16. Zaleology

Zaleology

M ara

We’d had a few difficult days. I wondered if Olivia was picking up on my mood. So many emotions churned in my gut I’d be surprised if she hadn’t.

Anger, sometimes extreme, toward my mother for what she had done to me. If it were pure anger it would have been easier to handle but it was contaminated with guilt and grief, then further tainted by compassion. The excuses I made for her, probably valid, only served to increase my guilt, which increased my anger, which set the whole vicious cycle in motion again.

I worried that Olivia would one day feel like this about me. I suffered with the understanding of my crazy, but I agonized over the thought of forcing my crazy on Zale all these years.

Not telling him was taking its own toll, something I thought about at night in lieu of sleeping. I slept better on the nights we made love, but even then it was not for more than five hours, and the other nights I was lucky to get four. I was dragging, my energy was low, and my mood was volcanic.

My new storyline was hiding, Zale’s new normal was working late, which I needed to start accepting, and Olivia’s sensitivity was triggered. Shopping on Saturday with Willa and Bex was a blast, but I committed the cardinal sin of getting home after Olivia was asleep. Although I knew I’d pay for the anxiety a day away from me cost her, the payout was steeper than I anticipated. Slamming doors, screaming, throwing things, crying, she ricocheted between having a meltdown or curled up catatonic on the couch in a blanket nest recovering from a meltdown, nothing in between.

It had been days since we’d been able to leave the house. The visit to my mom on Monday, canceled. Swimming, canceled. I’d even moved schoolwork to the back burner in favor of pushing eating and brushing teeth. That made almost two weeks of mostly missed academics, which made me anxious.

My first therapy session was not for another two weeks, and I was waiting for it the way a forty-two-week pregnant woman waits for her water to break .

I was overeating and over caffeinating, using both as comfort, distraction, and fuel to keep going. Of all that was going on, the most potentially catastrophic, at that moment, was that we were out of macaroni and cheese. I feared the consequences come lunchtime.

I looked at the calendar. My mom had her book club, or maybe it was bingo, today. I knew this because we sometimes visited her on Wednesday afternoons, and she would be bitching and complaining about all the people she’d just left. Not nice, Mara. No point in taking your fatigue out on your mom. Whatever, she was going out anyway, I’d ask her to pick me up a few boxes of macaroni and cheese.

“Hello?”

“Hi, mom.”

“Mara, hello, I’m just on my way out to Bingo. I’m the caller today. Everybody loves it when I do the calling. The rest of them are such duds, no energy at all. One foot in the grave, all of them.” She chortled.

Part of me felt vindicated by my earlier uncharitable thoughts but I had no time to dwell on that.

“I remembered that you were going out today, that’s why I’m calling. I have a favor to ask you.”

“Quickly dear, I need to leave now.”

“On your way home, can you pick up a few boxes of macaroni and cheese? Olivia’s had a rough time the past few days and I’m out of Kraft dinner.” I held my breath .

She sniffed, then sighed. “Mara, you’ve never been organized, have you? Even as a little girl, such a mess.”

“Usually I have lots, Mom, but she’s refused to eat anything else. We’ve gone through four boxes in the past three days.”

“That’s a lot of Kraft dinner. You have nothing else she’ll eat?”

“Not happily, and happy is the goal right now.”

“Okay, I’ll bring you a box.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“I won’t be coming in though, can’t stand being around that damn cat.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “No problem. If you just leave it at the door that would be more than fine.”

“Gotta go. Bye!”

She hung up the phone mid-reply. It didn’t matter. The macaroni and cheese emergency was abated.

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Mara?”

It was my mother, and her voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

“Mom? What’s up? ”

“I can’t go to the store. I’m sorry, honey.”

“Why?” I asked, alarmed. “What happened?”

“Nothing, nothing. It’s just that the girls invited me out for lunch afterwards and I don’t want to make them wait for me. Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem, but I’ve really been missing your dad lately and could use the distraction. The life of a widow is a lonely one, Mara. I really pray you don’t have to deal with this for a long, long time.”

It was hard to keep the disdain out of my tone, but I succeeded. “No problem, Mom, you do what you need to do. I’ll look after it.”

She thanked me for my understanding. I closed the phone gently and deliberately.

My dad had been gone for over ten years. It wasn’t near any kind of anniversary, holiday, or birthday. She just didn’t want to bother. I wondered if she secretly enjoyed it when I struggled or failed and proved her opinion of me correct.

I wouldn’t ask her for anything again. Willa was one hundred percent correct: mom was self-centered. Honestly? I had enough stress in my life and it was long past time to put a bit of space between us. I didn’t need the stress of dealing with her constant drama, her snide comments, and covert criticisms.

I looked at Olivia. There was no way. She was not going out today.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming .

Of course. The idea hit me at once. It was an easy solution, but it was hard to think with the amount of brain fog I was dealing with.

“Hey, baby. Should we treat ourselves and order pizza?”

She swiveled her head to look at me. “With garlic sticks?”

“Of course!”

“Yay!” She gave a tiny cheer, a tiny cheer that made the whole fiasco with my mother worth it.

After our pizza, which somehow served as a magical reset button, Olivia sat down beside me to watch a movie and draw on her iPad.

I pulled out the printed pages I wanted to give to Zale. It looked like the redacted version of a high security government document. I covered up the scary parts, the shameful bits, and what remained were the bare bones of what I wanted him to know, though it was far from everything he needed to know.

I’d never kept anything back from him, I’d always been honest and forthcoming, I despised lies, and this felt like one. Albeit a lie of omission, it was still a lie. As much as I abhorred lying, I’d rather lie than tell him the suicide rate. I’d rather lie than explain my rage. I’d rather lie than court his revulsion.

It explained the pain. I wanted him to know about the pain, how much I hurt inside. It was validating to read how psychologically painful doctors consider BPD to be .

It outlined the coping mechanisms, like craving sex. I wanted him to understand how much I needed it and needed him.

It glossed over the self-harm. I didn’t want him to know this about me more than he already did, more than he’d already seen on occasion.

I was ready to give him an out. He shouldn’t have to deal with this monster in me, the monster that was me. Part of me almost hoped he would take it and take Olivia away from my influence. I was terrified of hurting her with my moods and my fears, the way my mom hurt me.

I googled to see if there were any movies that illustrate borderline personality disorder. The first that came up was the bunny boiler. I’d hoped for more than that one.

Huh.

I decided to take movies off the list of possible presentation tools.

Tonight, I decided I’d tell him.

Once Olivia settled into bed, I approached him with my papers. He lounged on the couch, his long body slouched into the cushions, his long legs stretched out to the floor, ankles crossed. He saw me out of the corner of his eye and opened his arm for me to settle in beside him and tucked me under his arm. His hand rested on my hip, and he stroked me through my clothes .

“Zee? Can we talk?”

He shifted his sleepy gaze from the tv to lock eyes with me. “Sure, baby. What’s up?”

“Remember I told you I was having some emotional difficulties and I was going to call the doctor?”

His gaze sharpened on me. “Did you?”

“I did.” I nodded, looking down. “A while back. She referred me to a psychiatrist. I went.”

He sat up straighter, pulling me with him. “And?”

“So…” I tried to push away to sit up and put a bit of space between us, but he wrapped his hand around my hip and held me firmly against him. I settled back in and continued. “He told me I had Persistent Depressive Disorder as well as something worse, some of which I’m not comfortable talking about yet, but I’ve collected some of the information and printed it out for you.”

“Okay...” at ‘something worse’ his brows snapped together, and concern carved a deep line between his brows.

He held his hand out for the papers I held in mine. My man was a man of few words and subtle facial expression, but firm beliefs and opinions. After all the years we’d been together, I had learned to read his face. The tightening of his jaw, the expression in his eyes, the crinkle, or lack thereof, at the corners of his eyes, the lines around his mouth, a twitch of his lips, all this I could read, but he gave nothing away while he read .

When he finished reading, he laid the papers down, squeezed me, and looked down into my worried eyes, his own soft but slightly impatient.

“I don’t understand why you’re so worried. We know this. At least I do. This is not new information.”

Maybe this should have comforted me, but it did not. I didn’t have the insight into my behavior that I thought I’d had. I was shocked, my thoughts scattered.

“It’s not that it’s new exactly, it’s that it’s a disorder. All these years I thought if you could just listen, and we could just work things out, I’d feel better.”

He pointed to himself, his eyebrows raised. “You thought I was the problem?”

I blinked. “Well, yeah.”

He laughed, not unkindly, and hugged me. “Baby.”

Tears sprung to my eyes. “What do you mean, ‘baby’?”

“I know, and I’ve known for a long, long time, that some of your thoughts and behaviors are not logical. I didn’t know it was a diagnosis, but none of the symptoms are new for me. I can see that it is for you, but should it be? Think about it. I can see that it’s hard for you to take in, but Mara, I can’t emphasize enough, there is nothing here that is a surprise. With the possible exclusion of the depth of emotional pain you suffer,” he allowed. “That is disturbing, but even that, with the way you think, is not unexpected.”

We sat in silence. I didn’t know how to proceed. This was not what I expected.

“Do you still want to be with me?”

There was no missing the surprise on his face, and you didn’t need an expertise in Zaleology to read it. He pulled me tighter against him.

“Of course, I still want to be with you. I love you, Mara. It hurts me that you don’t believe it, and this is also not new knowledge for me, but I do love you and I’ll always love you. Of course, I want to be with you.”

I slipped my arm around his waist; he rested his head on top of mine. He sighed and muttered, “Complicated little molecule.”

I laughed. He’d first said that to me weeks before. I laughed then, too, more in disbelief.

Disbelief.

He was right, I did not believe he loved me, not really. I could only feel it when we were making love. There was too much mental static interfering, the buzzing of all those thoughts, berating me, cutting me down, making it difficult for any other messages to get through. Sex cut through the noise, took me to another space. A space where I could hear him, a space where I was open to receiving his words .

“So, what happens now?” he murmured.

“Therapy. And lots of it,” I uttered drily.

He squeezed his hand at my hip.

“We’ll do whatever we can, Mara. I don’t want you to suffer. Especially if there’s something we can do about it.”

He was quiet for a few moments then he continued, his tone hardening.

“Do not tell Bea.”

“What?” Why was he talking about my mother?

“Do not tell Bea. I don’t trust her with the information. Also, I don’t want Olivia to hear anything about it. She has enough difficulty processing the everyday stuff. Let’s shield her from the worry and confusion this might bring her.”

“That makes sense.”

“As for Willa and Bex, I think you should tell them.”

“You think?”

The idea had me physically cringing. They’d know I was a psycho. They might pull away from me. Especially Willa. Borderline is right up there with Narcissism. My diagnosis kind of made me believe in Willa’s theory about my mother being an actual narcissist. It seemed the apple didn’t fall too far from the fucking tree.

He squeezed me closer. “Definitely. ”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Here’s something else for you to think about. How about we go away for a night, just you and me? We’ll leave Olivia with Willa or Dean.”

New plans usually shook me up a bit, but this was one I could really get on board with. “I’d love that.”

“Great. Find a weekend. Let me know, and we’ll make it happen.” He lifted away from me. “Your man’s tired. Let’s go to bed.”

Zale

Mara was already half asleep when he went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. He sat down on the closed toilet, his elbows on his knees, one hand dangling between his knees, the other wrapped around the back of his neck, his head bent low. Work was a fucking mess, Olivia was in meltdown mode lately, and Mara, his Mara, was in a world of pain. One thing this diagnosis explained was why she was so often sad.

Worry swirled.

His dark eyes burned with fatigue.

Something had to give.