I didn't really know what to say or what to do when I heard Mara had actually tried to kill herself, after all those years of talking about it and thinking about it.  I didn't even bother to ask what method she had used.  I just grabbed my coat, told two friends at work where I was going (without leaving any chance for them to do anything in response but let their mouths drop open) and dashed out.  The hospital where they had taken her was right down the street from my office, so it only took about two minutes to pull into the Emergency Room parking area and get inside.

It wasn't until I'd had a moment to collect my thoughts in the ER that I began to wonder how it came to pass that Mara's mother (and her sister) were waiting for me at the hospital.  After all, they lived in New Jersey, and they hadn't said anything about coming to town.  Once we'd hugged and I'd been updated on Mara's immediate condition (stable, and busy getting her stomach pumped), they filled in all the missing details for me.

As it turned out, Mara's mother and sister had been operating under the same suspicions that I had: that Mara's behavior over the past week, especially calling her family members and talking to them without being prodded to do so, was both completely out of character and alarming.  So the two of them decided the best way to handle the situation was to fly down without warning Mara that they were coming, in order to confront her and possibly get her into some kind of mental hospital.  I suppose there was a chance of that working; my attempts to get Mara to go back into the hospital had been summarily rejected, but often Mara could be swayed by her parents or sister...partially out of guilt, and partially because she so desperately craved a more meaningful and understanding relationship with her family, and to have them take a selfless interest in her well-being like this was sure to mean a lot to her.  Whether it would have meant enough to act on their wishes, or whether she would have simply waited a few days for them to leave and then proceed with her plan anyway, we will never know.

For whatever reason, they chose not to tell me about the visit in advance either.  I can't really blame them, as I

have no way of knowing now whether back then I would have allowed my sense of loyalty to Mara (especially when it came to her family) to reveal their plans so she could mentally prepare herself.  Arriving at the airport, the two of them rented a car and drove out to the house we had been renting.  Knocking at the door, they were greeted by my mother, who neither of them had met in person before. 

Well, "greeted" is a polite way to put it.  When my mother opened the door, they introduced themselves.

The conversation was very brief.  I'm told it went something like this: they explained that they were Mara's mother and sister.  Then they asked my mother how she was.  She grunted and snidely said "Alive," walked to her bedroom, and closed the door.  That was the last they saw of her during the time they were at the house.

Left alone, the two of them went into our bedroom, where they found Mara asleep on the bed.  They tried to wake her and discovered she was terribly groggy.  Noticing an empty bottle on pills on the bed next to her, they asked Mara if she had taken anything.  She admitted that she'd taken the entire bottle of Xanax (maybe 20 pills), and had planned on taking a full bottle of 90 Darvocet as well, but passed out before she'd had time.  Four suicide notes were left on the other side of the bed: one to her parents, one to her brother, one to her sister, and one to me.

They frantically called an ambulance.  When the paramedics arrived, Mara was still able to walk to the stretcher

under her own power.  They raced to the hospital, where they took Mara in to pump her stomach, and Mara's mother called me at work.  It was a tremendous stroke of luck that they'd happened to choose that particular day to fly down, because otherwise there was little or no chance that she would have been found until I came home from work that afternoon.  By that time, I'm sure it would have been too late.

As we sat in the waiting room, the inevitable questions and recriminations started.  I had learned to expect and deal with these sorts of conversations from Mara's family.  Of course, I already felt guilty enough as it was.  After all, the woman I had basically devoted my entire life to caring for and making happy was lying in the other room having a bottle of pills pumped out of her stomach.  What better illustration could there be of my complete and utter failure in every regard?  But I still didn't need the third degree from these people, especially when in my opinion they'd never done anything to help the situation.  When we were married (or before) Mara had become *my* problem.  The family's place was to sit back and offer criticism whenever they felt it was necessary.

"Why haven't you done anything to help her?"  "Why wasn't she in the hospital?"  "How could you let it come to this?"  "Why didn't you see this coming?"  "Why hasn't she lost any weight?"  "Why why why why why why why why why why why?"  Pretty soon that's all I could hear.  A never-ending barrage of whys, each one pointed directly at me, the guilty one, the worthless one, the useless one, the failure, the one who was never good enough for their daughter and sister.  All those titles slapped on my back, with a new one added for the occasion, in flashing neon: attempted murderer.

And as if things weren't bad enough for me, the worst was yet to come.  I was about to discover that, just like with every other physical ailment she'd suffered through, the process of pumping Mara's stomach and cleaning her system out was going to be far more complicated than anyone imagined.  Whenever we heard that "99% of people" experienced things a certain way, we both knew that Mara would turn out to be in the other 1% - as long as the 1% was a *bad* thing.  That trend was going to continue.