Stay Gone by Holly Brown

Author:Holly Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

The worst part about intractable, lifelong depression is the hope.

You think, “This time it’ll work. This new medication, or this new therapist, or this shock they’re going to deliver to my brain to cause mini-seizures—that’ll do the trick.” I’ll start to have energy again; I’ll feel fully alive; I won’t be a disappointment to my wife and kids anymore; I won't stay at work until nine at night just because I can’t face them; I won’t feel like a fraud every time I paste on a smile and read them books; I won’t have to perform anymore, I’ll just plain feel better.

But nothing ever works, does it? I remain a fraud.

It’s not because I don’t love my family. It eats me alive, how much I love them. It’s why I try so hard to hide my real self, the one that’s full of darkness and loathing, the one I thought would be abolished by marrying a wonderful woman. Instead, I just shackled that wonderful woman to an emotional eunuch.

Marlene, you’re so good to me. You ask so little, and you do so much. You cover for me. You make sure the kids accept what I give them, and they’re grateful for it. That’s what kills me. I’m barely around, and when I am, I’m asking them to sit on the couch while I read them books. They’re too bloody old for that, and yet, it’s what I find I can always do; I can always dig deep enough for that. And they take what I can give, and they love me. God help me, I think Thomas even looks up to me.

You know, Marlene, that I’ve wanted to die for practically as long as I’ve lived. It’s because I’ve got this blackness inside me, this monster they call depression (such a mild word for such a beast!), and I know that all I am is a burden. You shouldn’t have to cover for me anymore, and I shouldn’t have to fake my way through, and the children shouldn’t have to believe in me like I’m Santa Claus. I’m a fictional character. I’m a figment of their imagination, and you stoke that. You tell them about how important I am at work, you build me up in their eyes, so that by the time I get home—this lump who reads to them—they think it’s a by-product of my incredible relevance.

And I appreciate that, I do, but it torments me, too. I’ve been living with my own personal torment for forty years now, and I’m ready to stop.

It needs to look like an accident, of course, and in order to truly pull that off, I need an accomplice. Everything done alone is too risky; it’s too potentially detectable. But with an accomplice to clean up the mess afterward, it would be foolproof. Any one of the scenarios I’m about to lay out would work; of that I’m certain. I’ve thought through every angle, every contingency. I would never put you at risk, Marlene.

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