My Beautiful Failure by Janet Ruth Young

local. She hoped to display, in an unprecedented coup, a collection of traditional Plains Indian leather pipe bags from a museum in South Dakota. She held each slide toward the lamp, unconsciously drawing her mouth into an upside-down U.
    “So you don’t think that if his show bombs or doesn’t happen, he’ll be crushed?”
    She laughed. “Of course not. He’ll be happy.”
    “What if he doesn’t get the forty paintings done? He’ll be happy with failure?”
    “Happy at having made an attempt.” She grimaced at another slide. “He’s busy and he’s happy. That’s what we wanted, right? End of story.”

46.
soaring
    I t seemed that every time I tried to get
     closer to Dad I was rebuffed. I had to put my personal feelings aside, though. What was
     more important was to follow up on my suspicion: that Dad was getting sick in the
     opposite direction of last year. Last year he was down and hopeless and had no energy.
     This year he was up and energetic and had too much hope. There had to be a relation
     between the two. The not eating or sleeping, the constant working, and especially the
     complete lack of judgment on the quality of his work.
    I looked in Your Mental Health for something
     that matched Dad’s symptoms and found Chapter 2, “Euphoric or Irritable Mood.” The authors said that
     anyone taking antidepressants had to be careful of irrational happiness
     (“hypomania”) because it could lead to bipolar disorder and a lifetime of
     cycling up and down. Had Dr. Gupta and Dr. Fritz warned Dad about this? The hell with
     the doctors. Mom had been stupid to trust them again.
    Too impatient to read the entire chapter, I Googled
     “bipolar disorder” and found the National Institute of Mental Health website
     listing “symptoms of a manic episode”:
    MOOD CHANGES
    • A long period of feeling “high,” or an overly happy
     or outgoing mood
    • Extremely irritable mood, agitation, feeling
     “jumpy” or “wired”
    BEHAVIORAL CHANGES
    • Talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another, having
     racing thoughts
    • Being easily distracted
    • Increasing goal-directed activities, such as taking on new
     projects
    • Being restless
    • Sleeping little
    • Having an unrealistic belief in one’s abilities
    • Behaving impulsively and taking part in a lot of pleasurable,
     high-risk behaviors, such as spending sprees, impulsive sex, and impulsive business
     investments
    Dad had them all, except maybe irritability. And I didn’t know, or
     want to know, about his sex life.
    So Mom, Dad, Linda, and Jodie all thought what Dad was doing was fine.
     Maybe I couldn’t get in the way of Dad’s forty days. But I could be his
     guardian. I could hover over Dad and the show.

47.
shift 5, november 18. call 29
    L isteners. Can I help you?”
    “Hello . . . Hello? ”
    No response from the other end, but no dial tone either. The caller was still on the line.
    “Hello? This is Listeners.”
    Uh.
    A strangled, grunting sound. Why wasn’t the caller speaking? My heart pounded. Oh my God, was this a Likely? Margaret and Richie were both on calls. I grabbed my manual and my list of emergency numbers, which, like everything else on the table, suddenly looked unreal and faraway. I tugged Richie’s sleeve. I made my eyes huge and pointed at my handset. Richie mouthed the word Likely? and I raised my eyebrows and nodded. Richie touched Margaret’s arm, but she raised a finger to put him off.
    “Are you all right?” I asked the caller.
    Uh. Sorry. Swallowing the tail end of my sandwich.
    “How’re you doing this evening?”
    Not too great. My girlfriend dumped me.
    “I’m sorry to hear that.”
    No, actually it was good news.
    “Oh, why’s that?”
    I kinda pushed her into it. By, you know, stepping out with other ladies.
    “But you weren’t happy in this relationship, it sounds like.”
    Not at all.
    “So you said you weren’t feeling great.”
    I have some dental problems