El-Mudad stayed with us for four days. He helped care for Olivia, encouraged me to spend time with Mom—whose judgmental eyebrows came out once or twice at the idea of my brutally hot friend staying in my house while my husband was hospitalized, but otherwise, remained sympathetically put away—and most importantly, to take care of myself. He would somehow manage to make getting dressed in pants that didn’t have an elastic waist sound like a great time, and praised me for what should have been obvious things like curling my hair or putting on makeup.
I hadn’t realized how much of my normal life I’d abandoned. Sure, there was probably something insidiously anti-feminist about the idea that I couldn’t be happy without mascara and a curling iron, but I felt like I was slowly crawling back to a constant in my new, ever-changing normal. I loved getting made up and doing my hair, so if that was enough to make me feel good, I wasn’t about to worry over where my self-care fit with my personal politics.
We were eating breakfast before El-Mudad had to leave for the airport for his late afternoon flight, when the house phone rang.
I frowned at the way the caller ID displayed the name, repeating to myself, “AR Spec?” as I hit the button. “Hello?”
“Sophie?”
I hadn’t heard his voice in a month. My own shook. “H-hi.”
I heard Neil breathe a sigh of relief. “It’s so good to hear you.”
I tried to call you! You wouldn’t accept! I screamed internally. But I didn’t know what his state of mind was, and I didn’t want to hurt him or make him think that I didn’t want to talk to him in the future. “It’s good to hear from you, too. How are you?”
“I’m…in a mental hospital.” He laughed softly. “But I’m not a danger to myself, anymore.”
My chest ached. “So, does that mean…”
“Am I coming home? No.”
I wanted to slide down the wall, wailing.
“But I want to see you, Sophie. Would you consider coming up for a visit?” he asked hopefully.
I knew I had to say something, and I knew it had to be yes. I closed my eyes and tried to get myself under control. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Sophie…” he began, and I knew he’d heard the tears I was holding back.
“So much has been going on around here,” I lied, forcing cheerfulness into my tone. “I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”
“Will you bring Olivia?” he asked. “How is she doing?”
“She’s fine, she’s doing… She’s so great, Neil. Really.” I considered his first question. “But I’m not sure—”
“You’re right,” he interrupted. “Maybe, this first time, it should be just you and I. It isn’t that I don’t miss her—”
“I would never think that.” God, we were just talking over each other in a disastrous and unhelpful effort to not hurt each other’s feelings. “I hope we’re not this nervous when I actually see you in person.”
He chuckled, and the sound banished some deep fear inside me that I hadn’t even recognized. This whole time, I’d been imagining Neil as the angry man threatening to divorce me in the emergency room. I wouldn’t let that go unremarked upon forever, but he was talking to me the way he’d talked to me before that night, and that made me much less afraid.
“I have to go,” he said, falsely chipper. “But I can’t wait to see you. Doctor Harris’s office will contact you with the details, all right?”
“Yeah, fine.” I dug my nails into my palms. I will not cry. I will not cry. It had been weeks, and a three-minute phone call wasn’t enough.
“Sophie?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
He loved me. Despite his threats, despite the fact he’d tried to end his life, he still loved me. And, despite all of that, I still loved him.
“I love you, too,” I said, and I hoped he felt every ounce of truth in it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“When considering what to wear to visit your husband in an inpatient mental health center,” I began, talking to myself in the mirror as I knotted my lavender silk scarf loosely. I frowned and pulled it off, tossing it aside. Nope, I definitely wasn’t qualified to write a “What To Wear To The Psychiatric Treatment Facility” article.