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“I feared that. She doesn’t want to be around anyone she hasn’t known for twenty years.”
“Jeanne’s Crazies,” Faith said quietly.
“What?”
“Zoë calls us Jeanne’s Crazies.”
Jeanne laughed so hard she nearly choked. “I think I’ll get a plaque carved with those words. Think I should hang it over the door?”
“Wonderful idea,” Faith said. “I’d sure want to be a visitor to a house with a sign like that.”
“Okay, I won’t do it,” Jeanne said, “but I’ll never be able to look at the house again without seeing that sign there.” Her voice changed to serious. “Look, Faith, none of you are crazy. I don’t put disturbed people together. Each of you has been through a great personal trauma and I think it would do you good to talk about what happened to you to someone other than a professional. It’s that simple.”
Faith sighed. “My husband died after a very long illness. I still don’t see that as a trauma. It wasn’t as though his death wasn’t expected or planned for.”
Jeanne was silent.
“Stop it!” Faith said. “I mean it! Stop it right now! I can see the look on your face. You want to say that if it wasn’t such a trauma why did I take a bottle of pills? And why did I attack my mother-in-law at the funeral?”
“You tell me,” Jeanne said.
“I have told you!” Faith said, her voice rising and filling with exasperation. “I spent an entire year telling you why I did both of those things, but you’ve never believed a word I’ve said.”
“Faith,” Jeanne said, “how old are you?”
“You know how old I am.” When Jeanne said nothing, Faith sighed. “I am thirty-eight years old.”
“When you stop looking fifty and look your true age, I’ll begin to think we’ve made some progress. As it stands now, I don’t think you and I have achieved anything. How’s your former mother-in-law?”
“Dead, I hope,” Faith said before she thought.
“I rest my case. Faith, the truth is that I’ve made more progress in less time with people who have been declared criminally insane than I’ve made with you. For the last year, every day I’ve expected a call in the middle of the night telling me that you’ve committed suicide.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Is it? What’s in your handbag?” When Faith didn’t say anything, Jeanne said, “I hope Zoë makes you furious. I hope she makes you so angry that you tell her things that you’ve never told me.”
“I think I may have already,” Faith said softly, as she remembered telling Zoë that she’d been a wild child in high school. She hadn’t told Jeanne that in their therapy sessions.
“Good!” Jeanne said, then lowered her voice. “Faith, I shouldn’t tell yo
u this, but you three are very much alike.”
“They’ve had to deal with long-term illness?”
“No,” Jeanne said. “All three of you hide what you feel and tell no one anything. I wish you could get the women to talk.”
“If you tell me that because I’m the oldest I am to get these girls together and play therapist, I’ll leave tonight.”
“Yes, Zoë’s young, but for your information, there isn’t that much age difference between you and Amy. She looks so young because she has a drop-dead gorgeous husband, so she takes care of herself. You look old because…”
“Because why?” Faith asked, interested.
“I’ve been making you pay me for a whole year so you’ll tell me why, but you won’t.”
Faith took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s deal with the present. What do I do tomorrow to keep Zoë from offending Amy and me?”
“There’s a big blue cabinet in the living room. It’s full of art supplies. Show them to Zoë and they’ll keep her busy. You need to get Amy out of her room and take her shopping for her kids and husband. If you ask her about them, she may talk.”
