Crack-Up by Eric Christopherson Page A

Sarah.   I asked about Ellie, then the baby in her belly, then Duke, my mother, her parents in California .   Sarah’s reports weren’t comforting, yet no one was any worse than could be expected, we agreed, and so then I finally told her what I’d just been bursting to tell her.   “This is not my fault.”
    “Course not,” Sarah said.   “It’s my fault as much as yours.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Come on now, Argus, we’ve been playing a game.   All these years.   A dangerous game.   No more games, huh?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “You’re a sick man, Argus.   You always have been since I've known you.   You never would believe it, though, and I didn’t want to either.   I’m ashamed of how little I knew about your sickness until now.   I’ve been like . . . like co-dependent.”
    “Who’ve you been talking to?”
    “Doctor Shields, of course.   And now this Doctor Woods.”   Her eyes began wetting.   She dug in her purse for a Kleenex.
    “Did Doctor Woods tell you about my blood test?”
    “Oh, I had so many excuses, Argus, right from the start.   You were older, you were smarter—”
    “Would you listen?”
    “And it was your disease, after all, and you should know what you could do, I told myself.   And I could see what you’d already accomplished in your life.   I just buried my head in the sand.   Because I was so in love with you, man!   And I wanted a baby so bad and . . .”   Sarah cried into her Kleenex.
    “My blood test,” I said.   “Do you know about my blood test?”
    Sarah nodded, blew her nose.   “You stopped taking your pills weeks ago, Doctor Woods says.”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    “She says it’s a common thing with paranoid schizophrenics.”
    “You don’t understand.”
    “You had a relapse.   The crazy side of you took over, and crazy Argus didn’t think he had a problem anymore, so there was no need to take the pills.   Something like that.”
    “But I was taking my pills!   I was!”
    Surprise mixed with Sarah’s grief.   “Are you sure?”
    She rarely saw me take my Risperdal pill in the mornings, I realized.   Weekdays, she and Ellie would awaken an hour after I did, just in time to see me off in their nightgowns.   And on weekends, my daughter and I would digest breakfast before Sarah ever stirred beneath her blankets.
    “Absolutely sure,” I said.
    “Every day?”
    “Yes,” I said.   “Every day.”
    “You’re really absolutely sure?”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “Shit fucking god damn son of a bitch sure?”
    “Yes,” I said.   “That sure.”
    “This isn’t the disease talking?”
    “No,” I said.   “And there’s a way to prove it.”
    After a brief look of confusion, Sarah gave me a nod.   At the same time, she whipped out a cell phone from her purse, the pink one with a dangling pair of dice-size, clear plastic squares—phone earrings, she calls them—that blink light whenever a call comes in and she has the ringer off, because she’s in a quiet restaurant somewhere.   Certainly not the library.
    “I’ll call Darla,” she said, punching in a number.
    “Who’s Darla?”
    “Duh!” she said.   “The new housekeeper!   We need someone to check your pill bottle in the medicine cupboard, right?”
    I could hear the telephone at our home in Georgetown start to ring.   “No, hang up.”
    “Why?” she said, but hung up.
    “You have to do this yourself.   Get in your car and go check the pill bottle yourself.   Now.   Please.”
    “Why?”
    “This is too important to trust to anyone else.”
    “Oh, I get it,” Sarah said, nodding to herself.   “What you really mean is you can’t trust in anyone else.   You’re still a little paranoid.   Doctor Woods warned me about this.”
    Then she laughed.   The woman has a husky, hearty laugh that, when aimed my way, makes me feel like I’ve just been caught trying on her panties.   Seeing my embarrassment, she said, “I’m not