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transparent blue eyes that had drawn him to her eleven years before. She had the kind of radiant beauty men felt compelled to write songs about and a soft, inviting nature that called out to his broken soul. The first time he saw her, he wanted her to be his safe harbor. His home.
    “Can I have five minutes, please? Just five minutes? I smell like shit.”
    “You smell like pot. Do you think Eden doesn’t know what it is? With how often you’ve come home reeking of it?” She twisted a strand of her long blond hair around her index finger, then let it unwind.
    “Jesus, Lydia,” David said as he took the three steps to their bathroom. “I already feel bad.”
    “Not bad enough, apparently. What was her name this time?” Her words dripped with disdain.
    David slammed the bathroom door behind him. He looked in the mirror and saw an old man. He was twenty-nine years old and his face was haggard and lined. His dark hair was a wild, matted mess around his head. After four days without sleep, he looked like a corpse.
    “David?” Lydia stood outside the bathroom door. Her voice was muffled.
    “What.” David stated it rather than asked.
    “It’s getting worse.”
    “What’s getting worse?” he asked her, knowing full well what she meant. He wanted her to say it aloud. Wanted her to tell him to leave. If she did, maybe he’d have the courage to do it.
    “The . . . cycles,” she said. “How quickly you move up through the highs and slip back down. The doctors said this might happen. They said if you didn’t stay on your meds—”
    “I know what they fucking said!” David snapped. “Don’t you think I know? I’m the one they talk to.”
    She sighed. “They talk to me, too. When you’re strapped down to a bed having sedatives shot into your arm, they’re talking to me. They told me it’s possible this could keep getting worse and worse if you don’t control it.” Her voice elevated and then caught in her throat. “I don’t want Eden to see this. I don’t think she’ll survive.”
    David turned around and pressed his forehead against the door, holding on to the handle. He wanted to let her in. He wanted to have her take him in her arms and hold him the way she used to hold him. Back when they first met. Back when his mind was still his own. “What won’t she survive?” he said. His voice was very small.
    “You, David. I don’t think she’ll survive you.”

January 1989
Eden
     
    I watched my father ascend the steps. He’s too skinny, I thought. The knots of his spine showed through the back of his shirt. He was becoming that word my science teacher taught us the week before. What was it again? Like a scorpion or a lobster? Next to math, science was my least favorite subject, so I had to rack my brain. Oh, that’s right. Exoskeletal . Maybe a man like my father needed to grow a hard protective shell. My mother always told me he was just a sensitive artist. He felt things deeper than most people. Maybe if he had a shell he wouldn’t hurt so much. I wondered if I could figure out how to grow one of my own.
    I stood in the hallway, listening to my parents’ raised voices upstairs. I didn’t want to hear them arguing so I escaped to the kitchen. I’ll cook for him, I thought. I’ll make him something to eat and he’ll feel better. When he was sad, when he locked himself in the garage, he could go days without eating, something I just couldn’t understand. Even though I was skinny like my dad, I ate enough to feed an army, according to my mother. When money was tight, like I knew it was now, I tried to control how much I asked for, but it was hard. My father hadn’t sold a painting in a long time, so my mother’s job as the manager for an accountant’s office had to support us.
    I wished I was old enough to get a job, other than pulling weeds for our neighbor, old Mrs. Worthington, and taking her dog for a walk. She only gave me a dollar a week and my mom made me put half of that in my