He’s pulling his shirt over his head and he thinks, Where was I before Amorea?
He’s shutting the front door to his house and he thinks, Who are my pare&##&#—
He stops, hand still on the doorknob.
He doesn’t know what that was. It was like he short-circuited. Just for a moment.
He thinks, Who are my pare&#*#—
That pressure is there, building behind his eyes.
He thinks, The people who raised me.
The people I was born to.
The ones who gave me life.
My par&###&***—
He knows the word. He knows it.
He thinks, Just another thing, isn’t it? Just another thing.
We’re much more progressive now, Doc said. It’s rarely recommended that a person be institutionalized because of schizophrenia these days.
As long as a person isn’t deemed to a danger to others or themselves, there shouldn’t be any reason why they can’t live a reasonably normal life. Medications can help with the delusions. The hallucinations. Those feelings of unreality. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mike. Think of that as a last resort. You are here. You are fine. You live in Amorea. You own the bookstore, and you have people that care about you. That’s what’s real.
He thinks, Is it?
And yeah, maybe he’s a little angry.
HE’S IN the diner sitting across from Sean. It’s loud this morning, a Thursday, the townsfolk buzzing excitedly. The Amorea Women’s Club started hanging up decorations for the Amorea Harvest Festival the day before. It’s still nine days away, but Amorea always gets excited when Mrs. Richardson and her band of merry women begin their preparations. There are wreaths hung up on every doorway in Amorea, orange and red and brown plastic leaves strung together with little scarecrows in the middle. The light posts along Main Street are strung similarly, long autumn garlands wrapped along the poles. There are pumpkins and hot apple cider and the leaves on the trees that line the streets look like they’re ablaze. It’s quintessentially fall, and everyone is happy.
It hurts his head.
He thinks, If you only knew.
“You okay, big guy?” Sean asks, reaching across the table to take Mike’s hand in his own. Mike barely resists the urge to pull away. It’s a close thing.
He forces a smile on his face. “I’m fine.”
“Sleeping pills helping?”
He shrugs. “A little.” Lying is getting easier now. “It’s going to take some time, I guess.”
Sean squeezes his hand, and Mike’s got a flash of his nose bleeding, that fight from last week, the anger he felt when Daniel Houle’s elbow clocked him a good one. The pictures that fell. There were two of them, right?
He thinks, There were three, and the third was a mystery.
He thinks, No, there were two. Just two. I remember them both.
He thinks, She was smiling at the camera like she was in love.
He thinks, Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.
Sean says, “I hope not too much longer. You’re looking a little rough around the edges.”
That stings, and he thinks, Yeah, well, you would too if you saw things and remembered things that weren’t there. He says, “You leaving me for someone younger? Someone a little more put together?” He’s teasing, and Sean’s smile is a relief.