Take it easy, son.
The two men left. Harrison sighed, lit a cigarette, finished his drink. Then he went up to his room, ordered a hamburger, ate half, fell asleep. He had strange dreams. When he woke his legs were half off the bed and someone was knocking at his door. Where the hell was he? What day was it? He sat up, groggy, rubbed his face. There was no one at the door. Maybe he’d dreamt it. He lit a cigarette and walked to the window and looked out. Baltimore fell below. Jeez, he was up high. He hadn’t realized. His room was pretty nice too. Was he in one of the penthouse suites? He looked around. He was. This astronaut business sure had unexpected perks. He drew on his smoke and felt pretty good about himself. Ego. It hit him hard. Inside his belly, his gut moaned. He’d decided. His ego had sentenced her to death. His guilt crippled him. He felt sick. Grace was right. She was right about him. What if others found out? The press? His face, the headline, MURDERER. Ruin. No way out. One way out. How would he do it? He could jump off the twenty-third floor of a building. Maybe he should do it now? Jesus, no! He wasn’t suicidal! Why had he thought those thoughts? Maybe there was something to it? Maybe he did want to kill himself? His daughter was dead. His wife had left him. Maybe he’d see Duck again? He was suicidal! Panting, sweating, gut heaving, he fell back from the window and locked himself in the bathroom. Stop. Just because he’d had a thought about killing himself didn’t mean he’d thought about killing himself. It was just a thought. It just popped into his mind. It wasn’t his fault! Jesus Christ. He was going crazy. Maybe he would kill himself? Jesus Christ!
Okay, stop. He held his head in his hands. He replayed the entire sequence of thoughts in his head. He felt worse doing it, but he had to do it, he had to know! If he could hang his hide on the line, day in day out, he could do this. He did it. He was not suicidal. He was sure of that now. He was hot, shaking, exhausted, but felt better.
What time was it? How long had he been in the bathroom? He’d woken at six. He remembered glancing at the time before getting up to see who was at the door. He remembered thinking, kinda early? Harrison looked around for his watch. It was in his bag. It was nearly nine. Three hours! That was impossible. His watch must be wrong. There was a small alarm clock by his bed. It said nine. How had three hours passed just thinking about— The thought of strangling Florence violated his mind. He cried out, but it was too late. He sat on the bed, pushing fingers into his forehead. He would never do that. He sat up, thinking hard. He would never do that. He hadn’t ever done that, had he? No, Christ, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. He’d decided to start the cobalt treatment though. He’d laid it down, to Lapitus, to Grace. She’d submitted. He remembered now. He went over it again, and again, and again, until his body shook. He’d decided. He’d made Grace agree. Her body was too weak. She suffered. It was his fault; it was all his fault.
He showered at eleven and was two hours washing. He ate nothing for lunch. It was his fault. Whenever the thought occurred, he would sit on the bed and go over the conversations with Grace, with Lapitus, unable to get up, unable to move on, until he’d reassured himself that the decision to use cobalt was considered, justified, shared. Those moments, that reassurance, he wanted to save, store, for the next time. Often, his concentration would be interrupted by a noise in another room—a flushing toilet, a slamming door—and he’d scream in frustration, having lost his place in the process, and have to start over, often hearing distant knocks or water creaking pipes or another door slam, which would send him back to the beginning again, as though he were climbing an impossibly slippery slide.