“No, my love, this is not the end for you two. Stop mourning what isn’t over. You can’t see past his behavior, and he’s done some appalling things, perhaps a few unforgivable. But this is just a crossroads, and you’ll have a lot more of them in your marriage.”
“I don’t know, Mom, I don’t know. God, I was so sure we were unbreakable.”
“No one is. You think I don’t know what it’s like to be that absorbed? I’ve lived it. You two are each other’s universe. It’s the same with your father and me. You have no idea how many battles we’ve overcome just to stay together. But this battle, this isn’t about the two of you. He’s doing this for Blake and for himself. It has nothing to do with you. And you’re taking it personally.”
“I don’t know how else to take it!” Our child chooses that moment to make me purge my breakfast. Running to the toilet, I barely make it when I unleash hell into the porcelain. She wets a washrag and hands it to me. I wipe my face of the evidence before I brush my teeth. My mother stands in the doorway, arms crossed while she confronts my reflection.
“This isn’t about your relationship. Not at the moment. This is about his bigger picture. You’re a large part of it, but right now this isn’t about marriage, this is about his friendship and his guilt, and you’re just going to have to deal with it.”
“Great,” I snap sarcastically. “You seem to know a lot, Mom. You have a time line for this because I have a baby coming?”
“As long as it takes. Look, Lucas has been working nonstop for a very long time. He might’ve lost touch with himself. It often happens when creatives burn out. He’s reached stardom, he’s probably afraid right now that he’s got nowhere to go but down.
“He’s never told me that.” But that isn’t totally true. I just figured he had outgrown his fears the further he got in his career because he never spoke of them again. If there’s merit to what she’s saying, I couldn’t be more wrong. Swallowing my pride, I table my anger and look over at her. “I’m listening.”
“Mila, I love you. I’m talking to you from a place of love, I don’t need to be right, I need you to know that. But you need to get over yourself a little. As tightly knit as you two are, sometimes our deepest fears don’t get voiced to the ones we’re closest to, especially when we’re the most afraid. While I don’t doubt you two rely on each other, maybe his problem stems from more than just Blake’s death. Listen to me, dear daughter. He needs you now. It’s crucial that you are there for him. A few bad years in a marriage is a reason to leave, a few bad months in a good marriage is a reason to stay. Seems to me he’s got a bit more than a death to deal with going on.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe the question isn’t why is he acting as Blake, but why doesn’t he want to be Lucas? From what I’m gathering, Blake’s death has taken a toll in more ways than one and landed him right smack in the middle of an existential crisis.”
I roll my eyes. “You’ve been married to a psychiatrist too long.”
“What if I’m right? Do you have any idea how many patients your father treats for this very thing?”
“We were happy.”
“Yes, as a couple but you and I both know there’s more to life than that. Lucas isn’t just your husband or an actor. He’s probably finally looking up and realizing where he is in the map of his life, and he might not like it. Seems like he’s lost touch with himself through this career he’s starved for.”
“He’s never told me that.”
“Because he probably wasn’t in that frame of mind before Blake’s death. Death changes people, Mila. It can make you question everything. He’s probably terrified.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of where he is.”
“Why?”
“We get told our whole lives that these things A, B, and C are what we need to make ourselves happy but obtaining them and seeing them for what they are can be utterly terrifying. One of the things your father told me is that most parents have no idea how to deal with overachieving children when they reach this point because the parents themselves cannot