A Cure for Madness Read Online Free PDF Page A

in Clarkeston? Last I’d heard he was in Boston, having finally achieved his dream of becoming a doctor. He’d been collateral damage; another casualty of my need to escape. If I saw him, what would I say?
    “Not a fan of flying?” my seatmate asked sympathetically.
    I opened my eyes to look at her. She had a kind face, like someone’s grandmother. Her hair was set in an old-lady perm and dyed a very unnatural shade of red. Her cheeks were wrinkled and covered in blush, and she wore a straight orange skirt with a matching blazer over a yellow blouse. It was like sitting next to someone on fire. She patted my hand, which was still gripping the armrest.
    “Not really,” I lied, giving her a swift smile and then turning to look out the window.
    “It’s very safe, you know,” she told me. “Much safer than driving a car, or even going for a walk, they say.”
    I nodded and reached under the seat in front of me for my book.
    “That’s a good idea.” She nodded approvingly. “Distract yourself. What is it you’re reading?”
    I showed her the cover of Justin Cronin’s The Passage .
    “Goodness, that’s a big one,” she said. “What’s it about?”
    “Um . . . vampires. Sort of.”
    She frowned at this. “I never did understand the whole vampire fascination. But my granddaughters are all Edward this and Jacob that. Is it that sort of thing?”
    “Not really.”
    “I would hope not, at your age. I’ve just been to visit them, and they’re growing up too fast. Are you headed to home or away from it?”
    Wasn’t that the question? “I grew up in Clarkeston. I live in Seattle now.”
    “Ah, visiting family, then?”
    I pressed my lips together. “Kind of.”
    She raised her eyebrows. “I see. The complicated kind. Have you been back recently?”
    “Not really.” I opened my book again as a signal to end the conversation, but she plowed onward.
    “Do you have children of your own?”
    “No.”
    “They are both a blessing and a curse,” she said, nodding sagely. “Who did you say you were visiting?”
    Perhaps brutal honestly would do the trick. “I’m going to bury my parents. They were murdered yesterday.” I held her eyes for a little longer than was socially acceptable.
    Her wrinkled mouth formed a little “O.” Then she placed her hand on my arm, gripping it tightly when I flinched and tried to move it away. “You poor thing,” she whispered. “What happened?”
    “I don’t know,” I said, twisting my arm so that it released from her grasp. “They were shot by a friend, I think. I’ll find out more once I’m home.” At least, I hoped I would. I couldn’t figure it out. Why would an old friend have killed them in cold blood? I’d met Terry a few times. He and his wife had come over to play cribbage with my parents. He’d seemed as normal as the rest of them.
    My seatmate looked scandalized. “You don’t say? One of those folks who’s gone sick in the head, do you think?”
    “Who?”
    She tutted. “Insane, we used to call it. I know it’s not the politically correct term anymore, but I call it like I see it.”
    “Do you mean . . . mental health problems?”
    “It wasn’t like this in my day. ‘Depression’ was no excuse for not doing a hard day’s work and looking after your family.” She huffed loudly. “It’s probably all these cell-phone waves. Or parents who don’t give their children the right kind of discipline, if you catch my meaning. An entire generation raised on computers, with both parents working—well, it’s not hard to see why things have started to break down.”
    I stared at her incredulously, completely at a loss for words, but she seemed to take my silence as agreement.
    “Anyway, as you said, you’ll find out more once you’re home. But don’t be surprised if it turns out to be one of these ‘mental health problems,’ as you call it. You see more and more of it these days. Do you have siblings?”
    “A brother,” I croaked