Chapter Twenty-Four
Reinvigorated by her walk with Annie, Grace kicked off her trainers and opened the study door.
The black book on the coffee table didn’t seem quite so ominous after Annie’s rationalization.
On the solo walk back to The Lodge, the idea of being a loyal, friendly and helpful member of the family hadn’t seemed quite so bad.
There was no doubt she was still the first person Rosie and Jude turned to if they needed help, or to talk something over.
Even Paz treated her as an oracle sometimes, as though she automatically knew which was the best cough medicine, or how to get a curry stain out of a white T-shirt.
They all turned to her for advice too, and that was a privileged position to be in.
And Frank had said he didn’t want to worry her.
She hoped that was his primary reason for not telling her he thought he had ADHD, not that he thought she was too narrow-minded to listen … even if she felt she had been.
Sitting in Frank’s reading chair, she leaned against the tall back and thought again of the time when Frank and his partners were on the cusp of selling their business.
The two of them talked for hours and hours, listing the pros and cons.
She’d wake at three a.m. to find him staring at the ceiling, and he’d always have a new set of dilemmas to explore the following morning.
They were a couple who talked things through.
They thrashed out every step of his thought process together.
She was convinced of that. She lifted the black book and opened it, with the new understanding that, if Frank hadn’t disclosed his thoughts on having ADHD with her, then he must’ve had a good reason.
By reading more, she might find out why.
***
The next few pages were book reviews, with no mention of ADHD or their family.
She turned over to a leaf with Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver at the top.
2022 was written in the corner and Grace’s heart contracted when she realized this must’ve been one of the last books Frank read.
She scanned the page and noted the acronym so she went back to the beginning and read.
I wouldn’t have picked this book up if it hadn’t been for Crush saying how brilliant it was.
I’m so grateful she recommended it. After my family, the book club is the most rewarding thing in my life.
We’ve become colleagues, of sorts, but instead of talking about work, we thrash out the meaning in books, which, as far as I’m concerned, is the meaning of life.
When we discuss what motivates a character, one of us will inevitably have an experience to share that’s the same but different.
That sums us up, actually. A group of very diverse characters who’ve come together because of a common interest, and I’m so very glad we have.
It’s become such a safe place, and I think we all feel in accord about that.
Even when we’re reading silently, there’s a camaraderie, a sense we’re all involved in the same enriching experience.
More so, if I’m honest. There’s something about silence that makes people vulnerable.
There’s that term ‘comfortable silence’ and I think that exists because it’s harder to be relaxed with other people in silence than if you’re chatting or being outwardly entertained.
It takes a kind of trust to be happily quiet, and it’s something that connects us – and human connection is everything.
Does that sound evangelical? I’m not sure I care if it does.
I wish more people could experience what we have.
I’m certain the time we spend sitting together, lost in the worlds we’re reading about, but still in a kind of communal cocoon, sets us all up for the following two weeks.
Now, about Demon Copperhead. What a novel. The storytelling is compelling, the setting brutish and the language exquisite. Everything about this book is superb, but it’s the character of Demon Copperhead that will stay with me for as long as I live.
Grace almost cried when she read that. If he’d known the valve in his heart would fail him just twelve months later, would he have written those words?
Demon himself mentions he probably has ADHD (I wish I’d made a note because I can’t remember if he had a diagnosis or it’s just presumed) and I think I would have guessed even if it hadn’t been mooted in the text.
He is a child of an addict and becomes an addict himself, but I’m not sure that can be seen as a symptom of impulse control issues, or self-medication in this case because of the scale of the opioid crisis in the Appalachian region at the time.
On a personal level, I need to be careful not to see addiction as an inevitable side-effect of ADHD.
I’ve been hyper-vigilant over the years with Rosie, and it’s something I’m always looking out for in Jude.
It’s often on the tip of my tongue to tell Gracie how watchful and anxious I am about the two of them, but I always stop myself in time.
There’s no point piling my anxieties onto her.
It’s enough me always thinking the worst will happen without bringing her to my anxiety party.
She’s got enough on keeping us all in check.
It can’t be easy being the only one in the family who knows how time works, and who remembers birthdays and what day the bins go out.
We used to joke that it takes two people to be me.
I’m a bit ashamed about that now. I hope she knows how much I appreciate her.
I’ll tell her when I’ve got all this out of my head and onto paper.
How had she ever doubted him? Their marriage was the loving union she thought it was. She wiped tears from her cheeks and read on.
The book clearly shows how addiction can be an insidious thing.
A substance will pretend to be your friend at first, something to numb the pain.
I remember Tony telling me that a few pints helped him calm down.
He said it was his way of relaxing and that it quietened the noise in his head.
When he knew I was anxious and over-thinking, he would always tell me to have a drink.
I suppose one of the reasons I didn’t follow him down that road was because I saw how it ravaged him.
How sad his downfall might have been what saved me.
If Demon’s addiction isn’t an ADHD symptom, I’m sure his hyperactivity and emotional dysregulation are. He acts on impulse and has a visceral reaction to injustice. He’s loyal and loving and bursting with character, and I cried for him so many times in this brilliant novel.
I suspect I was crying for myself and Rosie and Jude too. I battle the guilt that I’ve passed this gene down every day. Yes, it has its upsides like the creativity and thinking outside the box, but I wouldn’t wish a moment’s anxiety, or the relentless activity going on in my head on anyone I love.
From the research I’ve done, the million thoughts in my head at one time is a kind of hyperactivity in itself, but it used to be called ADD, because the physical hyperactivity isn’t there.
Apparently, it’s now called ADHD, Inattentive Subtype, which I think is a misnomer, but I don’t make the rules.
It seems to me that Demon has the traditional ADHD, the one everyone has heard of because it’s associated with naughty boys and climbing trees – all stuff that doesn’t begin to cover what I’ve experienced in my lifetime.
That’s why I’m determined to get Jude a diagnosis.
Me and Rosie have found ways to manage our symptoms, and I don’t feel like I need medication or therapy, especially now I’ve retired.
It would be a waste of valuable NHS resources to go for a diagnosis I don’t plan to do anything with.
I don’t want the focus to be on me, either.
I want it to be solely about our Jude. He’s still a perfectionist, bless him, and the pressure he puts on himself feels unsustainable.
He procrastinates, then hates himself and thinks he’s lazy and stupid when he isn’t either of those things.
I just wish I’d realized what was going on while he was still at primary school.
Better late than never. I’m so relieved Rosie and Paz are open to looking into it.
When Jude gets his diagnosis, I suspect Rosie might go down the same route, but she’s old enough to make her own decisions on that. From now, I have three ambitions:
The first is to make sure Jude gets the diagnosis he needs to help him and to make him feel better about himself.
The second is to increase awareness of ADHD, especially the inattentive subtype, and let the world know how it really presents, as opposed to what everyone thinks it is.
The third is to build book club. The more people who have the opportunity to experience what I have there, the better.
Grace looked up from the book, her heart pounding against her ribcage as she remembered what Annie had said about book club’s dwindling numbers.
Frank achieved one of his ambitions and Jude’s life was all the better for it.
He hadn’t lived long enough to do the last two.
Since Frank could no longer do the work on his list, then Grace would make every effort to do it for him.