If any man seeks for greatness,
let him forget greatness and ask for truth,
and he will find both.

—Horace Mann

Chapter 17

“Let’s get this over with,” Maggie said. “I know your family’s troubles are hard on you and you worry about the effect on me, but I’m a doctor. I’m sure I can keep this in perspective.”

“We’ll see,” Cal said.

“You have so little faith in me,” she said.

Cal explained to Sully that he wanted Maggie to meet his parents because they were pretty wacky. He didn’t want to terrify Sully so he described his father as unstable and his mother as nutty but loving. He could’ve said schizophrenic, but he hadn’t.

When Cal was out of earshot Sully spoke to Maggie. “Be nice to his wacky parents and don’t screw this up.”

“Oh, very nice, Sully!” she said.

“You know what I mean. I like him and he fits in and I don’t know that I’ve ever been around a man who treats you better, including one husband and one steady boyfriend.”

“Oh my God,” Maggie said. “I had more than one boyfriend! And I was engaged in med school for three weeks.”

“You were engaged?” Sully asked.

“It wasn’t worth mentioning,” she said. “I didn’t want to be engaged, but... Never mind, it doesn’t count. But I’ve had boyfriends.”

Sully just shook his head. “Be nice to his wacky parents. And don’t tell them where we live.”

Cal took care of the tickets—Denver to Des Moines, one plane change. Maggie packed and as she did so, she was confident she could handle meeting Cal’s parents, even if they were in crisis. She’d been around plenty of mostly functional people with mental disabilities. It was standard fare in emergency rooms. She knew neurological disorders weren’t exactly easy on behavioral patterns. But, Cal was completely sane and nearly ideal. And she was of above-average intelligence and had a great deal of medical experience. She could help him and put his mind at ease.

We all have our issues, she reminded herself.

Pratt, Iowa, a tiny farming community between Des Moines and Iowa City, had a small population—just a couple hundred. The drive from Des Moines with all the crops in lush maturity was lovely. It was hot and humid and buggy and there were some dark clouds gathering in the west. Cal stopped at a motor inn in Newton and checked them in.

It was perfectly adequate and she decided not to even ask why they wouldn’t stay with his parents. It was early afternoon so they had a bite to eat and headed for Pratt. They drove another thirty minutes to a completely charming little village. The Jones farm was just on the outskirts of town. It was shaded by big leafy trees and the fields were full of wheat and corn. There was a big barn and a darling little farmhouse at the end of a drive through the fields. As they got closer Maggie noticed the details. The windows were covered with tinfoil. The weather vane on top of the house had tinfoil streamers on it.

“Oh boy,” she said.

“Yeah,” Cal said. “We’ll visit for a couple of hours and get the lay of the land, then head back to Newton.”

“Just a couple of hours?” she asked.

“I’m sure that’ll be enough,” he said.

Finally, she was starting to see why bringing her here was important to him and she grew nervous.

“Your dad farms all this?”

“No, he leases the land to local farmers. Sometimes he thinks he’s done a lot of farming, however. But, so far, there hasn’t been any problem with that and the lease income is helpful.”

Up close, the house seemed to be in poor repair—the steps up to the porch were slanting one way, the floorboards were rickety and creaked and it had been a long time without paint. But the inside was pleasant and clean. It was very old-fashioned—overstuffed furniture with doilies, mission-style dining chairs around the table, appliances that had seen better days. There was a TV tray in front of a chair that still bore the imprint of its frequent occupant. And on the tray, a pile of spiral notebooks.