Edward

Chapter Eleven

Washington, DC - 2018

Dr. Antol has gotten one of those noise machines meant to drown out any voices coming from behind the doors of her office. It's a round disc plugged into the wall and sitting under one of those office style mahogany stained hall tables. She has business cards, a pale yellow linen and beside them a glass dish with red and white striped candy mints. The lamp is a nondescript shiny gold urn with a beige shade. The incandescent bulb casts a yellow light below a framed  black and white picture of flowers,  the petals zoomed in so large the image appears abstract. I adjust my skirt and smooth it over my kneww. Rest my hands on the arm of the black leather chair. One of four that sit on the permitter of the small waiting room.

This is my first visit since you've come home. I feel guilty that I've painted such a negative picture of you to Dr. Antol. I was mad at you Edward, so I told all of our secrets. Secrets that often I don't remember again after revealing to her. That makes me unreliable. Then they come back to me like icy fists into snow or sharp hail that hit me int he face, burning. I hate those memories and I hate struggling to retrieve them.

Despite the postpartum mental illness, these lapses are not new. They go back even before you. They started at the end of my relationship with Jack. They extended to our fights. Our life together is an impressionistic oil painting, an ocean scene. I can make out figures on the shore, but the perspective is too far from the surf to make out what's taking place. But, of course I know what is taking place. I was there. And now, this noise machine is sending mechanical ocean waves, almost like the Slaters, the surf rushing. retreating. So close to the memories, rolling in and retreating with a rush of air and sound. This is almost the same, except it is in a vacuum.

"Annie?"

There she is. Dr. Antol. She's likely in her forties but to me she seems much older than 10 years my senior. She has more authority than the counselor we went to after Maddy was born - That therapist waas cheerful, hopeful "call me Liz." Liz. More friendly than anything else. Long sandy hair. A heavy coat of freckles, the kind that are more freckle than skin. Deep blue eyes and a nice smile except the front tooth that was just a little crooked. Liz never challenged our veneer. In fact, I think she bought the image we projected. For that reason no one noticed that I constrained my dark thoughts for that hour every week-riding through the depression with a smile. You sometimes talked the whole hour with Liz about the novel you were writing. Analyzed the plot as if it were the subject of our problems—working out the arc—too much emphasis on plot not enough on the characters. When I attempted suicide, just a month after you left us, once my condition had stabilized a social worker inquired as to whether I had a therapist. She said I needed one on my psychiatric team. I shook my head while tears washed over my face. I sunk into the bed, glad for a "reset" a place with no responsibility. A house of cards fallen flat on the floor. I could build my life back one thing at a time. I let Liz drift out with the tide as I had so many other things. Liz had been too naiive for my darkness. 

Also at that time I didn't want any therapist or psychologist. I didn't want to explore any more. If Liz had dug deep or even inquired, she would have found out it had been more than depression. There had also been mirages and thoughts. There was an evil heart beat that poisoned my thinking. It had been there when Maddy was first born but it wasn't fully formed. With Maddy, it had been a haunting I could stifle. Even the depression after Maddy didn't have the undertow. I know now that the darkness can take you, pull you under. It can take your child with you. I can't explain it to you now Edward but it was Alexander and me. 

I could never talk to you about the psychosis after Alexander was born. After you left. You would hate me for what I did. What I almost did to Alexander.

We were in that boat anchored just beyond the island where the wild things are. Maddy -and you- were safe on the land living amongst the wild things. Alex and I would never make it — we couldn't get into reality. His eyes. My eyes. We spoke about darkness and the reasons we were in a buoyant limbo. The engine inside me gave me signals, sent important information into my brain. I would wake at night, sometimes having not slept for two days. Two days Edward. Mom knew but she'd thought I just needed a break. Edward the week I swallowed the pills, having fought the desire to take Alexander with out to the beach house, that six hour drive, early winter-it would have been desolate. I planned to let him cry the whole way. I couldn't feed him any more. I was afraid of my breast milk. I felt it was toxic so it had been eight hours already. I was going to drive out to the beach and enter the ocean. The dark sea. That was the voice the only voice. Over and over "the dark sea." It was sometimes a whistle through the panes and gap in the French doors leading from the kitchen to the yard. He cried and cried that night Edward and the a voice started whispering "the dark sea."