“I’ll come, too,” Dan said to her. “Maybe I’ll bring my mom.”
I hid my smile behind the curtain of my hair and we left.
I felt lighter as we drove away, as I usually did after each of my visits.
We were almost to the county road when Dan asked distractedly, “The whole building is for your mother?”
I sighed. “Yes. My father had it built. He used to stay there, with her, so it was kind of like his house.”
“This was before or after he got Alzheimer’s?”
“Before. When I was at boarding school.”
Dan nodded, still distracted, like he was assembling a puzzle in his brain.
Abruptly, he asked, “When did you start visiting her?”
“Uh . . .” I watched the scenery pass beyond the windshield, trying to figure out where best to start. “So, honestly, my mother—seeing my mother—was one of the main reasons I decided to change my life.”
I felt Dan’s gaze flicker to me. “What happened?”
“I was exhausted. In Chicago, I was running all the time, never knowing where I was going to sleep, or if I was going to eat. I’d made it back here, to Boston, and was couch surfing, but I was tired—so tired—of everything. So one day, I decided I wanted to see her.”
I tucked my hair behind my ears, the memory still vivid. “I showed up and used my old student ID. They let me see her, and it was like . . .” I turned to him. “I felt like she could hear me. Maybe she can, maybe she can’t. But I feel like she can. I told her everything, it all came out, and I felt so ashamed of who I’d become. She’d loved me so, so much. I remember that, when I was younger, and I was letting her down.”
“Kat—”
“As I was leaving, I was walking past the outpatient recreation room. There were a bunch of people there, playing board games. I didn’t want to go back to the place I was staying, so I sat down at a table and played checkers with this woman I’d never met. Her name was Delilah, she was forty-three, and she had schizophrenia.”
“Like your mom?”
I hesitated. “Yes and no. My mom was originally diagnosed with paranoid type schizophrenia. It has now become catatonic. Delilah has paranoid type, but she received treatment early.”
“So, if you receive treatment early—like cancer—it can get better?”
“Not necessarily. Every case of schizophrenia is as different as the person who has it. There are four main types and—similar to cancer—each has a spectrum of severity.”
“Huh.” Dan thought about this briefly before saying, “My mother had cancer.”
“What?” A spike of dread pierced my chest.
“Yeah. Breast cancer. Stage two. It was before my parents divorced. I used to hold her hair while she puked, before it all fell out.”
“I—I’m so sorry.”
He waved away my concern. “Nah. Don’t be. She’s fine now, been in remission for—jeez—almost twenty years.”
I released the tense breath I’d been holding, realizing this news had sent my heart racing with fear. I’d just met Eleanor, but I loved her already. I wasn’t ready to lose her. The reflexive nature of my reaction to this news also made me realize that all disorders and diseases could sound frightening when the details are unknown.
Fear of the unknown, not a revolutionary or novel concept.
“Anyway, I get what you mean about severity.” Dan’s hands flexed on the steering wheel. “She had stage two and that wasn’t great. Some people have it worse, some people have it better. When it’s worse, it’s scary.”
“It is scary,” I agreed. “Illness is a reminder that we don’t really have any control. And I understand why people find schizophrenia frightening, believe me, I get it. Hallucinations, delusions, it’s difficult to imagine having a mind that is not fully your own, just like it’s difficult to imagine having cancer, where your body isn’t fully your own. But people living with paranoid type often experience less dysfunction than people living with other subtypes. They’re often able to live, work, and care for themselves. And yet, almost every depiction you find in books or movies make people living with paranoid schizophrenia the villains. Can you imagine if books and movies did the same thing to people with cancer?”
Dan made a surprised sound and he blinked, rubbing his jaw. “I’d never thought about it that way.”
I continued, feeling impassioned by the subject, “It’s so frustrating to me, because when I visit my mom, I usually go to the rec room and play board games with the outpatient group. They’re not villains, or frightening. That’s not who they are.”