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You and PJ and Molly and Jack

By S. J. Powers

Hush. Quiet. Say you don't remember the day PJ flipped. Even thinking about that day, what would you say? You might say the police arrived, that they handcuffed her and drove her to the mental ward of some hospital. You might say that, but that would not be quite true. To reveal the truth would be to violate the silent pact between you. And much happened before the police arrived, and so much more before that. So much you can not speak of, think about. Ever.

According to PJ, that is the problem: you. You have some big problem or another, and apparently you are also the source of all the problems between you. Of course this is PJ talking, having flipped out. You try to remember this when she claims that, in fact, it is your alleged silence about your supposed problems that is making her sick. You catch the word 'sick' and hang onto it, grateful that it belongs to her. You stand in the bedroom preparing to go to work, to drive to the suburbs, to earn the money that allows you both to live how you lived. Nicely, you thought. Then she blocks you from leaving and screams in your face, "You are sick. You need help."

And you think for a moment, maybe it's true. True enough that you start to shake. You flee to the bathroom and call Molly and Jack from your cell phone. Days earlier you'd revealed some particulars of the situation to them. You were not relieved to admit these, but knew that you might need their help. Now you call, asking.

Then there's banging on the bathroom door, and PJ talking in tongues: Russian, Spanish, Pomeranian (you guess).

Months seem to pass, and then Molly and Jack arrive. You are almost surprised when PJ allows them to enter. But she's wanted witnesses. Now she has witnesses, and one of them, Molly, the outspoken one among you, says, "PJ, we'll take you to the hospital. You need to go. You need to come with us."

PJ grabs the phone to call the police. We are out of control, she yells in quick Spanish. Like a bolt of lightning, she is first at one end of the house and then the other. Jack lets out an involuntary laugh. Molly's face folds. You think of a cartoon.

Of course you don't watch cartoons. You are a professor of Economics, a woman who prefers concrete numbers and the intrigue of analysis to silliness and improbable fantasy. You have chosen this profession because it is aligned with your principles and with what you know how best to do. So you think about the idea of a cartoon, a generic cartoon. The idea, of course, does not amuse you. You remember a different PJ, funny, smart, agreeable. Who is this PJ, you wonder, and understand right then there will be no discussion of this day (if this day should ever pass) or of any other day for that matter, and certainly not of the days that led up to this one. Though in truth, as you listen to PJ calling the police on you and your friends, you can not think of how this all began.

Was it the day PJ came home and claimed her grandfather had spoken to her from the grave? Yes, she said "grave," certain of the location of the ethereal voice. That day you checked her eyes for evidence of drugs and found no evidence.

Or maybe it was the first night she didn't sleep, and for many weeks afterwards could be found walking, running, pacing the house all night, singing her favorite show tunes and holding conversations with some specter. You began to sleep in separate rooms, locking your door at night. You needed your rest, you said.

Or it might have begun with the 'things' that started to appear in the house, first piled in corners, then filling the spare room, then spilling throughout all the rooms. Or when she started hiding the things she bought in her car until she could no longer safely drive the car and you discovered evidence that her bank account was overdrawn and that the savings account you shared was being charged fees, due to lack of funds. These were the signs, but until her co-workers emailed you telling you she'd barked— literally— at the boss and was sent home to "rest," you did not dare think what this could mean, or how to get help.

Now she's called the police, and here they are. Soon there is shouting, scuffling, loud commanding voices, and you hide in the bedroom, your heart shuddering. When she at last agrees to check herself into a hospital, it is Molly and Jack who drive her there.

The hospital stay levels her out. She takes meds, and grows silent and unnervingly somber, but so unlike the hyper, babbling PJ of the last couple of months, you breathe a sigh of relief. And slowly, methodically, she starts to unclutter her car, the house, her life. You get to stay, the unspoken agreement between you that nothing of what happened would be discussed by you or her, or by you and Molly, or by you and Jack, (though it might be discussed between Molly and Jack), but between you and PJ and Molly and Jack, it would all just disappear into the past, into a cavern of silence, while your life begins anew, so quiet and calm, that some, even you, mistake it for peace.