Marriage of Inconvenience(Knitting in the City Book #7)(177)
“Who are they?”
“They’re smart, interesting, funny, sweet, beautiful, creative, logical—so many things other than their diagnosis. But take a person on the street and ask them about schizophrenia, and it’s the bad guy in a slasher film. Or the crazy wife in the tower. I guess I’m frustrated because a mental illness diagnosis is a lazy scapegoat. And portraying all people living with mental disorders—all people living with schizophrenia—as one extreme, evil archetype is irresponsible.”
“Here, here. Well said.”
My gaze moved to Dan and I studied him. “Are you tired of my soapbox yet?”
“No. But I am curious, what was it—about playing checkers with that woman—that changed your perspective on everything? What about playing checkers had you wanting to make a change?”
“It wasn’t the checkers. It was her. I looked at Delilah and I realized that if one day I started exhibiting symptoms of schizophrenia, my life would not be over.”
“Ah.” He nodded, like the puzzle pieces of me and my past had suddenly clicked into place.
“I’d thought for so long that I would become a schizophrenic, and if I was a schizophrenic, that’s all I would ever be. But a person doesn’t become their diagnosis. Your mom isn’t breast cancer, you don’t become cancer. You live with cancer. So often, we think of a person living with mental illness as their mental illness, and that’s unfair. A person is never their diagnosis, not even my mom. Delilah showed me that. She lives—and has lived—a full life. She has a husband. They travel. She’s a photographer, an artist. She tells the funniest knock-knock jokes I’ve ever heard. She takes her meds every day, but still has hallucinations from time to time. She is not schizophrenic. She lives with schizophrenia.”
“So,” I sighed, shrugging. “That’s my story. I came back a few times to visit my mom, and I was drawn to the others here. I made friends. Once I figured out that I’d been basing my decisions on misinformation and the fallacies of a fourteen-year-old brain, I decided I had to make a change. I was unhappy. So I went back to Chicago, turned myself into the police, and you know the rest.”
“I guess I do.” His attention moved between me and the road. Dan opened his mouth, then closed it.
“What? What is it?”
“Do you still worry? That you’ll start showing signs?”
“Every day.” I smiled, though my eyes stung as I made the admission. “There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t question myself, a choice I made, something I saw out of the corner of my eye, something I heard. My father was so convinced that I would become my mother, I think he convinced me, too.”
Dan sighed, shaking his head. “That’s beat.”
“If it happens, it happens. And I’ll know what to do. And I’ll still live my life. And I’ll still try to make a difference.”
He reached for my hand and placed a kiss on the back of my knuckles. “You’re tough. I love that about you.”
“Sometimes I don’t feel tough.”
“That’s why you have me.” He tightened his hold on my hand.
“Why? So you can be tough for me?”
“Who? Me? Nah. I’m just a big softie.” He made a surprised face, and then frowned his extreme disagreement. His expressions were theatrical and they made me smile.
We drove in silence for several minutes, and it was another of those peaceful moments. Quiet car, quiet street, quiet neighborhood. But more than that, it was still. Instead of treading water next to each other in a tranquil lake beneath a starry sky, I imagined we were lying in a field, holding hands beneath puffy summer clouds, the rhythm of two beating hearts becoming one.
“You have me so I will know you,” he said suddenly, kissing my hand again. His words spoken against my fingers were just above a whisper, and the quiet intimacy gave me the sense he was speaking to himself just as much as he was speaking to me. “So I can remind you of how tough you are, how good, strong, and capable. Because, when you love someone, that’s what you do. Because you’ll do the same for me.”
Epilogue
**Dan**
All I’m saying is, Catholics are basically already Jewish. I mean, we have the Old Testament, right? And you pay retail for some things, like commandments, I think you have something like six hundred, whereas we have ten. And we pay retail for other things, like penance.”
Kat stared at my reflection in the mirror we were both using, the only one in the master bedroom. Since arriving in Chicago three days ago, we were staying in Janie and Quinn’s old penthouse apartment at the East Randolph Street property.