I lowered my gaze, extending my hand again. “Come with me.”
I closed up the barn and led Morgan toward the house, pausing at the front door. “She painted the door red, by the way. I thought it was silly, but she told me that early on in America, a red door meant that visitors were welcome. Like if they were traveling on horseback, it would be a place they could spend the night or get something to eat. That’s what she thinks a home should be.”
I steeled myself before reaching for the knob, then finally opened the door. I gestured for Morgan to step inside, noting that her gaze swept from left to right. I slipped past her, walking toward the kitchen. In the silence, I heard her tentative steps as she followed.
In the air was the odor of burned and spoiled food mixed with the faint residue of fresh paint. In the kitchen, dishes were piled high in the sink and on the stovetop and atop the table. There was a plate of chicken drumsticks, charred on one side, raw on the other; on another plate was raw hamburger, already spoiled. There was a pot of soaking beans on one of the stove burners. There were unfinished meals on the table, next to a container of milk that had turned rancid. In a dirty mason jar with a large dirty spoon beside it, I saw what appeared to be a dead tadpole. All the drawers and cabinet doors stood open. The walls of the kitchen were yellow, but the paint job had been hasty and sloppy, with smears on the cabinets and countertops and splashes on the floor. Kitchen utensils were splayed everywhere, and in front of the sink was a pile of detergents, cleansers, sponges, and other items that had obviously been pulled out in haste. Dead flowers sat in a jelly jar, and I saw Morgan startle at the bloodstains on the counters. On the table, strangely, was a drawing of a house; though in crayon, it was surprisingly good, and it reminded me of the place where Paige had lived in Texas. Picking our way to the pantry, we surveyed the cleared shelves and items stacked on the floor. She said nothing as we walked to the living room—I wordlessly pointed out the emptied closet in the hallway as we passed—but noted with obvious shock the cockeyed cabinet and half-painted wall, rotting apple cores on the rug, toppled stacks of DVDs and books and albums and a pair of Paige’s shoes and other odds and ends heaped everywhere. The television was on the floor, and as I used the remote to check that it was still working, I saw that it was tuned to the cartoon channel and turned it off. Touring the back porch, we observed that almost everything except a drill and saw had been removed from the shelves and placed on the floor, just like in the pantry.
We eventually climbed the stairs to the second floor where I absently motioned toward the contents of the linen closet heaped in the hallway. In my room, there was a stack of children’s clothing and a smallish pair of sneakers, along with a book I’d saved from childhood called Go, Dog. Go! On the nightstand was an Iron Man action figure I’d never seen before. For whatever reason, my pillowcase looked as though it had been dragged through the mud, and Morgan’s eyes widened when she saw a pile of bloody Band-Aids on the floor of my bathroom, along with more dried blood on the counter.
Paige’s room was far worse than mine. As in the kitchen, all the drawers and the closet doors were flung open, and her clothing and personal effects had been strewn everywhere. On the floor of the closet—as though placed for emphasis—was a box containing my sister’s favorite shoes, the Christian Louboutin pumps that her husband, Gary, had once given her for her birthday.
In the bathroom, Morgan gasped at the sight of a bloody T-shirt crumpled on the floor, as well as a wig and an Ace bandage that lay uncoiled on the countertop.
“I can’t stay inside,” I muttered. “It’s too painful.”
Turning on my heel, I hurried down the stairs and out to the front porch again, where I sat in one of the rockers. Morgan followed close behind, lowering herself into the other one. Leaning forward, I clasped my hands in front of me.
“I know you’re wondering what you just saw,” I began. “I mean…it looks…crazy, right? But as soon as I got here, I knew exactly what it meant. I found Paige upstairs. She had overdosed on sleeping pills and barely survived. This morning was the first time I was able to speak with her.”
Morgan paled slightly. “Was it an accident?”
“No,” I said, feeling the weight of my words. “And it’s not her first suicide attempt.”
Morgan covered my hand with her own. “I’m so sorry, Colby. I can’t imagine how you’re dealing with everything right now.”
I closed my eyes for a long moment before opening them again. “I understand that you have questions, but there’s a lot I just don’t know right now. Like…Paige’s hand was burned when I found her, but I don’t know how that happened. I don’t know why the house looks the way it does. I don’t know why she didn’t call me about my aunt. Once I’m able to have a lucid conversation with her, I’m sure I’ll get some answers, but she’s not there yet. When I saw her this morning, do you know the first thing she said to me?”
“I have no idea.”
“That she was glad I’d cut my hair. She said that if I hadn’t, she would have flown home and cut it herself. And then she wanted to know how I found her.”
Morgan’s expression was uncertain.
“She thought I was still in high school,” I clarified.
“I don’t understand,” she said with a frown.
I swallowed. “My sister is bipolar. Do you know what that is?”
“You mentioned that you thought your mom was, but I don’t know much about it.”
I brought my hands together. “Bipolar is a mood disorder that causes alternating periods of mania and depression. In the manic phase, Paige barely eats or sleeps and runs on nervous energy. Then, after the mania passes, depression sets in, and that’s just what it sounds like. There’s a lot of crying and a lot of sleeping, and dark, dark thoughts intrude. Sometimes she becomes suicidal.”
“And that’s what happened?”
“Kind of,” I said. “With Paige, there’s more. She has bipolar 1, which is an even more severe form of the illness. Every now and then she experiences a psychotic break, complete with delusions and hallucinations. That’s why she thought I was still in high school. It’s also the reason her psychiatrist recommended that I not visit her again until she’s stabilized.”
“But you’re her brother….”
“She’s in restraints, Morgan. If this episode is anything like the last one, she imagines she’s new in town and on the run from her husband. The last time it happened, she was also convinced her son, Tommie, had been abducted. But none of that is true.” I rubbed my eyes, infinitely weary. “She’s even calling herself Beverly again.”
“Beverly?”
I sighed, hating the biology and genetics my sister inherited, hating that I hadn’t been at the farm when she needed me most.
“It’s her first name, but after my mom died, she started using her middle name, Paige. That’s how everyone knows her. The only time I ever hear the name Beverly is during times like these.”
“Isn’t there any medication that can help her?”
“She’s on medication. Or she’s supposed to be, anyway. I’m not sure whether the medication stopped working or whether she forgot to take it in the midst of the crisis with my aunt, but…” I turned to her, spreading my hands out before me. “I know what you’re thinking, and trust me when I say I understand how scary the words psychotic break sound. But please keep in mind that in those periods—like now—Paige isn’t really dangerous to anyone but herself. Do you know anything about bipolar psychosis? Or delusions and hallucinations?”
When she shook her head, I went on.
“A delusion is a faulty but unshakable belief system. For example, like I said, in her last episode she truly believed she was on the run from her husband, Gary, who was trying to take Tommie away from her and eventually did. As far as hallucinations go, hers are both visual and auditory. In other words, she also believed that Tommie was with her. She saw and spoke to him just the way you and I are interacting now. It felt that real to her.”
I could see Morgan struggling to absorb this information. “That almost sounds like schizophrenia.”
“The conditions are different, but sometimes they share the same symptoms. Delusions and hallucinations are rarer for those with bipolar, but they can be triggered by a bunch of different things—acute stress, sleep deprivation, lack of medication, sometimes marijuana. Anyway, once the mania begins to wane, it becomes more and more difficult for Paige to maintain the delusion, and the depressive phase sets in. Sometimes it’s just too much for her mind to handle, which, in her case, spirals down into suicide attempts. There’s a lot more to all this, but that’s a general overview.”
She was silent for a while, digesting, before she realized the obvious.
“You never told me that she had a son.”
“Tommie,” I said, nodding.