I cannot wait for her to answer. I really, really, really hope she says yes. I like Adam a lot.
“Well, as a matter of fact, you do. He’s already in the class. Do you want to go and see him?”
I nod. I’m excited to see my new friend.
When we walk into the classroom, Adam is already there. He is sitting in the corner by himself, playing on a keyboard. His back is to me so I go and sit beside him.
“Hi Adam. What are you playing?” I ask. He looks up at me and grins. He does not say anything, but his eyes are blinking really fast. Sometimes his mouth twitches in a funny way. He points to the keyboard and bangs a song on the keyboard that does not sound good. Every once in a while, I think he might be singing, because he makes a funny noise in the back of his throat that sounds like hooting. But then he stops. It seems funny to me but I don’t care about the twitching or the hooting. Because he is my friend.
When Adam is finished the song, he gives me a big grin. I know he is proud of his song. He thinks it sounded good. I won’t tell him that it didn’t.
“Adam? Nate?” Miss Monica calls out to us. “Can you come over here, please?”
We both stand up and walk over to where Miss Monica is standing by the window. “This is Miss Debbie. She is one of the nurses here and is going to stay with us while we play on the xylophones.”
“Can I play my songs now?”
“Of course.” Miss Monica gets two xylophones off the shelf and hands one to me. I play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” as fast as I can.
“That’s great. Good job, Nate.” Miss Monica gives me a high five. “Now, Adam, would you like to play something?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know how.”
“I can teach him,” I offer. It is easy and I know Adam will be able to play it soon. “Here, Adam. You can just use the colours. I will show you which ones to hit. The first part is red, blue, green, blue, red, red, red. ” I bang out the first notes on the colours.
Adam tries next but screws up when he gets to green. He tries to hit it twice, even though you only hit it once. So I show him again. After five tries, he gets it right.
“Is that good?” I ask Miss Monica.
She smiles at me and brings me in for a hug. “Nate, you have no idea just how good that was. I can’t wait to tell your parents.”
Beside us, Adam starts hooting again.
I think that means he is happy too.
56
Ashley
“Everything okay today, Carty?” Jack asked me, popping into my office. “How’s it going, being back into the swing of things?”
“Like I never left,” I replied. I forced myself to grin at him.
“Good, good. Happy to hear it. We’ve missed you. This place has suffered since you’ve been gone.”
“Well, then, I’m glad to be back so that I can be more involved.”
“You won’t … you won’t be leaving again, will you?” Jack raised his right eyebrow and peered at me across my desk. He looked both skeptical and nervous, leaning in as he waited for my answer.
I forced myself to respond, pushing the image of Nate from my mind. “No. I’m back for good now.”
“Good, good …” Jack said again, half smiling, but not looking convinced.
After a moment, he cleared his throat, and started to ask me another question, but then quickly stopped. I sensed it was about what had taken me away for so long.
“Jack, I don’t mean to cut this short, but I’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” I interrupted, redirecting the conversation. “And I’ve got a client meeting at eleven. Don’t take this the wrong way, but can we catch up later?”
“Yeah, yeah. Of course. Plus, I’ll see you at the client dinner tonight anyway.”
“The client dinner?”
“Yes … didn’t Emily tell you? We’re having dinner with Brian, Mark, and Hannah,” Jack’s right eyebrow returned to its raised position, sensing my apprehension.
I shook my head. “I have a debrief meeting with her, but it isn’t until three o’clock.”
“Well, she’ll tell you there. We’re going to Sassafraz at seven. Don’t be late.” Jack stood to leave the room.
My pulse quickened, and I felt the innate need to please my boss begin to take over. It was one of the reasons I’d always had a tough time saying no, especially to Jack. And it was also why I was often away from my family at night.
I took a quick breath, and responded swiftly. “It’s too bad that I didn’t know about the dinner sooner. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to go tonight as I have a previous commitment.”
“Not go tonight? Of course you’re going tonight. You’re back, Carty. We need you. And it’s a big client dinner. It’s important that you be there.” Jack started to leave the room.
“I’m sorry, Jack. But I can’t. As I said, I have a previous commitment.”
“To whom? What is more important than work?”
“My family,” I responded clearly. I looked Jack straight in the eyes and my voice did not falter. “I’m here all day today. And I will be tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. And I’ll work late and on weekends when a client needs me to deliver on creative. But tonight? I’ll be home with my family. I didn’t know about the dinner. If I had known earlier, I could have made other arrangements. But I didn’t, and I’ve promised my family I will be home to eat with them. So you’ll have to go ahead without me this time. It’s only dinner, not working on their business, and I’ll see them again soon enough.”
Jack hesitated. He squinted his eyes, and I started to wonder if he’d had it with me and my absent ways. I was walking on thin ice, and I wondered if I’d gone too far.
“Fine. Whatever. Tell Ben he needs to be at the dinner.” Jack practically grunted the words as he started to leave my office.
Then, just before he walked out of the door, he paused and turned to look at me. “Carty? Just promise me you won’t leave us for good, okay? This place really isn’t the same without you. No one’s got the same talent or grit.”
I nodded, grinning at my boss and relieved to see Jack show me his cards: he needed me. Even more than I needed him. And he was prepared to be flexible when I needed to put my family first.
“I promise, Jack. I’ll be back in the office tomorrow at nine o’clock. Right after I’ve had breakfast with my kids.”
“Fine. We’ll catch up then.” Jack waved his right hand in the air and was gone.
57
That night, the four of us sat around the dinner table as Nate talked eagerly about his time at school.
“So, really, Adam and I just got to play all day. Even though it was school! Can you believe that, Mom? Can you? We played all kinds of music and then played with Play-Doh. We made all kinds of stuff, and the nurse loved my elephant the most. I could tell. She asked all kinds of questions about it, and said that she liked that my elephant was laughing and having fun with the rhinoceros that Adam made.”
Hearing of the elephant sculpture Nate had made at school, my mind flew to the picture that Nate had drawn before being admitted into the hospital. I looked up and glanced at the fridge; the picture was no longer there. The angry elephant in the sky was gone.
I returned my eyes to my son, smiling at him and taking in his joy. The new medication was working, and he’d made a new friend. Life was good.
“That’s really great, honey! I’m so glad you’re happy. How about you, Grace? How was your day?”
“It was awesome. Because I got to start in my volleyball game again even though everyone else wanted to …” Grace launched into a full report of her game, with great detail around all the points she scored. According to her confident self, she’d practically won the game all on her own.
“How about you, Ash? How was being back to work?” Pete asked, grabbing more asparagus tips.
&n
bsp; “It was good. Really good, actually. It was great to be involved again, and we had an amazing brainstorming session this afternoon. The team is going to be working tonight on the creative, and I’ll circle back in the morning to see how far they’ve come. We’ll get there …” I smiled at Pete. Both of us knew that if it had been a few months before, I would have stayed to ensure we reached the right solution.
But I hadn’t been prepared to give up my family dinner for anything, or anyone. If the creative wasn’t strong, we’d start again. We’d beg for an extension, if absolutely necessary. But we’d get there.
“How about some ice cream for dessert?” Pete asked, clearing the table and heading for the freezer. “A little birdie told me that you kids might like to have some Candy Cane Chocolate Fudge.”
“Yeah!” both kids yelled at the same time. Nate whistled a five-note tune to show his glee. It was the second time he’d done it since I got home, and it was new for him. I wondered where he’d picked it up.
“Crazy to think Christmas is right around the corner,” Pete continued as we all spooned up the minty sweetness of the ice cream. It was a long-standing family favourite that always appeared on the shelves of grocery stores in early December. Nate was licking his bowl.
“No kidding.” I swallowed, feeling a slight sense of panic when I realized we had about two weeks until Christmas Eve. With all that we had gone through with Nate, it had come up so fast. We needed to get our tree and buy presents and decorate the house and hang lights … the list was endless.
“Can I get a xylophone?” Nate asked excitedly. His lips were outlined in chocolate. “Miss Monica says I’m really good at it. I want to practice at home, too.”
“Put it in your letter to Santa,” I said, laughing. I stood to help Pete clear the table. “Maybe he’ll bring you one.”
“I think it’s going to be an awesome Christmas. With all we’ve been through, I’m really looking forward to it this year,” Pete said as we loaded the dishwasher. He continued in a hushed voice so the kids wouldn’t hear. “It’s a new beginning for us, Ash. A new life. And maybe one that should include others we haven’t seen in a long time.”
I held the spoon I was about to load in mid-air and stared at my husband. I knew what he was alluding to, and I didn’t want to talk about it.
“Your dad’s stable now, Ashley. And the last time I talked to him he told me that he’s desperate to see you again. To explain things. And to be in your life again. But, well … I don’t think he knows what to say. If we invited him here … if we extended an olive branch, I think he’d come.”
I began to protest, but Pete cut me off. “Don’t answer now. Just think about it. We could invite him here for a few days over the holidays. I think it would be good for everyone in our family, not just you.”
By everyone, I knew he meant Nate. Of course, Grace missed her grandfather as well, but Nate had been hit the hardest by my father no longer being in our lives. The two of them had always shared a special bond, and it was Nate who always brought up his name and asked when he was coming back. Nate had never stopped obsessing over every gift my dad had ever given him before we’d kicked him out on that awful Christmas Eve.
The more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I felt. The anxiety was turning my neck into a mosaic of patchy red skin, and I didn’t want to think about it for one minute more. I knew Pete had a point about reconnecting, but despite everything I had learned about my father, I still didn’t know if I could handle reconciling with the parent who had practically abandoned his daughter when she had needed him the most.
“I don’t know. We’ll see,” I said curtly, shutting down the conversation. Offering a “maybe” was all I could promise him at that moment. It was all I was ready for. The rest would have to wait.
58
The days leading up to Christmas flew by at the speed of Santa’s sleigh as Pete and I scrambled to get ready. Nate continued to do well in school, adjusting to his new classroom at Henry Lewis more and more each day. We hadn’t seen him so happy and well balanced in years. He continued to see Dr. Aldridge, although she had recently suggested that he could begin to see her less frequently. His response to the new meds fell well within the best-case scenario Dr. Aldridge had offered us, and even she was astounded by Nate’s progress.
Pete didn’t press the suggestion of inviting my father for Christmas again, and I was silently relieved to not have to think about it. Although we were both excited about the holidays and how well Nate was doing, every day was a new day, and we never knew what we would get. Dr. Aldridge had warned us repeatedly that something unexpected could trigger a setback, or even a really bad day. Regardless of my own feelings about reconnecting with my father, I didn’t know how something as major as a visit with his grandfather would impact Nate’s progress.
On the Friday night before Christmas, we invited Tay’s family over for hot chocolate and Christmas cookies. It was the first social activity we’d engaged in with people outside of our immediate family since Nate had come home from the hospital. I was nervous about what could happen, but we needed to start somewhere. And Tay’s family felt like an extension of our own, so they were the perfect choice.
“Why don’t you want to tell anyone? What are you so worried about?” Tay asked me that night, taking a sip of her wine. We were sitting across from each other, next to the glowing fire that burned hot underneath a mantle of evergreen and white twinkly lights. Our husbands were downstairs with the kids, playing a game of Twister and eating gummy worms.
“Protecting Nate. He’s suffered so much already. The kids in his old class were crueler than I could have ever imagined. Just because he wasn’t acting ‘normal.’ And now that we know what we’re dealing with, I don’t know that it will stop, just because Nate’s symptoms have. Mental illness isn’t something the world accepts with open arms. The minute everyone knows … really knows, well, I’m worried about how they will treat him. If they will accept him, or if they will be malicious, just as they were before. As long as I protect the truth, I can protect my son.”
“But Nate’s at a new school now.”
“I know. And it’s been wonderful for him. I’ve never seen him so happy. But he can’t stay there forever. Sooner or later we’ll need to integrate him back into a regular classroom.”
“Believe me, I absolutely understand the need to protect your children. And I know you have Nate’s best interests at heart. But you can’t keep the secret forever. If you do, Nate will start to think of it as just that. A secret. He’ll think he shouldn’t tell anyone either. Which will make him feel like it’s a bad thing that he should be embarrassed about. And he shouldn’t. Bipolar disorder is just like any other disease that any of us could suddenly be diagnosed with. It isn’t anyone’s fault, and it’s certainly not something to be embarrassed about.”
I took a big sip of my wine and thought about what Tay was saying. The last thing I wanted to do was make Nate feel embarrassed about the hand he’d been dealt. While he would need to come to terms with his disease, and I suspected that would happen in different ways as he grew older, I never, ever wanted him to feel embarrassed by it. Or, for one split second, think that I was.
“Ashley, you’re his mother. If you’re not the one standing by his side and acting one hundred percent committed to Nate and all that he’s been dealt, who will? He’s going to feed off your actions. If you don’t tell anyone, he won’t either. And over time he’ll think that it’s something he shouldn’t talk about. I don’t know what the future holds, or if Nate will suffer because some ignorant idiot doesn’t fully understand mental illness, but you’ll deal with that when it comes.”
“I don’t know …” I responded, taking another sip of wine. “I’m not sure he’s ready for that.”
“Just think about it. You don’t need to do anything tomorrow, but soon the day will come. I think you should let Nate be
proud of who he is. Mental illness and all. Good or bad, it’s a part of him. And none of us should ever be ashamed of anything that is a part of us.”
“You’re right about that,” I answered simply.
“Of course I’m right. As always,” Tay said, laughing. She helped herself to the bottle of wine sitting in front of us, filling my glass first and then her own.
“Mommy?” A little voice behind me asked. “Can I go to my room for a bit?”
I turned to see Nate standing behind us. He looked like he was near tears. “Of course, honey. Is everything okay?”
Nate shook his head and ran up the stairs. I glanced at Tay, hoping he hadn’t heard what we’d been talking about, and went up the stairs after him. He had crawled in bed and buried himself underneath his duvet and pillow.
“Nate?” I asked, peaking underneath his covers. “Everything okay?”
When he didn’t respond, I crawled in with him and gave him a hug. I decided to wait until he was ready to talk to me and tell me what was on his mind. It was the first time since being in the hospital that he’d had a sudden mood shift, and I didn’t want to push him.
After about five minutes, he said to me in a very quiet voice, “Mommy? What is bipoly disease?”
“Bipoly?” I asked. My heart screeched to a standstill. Pete and I still hadn’t fully told Nate about his diagnosis. We felt he was too young. But he’d clearly heard something.
“Yeah. What you and Auntie Tay were talking about. I came up for some more hot chocolate and I heard you tell her that I have a disease. Bipoly disease. Am I going to die?”
“Oh sweetie, no!” I sat up and pulled Nate into my lap. His moment of truth was about to find him, whether I liked it or not.
“Then what’s wrong with me? Everyone keeps pretending like everything is okay. But it isn’t! I know it isn’t. You don’t stay in the hospital if everything’s okay. Why can’t you just tell me?” Nate looked up with eyes as round as saucers, full with tears.
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