The Weight of Zero (10 page)

I lean forward, placing one hand on his shoulder. Everything moves in slow motion. His eyes widen as I tilt my head and put my lips on his. His lips are so much softer than I could have imagined, and warm. I rest my hand on the back of his neck and feel his skin boiling under my fingers. My heart pounds as Michael presses his mouth against mine and we move closer.

It is amazing. This contact. Strange and exhilarating and delicious. So much better than my one other kiss in eighth grade. Michael's warm hands are on my waist now—

“Catherine, I got something for you!” Lorraine yells from somewhere above.

Snapping my head back from Michael's, I quickly turn around and hike up a step to put some distance between us.

“Catherine, I want you to take some icebox cake home,” Lorraine says as she appears in the doorway. “You didn't have dessert.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say. I climb the stairs. My hand shakes a little as I reach for the paper plate covered in plastic wrap.

Nonny emerges from the kitchen as Michael joins me in the hallway. “You ever have it, Michael's friend? Icebox cake?” she asks.

“Uh, no,” I say.

“It's just graham crackers between layers of pudding and whipped cream,” Lorraine says. “It's got to go in the fridge, okay?”

Nonny adds, “It's Michael's favorite!”

Lorraine puts her arms out as I walk toward the door. I guess I have to hug her. She gives me an Aunt D hug, squeezing me hard and fast, and then lets go.

“Thanks for coming, Catherine. Come over again, okay? And tell your mom I'm sorry I didn't drive you home.”

“It's no problem. Really. She was finished at work, anyway,” I say. “Thank you so much for dinner.” I look back at Nonny. “The food was great.”

Michael, flushed and red-necked, hasn't moved from the basement doorway. Nonny grabs his arm and pushes him toward me.

“What you standing there for? Go say good-bye to your friend. Walk her to the car!”

Michael shrugs off Nonny and follows me out the front door. We walk in silence to the Accord at the curb. Mom's at the wheel on her phone but clicks it off as Michael and I approach.

Opening the passenger-side window, Mom yells to Michael, “Hi, Michael. Please thank your mom again for me.”

“Not a problem,” Michael says quickly.

I turn to Michael. “Well…uh…,” I say.

Mom's face looms larger in my peripheral vision as she leans farther across the passenger seat to get a better look at us. Jesus.

But then Michael smiles and I can read the wonder and disbelief in his healer eyes. “Good night, Cath.”

It's 4:07 on Monday afternoon and I'm not at St. Anne's. It's my monthly med-management appointment with Dr. McCallum and should take fifteen minutes, twenty tops. I've got the drill down pat: greeting—I am fine, thank you, no side effects—and a hop onto the scale. A few quick questions and then it's sayonara. The plan is for Mom to drop me off at the IOP after so I can make the last half of the session.

Today I give Dr. McCallum a generous seven on my numerical mood scale, up a whopping point from last month. This good news is followed by more questions and more answers: Yes, St. Anne's is fine. Yes, I am sleeping. Not too much and not too little. Yes, I am eating. Yes, I am attending class. Yes, I am completing my homework. No, I am not feeling hopeless. No, my thoughts are not racing. No, I am not thinking of killing myself. No sir, everything's just swell. I scoot to the end of the chair, ready to rise to my feet. But Dr. McCallum sits back and stretches his long legs, settling into the armchair opposite me. Wait a sec, we're not supposed to have a therapy session now.

“I've had a cancellation, Catherine, so I figured we'd use the time to chat a little,” he says, patting the top of his balding head as if checking to see if anything has grown. “Your mother emailed me. She said things seem to be going pretty well.”

Christ Almighty, Mom! She'd Instagram a particularly hearty poop of mine if she could.
This is Catherine's BM last night. Normal for someone on Lamictal?

Dr. McCallum rests his Catherine Pulaski chart on his knees. “How would
you
rate things?”

“Um…fine,” I answer, slightly bewildered by the lack of dismissal. “Like I said before.”

“What's fine about them?” he asks.

Well, if we're being honest, Dr. McCallum, not a whole hell of a lot. I'm bipolar if you haven't forgotten, and I'll be that way for the rest of my sorry life. But short-term-wise, things have been surprisingly tolerable. If I dare to be completely honest with myself, the number on my numerical mood scale is probably a six. But I don't like to dwell on that, because it's hardwired not to last. And I know what's waiting for me.

“Um…I met this kid,” I say. “He's pretty nice. We're doing a history project together.”

Of course, Dr. McCallum wants details, like Michael's name and the project and what we've done together. I tell him how we spent Saturday at the library and that I had dinner at Michael's house.

Dr. McCallum nods. “And how did you feel while you were there?”

“Fine. We had fun,” I say, omitting the kiss,
that
kiss, the one I can't stop thinking about. How great it was to touch someone and be touched. I even recorded it on my D-Day List as entry number two: First Kiss, Michael. On Sunday night at 9:48 p.m. he texted. Something short. But so damn sweet it sent a swell of good feelings swirling through me. “I'm glad we finally met this year!
”

It's quiet for at least a minute. Dr. McCallum does this. Allows these gaps of silence so that I'll keep talking. But I don't. I just sit and wait. He breaks first, asking me how I feel about hanging out with Michael. If I think we'll hang out again. And how I feel about that. Et cetera, et cetera. I give my usual generic responses and then I lean forward, hoping my body language indicates that our appointment is over.

But he ignores it and springs this on me, “How are you feeling about your grandmother?” He is forever asking me this, at every other session, as if she died yesterday instead of two years and three months ago.

I shift in the chair. I refuse to cover this territory with him.

But he pushes. “You were alone with her, right? When she died?”

Dear God, I pray, make him stop. It's times like these that I long for Dr. A's laissez-faire attitude.

“Catherine?” Dr. McCallum persists. “I know this is hard to talk about.”

Why don't you try chatting about your loved one stroking out right in front of you? How at first you think it's a joke. That she's trying to be funny with that weird face and…and…those sounds. But then you see the animal terror in her eyes. Spot the ropy string of drool dangling from the corner of her mouth. And you know it's no joke. And there's nothing you can do as she pitches forward like a redwood and hits the bedroom carpet face-first and goes still. And it's all happening so fast that calling 911 hasn't even crossed your mind.

I sit there, mute. I cannot unleash this. Not today. Not ever. How do I explain the fear? The grief in witnessing her dignity demolished. That rude string of saliva. She would've especially despised that. Because Grandma was always impeccable—clothes, hair, jewelry. She never emerged from the bedroom without her makeup on. Her lipstick fresh at 6:30 a.m. Oh God, that part hurt the worst. The stroke stealing her dignity.

“We talked about this before,” Dr. McCallum says. “You know your mother would like to clean out your grandmother's room.” Adrenaline surges through me.
Holy fuck! Did she start already? Did she find my shoe box?
I sit straight up in the chair, my heart racing triple-time. I can't breathe awaiting his next question.

Dr. McCallum watches me closely as he says, “She said she doesn't want to upset you. She said when she tried last year you were very unhappy about it. How do you feel about that? Cleaning out some of your grandmother's belongings?”

I exhale. Okay, I know where he's headed with this—emptying out Grandma's room and converting it into a “cozy study,” as Mom had proposed. But it still feels bad. Wrong. Disrespectful. I don't want Mom touching one lace doily in there.

Dr. McCallum leans forward, done talking. It's my turn to say something about erasing all traces of my grandmother's monumental existence from the house.

“I'm not ready,” I say, the truth a foreign, bulky thing on my lips.

He nods. “Your mom is fine with that. She told me it wouldn't happen until you say so. You understand that, right, Catherine? Nothing happens with your grandmother's room until you say so. How does that feel to you?”

I nod as a sliver of relief flows through me and then make quite the show of looking at the small clock on the table. I really need to get the fuck out of here.

Dr. McCallum waits a beat before beginning. “Catherine, mourning can be a long, long process. Especially when the circumstances are particularly traumatic, like what happened to you. I know you're not ready to talk to me about it, but I am here for you when the time comes. And the time should come at some point.”

I nod again, but I know I'll never be able to talk about it.

After the session, I have no interest in going to St. Anne's. On the ride home, Mom asks me to run into Walmart to buy napkins while she gets gas. I'm feeling shaky, unmoored. Dr. McCallum lifts up the boulders in my head and shines a flashlight on stuff I do not want to see. I don't like thinking about Grandma. How her brain weakened and betrayed her. It reminds me too much of my own defect. It reminds me that my future is damned. Regardless of how fine and dandy things can be, I'm still in Zero's crosshairs. He's coming for me. My permanent mental sucker punch. With all the resulting loss of dignity. So once inside Walmart, I stride straight to the pharmacy department and select a one-hundred-tablet bottle of Tylenol with the twenty dollars Aunt Darlene slipped me after our Mexican dinner. I pocket the bottle inside my sweater before exiting the store with the napkins.

Tonight, my shoe box gets a little more crowded.