Free A Brief Lunacy by Cynthia Thayer

questions because it’s none of his business. But I think of his mother nursing him and holding his hand on the first day of school and worrying right now about where he is.
    Do all mothers remember their children’s first day at school? Carl took the day off from surgery. The hospital thought he’d lost his marbles, a well-respected surgeon witha long waiting list taking the day off to take his little girl to school. But he wanted to be there if she got scared and needed him.
    We walked, Sylvie in the middle, the three blocks to the Milford Grammar School, chattering like magpies about snack time and recess and new kids and making paper chains. Sylvie’s small hands gripped our fingers tight. She asked when it would be over, as if it were an operation.
    I still remember her clothes. Red plaid jumper. White blouse, gray cardigan in case it got cold, black patent-leather Mary Janes, white ankle socks with Scottie dogs embroidered on them. Her braids were tied with red grosgrain ribbon and her part took a decided swerve along the back.
    At the classroom door she turned and in her five-year-old voice told us to leave, that she was fine, although her face was smeared with tears and she had bitten a piece of loose skin from her lip so that it bled. She folded her arms in front of her and tapped her Mary Janes on the hard tile floor until we kissed the top of her head and walked down the corridor toward the door. Other parents cried, too. We weren’t the only ones.
    Did Jonah’s parents cry when they left him at kindergarten? Are his parents really dead? I wonder. He calms down, slows his jerking leg, sits back in the chair. His fingernails are clean, trimmed, his fingers smooth. Does someone take care of him?
    â€œDo you hear the loons?” he asks.
    â€œThey fly over to the pond,” I say. “Every day we hear them.”
    â€œYoung man, it’s time for you to leave. Think about where you want to go. You can use the phone if you want.”
    â€œI’m waiting for someone.”
    â€œAre they coming to get you?”
    â€œYou might say that.”
    â€œWhen are they coming? What time?”
    â€œPatience, Carl. Patience.”
    â€œNo. You’ll have to wait up at the road. Perhaps you should go to the police station.”
    â€œBut my friend is coming here. To this house. Why would I go to the police?”
    â€œI’ll go and start the car,” I say. “It takes a few minutes to warm up. Why don’t you get your things together.”
    The telephone rings and Jonah jumps up to answer it.
    â€œIt’s for me,” he says to us. He turns away while he talks. I try not to listen. No, that’s wrong. I try to listen but not make it obvious. I’m desperate to know who is on the other end of the phone. “I’m here,” he says. “Yes. It’s really me. Yes, I’m having a great chat. Where are you? I’ll wait here, then. Yes, my beloved, I’ll tell them.”
    â€œTell who? Tell what?” Carl stands as he speaks. “Was that Sylvie?”
    â€œNo. I don’t know Sylvie. She’s much too old for me. My friend says to thank you for taking such good care of me,” Jonah says. “But I need to stay here. I need to pave the way. You folks better pay attention. Got to straighten out a few things.”
    Why didn’t I see how troubled he is? But I’m surprised that he really does have someone coming to pick him up andI’m sorry for not believing him. When someone is clearly unbalanced, we tend to disbelieve everything they say. Is that fair?
    Poor Sylvie. Once when I visited her in the mental hospital after the ill-fated graduation party, she told me her teacher had come to give her a diploma. She said she’d won the English prize. I patted her arm and told her that was lovely, how nice of him to come, and how smart she was to win the prize. When we got back to her room, there it was on the