True North

by Allie Juliette Mousseau

  The emergency response team spoke the words “overdose” and “suicide,” and I was sure I could hear my eyes blink. Everything was so loud now, so wrong. The world was distorted around me and I couldn’t find my footing.

  “Miss? Are you family?”

  I managed to nod.

  “Do you have a car to follow us in?” The guy talking through the vortex was dressed in a blue uniform. “Or would you like to ride with us?”

  “I won’t leave him.” My voice was pained and hoarse.

  “Alright then.”

  They laid him on the stretcher and strapped him in. He never moved on his own. I expected at any moment that his beautiful sparkling eyes, full of mischief and curiosity, would open and everything would go back to normal. They didn’t.

  Hours later, they still hadn’t.

  The guy with the cigarette left it half-finished, lying in the ashtray, and went back inside the emergency room. I vaguely wondered what horrible event had caused him to be here, but really my eye was on the burning cinder. How disgusting would it be to just pick it up and smoke it from where he left off?

  “Miss Morrisey?” The doctor had finally come into the waiting room a half hour after we arrived. “Are you immediate family?”

  I didn’t know how much weight being his girlfriend would give me. “I’m his fiancé.”

  “Could I speak to you in private for a moment?”

  “Of course.”

  He ushered me into a room off to the side of the waiting room. It was like a space for prayer. There were illuminated stained glass window-like features on the far side of the room with a dimly lit altar. White lilies decorated the aisles on either side. It gave me zero comfort, in fact it took away any semblance of strength I had. I wrapped my arms around my shoulders and pretended they were Jake’s.

  If this son-of-a-bitch doctor brought me in here to tell me Jake had died I was going to lose it.

  “Your fiancé overdosed on his prescription medication. He mixed an anti-depressant and too many sleeping pills with alcohol, creating a very lethal toxin.”

  He’s dead! My mind tried to absorb and deflect simultaneously.

  “We’ve pumped the contents of his stomach and he’s in the ICU but is still unconscious,” he continued.

  ICU. Unconscious. “He’s alive?” I pleaded desperately.

  “Yes, he’s alive, but just barely. These next few hours will be critical.”

  “So he’s still in danger of …” I couldn’t say the final word.

  He gave me the most sympathetic, heartbreaking look. “As I said, the next few hours will be critical. Can you tell me how long he’s been suicidal?”

  I shook my head, dumbfounded. “He’s not … suicidal.”

  His brow creased. “He left you no letters recently or maybe gave you something special to him?”

  “No. He never talked about killing himself. He’s …” I wanted to say happy, but it stuck in my mouth.

  “Does he talk about his time in Afghanistan?”

  Never. “Sometimes he wakes up with nightmares.” Like when he’s screaming as if he’s on fire and I have to shake him and scream his name to get him to come out of it. But he refuses to tell me about them.

  “We’re trying to have his medical records transferred, but the base commander says that he’s been discharged and should have his own file. We contacted the local VA, but he hasn’t registered with them. Would you be able to bring those in?” he asked.

  “Jake is discharged?”

  “Ma’am?”

  I swallowed. “Jake told us that he was on a ninety day leave of absence.” That, because he hadn’t taken his leave the subsequent years, he had them accumulated.

  The doctor was silent.

  “What else do you know?” I demanded.

  “Patient confidentiality restricts me from—”

  “WHAT ELSE DO YOU KNOW?” I sounded threatening. I sounded desperate.

  The doctor lowered his voice. “He may have been discharged for substance abuse and mental illness, but they wouldn’t tell me the specifics. Find his records.” He touched my hand, stood up and walked towards the door. “I’ll keep you updated.”

  I needed to feel something other than the hurt. I picked up the burning cigarette and dusted the ashes from its length as best as I could with my fingers and held it like I knew how. It was strangely comforting. I couldn’t leave Jake here alone to search the apartment for the files. If … when he woke up I wanted him to have a familiar face.

  Discharged. And he hadn’t told any of us. Why? If I felt lied to or betrayed, it wasn’t acute. It wasn’t only me here. He’d told no one, not even his family. If I felt anything, it was sadness … that, whatever it was, he felt like he couldn’t tell us and had to hide it. We would have found out sooner or later. What the hell was his plan?

  When I responded to myself with the thought, we may never know, I took a drag off the cigarette. I didn’t bring it into my lungs. I didn’t want to succumb to a coughing fit. But I knew the nicotine could work its way into my bloodstream.

  By the time I snuffed the cigarette out, I saw Jake’s family coming quickly through the parking lot. I ran towards them, and we all embraced.

  “Has there been any change?” Jake’s dad asked first. Colt was a big man with brown hair and eyes who kept himself in shape. He and his wife, Suzanne, were close to their sixties. They wore casual business attire and Colt, as usual, was in a cowboy hat.

  “No, he’s still in the ICU. The doctor said the next few hours would be critical. That was two hours ago,” I said solemnly.

  “Can we see him?” Suzanne was a petite blond with blue eyes.

  “The doctor wouldn’t let me, but they might you. He asked me to find Jake’s medical records. Did he mention anything about them to any of you?” I asked.

  They all looked at each other for an answer and shook their heads.

  “I’m glad you’re here. I couldn’t leave him alone, but the doc said the records were pretty important so I’m going to run to the apartment to see if I can find them. If there’s any change, please call me right away,” I said.

  “I’ll come with you,” Jules offered. “You may need help.”

  I looked at her gratefully. She didn’t know how much.

  On our way to the apartment, I relayed the story of finding him in more detail to her, along with everything the doctor had told me, which I had decided not to tell the rest of his family yet. Jake hadn’t told us all for a reason; I’d honor him in that for as long as I could.

  “Did he leave anything back at home? If he did we could get Nate to go over and look through it,” I said.

  “When he disappeared he took everything,” Jules assured me.

  “It would be stupid of him not to have his medical documents with him, especially if something is going on,” I reasoned.

  When we got to the apartment we tore through everything. Jules went through all of the kitchen and bookshelves while I took the desk drawers and the bedroom. The apartment only housed the bare essentials, so when it didn’t turn up in plain sight we tried to think special ops. We moved the mattress and box spring off the bed to see if there was anything underneath. We looked under the ceiling tiles and even behind picture frames. We searched the deep top shelves of the closet and still found nothing.

  I looked down and stared blankly at his Army green canvas bag he used for travel. He said he always had it packed, in case he was feeling spontaneous and wanted to go somewhere. He’d even made me put several outfits and necessities into it.

  Did that sound like someone who wanted to die?

  I smiled just a little, remembering how close to him I felt when he shared that space with me. I snatched the bag up and threw it on the bed.

  “Did you find something?” Jules pressed.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Come help.” I grabbed the clothes and toiletries by the fist-full and dropped them on the bed. “There’s nothing in this compartment—tr
y the sides.”

  Jules took one side and I took the other. Still nothing.

  I screamed in frustration and threw the empty bag at the wall. I stomped to the living room yelling, “IF HE HAS A MEDICAL CONDITION, AND THE DOCTORS MIS-MEDICATE OR MIS-TREAT HIM, HE COULD DIE!”

  “Liv?” Jules called.

  “What?!”

  “Come here.”

  My fists were clenching as I paced back to the bedroom. She looked at me then let her gaze travel back to where I’d thrown the bag. I followed them. There on the floor was a red file folder with a thick packet of paper and a bunch of other papers that were strewn to the side.

  We rushed to the mess and gathered everything together.

  “He must have wedged it in the bottom, under the flap.” I ran my fingers through my hair to pull it away from my face and then checked under the bag’s flap for anything that may not have fallen out. There was more, like secret-compartment-more.

  We spread everything out over the kitchen table and worked at sorting it out and piecing it back together. But as we did, the evidence portrayed a very grim picture. My hands started to shake from adrenaline as the anger boiled inside of me.

  “Are you reading this the same way I am?” I finally hissed.

  “Yes, and I’m beyond disgusted. How they do this?!” Jules slammed her fist on the table and paced the kitchen floor.

  I didn’t have an answer, and I realized that neither had Jake, which was why he’d never told us about it. Which is why he’d collected all of these articles.

  “He was fighting.” My voice shook. “But they just kept burying him.”

  “They made him ashamed.” I could tell from Jules’ voice that she had started to cry.

  I got it. I’d been crying all day. But I didn’t feel like crying now. I felt like taking names, kicking ass and exacting justice! How was it that our soldiers were putting their lives on the line for us, while we were safely tucked away at home, only to come back to the worst kind of betrayal imaginable?

  All for one and one for all, my ass!

  “This article says that veteran’s advocates are accusing the military, aka the Pentagon, of diagnosing soldiers with ‘personality disorder’ so they don’t have to pay them benefits,” I spat.

  “The one I’m looking at from The New York Times says that advocates have long suspected that commanders pressure doctors into giving specific psychological diagnoses to get rid of soldiers.” Jules held the paper in her hand. “It also says that since 2001 31,000 service members have been discharged because of ‘personality disorder.’”

  I scoured the pages in front of me. “Wait a minute. I know this.” I jumped up from the table and grabbed my psych textbook off the bookshelf and started thumbing through the pages. “We just studied this. Here! ‘A personality disorder is something that can only be characterized by a pre-existing condition from a young age that can affect behavior, addiction and relationships.’ That doesn’t sound anything like Jake. He’s always worked, has had the same friends forever and never got into drugs or alcohol or anything like that.”

  “No, it doesn’t sound like him at all,” she agreed. “Oh my God. This article says that the military has diagnosed tens of thousands of soldiers with personality disorder after they’ve returned from Afghanistan or Iraq, even when they’ve had no sign of problems before their deployment. They’re being labeled with personality disorder instead of a proper diagnosis of PTSD, which leads to a medical discharge with benefits.”

  “Fuck! Why would they want to deny him benefits—or any soldier for that matter, after everything they did for us?” I couldn’t fathom it. But then my fingers traced over a printed article that made my stomach turn inside out. “This article says that twenty-two soldiers commit suicide every day.” I looked up from it as tears stung my eyes. “Could that be right? Why would he have this, Jules?” I cried, my voice rising.

  “I don’t know why.” She leaned over my shoulder to see it. “It’s a CNN headline.” She started to gently pry it from my hand.

  “No, please! I have to do this.” I blinked to clear my vision. “The story talks about a soldier who was trying to hand a little girl a candy bar and, when she stepped forward to take it, she … stepped on a land mine and was killed. The soldier returned home, went AWOL, received a less-than-honorable discharge—what the hell is that?— and put a bullet in his mouth a few months later.”

  “Olivia?” Jules almost never called me by my full name, and it made my blood freeze. “I found his discharge papers.”

  I closed my eyes. “What do they say?”

  “Other than Honorable.”

  For a guy like Jake, that was like death. My stomach filled with lead and my heart seemed to stop beating. A metallic taste rose in my mouth, and I realized I had been biting the inside of my cheek.

  “Why?!” I breathed.

  “I don’t know yet, I’m still reading it,” Jules said.

  “But Jake received a campaign and good-conduct medals.”

  I felt better angry. At least my brain wasn’t drowning with hopeless dread.

  “The discharge papers say that along with being diagnosed with a …”—she swallowed hard—“personality disorder, he also had misconduct charges for alcohol abuse and violent behavior.”

  We just stared at each other.

  Jake, an exemplary, decorated soldier, had been severed from the Army with an “Other than Honorable” discharge for personality disorder, alcohol abuse and violence. How was that possible?

  “Livie, there’s another file folder inside of this one with more articles and a bunch of photos.”

  My cell rang.

  “He’s waking up!” an excited Josh burst with the news.

  “We’re on our way!” I hung up, threw on my jacket, and gathered the medical diagnostic papers. I pushed the other folder with the photos and all of the news articles to the side. “We’ll go back over these later.”

  Jules nodded and we rushed out the door.

  How do you obtain courage to fight the biggest battles in your life?

  Where do you pull your strength from when you can barely put one foot in front of the other and you feel strangely ethereal and un-present.

  “He won’t see anyone but you,” Suzanne said once Jules and I got to the ICU. “Please tell him we’re all here and that we love him.”

  I nodded, but it sounded like she was speaking underwater.

  The nurse, who was standing nearby in green scrubs, touched my shoulder in an act of comfort and led me through the dim hallway through the ICU.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  No. “Yes.”

  “He’s pretty fragile so just go easy with the topic of conversation. If he gets overworked we’ll have to get you to leave. You’ve got five minutes.” She held open the glass door to his room. When he saw me he tried to move as if he wanted to sit up.

  “Cool your jets, hotshot,” the nurse ordered Jake. “Stay down for now.” She gave me a look and left us alone.

  “Your mom said she—”

  He cut me off. “Livie! I never meant to hurt myself, I swear it!” He reached out for me, crying. I held his body as tenderly as possible. “I love you, Liv, I would never want to leave you! I couldn’t sleep. I kept trying, and each time I did, I’d startle back awake with another nightmare. I’d had a couple drinks, thinking that might help knock me out, but it didn’t … so I upped the sleeping pills. I just wanted to rest. I didn’t want to die.”

  His tears fell over my cheeks and down my neck and I was broken with him. “You have to believe me … please, believe me! You’re everything to me, Livie, fucking everything!”

  I was trying to keep my sobs quietly muffled into his neck. I couldn’t let the nurse toss me, not now.

  I felt his hands pull my face out from its hiding place. He was so weak I could’ve fought him off easy.

  “Look at me, baby.”

  I brought my bloodshot eyes to his. “If you had di
ed, it would’ve killed me.”

  “I’m so sorry. It won’t ever happen again. I’ll get help. I’ll stop the pills. They were prescribed, but haven’t worked in a long time unless I take them with a couple drinks. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Liv, and I didn’t mean to hurt myself. I’d miss you too goddamn much.” He searched my face. “Please tell me that you still love me.”

  “Jake North, I’ll love you ‘till the day I die.”

  He sobbed quietly. “Are you going to leave me?”

  “I’ll never leave you—never.” I stroked his jaw and collected the tears that were trapped within his scruff into my hand. “I found the files. The doctor asked me to look for them. He said he contacted the base—”

  “Don’t … say any more, please. Does my family know?”

  “Only Jules, and she’s keeping it to herself.”

  He nodded and looked away from me.

  I pulled his gaze back to mine. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I have everything to be ashamed of. The only thing I ever did right in my life was loving you. And I very nearly fucked that up too. My family and friends, they all look at me like I’m some kind of veteran hero, but I’m not even officially considered a vet at all by the military or the Veteran’s Association. You look at me that same way, Liv … how can this not affect what you think of me?”

  “I don’t love you because of what you did or didn’t do. I’ve loved you since I was seven years old. And one thing I do know, Jake North, is that you’re the most honorable man I’ve ever known … and everything that happened in the last three years does not define you. It may acutely affect you, it might guide your actions and cloud your future, but I vow to you that it doesn’t have to be that way forever, and that together we’ll get through it until it’s a memory in the past that we can deal with the right way. But you have to let me in, no more secrets or half-truths.”

  “I promise, Livie, I swear it.”