All the Things We Never Knew (36 page)

He might as well have hit me in the stomach with a baseball bat. I leaned my forehead on the desk and muttered into the phone. “I shouldn't have bothered you.”

Mark's voice dropped low and very quiet. “I'm so sorry. He was quite insistent when I called to remind him to pay or renew the policy that it wasn't something he thought he needed. Good luck, Sheila.”

The luck I would receive would be in the form of legal advice, from Jeff Brands, real estate attorney Stu Parker, and divorce attorney Jody Stahancyk. All of these experts worked for pennies on the dollar to help me settle David's debts. David owed thousands of dollars in back taxes. The bank had already called due the $100,000 line of credit David used for his business, a loan that carried my name.

The clients who owed David money refused to pay, and his business was eventually declared insolvent. I was on the hook for all of David's personal debt. I eventually sold every piece of property in my name to settle David's debts, including our home, a lot at the beach, and the apartments Margaret (my former business partner) and I had managed together.

The indignities were great, especially knowing that some of David's subcontractors, his vendors, and other agencies would
not be fully reimbursed. As late as 2010, the IRS was still sending payment notices for David's 2008 taxes—even though he'd been dead two years.

The pain of David's suicide never really diminished, but life's momentum is a powerful thing. We moved on.

 

SUICIDE PREVALENCE

Actor Robin Williams took his life in August 2014, prompting a flurry of news stories and social media posts. But his death was
one in 41,149 suicides in the United States that year, making suicide the nation's tenth leading cause of death and the second leading killer for people ages fifteen to thirty-four. In the months after Williams's funeral, stories about mental health faded from the headlines.

Imagine if the flu were claiming 41,149 people every year. The public health campaign would be immediate and extensive. Yet there is no systematic government-sponsored program to attempt to reduce suicide. Mental health services have been cut by federal, state, and county budgets, and the suicide research budget for the National Institute of Mental Health has been shrinking every year since 2011.

Only one organization has increased its research into suicide—the military.
Suicide is now the second leading cause of death in the armed forces, with a suicide rate that tripled from 2004 to 2012.

The military and the U.S. government have now spent 230 million dollars to attempt to understand the skyrocketing nature of military suicide. Among those efforts is a study analyzing soldier suicides and tracking tens of thousands of troops to attempt to understand the suicidal mind. If we invest in suicide prevention, we can bring the rate of suicide down.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sunday morning. A rain outside that reminded me of the “in like a lion” phrase. I'd just opened
The New York Times
and was on the editorial page, hoping for at least another hour in front of the fire. The phone rang.

I brightened at the sound of Colin's voice. “Hey, you, you want to get out?” he asked cheerily. I had tried to navigate the chaos of David's death on my own and involve him in the business affairs as little as possible. But the more I saw of him, the more I wanted him around. Sophie felt the same way, brightening whenever she heard our plans included Colin and his girls—we'd been to the beach together and spent many of our weekends strolling the city. I knew it was dangerous to get so close so early; everything I read warned against a relationship in the aftermath of death. But I'd been stripped raw by David's death, and for the first time in my life, I was asking for, and getting, the emotional support I needed from other people. The only antidote to David's death was choosing life, without apology or reservations. Colin's voracious appetite for living was inspiring.

He was not the type of father who let his kids hang around the house on the weekend. He saw them every other week, for five days at a time, and he did not want to waste a single moment.

“We're ready to roll—wanna join us?” His enthusiasm was so infectious; by now, it was a great source of comfort for me that Colin did not suffer huge mood swings. I looked at the still unopened sections of the
Times
and bit my lip, conflicted.

Sophie heard me on the phone and curled up beside me on the couch. “Is that Colin?” she asked. “Hi, Colin! Do you have the girls?” she yelled into the receiver.

“Hi, Sophs,” he said. “Yeah, we're going swimming at the club. Wanna come?”

Sophie started bouncing up and down like Tigger. “Can we, can we, Mom?”

The legs of her pajama bottoms skimmed the middle of her shinbone.
I really should get her some new ones,
I thought. Her feet looked more like mine now, and she had slender, beautiful toenails with black and white polka dots she'd painted herself. How could I deny her? “Of course,” I said into the phone, watching Sophie jump in the air and then dance around in circles like Rocky. “We'd love to join you.”

“Great,” Colin said. “We'll grab some dim sum after swimming.”

I packed a bag for Sophie and myself, making a mental note to get Sophie a bigger bathing suit. Oddly, I still thought of her as being stuck at the size and the age when David died. In just three and a half months, so much had changed.

The pool was empty except for the lone lifeguard who yawned and looked bored. The windows looked out on a cold March day, but inside, the air temperature felt humid and comfortable. Colin jumped in with a cannonball that splashed the rest of the girls at the edge of the pool, and they shrieked with delight. Olivia stayed furthest from the edge, her six-year-old body so thin I sometimes worried about her resilience. She stood with her arms folded over her chest, protectively.

Charlotte and Sophie were nearly the same height, even though Sophie was a year older. They both wore bikinis, reminding me of
little colts with legs too long and spirits that could not be reined in. Sophie dove in after Colin. Charlotte jumped in next.

Having a pool at home had given Sophie a rare advantage; swimming was now second nature to her. Colin's youngest, Olivia, still stood on the side, looking at the others. “Daddy, come get me,” she yelled. “I will drown!”

Colin rolled his eyes and swam to the side. “You will not drown. Here, get on my back. I'll ride you around like a horse.”

He managed to pull Charlotte behind him on an inflatable mattress while Olivia held tight to his back. Sophie bobbed up and down in the deep end. Every now and then, I would see her surface, taking in the scene of a dad playing with his daughters. Before I could figure out the emotion on her face, she'd submerge herself under the water. My stomach tightened in knots. I would never be able to replace the love of her own father. There would never be another man who would love her so fully.

“Do you want me to take one of the girls?” I asked as Colin rounded back toward me, pulling both girls on the mattress. I was still sitting by the side of the pool, my feet dangling in the water.

“No!” Olivia shouted. “I want my dad.”

“Me, too,” Charlotte said. “Daddy, it's my turn.”

My cheeks flushed, and my skin got goose bumps. The newness of me, the fun of another adult around, had worn off. Now, I was just another person competing for their father's attention. I'd heard blending families was difficult. Somewhere, I'd read the divorce rate for second, blended marriages was around 75 percent! Colin shrugged his shoulders and looked at me apologetically.

“That's okay,” I said. “If you decide you want to give your dad a break, you can always come with me.” I sat on the edge of the pool, unsure of my next move.

Sophie swam over to Colin, anxious to play. “Colin, can you flip me from your shoulders?”

“Uh, I've got my hands full here, Soph,” Colin said, his tone sharp and overwhelmed.

Sophie's face fell, and even though goggles protected her eyes, I knew there would be tears forming. I could stand rejection—I knew Sophie could not. My face must have tightened. My blood pressure rose suddenly, unexpectedly. I had waited to get in the water, but now I had a strange impulse to dive in, carry Sophie to safety, and never see Colin again. I could not afford to see her hurt or even dinged. Not yet, not now.

Colin sensed the impending disaster. “On second thought, let's do this. See the big clock on the wall?” He pointed to a round clock at the end of the pool. “I'm going to give each of you five minutes with me.”

Olivia dissolved in protest. “No, Daddy, I don't want to let go.”

“That's not fair at all!” Charlotte folded her arms and pouted on the side of the pool. “You are
my
dad!”

“It's the fair way, and it's the only way,” Colin said. “We'll go from youngest to oldest, starting with Olivia. And wait patiently until it's your turn, okay?”

I wrapped a towel around my waist and sat on the sidelines to watch. It never occurred to me that Colin's penchant for order and fairness could work to his advantage in figuring out an emotion as complex as jealousy. I watched the clock—10:35. Olivia beamed at the other girls as her dad took her around the pool. Instead of spending their time swimming, Charlotte and Sophie sat with their arms folded, scrutinizing each tick of the clock.

At 10:40, they shouted, “Time's up!”

Charlotte jumped on Colin from the front and had him catapult her into the sky as many times as she could in her allotted time. Olivia clung to the edge and kicked her legs impatiently. Sophie's face took on a seriousness that worried me. This was very, very important to her. Colin looked weary; his shoulders slumped from the psychological and physical pressure of the outing. My chest hurt.

“It's 10:45,” Sophie said. “My turn!”

Charlotte shouted, “It is not your turn yet. There are seven seconds left!”

Colin let Charlotte go gently. “I'm sorry, sweetheart. Your turn is over.”

“This is not fair! You are
my
dad!” she said.

Sophie waded in tentatively, her shoulders slumped with anxiety. I stifled my own tears.

Sophie whispered something in Colin's ear. He nodded, and then he moved his hands underneath her back as she flipped over in the pool. She lay there with her face looking up at the pool ceiling, barely moving, but at peace, just as she had in Costa Rica, when David had found the cave with a million stars. She floated like that for the rest of her time with Colin, moving slowly, silently, the stillness of the water below her, her eyes shut tight beneath her goggles. Colin held both hands firmly beneath her back, gliding her through the water until the minute hand had made its five full rotations.

I brought my knees to my chest, to protect my heart. I hadn't prayed since David's death, angry with whomever and whatever entity there might be that allowed him to take his own life. At that moment, however, I needed a conversation with God, as one-way as it might be.

“Please, God,” I said, “forgive me, this is awkward. Please let us do what is right for these little girls.” I held my head to my knees and let the tears come, warmed by the strange humidity, heavy with a humility I would carry for a lifetime. David's death had changed the landscape of what I knew and how I believed. Death had preserved David at a certain age, in a certain time frame, and everything we'd been together had been shattered. There was nothing left except room for me to change.

 

SUICIDE BEREAVEMENT