In this year-long serialized novel set on the Vineyard in real time, a native Islander (“Call me Becca”) returns home after two decades to help her eccentric Uncle Abe keep his landscaping business, Pequot, afloat. Abe fears and detests Richard Moby, the CEO of an off-Island wholesale nursery, Broadway. Convinced that Moby wants to destroy Abe personally, and all Island-based landscaping/nursery businesses generally, Abe is obsessed with “taking down” Moby. A series of increasingly disastrous direct attacks last year did nothing to dissuade Abe; he changed tactics to a “smear campaign” against Moby, but has just given up on that, too. Last week, in a fit of paranoia, Abe fired Mott, Pequot’s longsuffering general manager. In a desperate attempt to keep Abe’s paranoia within bounds, the now-fired Mott faked an argument with Becca in order to assure Abe that Becca was definitely “on Abe’s side.”

Dear P:

Quincas remains cuter than ever and once again I have no time to talk about that because I really want your advice on what to do about Uncle Abe.

Mott’s name is now anathema around Pequot; Abe really believes he is a spy for Richard Moby, out to help Moby undermine Pequot. Whatever that means. I think it means: find a way to make Pequot go bankrupt so that Broadway can become the Master of All Nurseries on Martha’s Vineyard.

I’d have an easier time believing that if Broadway actually had a nursery on the Vineyard. But they don’t. They sell wholesale to the growers, but they have no retail outlet here. And now would be a pretty stupid time for Moby to try to start one up. So the notion that Broadway wants to put anyone here out of business is far-fetched to me.

If I can give it my two-cent, pop-psychology interpretation: Abe feels PERSONALLY in competition with Moby, because Abe’s ex-wife is now engaged to marry Moby. Despite breaking a few windows over Thanksgiving when he learned about this, Abe won’t admit he feels any jealousy; he’s sublimated it, channeled all of his energy and anger into work. (No offense, but what a guy thing to do.)

But that’s not even the problem. HERE is the problem, and it’s a two-parter:

Part one: Abe thinks I’m planning to get my MBA (or something) as a means of helping him expand the business by adding an online component (or something). Since Pequot’s mission is to use local plants and do local work for local people, I can’t imagine what we’d get out of developing an internet presence, especially something so sophisticated it would require me to get an MBA (or something) before plunging in. So it would be a waste of time and money for me to pursue an MBA (or something), and it shouldn’t be a big deal to tell him I’m not.

But Abe is being so unreasonable, moody and suspicious that I’m actually a little scared to tell him. He thinks I’m getting an MBA because Mott told him I was. And Mott did that with a very good purpose: realizing that Abe now considers Mott a traitor (which makes Abe’s paranoid tendencies even worse), Mott wanted Abe to feel there was one person who was totally dependable, and I was the obvious choice.

So last week, Mott deliberately painted this picture of me as the person giving my all for Pequot (especially in contrast to Mott’s apparent treachery). Abe bought it, which in one sense is great — as nuts as he is, he’s somewhat calmer now, because his perception of me is the unshakably faithful niece. He knows he’s got at least one person on his side. He needs that. (Hey, who doesn’t?) But it also means he has expectations of me that I can’t possibly fulfill. To tell him I’m not going to fulfill them could trigger his, ummm, his more unfortunate personality traits.

Part two: There is nobody more certain of their sanity than the insane. I remember reading somewhere that “there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.” A great quote (Melville?), and part of its truth lies in the fact that we’re the only ones capable of self-reflection. Animals commit “folly,” yes, but only in response to their circumstances, and when the circumstances change, so does their behavior. We, however, have the wretched ability to justify our folly, to decide that our folly is actually just dandy, and therefore we keep it up indefinitely, precisely because we’re so sure it’s not folly.

That, in a nutshell, is where Abe’s at. Yesterday over dinner (I’m still staying in his house; both a blessing and a curse), he seemed down, so I took a risk and said, “Uncle Abe, this is my first winter back on the Vineyard in 20 years. It’s been tough. Now the clocks have changed and we have an hour more sunlight, I’m already starting to feel a lot better. Maybe you will too.”

He gave me a standoffish look. “I’m excellent,” he announced. “I don’t even notice the difference in the sunlight. I am my own illumination. Pass the salt.”

I could not make that up if I tried.

So: my question for you is: what do I DO?

Love,

Becca

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Vineyard novelist Nicole Galland’s critically-acclaimed works include Crossed: A Tale of the Fourth Crusade. Visit her Web site, nicolegalland.com.