“Sh-she never told me. About the lows, she never said a thing.”
A chair in the background squeaks, and he clears his throat. “No, I don’t suppose she would have. Even then, she was very private about her depression. At least, she tried to be. I think she was ashamed of that part of herself, but she never said so aloud. A pen and paper were the only things she’d truly confide in.”
Ashamed.
My pulse thrums in my ears. “Those other poems, the ones in the shoebox that was sealed shut ... when you said they were heavy, you meant ...?”
Silence filters through the line.
“Dad? Are you there?”
“I—yeah, I’m here.” His voice is scratchy. “They’re dark, Blue. Overly descriptive. Crossing the line between life and death in ways too graphic for me to feel comfortable relaying to you.”
“I told you not to be careful with me—”
“It’s not you I’m being careful with.” He pushes out a breath. “It’s me, Blue. I’m the one who can’t handle it. I’m sorry.”
Neither of us speaks for a moment, but the thoughts in my head are loud, buzzing like bees circling their hive.
“You’re the one who sealed the box shut, aren’t you?” I already know he did before he mutters confirmation. I can tell from the gut-wrenching tone of his voice that he read them, probably every last one. I have no desire to ever open that lid. “Dad ... I don’t understand why she left you. Especially being pregnant.”
“I wish I could give you a definite answer to that, but ...” He pauses. “She never gave me a reason.”
“Did she at least say goodbye?”
Birds whistle. The wind whooshes.
“No.”
Pain reverberates through the phone in that one syllable, vibrating in the air around me, and I swallow hard.I know the feeling.
“But,” he continues, “knowing what I do now, my guess is she leftbecauseshe was pregnant.”
“What? Why would she do that?”
“She wouldn’t have wanted anything to hinder her connection to you or dampen the affection she wanted to show you.”
“Dampen her affection ...?”
“I’m referring to modern treatment, in her eyes. She disappeared the night before her parents planned to make a final attempt to get her mandated inpatient treatment at the Wayward Psychiatric Clinic. Somehow, Susie caught wind of it, and she didn’t even pack a bag—she flushed her pills down the toilet, left her poems in my room, and took off without a trace.”
“Pills? But Mom hates medication. She’d never take them.”
“She tried them for a little while, when she was nineteen and twenty, and you’re right. She hated them. Said they dulled the depression, but they dulled everything else too. She was numb. For Susie, she said it wasn’t worth it. It didn’t matter how unbearable the pain was, she didn’t want to lose her highs. She insisted she could figure out another way—a way that focused on the positive side of her emotions—and set out to find a new balance.”
“Meditation.”
“Meditation, healing stones, philosophy. Nature. She sought out inspiration everywhere.”
I replay his words, images of Mom flashing through my head like pictures popping out of my instant camera. And with each image, I come to the same conclusion.
“It was because of me,” I whisper to myself.
“What’s that?”
I clear my throat, trying to speak through the lump hindering my voice, and lie down on my back. “It’s like you said. She did it because of me—giving up the medication, trying to find another way.”
“She certainly loved you. But Susie was very much her own person, Bluebell. She’d already decided she wanted to find an alternative long before you came along. But it was a big move, much bigger than I ever suspected her to make, and I suppose she just needed the incentive.”
