38. Letting go
THIRTY-EIGHT
LETTING GO
M y ex-wife is back and I’ve never been so depressed. I don’t even know where to start to bring back light into my life. Even Vanessa’s isn’t enough to help me. Not that it was ever fair to ask her to do that for me. To be my ever guiding light, my beacon in the dark. I wanted her to be so much. Now, I’ll just bring her down with me.
Monica will use anything against me, I just know it. The way she first told me she wanted to sleep with other people, then how she left never to return for eight months. There are only so many reasons she’ll be crawling back now.
The fear of losing the best thing I have in this life, of losing my children, freezes me to the bed, and adds to the heavy weight of my pain. Every movement is sluggish and costs me.
I don’t even know why I’m like this. It started in high school, where dark thoughts like a blanket invaded my brain and the most simple tasks seemed like climbing Mount Everest. It never abated, but I learnt to live with it. To ignore it. To repress it.
When I thought I found a life partner, I first did everything I could to hide it. Then when I thought she could help me carry the burden, she made me feel shame and disgust that coats my skin even now. But Monica was right. I’m unfit to be a father, too weak to care for them, too soft to give them what they need. I don’t deserve them.
I don’t deserve her . But she keeps basking me in the rays of her sunlight.
“Lino,” Vanessa calls out for me, but I don’t turn. “Lino, please , look at me.” I could never resist her sweet begging. It takes a tremendous effort, but I will my body to obey and turn to face her, looking down at where our hands link towards our stomachs. She’s a magnet I can’t help but be drawn to; my selfishness truly knows no bound.
Her soft hand lifts my chin so I can meet her eyes. Her irises are dark in the low light of the room, but they’re filled with love. I can’t look away.
“You’re not unfit or weak or unlovable, or anything that vile woman ever said to you.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to defend you,” I tell her. When I heard Monica, it was like everything she ever said to me came flooding back and drowned me. How Vanessa stays with me after I’m so incapable is beyond me.
“Don’t be. I can defend myself. I’ve met bigger monsters.” She smiles sadly. “I love you and I will be there for you, whatever you need. But you are depressed. I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know anything except what I read online. You need better help that I can provide.”
I cling to her, burrowing my head into her chest. “You’re all I need.”
“As sweet as the words are, you know that’s not true,” she says, and I feel her conviction all the way to the marrow of my bones. And I know she’s right, I just don’t know where to start. Why would now be any different? “You need professional help, someone you can talk to who can give you perspective, to untangle how you feel. Me and the children won’t go anywhere. But you need to do this for yourself, and for us.”
My throat clogs and a visceral need to escape takes hold of me, but I refuse to let it. I nod and kiss my girl, pouring all my gratefulness into it.
The strange thing about depression is that it’s so invisible, it can look like it’s absent. And it comes and goes as it wishes, leaving behind the anxious wait for its return. Especially as I grow harder against Vanessa when she climbs on top of me, settling her hips over my groin. I could almost believe I dreamt the whole morning.
“Stay with me,” Vanessa whispers against my lips as she moves her hips, bringing me back to the present moment and to her. She’s all I see and I cling to the vision of her perfect face hovering over me and hiding us between the curtains of her long chestnut hair.
“Let me be inside you, u mo sole . Let me show you how grateful I am for you,” I plead with a strained groan.
She pulls her dress over her head, her bra and panties the only thing separating our skins. With deft fingers, she draws down my pyjama pants just enough to free my cock and slides her panties to the side. She straddles me and moves me inside her slowly, letting us take our time. I remain still and let her take what she needs from me. As she grinds her clit against my pelvis, pleasure shoots up my spine. My body doesn’t allow my mind to take over and back to that dark place; she doesn’t allow it. I focus on her, my thumb gliding against her wet clit in the pattern she loves so much.
I throw my head back and close my eyes in bliss, but Vanessa takes hold of my hair at the top of my head and pulls me back to look at her again. My eyes fly open and my mouth stays slack in awe.
“Stay with me,” she repeats. Love bleeds through her body and I obey, letting her guide us to our peak. With the steady rhythm of her hips moving back and forth, and the warm wetness coating my shaft, I come in bursts, my eyes never straying from the goddess on top of me. I drink in her cries of pleasure and let them drown the sorrow in my soul. For a moment, she’s all I can think about, all I can see, taste and feel, and it’s glorious.
The high is intense and I’m grateful for it. Yet I know it's a bandage. And I need to take care of the source. I caress her cheeks when she comes down from her orgasm. “You deserve so much better.”
Her answer is immediate, coming from deep within her soul, leaving no space for discussion. “I deserve to be a good partner to the man I love, who would do exactly the same for me,” she proclaims.
She gets up and opens the curtains without another word. I groan like Dracula caught in the light, and Vanessa's soft laugh echoes through the walls of the room, darkness receding ever so slightly in her presence. “Let’s get you showered, my love.”
The nickname is new, and my cheeks taint with a blush.
“You’re adorable when you pout.” She smirks, levity building in my chest once more at her teasing.
“I’m not pouting and I’m not adorable,” I grumble more to have her tease me some more than because I think she’s wrong.
She rolls her eyes and walks to the en-suite, discarding her underwear, my cum sliding down her inner thighs in the most primally pleasing way. I can’t get enough of that view and if I want to see it for the rest of my life, I have to seek help beyond simply ignoring my issues.
When I enter the shower, Vanessa holds out her hand and I frown. The warm water sluices down her breasts and I follow a drop that falls to her navel before it dips down to the curls at the apex of her thighs.
We don’t talk, and she has me sit on the small bench. She lathers my skin with soap, then washes my hair, her fingers massaging my scalp in delicious circles. I clench my teeth hard not to cry, but once again, she reads me like I’m her favourite book.
Our gazes meet, hers shining with unbound adoration, mine, uncertain but hopeful. Tears I didn’t know I could release fall to my cheeks.
“Let go,” she begs as she kisses my salted lips.
Sobs rack my body, and Vanessa climbs on my lap, holding me to her as I bury my face in the crook of her neck. She continues to smell like peonies, candies and the last day of summer. I wish I could hold her like this for hours. I need the safe place of her arms to release emotions I can’t control, and probably have never dared to feel before. She lets me.
I hold her for a long time before we dry ourselves and take a walk in the neighbourhood, enjoying the heat of late summer, and the simplicity of her hand in mine. Before we pick up Anton and Livia, I call the doctor Jade recommended. The road will be long, but there isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for them.
D r. Armand is a very small man in his fifties with a weathered but kind face, dressed like he’s about to go on a show about 1950’s male clothing fashion. I’m pretty sure his socks hold with sock garters under his elegant beige flannel pants.
The first session we had was draining. I didn’t know where to start, so we just started with rage and defeat. Rage that my ex-wife came back to wreak havoc upon the fragile heaven Vanessa and I are building, defeat that no matter what I do, I still feel inadequate and dark and like I’m never going to be ‘normal’. Routine has always helped keep the overwhelm at bay, but with all the changes I’ve experienced this year, it’s like the monster in my head is catching up to me and I’m too slow to avoid him any longer.
Dr. Armand’s been helping me reframe what ‘normal’ means to me, but I’m only on my third session. I have a long road ahead.
“What don’t you tell me how you’re feeling today, Lino?” Dr. Armand asks with his usual soft smile that invites a confession.
“Drained,” I answer immediately.
He doesn’t speak, and I know he’s waiting for me to add to what I just said. I look out his window to the patio shaded by majestic trees and adjust my glasses on my nose. I’m wearing loose fitted maroon pants and an aquamarine short-sleeved shirt that Vanessa loves but despite the comfortable clothes, the fabric seems to tighten around my body until it constricts my open throat.
I don’t look at my therapist as I answer him. “I’m drained, yet I did nothing today. I got up and ate what my girlfriend prepared for breakfast. I walked my kids to school and then I went back to sleep until I came here.” I should have been strategising how to take care of the pest problem that’s my ex-wife since I know she petitioned for shared custody and will no doubt show up unannounced again.
He hums and I know he’s about to make me see my day in a different light. It’s been as helpful as it’s been agonising. Recognising I’m not a failure. Allowing myself to be unwell, and to accept the help I get from him, Vanessa and even Pierce, who came to check on me and took me to golf with him. I hated every second of it and I’ve never been more grateful for a friend. The contrast is unsettling. He didn’t ask me anything. We just silently swung our clubs until my arms ached.
“From where I sit, it doesn’t sound like nothing,” Dr Armand. “Why don’t you retrace your steps and tell me all the things you actually did?”
I sigh. “I got up.”
“Excellent.”
“I ate.”
He nods, a paternal and satisfied tilt of his lips gracing his features.
“I took my children to school and hugged them. And I came here.”
He quirks a brow. His teasing has put me at ease since the beginning. There is none of the pity that I thought would be ever present when I stepped into his office. He doesn’t judge, listens, and allows me to be and come to my own conclusions. Of course, I knew that’s what therapists are meant to do but living it is a very different experience.
“You mentioned your girlfriend gave you a journal, didn’t you? I want you to start making a list of all the things you do during the day, even as mundane as they seem to be. Right now, you are weighted by the fallout of years of repressed emotions, and everything seems insurmountable. Yet, you wake up every morning and continue. And you show up here.”
“I do it for them, for my children and for my girlfriend. They deserve better.”
“Better than what, Lino?”
“Better than this shadow of a person I’m becoming.” My throat clogs and the words jumble up on their way out. “If I weren’t the way that I am, I would have never married someone as toxic as my ex-wife. I wouldn’t have let her manipulate me.”
“Ah, yes, but you wouldn’t have Anton and Livia, would you?” he asks and my heart clenches with the idea of not having them in my life.
“No, I wouldn’t. But if I was a better man, then I’d be a better father to my children, and she wouldn’t have destroyed our family,” I say, starting to get agitated. How can he not see what I am?
“But you just said she manipulated you, so tell me, Lino, why would you want her to stay? Especially with how highly you speak of Vanessa? Are you confused about your feelings for both women?”
“No!” I look at him then. “Vanessa is the love of my life. My ex-wife is just a thorn in my side and the mother of my children, that’s it.”
I drop my forearms to my knees. I just know that if this heaviness didn’t exist inside me, things would be different, better for the people I love.
“You love to beat yourself up for something you have no control over. And before you say anything to contradict me, you do,” he says kindly. I was going to cut him off and I appreciate the straightforwardness. “That’s part of how your depression manifests within you. It exists and you try to repress it and, therefore, it gets louder and makes you believe you are worth nothing. I want you to observe how you talk to yourself until I see you next, and if you can, when you catch yourself, I want you to replace that voice in your head with Vanessa’s or your children’s. How does that sound?”
“Like it’s going to cost me,” I answer truthfully. “But I appreciate that I can use techniques and tools like this.”
I leave his office feeling both heavier and lighter, the dual sensation confusing me and making me want to crawl into bed with Vanessa until I fall asleep. But as much as I can, I’m awake as long as the kids are, showing up for them if I don’t do anything else. The fact that Vanessa hasn’t run is a gift I don’t take for granted.
She waits for me at the local cafe, in the heart of Sant Armellu. The late September air is warm as I sit next to her on the terrace. I kiss her cheek and she jumps with a laugh so pure it clears my mounting headache slightly. Her bright yellow sundress and sheep wool cardigan brings a smile to my face and I absentmindedly rub the fabric against my fingers as I tell her about today’s exercises, then admit that Dr Armand also suggested antidepressants.
“How do you feel about that?” she asks, not an ounce of fear or judgement in her perfect almond eyes.
“I’m terrified. What if they don’t work? What if they do and Monica finds out and uses that to get custody of Anton and Livia?”
That’s the first thing I thought of when he mentioned them, but I can’t deny that I’m curious. If there is a fast-track to being better and more present for my family, on top of the hard work of looking into myself for all the ways depression manifests itself through me, I want to do it.
“Think about it, my love. You don’t have to rush anything,” she says, then kisses my lips softly. She tastes of coffee and a love so simple it makes my chest ache. I’m reminded with that simple peck on the lips that I have something worth fighting for smiling at me.