Jeff squeezes and kneads my hand. "Your hands are cold," he says, scowling at them, as if scowling at them will warm them up. He rubs them between his mammoth paws. I always forget how big Jeff is until I am here, where I become tiny, smaller than usual, somehow reduced to half my size. I feel fragile, as if someone passing by me might blow me over in his wake.
"I talked in group today," I say, wanting to have something to contribute.
"You did? That's great!" Jeff crows. "What did you say?"
"I don't remember."
"But you talked! That's wonderful! That's better than yesterday! You must be feeling better today!"
"I think I am," I say hopefully. "I think I went to all the groups."
"You're on a roll! You're kicking ass! Good job!"
"But otherwise I just sat around," I say.
"Did you read any of the books I brought?"
"No." I stare at our hands. "I've gotten very stupid."
"You're not stupid."
"Yes I am. I can't read anything. I can't even read stupid magazines."
"They're all out of date anyway." Jeff dismisses this with a wave of his hand.
"But the point is I've gotten stupid."
"You're not stupid. You're just not feeling quite yourself."
This cracks me up. I hold my stomach, rocking back and forth, laughing my head off. "Not quite myself! No, not quite!"
Jeff smiles uncertainly, not sure why this is funny. I'm not sure either. I gasp and let out a sigh. I gaze at Jeff. I adore him. He is the most wonderful person alive. I am suddenly struck by the fact that he is unlike anyone else in the world. How many people could love me like this? How many people would visit every day at six o'clock, without fail? And bring me dinner, and a grocery bag of fruit? Who could? Who would? Why would they? Why does Jeff?
I say to him, "Why are you doing this?"
He leans forward, his face animated. "Doing what?"
"Coming here." I am struggling to form the thoughts it requires for me to ask him the question. The evening is getting later, I'm tired, and he'll leave soon, and there I'll be, left on the couch, a huge gaping space where Jeff was but no longer is.
"Why am I coming here? Because you're here. Obviously."
"But you're leaving soon." That's not what I meant to say. He glances at the clock.
"Not yet," he says, rubbing my hands. "Not just yet."
I wrestle my thoughts to the ground. "But you won't always come back."
He furrows his brow. "Of course I will. I'll be back tomorrow."
"But maybe someday."
He gets a look on his face. "No," he says. "I'll always come."
"Not if this keeps happening." It's dark out now. Soon he will stand up and pull on his coat, dressed, impressive, sane, and he will stride his giant strides to the locked door and wait patiently while the staff jingles the keys, and when they swing the door open, he will look back across the room at me, smile his very best encouraging smile, wave, and turn away. The door will swing shut behind him with a clang. The clang will reverberate through my skull. It will keep clanging, over and over, and each time I will jump, even though it actually only clanged once. And then I will sit here, frozen on the couch, my hands, now limp in my lap, getting cold.
"If what keeps happening?" he asks. I don't know why he asks, because he knows.
"If I keep going crazy."
"You're not crazy." He shakes his head firmly.
I sit there looking at him. "Jeff, I'm crazy."
"You're not feeling well."
"Jeff," I say, not sure he's really getting the point, "I'm crazy."
"You're sick. Right now. Just for a little while." He shakes his head back and forth like a little boy denying that he broke the vase. No, no. Not crazy.
"But what if it isn't just for a little while?" I ask him. My head is starting to tip on the top of my spine, heavy with the dead weight of my brain. But I persist. This is important. I need to know. I need to be sure of him. Without him, the days will stretch out, bleed into one another, no one will come at six and tell me how long I have been in here, assure me that I will get out soon, that tomorrow will be better. No one will lie to me, and their lies are all I have to go on, all the reason I have to crawl out of my hospital bed in the morning, drape myself in hospital robes, put on my hospital footies, and pad down the hall, moving through the eddying stream of noise, bumping into the walls, to sit at the table in the main room of the ward and drink my hospital decaf to demark that another day has begun.
"It is just for a little while. You're getting better. You're a little better every day." He leans close and kisses me on the nose. "You'll get out soon. I promise."
I think about this, trying to connect it to the next part of my thought.
"But then it will happen again."
"No it won't."
I stare at him. "Yes it will."
He shakes his head.
"Jeff, it will."
His face falls for a second and his voice cracks. "But you did so well for so long."
I start to cry. I want to be doing well again, for him. I want to go back to the part of the story where I made dinner for fifty and wore makeup and earrings every day and we leaned back in our chairs on the porch in the evening, watching the sunset, our heads tipped back, drinking the summer air.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't think this would happen again."
"It's all right," he says.
"You're going to give up on me."
He takes my face in one of his hands. "I'm not. I'm not, not ever."
I nod miserably. "You are. I don't blame you. There's no reason you should have to deal with this. This is a nightmare. I hate that this is happening. But," I say, starting to cry again, "I can't help it and I don't know if it's ever going to stop."
"But it will."
"But what if it doesn't?"
"It will."
There are circles under his eyes. He's working long days, then getting dinner, bringing it to me, sitting with me, my exhausting craziness, for hours, then going home, doing all the things I used to do, the laundry, the dishes, the cat boxes, walking the dogs, cleaning the house, and then he's collapsing, exhausted, in bed. I picture him lying there, a huge lump on one side of the bed, the other side empty, and he's not sleeping well, and he's getting up in the morning and worrying about me, and worrying about the future, and trying not to think about it, and facing the strange looks and uncomfortable silence at work, with colleagues who know his wife is crazy, and packing me bags of clothes and books and our wedding quilt, and hauling all these things to me, and wondering, every time he leaves, if I will ever be better again.
"And you'll get tired of being alone," I insist.
"I'm never really alone." I hear him reciting these things. I ask these things every day. "You're always with me." He glances at the clock.
I sit for a moment, trying with all my might to stay here, to stay with him for these last few minutes. Why does time speed up when he comes? There is never enough time. I finally work up the sentence in my mouth: "What if it's always like this? With me going into the hospital, and then getting out, and then going crazy again, and going back in?"
I can see his eyes going empty, I can hear the rote lines. Do either of us really know why he still comes?
"Think of the good times," he says. "When you're out."
I nod, my face slippery from tears. My cheeks are heavy again, my mind spitting and fritzing, its wires burned out for the night. I am out of questions. But I know that someday there will be a six o'clock that comes and goes, and Jeff won't burst through the door. Or if he does, his step will get heavy, and he won't look at me, and he will hate me for what I have become.
Nine o'clock. Over the loudspeaker, the voice of the staff: Visiting hours are now over. Thank you for coming. Good night.
"I have to go," he says gently, leaning forward so his forehead touches mine. I nod. My mind is starting to fill with static. I hate my questions. I slump in the corner of the couch. He gets up slowly, not letting go of my hands. Finally he sets them softly in my lap. My eyes travel slowly up to his face. He lingers a long time, looking back and forth from me to the door. He leans down and kisses my head and leaves.