“I have this recurring dream,” I tell her. She looks up, her pen still for the moment, and I decided to continue, “Every night it’s the same… and I got tired of it. That’s why I tried to kill myself.
“What about the the dream made you want to commit suicide?”
“They were in it.”
You can tell a lot about people in how they interpret and process information. Dr. Felt passed the first test by understanding who I mean by ‘they,’ instead of asking me to elaborate. It was an olive branch—subtle—but I understood that she wouldn’t ask any questions that would cause me any mental anguish if she didn’t have to.
“Can you describe the dream for me?”
“It starts out the same every time,” I begin, “I’m in our bed and I hear whispers. When I open my eyes, my kids are at the foot of the bed but they aren’t doing anything, they’re just watching me. Then my wife comes in and joins them. If I do anything other than watch them, they disappear and I wake up drenched in sweat.”
She jots down a couple more notes, “When did you start having these dreams?”
“Never took note of the exact date, but it was soon after they died. Is that normal?”
“It’s pretty common to have dreams about lost loved ones, especially if it happened suddenly like in your case,” she explains, “One thing that isn’t making sense to me is the gap between the accident and your suicide attempt. Care to fill in the timeline?”
“How so?”
“Well, for one, it’s a big jump from living with grief to emptying the medicine cabinet. What made you take all those pills, Miles?”
“I just had one of those days, you know? Where you just wanna give up, when you’ve run out of things to distract you from the darkness, and you finally have to face it.”
More goddamned notes.
“It’s been months, why now?”
“Not sure. I was watching a tv show, and I didn’t like the way a season ended.”
“Try to be specific. I’m sure theres been plenty of things you didn’t like in your life, none of them made you attempt suicide.”
Internally, I felt a begrudging respect for methods. She nibbled around a touchy subject, asked the same question twice and, before I could figure it out, I’d given up the goods and we were moving on. This might be a good match after all.
“It made me think about what kind of father and husband I’d been. Like, putting them off when I could’ve spent more time. It just spiraled from there and , next thing you know, I woke up in the ICU.”
More notes followed by contemplation, and finally her attention returns to me. “Let’s switch gears. Your wife, her name was Sara?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Tell me about her.”
I wonder if this is a trick question; does she want the obituary version, or is she asking for the exposè? Sara was complicated, but what spouse isn’t? She had a passive-aggressive nature that drove me crazy, but she was the best wife I could have hoped to find. Everything was validated when she took to motherhood. She could remember appointments, allergies, and translate the garbled speech of our children. She was so good that if I died, I knew she wouldn’t have missed a beat.
“The best complement I could give her is how well she loved me,” I fiddle with my wedding band, removing my it and put it back on, before continuing. “She married a boy, with the faith that love and time could turn him into a man.”
“Do you think she succeeded?”
“I did, for the longest time. I was never promiscuous, but there’s something to be said for loving someone so selfish and getting them to start a family.”
“If you were so selfish, what made you jump into domestic life?”
“My father did. Useless as he was, he inspired me to be the opposite of him.”
Sandra lights up with that little nugget, sitting up and nodding for me to continue. Like a boxer that’s opened up a cut on his opponent, she’s found a breakthrough that must be exploited.
“Was he abusive?” she asked.
“Being abusive implies that he was around. He left when I was three.”
Just saying that he left is nicer than it sounds. He started his own family and became to those kids what he couldn’t be to me. He would schedule a time to pick me up, but he would never show. Mom remarried and though he was a great guy, he wasn’t my father. After Harry was born, I called my father on Father’s Day. He got to hear me being the father he wasn’t, and I got some sense of closure. Ok, maybe not closure…but I figure I’m good for another decade before I have a breakdown.
“So he gave you the blueprint without even being around?” she asked.
“Yup, I mean, it’s a sobering thought when your son is born that just by being there you know that you’re already ahead of the game.”
“Let’s talk about your children.”
I knew we were gonna get here, but it’s still a shock. I break off eye contact and stare out the window, watching a hummingbird bathe on the patio.
“I’m not really ready for that.”
“You’ve run long enough, but we’ll keep it simple. I know there was Harry and Grace and a third one at some point.”
I stood from my seat and moved to the window. “His name was Edward,” I took a deep breath, “He was born weighing seven pounds, and I grew to love him.”
“What does that mean?”
“He was unplanned and unwanted most of his pregnancy.”
“What changed?”
“He was beautiful…” I trailed off. The tears began streaming down my face as I faced the emotions I had long tried to bury. I whips my eyes and retake my spot on the sofa. “He was perfect but a week after he was born, he passed away.”
“I’m sure the timing hasn’t made everything any easier.”
She was right. The hardest part of this has been the timing. I’d spent months in a haze trying to come to accept our third child. Sara and I had bitter arguments over whether I would resent Edward because he was unplanned. I couldn’t even come up with a name for him, but after he was born, it clicked. All the anxiety disappeared just as I knew it would. You can never blame the child; the circumstances are fair game, but never the child. I loved him just as much as I loved Harry and Grace. But, soon after birth he had an aneurism and was gone. Sara had blamed herself, and she would take the kids on long drives to make sense of everything. We’d always been a team, when I’d get overwhelmed with whatever unforeseen bill or circumstance, we’d take the kids to the park and talk everything over as we pushed Harry and Grace on the swings. It was sobering to know that the person you’re mourning is the person you need the most.Looking up, I see that the notebook is back on the table and Sandra is nodding politely, urging me to continue. She’s the first person that’s actually listened, instead of cutting me off with cookie cutter advice from some bestselling, sellout psychiatrist.
“Your home, is it exactly as it was when they died?” she asks.
“Other than the living room, I haven’t touched a thing. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The living room looks like I’ve been trying to occupy Wall Street.”