The Glass Castle_ A Memoir - Jeannette Walls [127]
The judge sent Maureen to an upstate hospital. She was released after a year and immediately bought a one-way bus ticket to California. I told Brian that we had to stop her. She didn’t know a single person in California. How would she survive? But Brian thought it was the smartest thing she could do for herself. He said she needed to get as far away from Mom and Dad, and probably the rest of us, as possible.
I decided Brian was right. But I also hoped that Maureen had chosen California because she thought that was her true home, the place where she really belonged, where it was always warm and you could dance in the rain, pick grapes right off the vines, and sleep outside at night under the stars.
Maureen did not want any of us to see her off. I rose just after first light the morning she was scheduled to leave. It was an early departure, and I wanted to be awake and thinking about her at the moment her bus pulled out, so I could say farewell in my mind. I went to the window and looked out at the cold, wet sky. I wondered if she was thinking of us and if she was going to miss us. I’d always had mixed feelings about bringing her to New York, but I’d agreed to let her come. Once she arrived, I’d been too busy taking care of myself to look after her. “I’m sorry, Maureen,” I said when the time came. “sorry for everything.”
A FTER THAT, I HARDLY ever saw Mom or Dad. Neither did Brian. He had gotten married and bought a run-down Victorian house on Long Island that he restored, and he and his wife had a child, a little girl. They were his family now. Lori, who was still living in her apartment near the Port Authority, was more in touch with Mom and Dad, but she, too, had gone her own way. We hadn’t gotten together since Maureen’s arraignment. Something in all of us broke that day, and afterward, we no longer had the spirit for family gatherings.
About a year after Maureen took off for California, I got a call at work from Dad. He said he needed to get together to discuss something important.
“Can’t we do it over the phone?”
“I need to see you in person, honey.”
Dad asked me to come down to the Lower East Side that evening. “And if it’s not too much trouble,” he added. “could you stop on your way and pick up a bottle of vodka?”
“Oh, so that’s what this is about.”
“No, no, honey. I do need to talk to you. But I would appreciate some vodka. Nothing fancy, just the cheapest rotgut they have. A pint would be fine. A fifth would be great.”
I was annoyed by Dad’s sly request for vodka—tossing it out at the end of the conversation as if it were an afterthought, when I figured it was probably the purpose of the call. That afternoon I called Mom, who still never drank anything stronger than tea, and asked if I should indulge Dad.
“Your father is who he is,” Mom said. “It’s a little late in the game to try to reform him now. Humor the man.”
That night I stopped in a liquor store and bought a half gallon of the cheapest rotgut on the shelf, just as Dad had requested, then took a taxi down to the Lower East Side. I climbed the dark staircase and pushed open the unlocked door. Mom and Dad were lying in their bed under a pile of thin blankets. I got the impression they’d been there all day. Mom squealed when she saw me, and Dad started apologizing for the mess, saying if Mom would let him clear out some of her crap, they might at least be able to swing a cat in here, which got Mom accusing Dad of being a bum.
“Good to see you,” I said as I kissed them. “It’s been a while.”
Mom and Dad struggled up into sitting positions. I saw Dad eyeing the