Love In Darkness

by E. M. Tippetts

  The mission president asks if there’s anything else I need, and then he and Elder Ito give me a blessing. I only half pay attention because of the envelope burning with significance in my hand. Once they’re gone, I tear it open to read.

  Dear Alex,

  I’m finding it hard to concentrate on my work, which I know is a bad thing. I’m excited to go home, though, and so excited to see you again.

  Okay, I’m going to just say this, and then I’m going to send this letter before I lose my nerve.

  I love you, Alex Katsumoto, and I want to be with you forever. I want to marry you and spend the rest of eternity with you. I really hope that doesn’t freak you out. I can never tell how you feel, but I hope this huge stack of letters means that you still care about me as more than a friend.

  Write back before I give myself an ulcer, okay?

  Love,

  Madison

  P.S. Remember our first kiss? When you kissed me down the side of my neck until I went crazy and kissed you back? Feel free to do that again in a couple of months.

  I stare at her handwritten words until they blur in my vision. Aside from my slip the day we broke up, neither of us has ever used the l-word with each other. That might seem odd, given how long we’ve been together, but for the first part of our relationship, I went from day to day, assuming the end was just around the corner. Now that I think about it, I’ve felt the same way throughout our time writing to each other. I was only just getting used to the idea that we’d endure, that we’d become something more than the town loser and a girl going through a bad boy phase.

  She has our first kiss all wrong, though. It was nothing like that. Our first kiss went something like this: One day when I was a senior and she was a junior at Pelican Bluffs High School, back in California, I grabbed her and kissed her as a joke that is so un-funny, I’m lucky not to be in jail. She was the cutest, most popular girl in school, and I was… well, me. For the record, this is not the kiss she is talking about in her letter. I’ll get to that one. To make the whole assault stunt worse, I did it where no one saw or could come to her aid. She called me a creep – which definitely counts as being nice – and then gave me back my deceased dad’s U.S. Army jacket, which I’d lost the day before when I got arrested for smashing a police car with a rock, because I’m cool like that. I’ve made great life decisions, lemme tell ya. The officer made me take the jacket off and leave it there in the road.

  Madison had picked it up, laundered it, put everything back in the pockets, and now gave it to me. I’d never thought I was a great guy, but in that moment, I realized I was something much worse than “not a great guy”, and Madison was something better than “an angel of pure kindness.” I fled, certain she’d never so much as look at me again. Except, while she told me off, she also called me hot. Specifically, “hot, but not hot enough to get away with assaulting people.” Usually compliments about my looks were the kind of thing I only heard from women tourists who’d make catcalls at me from their convertibles on their way through town.

  A few days later, Madison came to a church activity – and I’m not going to tell the long story of how a delinquent like me ended up at a church activity because it involves me threatening Madison with a pair of scissors and then later offering to chase her down the street with a switchblade. But… anyway, I was at this activity, looking like the worst possible fit for the LDS Church in its 175 year history. She was at this activity as another guy’s date and we all went to a movie, and I noticed that I could get her to pay attention to me if I cracked jokes. I even made her laugh and got her to pay more attention to me than to her date, who was a great guy who deserved her. Yes I am a jerk.

  A few days after that, she stopped to talk to me in the street, because I totally deserved to have the most gorgeous girl on the planet stop to pay attention to me in public where any guy could see that she was talking to me and not them. She asked me about my mother, who was institutionalized at the time. When she found out that I hadn’t been to see my mother for over a week, she asked if I wanted her to come with me for moral support on a visit to her. Madison Lukas wanted to get in my car and spend an afternoon with me? I said yes. And the totally messed up thing about this is, she did it.

  She came to the mental hospital, got to know my mom, had dinner with us, and was sweetness incarnate even though the meal was sushi and Madison had never even held a pair of chopsticks before. My mother having conversations with people who weren’t there didn’t make her bat an eye. The only awkward moment was when Madison admitted that she didn’t want to have us pay for her meal, and even my not-all-there mother told her that she was our guest and would be treated like a guest. See? I did one nice thing. I bought her dinner. Go me.

  A few days after that Madison’s best “friend”, the extremely bipolar Kailie Beale, attempted suicide and I found Madison in the social worker’s office of the ER. She was scared spitless, having been the person to discover Kailie unconscious and bleeding profusely. When Madison saw me, she hugged me, which was a clear sign that she was out of her mind with shock, but wow did it feel good. For a few minutes I had her in my arms and those were literally the best few minutes of my life. Her skin was so soft, and the contours of her body so perfect in every way. She let go of me, collected her wits, and handled the rest of the situation with grace and competence because… she’s Madison. She can do anything.

  When she broke up a fight I was in at school the next day, so that I “wouldn’t go to jail,” and dragged me back to her house to wash and treat my split knuckles, I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t take having a real live angel act like I was worth talking to. I wanted her and I had one strategy that might work, assuming Madison lost her senses completely. I’d try for a kiss, and if I could get her to cave in for one kiss, maybe some other day I could get another, and maybe I’d get her to cave in enough times that the kissing thing became a habit. Like that would ever happen.

  So I backed her up against the closed door of her bathroom (because that’s not a creepy, aggressive thing to do) and she held still while I kissed her forehead. The feel of her velvet skin, the herbal conditioner scent of her hair, it was all too much. I couldn’t stop kissing her, only, I’d never kissed anyone before (other than that stupid assault) so I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t kiss her on the lips, because I knew she’d laugh. Instead, I kissed her cheek and her closed eyelid and before I knew it I had my arm around her waist, her jaw cupped in my palm, and was kissing her down the side of her neck. I finally forced myself to quit it because even someone as socially inept as myself knew that this wasn’t typically how one treated a friend, but her arms were around me by then. She lifted her chin, danced the tips of her fingernails across the back of my neck, and in the blink of an eye, we were kissing on the lips. It was a short kiss and she opened her eyes and I knew then that she’d take one look at me, push me away, and probably never speak to me again.

  I was maybe one word into planning my escape when she shut her eyes and resumed the kiss, like she meant it, and I was a complete and total goner. Even thinking about it now, I’m a goner. I was with Madison. When I ran out of oxygen and broke off the kiss, I begged her to be my girlfriend. Begged. I would have cried if I’d had to let her go, just bawled like a big overgrown baby. Nothing had ever felt so good and never had I wanted anything more than I wanted to be hers. She patiently explained to me that the kiss meant yes. She’d kissed me because she wanted to be with me, as my girlfriend.

  What was even crazier was that she stayed my girlfriend, month after month while guys fell all over themselves to get her attention. She had the class valedictorian and the quarterback of the football team and half a dozen guys from multi-millionaire families asking her out and her answer was always that she had a boyfriend. Me. During her senior year of high school, I worked as a respite care provider around town, which basically means babysitter for the disabled. Because I’m a big guy and I know how to be patient, I can handle fifty-year-o
ld men with the mental ages of toddlers who still throw tantrums. When you’ve spent your whole life loitering, getting into fights and being arrested for underage drinking, you haven’t got much of a reputation to defend. The fact that I got seen wrestling mentally handicapped people into submission in public actually improved people’s perception of me.

  Madison, though, treated me like I was a movie star. She always walked towards me with her eyes aglow and a grin on her face. Dating her was like having some stranger give me the keys to a Ferrari. I had no idea why an idiot like me was entrusted with something so precious, but I knew I’d wreck it sooner or later.

  When I got my mission call, I decided to hang up the keys and stop tempting fate. That’s when I broke up with her and figured that was that. It was a shame to leave something so beautiful behind, but really, it could have been a whole lot worse.

  And that was the ending I’d chosen, but Madison turned it around and gave me an alternative, like the amazing, generous person she is. She opened the door to something I’d never dreamed of, a happy ending for us. I should have known it was too good to be true.

  My first memory of my mom’s schizophrenia is of her, locked in the bathroom of our home back in California, shrieking that “they” were coming in the windows. I was maybe four years old, and the only one able to talk to her because she always lapses into Japanese when she gets scared. I didn’t know how to call the police. I wasn’t even in kindergarten yet. I just sat outside the bathroom door and begged her to let me in. Maternal instinct won out and she opened the door, then told me to call for help. She showed me how to use the phone.

  After that, I became Mom’s protector. I was the one who made sure she took her medication by begging her to open the childproof bottles and dumping the pills into a pill sorter that put a dose in each compartment. I was the one who warded off the social workers who wanted to take her away or me away or both, by playing games and refusing to speak if they separated us. I was the one who became her legal guardian when I turned eighteen. I’ll be the one to look after her for the rest of her colorful and tortured life. Assuming I can hold it together.

  My life isn’t one I’d wish on my worst enemy. I love my mother, but her condition destroyed my childhood. Whoever ends up responsible for me is in for a similar catastrophe. There’s not much I can control about losing my mind, but I can control this: The person responsible for me will never be Madison Lukas. She deserves better than that. Even if I have to break my own heart a thousand times over to give her freedom, I’ll do it, because I love her more than she could ever imagine. She’s everything to me.

  At the end of my hospital stay, I get the tentative diagnosis of schizophreniform disorder, because schizophrenia requires the symptoms to persist for six months, and all of my symptoms disappear for me with medication. The doctors are very happy about this. It’s rare for this to happen so quickly, they say. My prognosis is good, but the condition often starts out mild. I don’t for a minute think I’m out of the woods. The psychosis will be back, worse and worse each time.

  After my stay at the hospital, I go to live with my uncle and aunt outside of Tokyo, which could have been awkward, but I stay sane the whole time. And I plan ahead. I write out detailed lists of what to do and when. In the morning, for example, I have this checklist:

  1. Brush teeth. One squirt of toothpaste. Rinse once. Put toothbrush away.

  2. Shower for no more than 7 minutes. Wash hair, rinse, wash body, rinse, then dry off before getting dressed.

  3. Shave whole lower half of face. Leave two inch sideburns.

  4. Read scriptures. Make sure to share thoughts with the Bishop on Sundays. If he says they sound crazy, call the doctor.

  5. Breakfast. One bowl of cereal with enough milk to be seen in between the pieces of cereal, but not overflowing the cereal.

  If this seems over the top and OCD, well, here’s the thing. I know all too well what a person with mental illness is like. They have no idea how strange they are, and it’s the little things that creep people out, the constant signs that you are Not Okay and Probably Need Help. The behaviors that make people twirl their fingers by their heads behind your back.

  And yes, I realize making detailed checklists about how to get ready in the morning is one of those behaviors, but I figure if that one habit blots out a handful of others, like not showering for weeks at a time and talking constantly about what the voices say when I read my scriptures, I’ll cut my losses.

  I also have a moment of frank conversation with God and explain that we have a new deal now. No visions, visitations, or theophanies. These things aren’t common anyway, and I was unlikely to ever have one, but now I have to lump them in with symptoms. If I think I’ve seen or spoken to God, I’ll want the people responsible for me to get me to the doctor, not help me do whatever the Heavenly Being asked of me. That’s just how it’s gotta be, and I expect the Lord to understand that.

  Meanwhile, therapy in Japan proves to be the same song and dance I know well from my mom’s treatment. I have to learn to recognize any triggers that might set me off. I have to develop a strong support network of people who can help me. I need to learn coping skills to deal with stress. I could recite all the right answers to people’s questions in my sleep, and some days I practically do. The big thing they harp on? Find your triggers, Alex. What precipitated your break? How will you prevent it from happening again? In my case, they guess that being away from home and in this foreign culture is my trigger, and sure, I’ll go along with that. It’s as good a guess as any, I suppose.

  I can’t bring myself to answer Madison’s letter. I tell myself that my condition is too weighty a topic for a mere letter, but deep down I know it’s avoidance behavior, because that’s how I deal with stuff. I avoid. Foresight was never my strong suit.

  Six weeks later, I’m home again in my house on the bluffs overlooking the sea. I step in the back door, dragging my suitcase, which I leave in my room, and head downstairs to the den. The whole place smells like sandalwood, my mom’s favorite scent. My body doesn’t know what time it is, but the clocks say it’s early afternoon.

  I’m so jet-lagged that reality feels like a dream. I could fall asleep right now, but I won’t. I’m only a fifteen minute walk away from Madison (my driver’s license has expired and I can’t get a new one right now with my medical history).

  “Alex?” Hiroko calls out. She’s my mom’s caregiver, and likely heard the back door open and close.

  “Yeah, hi.”

  “Grace, Alex is home.”

  I stop in the doorway of the den with its buff colored carpet and clean lines to the furniture, to find Hiroko seated on the floor, assembling Happy Meal toys. She greets me with a grin that wrinkles her turned up nose. She’s the best caregiver we’ve ever had, hands down, and it’s a bonus that she’s from Tokyo.

  Mom is seated on the couch, and she glances at me and says a distracted, “Hello,” that indicates she didn’t know I was gone, or doesn’t understand that I’m back. She seems to be in a good mood, but her gaze slides past me as if I’m nothing new or notable. I might as well be a floor lamp.

  I want to go hug her, but Hiroko returns my gaze with a gentle shake of her head.

  “She’s had a rough morning,” she explains. At times, it’s best to leave my mother alone. “How are you feeling?” Hiroko asks. She knows all about my condition and hospitalization, as she’s the one I spoke to.

  “I’m okay for now.”

  “You look good.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Madison was by the other day. She left you a note. I put it on your bed.”

  “Oh, okay.” I do my best to withdraw politely, and then race up the stairs.

  The note is a simple, folded sheet of paper with Madison’s name and new cellphone number on it and the words, “Call me?” written underneath.

  I could call, but really, I should see her in person. Only, if I see her in person, what are the odds that I can tell her
what’s going on without just sweeping her into my arms and kissing her?

  While I dither, the doorbell rings. My heart in my mouth, I go downstairs to answer it and find a guy a little shorter than me, with green eyes, blond hair, and skin so pale that it goes red at the slightest hint of sun. John. Madison’s older brother.

  “Come with me,” he says. “You and I are going to have a little chat.”

  Great, a lecture. Just what I need right now. Still, I follow John out the front door and up the steps to the driveway. My house is built in the lee of a rocky outcropping, so the driveway is on the same level as the second floor, and the front door opens onto a little sheltered porch with stairs cut into the rock that lead up to the driveway.

  John’s van looks oddly familiar. It’s ancient and scratched up with a big dull spot on the side where a corporate logo was removed. The door opens with a creak, the upholstery is dried out vinyl, and the seatbelt comes through the feed with a puff of dust, but a glance over my shoulder reveals why I know this van. It’s got a wheelchair lift in it and used to belong to the local group home, an assisted living facility for the disabled.

  “You know what I’m gonna say, don’t you?” says John as he climbs into the driver’s seat. Once settled, he throws his shoulder forward to start the van with a laborious chug of the engine.

  “Stay away from Madison?”