Cal’s mother, Marissa, turned from the kitchen sink, saw them, and immediately looked worried.

“Cal. I didn’t know you were bringing anyone,” she said, her voice very soft.

Her gray hair was very long, tied in a band and trailing down her back. Her expression was pained but her complexion was the picture of health. She seemed to be in good physical shape, not too thin, not too heavy. She wore a long, flower-print skirt, brown leather lace-up boots and a shirt over a tank top. Her breasts were small, but she was braless and they swayed. When she smiled at Cal her eyes glittered sweetly.

But Marissa twisted her hands.

“Mom, this is Maggie, my girlfriend.”

“Oh, hello. I’m sorry my husband isn’t here.”

“Where is he, Mom?”

“He’s in the barn.” She looked at Maggie. “I’m sorry it’s such a bad time.”

Maggie murmured a greeting.

“Why is it a bad time, Mom?” Cal asked.

“I told you,” she whispered. “On the phone, I told you. It’s been fine till Sierra went to the hospital. I don’t know what she was thinking, bringing all that attention.”

“What attention?” Cal asked.

Marissa’s pretty face became pinched. She spoke so softly Maggie could barely hear her. “She sent people here. County people. To look at us, at your father. He’s been hiding in the barn since they were here.”

“For two weeks?” Cal asked, sounding appalled.

“He’s started come to the house after dark. He’s afraid of them.”

Cal looked at Maggie. “It was probably social services. He’s afraid of being taken to the hospital. He’s afraid of their drugs and tests and electric shock.” Then to his mother he said, “Make him something to eat. I’m going to go get him now.”

“He won’t come.”

“Make him something to eat,” Cal said. “Maggie? Will you be all right here?”

“Certainly,” she said. “I’ll help your mother in the kitchen.”

* * *

The barn wouldn’t keep out the cold in winter, it was that rickety. It hadn’t been used to house animals in a good twenty years. Sunlight shone through the spaces between the boards. Cal’s father had latched the big double doors but as Cal remembered from long-ago visits, all you had to do was lift the door on the right and the latch fell away, allowing him to walk inside.

His father had constructed himself a desk by putting an old door on top of two wooden barrels, using a third to sit on. There were papers scattered on top of the desk, held down by rocks. An empty bean can held pens and pencils, a couple of large sheets of paper were rolled up. Butcher’s paper. There was a grocery store bag sitting beside the desk, filled with balls of string. On the other side an identical brown bag filled with balls of tinfoil.

Cal hated the tinfoil periods. His father hadn’t suffered continuous bouts of paranoia but when upsetting things happened in his world, he started covering things in foil to keep the radio waves from penetrating.

But Cal loved the old barn. He and his brother and sisters had spent many happy hours playing here—all sorts of games—hide-and-seek, pretend, you name it. They’d swung on a rope from the loft, a pastime his grandmother said took years off her life and his grandfather said generations of farm kids had survived.

“Dad? It’s me, Cal. Can you come out, please?”

No answer.

“Come on, Dad. I don’t want to have to search the barn for you.”

“You don’t sound like Cal,” his father said from a distance away.