Wanted by Stephanie Kiser

Author:Stephanie Kiser [Kiser, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks

17

No Gyms For the Help

Stefany requires my assistance during all of the children’s waking hours, leaving very little time for myself. Most days that summer I am on the clock between the hours of six forty-five a.m. and seven thirty p.m. While the money is good, the hours are brutal, and I realize my work-life balance is not so different from what my father’s was when he worked at the mill.

With her husband back in the city for work, the two children together outnumber her, and Stefany says she cannot handle both of them on her own. For me, the work is a welcome distraction, though exhausting, and most of my waking hours revolve around someone else’s needs.

By the time my shift ends and I’ve showered, the time is eight p.m. I retire to my room in the basement and open up my computer, then sift through dozens of ROOMMATE WANTED ads. The process is stressful. Finding housing in New York City, specifically reasonably priced housing, can be nearly impossible. But Lila and I can no longer coexist. In fact, we haven’t spoken all summer. She’s hung back in our Hell’s Kitchen apartment while I’ve sorted out my job search in the Hamptons. We’ve decided not to renew our lease, and Lila will be gone by the time I return. Although I’ve toyed with the idea of finding a replacement roommate for our apartment, I decide a fresh start will do me good, so I make the decision to find a new place.

When an interesting listing catches my eye, I reply with a brief introduction of myself. I tell them what I do for work and how old I am. All dull facts that people share as if they can really help determine roommate compatibility. I’m in the middle of writing one of these emails when my chest begins to hurt. It’s a new phenomenon. The first time this happened I thought I was having a heart attack.

You’re too young, I told myself. After an hour of feeling as if a fifty-pound weight was stuck on top of my body and struggling to catch what felt like any air at all, the pain subsided and so did any worry. But days later it happened again. Eventually I went to the doctor.

For months after my abortion, I had been telling my doctor that I wasn’t feeling myself. “I just don’t feel right,” I had said. So my doctor would refer me to a different doctor, who would tell me I was fine and then send me to another, who would diagnose me with seasonal affective disorder, and then finally I’d be off to a third, who would dryly say it sounded like I had a case of “the millennials.” That’s the thing about mental health. When you have strep throat, they run a test and you get a firm diagnosis. Mental health is, in some ways, a guessing game, and there’s no lab in the world that can guarantee you a correct diagnosis.

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