Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

Her Hydro Flask empty for the millionth time, Maddy grabs the water glass from her bedside table, but before the rim reaches her lip, her tremoring hand bobbles the glass, and it falls onto the floor, shattering to pieces. Acting fast because the sound of breaking glass was loud and most certainly audible through her open bedroom door, she selects a medium-size shard, leaving the biggest, most solvable puzzle pieces alone, and stashes it under her pillow as if this had been her plan all along.

She spins around, and sure enough, her mother has arrived at the scene, concern woven into her eyebrows, her face registering the broken glass and water splattered on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” says Maddy. “My hands are so shaky.”

“It’s okay. Careful, honey, you’re barefoot. Hop up on the bed. I’ll take care of it.”

Her mother pulls a wad of tissues from the tissue box on the bedside table and mops up the water. She slides the waste bin next to her. She tosses the big pieces in first and then, squatting, begins plucking small, delicate fragments of glass, one at a time, off the floor. Maddy sits on her bed, her back against the pillow, a barely detectable smile creeping at the edges of her mouth, watching her mother clean up her mess.

“I’m going to get the vacuum in case I missed any. Don’t step here yet. Why don’t you take a shower and get dressed while I do this?”

It’s Christmas Eve. They always eat a formal dinner and open presents the night before Christmas, a tradition that began the year Maddy stopped believing in Santa Claus, when Phil’s only child from his previous marriage, Melissa, was a college student and spent the early part of Christmas Eve with them before going to her mother’s house for the rest of her school break. Melissa doesn’t come anymore, hasn’t in years, but they still celebrate the holiday the night before everyone else. They sleep late on Christmas morning and spend the day watching TV in ridiculous matching pajamas, a new set purchased every year.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, go shower. And please wear something other than sweatpants. You could even put on a little makeup. It might make you feel better if you looked a little more presentable.”

“How much time do I have?” Maddy asks, her voice braided with alternating strands of resignation and panic.

“Gramma will be here at four. She doesn’t know about your diagnosis, and we’re not telling her, okay?”

Maddy hesitates. “Okay.”

“It would kill her if she knew,” her mother mutters as she leaves the room.

Maddy stares at the empty, open doorway, her face blooming hot, her chest squeezed tight, her stomach curdled. She’s a pinball machine, a dozen steel balls launched into play, ricocheting off bumpers and slingshots in every direction, her emotions too chaotic to process and comprehend. She snatches the piece of glass from behind her pillow, walks into the bathroom, and turns on the shower.

Her mother enters the living room carrying a platter of chicken wings and sets it down on the coffee table.

“Did I forget napkins?”

“No, they’re right here,” says Phil. “Sweetheart, sit.”

Her mother removes her red apron, folds it, and sets it down on the ottoman. Nails done in glittery silver and her hair blown out, she’s wearing a black velvet dress with black suede booties, her favorite diamond earrings, and a diamond necklace that plunges below the neckline of her dress. She sits down next to Phil, who is sporting his usual button-down shirt and jacket, no tie. He’s added a red-and-green-plaid pocket square, his nod to Christmas fashion. He pours her a glass of wine.

Maddy is sitting on the far end of their leather sectional couch snuggled under a fluffy white blanket, in part because it feels safe and soft but also to hide her tremoring hands from Gramma. She’s wearing a black long-sleeve sweater to cover her arms, a heavy layer of foundation and concealer to hide her acne, and jeans because her mother couldn’t persuade her into a dress or skirt, and at least they’re not sweatpants. Gramma is in the middle, sitting in between Maddy and her mother and Phil. Emily and Tim share the loveseat. Daisy is asleep, snoring in her dog bed near the TV.

Jack is in Australia for a semester abroad. He flew out last week, leaving early to travel and surf before starting classes in January. Her mother was not happy about Jack missing Christmas but didn’t stand in his way. She complained about the decision plenty to everyone else but held her tongue in front of her son. As always, Jack does whatever he wants.

Maddy remembers the two times when Emily didn’t come for Christmas Eve. She went to Tim’s parents’ house in Knoxville the December before and after they graduated Vanderbilt. Those were uncomfortable Christmases. Her mother’s panties were all in a knot over Emily choosing Tim’s parents over her, and Emily’s absence felt like a death in the family that no one was allowed to speak of. They went through the motions, but Christmas Eve and morning weren’t the same without Emily, like eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the peanut butter, perfectly edible and technically still a sandwich, but not at all satisfying.

Tradition is super important to her mother, and after that second consecutive Christmas away, she feared her oldest child was developing a habit of spending the holiday in Tennessee. I have to say something , Maddy remembers her mother muttering in front of Emily’s untouched, full stocking before draining another glass of chardonnay. Maddy doesn’t know what her mother threatened or promised, but Emily and Tim have been here in Connecticut for every Christmas since.

Jack’s absence is probably a one-off, and her mother’s good mood feels undisturbed. Maddy definitely doesn’t miss him. She supposes she loves her brother like a good sister is supposed to, but they don’t have anything in common, and even though they’re close in age, they haven’t been close in ages. She is grateful that he doesn’t hate her for smashing up his Jeep. To be fair, her mother and Phil rented him another one, this year’s model even, while his was in the shop, and it’s already fixed and back in the driveway, ready for him when he returns from Down Under. So he was barely inconvenienced by her breakdown.

When she was in middle school, she and Jack used to watch The Simpsons, Family Guy , and South Park together. As far as she can remember, this was one of the only things they’ve ever done together willingly and unasked. They would cry laughing, rewinding and replaying their favorite parts, usually the most disgusting or offensive, and they’d memorize the lines and cart them out at the most inappropriate of moments, like dinners at the club. Most of the time, these one-liners were so out of context, no one understood them but Jack and Maddy. They’d be dying laughing at the table, everyone else straight-faced, her mother cross and hushing them, telling them to behave. But trying not to laugh only served to pressurize it, and one of them, usually Jack, would leak a snicker behind a napkin, causing the other one to explode.

But Jack got older, and he didn’t want to watch TV with his younger sister anymore. She lost him to baseball, golf, Call of Duty , and probably porn. She continued to watch her favorite irreverent cartoons alone, but it was never the same without him. Jokes are meant to be shared.

The overhead lights are dimmed to showcase the fire in the fireplace and the white twinkle lights on their twelve-foot balsam tree. Her mother stopped hanging all the kids’ homemade ornaments—misshapen stars coated in gobs of multicolored glitter glue, snowflakes cut from printer paper, bejeweled Popsicle sticks framing school photos hung with looped yarn—when Maddy was fifteen, replacing them with matching, expensive store-bought bulbs. Maddy remembers supporting that decision at the time. Good, leave those embarrassing, tacky decorations in the attic . But looking at the tree now, she misses them. She knows her mother thinks it’s classy and elegant, but to Maddy, it looks ostentatious, like the fake one in front of Ralph Lauren at the mall.

“Joy to the World” by Mariah Carey is playing from a holiday playlist over the speakers. The mood in the room is festive and happy. But even in the same room, Maddy feels far away, separate, as if she’s snowed in after a big winter storm, two-foot-tall drifts pressed against her front door, no one getting in or out.

Every inch of the coffee table is crammed with appetizers—shrimp cocktail, raw oysters with traditional and mignonette sauces, barbecue chicken wings, candied bacon, charcuterie, puff pastry stuffed with cranberry jelly and Brie. Her family is drinking wine and eating, their plates piled with food. Maddy hasn’t touched the crackers on her plate. She sips water from her Hydro Flask.

Gramma has short, wispy snow-white hair that looks chic rather than elderly. She’s dressed in a flowy white blouse with a festive red-and-white-striped candy-cane knit scarf around her neck. Her eyelids droop downward, making her appear sleepy and at times sad even when she’s cheerful. Her thin lips are colored a bold red to match her scarf. A religious user of sunscreen and wide-brimmed hats, her face is only mildly wrinkled. She’s about ten years older than Phil but looks younger.

She lives in a small town just outside of New Haven in a modest house. There’s an apartment above the detached garage, and she rents it out to graduate students from Yale or Quinnipiac, earning enough each month to pay her bills. She divorced her husband, Maddy’s grandfather, when Maddy’s mother was ten, and he died of cancer well before Maddy was born. To Maddy’s knowledge, Gramma never dated after she divorced. She seems perfectly content without an old man next to her on the couch. It’s never occurred to Maddy that anyone is missing from Gramma’s life, that it is in any way sad or unfortunate that she never found someone new. As far as Maddy knows, Gramma never looked.

When Maddy was little, before her mother married Phil and stopped working two jobs and Emily wasn’t old enough yet to babysit, Gramma was at their house every day. Maddy doesn’t remember her ever sitting still. She was always doing laundry, cleaning up so the house would be tidy when their mother got home, being useful , she would say.

Maddy liked to help her in the garden and cook dinner. She was Gramma’s sous chef, which she confused with its homonym Sue, which she claimed as her stage name in the kitchen. Whenever Maddy donned her white apron, everyone had to call her Sue. She loved standing on a kitchen chair next to Gramma at the counter, chopping warm cucumbers picked from the garden, stirring chicken noodle soup, mixing batter. They baked chocolate chip cookies almost every day. She hasn’t made them in years but still knows the recipe by heart.

“How are your wedding plans coming along?” Gramma asks Emily.

“Good,” Emily says, beaming. She’s wearing a shimmery green silk tank and a black pencil skirt. Legs crossed, she bobs her stiletto-heeled foot. “We go to the club this week for a tasting to pick out the menu.”

“Oh, that will be fun,” says Gramma.

“Yeah, and then I think we’re good, right, honey?” Emily asks Tim. He nods, smiling.

“Yup,” says Tim. “We have the band, the photographer, the videographer.”

“And you saw a photo of the dress,” Emily says to Gramma.

“It’s exquisite,” says Gramma.

It’s true. Her dress is a Vera Wang strapless A-line gown with a tulle skirt and ivory sash. She looks stunning in it, like an actual princess.

“I can’t wait to wear it.”

“It’ll be here before you know it,” says her mother.

“And how are you, Tim?” asks Gramma.

“Good. Busy.”

“He’s been working a million hours. Every weekend,” Emily says, her hand on Tim’s arm, her voice sweet with sympathy, the melody hiding no hint of complaint. “Today’s the first day he’s had off all month.”

“They work these young guys like dogs,” says Phil, both with authority and an air of nostalgia.

“It won’t be like this for too much longer,” says Tim. “I’m up for promotion in six months, so there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Did they at least give you a good year-end bonus?” asks Phil.

“They did.”

“How much?”

“Phil,” her mother scolds. “It’s not appropriate to ask that.”

“Basically what I make teaching for an entire year,” says Emily, her hand now curled around the nape of Tim’s neck. Tim grins and pats her on the leg.

“Maybe Tim should pay for the wedding,” says Maddy.

“Maddy!” says her mother.

Emily glares at her, and Maddy instantly wishes she’d kept her mouth shut. When Maddy got home from Garrison, Emily was back in New York, teaching until school break began two days ago. She didn’t come home to Connecticut again until last night. They hadn’t been in the same room together since Thanksgiving. Emily texted her pretty much every day all month, and every time, she asked how Maddy was feeling, but Maddy only ever answered Okay . She’s sure her mother has shared every horrible detail of her arm cutting and diagnosis with Emily because they always tell each other everything. But neither sister has yet to mention anything specific about Thanksgiving, the hospital, or worse, that insane middle-of-the-night scorched-earth rambling text tirade Maddy sent to Emily. Maddy fears that something in the bond between them has broken, but she can only tiptoe around it from a distance, not close enough to see the extent of the fracture or fix it.

“We’re happy to pay for it,” says her mother. “Aren’t we, Phil?”

“Absolutely. It’s our pleasure.”

Throwing a bare-bones wedding at the country club runs about $100,000. Emily’s wedding will have all the bells and whistles. The members who get invited will talk about it all summer, and the members who aren’t will hear about it. Like her mother wearing Gucci or Phil driving his Jaguar, Emily’s wedding is a chance to strut their status. Look what we can afford.

Her mother’s cell phone rings. She looks to see who could be calling on Christmas Eve.

“It’s Jack on FaceTime!”

Emily and Tim get up and gather behind the couch so they can see the screen.

“Hi, honey!” says her mother.

“Hey, Mom. Hey, everyone,” says Jack.

Everyone says hello.

“Merry Christmas Eve,” her mother says.

“You’re living in the past, Mom,” Jack says, cracking himself up. “It’s Christmas Day here.”

Phil leans in.

“How’s it going, mate?”

“They say ‘how are you going’ here. I’m loving it. Hey, Em, hey, Tim. Hi, Gramma. Where’s Maddy?”

Her mother pivots the angle of the phone so that it’s aimed where Maddy is sitting.

“Hey, Mads. Good to see you,” says Jack.

“Good to see you, too,” says Maddy.

They say nothing else, but it’s enough to be acknowledged, and she appreciates him for it. Her mother repositions the phone with her outstretched arm, trying to get all of them in the screen.

“I miss you guys,” says Jack. “But everyone’s really nice here and the weather’s awesome. I’m about to get some brekky with some friends and go surfing. Just wanted to say hi and merry Christmas Eve. I’ll call again tomorrow.”

“Merry Christmas Eve! Be careful. Wear sunscreen,” her mother says, quick to sneak in some mothering before he hangs up.

“I will.”

“Merry Christmas, Jack!” says Emily, followed by Gramma and everyone else.

“Love you guys,” says Jack.

“Love you, too,” says her mother, glowing, as Jack ends the call.

Emily and Tim return to the loveseat.

“He’s a good son,” says Phil as he tops her mother’s glass off with more wine.

“And what’s new with you, Maddy?” asks Gramma.

Maddy looks up, her eyes darting from her mother to Emily, wishing anyone would take the microphone from her. Her mother sits strangely still, breath held and expectant, as if they’d all been dancing when someone abruptly turned the music off, causing everyone to freeze. And only Maddy has the power to turn it back on.

“Um, nothing much,” she says, unable to look Gramma in the eye.

“How’s school?”

“Good.”

“You haven’t eaten much of anything.”

“She had a late lunch,” says her mother.

“Would you like some cheese to go with your crackers?” asks Phil as he leans over, quick to grab the cheese knife before Maddy gets any ideas. His voice is seemingly normal, but underneath his cheerful demeanor, Maddy can sense a wary watchfulness, the distrust she’s earned.

“No thanks,” says Maddy.

“You seem a little down, sweetie,” says Gramma. “Is everything okay?”

“Uh, Adam and I broke up,” says Maddy.

“Oh, Maddy, I’m sorry,” says Gramma.

“It’s okay,” says Maddy, not sounding at all okay.

Gramma leans over and rubs Maddy’s blanketed arm. “He’s a fool to let you go.”

“He’s an asshole,” Emily says emphatically, surprising everyone, especially their mother. “I’m sorry, but he is. He wasn’t nice to you, Maddy. You deserve way better.”

Emily’s words hit her like a ship sighting from the shore of a deserted island. They are a declaration of love and loyalty, proof that her relationship with her sister will survive what happened in November. Maddy’s heart swells. She replays Emily’s words in her head. She’s right. Adam wasn’t nice to her.

An army on the front line of Maddy’s mind moves quickly, activating memories in Adam’s defense. But he could be so sweet. There was the time he carried her piggyback for over a mile on the beach to his car because she’d cut the ball of her foot on a sharp shell, and he didn’t want it to get infected. And there was the time she had the flu, and he bought her favorite French onion soup and bread bowl from Rexly’s Market and delivered it to her house. And the time he got her so many multicolored helium balloons, she thought they might actually lift her off her feet like the house in Up . He could make her feel so special.

And he broke up with her when she needed him the most. Emily’s right. He’s an asshole. Upon registering this thought as a potential new belief, the army in her brain reconfigures, abandoning its defense of Adam and repositioning itself for an attack against its favorite enemy. Herself.

He’s the one who deserves better. Look at you. You’re a mess. The only thing you deserve is to be alone. Forever.

“Let’s do presents,” her mother says, eager to change the subject.

Emily and Tim fetch gifts from under the tree and hand them out. They open several presents from their wedding registry—a slow cooker, champagne flutes, some kind of special baking dish that makes Emily squeal. Tim opens a bottle of whiskey from Phil.

“That’s Macallan 25,” says Phil.

“Wow, thank you, Phil. We’ll have to crack this open tonight.”

Maddy gets a new pair of slippers, yoga pants, and a fleece blanket, perfect gifts for someone who never leaves her bedroom. She opens her next-to-last present, a new Hydro Flask.

“You can never have too many,” says her mother.

She only needs the one.

Her last gift is wrapped in a small box, from Gramma. Inside is a delicate gold bracelet with a small diamond heart charm.

“Thank you, Gramma, it’s so beautiful.”

“Try it on,” says Gramma.

Maddy pauses, fingering the cuff of her sweater. She looks past Gramma to her mother. Her mother’s jaw is clenched hard, her eyes wide. Wordlessly, she’s shouting, Do not slide your shirtsleeve up and show your grandmother evidence of your insanity. Worse, and what her mother doesn’t know, is that her latest cut is fresh, only hours old. Plus, her tremoring hands. She could manage the gross motor tasks of unwrapping paper and lifting box lids, but there’s no way she can work this tiny clasp.

Emily pops up. “I’ll help you.”

Without touching Maddy’s sleeve, she fastens the bracelet around Maddy’s wrist. Maddy holds her arm out for a moment, just long enough for Gramma’s face to light up.

“It’s perfect,” she says, delighted. “Isn’t she perfect?”

Maddy grinds her teeth behind a tight-lipped smile, struggling to keep the tears inside her eyes, hating herself, wishing more than anything that she could be the version of Maddy her grandma sees. If only she could be the granddaughter who stays up late studying for her finals and gets all As, who showers and brushes her hair and puts on makeup and looks put together every day, who still has a boyfriend and is allowed to use a cheese knife and can wear a pretty bracelet on her scarless arm. Her mother is right. If her grandmother ever knew how far away from perfect Maddy actually is, it would probably kill her.

Emily knocks on the open bedroom door as she walks in, announcing her presence rather than asking for permission to enter. It’s late, and Maddy’s exhausted, but she’s still wide awake, her lamp on. Carrying her open laptop, Emily climbs into bed next to Maddy. Legally Blonde , Maddy’s favorite movie, is queued up on the screen.

Although she’s genuinely grateful for the peace offering, Maddy’s not in the mood for Elle Woods. Her bubbly, unflappable, candy-pink persona is too incompatible with Maddy’s dark-forest gloom. But she doesn’t possess the energy to protest, and Emily clicks PLAY . They watch for a few minutes in silence before Maddy hits the Space bar, pausing it.

“Mom’s ashamed of me,” says Maddy.

Emily stares at a frozen Reese Witherspoon on the screen. Maddy waits.

“I think she’s just scared.”

“Of what?”

“A million things.”

Maddy nods.

“She’s probably also reliving what she went through with Dad and that has to be scary,” Emily says.

“What do you mean, ‘Dad’?”

“He was never diagnosed, but this, the depression and the mania, how you were on Thanksgiving. That’s Dad. Don’t you remember?”

“No.”

“You don’t remember him in bed for weeks, that he could never keep a job, the boats he kept buying that he didn’t have the money for, the times he’d go crazy and Mom would get us all into the car and lock the doors?”

Maddy searches her brain.

“I remember the boats.”

“You were little. I remember everything.”

She wants to ask her sister for more details, but something inside Maddy’s chest feels as if it is collapsing, making it difficult to breathe, impossible to speak. Dr. Weaver told her that genetics play a significant role in the cause of bipolar disorder, that having a family history is one of the biggest risk factors. But there’s no bipolar disorder anywhere on her mother’s side of the family. None.

This information was the cornerstone of her denial and her hope:

Maybe I don’t have bipolar.

Maybe I was misdiagnosed.

Maybe yes, I have depression, but what happened in November was a fluke.

I was just overwhelmed and sleep-deprived.

Maybe all of this has been a big mistake.

But she forgot about her father.

“Don’t worry,” Emily says, reading her mind. “He was never diagnosed. He had no medication, no support. It was different.”

Lightheaded, Maddy doesn’t respond.

“You’re going to be okay, Maddy.”

Emily kisses her sister on the temple and restarts the movie. While “being okay” has always been an unflinching given for Emily, and everyone knows from the very first scene of Legally Blonde that Elle Woods is going to be okay by the end of the movie, a feel-good happy ending isn’t guaranteed for everyone. It’s not a universal truth like the sun rising in the east or 1 + 1 = 2.

She got this from her father. Things might not turn out okay for her.