My world became brighter. Without booze dulling my mind, it was as if I were being reintroduced to brilliant colors and delicious aromas that had been blunted by years of alcohol abuse. Slowly, I began to feel free of my addiction, especially in the late afternoons, when in the past I would have had to have a drink to stop my hands from shaking or to prevent nausea. Mark and I attended AA meetings faithfully, and life seemed good and full of promise.
We bought a house in Bozeman so that Mattie, who had turned ten, could enroll in public schools there. Mark began working regularly at a construction job, and I resumed taking photographs and writing.
My mental illness, however, had not forgotten me. Being sober didn’t stabilize my moods. If anything, the alternating bouts of depression and mania returned unchecked and with renewed ferociousness. The only positive was that the mood stabilizer I was taking seemed to end my migraine headaches, and I was grateful to be done with that torture. When I complained about my continuing mood swings, the local psychiatrist treating me tweaked my medications, but it didn’t help. I felt as if I were a tiny boat being whipped by waves, completely at the mercy of an angry sea.
Two years after Calen checked himself into McLean Hospital, he decided to come home. The doctors wanted him to stay longer, but he was weary of the place. He landed at the Bozeman airport in March of 2002, sporting shoulder-length hair and appearing overweight. The extra pounds were a common side effect of his medication. But his appearance didn’t concern me as much as his demeanor. I felt Calen had become institutionalized. He seemed incapable of making the tiniest decision on his own and waited for me to tell him what to do and when to do it. He was afraid to leave our house, and the thought of him bumping into his old friends frightened him. They had rejected him and weren’t interested in giving him another chance. It was heartbreaking.
I had to get Calen involved in life, so I began taking him with me on errands. Initially, he would sit in the car and wait for me. After several weeks, he finally came into a store. He walked in, looked around briefly at the items nearest the door, then walked back out to the car. It was a victory.
Mark was good with Calen, but having a twenty-two-year-old man freshly discharged from a mental hospital living in our home soon became an issue. In addition, Mark’s two teenage daughters from his first marriage decided to move in with us. The two girls, along with Mattie (now eleven), Calen, and an assortment of dogs, all living in the same house with Mark and me became too much. My psychiatrist had warned me, saying, “No, Jessie. No, no, no!”
But whom was I going to turn away?
I loved Mark’s girls and was determined to not let my mood swings affect us one way or another. I’d just have to focus.
All of us did our best, but there were simply too many of us—a fact that Calen was the first to realize. He didn’t like commotion. He decided to move out, and he used money that he had inherited from his great-grandmother Moore to buy a one-bedroom condo. I was worried, but I told myself that living independently would help him regain his self-confidence.
It did. At first. But the transition proved too overwhelming. One evening when I went to check on him, I found Calen cowering on the kitchen floor with his back braced against the corner cupboards. He was rocking back and forth.
Judging from the empty bottles in the house, I knew he’d been drinking, and his apartment reeked of pot. Calen also told me that he’d stopped taking his medications.
I couldn’t ignore the irony of the moment. My son was following in my footsteps, trying to deal with his mental illness just as I had done—by self-medicating with booze and pot. He was in such fragile shape that I was afraid to leave him alone. I urged him to take his meds, but he refused.
I decided to call Katie, the woman Calen had befriended at McLean. She’d been discharged, too, and was living with her parents in a southern state. Just as my AA sponsor could talk to me—one drunk to another—Katie could talk to Calen as a peer. When she answered the phone, I explained that Calen was refusing to take his pills. She began speaking to him and eventually suggested that the two of them take their medications together. I handed Calen his pills and watched as he listened to Kattie’s voice.
“Okay, are you ready?” she asked Calen. “Let’s do this together. One, two, three, go.”
Calen swallowed his meds at the same time she took hers. It was cute and effective. I felt relieved, but I wasn’t about to leave him alone. I slept on the floor of his apartment that night. Fortunately, Calen seemed better when he got up. He agreed to take his medication again. He called Katie to tell her.
I liked Katie and thought she was good for Calen. The two of them continued to talk each day, and before I knew it Calen had invited Katie to come to Bozeman to live near him. I was apprehensive but felt mostly relieved. They seemed good for each other, and having Katie in Bozeman would free me to deal with my own mounting problems.
By this point, Mark and I had been together more than three years as common-law husband and wife, but he was growing tired of my mood swings. I couldn’t blame him. One night when he came home from work, he found me hiding in our bedroom closet. I was lying on our shoes underneath rows of hanging clothes.
“Jess, what are you doing?” he asked.
“Hiding,” I said.
“From what?”
“Everything.”
“Oh, honey, come on, let me help you get up. You can lie on our bed, and I’ll close the door.”
Mark helped me get settled on the bed. He lay down next to me, holding me tight, and whispered, “I want you back.”
“I’m right here,” I said, instantly angry. I pushed him away. “This is me, too! Why can’t you see that?” I looked into his eyes and saw only sadness.
Because Mark left early in the mornings for work, he went to bed at nine o’clock. I stayed up until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., watching television or reading. We became ships passing in the night.
In the spring of 2004, our relationship reached a breaking point. Two incidents caused it to snap. During a manic mood, I decided to trade in the Dodge Durango SUV that served as our family vehicle; we never seemed to go anywhere together, the five of us, and I thought it was a waste of gas to drive it when hardly anyone ever used it but Mattie and I and perhaps Calen. Besides, I could justify anything when it came to purchasing a new car. I loved buying them. Calen went to the dealership with me. When Mark saw a new car, he freaked out.
I hadn’t bothered to tell him I was going to buy a new car, and I certainly didn’t feel that I needed his permission. He disagreed, saying, “We’re married, and a decision like that should be done together!”
I felt as though his hands were around my neck, choking me.
The next incident happened when Mark went to California to attend a family reunion. He got drunk and called me. I was disappointed in him and scared, especially when he announced that he wasn’t going to continue going to AA with me. He missed drinking and felt he could control it. Maybe he could, but I doubted it, and I didn’t want his drinking to drag me back into an alcoholic abyss.
I decided Mattie and I were going to move out, but we couldn’t return to the Mouse House because I’d rented it to tenants. I needed to stay in Bozeman anyway because Calen and Katie were there and Mattie was now entering middle school. I telephoned Mom, and she understood the situation. She offered to buy a house in Bozeman for Mattie and me to live in. We found a perfect house except for one thing: I suspected the basement was haunted. We decided to buy it anyway because of the location and the price. This situation was perfect for both Mom and me. When we finally moved out and put the house back on the market, Mom made a profit.
Mark didn’t put up much of a fight when I announced we were leaving. He admitted he couldn’t handle my unpredictable moods anymore. Living with me was like living with two different people. Without realizing it, Mark was echoing what Tom had said about my moods when our marriage had ended in divorce.
I slipped into a depression after separating from Mark—only this one was different from all my earlier ones. It brought a new element with it: a demonic Creature that had settled inside my brain, taking root just behind my left ear.
At first, I couldn’t make out what it was. I just knew it was there and that it was small, deadly, and very real. I knew it had planted roots and didn’t plan on leaving anytime soon. Slowly, it began to reveal itself.
The Creature had two burning red eyes—tiny things that seemed to glow and were simply terrifying. I was afraid to look at the Creature’s body. I didn’t want to irritate it. But I had to know what it was. When I finally forced myself to look I realized the Creature resembled an angry grayish squirrel, but this was not some cuddly rodent.
It spoke to me but said few words:
“Kill yourself.”
It repeated them over and over and over and over until I had trouble thinking about anything else. My earlier attempts at suicide had failed because I hadn’t planned them well. With the Creature coaching me, I began considering ways to end my life. They had to be quick and foolproof. I needed a method that wouldn’t allow me to change my mind at the last moment. And I knew, this time, that the Creature wouldn’t allow me to think of my children and put them first.
I was soon spending my days thinking of suicide, considering each possible method and then rejecting each plan until I settled on one in my mind. I had it figured out. I would drive to the Mouse House, which I loved dearly, and walk down to the creek that flowed through the property. Dropping to my knees, I would position a 12-gauge shotgun between the ground and my chest. I would reach forward and pull the trigger. The shotgun blast would shred my heart and spill my blood.
My plan would guarantee the spilling of blood, which was important to me. The image of my blood flowing from my body was incredibly soothing. I wanted to be baptized in my own blood because I continued to believe it would somehow heal me. Releasing my blood would free me and silence the Creature in my skull.
All I needed to do was choose a date to die. I thought of James, my second husband, who had committed suicide. He had chosen when to end his life. I would follow his lead.
It had been several years since I’d reached for Mark’s unlocked handgun on New Year’s. I’d stopped myself because of my children. They had needed me then, but not now. Calen had Katie. Sander was in college. Mattie was thirteen, but she had her father, and I knew that my parents, Tina, Glenn, or Sandy would look after her. My children would be hurt by my death, but if anyone understood the anguish that my mental illness was causing me, it was they. They had experienced my depressions with me, had been dragged along during my bursts of mania, and had found their own ways to handle their mom and her quirks. I knew they were survivors, and I had reached a point where I no longer wanted to be one.
I had been sick for so many years that I didn’t really think I was that sick; I was the way I had always been. At one point Moo offered to send me to McLean but I had refused. I didn’t think I was that sick. I had learned how to hide, how to fake it. At least I thought I had.
“Kill yourself.”
Mattie and I were scheduled to go on a road trip to Denver to visit friends. Our return would take us through Big Piney for an impromptu family reunion. Glenn had flown into Wyoming, and Tina and Sandy had agreed to drive to Big Piney so our family could be together. I had no intention of telling any of them that I was going to kill myself, but the family gathering would be a good way for me to see everyone one last time. Perhaps the Creature had known about Glenn’s visit. Maybe it was karma.
When we arrived at Big Piney, Mattie and I settled into the two-bedroom guesthouse. It was about fifty yards from the main house, which was a beautiful stone-and-timber home with a high-ceilinged living room that my father had decorated with souvenirs he and Mom had collected in Africa. The guesthouse had Tina’s paintings hanging on its walls—intricate botanical drawings of flowers and lichen. Adjacent to the guest cottage was a third building, another two-room structure that Dad used as his office. One room, designed to be my mom’s art room, was cluttered with papers and boxes of photographs of our ancestors.
Glenn had arrived fresh from a studio where she’d done voice work for a character in a new Disney movie. Her latest motion picture, The Stepford Wives, was about to be released. My father quizzed her about both as soon as we got together in the main house for one of Mom’s meals. It felt good to be among them, but I didn’t say much. The Creature talked to me incessantly.
“Kill yourself!”
On the morning when Mattie and I were planning on returning home, the Creature woke me up. He was more frantic, more insistent.
“Kill yourself! Kill yourself! Kill yourself!”
I covered my ears with the palms of my hands, but he kept screeching, his voice growing louder and louder. I felt defeated, totally helpless, and utterly hopeless. He was winning, and he knew it. That gave him power.
Mattie and I lugged our suitcases from the guesthouse to our Subaru, then Mattie walked up to the main house to say good-bye to her grandparents. I wondered if anyone could hear the Creature’s screams. He had started spinning in a circle, doing somersaults at a frenzied pace.
“Kill yourself!”
I felt as if my head were going to explode. The Creature’s hollering was becoming unbearable. I wasn’t certain I would be able to drive. I had to do something to shut him up. I had to keep Mattie safe, safe from me.
“Kill yourself!”
Both my sisters were still in the guesthouse, and when I went back inside Glennie was the first one I saw. She gave me a puzzled look. What had we forgotten?
“I can’t stop thinking about killing myself,” I blurted out, tears flooding my eyes. I sobbed, grief and terror winding themselves around me.
Glenn stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. She guided me to a bench on the guesthouse veranda and called Tina. I felt like a child again as I explained that I couldn’t think about anything but suicide.
Do they believe me? Is this just another attempt by Jessie to get attention?
I couldn’t look them in the eyes. I was Jessie the fuckup.
“Kill yourself!”
Glenn spotted Mattie returning from the main house. She told her that we were not leaving yet. Mattie saw me crying and came over.
“It’s all right, Mama,” she told me, placing her hands on my shoulders.
I cried even harder. “I’m sorry, Mouse; I’m so sorry,” I told her.
For a moment, I considered telling them about the Creature. But I was too afraid—not afraid of how they would react but afraid of how the Creature would react. I didn’t want it to get angrier than it already was.
“Kill yourself!”
It was Mom who suggested that I check myself into McLean Hospital. If the doctors there had helped Calen, then they could help me. Glenn offered to go with me to the hospital so I wouldn’t be alone. Mattie would move in with my friend Suzy Nixon while I was away.
All I had to do was hang on for a few days while Mom and Glenn made all the arrangements. I felt grateful. But the Creature wasn’t happy. He kept up his chanting, taunting me.
The flight from Bozeman to Boston three days later seemed to last forever. The Creature was still spinning, still ordering me to kill myself.
Where does he get his energy?
Glenn had gone ahead and met me at the airport. We were repeating the same drive that I had taken when I’d brought Calen here. As we approached the Pavilion, I remembered how Calen had gone through a series of physical tests and interviews. Should I tell them about the Creature? Would the Creature be angry if I did? Would they understand?
Glennie reached across the seat and took my hand.
“I’m here for you,” she said reassuringly. “It’s going to get better.”
How does she know, when I certainly don’t?
I saw a flash of what appeared to be sadness in Glennie’s bright eyes. She’d been so busy living her own complicated life. Did she feel guilty? Why hadn’t she realized how sick I was? She had always loved me, had always felt obligated to protect me, but what did she really know about my life in Montana—my five husbands, my drinking, my mercurial mood swings, and my suicidal depressions? In many ways, I was a stranger to her, even though we were linked by blood, genes, and sisterly love.
“Are you ready?” Glennie asked me.
The Creature answered: “Kill yourself!”
I opened the car door, and Glennie and I walked into the Pavilion.