(This will make more sense if you've read this first.)
It's Monday afternoon, and I'm sitting at my desk. Faithfully plugging away at my contract job, pretending not to notice the overgrown grass begging to be shorn, or the rabbits eating what might once have become spectacular, color-saturated bursts of iris. I am earning my wage. Doing my part to keep spaceship America moving forward, the economy in motion, my mortgage paid and my children fed and clothed.
The phone rings. It's a number I don't recognize; a city number. I pick it up, and answer with a tentative hello.
"Hey... it's JiF."
I take a deep breath. This cannot be a good conversation. They never are, these days.
"Hey... how are you? What's going on?"
It's a loaded question. We both recognize it, and so we exchange a couple of pleasantries before we plunge into the matter at hand.
"So. It's been an... interesting, I guess, couple of months."
"...Right."
"We, um. I. I finally came to the realization, a couple of weeks ago. She kept disappearing - I think I talked to you after the first time it happened, but that became a recurring thing - and the drinking and self-injurious behavior was spiraling beyond anything that was remotely within my capacity to manage. And after a while, it became clear that this wasn't just a drinking issue. That this was an expression of full-blown mental illness."
"Jesus." I say it, but I'm not surprised. He knows I'm not surprised.
"And it just got to the point where we'd had enough trips to the emergency room, and incidents with the police trying to find her, and time when she'd just disappear and we'd have no idea... it was awful, and she was refusing to acknowledge that this was a serious problem. So I finally had to have her sectioned."
I don''t say it, but I know what he means. A friend of mine had told me about it, back in January. It'd been in the back of my head, ever since. Wondering. If.
When.
"I went to court. I had to file... there were all these different steps, but I had to file to get sole custodianship of (our son). I had to file to get guardianship over her. That's what the sectioning was: me deciding against her will to have her committed."
(long exhale. both of us.)
"I'm so sorry."
"It's... well, there was really nothing else to be done. She spent about a week in an inpatient program at (local hospital), and now she's in (a specialized program for a specific group of dual diagnosis patients somewhere down south). It's a locked ward deal, and realistically she's going to be there for at least three months."
"Jesus Christ." What I don't ask: how do you get someone with severe alcoholism, depression, and pronounced self-injurious behavior on a plane from New England to the south? What I decide: I don't need to know.
"I just wanted to tell you, because you and TheWife have been such a help to us, and I know I haven't really had the chance recently to keep you in the loop..."
"Yeah, well, clearly you had some other things on your mind."
He laughs, a little bit. "Yeah. Anyhow, we brought her down early last week, and now I'm trying to get our life here back together. Me and (our son's). I'm realizing that I'm now a single father, for all intents and purposes. So I'm hiring a nanny to help him out in the hours when I'll be working, and I'm... well, I'm finally getting back to work. I've missed so much time recently, but my job has been incredible in terms of understanding the situation."
I make a sound - almost a small laugh - to indicate my admiration. "That's awesome. Obviously, taking care of ElF and your son have been priority number one, but, y'know... we've been worried about the toll all of this might be taking on your job. Because, obviously, if something were to happen with that, it'd create a whole new set of substantial problems."
"I know, and I've been very, very lucky on that side. So now... now, we're finally kind of settling down. Last weekend was the first weekend in I don't know how long where (my son) and I haven't been rushing off to a hospital or to a treatment center or calling the cops or driving around the neighborhood looking for her... and it was like: we both just collapsed."
"I can't imagine why you'd be exhausted."
He laughs a bit. "I know. The problem is that (my son's) idea of resting is mapping out and taking a long bike trip. So the weekend turned out to be less lying around and more biking back and forth the length of the Minuteman trail." I laugh, because I know that this is less of an ordeal for him than he's making out. In the midst of everything else, JiF managed to run the Boston Marathon in April. There was a list in the Globe: he finished with the best time of anyone from our town.
We talk for a few more minutes. He thanks us again for what little we've done to help them over the previous months. I offer to help out again, anytime he needs it. I don't ask if there's something we can do for ElF. She's beyond our capacity to help, at this point. I want to hope that she comes home late this summer. Stronger. Somehow healed. I want to hope.
The conversation ends, and I put the phone down. My grass is still too long. The rabbits have moved from our irises to our neighbor's flower bed. They are eating happily. Taking their fill. And as I watch them, my mind flits back to an early evening last June. Sitting on ElF and JiF's back patio. TheWife out in their yard, playing catch with our girls. JiF up on the deck, grilling what will prove to be an amazing adobo chicken dinner. ElF and I, sitting there, shooting the breeze. Me telling a story, sarcastic and borderline mean, trying to make her laugh. Her sitting on her white chair, her legs pulled up beneath her body. Pushing her hair back from her eyes. Both of us, swirling glasses of malbec, taking sips. Soaking up the sunshine.
And then their son cries out. "Mom, the rabbits! The rabbits are out!" And ElF stands up and runs out into the yard, stopping next to her son. I saunter behind, and see what he's pointing at. Baby bunnies - newborns, really - in the grass. Exposed to the sunlight. No warren to be seen. No mother rabbit standing nearby, watching us nervously. JiF comes over a moment later, and assesses the situation. He is very matter-of-fact. "We should leave them alone," he says. "If we stand here and watch them, the mother rabbit won't come back." Their son is upset, and ElF wants to pick them up and move them. JiF is adament: leave them be. Let nature take its course.
I walk away with JiF, and he says to me in a low voice: "I haven't seen the mother in days. I knew they were there, but I think she's gone. I don't think this is going to be a happy ending for the bunnies." Then he calls over to ElF. "Hey, bring (our son) inside... it's time for dinner, anyhow." He heads up the stairs to his deck, and I tell TheWife to help me to gather our brood and bring them inside as well.
We do, and as I guide them up the stairs and across the deck and into their home, I look back and see ElF and their son still standing out in the yard. They are looking down on the baby bunnies, concerned. "But how do we know the mother will come back?" he asks. His voice is unsteady; he is still upset. And she looks at him and says, "She will. I'm sure of it."
