pictured a ramshackle hut with more gaps in it than her great-uncle’s teeth. But this thing was extraordinary. Every detail perfect. The paint. The craftsmanship. This was the work of an obsessive mind.
Just like her husband’s.
Everything had to be right, or he would be very wrong. She was grateful that her husband was innately kind because his manic energy never turned on her.
But it had turned.
Kate stared at the tree house. The tree. The clearing.
“Is there someone there?” she said out loud.
There was silence. Still and breathing. She waited to see if something would blink.
“I don’t know if you’re there or not,” she said. “But if you are, leave him the fuck alone.”
She stood her ground for a moment more to let whatever might be on the other side of the wind know that her rage was far bigger than her fear. Then, she walked home, never once looking back over her shoulder.
When she got home, she went immediately to the internet. Two months ago, she might have dismissed it as a ridiculous phrase to search, but after putting Christopher’s tree house together with his sudden math and reading talent, she found herself typing in the letters anyway.
Spontaneous genius.
Whatever hesitation she felt evaporated quickly when she saw the results.
The search warranted almost a million hits. She studied some cases, and she almost WebMD’d herself into madness when she found a few potential reasons for this “miracle.” Tumors. Cysts. Or the one that sent her into a two-hour anxiety attack…
Psychosis.
She had already called every pediatrician in town after she went online, but they were booked. It was flu season, they all said. So, she would have to wait a couple of weeks. But as she watched her son devour his vanilla cone at 31 Flavors, she was back on that phone, demanding an earlier time. She was put on hold, and her mother’s intuition screamed in her ear.
Help him, Kate. He’s in trouble.
As she listened to the horrible Muzak version of Blue Moon, she remembered something her husband told her right after he came out of one of his worst spells.
What are the two types of people who can see things that aren’t there, Kate?
And his quiet whisper of a punch line.
Visionaries and psychopaths.
Chapter 42
When the call came in that afternoon, Mary Katherine was sitting in her bedroom, dreading her life. Christmas break was right around the corner, and she was woefully behind on her Notre Dame application essay. Not only that, but she had the late shift at the old folks home. She had already volunteered long enough to get her certificate for college. But she felt guilty that she was only volunteering for her college application, and if that was true, it wasn’t real charity work. And if it wasn’t, then God would punish her by making her not get into Notre Dame like her father and mother and grandfather and grandmother and so on and so forth did. So, she was determined to keep volunteering to help the old people to prove that she wasn’t just volunteering to get into college so that God would help her get into college. It was a perfectly reasonable plan, but there was only one problem.
She really hated the old people.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she whispered to Jesus in prayer. “There are some nice ones. Mr. Olson is sweet and funny. And Mrs. Epstein taught me how to bake snickerdoodles and make something called matzah balls. But it’s hard to focus on them when Mrs. Collins’ mother screams ‘We’re all going to die’ at the top of her lungs for four hours straight. I could manage when Doug was there, but then he quit volunteering. He’s already finished his applications to MIT and Cornell. I asked if he would ever go to Notre Dame with me, and he said he would apply to it as a ‘safety school.’ I could have killed him. I know it’s wrong to ask You for this, but I just have to get into Notre Dame. Am I going to get into Notre Dame?”
She waited, but no sign came. Just the wind blowing through the trees outside her bedroom window. Mary Katherine thought more about her night shift at the old folks home. Her stomach churned with the guilt that she really didn’t want to go. They were just so old. And they smelled. And the demented ones frightened her. Sometimes, she would stop and look at the hall and think…“Jesus loves every one of these people.