What We Find (Sullivan's Crossing, #1)(88)

“Your family does love books,” Maggie said.

“It always gets us through,” Marissa said.

They all had lunch together but Cal and Maggie left them at dinnertime. On the third day Maggie went to a bookstore and bought Marissa and Jed some new books. She had noticed the books they kept were mostly science, law or literary classics so she bought a nice big stack, including a few large art books, hoping she wasn’t duplicating what they had. Marissa was breathless with excitement and gratitude.

“I notice you don’t have a computer in the house,” Maggie said to Marissa.

Marissa looked at her in shock. “We can’t have a computer,” she said. “Jed wouldn’t be able to get along with it. There are enough voices in his head without the internet. We had a computer for a short time and he didn’t sleep for days.”

“I thought it might keep him busy and help him communicate,” Maggie said.

“He would soon be communicating with aliens from outer space. I’m very careful with what we have on TV.”

“Marissa, has your whole life been like this?” Maggie asked. “Taking care of Jed?”

“My whole life has been loving my husband,” she said. “Jed’s a brilliant, wonderful man.”

Of course every night they talked it to death. Maggie lay in Cal’s arms and they went over the details of the day. Jed would be better on medication except that he refused it. “My mother claims they tried psychiatric help but I honestly don’t remember anything like that ever happening. Maybe it was one of those times we kids stayed here on the farm with Grandpa and Grandma. When my dad was much younger he could conceal his hallucinations and work. And he was a gifted lecturer—when he started talking, people gathered around him. But even then my mother stayed very close to him, coaching him, managing him, making sure he wasn’t acting crazy. Mom and Dad were just day laborers, farm workers, warehouse workers, that sort of thing. He got arrested a couple of times, I can’t even remember what that was about because he’s not one to draw attention to himself by breaking laws. Maybe that’s when someone tried giving him medication. His hallucinations really intensified when I was a teenager. The bottom line appears to be that he’s not aggressive, not dangerous to anyone but himself, and he’s not going to see a doctor. Ever. But he’s been on the farm for twenty years and as long as he stays on the farm, he seems to be safe.”

“There’s a nice little patch of cannabis behind the tomatoes in your mother’s garden,” Maggie told him.

“Oh, I know,” Cal said with a laugh. “Good old Dad has been keeping his voices under control with weed for a long time now.”

“It could be adding to his psychosis,” she said.

“Everything could be adding to his psychosis,” Cal said. “Under any other circumstances, without my mother and the farm, he’d be homeless and wandering the streets.”

“Your poor mother!”

“It’s her choice, Maggie. Not the choice I would have made.”

“What choice would you have made?” Maggie asked.

“As a parent? I’d have drawn a line in the sand—get help for the mental illness or you’re on your own. I know my mother is a loving woman but I’m not sure this devotion is helping him and I know it’s not good for her. She had children to be responsible for. She could’ve been a better role model. Instead, we grew up knowing a woman who devoted her life to her crazy husband. He was her priority, not the whole family.”

“And yet, look at the family. Look at how you turned out. You, your sister, your brother...”

“My mother was a teacher—she taught us. She read to us constantly, until she was hoarse, and the minute we could read even a little bit, she took turns with us reading. And she read from adult literature when we were small, the same books over and over and over.”

“Something about that worked—you’re all so brilliant.”

“But, Sierra...”

“Are you going to find out what’s happening with her?”

“I have the name of the hospital she admitted herself to. I’ll get in touch. But she’s an adult. If she doesn’t want to talk to me or have me know about her condition, that’s her prerogative.”

“So, you don’t approve of the way your parents are handling their lives and your dad’s illness. How does that impact you?”

“I feel a natural obligation to them, but I won’t take it to the lengths my mother has. Sedona and I visit once a year at different times, more often if there’s some kind of crisis. Dakota comes less often—that whole situation is hard for him to take. I come to be sure they’re fed, warm, safe. There’s a family practitioner in town I’ve become friendly with and he’s my mother’s only physician. She’ll go to his office if she has to, but Jed won’t. The doctor is willing to go to the house if Jed’s sick, like with a flu or something of that nature. But Jed, who smokes pot every day, won’t get a shot or take pills of any kind. Really, he should be dead by now. But while they’re alive on that farm, I’ll call regularly and check on them sometimes. That’s all.”

“Was your childhood horrific?” she asked.

“I hated the way I grew up,” he said. “I hated the instability of it, the constant worry, the embarrassment. Some of the best times were when we went back to the farm or lived in a hippy-dippy commune type community where everyone was a little wacky and we didn’t stand out so much. I worked so damn hard to leave that lifestyle behind. You can’t even imagine how hard I worked to appear normal, how driven I was to have stability and security. I worked and studied like a damn dog, achieved considerable success in the practice of law early in my career. I had the house, the car, the money in the bank, the reputation. It was like I was on a treadmill set at high speed and to get off was to die. Then, when it hit a snag, when I lost Lynne and couldn’t stop the pain, what did I do?” He laughed. “I went back to the gypsy roots of my childhood, living loose and lean, trying to find myself all over again.”