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By Root 1440 0

might be right. A long, hot summer with Leonard in his un-air-conditioned apartment, followed by two months in their unit at Pilgrim Lake, had given Madeleine a good idea of what it would be like to be “married to manic depression.” At first, the drama of their reconciliation had overshadowed any difficulties. It was a rush to be needed the way Leonard needed her. As the summer wore on, however, and Leonard didn’t noticeably improve—and especially after they moved to Cape Cod and he seemed, if anything, worse—Madeleine began to feel suffocated. It was as if Leonard had brought his hot, stuffy little studio apartment with him, as though that was where he lived, emotionally, and anyone who wanted to be with him had to squeeze into that hot psychic space too. It was as if, in order to love Leonard fully, Madeleine had to wander into the same dark forest where he was lost.

There comes a moment, when you get lost in the woods, when the woods begin to feel like home. The further Leonard receded from other people, the more he relied on Madeleine, and the more he relied on her, the deeper she was willing to follow. She stopped playing tennis with Greta Malkiel. She didn’t even make a pretense of having drinks with the other bedfellows. In order to punish Phyllida, Madeleine turned down her invitation to come home for Thanksgiving dinner. Instead, she and Leonard celebrated at Pilgrim Lake, eating in the dining hall with the skeleton crew of people who stayed around. The rest of the holiday weekend, Leonard didn’t want to leave the apartment. Madeleine suggested driving to Boston, but he wouldn’t budge.

The long winter months stacked up ahead of Madeleine like the frozen dunes above Pilgrim Lake. Day after day, she sat in her desk chair, trying to work. She ate cookies or corn chips, hoping this would give her the energy to write, but the junk food made her lethargic, and she ended up napping. Then came days when she didn’t think she could stand it anymore, when she lay on the bed deciding that she wasn’t such a good person, that she was too selfish to devote her life to taking care of someone else. She fantasized about breaking up with Leonard, moving to New York, about getting an athletic boyfriend who was simple and happy.

Finally, when things got very grim, Madeleine broke down and told her troubles to her mother. Phyllida listened without much comment. She knew that Madeleine’s call indicated a significant shift in policy, and so she just murmured on the other end of the line, happy with the territory won. When Madeleine spoke about her plans for the future, the grad schools she was applying to, Phyllida discussed the various options without referring to Leonard. She didn’t ask what Leonard might do or whether he would like moving to Chicago or New York. She just didn’t mention him. And Madeleine mentioned him less and less, trying to see what it might feel like if he were no longer in her life. Sometimes this seemed like a betrayal of him, but it was just words, so far.

And then, at the beginning of December, with a magic that resembled their first days together, things began to change. The first sign that Leonard’s side effects were lessening was that his hands stopped shaking. During the day, he was no longer running to the bathroom every ten minutes, or drinking water constantly. His ankles looked less swollen, and his breath sweetened.

The next thing she knew, Leonard was working out. He began using the gym, lifting weights and riding a stationary bicycle. His disposition became more cheerful. He started smiling and making jokes. He even moved more quickly, as if his limbs no longer felt so heavy.

The experience of watching Leonard get better was like reading certain difficult books. It was like plowing through late James, or the pages about agrarian reform in Anna Karenina, until you suddenly got to a good part again, which kept on getting better and better until you were so enthralled that you were almost grateful for the previous dull stretch because it increased your eventual pleasure. All of a sudden, Leonard