Shadowed Soul (7 page)

The room seemed to brighten and I felt good.  I was much stronger than my Shadowed Soul.  He was merely an imaginary construct whom I had invented to explain away my childhood pains.  I knew that there was some physiological reasoning behind my depressions but it was not down to some sinister magic figure.  I could get beyond it.  Although I had not managed too well in the past, I had never had the proper time or motivation to beat it before.  It was different now; I had a son and I suddenly had the time.

Bailey, sensing that I was calm now, stretched out in his favourite spot.  Before closing his eyes, Bailey looked at me for a long moment as if to say, “You okay now, man?”

“I’m okay, Bailey,” I assured him and got up to give him a pat.  Content with my answer, he stretched out on his side. I watched him till he fell asleep. 

“Good dog,” I whispered as he twitched chasing rabbits in his sleep. “You’re going to love being with Beth and Jonathan.”  Knowing Bailey would protect Jonathan more than Pete ever could allowed me to relax further.  Bailey’s soul had no complications.  If he loved then that was what he did forever.  There was no jealousy, no anger, just steady, generous love.

Relaxed and happy now, I felt everything was going to be fine and all the world was going to be right and as it should be.  My son was going to grow up knowing that he was loved and that the people who were responsible for him were strong and secure.  He would not be subjected to the sadness and cold distance that had been my childhood and adolescence.  I understood why my mom was the way she was; I could forgive her attitude.  But when my depression had begun my mother had been no help whatsoever.

Instead, she tried to convince me that it was nothing more than puberty or teenage angst.  Even in the grips of my darkest episodes she shrugged it off.  If I tried to remember the last time my mother hugged me, then I would recall incidents prior to that magical day gruff old Jake gave me Donatello.  When, at age eleven, fate plunged me into a pool of unrelenting chaos, all my mother did was ignore me.  Sure, she fed me and got me out the door to school, but she never engaged.  As I struggled with feeling disempowered, she watched her soap operas with a cigarette in one hand and a Bombay in the other.

As I grew older I found I could no more rely on her help than I could on the super heroes in my childhood collection.  My mother was a distant, craggy constant that provided no assistance as the Shadowed Soul grew more insidious.  My teenage years were a roller-coaster replete with dizzying heights of joy followed by disorientating descents into misery and gloom.  Throughout, my mother remained fossilized in disinterest.  I had tried to fight my condition when I was young, but I had neither the strength nor the experience to shape the moods and depressions that plagued me.

Had it not been for my English teacher, Miss Alaniz and her keen interest in my development, I might never have known that I was bi-polar.  Miss Alaniz was one of the most beautiful people I had ever met, not just physically but emotionally.  She cared about all of her students and offered support I needed.  My mom had resented my teacher’s care, lamenting, after three Bombays, that I didn’t
need some Latina slut interfering in my life
.  I hated my mom when she said those things about Miss Alaniz.  At least my teacher could mobilize her care in a way that the emotionally inert woman who had given birth to me could never muster.

When I left school, Miss Alaniz transferred to another state with her boyfriend, and lives somewhere in Kansas as Mrs. Sullivan.  Rather than being sad at the time I had felt joy, a deep and unshakeable happiness borne from the fact that she had found someone to love her.  I admit I also felt a certain relief she was no longer in a school I passed every day.  It would have been difficult to be barred by age from going in and seeing her.  She had been an emotional crutch at a time when I needed it but now that period had passed.  I moved on.

At fifteen and sixteen I had a crush on her.  It was powerful emotions tied up with mood swings.  At times I would fantasize about her rescuing me from the Shadowed Soul and at other times I would imagine that I was saving her from the ravaging beast that lived within me.  Of course at my lowest I knew that she would never see me as anything other than a child and so, at times, when I fell prey to the Shadowed Soul, I hated her.  I had to.  I was powerless otherwise, if I loved her.  Depression does that; it deflects the true emotion and twists it to its own dark purposes.  My fits of hatred never lasted long and Miss Alaniz was the wholesome constant through my education and teenage years.

It was funny, I had not thought about her in years and sitting here watching my best friend sleep and dream his doggy dreams I recalled how Miss Alaniz made me happy.  Her compassion and understanding alone had helped me through those terrible wilderness years.  I thought that I would end up marrying someone like her.  She had been my ideal woman at such a formative time that it seemed natural.  In fact when I had turned 18 and developed a desire to look at online pornography I tended to favour photographs of women that looked like Miss Alaniz.  However, Beth was different in so many ways; she was fair and Miss Alaniz was dark brunette.  Physically there was no comparison.  There was however a similar vein of understanding and love in their souls.

As I watched Bailey sleep on the floor at my feet, I smirked at the thought of how much porn had meant to me when I was younger.  I had never been particularly good with women, nor people in general.  So, for eighteen months those online images containing seductive facial expressions coupled with lurid, fleshy positions had been almost exclusively what I had sought.  I shook my head recalling, bemused, at what a waste of my precious time it had been.

Bailey shuddered in his sleep as I glanced at my laptop on the table.  After a moment I decided to have a look, for old times’ sake, just to see if these pictures had an effect on me as a happily married man.  Relieved that Bailey was still asleep, I brought the laptop back to my seat with an uncluttered conscience.  I typed in a URL that I still knew by heart and as the photographs loaded I felt a long forgotten thrill tickle at my stomach.

Bailey whined once in his sleep and then growled as I exploded in fantasy.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The journey taking Bailey to Beth was bittersweet.  Bailey loved public transport, the movement and people around him. He sat patiently on the floor next to me, watching contentedly, and that always gave me joy.  My momentary happiness was tempered by the fact I was taking Bailey out of my life.  My apartment would be empty without him.

We got off a few stops before Beth’s parents’ home --a chance at more time with my dog.  I had also read somewhere that exercise was a good thing for keeping the Shadowed Soul at bay, something about more endorphins and less cortisol.  Endorphins released during exercise were effective against depression, and although I had never done sustained sports to confirm it, I thought it could not hurt to exert myself long enough to walk the dog a longer stretch than usual.

Tail wagging happily, Bailey padded alongside, his nose twitching at the symphony of scents that wafted around him, his ears cocking at sounds unheard by me.  Occasionally we stopped so he could examine a particularly interesting spot on the ground or on a lamp post.  And when he decided that he wanted to add to whatever scents were there, he did.

As soon as we got into the house his canine emotions went into overdrive as he was greeted by Pete and Dorothy.  His entire body doubled in on itself as he allowed them to fuss over him.  His paws clattering against the wooden hallway, Bailey found Beth in the living room.  Nursing Jonathan, Beth sat comfortably on a large chair. Bailey sniffed the baby and seemed to know instinctively to sit patiently at Beth’s feet.  His tail dragged side to side on the floor.  His enthusiasm was tempered by his awareness that the small life his mistress held in her arms was too fragile for an exuberant greeting.  Beth smiled at me then turned her attention to Bailey.

“That’s a good boy, Bailey,” she soothed. “I want you to meet Jonathan.  He’s new to the family and he is going to love you as much as we do.”

Bailey cocked his head then gently raised his left paw to rest it gently on Beth’s left leg.  Of course, I remained for a while, but declined to hold Jonathan because I had ridden public transport.

“Germs,” I explained.  Instead, I washed my hands and sat beside Beth and stroked her hair.  We talked about the baby, the weather, the dog, everything that normal people talk about and then I noticed the time.

“I should go, Beth,” I said with regret noticing how fatigued she looked. “You need your rest.”

“I don’t want you to have to make four changes on the bus rather than the usual two,” said Beth compressing a yawn.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, honey,” she smiled again. “Tired.  Baby’s up a lot in the night to either drink or poop.  And I’ve got mastitis, so I’m constantly having to put hot compresses on my boobs.”

“Of course,” I nodded, for the most part clueless how hard it would be to recover from surgery and get up every few hours to breast feed and change an infant, forget about the time and energy required for Beth’s own self-care.  And mastitis, whatever, I thought.  It was not until I googled it eventually that I realized the hell Beth endured in the three most sensitive parts of her body.

“You don’t know how lucky you are right now,” she laughed and the Shadowed Soul leapt onto my back, his talons gripping my head and face from behind, causing me to totally overlook Beth’s point.  “I hope you’re taking this time to catch up on your sleep.  We have to have at least one sane adult in the house.” Beth laughed weakly. 

“Lazy
beeeeeesh
!” whispered the Shadowed Soul, nibbling my ear.

I knew that Beth had been trying to make light of what was a difficult situation but logic had little impact against the machinations of that callow side of me.  I heard what she said and I hated the fact that she had said it.  How could
not
having your family around you in anyway constitute being lucky?  One utterance tipped my scales again into a negative spiral.  I was a man who had not been able to plan or provide for his new son and his wife and dog!  A failure in all things and when she said that I didn’t
know how lucky I was
I was convinced that she meant that she was lucky to be away from me.

“Right.” My voice was flat and heavy. “I should go!”

“Thomas?”  Beth looked puzzled, but the Shadowed Soul was in control now and his noose would only tighten.

“What?” I retorted.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, Beth, just fine, the
luckiest
man in the fucking world!” 

Without kissing Beth good-bye, I left the room wishing I had remembered to bring that garbage bag full of her stuff she had left around my apartment!  Bailey followed me and tipped his head as if to say,
what’s up with you, man? 
I dove into my coat and Bailey whined when I ignored his leash.

“Stay, Bailey!” I commanded and he sat down.  “Look after them.”

With that I left, and entered the safety of a darkening evening in which I was obliged to no one.  Hot tears obscured my vision more than the cool, torrential rain.  It did not take long to get to the bus stop and I cursed as I just missed it.  My hands thrust into my pockets I lowered my head as if this simple act could serve as a protection against the driving rain.  The spectre who fed off my soul like a tick peered out through my eyes.  Together in hatred and resentment, we glared at the world.

“It astounds me, Thomas, how insensitive your own wife can be,” said the Shadowed Soul as if it were fact.  “How dare she think that you’re lucky with all you’ve got going on?”

I had a son who couldn’t even stay in the same house with me because I had lived a life that had led me to a job where I could barely provide for two people let alone a kid. 

“A wife with absolutely no problems abandoning you as soon as she got what she wanted, Thomas,” muttered the demon.  “You’re nothing but her sperm donor.”  I had seen her face and heard her cries when we had been told that the chances of us having a child were almost impossible.  “Don’t you recall, Thomas, she spent all that time in the bathroom snivelling weeks afterwards and now that she’s got the old ovaries satisfied she’s happy as a pig in shit.”

“You’re right,” I said.  “I was the single most important man in her life.”

“Now, you’re just an afterthought whom she mocks,” he murmured.  “It’s all a sham.”

I hated my life and Beth had been the one thing that had given me a stable sense of hope and purpose but now my ideal evaporated.  I felt like I had been had.

“How could I not have seen this before?  How could I have been so incredibly naïve?”

“How do you know that Jonathan’s really your son?” sniggered the Shadowed Soul.

Stewed in my own rage and disgust I jumped when a woman’s voice spoke through the pouring rain.

“Thomas?  What’s wrong with you?  Are you talking to yourself?”  I turned to see Beth, her hair soaked.  Bailey stood next to her, gazing at me with reproach.

“You shouldn’t be out here, Beth.”

“No, I shouldn’t be out here, but if you hadn’t stomped out like a petulant child then I wouldn’t have had to follow you?”  She took a few steps toward me; I recoiled.  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What do you think’s wrong with me?” I glowered.

“I don’t know!”

“Maybe I hate the fact that you have taken my entire family away from me!”

“What?”  Beth’s face creased with anger. “How can you say that?”

“It’s true Beth,” I snarled.  “I’m going home to an empty apartment and it’s because of that baby!”

“
That baby
?!” Beth’s voice hardened to a brittle timber.  “That baby is your son and if you had wanted us to come home then we would have.  The only reason I’m staying at my parents’ is because of the extra help while my sutures are still healing.  But if you had argued or even let me know that this wasn’t what you wanted then I would have come home to you without a problem.”