Finding Bliss

by Dina Silver

“Chloe?”

  “Ty?”

  “Chloe?”

  “Ty!”

  Sammy and Sarah were standing in front of the couch, repeating our names.

  “Holy shit,” Tyler mumbled. “What time is it?”

  “Oh my God!” I yelled like my hair was on fire. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. We were up late last night talking because Tyler forgot something and came in the middle of the night to get it, and we were totally just talking on the couch, and he just decided to stay, you know, because it was so late and he didn’t want to get back in the car when it was super dark because, you know, how I’m always saying how dangerous it is to drive late at night and guess what: Tyler is going to throw you in the pool today!”

  The three of them were staring at me like—well, like my hair was on fire. Tyler burst out laughing, and I slapped him angrily and avoided making eye contact with the kids.

  “Who wants pancakes?” I asked no one in particular and headed for the kitchen.

  The four of us spent the day at the pool, and Mrs. Reed never bothered to check in, so I never had to lie to her about anything. Tyler picked up some steaks in town and barbecued them for dinner. Afterward, we made ice-cream sundaes and put a movie on for the kids.

  “Tyler and I are going down to the dock,” I told the two poltergeist-like figures transfixed in front of the TV. Sarah nodded, thankfully.

  Tyler was waiting for me with two beers.

  “What are you going to tell your mom?” I asked as I joined him on the edge of the dock with our legs swinging over the side.

  “Nothing.”

  “Surely you don’t think those two are going to keep quiet about you coming back here,” I said, pointing up at the house with my thumb.

  “I’m not worried about it.”

  I shrugged. “Well, as your most ardent new fan, I’m certainly glad you came back.”

  “Me too,” he said and reached over and swept some of my hair from my shoulder.

  I thought about broaching the dreaded “what are you thinking” conversation, but I knew better than that. Tyler was going back to Notre Dame and likely entering the NFL draft. He would have legions of commitments and women and responsibilities that would overshadow anything that had happened between us over the summer. And me, I was heading off to law school, well aware of the demands that were ahead of me. I wanted to ask him if he would be thinking about me half as much as I’d be thinking about him, but I didn’t want to go down that path, because what good could come of it? I was glad to have him back even for a short time. And while I may have been victim to his charms, I was no victim. I’d gotten exactly what I wanted.

  “Sadie made it back okay?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about Sadie.”

  “That’s fine, but despite all signs to the contrary, I do have somewhat of a conscience, and I don’t want to get between you two,” I said, lying blatantly. I wanted badly to get between them, but I was more interested in getting him to open up to me.

  “It’s not what you think; there’s really nothing between us. She’s just a girl.”

  “What am I?”

  He leaned to his side and ran a hand through my hair. “You’re a woman,” he said and then kissed my ear and left his mouth there. “A gorgeous, smart, fucking sexy-ass woman.”

  I curled my shoulder to my ear and smiled. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

  Tyler wrapped his arm around my shoulders and placed his lips atop my head. He stayed there for a long time before speaking. “I’m going to miss you. I’m going to miss all of this. Being up here with you is like another life.”

  The freight company arrived the next day as scheduled and loaded up the truck with various bins, duffel bags, and sporting goods. Tyler supervised that activity while the kids and I packed up the Jeep with snacks and a few remaining possessions before the sky opened up and it started to pour. Tyler quickly hugged the kids and then embraced me after they’d climbed into the car. Our conversation was rushed due to the rain, so I jumped in and opened the window halfway to say good-bye.

  “I’ll call you,” he said, shoulders hunched, water dripping from the rim of his baseball hat.

  I placed my palm on the window and nodded. Tyler ran to his car and waved before driving away. The fear of never seeing him again was debilitating.

  I drove the kids home in silence, thanks to the portable DVD player, but my mind was exploding with countless memories of my time with Tyler at the lake. My summer had begun with very few expectations other than relaxing and spending time with the kids, but my priorities had taken a drastic turn once Tyler became part of the equation. I shook my head at the thought of how quickly my plans for a quiet, stress-free summer had turned into such an emotional maelstrom. My heart ached as I wondered if he was disappearing from my life all over again.

  I dropped the kids off at their house around noon, hugging them until they begged me to stop, and managed to get out of there before Sammy announced Tyler’s return to the lake.

  The real drama began when I walked through my own front door and found my mother facedown on the garage floor.

  CHAPTER TEN

  She lifted her head from a huddled position on the cement ledge in front of her car with a Diet Coke in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She stood up as soon as she saw me, arms flailing, eyes glassy and wild. “Don’t tell them I’m in here,” she snapped angrily. “Go back inside, Chloe!”

  I looked over my shoulder and then back at her. “Mom, are you okay? Don’t tell who you’re in here. What is going on?” I asked, frightened, and tried to grab hold of her arm.

  “Would you be quiet already? They’re going to find me!”

  I jerked my head around quickly and studied the garage. It was empty and stifling from cigarette smoke. I needed to get her out of there. I lowered my voice and got close enough to smell her breath. Nothing. “Mom,” I began cautiously. “Can we please go inside and talk about this? You’re scaring me.”

  “If we go in the house, they’ll see us through the front window.”

  “Who will see us?” I asked.

  “The three federal agents who’ve been following me and drugging me.” She emphatically held up a ziplock bag filled with bottles of her prescriptions for Paxil and Ambien.

  My mother’s daily routine consisted of opening a can of Diet Coke and watching the Today show in the morning, General Hospital and Ellen in the afternoon, and whatever was on CBS in the evening. If she felt adventurous, she might leave the house and pick up Subway for lunch. On Sundays, she did her weekly trip to the grocery where she’d stock up on enough bread, Muenster cheese, and Diet Coke for the week. The only drugs in the house were her antidepressants, sleep aids, Tums, and Advil. I had years of experience dealing with drunkenness, but insanity was beyond me.

  I shook my head in disbelief. She wouldn’t stop moving. She was pacing the floor of the garage and shooing me to go back inside. I stood there for two minutes before running in the house and calling Grace.

  “Thank God you’re home,” I said, nearly panting. “My mom has lost it. Something is seriously wrong with her. Can you please come help me?”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  By the time Grace arrived, I’d been able to lure my mom back into the house by promising to close the blinds and lock the doors, and by agreeing not to touch the bag she was cradling. Grace and I spent over an hour trying to reason with her.

  “Should we call the paramedics?” Grace asked me.

  “I’m afraid she’ll completely self-destruct if strangers come in here and try to take her away. We need to find another way to get her to the hospital,” I said, and then it came to me.

  “Mom, I have an idea,” I said, following her as she walked in circles around the house, pausing only to light a cigarette and peek behind the curtains. “We need to get you to the hospital and have you tested so that we can find out what the agents are drugging you with.”

  She a
greed.

  As soon as the three of us walked into Evanston Hospital, my mother started telling anyone who would listen, “They’re trying to drug me.”

  It was enough to make the nurse at patient check-in look up from her computer screen. “These two are drugging you?” the nurse asked, pointing at Grace and me.

  “No, the federal agents. They came into my house and replaced my pills with drugs. They even stole clothes from me and rearranged my pantry.”

  The nurse shifted her gaze to me. I pointed my right index finger toward my head and began turning it in circles.

  “Okay, ma’am, let’s get you into a room.”

  The three of us were taken to a room and waited forty-five minutes for a doctor to come in and observe her. It took him only fifteen minutes to determine that she was having a nervous breakdown and needed to be admitted to the psych ward for observation. He brought Grace and me into the hallway to talk to us.

  “We’d like to admit her and get her off the drugs she’s carrying around, and on some antipsychotic medication as soon as possible,” he said.

  “Okay,” I mumbled as Grace wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

  “The only thing is that we can’t keep her against her will, so we’re going to need to get her to admit that she’s either a harm to herself or to others.”

  I could see her through the narrow window in the door, waving her hands around while talking to one of the nurses. She looked delicate and scared, and my heart broke for her.

  “Do you want me to talk to her?” I asked. “I think she’d be more comfortable with me.”

  “No, no, our staff will sit down with her. Once she admits she’s in danger of hurting herself or someone else, then they can sign the papers on her behalf.”

  I nodded and followed him back into the room.

  When I looked into her eyes, I realized she was not going to go down without a fight. The psych team’s questions were very pointed and direct, but she danced around all of them like a prima ballerina.

  “Have you had suicidal thoughts?” they’d ask.

  “Well, wouldn’t you if you were being drugged against your will?” she answered.

  “Are you depressed?”

  “Wouldn’t you be depressed if you were being followed and people were breaking into your home?” she’d say.

  “Have you thought about killing yourself?”

  “I’m a good Christian woman. I would never do something like that.”

  Four hours later, they’d won. She was beaten down and exhausted and begging for a cigarette. She eventually caved and admitted she’d had thoughts of suicide, and once she realized they had goaded her into saying it, she was pissed. I burst into tears as they took her away to the psych ward, kicking and screaming obscenities at me and everyone around her. To say it was the lowest point of my life would be a grandiose understatement.

  Grace took me home and made some coffee while I sat on the couch in silence and watched raindrops race down the window.

  “Do you want me to have my mom come over?” she asked.

  I shook my head no.

  When it came to our families, Grace and I had one thing in common: a nonexistent relationship with our biological fathers. But that’s where the similarities ended. Grace’s mother and her husband, who’d adopted Grace as a baby, were madly in love and functioned admirably as a nuclear family with no bombs. Grace’s family had also become the closest thing I had to loving relatives in this world.

  “How did this happen?” Tucked next to me on the couch, she finally had a chance to ask me.

  I sniffed. “She was hiding on the floor of the garage like a frightened kitten when I got back from the lake. Who knows how long she’d been there or would’ve been there had I not found her today. She sprung into defensive mode as soon as she realized she wasn’t alone.”

  Grace tilted her head to the side. “Had she been drinking?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I didn’t smell any alcohol on her. And I did a quick check around the house and can’t find any bottles. That’s the worst part about it. I think she’s sober.”

  Grace and I had met in my first week after I moved here from Florida. I’d been jogging past her house one day as she was shooting hoops in her driveway. I introduced myself as the new girl, and she asked me if anyone had ever told me I looked like Julia Roberts. I said yes, but not very often. We bonded over our height and our biological fathers’ absence. Since mom and I had moved to Glenview right after her stint in rehab, Grace was aware of what my mom and I had gone through. I opened up to Grace early on about what most of my childhood had been like, and how I was comfortable talking about it, but not comfortable living with it any longer. On more than one occasion, I had packed a bag for the weekend and taken refuge at Grace’s house. There were always family movie nights on Fridays and family dinners on Sundays. Her parents had what seemed to me to be the perfect relationship; yet, spending time with them didn’t make me jealous, it made me motivated.

  “I’m so sorry you had to come home to this.”

  “Me too,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “I’m supposed to move into my own apartment tomorrow. How can I possibly leave her alone at a time like this?”

  “You will; you have to, Chloe. Your new place isn’t far away, and it’s even closer to the hospital than you are now.”

  “I can’t just abandon her.”

  “She’d want you to stick to your plans.”

  I nodded, but I wasn’t convinced.

  “I mean it, you go move your stuff and check on her tomorrow when you’re done. Do you want me to get Patch and his friends to help you? I’ll get my mom to pay him, and he won’t be able to say no. My little brother can’t resist cash.”

  “No, thanks, I’m fine. It’s a furnished studio, so I really just have a few boxes and suitcases.”

  “Okay, let me know if you change your mind.” Grace leaned in, gave me a squeeze, and then sat back. “So tell me about your summer up at Camp Reed. From the few texts you sent me, it sounds like you had a great time,” she chided me. “I’m dying to hear about everything.”

  I had only given Grace a glimpse into what had happened between Tyler and me for two reasons. One, I didn’t want to give her all the details via text, and two, I was worried about getting ahead of myself and making too big a deal about it. Once he came back with Sadie, I was relieved I hadn’t told Grace every sordid detail.

  But now, sitting with my best friend, my sister, my family, I wanted her to know. “I think I’m in trouble.”

  She leaned back and cocked her head. “Why, what have you done?”

  “Fallen for the wrong guy.”

  I spent the next half hour picking chipped nail polish off my fingernails and bringing Grace up to speed on what had transpired at the lake. That Tyler and I had been left alone for a few days and that he’d kissed me. Then he disappeared and returned with Sadie, only to confess that he had feelings for me while she was asleep in the house. Finally, I told Grace how he eventually took Sadie home and came back to surprise me with sex in the yard. More than once. Hell, Grace and I used to joke about the crush I had on him. My one-sided schoolgirl fascination. As I told her the whole story, it occurred to me what a cliché it all was. By the time I was done talking, Grace’s expression was more frightened than mine had been when Dixie “Maleficent” Reed had busted me swapping spit with her prince.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked.

  Her mouth was agape. “I just can’t believe it.”

  “I know, right?” I said, motioning like I was about to high-five her and celebrate my one-night stand, but she left me hanging. “Grace, it’s fine.”

  “It’s really not. He shouldn’t have taken advantage of you like that.”

  “Whoa, he did not take advantage of me. I wanted him, you know I did.”

  “But he should know better,” she said.

  “Also, he has a girlfriend,” I said and burst out laughing at t
he absurdity of it all.

  She stared at me like I was huddled in the corner of the garage, hiding from federal agents. “I really don’t know why you’re laughing, Chloe. He took advantage of you, and I don’t like it one bit.”

  I wished she would stop saying that, so I cleared my throat and went in for the kill. The one thing she hated more than anything. The one statement that always sent her flailing into back-pedal mode. “I shouldn’t have told you,” I said and stood up.

  She shot up after me. “I’m sorry, but you know I’m only looking out for you, and he seems like a real shit. I can see in your face that you’re completely smitten with him.”

  She was right.

  “Please, Chloe, look what you just came home to. You have so much going on, and you start law school in a couple weeks…I just don’t want to see you get hurt. You know that,” Grace said and then gave me a good long hug.

  “Love you,” I said.

  “You too.”

  The next day I moved my stuff into my new apartment. I’d barely set down the last box when I had to dash out to meet with my mom’s doctor at the hospital. I hadn’t had anything to eat because nothing could fill the hole in my stomach.

  “How is she?” I asked, sitting across from him at his desk.

  “She’s doing much better. We gave her some Seroquel, which is typically used to treat symptoms of schizophrenia, although we’ve diagnosed her with delusional disorder.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Patients who have delusional disorder appear to function normally, but make unusually odd choices based on their delusional beliefs.”

  “Such as spending an afternoon on the garage floor to avoid imaginary law enforcement? Or whispering to the women at the dry cleaners not to wait on the man behind her in line because he’s one of them? Or hanging bed sheets over every window even though the blinds are already closed?”

  “Precisely,” he said. “We’re going to adjust her medication for the next few days to see where she functions best, but then she will be free to go.”

  I let out a breath that I’d been holding in. I was so relieved to hear that she’d be going home soon. Mom hated being out of her element. “Okay, thank you, doctor.”