Upside Down

Thirty Three

The minute Peter and I told Hillary about his suicide attempt, she was empathetic towards him. She got us all signed up for family therapy and got Peter into the doctors.

Turns out, he's Bipolar, which explains his sudden interest in going out and partying and then not wanting to leave his bed for days on end.

Now that we know Peter needs help, he's finally getting it. He is on medication and is going to weekly therapy with all of us.

We are healing together. As a family.

And for the first time since I've been here, I don't resent a single person sitting across from me. Each person in this room has a story and all of them have had a chance to share it.

It's been enlightening.

I've learned so much.

My father and I even took a session by ourselves. We learned a lot about each other in the process. I suppose that is kind of the point.

I learned that his marriage with my mother was long over by the time I started school. He says they only stayed together for me. They were in the process of getting a divorce when she killed herself. My dad blames himself for her death because it means I didn't have a mother anymore.

But she was depressed. She had not eaten in days, wasn't taking care of herself, didn't leave her bed. Those were all things I didn't see. At least, I didn't want to see them.

It's no surprise that she drove her car off a bridge now. Depression, a crumbing marriage, and learning of my father's long-running affair? It couldn't have been easy on her.

I can't help but wonder what things would be like if she was still here. If she had left a note like Peter and allowed me and my father to help her. Things might be very different today.

I might still have a mother.

But I also wouldn't have met all the amazing people I have met since she died. My new family. All of them. The kids. Tyler. Even Hillary and Logan. I have a new perspective on life. I don't know what anyone else is going through so I can't hate them for their choices.

Logan for example, running away seemed selfish to me. But to him, he was sparing my father the emotional pain of having to see the person who murdered his first-born child. Logan says he ran away to save the family more emotional scarring by having to see him every day.

And Hillary. She never wanted to hurt me when she started a family with my dad. For the longest time, she didn't even know my father was still married. He told her the marriage was over, which it was. There was no love between my parents anymore. The only tie keeping them together was me. Hillary was recovering from a loss of a spouse too. She lost her husband a few years prior to meeting my father.

They changed each other's lives.

And honestly, I've never seen my dad so happy. I thought what he had with my mother was love. But as it turns out, everything I saw was fake.

Hillary and my father truly love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together.

And you know what, I don't hate the idea of that happening anymore.

I think I am actually quite excited about their wedding tomorrow. Hillary has been waiting for this moment for the last sixteen years and it's finally going to happen.

Authors note: I'm sorry this was a relatively boring chapter. But I felt like it was needed to tie up a few loose ends.

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