MirrorWorld

“Who’s a funny boy?” I say, lowering him to my face so our noses touch for a moment. Then I lift him back up and repeat. Repetition seems to be the key to eliciting a laugh. They don’t usually find humor in something the first two or three times, but after that each repetition gets a bigger reaction. I repeat the up-and-down motion, saying, “Who’s a funny boy?” three times before he squeals with delight, kicking his legs and flapping his arms, saying, “Ooh, ooh, ooh!” Then he stops, wide-eyed, and turns to watch a dog walk past with its owner, that openmouthed smile locked in place.

While he watches the dog, I turn to his mother and find her eyes just inches from mine. I kiss slow and gentle, interlocking our lips. I hang there for a moment, feeling a crazy kind of closeness that I now share with two people. When we part, I say, “Thank you.”

“The kiss was that good?” she asks.

“For him,” I say, glancing up to Simon, who’s once again trying to fly away as he says “Ooh, ooh, ooh!”

“You helped. A little.” She squeezes my arm, and in that moment I decide I’ve had enough killing. Enough fighting. I might not be afraid to die, but there is no way I want to risk not being around for Simon or Maya. Her father hinted that Neuro might have a place for me. As a fellow company man, he knows what I do, more than Maya does, and if he says I can leave behind my days of violence, I might just take him up on it.

I turn back up to Simon. He’s somehow managed to grab a fluffy white dandelion. He blows on it twice, mimicking what he’s seen Maya do several times already, and then stuffs the thing into his mouth. He looks down at us, a little shocked when his open mouth is suddenly full of clinging debris. The smile fades and tears quickly come. Laughing, Maya and I sit up, working together to clear the dandelion bits from his mouth, while distracting him from the confusing feeling ratcheting him up to a high-pitched scream.

Most of my career, I’ve worked solo, depending on myself more than anyone else. Now, I’m part of a team, and it feels right. More right than anything before it.

With the dandelion cleared away, I lift the crying boy and stand. I put him on my chest, lean his small head on my shoulder, and do what Maya calls the “daddy bounce,” shifting my weight side to side while gently bobbing up and down. Simon quiets quickly. I kiss the back of his head and look down at Maya. She’s got tears in her eyes. Whispers, “I love you.”

*

I wake suddenly, sitting up in bed. “Maya?”

I’m in a hospital. “Maya?”

She’s not here.

This isn’t a memory. I’m awake. Back at Neuro in the present. I only remember bits and pieces of my previous life, of Maya, but it’s enough.

They have her. My wife. My son’s mother. And I’m going to get her back.





44.

The door behind me opens. I spin to greet whoever it is, saying, “We have to—”

It’s Winters. Her face and hopeful blue eyes act as a catalyst. I grip my head, suddenly at the mercy of a raging migraine. Images flow past my eyes. Smells. Sounds. An entire sensory barrage of what once was. I feel Winters’s embrace. Her comforting words. Feel the closeness of her friendship. Her support. And then something deeper. Something forbidden and guilt frosted.

I loved her. Briefly.

But I was going to put a stop to it. In the wake of Maya’s collapse—and Simon’s death—I was weak. And lonely.

*

“What’s on your mind this morning?”

I look up at Winters, confused for a moment before getting lost in the memory. She’s dressed in a loose-fitting silk negligee. Her hair is messy. No makeup in sight. She’s gorgeous, standing in front of the bathroom sink in my Neuro apartment.

I can’t do this anymore.

As I lay in bed that morning, watching her sleep, I came to a conclusion. Our relationship, no matter how good it feels or how much comfort it provides, is wrong. I’m still married, and, despite what Maya did and the anguish I feel about Simon’s death, it wasn’t Maya’s fault.

She didn’t murder our son.

The Dread did.

When she recovers, I need to be there, till death do us part.

Death do us part.

But I’m not ready to break things off with Winters now. Not standing half-naked in my bathroom. Not immediately following last night. She deserves better than that. “Just distracted.”

She brushes her teeth, speaking between strokes. “About what?”

I wave off the question. I need to speak to Lyons. It’s about something important. Something critical.

But … I can’t remember what.

She spits in the sink, rinses, and places the pink toothbrush in the wall-mounted holder.

*

I gasp out of the memory, returning to the medical room. Winters has a steadying hand on my arm.

“It was your toothbrush,” I say.

“What?” She guides me to a chair. Sits me down. “Are you okay?”

The headache is gone, but memories are surfacing one by one. Most are insignificant, days and events lost in time, things I wouldn’t have remembered even before losing my memory. The cascade of history is like background noise. Voices, whispers really, of days gone by. Riding my childhood bike. Military training. Endless school days, each nearly identical to the previous. I can ignore these memories, but the more recent and powerful ones return with painful urgency.

“I don’t remember everything,” I tell her. “Bits and pieces. But … I do remember us. Parts, anyway.”

She crouches in front of me. Takes my hands. “What do you remember?”