Addie and Amber

At my brother's Memorial Day barbecue, Amber mentions that an article on her phone states that depression does not show up in an x-ray. I make a joke about a dark nodule of depression by someone's cheek, and how funny it is she is researching depression at a party.

This is the moment when I put together the few times she has mentioned depression recently, which I brushed off because I am the one with depression and she is merely a woman insatiably curious about everything.

She is depressed. It has hit her harder at times -- for one, when she brought home Jareth's ashes and I, not realizing, asked if it was a present. She is outwardly fine much of the time, but I am unable to see or know the inner workings of her mind. I have learned to be overt and neutral in mentioning my pain -- e.g., "I am having a bad mental health day" without ascribing outward -- but Amber is still subtle and small in her needs. She is the iceberg, showing me the tip of her pain that I take for the totality of her experience when ninety percent is under the surface.

It did not occur that she was depressed, even if this is not a lasting condition. She can be depressed without depression, which I managed not to understand she was hinting.

At the barbecue, she is distant and quiet. I ask about this and she says she is sad. Reflexively, I ask why. She looks at me with vexation and reminds me that I know why.

I assume that I have a priority to mental unwellness in our relationship. I take medication and go to a therapist, where I report tiny bothers and my therapist inflates them until I must do something about them. It makes me self-centered, indulging in solipsism where it isn't possible that Amber is also depressed.

Of course, she grieves, because she takes the death of Jareth personally. The death of any beloved pet is a tragedy, but most do not see it as a personal failing. Amber, with all her medical and scientific knowledge, with her job at an animal hospital, could not make Jareth live longer than a year. With feline leukemia and lymphoma, no one could have done better.

Depression never speaks sense. Pessimism can, but depression is not pessimistic.

But depressed

For all my experience having depression and anxiety, for all the work I've done to keep them under control, I don't know what to do for Amber. She is not happy, and it nearly panics me. She is usually so light and contented, within the parameters of her perfectionism.

On the sofa beside me, Amber's face twists into the beginning of tears, then retreats to a neutral expression.

She can't tell me what she needs. I put an arm around her for want of instructions. She resists it for ten seconds. Not long, but long enough that I know she doesn't want to be touched. I begin to remove my arm. She presses her head to my chest then, and we say nothing.

Before we left for the party, I asked Amber if she wanted to go. It was half a joke, but I understood that she was not thrilled with the possibility of the barbecue. I thought she might not be happy with me, though she perfunctorily told me we were fine. She did say that she didn't want to go, also framing it as a joke.

I told her she could stay home, but I didn't couch it as a joke this time.

One cannot be outwardly depressed at one of Dan's parties. Our nephew Aaryn jerks about in virtual reality three feet from us. My mother plays an interminable card game with Alyssah on the other sofa. The speakers play Top Forties a few decibels above comfort. Aydan tools around the rooms on a hoverboard. In sure moments, Adalynn will pester or steal Amber in an act of childish love. There is no place to withdraw to deal with emotions.

The next day, when we find the street cat Merky in an empty parking lot, Amber takes some minutes brush-petting seeds from the cat's fur and pinches a fat tick from her face. I know what she is thinking here, because I am not grossly ignorant of how my wife works. Merky walks a few feet from Amber, rolls onto her back, and lolls there, trusting us more than she may trust other humans.

When we get home, Amber begins to plan how she is going to adopt Merky. It is too soon. Amber argues that, no, here we have a cat we know who needs someone to take care of her, which has been our parameter for stealing some animal from the wilds. Merky has a whole block that takes care of her, a restaurant that leaves out dry food, though they may not have named her for convenience of narrative. She is not alone in the world. I do not know how to gauge if she is happy.

"I don't want another sick cat," I tell Amber. "I thought you wanted a kitten, too." This is trying to speak logic to depression. Merky won't stop the mourning for Jareth. Also, though not the primary concern to her, Merky is longhaired. I adapted to having two shorthaired cats in my home. Longhairs are more prone to being allergenic.

"Kittens are hard to get," says Amber, in contradiction of the people in front of grocery stores with mewling babies in cardboard boxes. She then amends, "A kitten would remind me of Jareth and make me sad. And Merky probably isn't sick, because she has been around for over a year and isn't dead yet. But I'll bring her to the vet, get her checked out. Maybe she has a microchip and we can return her to her owners."

Merky

If her owners wanted her, they would have her. She isn't covert. I have known where to find her for over a year and she comes to me when I pass by. There is no chance she has escaped the notice of anyone looking for a cat. I have strong suspicions that Merky had an owner once, a Bard kid who abandoned her when the school year instead of dealing with the responsibility of giving this cat a home. Merky belonged to a privileged brat in the apartments above Mercato Osteria Enoteca. She appeared shortly after classes ended one summer. If I cared to play detective, I could narrow down the suspects, but it would do me no good.

Amber says we won't take Merky if it turns out that she has FIV, that she will give Merky to a shelter. I doubt that is a better life than letting her roam her small territory and sleep in tall grass or under the porch of Mercato. Amber is softhearted when it comes to lost causes.

When making her case, Amber twice slips: "Jare- Merky."

When I tell Amber later that I am not feeling well, she tells me we are not allowed to trade depression back and forth. I reply that I had it first and she stole it.

Amber decides that Merky is what is bothering me, rather than that I have not had a good night of sleep in close to a week. She brings Merky up, even though I am not thinking about the cat and don't care that much. I wrote about the damned beast before. I was foreshadowing something in doing so. If Jareth didn't find us, Merky would already be our cat, so I have only a token resistance.

Much as my low state is not because of the cat, Merky wouldn't cure Amber's depression. Her depression is valid and needs to be processed, because mine would in her position. Acquiring Merky would be shoving a furry cork in it. I loved Jareth more than I have loved a cat (with apologies to my other cat, Kit-Kat, whom I love in a more mellow and respectable way). I am copacetic cohabiting with Jareth's ghost a while longer, but I do not believe Amber will let Kit-Kat be the only cat in our home, for her good more than his. She will not feel satisfied when we know a cat in need of a home and we happen to have a home in need of a cat.

Soon in Xenology: Toxicity.

last watched: Angel: the Series
reading: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
listening: Damien Rice