Sylvia and Patricia

“We’re having this goddamn conversation right now. You’re fucking telling me what the fuck is going on in that fucked up head of yours! I’m not fucking leaving until we fucking talk! Do you fucking understand?”

He was not an easily excitable man. It would’ve taken the hand of God to make him this mad. He never raised his voice, never used foul language. But now, he used seven expletives in four sentences. He never uttered more than one sentence in one breath. She’s in deep shit.

She covered her ears, to dull the sound of things banging in the next room. She’d never seen him in this state before. Nothing ever stirred his equanimity, not even the past dozen or so attempts she made on her life. But this last one, they nearly weren’t able to revive her and it scared the be-Jesus out of him. He hadn’t been the same since. Maybe it’s finally sinking in to his stubborn brain: she doesn’t want to live.

He’d been her fiancé for six years; they’ve lived together for four. She’d been suicidal since she was ten. He’d known her for 14 years. They were casually dating when she disappeared from his life for a couple of years. When she reappeared, he didn’t let her go. Now it has come to this.

He banged on her door, which had ten locks. “You’re telling me what’s going on. If you don’t come out of there, I’ll call the cops,” he wasn’t yelling but his determined tone sent chills of fear down her spine.

In a few minutes, she saw her door crash. Eight men in scrubs came for her, ready for any attempt to resist or escape. She was brought into a closed van, which headed east of the city to a private psychiatric facility, where she was brought the first time she had a breakdown. She laughed as she went through the motions of admission: strip search, cataloging her belongings. She was given a bed in the semi-private ward. An aide gave her a toothbrush, her pajamas, an extra pillow and her departed mother’s last work of art, a quilt.

She mostly slept for three days, thanks to a tranquilizer. They only woke her up for meals and hygiene. On the fourth day, she was put on a regular program that scheduled meals, exercise, and therapy. She refused to eat the first few weeks, but the medicines that she stopped taking were given to her under strict supervision, so she regained her appetite and put on weight on her bony frame after she was discharged.

But the year in between was limbo. She could not do the things she used to do outside. She was not allowed to paint, until much later because she tried to commit suicide by ingesting her acrylic paints. She was not allowed to swim in the pool because she managed to drown herself in the three foot end of their pool at home. All she did was sit and wait until her psychiatrist deemed her fit for therapy.

It was difficult for all the therapists who treated her. They could not get down to the bottom of her suicidal tendencies. If you looked at her life from an outsider’s perspective, it was indeed a charmed life.

She was given the best education money can buy. Her two sets of parents doted on her and she stood to inherit a fortune that would giver her power over four continents in the world.

Her partner worshipped the ground she walked upon and she was well received in the circles in which she moved. There is nothing she could want for that she could not have.

It was this perfection that suffocated her. She hated that her life was well ordered, that her relationships were sickeningly well adjusted and that people loved her.

The fact that she was nearly perfect peeved her even more. All her life she tried to find something to hate about herself—she could find none.

She could not run away from home. Her filthy rich father paid a satellite in space to track the electromagnetic activity unique to her brain so he could retrieve her even if she got lost in the densest of forests.

It was a gilded cage and she was a golden bird. It sickened her.

One year after her discharge from the loony bin, Gus let her stroll around the park alone. But there were bodyguards within screaming distance. There was a woman taking photographs of everything in the park. Patricia was intrigued.

She approached the woman.

“Amateur, professional or in-between?” she asked, putting on her most cordial smile.

The photographer laughed, waving her compact camera in her face. “It’s an automatic, so I don’t think I could consider myself as any of those,” her grin was infectious.

“You’re wearing all black, are you in mourning?”

The smile faded from her face quicker than you can say uncle.

“My husband died, just a week ago,” she whispered a tear rolling down her left cheek. She rigged her camera to her laptop and started downloading the photos she took.

“I’m sorry to hear that. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want. I’m sorry I brought it up,” Patricia regretted her slip-up. “I’m Patricia by the way, what’s your name?”

“Sylvia. It’s okay. Maybe I can talk about it with you. You seem nice. I didn’t cry during the whole thing. I was trying to be strong for my son. He was so attached to his Dad.”

“So what happened?”

“My husband Dave was a thrill seeker. He came from a wealthy family and I think he never got over resenting that he was born to privilege. He always did crazy things. Sometimes he’d disappear for years then I’d hear from a hospital or a police department in another country that he was in trouble. It’s worse than baby-sitting a five year old.”

“I thought having a kid would give him a sense of purpose and I was so happy when I learned I was pregnant. But he only stuck around long enough to see our son get born. After that he became even more unpredictable,” Sylvia continued.

She went on: “Before he died I asked him why our life was the way it was, why he seemed so afraid of normalcy. And he said, there was so much to live up to, carrying that illustrious name. He was so afraid he’d let his family down if he followed in their footsteps. I think after he realized that he just didn’t want to go on anymore. He OD’d on downers the next day.”

“Oh my God,” Patricia whispered. Then to Sylvia, “How would you have coped?”

“Not to brag, but my family is older than my husband’s. My Mom always told us, the idle mind is the workshop of the devil. That’s why growing up my parents always engaged us in sports and art and activities to keep us busy. We had an army of servants but we were required to make our own beds and stuff like that. I never forgot those lessons,” Sylvia smiled through her tears.

Patricia gripped Sylvia’s hand. “Thank you. You’re an angel. Please be my friend. Can I give you a hug?”

Sylvia nodded and felt comfort in hugging Patricia. She sighed a deep sigh. “Thank you. That was a relief. You have no idea.”

Patricia rummaged in her bag for a calling card. “Here. I beg you. Please, please keep in touch.”

“Gosh. No need for that. Friends are always welcome. Hey, I have to go. I need to pick up my son from soccer practice. I’ll see you around. I live on your street. Take care!”

Patricia was left sitting at the park bench. She was smiling as she called Gus on her mobile phone. She figured herself out. It’s going to be work but she’s ready to be who she is now. And she will need his help. She was ready.

When Gus arrived, she gave him a long, slow kiss.

“I’ll be the first to do this in my family, but I think it should be a new tradition. Dear Gus, will you marry me?”

The twins arrived two years later.