We spoke just a few weeks before she tried to end her life. I’d phoned her from LA.
“Hey, Lynn, how’re you feeling?”
“Well, actually not so good . . . These latest meds aren’t working. I’ve lost my thoughts again, I can’t even get out of bed, and my doctor said—”
“I know what that asshole said, honey. We’ll find a different doctor. They’re going to figure this out, sweetheart, don’t worry. You’re going to be okay, you always are,” I said, repeating the same old tired refrain.
“Yeah, I know, but also . . . Erick moved out last week. He had to go back home to be with his family.”
“Oh, shit, Lynn, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. It’s a little lonely here without him. I mean, I know it’ll be fine, but I guess . . . well, to be honest, I’m pretty down about it. And not that I would ever act on them or anything, but the last few days, like for the first time ever, I’ve been having some suicidal thoughts.” She said it like she had been thinking of getting her car washed.
But the word hung, unmoving, in the air. “Suicidal” was taboo; never, in the twenty-five years of her illness, had that word escaped past her Lahti smile. The avoidance of it felt instinctual, like the need to look away when passing a crushed dog on the side of the road.
“Wait, what are you saying, Linda? Seriously?”
“No! Don’t worry, Chris, they’re just thoughts, not like a plan or anything . . . nothing more!” she insisted, extinguishing the words as quickly as she’d ignited them.
“Okay, but are you sure you would never, in a million years—”
“No, never. I promise. That’s not an option for me, that will never happen!”
“Linda, you’re going to get through this, okay? You have to trust that!” I said, sounding a lot like our parents. “You know I’m here for you always, right?”
“I know. Don’t worry. I’ll be okay,” she reassured me. I suddenly pictured her, our perfect little sister, going from room to room down that long hallway to make sure we were all okay.
There was a pause. It could have been for five seconds or for thirty-five. Then one of us changed the subject. I don’t remember who. Of course I don’t. It’s much too painful to imagine that it could very well have been me.
I believed her. I had to. The alternative was unthinkable. I trusted that she would find her footing again, like she always had. I actually thought her confession helped her somehow . . . you know, like those little earthquakes that let off just enough pressure to prevent the big one?
“Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning,” the actress sang softly from the stage.
Sometime after we spoke, things must have gotten so bad that she decided she’d had enough. I tried to imagine that day. When she woke up, maybe she didn’t see the sunlight that flooded through her drawn floral curtains. As usual, she had to lug herself out of bed. She didn’t think to play a Mozart string quartet or a Joni Mitchell song; even they’d long since failed to stir anything inside her. She could barely look at her Carole King poster, as if it was a former friend who’d betrayed her long ago.
She took a shower, but as usual the hot water didn’t soothe her. She washed her hair but didn’t bother to rinse enough to get all the soap out. Instinctively she started to blow-dry it, and then the absurdity almost made her smile. She began to put on the deep-red lipstick she’d splurged on months ago but instead dropped it, opened, into the dirty sink. She even tried to force the diamond ring that Mom had given her onto her bloated finger, but the effort exhausted her.
She fed her cat extra food and then hugged her tightly but didn’t notice the warmth of her body or the tenderness in her purr. She thought for a second about having her usual plain, nonfat yogurt but instead ate what was left of her four-cheese pizza from the night before. She couldn’t taste it, so she threw it away. Anyway, it didn’t matter, it was important that she had an empty stomach. Nothing mattered anymore except her plan.
For a moment, she considered calling Erick or Jim but knew there would be no comfort in their voices, no hope left in their claims of love. That had dried up long ago. She ran through the short list of people she used to value, but none of them could distract her from her mission. Besides, she hadn’t been able to really picture anyone for quite a while. Her despair was pure and blinding. It had even turned her turquoise walls, painted to match her beloved lake in Michigan, into a dull gray.
Perhaps she opened a few windows to air out the smell of garbage she’d neglected to take out. Maybe she stepped over the pools of clutter on her floor to unlock her door so she could be found more easily. But what were her final thoughts before she got that tall glass of water and opened the three large bottles of lithium that she’d been saving up? Was there one last flicker of promise when a car drove by, blaring music that used to make her weep? Did she urgently try to recall just one person or thing that used to make her laugh? Did she wonder in those final moments if she mattered to anyone?
Or maybe she was unaware of anything but the urgency of her clear, singular purpose: to end the pain, finally just end the pain. So she swallowed all of the pills, carefully wrote down her bank account numbers, instructions that my brother could have her car, and that whoever found her, to please notify her therapist and take care of her cat. Then she got into her bed, pulled her comforter over her, and just . . . waited.
“Slipping through my fingers all the time, Do I really see what’s in her mind . . .”
But the doctors said they were hopeful; that if all went well, we could talk to her in the morning. But what will I say to her? I’m going to fly to Dallas tomorrow, but what if she doesn’t want to see me? What if she’s devastated to learn that her suicide failed? What do I say to her then? I’m so sorry you tried to kill yourself, but we’ve decided that you can’t. I hope you don’t mind, but you’re going to have to continue with this life that you’ve already determined to be unlivable.
How am I going to try to convince her that being alive is worth it? Isn’t this something she gets to decide?
Then, as the show ends and the curtain calls begin, my brother phones me. I pick up. “She didn’t make it, Chris,” he tells me. “Her heart just stopped.”
I can’t hear the orchestra. I can’t hear the applause. I can only see in my mind a photograph of my sister. She is at her kindergarten graduation, her long blond hair blowing beneath her tiny white tasseled cap. She’s laughing. With her eyes squinting into the sun, she’s looking slightly off to the side, as if distracted by the limitless possibilities of her life.
The audience has leaped to its feet to give a standing ovation. Surrounded by screams of “Bravo, bravo!” I can’t help but think, Brava, my little sister. Brava, you tried so hard—for so long.
With Emma pressed close to my side, my arm cocooned around her, I walk slowly up the crowded aisle, softly singing to myself:
“The feeling that I’m losing her forever, and without really entering her world, slipping through my fingers all the time, slipping through my fingers all the time.”
Then I take my daughter’s hand and hold it as tightly as I can.
A few days later, all of us siblings gather in Dallas for her memorial. Our parents have already both passed. Of course our sister waited for them to go first. Jim and I go to clean out the small wood-framed house that Dad bought for Linda. It’s like a hoarder’s home. Each room is filled with stacks of old magazines, notebooks brimming with plans and strategies, and hundreds of travel brochures. Cockroaches crawl over everything. On her nightstand I notice a wrinkled note next to the book The Power of Positive Thinking. I open it slowly, holding my breath. Inside are her last words.
I couldn’t beat the illness this time. I’ve lost my soul and my thinking. My mind just won’t go on. I wish I didn’t have to end my life but this illness has taken its toll on me. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.
Maybe her last day was the opposite of everything I imagined. Perhaps she w
oke up that morning feeling more strength and clarity than she had in years because, at long last, she, not her mental illness, had control. I think of the countless days, weeks, possibly years, she might have spent trying to come up with reasons not to kill herself.
I carefully fold the note back up and put it in my pocket. Across the room in a corner, I see a collection of miniature lighthouses. I never even knew she collected those. How perfect, I think . . . lighthouses, with their beacons of safety for those who have lost their way. Most of them are dark, although there are a few that flicker on and off. But in the back, behind all the others, I notice one very simple, elegant, white-shingled lighthouse covered with tiny dead cockroaches. It shines with a faint but steady light, its batteries refusing to die.
20
Waiting
I am a middle-aged actress. In Hollywood, that’s like saying you’re mold: toxic and invisible. Hollywood’s glass ceiling of ageism is virtually unshatterable. So how did I, this kick-ass, feminist activist who wouldn’t take shit from anyone, deal with that? I did the only logical, proactive thing I could think of: I grabbed my phone and called . . . a plastic surgeon. And another. And another. And another—because so far, I’ve never been able to follow through with it.
In the reception area, waiting to meet with a brand-new doctor for my tenth consultation, I hide behind a People magazine. My head starts to spin. I look at my watch: it’s already been an hour. Okay, as long I can get out of here in thirty minutes, I’ll be able to jump on the 405 and still get to the rally in time. I glance around the room. Jesus, don’t they have a private waiting area for celebrities? I slide farther down into my chair. Just don’t make eye contact with anyone. But no one is looking at me anyway; they are all buried in their magazine articles about Jennifer Love Hewitt’s exposed cellulite. I want to make myself a nice Roma Nespresso at the coffee buffet, but I don’t dare get up. I’m trapped in a waiting-room prison.
A new inmate walks in. Shit, it’s an actress I worked with last year. I don’t want her to see me here. I drop my magazine onto the coffee table, inadvertently looking down into the table’s mirrored surface. I nearly shriek. Oh my God, when did I become a Shar-Pei?
I hightail it into the bathroom and lock the door. With the overhead fluorescent lighting, I know better than to even glance in this sadistic mirror. I close the faux-mahogany lid on the toilet. I sit down and hold my melting face in my sweaty hands. What’re you doing? Why do you keep making these idiotic appointments? This is against everything you believe in! Remember your proudest moment, when Rush Limbaugh called you a feminazi? What the hell are you doing hiding in the bathroom of a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon’s office?
Somebody knocks. “Sorry—be right out!” I flush the toilet, just to sound busy. I bend over, fluff my hair extensions, slip on my Oliver Peoples sunglasses, and slink back into the waiting room. I check in with the receptionist again.
“So sorry, Ms. Lahti, but the doctor’s had a few emergencies this morning, so he’s running a bit behind,” she says in a nasal, upper-crust British accent.
Why does every fucking receptionist in a plastic surgeon’s office sound like Maggie Smith? This woman is probably from Brooklyn. And what emergencies? Did a nose fall off? Did a boob pop? I flop back down in my upholstered chair in the corner, burying my head in an US Weekly magazine. Flipping through, I count a hundred pictures of stars with nose jobs and fake breasts in designer gowns. I think back to my very first consult, for a nose job the summer after I graduated from high school.
My dad had arranged the appointment back in Detroit with a plastic surgeon friend of his. The previous summer, a local modeling agent had announced that she’d only represent me if I got a nose job. It had never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with my nose. This doctor didn’t quite get it, either. So I left deciding that I’d just live with mine, despite its modeling-career-killing deformities. I may have asked the surgeon, however, if there was anything he could do to make me shorter. He laughed. But I think I meant it.
Then after a long, blissful consultation break, at forty-three I went in for one about a boob job. I had just finished breastfeeding my twins, and my breasts looked like a couple of deflated balloons. I had two options—I could just make peace with them, or I could get some “restorative surgery.” Certainly there was no harm in putting them back as they were? I could’ve still been a card-carrying feminist and have done that, right?
But still ashamed about my plan, I told no one. I quietly did my research and talked to three different doctors (all men). They each did the “pencil test.”
“When a pencil is placed under a properly suspended breast, it should fall to the floor. However, if the pencil remains under the breast, surgery is highly recommended,” they advised me.
I failed the test miserably every time. They brought out a variety pack of implants. I wanted the smallest, most natural ones that would still do the job. I wanted to be the one woman on the planet with completely undetectable implants. I scheduled the surgery.
Then, the day before, a girlfriend who’d had hers done came over to my house to ease my anxiety. She lifted her T-shirt.
“Look, Christine, see how real they look? Go ahead and touch them.”
Really? I thought. She wants me to touch them? I was forty-three, and I know I went to college in the 1960s, but I’d never touched another woman’s breast before, that I remember. Okay, I thought. This is weird, but kind of cool, I guess.
She laughed. “Don’t be afraid, they won’t bite.” They were perched so high on her chest that she could have used them for a chin rest. “See how soft and natural they feel?”
I patted something that felt like an overly inflated basketball.
“Uh, uh. Wow. Yeah, you’re right, totally.” I dug my hands back into the safety of my pockets.
That evening I had a nightmare about having to wear an extra-large puffy coat to hide my Dolly Parton–size fake boobs while speaking at an event for Barbara Boxer. As I spoke, my chest got bigger and bigger until I started to rise above the podium. As I floated above a sea of horrified, judgmental women, I began to scream. I woke up drenched in sweat. But it’s my body, I told myself. I can do what I want with it!
The next morning, however, still terrorized by the Dolly Parton dream and that friend’s basketball boob, I canceled my surgery. Several months later, my breasts actually went back to almost normal all on their own. So, doctors, you can take your No. 2 pencils and shove them where the sun don’t shine!
But I look back and wonder . . . what was I so scared of? I had no plans to ever display my breasts onstage or screen, or to anyone but my husband, for that matter. Could I not feel sexy anymore unless I had Barbie-doll boobs? Was I going to let gravity determine my self-esteem? As I grew older, I really didn’t give a shit that my breasts had drooped a little. In fact, at least in the boob department, I felt sexier inside my authentic, albeit aging body.
However, I’m now in the waiting room for my tenth consultation about my turkey neck and dangly face. I pick up US Weekly. Great, Jessica Simpson lost eighty pounds in three days. Wait, how did she . . . ? Jesus. I drop the magazine on the floor. The waiting room is now full. It’s time to throw my weight around. Don’t they know who I am? I walk up to the receptionist again. “Excuse me, how much longer? I’m in a huge—”
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Lahti, but the doctor’s running a—”
“I know, you told me. ‘A bit behind,’” I mumble to myself. Goddamn it! I walk over and make myself a coffee. I see some candy in a crystal bowl. As I eat my fifth mini Tootsie Roll, I break out in a sweat and have a sugar-induced flashback.
I’ve just sat down with a group of women at a big round table. It’s a Beverly Hills fundraiser luncheon for Hillary Clinton, who is running for senator. We are in the dark, listening to a boring speech given by some very cut-up rich older lady. I’m two white wines in when I lean over to my table and blurt out, “You know, as we age, I figure we have t
wo options: we can either look old or we can look weird like that, right?” I tip my glass toward the speaker as I sip my drink, clueless. “Well, I’m going for looking old. When I see someone so obviously nipped and tucked, it seems like she’s just wearing her fear on her face, don’t you think?”
Crickets.
The woman sitting next to me, her face unmoving, says, “Well, honey, I’d rather look weird.” Then the eight other stretched, puffer-fish faces turn to stare at me, nodding, trying their best to smile.
Back in the waiting room, suddenly, the door opens. A beautiful young woman walks in. She looks at most thirty-five. The woman sitting next to me catches me watching this young woman.
“I know, youth is wasted on the young,” she whispers. “I’m Catherine. It’s okay. I recognize you. I’m an actress too. What are you here for?”
“Oh, nothing, no. I’m not really here. I mean, I’m here, but not for anything. Just like a consultation or something. I have a . . . a questionable mole on my back,” I say as I pick up a People magazine.
“Yeah, sure, right, me too. But let’s admit it, women our age, it’s about time we do a little something-something, am I right?” She chuckles.
I’m about to laugh with her when an older woman with a swollen, catlike, severely pulled face enters. “Oh my God. I know her,” I whisper to my new actress friend. “She was a famous sitcom actress about twenty years ago. Wow, talk about a cautionary tale.” Catherine looks over. She is about to gasp when I go on, “But you know, it’s not her fault. She didn’t do that to herself. Our fucking culture did it to her!”
“I get it,” said Catherine. “I’ve been having a fight with my face for years.”
“Me too, but won’t it just get worse if no one ever sees a real, mature female face on the screen?”
“You know what? You’re right. We should all go on a plastic surgery strike! Fuck the patriarchy!”
True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness Page 15