going with this guy, because the biggest clues will come straight from the horse’s mouth. Stay the course, my friend. If it’s meant to be, it will.”
Will.I chuckled at the irony of that last word. I nodded as Belinda moved down the bar to attend to a couple of ladies on my right.
As much as I hated being stuck in Wisconsin, there were some benefits. It allowed me a neutral place to work on my own shit, see a doctor, and deal with my hang-ups without any distractions. But Belinda was right. If I wanted a chance with Molly, I couldn’t distance myself because her being with another man upset me. That was a pussy thing to do. I needed all the information I could get.
It was a good thing the bar was only a short walk from my hotel because I’d definitely had too much to drink. That also meant I wasn’t of sound mind when I texted Molly on the way home.
Declan: I fucking miss you.
It was late. I had no idea if she was in the middle of one of her shifts. But she responded just a few minutes later.
Molly: My father was just admitted to the hospital and needs to be on life support.
