"Oh, well, they're all a bunch of nuts. But," I said, seeing Wilbur lean forward with interest, "I'm talking about garden-variety crazy, as in 'Will you loan me five hundred dollars that I know you know I have no intention of paying back?' That kind of crazy."

Wilbur laughed. "I'm familiar with the type."

He stared at me in the way counselors do when they're trying to elicit more conversation. But I had caught myself before I told him that my mother didn't hesitate to beg me for money. The last person on earth I wanted to talk about was Emma.

Not talking about her didn't mean I wouldn't think about her. Later-after Wilbur had described in detail the stages of Trina's healing; after he'd answered my questions, the ones he could answer; after he'd assured me that I should have faith in both the program and Trina's ability to heal-when I was alone, that's when my mother inserted herself in my mind.

Good ol' Emma, pressing so hard against my thoughts that I could see her slim frame, resent her for still looking good, hear her wisp of an almost-old-lady voice pleading with me to answer her calls, give her another chance. My list of rebukes was as much a part of me as my skin.

But you left me home alone when I was three. You didn't come to my open house at school when I was five, six, seven, eight, nine. You threw up all over my prom gown. You were drunk at my graduation. You didn't show up at my wedding. You didn't come when the baby died.

As I sat on the hard-backed chair, my arms began to ache. That's where the hurting always started.

I put on the sneakers and jogging suit I'd brought, and when I went outside the cool morning air on my face startled me in a good way. Music was playing. I could hear Jean encouraging someone, with her soft, gentle "That's right, sweetheart. That's just perfect." There was no one in the front part of the house, no one to watch me go out the front door.

I ran through the rows of sunflowers. Ran fast, without stopping. I sweated a lot, and after a while my muscles began to strain and hurt. That kind of pain was welcome, it really was. That kind of pain didn't make me remember things I didn't want to remember; it didn't cause me to mourn a man, a marriage, and a child.

When I got back to the house, Bethany was standing on the front porch. "They were looking for you," she said.

"Who?"

"Brad, Jean, and Eddie. They don't want us to go wandering off. Somebody might see us."

"Out here? We're in Boonieville."

Bethany shrugged. She lit a cigarette. "Listen, that's what they told me."

"Where are the girls?"

"Angelica is making jewelry. Trina's working. They're all right. Nobody's screaming. Nobody's naked. Nobody's hacking away with the razor blade."

"Bethany, I'm sorry about what I said."

There was silence for about five seconds.

"Don't you just fucking hate it when they get naked in front of company?" Bethany said. We laughed. "What did the doctor say to you?"

"That Trina doesn't have the proper level of medication in her system. He asked me about my family background, if anyone else had mental illness."

"My whole family has it, both sides. My dad had six siblings and only two don't have some kind of brain disease. They covered it up with drinking. My sister's son was strung out on crack when he died. He was manic and high, and he either fell or jumped from a rooftop parking lot."

"Oh, my God."

"Yeah. So that was-what, six months ago? When that happened, I started making plans to get Angelica in the program. A nurse on one of the psychiatric wards had told me about it a long time ago, but I never followed up."

"Your aunts and uncles who were alcoholics, did they ever get a diagnosis?"

"Some of them. You know, someone would be hospitalized-once, twice-and then the attending psychiatrist would say, 'It appears that so-and-so has bipolar disorder, or depression.' He'd prescribe medication, and they'd take it for a little while and then stop, and the craziness would start all over again. They'd rather admit to being drunks than to having mental illness."

The craziness in Ma Missy's house, without long pauses or any reprieve, came to mind. I considered for a moment the possibility that Emma's drinking masked deeper pain, but I didn't probe very deeply. I wasn't prepared to empathize with a woman I despised.

For much of the day, Jean and I stayed clear of each other. Being around Jean made me feel as though I needed to explain myself, a feeling I hated. Maybe she sensed my resistance. She wasn't as garrulous as she'd been the day before.

Dinner that evening was sumptuous. In a low bowl, Jean had arranged cut flowers surrounded by tiny green oranges as a centerpiece. There was a curried spinach-and-potato casserole, fried trout with some sort of lemony sauce, corn on the cob, and homemade corn bread. For dessert, Jean served pears poached in apple juice, cinnamon, and honey.

Trina didn't say a word at the table. She ate mechanically, two helpings of everything that was offered. I sensed that she was wired and fractious and that whatever was on her mind would bear monitoring. Jean followed her when she got up from the table. While I was loading the dishwasher, I could hear the one-sided conversation. Her tone was pleasant, as though she expected a response from her listener. A few minutes later the front door opened, and when I looked out the picture window in the living room, Trina and Jean were walking toward the road. When they returned ten minutes later, Trina went back to the room with Brad, and Jean came into the kitchen.

From where I sat, I could see that Jean's face was serene as she began putting away the leftovers and wiping off the stove. Maybe she never really expected much out of life, I thought. Maybe that's why she can be content with her sunflowers and her boy who will never be the same.

"How did you get Trina to take a walk?"

Jean looked surprised, then thoughtful. "I don't know. We were talking, and then I just took her hand and said, 'Let's go for a walk,' and she came with me. It helps not to be Mom," she added.

"Right."

"Are you still angry with me?"

"I'm not angry with you," I said, rinsing plates and putting them in the dishwasher.

Prickles of annoyance pulsated just below my skin. She was trying to lead me down a touchy-feely path I didn't want to follow. I could feel my cell phone vibrating in my back hip pocket and took it out.

"Keri?"

"Clyde, where are you?" I could have bitten my tongue. I didn't want him to ask me the same question.

"I'm back in LA. I called the store. They told me you were away. Where are you? Where's Trina? How is she doing?"

"She's with me. I'm . . . we're . . . she's getting treatment."

"Where? Why didn't you tell me about this? You're going to want me to pay for it."

"No. I can manage."

For a moment he was silent. Disappointed, no doubt. "I'd like to see her this weekend."

"This is a different kind of place. For the first couple of months they don't allow visitors."

"What the hell are you talking about? How did you find out about this place?"

"One of my support group members sent her daughter here. I've met a lot of people who had family members come. It's a great facility."

"I want to talk to my daughter."

"It's not possible right now. You're just going to have to trust me."

"You always need to be in control," he said. He hung up without saying good-bye.

Jean didn't pretend to be occupied with busywork. She stared straight at me as I pocketed my cell phone, making me feel self-conscious.

"That was my ex-husband. He doesn't know about any of this. He's upset because he can't talk with Trina."

"Ex-husbands can be a challenge to your sense of harmony."

There was no sense of irony in her comment. Maybe that's why we both laughed.

"You've been married before?" Ma and Pa Kettle weren't their only ones? This was a surprise.

Jean gave a short laugh. "Honey, Eddie is my fourth and last husband. We've been together for twenty years; that's twice as long as any of the others."

"So he's not your son's father."

She shook her head. "That would be husband number two, Ralph. He lives in South Africa. Does something with diamonds. Makes a ton of money. He still sends me some. Of course, he doesn't come to see his son-who Eddie raised, by the way. Ralph gets to absolve his guilt, and I'm grateful for the cash, because sometimes Eddie and I run short. People do what they can do, dear."

Jean had inserted her little New Age lecture so subtly I almost didn't notice the message she'd planted. Maybe I was ready to hear it. "I want to stop being angry with Clyde. I try. My rage is like a drug for me. I take a hit, and then I'm out of control."

"I've done a lot of things that I've regretted when I'm angry. If your ex doesn't hear from his daughter, is he likely to go looking for her?"

"No one knows where I am," I said. "Not even me."

"There's a lot at stake," Jean said.

21.

WE STAYED WITH JEAN AND EDDIE FOR A WEEK OF WHAT I suppose was a kind of orientation. Whether I was becoming oriented was hard to tell. Institutionalized was more like it. After the first two days of waking up when we pleased, a 7 a.m. bell suddenly rang out on the third day. And it kept on ringing, despite Trina's groans and Angelica's slow rise from the bed. The honeymoon was over. We were now expected to help prepare all meals under the supervision of Jean, the cooking machine, who instructed us in low-fat, low-cal methods. Cleanup was shared as well. And, of course, we shelled sunflowers.

I hadn't expected that cracking open tiny seeds for hours at a time would be rewarding, and initially it wasn't. That first day, my fingertips were cut; my neck ached from bending over the table, and Angelica's constant muttering got to me. But on the second day things seemed to flow well. After a while, the work became soothing; by the third day I was looking forward to sitting at the table.

The girls seemed to be responding well to the program. Angelica muttered and stared and dug at her flesh and Trina continued to accuse Jean of trying to poison her, but not as often and not nearly as vehemently as before. Healing in mental illness comes in stages and degrees. Both daughters were taking their medication. Most significant of all, the stretches of normalcy, or what might be normalcy for either of them, began to lengthen.

"When she gets that blank stare and her foot starts tapping, Miss Angelica is getting ready to go off," I said to Bethany, who nodded her head in agreement.

I didn't make any attempts to calm Angelica; I left that to Jean and Brad. But once or twice, when I saw wildness in her eyes, I patted her hand and rubbed her arm, and that seemed to soothe her. After a while, I began to watch her for signs of trouble. A couple of times while we were working, I got up from the table and massaged her neck and shoulders. The smile she gave me-well, I could tell what God meant for her to be.

After a few days passed, Trina's coherent periods began lasting for at least fifteen or twenty minutes at a stretch. During those times, anyone eavesdropping on her conversation might have thought her colorful as opposed to crazy. She took her medication without protest. She and Jean bonded over long walks, yoga, and Scrabble games.

"I see progress," Bethany said. We were standing out back, looking at the mountains.

"You can feel it. They're getting better."

It was as though we were looking at the entire world through gauze. Our daughters' responses to medication, good food, exercise, and the lack of controlled substances softened everything for us. As they became more normal, we became more relaxed. Smiled more. Laughed more. Trusted that we'd made the right choice, that everything would come out okay.

When I finally called Orlando, we hadn't spoken in days. He answered his cell phone on the second ring.

"Baby, where you been?" he asked.

"I-"

"I've been calling and calling. What's going on?"

The suspicion in his voice flowed right through the cell phone.

"I'm doing some traveling. Visiting. I needed to get away."

"What is it that you don't want to lie to me about?"

"I'm not with anybody."

"I didn't mean it that way, and you know it."

"Well . . ." Damn his intuition. I wanted to tell Orlando what was going on. Of all people, he would keep his mouth shut. But I couldn't. "I needed to be by myself, just to clear my head. I'm not out here partying. And you have your play."

"So why didn't you just tell me you needed to be alone instead of having me wondering and worrying about you? I've been calling you all week long. You can't drop off the face of the earth, girl. There are people who care about you."

"I'm sorry, Orlando. I'm with Trina, looking into the best treatment for her."

"Oh."

"Jabari and PJ doing okay?"

"Girl, these rehearsals have been-"

Irritation sliced my throat as I swallowed. I thought of PJ's troubled face, the secret he felt he needed to harbor. "Orlando, please talk with-"

I heard someone calling Orlando's name. "Places, everybody."

"Listen, I have to go. Call me when you get a chance. And say a prayer for me. I love you, baby."

He hung up before I had a chance to respond.

ANGELICA WOKE UP SCREAMING THAT NIGHT. NIGHTMARES are a fixture in the lives of the brain-disordered. Trina and Angelica had been moaning in their sleep the entire week we'd been at Jean's.

Brad rushed to Angelica and immediately put his hand over her mouth.

"You have to stop yelling now. Do you understand me?" he said.

"Hey!" I said. His hand across her mouth looked tight, like something that would leave a mark. I was already out of bed and moving toward them.

"We can't have that here," he said to her, to me. His voice was like the palm of his hand: hard, breathtaking. I didn't take another step.

He removed his hand and what came out of Angelica's mouth was a gagging sound and then a torrent of words.