Mad Love (26 page)

“Hey,”
Tony said, his eyes widening as Errol slid into the backseat.

I didn’t expect Errol to apologize for the whole invisible arrow incident. I was kind of hoping he wouldn’t bring it up. But Errol didn’t say anything. He just folded his arms, then disappeared beneath his hood.

Once we reached the freeway, it wasn’t long before we passed Mrs. Bobot’s car. Even during a crisis she drove way below the speed limit. Archibald sat in the backseat, Reverend Ruttles up front. Mrs. Bobot gripped the steering wheel, her expression wild with worry. Fortunately they didn’t notice me as Tony’s Jeep zipped by. I was going to be grounded for an eternity.

“So maybe I should know what’s going on,” Tony said.

I took a couple of deep breaths, rehearsed my opening statement a few times, then decided to just go for it. “I’ve been lying to you,” I said. “About everything.”

A gust of wind pushed against the Jeep. Tony adjusted his glasses. “I’m listening.”

I pressed my palms against my thighs and stared straight ahead. “I don’t have a cat. I’ve never had a cat. I told you that because my bag smelled like clams and I was embarrassed. And I’m not going premed. I told you that because I’d been watching you from my window for two weeks and I wanted you to like me.” I released a long breath.

He tucked his hair behind his ear. “Two weeks?”

“Yeah.” I cringed. Perhaps that part of the confession hadn’t been necessary, but I didn’t want to pretend anymore. I was who I was, I felt what I felt, and I wanted him to know. Then, and only then, could we move forward. Maybe that meant dating, maybe it didn’t.

“There’s more,” I said as another gust of wind pushed the Jeep. “My mother’s not overseas. She’s at Harmony Hospital because she’s mentally ill. She’s been bipolar most of her life. Her publisher and her readers don’t know. I didn’t tell anyone when I was little because I was afraid that they’d take me away from her. And now that I’m older I still don’t tell anyone because we’re trying to protect her image.”

“That sounds rough,” Tony said. “My dad’s got a friend who’s bipolar. He has to take a pill every day or he can’t get out of bed.”

“Mom didn’t have any pills. She didn’t take any medication, so she got worse and worse. Sometimes she’d be gone for days, sometimes she’d lock herself in her bedroom and forget about me. I didn’t know what was going on. I thought I’d done something wrong, you know? I was just a little kid. It was a total nightmare.”

For a moment I forgot that Errol was in the backseat. I only felt Tony’s presence—his warm brown eyes, his sad smile as he turned to look at me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to deal with all that.”

I went on. “Then I found her sitting on the bathroom floor.” The memories of that day projected onto the windshield like a home movie. The cold tile, the dripping bathroom faucet, her arms curled around her legs, her vacant eyes. “She wouldn’t move. She was really out of it. The doctor came and sent her away. That’s why I didn’t go back to school. I signed up for Internet classes because I needed to stay home and take care of things for her. I’ve been covering for her, paying the bills, answering her e-mails, writing her letters, all the stuff that needs to be done.” There. I’d told him. My shoulders relaxed.

“So what’s going on today? Why are we rushing to Whidbey Island?”

“That’s where the hospital is. It’s surrounded by forest, for miles and miles, and she’s wandered off. They can’t find her. I don’t know what kind of state she’s in. If she’s out there, in this storm, in some kind of daze …” I turned away and looked out the window.

The drone of the tires and wind felt endless. I fought the image that filled my mind—of my mother lying beneath a fallen tree, just like the lumber baron’s wife. Was the forest still angry enough to take another life?

Tony reached over and took my hand. “We’ll find her,” he said.

His understanding should have calmed me. But it pushed something, like the last molecule of air before the balloon bursts. Anger welled up and I couldn’t hold it back. “I’m so mad at her for doing this,” I said, clenching my hands. “This is so like her to think about no one but herself. To go off and make everyone worry. We always have to stop our own lives just because she …” My pulse pounded in my throat. I clenched my jaw. “God! I’m so sick of it.”

I turned away, ashamed of my feelings and exhausted by them. Tony squeezed my hand, but then another wind gust hit the car and he put both hands on the steering wheel. I thought about Dr. Diesel’s support group. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Maybe they’d understand what it felt like to be totally pissed at someone but love them at the same time.

After a few minutes, I twisted around to check on Errol. His eyes were closed, his hoodie rising steadily. “Errol?” He didn’t answer. “He’s taking a nap,” I whispered. “He’s been kind of … sick.”

Tony’s gaze darted to the rearview mirror. “How’d you two meet?”

I may have been done with the lies, but Errol’s identity was not my secret to tell. And let’s face it—how could I possibly convince anyone that Cupid was sitting in the back of that Jeep, without using another one of those embarrassing arrows? “I had this stupid idea that I could write for my mother,” I quietly told him. “I figured that maybe I’d inherited some of her talent, kind of like how you said you’d inherited your mother’s talent for science. I’ve always gotten good grades in English and I’ve read a million romance novels so I thought it would be easy. And the publisher was waiting for her next book and we needed the money to pay the hospital bill. That’s why I was in the library that day checking out those romance-writing books.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “Idiotic, I know.”

“I don’t think it’s idiotic. You were trying to help.”

“Well, I didn’t help. I didn’t get anywhere with her book. I couldn’t even come up with a story idea. Then I met him and he said he had this story he wanted to get published. He had all the details from beginning to end but he needed help writing it. At first I thought I could take his story and put my mom’s name on it.”

“You mean steal it?”

“No. He said she could have it. So I got real excited and we started working on it but then I realized that it wasn’t the right kind of story for a romance novel. It didn’t fit in with my mother’s books. But I love his story and I really want to finish it. And now here we are, and I’m working on a book that won’t help my mother at all.”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Tony said as he turned on the windshield wipers. The sky had turned the color of charcoal and rain fell in heavy drops. “It’s not your job to fix your mom’s life.”

That had sounded harsh, and it had stung like a slap in the face. But it was true. We drove in silence for a few moments. “So I don’t get something,” Tony said. “How do two people write a book together?”

“I’m writing it but it’s his story. I didn’t come up with the idea. I’m kind of like his … biographer.”

“Biographer?” Tony’s gaze darted to the rearview mirror again. “But he’s our age. Isn’t he too young for a biography?”

I looked back at Errol. He’d slumped deeper into the seat, the edge of his hood covering his eyes. In those few days since we’d met at the bookstore, I’d gone from being annoyed and wary of him, to yearning for him, to being angry and suspicious, and finally, to caring about him. But now I felt a deep, sharp pang of regret. Why couldn’t we have more time together? Think of all the stories he could tell. All the places he’d been and the adventures he’d had. Meeting Cupid was probably the most amazing thing that would ever happen in my life and there’d barely been time to take it in. When we got back home, I’d ask him to tell me more. I’d write it all down. Before it was too late.

“So that means that you two will be spending a lot of time together,” Tony said.

“Maybe,” I said.
But maybe not
. “We’re friends,” I told him. “Errol and I. Just friends.”

While the word “friend” reassured Tony of his chances with me, it didn’t adequately describe Errol’s and my relationship. I’d come to care about him. Not romantically, but deeply. A story had bonded us. I didn’t want him to die.

I directed Tony to the ferry terminal. The wind picked up and rain kept falling. The seagulls that normally hung out on the pilings or circled Ivar’s fish and chips stand were nowhere to be seen. “This is the last boat until the storm passes,” the ticket taker told us. “It’s getting too choppy out there.” We were the last car to drive on. Mrs. Bobot and her rescue team wouldn’t make it to the island after all.

During the crossing, dizziness washed over me as white-tipped waves pushed the boat side to side. I tried to call the hospital again. I called Realm but there was no news about my mother. “It’s still blowing here,” Realm told me. “The weather guy said it’s gonna be the biggest summer storm to hit the area. Ever. He said he’s never seen anything like it. He called it a freak of nature.”

What could my mother have been thinking? Why would she have run off into a storm?

I willed the boat to go faster, but the wind pushed against it so it took almost twice as long to cross. A voice came over the ship’s loudspeaker. “May I have your attention, please. Due to a power outage at our destination, the passenger ramp is not working. All passengers must go below and disembark on the auto deck.”

“It looks like it’s the middle of the night,” I said as we drove off, though it was only five o’clock. I thought about Archibald’s roast, waiting in the slow cooker. About the reverend’s ruined sermon. Our normally nice Sunday had turned as dark as the storm itself.

Except for the lone guy directing traffic, the ferry terminal was deserted. And when the few cars had dispersed, the road was deserted too. Our headlights washed over sprays of fir and cedar that littered the roadway. A few times Tony had to maneuver around larger branches. As he drove up the hospital’s long driveway, the cracking of a falling tree made me jump.

Errol sat up as we pulled up to the grand lodge. “How are you feeling?” I asked him.

He rubbed his eyes. “Where are we?”

“Harmony Hospital,” I told him. “Remember? We’re going to find my mom.”

“Right.” He smiled weakly.

A pair of police cars and a local news van were parked close to the entry. Two people sat in the van’s front seats. Tony grabbed a flashlight from his glove box and we all got out of the Jeep. The roar of a generator filled the air. Raindrops smacked into our faces as we hurried into the hospital’s lobby. We signed in at the security booth and got our visitor tags. The security guy searched us for cameras. “Can’t take any chances. That news crew has been here all afternoon.”

Most of the patients sat in the dining room playing games and eating somebody’s birthday cake. “We’re trying to keep everyone calm,” Dr. Merri explained after I told her who we were. “We only have power in the main wing of the hospital so most everyone has gathered here.” She ran a hand across her tired eyes, smudging the last bits of her mascara. “We haven’t found her yet.”

“Who’s looking?” I asked.

“The police chief sent a few men out, but he won’t let any of our staff help because of the wind and lightning.”

Errol stood in a shadowy corner, listening. Tony stood next to me, his arm pressing against mine. I glanced up at the lumber baron, whose painted eyes watched our every move.
Do you know something
? I wanted to ask him.
Do you know where she is?

Dr. Merri cleared her throat. “Alice, someone leaked this to the press. They know your mother is being treated here and that she’s disappeared.”

“The
press knows?” I asked, my mind racing.

Dr. Merri folded her arms and stood very straight. “We take the anonymity of our patients very seriously. If we find out who leaked this, we’ll have that person fired, I can promise you that.”

If my mother’s secret wasn’t already in print, it soon would be. “Mentally Ill Romance Writer Lost in Freak Summer Storm.” That would sell a million papers.

“It’s such a shame,” Dr. Merri said. “She had such a good morning. She was very talkative.”

“What?” My arms went slack and my purse straps slid halfway down. “My mother was talking?”

“Yes. Talking and eating. She even took a shower on her own. The medicine finally kicked in.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I said, taking an angry step toward her.

Dr. Merri’s cheeks turned red. “She didn’t want us to tell you, not yet. She wanted to surprise you on your Tuesday visit.”

Someone yelled “Bingo!” from the nearby dining room.

“Why don’t you and your friends go in and have some cake,” Dr. Merri suggested, motioning toward the well-lit room. I’ll let you know immediately if …
when
she’s found.” Then her pager buzzed and she hurried away.

“It’s really dark out there. We’re going to need a few more flashlights,” Tony said. “I’ll see if I can find some.”

“Okay.” In my panic, I hadn’t thought to bring any.

The medicine had kicked in. She’d showered on her own. She’d been talking. I couldn’t believe it. What I’d been wishing for had actually happened.