Chapter 57. The Anchor That Holds Me
The littlest Sloan turns a year old near the end of January. Mark and Addison throw a party for Henry and, like Kate's first birthday, keep it small and simple. This time though, it is as much a celebration of Henry as it is a celebration that they clawed their way through a tough year, and would not have been able to do so without the support of their family and closest friends.
Henry gets a "smash cake" primarily for the cute factor (it has to be clarified multiple times that yes, there are cookies and cupcakes for everyone else, just relax). Mark and Addison know their son loves his stuffed teddy bear (Teddy), so they opt for a small, single-layered cake with a polar bear face. Henry stops fussing with the felt crown on his head as soon as Mark places the cake in front of him. He goes slowly at first, just tentatively pinching at the frosting, but becomes more ambitious once he discovers how good it tastes. Henry and his high-chair both get very messy, very quickly. Frosting and cake crumbs adorn Henry's mouth, chin, the tip of his nose, and somehow almost all of his arms.
Henry peeks up when he hears a swell of noise, a bit unsure about the collection of people cooing and staring at him. But then his eyes find Mama. He smiles sweetly at Addison while experimentally squeezing more cake in one of his chubby fists.
Addison smiles back so widely she can feel an ache blossoming in her cheeks. It is hard to imagine there was a period of time when this little boy wasn't her whole world.
"Night, little man." Mark bends down to peck his son on the forehead. "Happy birthday. Hey…" he chuckles when Henry's eyebrows furrow and his lips pout to reveal his utter discontent that Addison has stopped rocking for a moment so Mark can say goodnight. "Wow, that's a dirty look. Where'd you learn that one?"
"From his sister when she's told she isn't allowed to leave the table until she finishes her vegetables. Or anytime she's told 'no,' actually," Addison replies with a closed-mouthed smile. "That's my guess, at least." She pushes off her toes again to resume rocking Henry. Her son blinks up at her with heavy eyes. "Can you look at that really quick?" Addison lifts her chin towards the changing table, where she has left her phone. "I saw it light up a minute ago. I'm guessing it's my mom."
"Sure. Let's see…" Mark steps over to check. "Yep. It's from her. She says she had a great time with us this weekend. And she just got to Logan and her friend has picked her up. Do you want me to text anything back?"
"No, it's okay. Henry won't be awake much longer, so I'll just respond once he's down." Addison's lips twitch to the side, which Mark knows means that she is deeply contemplating something. "I wonder if…should I have asked my mom what kind of friend this is that she's visiting in Beacon Hill? And if this is a male companion or a female companion? Also…" she peers down at her son. "Apparently today is my birthday too and I turned one-hundred years old, because I don't think people actually say the word companion anymore."
Mark grins weakly. "Hopefully your mom's companion-friend is just someone still legally allowed to drive at night."
"True," Addison murmurs. "Today was such a good day. And this was a good weekend. Anyway. I'm sure he'll pass out soon, so I'll be down in a few…"
Mark nods and takes this as his cue to leave. It's funny – after everything they have been through together, after everything they have shared – they still feel too self-conscious to sing in front of one another. It is this way when it comes to singing their babies to sleep, at least.
Kate heard a lot Beatles songs from Addison. She also whisper-sang some Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, and whatever else she could pull from the recesses of her brain during colicky meltdowns. And for something more modern, Taylor Swift.
What Henry hears while Addison is rocking him to sleep is more limited. Throughout the summer, it was the occasional Beatles tune or a pitchy version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It could be argued it is a limited catalog because Henry falls asleep easily and is fine with instrumental lullabies pulled from Spotify. (And also limited because Depeche Mode has been banned. "Personal Jesus" made Henry wiggle his whole body and laugh hysterically whenever Addison would deepen her voice to say, "reach out and touch faith," but it for damn sure did not make him sleepier.)
But realistically, it's a limited catalog because Addison likes to sing "You Are My Sunshine" to Henry. Not the entirety of the song – just the part everyone knows. Over and over and over. Luckily, Henry is a fan. It puts him to sleep when he is cuddled in his mother's arms, when he hears that he makes his mother happy, when he hears that he will never know how much his mother loves him.
Mark isn't quite sure how he got frosting on the back of his neck, but he did, so he hops into the shower after saying goodnight to the little boy who is absolutely the reason why his neck and back now smell like vanilla.
"Hey…" Addison pokes her head into the shower not longer after the water has started rushing over him. "Are you almost done?"
"Yes, but I don't have to be…" and then Mark's suggestive smirk fades when he notices her expression, the jerky movements of her fingers twisting around one another. "Hey…" he lowers his voice. "I'll be right out. Go put something comfy on and lie down. I'll be there in a sec, okay?"
"Sorry about that. I didn't mean to rush you," Addison pipes up from beneath the comforter when Mark makes his way over to her after throwing on a shirt and sweats. "Or…" she manages to give him a weak smile. "Or give you the impression I'd be joining you. I should have waited, but I just…I just really needed this."
"Don't be sorry." Mark knows what this is, of course. He slides into bed and holds an arm out for her. Addison shifts over immediately, lining her body against his and resting her head on his chest. "I've got you. What's going on?" His arms scoop around her, one framing the crest of her hip and the other stroking her back, offering comfort.
"I'm okay. It was…I know I said it already, but it was a good day. A good day and a really good weekend. And…an emotional one too, I guess. This past year with Henry, this past year in general…" she pauses to gather her thoughts. It takes a moment. "I really am okay. I'm just, you know. Feeling some feelings. Big Feelings for my sweet boy. And we talked about it before, but Henry's birthday is still a significant milestone, so I just…I just wanted you to know I'm still planning to stay on my medication for now."
"I know. And that's fine. All that matters is that you feel good."
Addison's fingers grasp at one of his shoulders. "I know…I know it wasn't the easiest year for you either though."
"I'm okay, Red. I promise."
"Okay. And I'm okay too, Mark. I'm happy. And I feel good and I'm relaxed. But being those things all at once is making me have some feelings, so I thought I might start crying and I didn't want…I wanted you to be with me rather than trying to get frosting off your back – a truly remarkable feat, by the way. So, anyway. As usual…" Addison's tone shifts to include some humor. "It's all about me."
"I'm glad you came and told me," Mark says gently. "And now that I'm here, I'm just going to keep hugging you and rubbing your non-frosting back. Just tell me if you need anything else."
She adjusts her cheek on his chest, lips warming his skin through the cotton of his shirt. "Just this."
Mark eventually feels her grow heavier in his embrace, and can sense the shift in her breathing as slumber begins to overtake her. "Doing okay?" he asks, poking hesitantly at her shoulder. He hates to startle her when her mind has finally reached enough peace to welcome in sleep, but he wants to make sure she feels settled before he lets himself close his eyes.
"Yeah…" Addison mumbles when he quietly repeats the question. Her voice is slurry with fatigue as she speaks. "Better. I was just thinking – or dreaming, I'm not sure which – that I love all three of you and you're equally important to me. And I'm sure you and Kate are each a word or a description that I can't think of at the moment, because you all make me happy, but Henry is just…he's my sunshine boy. He's my sunshine."
Mark smiles and touches his lips to her hairline as she starts to fall back to sleep, warm and safe in his arms. "Henry's your sunshine," he repeats quietly.
Addison missed out on a lot of the early days with Henry. It is hard to honestly remember anything other than feeling equal parts sad and numb. She tracks the milestones carefully now. She knows it is because of some residual guilt, but mostly it is because she loves her son and is so proud of him.
Henry takes his first independent steps that April in Cape Cod. There are plenty of falls as he tries to make his way through the sand, but he laughs and laughs each time he finds himself sprawled on his belly.
He is clapping, pointing to some of his body parts when prompted, and turning pages in books by early June.
Mama, Dada, hi, and bye are uttered before Henry's first birthday. And then an explosion of language comes that spring with new words: moon, no, ball, uh-oh, duck, baba (bottle), and Tate.
"I knew that was going to come back to haunt us," Addison tells Mark once Henry has started to say his sister's name in the closest way he knows how. Tate-Tate-Tate all the time because Henry adores his big sister.
"What was?"
Addison scowls at him. "Tate."
"Why would…? Oh. Oh."
"Yeah. That damn CPR doll."
Addison tracks her own progress as well. Not day-by-day, but each month it does cross her mind how long she has been on Zoloft. She hits fifteen months that June, and with the support of her psychiatrist, therapist, Mark, and her closest friends, she weans off the medication. It isn't particularly easy. Even with slow-paced reductions, the withdrawal symptoms are brutal at first, and it takes about six weeks before she swallows half of a pill for the final time.
Her mental health doesn't waver after that. Yes, like any person, she experiences her share of obstacles, anxiety, situational sadness, and Big Feelings. She is still here though. It all might have crumbled down once, but it has been rebuilt, even if little repairs need to be made now and again. There are some days where Addison thinks she honestly could benefit from an SSRI, but it is just days and moments, nothing consistent or persistent. She continues to check in with her therapist, usually every few months, but more often if she thinks she needs to. Whenever guilt creeps in, she reminds herself that she feels the things she feels – and has felt the things she has felt – because she is human. Her heart beats and her blood travels and air moves in and out of her lungs. All of this because she is real. And mental illnesses and struggles are as real as any other kind of ailment.
Addison never feels anything like That again, but she will always remember the pain. It was a dark, isolating time, especially before she got help. And asking for help is astonishingly difficult. So is getting better again.
Repair has to happen one step at a time.
Postpartum depression has changed her in many ways. In hindsight, if she could have selected a button to not have struggled with depression, then of course that would have been her choice. She would have smashed that button like Thor bringing down his hammer. But not all the ways in which Addison has changed are bad, because there is always a little light scattered throughout the dark. She is gentler with herself now. She has learned to take better care of herself. She loves deeper, somehow. She asks for help when she needs it, and when she thinks she might need it. She has realized the depths of her resilience. And although she has always been a kind, compassionate doctor (highly skilled goes without saying), when patients with babies talk to her about their struggles now, she holds their hands a little tighter, and when she assures them help is available and that she understands, the look of empathy blazing in her eyes reflects it.
"You'll get there. It's ugly and it isn't easy. There are lots of forward and backward steps, but you're going to be well again one day," Addison has told more than one mother as she walks them through what to do next. She tells them this while taking her medication. She tells them this while tapering off her medication. And she continues to tell them this long after Zoloft stops having anything to do with her neurons. "And if bonding is tough right now, if you aren't sure what you're feeling or think maybe you're not feeling enough, I promise you that it will not always be this way. One day you'll look at your baby and wonder how it's even possible to love someone this much. There will come a day when your baby is just completely and utterly the sunshine in your world."
The song follows Henry, even after Addison stops rocking and singing him to sleep. He has never been able to pinpoint when he learned the lyrics to "You Are My Sunshine," so in a way, it is like this song has always been a part of him, especially for more meaningful moments.
It is one of the first songs he learns to play on the guitar when he is arguably barely even big enough to hold a guitar (he's athletic like his father and has his mother's aptitude for math, but no one is quite sure where the musical talent came from).
When his sister suffers her first heartbreak, he gives her a drawing with "you make me happy when skies are gray" written above a picture of the two of them. Like most of Henry's drawings as a little boy, a bright yellow sun is colored aggressively hard in the upper left corner. He is surprised to find out years later that Kate still has this childish drawing. She even brings it to college with her, tucked between the pages of one of her favorite books.
Henry plays the song for his parents on their fifteen anniversary and, because his father is Mark Sloan, he makes up a few funny verses to include.
When he is in high school, the song is stuck in his head for some reason when he steps up to the plate during a playoff game. He gets his bat around punishingly hard on a curveball to drive in the winning run.
He hears it while finishing up his medical board exams, too.
And at Henry's wedding reception, he and Addison dance to a shortened version of the song during their mother-son dance.
"Does my voice sound hoarse?" Addison asks as they walk down to the beach, towels tucked under their arms. Sunset is quickly approaching, but enough threads of sunlight are still visible to flash against the water, warming the waves that sparkle in the distance. They love taking a dip in the ocean at this time of day; the stretch of private beach they share with their other neighbors is a bit more secluded at this hour.
"Yeah, kind of," Mark answers. "God, what did I do to you?"
"You know exactly what you did to me. More than once," she says, which makes Mark chuckle. Her stamina never ceases to amaze him, but truthfully, he would not have been surprised this time around if he had to carry her down to the water. They have been pretty busy with one another the past few days.
"Didn't hear you complaining. I heard you being very loud, yes, but complaining, no. Hey…" Mark nudges her shoulder. "Happy pretend anniversary. Today is actually the eighth of the month, you know."
It is just the two of them in Cape Cod at the moment. In August, not December – hence "pretend." That had been Addison's idea though. They didn't get to go to the Cape much last summer, and she wanted to have a few days that was just them, but one where they could celebrate in a way that involves swimming and summer sunshine, rather than a whiteout-fueled December. Savvy told Addison it was the dumbest thing she'd ever heard of to put a specific name to a few days of vacation and also some very uninspired role play if that was what her friend was going for, but yes, she and Weiss would happily watch Kate and Henry for them.
"Happy pretend seven years." Addison nudges him back. "No wool joke?"
"The seven year anniversary is a huge disappointment in that I can't come up with a pun or a stupid joke for wool. I have a few more months to work on it though, at least. What I can make a joke about though -"
"Here it comes…"
"- is that the only seven year itch we're going to have is related to all this friction."
"Yeah. Sounds about right."
Mark and Addison make unintelligible noises to convey discomfort when sea foam initially hisses over their ankles. They are used to the water here, but it still takes some getting used to and nothing can really prevent the initial throbbing sensation of sand-dusted feet meeting the Atlantic, even when it is one of the warmest months of the year. The ground beneath them shifts into a seashell-brushed slant the further they go, making their steps sluggish and their arms awkwardly windmill. They both know what they're doing though, and dive neatly under a wave before it breaks against their hips with a hard slap.
They kick around to face each other as soon as they both surface, a little breathless. Addison tips her head away from the shore and then churns water behind her as she paddles further out. "Just a bit deeper," she calls over her shoulder. Addison is a strong and deceivingly fast swimmer, but mostly she is just the boss, so of course Mark follows her lead. And she does always find good spots; he'll give her that.
"A bit deeper," Mark echoes. "I'm sure I've heard that one before." He catches up to her with a few strokes to join her at a relatively calm interval. Their feet are still touching the sea floor, but each time the water rises, they rise with it, bobbing up and down like buoys. Mark moves an arm behind her and presses his palm to the small of her back, urging her closer.
"I'm not having sex with you in the ocean."
Mark starts to laugh. "I didn't ask you to. Even I have some limits, Red. But…" he grins when Addison loops her arms around his neck. "We aregonna have sex again once we're back at the house though, right?" His wife looks incredible at the moment in a white bikini with a triangular top. On their walk down to the shoreline, Mark had to resist the urge to put his hands all over her and drag her back into the house with him. It is honestly one of the sexiest things he has ever seen Addison wear, but she has reminded him (more than once) that this is just for him and is not going to be part of her "regular" swimsuit lineup. Not with a son who makes everything he touches a mess and a daughter who has started to share some of her thoughts on Addison's outfit choices – and they aren't always compliments.
"Absolutely."
"Glad to hear it. And you look beautiful, by the way," Mark adds when she gazes up at him through water-soaked eyelashes. He dips his head, capturing her lips with his mid-smile and mid-giggle. It is not about the bikini though. "Really. Really. Beautiful," he repeats between drawn-out kisses, water lining their throats as it cuts through them. Her eyes match the ocean today. A few days' worth of sunshine has bronzed her nose and cheekbones. Her hair, slicked back and shaded a rich mahogany from wetness, hangs in thick ropes, the ends splitting gracefully at the water's surface. Mark uses his thumb to ease away a strip of hair clinging to the square of her jawline, watching Addison's smile lengthen at the gesture. She has been floating without any medication for about two weeks now. "And happy. You look happy, Addison."
"I am happy."
Addison latches on to him then, sliding her hands down his shoulders and wrapping her legs around his waist. She can feel the firm movement of Mark's hips and legs rotating beneath her, supporting them both as he buries his nose in the curve of her neck. The floral scented perfume that lingers on her pulse points has been replaced by streaks of saltwater and Coppertone. His lips touch her cool skin, picking up flecks of salt. She's happy.
"You're making me do all the work, you know," he jokes.
"Consider it an ego boost for your oh-so-powerful thighs keeping us both above water. And just…only for a sec," Addison's voice softens like velvet at the end. She doesn't want to let go quite yet. "I'm happy," she says again, for herself as much as it is for him. She feels so happy that her throat prickles with emotion and her vision goes cloudy behind a wall of tears. She sniffles a bit while nuzzling Mark's cheek with hers, different kinds of saltwater anchored between them. "Mark, I'm happy. And I love you. I'm so, so in love with you."
Mark kisses her again, feeling the tremor pass through both their chins due to coldness, and from what else they're feeling above and beyond water sluicing around them. "I love you, too," he murmurs against her sea-coated mouth. "More than anything. And I'm really happy that you're happy, Addison."
"Me too. You wanna go back to shore?" She asks, letting her legs glide away from his waist. "You can get this bikini off me as soon as we're inside, if you want, and we can keep making each other happy…"
"Oh, I most definitely do want to do that. Bedroom?"
"Yes, but…" Addison presses her lips to his, just a quick kiss this time. "I'm freezing, so take a hard right once we get in the bedroom. Shower…let's take a happy shower-shower." Mark grins when she says this. Of course he remembers another one of their ridiculous jokes.
"Shower-shower it is," he answers as they start to paddle their way back to shore, side-by-side. They have to work at it a bit, but the sea carries them in most of the way.
