Page 171 of Score
A laugh cracks in my throat.
“Well, they’re married now and they took care of me after you…” My voice withers. “After you were gone.”
I touch Mama’s headstone, caressing the name Bernadette, but hearing my father’s loud boom of a voice laughingly, lovingly calling herBernie.
“I figured out what was wrong with Daddy, Mama.” I tug at a stubbornweed near her headstone. “Feels bad sayingwrongwhen it’s not…wrong… our brains are just made different. You were right when you told him to get help, but I don’t even know if the help he needed was to be had at the time. If he’d have known how to get to it or what to do with it. I barely did.”
I shift on my haunches as I squat to talk to them.
“Actually, there’s some really cool things about me because of how my brain is made. I think having bipolar makes me a better writer. I write for aliving.” My smile is a little smug. “All those nights you made me put my book away and when y’all made fun of me carrying around my ‘diary,’ as you called it, and look at me now, Mama. I run a TV show. I won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar. Can you believe that? An Oscar! I bet you already knew that ’cause Aunt Roz is always bragging. No way she could’ve kept that to herself.”
My eyes drift to my father’s headstone. I place my index finger on the tiny dash separating the day he was born from the day we lost him.
“I’m so sorry things were hard for you, Daddy.” Tears mark a slow trek from my eyes and over my cheeks, salty rivulets that collect at the corners of my mouth. “Sometimes I think the universe made me different so I’d know what it was like for you. So I could forgive you, knowing how hard it is to live in this skin.”
It’s taken a lot, but I can finally understand him and this condition without letting either completely define me. I learned a lot witnessing my parents’ life, their love, their end, but I’m not him. I’m notthem.
“It took a long time,” I say, brushing dirt from Daddy’s stone. “But I’ve forgiven you and I’ve forgiven myself. I pray you’ve found all the peace this life denied you.”
I stand, chuckling a little as I stretch my muscles.
“I do pray now sometimes. I’m not sure it even works, but my partner comes from church folk. Pastors and preachers and such.” I snort a laugh. “He’s definitely not a preacher, but he’s… I think he’s a believer at heart. Iknowhe’s a dreamer. You’d love him, Mama. He’s a romantic. And I know he loves me. I want y’all to meet him.”
I glance over my shoulder to where Monk leans against our rental car,waiting. I wave for him to approach. He picks his way through the old country cemetery just up the road from Aunt Roz and Aunt Grace’s place. When he stops beside me and loops one arm around my waist, I turn back to my parents’ headstones.
“This is my partner, Monk.”
Monk dips his head and smiles.
“And this…” I say, pulling the blanket back from the little girl’s face. She is swaddled and held securely against Monk’s chest. “This is your granddaughter, Dessi. She’s asleep now, but she’s a mess. She’s gonna be a handful, just like her daddy.”
“Right,” Monk scoffs, “because I’m the handful.”
“You’d love her,” I go on, ignoring Monk’s sass. “And you’d love him, too, though he is a lot.”
Monk playfully elbows me, and even though I still taste my tears, the smile on my face is warm like sunshine and sweet like hope.
“I’m thinking about marrying him,” I say, a hundred fireflies flying and lighting up in my belly when the words leave my mouth. “If he still wants me, that is.”
Monk stiffens beside me. So still that after a moment, I hazard a glance up at his face to make sure he heard, that he’s still breathing. He’s staring back at me. And it’s like before, when we first came back into each other’s lives, and even looking at him felt dangerous. You stare at the sun, only to find it staring back at you. You bask in its heat.
In his love.
“Don’t play with me, Vee,” Monk says, his voice hoarse and his face judge-sober. “I don’t have to have that.”
He rubs Dessi’s back through the blanket she’s wrapped in.
“As long as I have you and as long as I have her, I’m content, but you know…” He pauses, swallows, the muscle in his strong jaw flexing. “You know I’d marry you today if you wanted that.”
“Well, today might be a little soon. I mean, youjustmet my parents.”
He barks out a laugh and winds an arm around my waist to bring me as close as our baby girl will allow sandwiched between us.
“You mean it?” he asks, searching my face.
I understand his shock. I was as adamant about not marrying as I was about not having kids. Yet here I stand with my beautiful baby girl and the love of my life. It’s only through therapy that I’ve been able to forge a path that isn’t controlled by my fear and trauma. Those fears weren’t baseless. There are real risks with this condition, but I fight every day for my stability. For so long, I didn’t acknowledge my desires, didn’t pursue them because of whatmightgo wrong. This healing journey has taught me that bipolarity doesn’t mean I have to forfeit all my dreams or ignore my desires. I deserve joy, too, and I’ll do what it takes to give myself the best chance possible. I’ve made my own mistakes. Now I have to make my own peace. I have to make my own life.
And the two people in my arms are at the center.
