A Cure for Madness Read Online Free PDF Page B

yesterday,” the woman said to her husband in a scandalized whisper. “The poor dear has just come home.”
    “Oh, of course. I heard about your parents. Tragic,” Mr. Sweeney said. He pulled out his handkerchief again. At first I thought he was going to offer it to me for my nonexistent tears, but then he bent over in a coughing fit so severe flecks of spittle flew everywhere—including onto my face.
    “Are you okay?” I asked. “Here, would you like this?” I offered him the water bottle.
    He looked at me as though I had just offered him a bottle of rat poison. “What’s the meaning of this?” he spat, backing away. His eyes, congenial and warm just a moment before, narrowed into sharp slits.
    “It’s just . . . for your cough . . .” I said, confused.
    I was saved by a gruff voice behind me. “Hey there, Clare Bear.” It was Rob, with the same salt-and-pepper hair, beard, and moustache he’d always worn, along with the little wire glasses he’d had since I could remember. He was maybe a little thicker around the middle, and his hair was a little thinner, but other than that he was the same old Rob, my mother’s big brother. He was wearing blue jeans and a red button-down plaid shirt. Without any more preliminaries, he wrapped me in a bear hug.
    Rob knew a thing or two about grief. He’d lived just across the train tracks from us when we were growing up, raising his daughter on his own after my aunt Karen died of cancer. Tracey and I were the same age, and we had counted her as our third sibling. Then Tracey died in an accident—a fall in one of the outbuildings, what we called the hen pen. Wes had been the one to find her, broken on the concrete floor. He’d become obsessed with her memory. Our parents had moved us into town the next year, and Rob had followed a few years later. He threw himself into his work at the car dealership until he retired last year.
    “You’ll be okay, then, dear?” Mrs. Sweeney asked.
    “Yes, thank you.”
    She patted me on the cheek before I could move out of reach. Mr. Sweeney stood behind her, still glaring at me, twisting his handkerchief as though trying to tear it to pieces.
    “Thanks for coming,” I said to Rob. “How are you?”
    “It’s been a shitty day,” he answered. Now that I looked closer, I could see signs of aging and stress that hadn’t been there before—or that I hadn’t noticed. Deep wrinkles framed his eyes, and his cheeks sagged. His skin looked thin and papery. “But who cares about me? How you holdin’ up?”
    I shrugged. What was I supposed to say? Fine? Horrible? Scared out of my wits? I settled on “Fine.”
    “Yeah, me too,” he said sarcastically. We were silent for a moment, watching the luggage carousel move in its perpetual circle as passengers gathered around it with their friends and families.
    “Did you talk to Wes?” I asked. “How’d he take the news? I tried calling him before I boarded the plane, but there was no answer.”
    “He didn’t take it too well. Not surprising. While I was there they came and got him—said they needed to do some more tests before he was released. That’s probably why he couldn’t take your call.”
    “Oh, Jesus.”
    “I don’t think Jesus is on our side.”
    In another world, I would have said, “Don’t let Mom and Dad hear you say that.” Rob had been as religious as the rest of our family for most of his life, but the loss of his wife and daughter had taken its toll. He was the one relative I could be myself around.
    I tried and failed to suppress a yawn. My head felt as though it had been injected with quicksand. My thoughts, which had been racing all day, had slowed to a crawl. You’re slower than cold molasses , my mother used to say.
    Rob put his arm around me. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”
    I nodded. “I want to see Wes.”
    “Not tonight. Visiting hours are over. I told them we’d be back in the morning. I’m guessing you’ll want to go to your