Page 2 of Cross + Catherine: The Companion

They’re together.

They are an us.

But they are also a woman and a man. A woman who needs to be alone sometimes, and a man who needs one room to himself in his house that has nothing to do with his brilliant, genius son, and his very diva-like daughter.

Although, now their kids are nineteen and twenty-three. They don’t live at home anymore, but Catherine assures it doesn’t matter. They still need their spaces. They still respect what the other wants, and they talk more than they fight.

Catherine gets it.

I think I might get it, too.

“But we fight, too,” she adds, grinning a little.

They argue about things all married couples argue about. She steals his blankets, and he leaves his shit all over the house. She puts too much sugar in his coffee, and he can’t wait until a single thing is cooked before he has to, as she says, “Stick a fucking spoon in it. Drives me nuts.”

I laugh.

So does she.

So yeah, they need their space sometimes.

Like all normal, married couples.

“Here is where I release everything weighing me down,” she says before sipping from her glass of cheap red wine. “And that comes on so strong sometimes, that it surprises me. After all these years, and it’s still there, you know?”

Depression, she means.

Her struggle with mental illness is one I know all too well, and one she has been open about for a good portion of her life. She doesn’t treat it like a plague anymore, and she knows it’s never really going to go away.

“Kind of seasonal,” she adds, pointing to the window where it’s bright and clear outside. A summer day, actually. “When the weather is good, I feel good.”

But when it’s cold and damp and dark, she feels it creeping in. But she almost always knows when it’s coming now, and she can better handle it.

“Going to Cali helps,” she says.

“Good weather,” I agree.

When I ask if she has anything to tell those who struggle like she does, Catherine doesn’t even think about the question. Maybe it’s the fact she’s been battling this for years, and her mantra is always close by.

Nonetheless, her advice is on point.

As always.

“You have to be open,” she explains, “otherwise, how does anyone around you know how to help when you need it the most?”

Because sometimes, silent screams are all you can do.

And no one can hear those right away.

Catherine picks up her phone when it dings, and glances at the screen with a smile. “Cece,” she says when I raise a brow in question.

All too soon, we’ll be walking down Fifth Avenue because her daughter has finally come back from her honeymoon, and she wants me to join her and Cece on a shopping spree.

“We don’t do that very often,” Catherine adds, “but I’m giving her a little break before she needs to get back to work.”

“And how do you feel about that—Cece being in the family business, I mean?”

I wonder if she’ll answer, since business is supposed to be off the table.