Outside the Lines: A Novel

The voices chanted in David’s head. Leave now, leave now. He wasn’t drinking to quiet them. Not much, anyway. Eden only kept wine in her house and he couldn’t have too much of it without her noticing.

He listened for her to get into the shower, then snuck down the hall into the kitchen. Eden kept her wine on the counter, so David pulled the cork on the bottle and took a few long, hard swallows, waiting for his mind to calm. It was only enough to take the slightest edge off of how he felt. Eden was taking him to the doctor this morning and David wasn’t sure he was going to survive this reunion. Trying to white-knuckle his way through had never worked before and he doubted it would work now.

“Are you ready to go, Dad?” Eden called out from the bathroom, and David hastily took another swig of wine, then shoved the cork back into the bottle’s open mouth. He needed to tell her. He couldn’t stay. He needed to get back out in the world where he belonged.

“Just need my shoes,” David said instead. He heard Eden’s footsteps in the hallway and when she entered the kitchen, the hopeful look on Eden’s face was too much to disappoint. She wanted to help him so much. Couldn’t he at least try for her sake, after all she’d done to track him down?

So there he was an hour later, with his daughter, at the doctor’s office. They sat in the waiting room, Eden flipping through a magazine, David staring at the pattern in the wallpaper. His right leg bounced up and down in rapid rhythm until Eden reached over and touched it.

“You okay, Dad?” she asked.

He gave a brisk nod and tensed his muscles to keep them still. When the nurse called his name, both of them stood.

“Just Mr. West, please,” the nurse said. “The doctor will call you in after a while.”

Eden looked shocked but quickly recovered. “Oh. Well. Of course.” She sat back down. “I’ll see you in a few minutes, Dad.”

“Okay,” David said, and followed the nurse back to a small exam room with a growing sense of dread in his belly. She took his temperature and blood pressure, then told him the doctor would be right in. She closed the door behind her and David imagined the cell doors in the mental ward. White, heavy, and impenetrable. He would never escape.

David sat on the exam table. His skin crawled being inside the familiar medical surroundings. He didn’t want to be here. He shouldn’t be here. He was doing this for all the wrong reasons. How could he say this to his daughter? How could he possibly make her understand? His thoughts spun around and around in his head. Tell her you can’t do this, he thought. Tell her the truth and be gone. Go back to where you’re happy. Go back to where you can be yourself. But who was that? He didn’t know for sure. He did know that the moment the doctor told him he needed to be on meds, he might very well scream.

“David?” A soft female voice spoke his name as the door to the exam room he was in opened.

He cleared his throat. “Yes.” Keep it simple. Don’t say too much. Be normal and maybe she won’t want to drug you up too much.

A petite woman with short black hair stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her. “I’m Dr. Shaw. It’s nice to meet you.”

David nodded. “Nice to meet you, too.” He eyed the thick folder she held in the crook of her arm. Damn. She had obviously already gotten her hands on his medical history. How do these doctors do it so fast? His entire life summed up by other peoples’ opinions. People who didn’t know him. People who didn’t live with a brain like his in their heads. Who were they to tell him what he should do? Was it Eden who gave the doctor his file? Or Lydia? He wondered if his ex-wife would want to see him. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to see her, even if she did.

Dr. Shaw set the folder down and sat in the chair across from David. “Can we talk for a minute before I speak with your daughter?”

David gave a short, fast nod. He didn’t trust this woman.

“Great.” Dr. Shaw smiled tightly. “So, I’ve had a look at your file and it appears that you’ve never had a diagnosis that sticks. Is that true?”

“Yes, that’s true.” David kept his answers short. He wanted to appear balanced despite the voices raging at him to bolt out of the room. He gritted his teeth to keep from screaming until they squeaked inside his head.

“Well, without an official diagnosis, we’d have to start you on a low-dose regimen of lithium, the amount you were on most recently, just to get you in balance. If we don’t get results with that, there are several other families of drugs we could play with until we find one that works.” She gave him a sharp look down her nose. “But you’d have to promise me you’re going to stay on them long enough to see which ones are going to work. Your file indicates you’ve had a lot of trouble around this before.”

David swallowed the knot in his throat before speaking. “It’s different this time.”

“Different how?” the doctor asked.

“I’m not doing it for me. I’m doing it for my daughter.” That, at least, was an honest answer.

“I’d prefer you were doing it for yourself.”

Damn, David thought. Wrong answer. He tried again. “I guess I meant I’m doing it for both of us. To give us a chance. She told you we’ve been apart twenty years?”

“Yes, she did. The last time you saw her you were bleeding out from a suicide attempt.” She looked at him pointedly.

David didn’t answer. Sanctimonious bitch.

Dr. Shaw looked skeptical but stood up and proceeded with the physical exam. She pushed and prodded, listened to his heart and lungs. “You’re malnourished,” she said when she was done. “We’ll get you on protein supplements and vitamins. I’ll want to get some blood work done, too. Your liver’s a little distended. You’re a drinker, yes?”

David nodded. How did doctors always know this? From his file? He wished he could rip it from her hands and tear it to shreds. He flashed briefly on the idea of tearing her to shreds, but thankfully, the thought flew out of his brain as quickly as it had flown in.

“Having any withdrawal?”

“Not much. I’ve had some wine.” Not enough. Not nearly enough. Eden would have to go back to work eventually, right? He’d be able to find some cash and get a bottle.

“I’m going to give you a prescription for an anti-seizure med called Neurontin. It was originally used for epileptic patients, but it works well for alcoholics as they detox, too. Don’t drink. Have your daughter get you to AA if you have to. I’m putting you on ten milligrams of lithium, twice a day to start. Okay?”

“Okay.” David knew it was pointless to discuss anything further. The doctor had already decided how she was going to treat him after reading his chart. She hadn’t even waited to meet him. That’s what they all did. Not one of them said, “David, do you want to be on lithium? Do you want to stop drinking?” They all assumed that he would. His daughter assumed the same thing. She was like Lydia that way. Determined to rescue him when he wasn’t sure if he didn’t just prefer to drown.