The Five Stages: Depression
Depression
Author's Note: Thanks for all the wonderful reviews. I'm sorry it took a bit longer for this chapter to be posted. Many thanks to Mare and Beth for their wonderful beta work on this story.
Depression - a psychoneurotic or psychotic disorder marked by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, and feelings of dejection.
The alarm clock began beeping next to Will Girardi's head. He reached a hand out from under the covers and hit the snooze button. Sighing, he rolled over and pretended to go back to sleep.
"Hey, are you staying in there all day?" Helen asked as she sat down on the bed. She pulled the blankets back and Will opened his eyes. She removed the towel that had been wrapped around her freshly washed hair and began to rub the last of the moisture from her head.
"No," Will replied, closing his eyes again.
Helen leaned in and kissed him. "I'm going to go start some coffee. You want eggs?"
Will didn't answer.
After a moment, Helen stood up and headed for the door. "See you downstairs," she called as she headed for the stairs.
The alarm began to beep again.
It wasn't as if you could tell the day it started. It was like a cloud slowly easing over the sun, a fog moving in from the coast. One day you realize that it's been weeks since you saw that sun. You can't remember when it stopped shining and you have no idea when it's coming out again.
Had it been when they moved to Arcadia? When he arrested Tommy Wyatt, the fire chief? Had it been the day he tried to get Kevin to play basketball again?
Had it been the night they got the call that Kevin was at the hospital?
When was the last time he had felt okay? Will couldn't remember anymore. He sighed and leaned over to grab his shoes. The left one was hiding under the bed. As he pulled it out, he also brought out a dark brown leather-covered book. He reached down and picked the book up.
The University of Arizona. It had been part of the family's plans for so long that it still didn't seem real that Kevin wasn't going to be leaving one of these days-that something wouldn't change that would make it possible.
If Joan had put out a call before her garage sale, they could have offered an entire table of Arizona apparel. Some of it they bought, some of it the athletic department had sent for them to wear. There were t-shirts and sweatshirts, jerseys from the baseball team, and pennants. The first real fight he had with Helen after the accident was about her taking Kevin's pennant off the wall in his room.
That was when they had given up.
The job at Arcadia seemed to appear out of nowhere, giving them all the escape they needed. At first, it was all a blur. Kevin was hurt. They were all at the hospital. Then Kevin was in rehab and Helen was gone with him. It was up to Will to keep things running at home, to try and preserve some element of normalcy for Joan and Luke.
The e-mail sat in his box for at least a week. He couldn't even think about moving the family now, not with everything so uncertain and everyone so upset. Life was good for them-life had been good for them.
But Kevin wasn't ever going to play baseball for Arizona. And Joan cried herself to sleep. And Luke was refused to go to science camp. And most of all, Helen always took the long way home.
She tried to pass it off as wanting to pick something up at the grocery store, or some laundry at the dry cleaner, or they should look at the leaves that were turning by the lake. But when Will pressed her on it, she finally confessed. She couldn't drive down the road where Andy Baker had ended her son's dreams. She couldn't make it past the spot, the tree, the shiny new railing they had replaced on the curve in the road. She'd much rather drive fifteen minutes out of her way instead.
A new job and a new town would be a new start for all of them. It would be a chance to start over, to avoid the faces of their neighbors, who tried to smile when they greeted the Girardis, but you could tell they really just wanted to pat you on the head and say, "I'm so sorry about your tragedy."
Will was sick of being the center of the tragedy, of being the perfect family that had it all end in the drunken crash of a car into a tree along a curve on a county road.
He could hear the kids and Helen in the kitchen, their chatter echoing back through the living room and up the stairs. He walked down the steps slowly, forcing a smile on his face as he walked into the brightly lit kitchen.
"Hey, Dad, can I have fifty bucks?"
Will stopped on his way to the coffeemaker to turn and face Luke. Helen asked what the money was for and Luke replied that it was for some inverter thing.
"I happen to have a couple of those in my pocket," he joked, trying to appear as if he'd followed the whole conversation. Luke kept talking while Will reached into his wallet and pulled out two twenties and a ten. It was easier to give Luke the money than to actually try to figure out what was going on with his youngest.
"Anybody else?" he offered, as Joan began to expound on her need for new shoes. The noise seemed to be in the background as Kevin offered to pay for his physio and Helen told him no. Of course not. Finally, the kids left, taking the oppressive noise with them. The room was silent, but he could feel Helen's eyes on him.
"We're going to talk about money now, aren't we?" he asked as he sat down at the table. He listened while Helen told him again about the cost of Kevin's therapy, the costs for making the house accessible. It didn't seem fair, the accident was costing Kevin every day, along with the rest of them. How could it also be so expensive for their son to have lost so much?
"Well, at least you'll get a salary bump when they pick up your contract," he heard Helen say.
The moment of truth. He'd been keeping the truth from her. He knew in his head that it was wrong, but his heart didn't want to hurt her again. She'd been hurt so many times and it had been his idea to come to Arcadia in the first place. It had been the right thing. They had to get away from that curve, from that shiny new piece of metal. And now he'd gone and screwed that up too
"You don't get a salary bump?" Helen asked. After he didn't respond, she followed with, "They might not pick up your contract?"
"Let's not fall off that bridge yet. I've got a good six months to charm people!" Will replied. "It'll be fine. I promise." How, he wasn't sure, but he would have to figure out some way to make it fine.
Everything suddenly felt so much harder. It wasn't just the money, or his job-it was everything. Now Helen wanted them in therapy. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to anyone about this feeling. It was bad enough that he felt this way; he certainly didn't want the rest of the family to know that he felt this way. They all had their own problems.
Will sighed and pushed open his car door. At least work seemed predictable. At least he was in charge and people listened to him without too many questions. He hated the constant questioning, from Helen, from the kids. Why couldn't they listen and accept his decisions?
Why couldn't Helen let it go about the therapy? They were a good family, two parents who loved their kids. The kids were good too. Kevin had been a good athlete, Luke was a great student and Joan, well, she was a smart, unique girl in her own way. They didn't need some head shrinker to manufacture some problem with them.
Will got out of the car and began walking toward the police station. More than ever before, this building felt like his sanctuary. Home certainly wasn't one any longer.
"It's mostly crack, but we found three guns, approximately 2,000 Ecstasy tablets, and almost a kilo of methamphetamine," Toni rattled off as she stood in Will's office.
"Two years! Two. Years."
Will looked up to find a Drug Enforcement Agency agent followed by District Attorney Gabe Fellowes. The DEA agent continued angrily yelling that Will had blown their surveillance for a small bust, purely done for PR needs.
"Will, this is Steve Thompson from the DEA," Gabe said.
Will fixed his stare on Thompson. "Are you yelling for my benefit, or to impress your guys? Because if it's for me, you might as well cut it out."
The room cleared until only Will, the DA and Thompson remained.
"I agreed to lay back on the crack house as long as the DEA kept me informed," Gabe explained.
Will turned to Thompson, "You're a cop, sort of. You know the DA doesn't have the authority to cut that deal."
The argument continued until Gabe dropped a bomb. "It's going to look like the arrests were bad. You're going to wear this. Enjoy your next six months as a lame-duck incompetent chief...Chief."
With that, he turned and followed Thompson out of Will's office. Will sighed and then walked back to his desk. He sat down and dropped his head in his hands. All he wanted to do was go to sleep.
Will walked into the house to find everyone waiting for him in the kitchen.
"No dinner tonight?" he asked as he slipped his coat off.
Helen shot him a look. Will was confused. He couldn't imagine what they were all doing standing there like they were waiting for him
Joan handed him his coat back. "Therapy, you know, Mom's idea, your cheap therapist. She said there would be pizza on the way home if we didn't complain in the car."
"I'll drive," Kevin offered as he wheeled past his dad and sister. "You want to ride in the way back, Luke?"
Will sighed as Helen took his hand and they walked out to the driveway. Kevin was sliding into the car as they walked up.
"You want me to stick this in back?" Will asked Kevin as he pointed to the wheelchair.
"Yeah, that'd be great, since Joan seems to want to fill its usual location," Kevin replied.
Will leaned over and began to pull the wheels off the chair. He couldn't look up. He could feel the tears were close and that wasn't what they all needed on their way to therapy for the first time. It didn't happen every time, but the tangibility of the chair, of seeing Kevin struggle to get into that beat-up old car of his, sometimes it was too much. Finally, Kevin was in the car. Will collapsed the chair headed for the back of the wagon. The door creaked as he opened it and lifted the chair into the back. He pushed the door closed with a slam and headed for the passenger seat in front.
"Okay, let's get this over with," he said as he climbed into the car.
Kevin fired up the engine and they left.
Will was closing the back door of the wagon when Helen came over and slipped her arm around him. "Thank you for coming," she whispered in his ear, and then kissed him.
He turned to face her and smiled. "I hope it helps," he responded.
Helen smiled. "Me too." She kissed him again and then took his hand to lead him toward the therapist's office.
The wait was brief before the therapist, Kathleen Sundberg, ushered the Girardis back into her office. She closed the door behind them and took a seat.
"Where would you like to start?" Kathleen asked.
Will's thoughts drifted slightly until he heard the therapist say his name. What was it? Why did he think they had come to therapy? "I'm here because my wife wants me to be."
He turned to see that Helen didn't look entirely thrilled with that answer. "Because she thinks it's important." Still the look. "Because...it is important."
Finally, the focus switched from him to Kevin. Good, no one really sensed that anything other than unwillingness was going on with him. He listened as Kathleen kept poking at Kevin. It wasn't fair, it wasn't totally Kevin's fault that they were here at all. It was just the obvious reason. Finally, she accused Kevin of being passive-aggressive. Will had to protest.
"You object to the terminology?" the therapist asked.
"I'm a big believer in resourcefulness, people solving their own problems, that kind of thing," Will replied.
"Well," Kathleen began, "I'm picking up that Kevin is still very angry. How would you like to solve that issue, Will?"
Why had this suddenly become about him? Why couldn't they leave him alone? He sighed. "He's driving. He's working. He's figuring it out. Actually, I'm more concerned about Joan."
"I told you. This is about me being crazy," Joan interjected. "So I picked up some strange interests. I mean, kids do that. So I smash a piece of art. I mean I had my reasons. And the whole cheating thing is completely whack."
Will looked up. Cheating? When had that happened? Was he so out of the loop now? He had to start paying more attention, being more present. "Joan cheated?" he asked Helen.
"It's just Price on a tear. Joan didn't cheat," Helen replies.
"How could you not tell me about it?" he asked.
"This just in, Will: I try to protect you from things if I can."
So she did know. Helen was a perceptive woman. The kids continued to spar about who needed more help. And now this woman thought that communication was a solution? They were Italian. Communication was not a problem for the Girardi family.
Finally, it was over and they headed to the car.
"Where are we going to eat?" Joan asked as Kevin unlocked the doors.
Will looked at her with a puzzled look on his face.
"Pizza. In a restaurant. Glasses of pop. Blackmail for seeing the head shrinker," Joan replied.
Will sighed. "You choose. Or Kevin. He's driving." Decisions were definitely beyond him.
Dinner was interminable, the ride home painful. Will hung his coat up and quickly headed to bed, as he tried to avoid any discussion of the evening's session. He was in bed with his book open when Helen appeared.
"Tired?" she asked as she began to get ready for bed.
"Uh huh," Will replied, keeping his eyes focused on the book. He didn't stop reading when she climbed into bed next to him, picked up her own book, and began to read.
"Will, is something wrong?" she asked after a while. "You've been on the same page for nearly half hour."
Will laid down the book. "It's a mystery. I'm trying to figure it out."
Helen sighed. "What's wrong?"
He hesitated for a moment, trying to decide what to say. "I hate my job." There, it was out in the open. Saying it to Helen made it even truer. "I don't want to do it anymore."
"You're just working things out. You hit a few rough patches."
Will shook his head. "That's not it; it's bad. They didn't hire me to fix things. They hired me to play ball - politically. I'm just going to keep bumping up against that until they fire me. And they will...fire me."
"So, what do you want to do?" Helen asked, her voice filled with concern.
"I want to rewind my life about two years," he replied.
"Yeah. Me too. But what do you want to do?" she asked.
Will rolled over to face her. She had always been the rock for him, even when things had been so bad after the accident. In her grief she had always been strong enough for both of them. And they couldn't go home, even if Helen thought it was a good idea. He wouldn't put her back in that place that had hurt her so much before, had hurt all of them. Things were getting better. He wasn't going to give that up because things were harder for him in Arcadia.
"I need a glass of something," he said as he reached up to caress her face. He pushed the covers back and got out of bed.
The light was on as he walked down the steps. Joan was in the kitchen getting a mug of warm milk.
"Can I join you?" he asked.
"Sure, why not?" she replied.
"So, why can't you sleep?" he asked his daughter as he pulled a mug from the cupboard.
"I don't know...something about my life being a big, hairy nightmare," Joan replied.
Will listened as Joan related the dream about her friends being upset with her.
"Daddy, do you ever think about God?"
Will stopped, surprised by her question. "No. I did too much thinking about him when I was young. My parents were very religious. They forced it on me, but it never made sense. Why was God mad at me? It wasn't my idea to create people and make them flawed."
Will took his mug of milk from the microwave as Joan continued.
"It just makes no sense. I mean, he's always bugging me to do the right thing, and I'm like, 'If you're so big on the right thing, then why don't you just make it clear?'"
What did Joan mean by that? Helen had insisted on the kids going to Sunday school and getting confirmed, but they hadn't been to church since they had moved. "God is bugging you?"
"Not me. People. What I mean is, if there's a right thing to do, a right way to be, why isn't it obvious? You know, shouldn't there be a clear choice?" Joan asked.
"I guess the point is...to figure out how you can do the most good." He walked over to Joan and held her face in his hands, and then kissed her forehead.
"Yeah, you're the best person I know and you don't even believe in him," she answered.
Will looked at her, surprised by her comment. "I'm the best person you know?" Joan smiled at him and he pulled her into an embrace. "Thanks, honey. I needed that tonight." Joan never ceased to amaze him. She was so unpredictable, like tonight. But she was also so honest and pure. He could go for days on one of her off-hand comments, especially these days when people in every other part of his life seemed to be on his case.
"Better than warm milk?" she asked.
"Much," he replied. "Now, it's late, get up to bed or you'll never make it to school tomorrow."
Joan kissed him on the cheek again and headed for the steps.
Will took another drag on his mug of milk and then headed for the living room. He sank down onto the couch and picked up the remote control. He was slowly flipping through the channels when he heard the motor of the wheelchair lift come to life. Turning the TV off, he got up and headed toward the stairs.
"Whole house must have insomnia tonight," he said as Kevin transferred into his chair at the bottom of the steps. "Something keeping you up, son?"
Kevin shrugged. "Just have a lot on my mind," he said as he wheeled past Will and into the kitchen.
"Warm milk?" Will asked as he reached into the cupboard for a mug.
"Sure," Kevin responded, "Although Mom keeps my special stash of mugs down here so I can get to them." Kevin reached in and pulled an insulated mug from the lower cupboard. "Should I be offended that she doesn't trust me with the family china any longer?"
"I think she was more afraid of heat conduction," Will replied as he put his mug back into the cupboard and took the insulated one from Kevin. "Of course this forces a more antiquated process of warming the milk." He reached up, took a small pan from the rack over the sink, and poured milk into it. He tucked the milk jug back into the refrigerator and then set the pan on the stove to warm.
"This is why I usually drink tea," Kevin replied.
Will set the mug, now filled with warmed milk, on the table. "You want something to eat? Piece of toast?"
Kevin shook his head. He wheeled over to the table and took a sip of milk. "So, there must be a rash of insomnia tonight."
Will shot him a questioning look.
"I met Joan on the way down," Kevin explained.
"Oh yeah," Will replied. He walked over and pulled a chair out from the table to sit down. "So, you have a lot on your mind?"
Kevin shrugged.
"You know, you used to talk to me about stuff that was bothering you."
Kevin laughed slightly. "Yeah, you used to listen to what I was telling you."
Will leaned forward. "What does that mean?" he asked Kevin.
Kevin shrugged. "Just that you've been trying to figure out what I need for the past couple years, instead of asking what would be good for me."
"I listen to you," Will protested.
Kevin was silent for a moment and then reached down to release the brakes on his chair. "I think the milk worked," he said as he pushed back from the table.
"I don't think we're done here," Will answered. "When haven't I listened to?"
"It's late," Kevin replied as he pivoted and headed back toward the stairs.
Will stood up to follow his son and then sank back down. He'd done nothing but listen to all of them, to hear their pain and try to do whatever he could to make that stophe'd kept things going at home when Helen wasn't able to function because of her grief. He'd supported Kevin and not gotten on his case for making, what arguably could be described as a terrible decision with implications for all of him. For God's sake, he had moved his family halfway across the country just to try to help all of them! So, for Kevin to accuse him of not listening seemed pretty classic.
Will sighed and poured the cold remains of his milk into the sink. He rinsed the mug and set it in the drainer, turned off the light and headed back up to bed.
Round two with the therapist didn't seem to be going any better than the first night, as far as Will was concerned. Joan droned on about her history teacher as Will half-heartedly tried to listen.
"Look, I know the only reason we were in therapy was because I acted kind of crazy, but um, as far as I'm concerned, we can all go home now, because the craziness is over. I'm done," Joan said.
"Will? Helen? Is there anything you'd like to discuss?" the therapist asked.
Helen shook her head. "No, I'm thinking Will was right, maybe we all just need to talk to each other and not bring all our problems in here."
Will was quiet for a moment as he thought about his conversation with Kevin from the night before. "Then again, maybe it's best that we get it out in the open," he said, surprising his wife, the therapist and himself a bit.
"Well, this wasn't for our problems; this was to help the kids," Helen said.
She was missing the point. "Our problems affect the kids," he shot back.
"He doesn't mean problem problems," Helen tried to explain to Kathleen.
"We're in this forum now; maybe it's best to talk about whatever it is that's really going on," Will continued. For some reason he felt like a light had been turned on and he wasn't going to stop just because Helen didn't seem to want to get into it. They had spent the last two years not dealing with the real issues because someone didn't feel like it was the right moment to talk about what had happened to them.
Helen tried to direct the conversation back to Luke, a typical move on her part. Luke was so rarely engaged by them to discuss family matters that he would never bring it up. He was a good kid, but they'd managed to shelter both him and Joan from most of the angst caused by the accident.
"Oh...okay...um...I've kind of been dying to talk to someone about M-Brane Theory, and how it...derails where I was philosophically headed..." Luke began.
Kevin suddenly smacked the arm of his chair and shouted, "For God's sake! I can't stand it. Can we - can we please just talk about the gigantic stain on the carpet?"
Will's head snapped as his eyes locked on Kevin's. The outburst was shocking.
"We've been dancing around it for almost two years now and it's making me crazy and maybe it's why I'm so pissed off all the time!" Kevin yelled. "Because no one will say it out loud, so I have to. The accident...it was my fault. This...was my fault. The guys and I were out partying after the game. My friend Andy was wasted. I tried to take his keys. He got pissed off. I was afraid of not...being cool. So I went for the ride." Kevin's voice began to break slightly. "I went for the ride. And so...here we all are. I did this."
Will began to get up, but Helen's arm kept him seated on the couch.
"God didn't do it. The universe didn't conspire. The planets didn't align against me. Can somebody just please say it out loud?" Kevin started to cry again. "I did this!"
The family sat stunned for a moment. It was the one thing they had never discussed. Will knew Andy Baker had been driving. He knew the kid was drunk. There was an accident report on the whole thing and Andy, a kid he'd known since Kevin joined Little League in grade school, had spent the summer after graduation in jail instead of having his last summer of freedom before college.
But that seemed fair; because Kevin didn't have a summer of fun either. Instead, he'd been in rehab learning how to get in and out of his wheelchair. Fundamentally, Will had always known that Kevin had made a conscious decision to be in the car that night, but when were they going to ask him? At the hospital as he was waking up and realizing that he was paralyzed? Or maybe during rehab when he was learning how to take care of his bodily needs? Or maybe they should have asked him when he first got home and was so weak that Will had to lift him in and out of the bathtub and Helen had bathed him.
No, the time had never seemed right until too much time had gone past altogether.
Finally the therapist got up and walked over with a box of tissues. Kevin took several from her and wiped away the tears that had fallen.
Helen stood up and walked over to him, but he shook his head. "I'm fine. Don't, just don't."
Joan and Luke sat frozen in their seats. No one would say a word. Finally, Will stood up.
"I think we should head home," he said as he began pulling his jacket on.
"I think we should stay and talk about this," the therapist responded.
Helen was still standing about a half foot from Kevin. "No, I think Will is right. Let's...let's go kids."
Will shot a look at Helen. Frankly, he was a little surprised that she had agreed with him. It had been her idea to come to therapy, but maybe it had become as clear to her as it was to him that this woman had nothing to really help them. And he didn't know about Helen, but there was this deep need in him to get his kids out of that room, to put his arms around them. They had been doing okay, there had been no need to rip the bandage off and expose their wound. That woman, the therapist, she had no right to push Kevin that way.
Kevin leaned forward and released the brakes on his chair. Will forced himself to refrain from going over to push his son's chair from the room. Kevin looked more fragile than he had since those first days home from the hospital when he was like a newborn again.
The Girardis filed from the building. Once they reached the parking lot, Kevin stopped and turned back toward the rest of his family.
"You want me to drive?" Will asked.
"No," Kevin said as he shook his head.
Will stepped forward and put his hand on Kevin's shoulder. "Seriously, son. You've-we've all had quite a day."
"I just..." Kevin's voice broke again.
"What, honey?" Helen asked.
Kevin shook his head.
"We have to talk about it," Will said. "And we can do it here in the parking lot, or go back in that office or we can go home and do it, but we're talking about this before anyone goes to bed tonight."
"Home!" Joan and Luke shouted in unison.
Will and Helen looked at Kevin, who shrugged his shoulders.
"Okay, home it is," Will said as they all headed to the car.
Will pulled the car into the driveway and turned the engine off. No one said anything, or made a move to get out of the car. Will kept his eyes forward, looking at the closed garage door.
"I'm sorry if moving you all here has made this harder," he began. "I thought it would make things better if we started over somewhere new."
Helen slipped her hand into his. "And I was glad when you told us about the job because I wanted a new start for all of us."
The three kids, sitting in the back seat, didn't respond.
"And maybe that wasn't the right choice, maybe it was running away from facing what happened to us, but we're here now. I don't see that we should go back," Will said, quietly.
"Happened to us," Kevin said, breaking the silence.
"Yes, us," Will replied.
"I'm sorry my momentary lack of judgment ruined all of your lives," Kevin snapped back.
Helen turned to look at him, sitting behind Will. "Nobody's life is ruined here. But, I think it's fair for us all to acknowledge that things are different."
"Things are different for me," Luke offered.
"Not so much for me," Joan added.
Kevin laughed.
"No, seriously, Kevin," Joan replied. "I know that life seems to have changed in some pretty dramatic ways for you, but in a lot of ways nothing changed for me and that's what sucks about this."
"Joan," Helen chided her daughter.
"Sorry, Mom," Joan apologized for her language. "But I was supposed to be the oldest one at home, taking more responsibilities for myself, not still being the middle child and the only responsibilities I got were more chores because Mom had to spend so much time helping Kevin."
No one responded to Joan's outburst.
"Plus, what about Luke?" Joan asked. "Third kid in four years, you're lucky you noticed that he was alive at all. You're lucky he's so good in school. If he wasn't a geek you'd have lost control a long time ago."
"Thanks, Joan," Luke replied.
"No, seriously, wasn't this going to be the time when Dad started to notice his other son?"
"Joan, no one is ignoring Luke," Helen interjected.
"No, it's true, I do well independently, but I did think that maybe..."
"Just stop it," Kevin shouted, his voice loud in the close confines of the car. "So I screwed it up for everyone, I get that. Maybe I should move back, stay with Grandma. I could go to the university."
"I don't think that's what we're saying," Will said, interrupting Kevin. "It was going to be something. At some point, something happens to a family that rocks the foundation. And it's no one's fault that it happens, it's life. What makes or breaks the situation is whether we're being honest and accepting that a bad thing has happened. There might be other things, but we learn from this, we grow, we become stronger as a unit and as individuals."
Will reached forward and started the car again. "Okay, it was Thai last week, Joan got her Japanese the week beforedo I have a request from the peanut gallery? Luke? What's your choice for dinner this week?"
Luke didn't reply for a moment. "Greek?" he offered.
Will put the car in gear and began backing down the driveway. "Greek it is."
As he pulled into the street, Will looked up to the rearview mirror. The three kids sat in the backseat of the station wagon like they used to when they were young. He slid his arm up and around Helen's shoulder and she snuggled into his body as much as the seatbelt would allow. For the first time in weeks, he felt like he could breathe again.
To Be Continued
