“Can I ask why?” he croaked.
“I was depressed for years. It didn’t make any sense and I hated myself for it. I had great friends, a lovely house, a grand husband, two fabulous kids, and yet every morning I didn’t want to get out of bed. I had to force myself to go through the motions of each day, still trying to be a good mother, a good everything. I hid it all from everyone, my tears, my panic attacks, and my constant urge to throw myself down on the ground and admit I couldn’t go on.
“Everything kept getting worse, day after day. I was frantic and chronically exhausted. I knew I wouldn’t be able to go on putting up a face and pretending. Everyone was going to find out, and the shame and mortification tore into me. No one would understand, I told myself. No one would care. They’d all look at me and think I had everything I could ever want. They’d say I needed a right kick up the arse.”
Billy wondered if it was possible Michael had also suffered a devastating depression in the midst of what everyone believed to be a good and full life, and if that had similarly added to his anguish, driving him to do what he did. Nell continued. “It got to the point where I believed I was never going to get better, that I was going to go completely mad. The rest of my life stretched out before me like an endless prison sentence. I thought of all I had, my home and family and friends, and if that couldn’t make me happy, then nothing would ever make me happy. I couldn’t get the terrible thoughts to stop. I wanted the misery and agony to end. I convinced myself I was so wretched, so out of my mind, everyone would be better off without me.”
“I’m so sorry you had to go through all that,” Billy said.
She wiped at her tears with her paper napkin. “I read all these books, and all these Internet articles, trying to find myself—this woman who was so miserable she wanted to kill herself, but who could still go on day after day, somehow managing to hide it all from everyone, even her own husband and best friends.” Her brow and chin puckered. “I couldn’t find myself anywhere in the literature and it made me feel even more alone, and ever more convinced that no one would understand and, worse, that no one would be able to fix me.”
“What changed?” he asked gently.
She cried harder. “When I woke up in the hospital, this one counselor, Roslyn, she kept promising me I would feel peace again. Hope and happiness again. She told me, while I was still lying on my hospital bed, all pumped out and not long conscious, to think of just one thing to feel grateful for.
“I kept crying, kept shaking my head, kept telling her to go away and leave me alone. She wouldn’t leave, though. Said she was staying right there by my bed till I cooperated. ‘I’ll be grateful when you leave,’ I told her. She spun around, walked out of the ward, and then reappeared moments later. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Did it work? Did you feel grateful?’
“I stared at her, gobsmacked. I had felt glad she’d left, and a little disappointed, too. That’s when I first thought maybe, just maybe, there was still hope. Then, after, when I saw the effects of what I’d almost done on my family and friends, my two children especially … after that, I kept giving whatever thanks I could, for even the tiniest of things. And now, well, now I thank God every day I’m alive. Thank Him for that incredible gift. Back then, I’d never, ever have believed that was possible.”
Billy could already see her on the big screen, saying everything she’d just said and getting through to people, letting everyone like her, like Michael, know they weren’t alone, or beyond saving. That they could find hope. And peace. And even happiness.
Twenty-six
One Sunday morning, Adam Simon phoned. The filmmaker sounded euphoric, urgent. “Lights, camera, action, Billy boy. We need to head to Cork right away, you beautiful man, you.”
“Cork? What? Why?” Billy, yanked from sleep, felt muddled. Had Adam Simon really called him a beautiful man?
“That family of the brother-sister suicide? They’re going to take part in our documentary.”
Billy scrambled from bed, grabbing at his trousers, and a fresh shirt. “Are you serious?”
“What’s going on?” Tricia asked, also bleary-eyed.
“You better believe it, Billy boy. I’m almost at yours, be ready in fifteen.” Adam rang off.
“Billy?” Tricia asked.
“I’ve to head out, with Adam Simon, the filmmaker. I’ll be gone most of the day.” Something told him not to tell her about Cork, at least not until after they’d shot the interviews.
“Ivor will be disappointed to miss the swimming,” she said.
“I’ll make it up to him.” He hurried onto the landing, then turned back to her. “I’ll get home as early as I can this evening, maybe we can all go into town, go see a film or something?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sounds good.”
“We need to do more together,” he said.