Fiction Friday: A Sleepless Dream

An ode to those who want a quiet, simple life.

Trigger Warning: This story contains themes and implications related to suicide. While the act itself is never explicitly mentioned, there are assumptions and underlying tones that may be distressing. Please proceed with caution and take care of yourself if reading about these topics is sensitive for you.

There are no impulses or changes. There is no worry. 

He has deflected curious eyes so often that the gaze of neighbors and passersby alike seem to no longer penetrate his aura. At one point in time, he could sense the looks viscerally, an evolutionary gift that had served his ancestors well but was of no use to him. The hair on his neck would stand up, and his skin would prickle, and he’d get this heavy sense of fear right between his eyes. It had been like that since he was a child, a baby he suspected, if he could remember that far back. It exhausted him. But now, he finds himself arm deep in soil, looking at a pair of loafers. 

How long has this man been standing there? Has he been watching? If so, for how long? Is he lost? Does he need directions?  

Will he say something? 

Thomas takes a deep breath of the garden. He is growing roses and snapdragons for the tenth year in a row. It is like a habit now, a science. A routine. 

The man clears his throat. 

Thomas sighs. He feels the prickling again, but not on his skin. In his chest. Annoyance. He looks up.

The man standing at the edge of his garden–the man who has walked right through his perfectly manicured grass, by the way–is wearing a pair of slacks and a shiny gold watch. His white shirt is buttoned all the way up but it is wrinkly, not in a sloppy way, more in a rushed way. He is wearing a suit coat with a pin above the left pocket, one that Thomas can’t make out from his position. He is holding a briefcase. 

Thomas begins, “Can I help you, sir?”

“Francis Willoughby.”

It is not a question or an inquiry, but a statement. 

The voice is softer than Thomas expected it to be. The expensive watch, the suit, the importance of having a white collared shirt that is wrinkled just so. Thomas expected his voice to be more curt, more definite. Bolder. Why did he expect the man to have an accent, like out of a black-and-white film? 

The man looks like a detective is what Thomas decided. That’s why he’d thought that. And maybe he is one. It is strange, so very strange, to hear someone using his birth name. The prickles turn icy and fear overtakes the spot in his chest where annoyance ached and he longs for the annoyance he’d felt. 

“I go by Thomas now,” he says simply, turning back to his garden. He roughly shovels with his fingers a palm sized hole in the ground, then gently places a single seed right in the center. Carefully, he smoothes dirt over it. 

The detective says nothing, and the annoyance is back. 

“Can I help you, sir?” he asks again.

“I am the executor of your mother and fathers estate,” he says, “may we go inside to chat about it?”

“I’m alright, thank you.” 

Thomas digs another hole about three inches to the left. He places another seed in the center and covers it with soil. Unfortunately, he is out of seeds. He wishes he could stick his hands deep down into the Earth and be swallowed whole. 

He imagines digging another hole, but it’s his size, and he places himself right in the center of it. Fingers first, then hands, then his arms, he keeps going. Eventually he doesn’t even need to push or press himself into the Earth. It’s like vines and roots have wrapped their way around his arms and are easing him slowly into the garden. Nothing dramatic, not scary, not fun, not exciting, just slow and steady. You might not even be able to see him sinking with the human eye. You’d need a camera, a timelapse, to see him falling centimeter by centimeter. Or, preferably, you’d go to bed at night and see Thomas' hands first in the garden, then you’d wake up the next morning and he'd be gone.

And what next?

He imagined something like a dreamless sleep.  

There are no impulses or changes. There is no worry. 

He’d live amongst the roots and the fungi and the earthworms and everyday he’d have a simple task, like breaking down into nutrients so a plant would grow, and there would be no complications in the matter. 

He’d want to live in his own garden, of course, and have a gardener like Thomas. Because if all went to hell and he’d failed at his task and the snapdragons he was in charge of feeding didn’t bloom, Thomas would be understanding. He always was. He’d say, “Better luck next year, Thomas. You tried your best. And you feel alright, don’t you?”

“You look different now, Francis,” the lawyer man says.

Thomas thinks, I am different now, and my name is Thomas, but he doesn’t say it. 

For the first few years after the accident, people still recognized him easily. He’d learned that the path of least resistance was to smile, answer questions, sign autographs, politely decline photos. You had to politely decline. Not that anyone had a right to a picture of him, but people were more inclined to respect that boundary if he stated it nicely. Sadly, actually. Not nicely, necessarily. He wasn’t acting, of course. He was sad. For the first few years.

But Thomas was different now.

He’d done a lot of hard work. A lot. More than most people may do in their entire lives. In both of his lives, actually. As Francis and as Thomas. And Thomas didn’t feel sad nor mourn the death of Francis or his dreams. In fact, he pitied Francis. He felt sad for Francis. Not about him. Even so, he was glad that Francis was gone. He wished Francis had left sooner. 

And nothing could change that.

Thomas brushed off his hands and stood up, finally coming face to face with the lawyer man. Well, face to neck. Thomas and Francis had some similarities that just couldn’t be fixed. They were both nearly seven feet tall, had dark hair that seemed to rebel against gravity if grown out further than a buzzcut, and large blue eyes. The kind of eyes that had circles underneath them no matter the time of day nor the amount of sleep he got.

His mother always said he’d been born with sad eyes.

“Don’t you know you can have anything you want, Francis? The world on a silver platter. And you have these sad eyes. Born with ‘em. That’s just my luck,” she’d say.

Thomas winced at the memory. No–maybe Francis did. 

Francis?

Bones were rattling inside of Thomas’s chest. 

The path of least resistance was the way to make this all go away.

“You can come inside for a cup of coffee,” Thomas said, heading towards the door without looking back to see if the lawyer man was following, “and I am happy to hear what you have to say so you can sign off, or whatever you need to do. But I am uninterested in taking it any further.”

“It’s just that–”

“Let’s sit, first,” Thomas said.

Thomas led the lawyer up the stairs and into the kitchen. His routine was calculated down to the second. He hated change. He’d have to fight all day to not be under a dark cloud now that his routine was all out of order.

Usually, in the morning, Thomas would open his eyes and do a series of intricate stretches. They were not to get his body back into “fighting shape” or to heal him up for another season as they’d been originally prescribed. The stretches helped to silence the aching, to ensure he could still neal and bend and crouch in his garden.

After his stretches, he’d go to the kitchen and put exactly enough for one cup of coffee in the coffee maker. He’d go outside and plant a few seeds in his garden, do any watering or weeding that was needed, and then return to his kitchen for the smell of freshly brewed coffee. He’d bask in it for a moment before frying four eggs, a steak or pork chop (whatever was on sale that week), and two diced russet potatoes. 

He’d sprinkle cheese on top, only freshly grated. This was his favorite part of his morning breakfast bowl. He wasn’t sure that it even made a difference, taste wise, but piles of cheese looked like freedom. 

He hadn’t even had cheese until he was in middle school. He was at a slumber party, his first and last, and had a slice of cheese pizza. 

Of course he’d seen cheese before. He wasn’t that sheltered. Specifically, he’d seen it watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They pulled a slice of pizza from a box and the cheese was so thick and stringy it stretched well above their heads. 

Francis had turned to his nanny, Lucille, and asked if they could order a pizza for lunch. She said no. She said Mr. Willoughby gave strict orders about lunch. Francis said please. He said, come on, Lucy, I’ve never had it. She said what? He said pizza. She said, in this shocked tone, you’ve never had pizza? 

Francis heard dad and Lucille talking loudly in his office before she headed out for the day. Something about not holding her tongue anymore, and drill sergeants, and Francis being a child, and quality of life. Francis’s dad yelled back about her not telling him how to raise his kid, who was born to be a star mind you, a legend mind you, and that all this nonsense was cutting time out of the routine he worked so hard to perfect. 

Dad ran drills harder than usual that day. Because they started five minutes later than normal, on their airtight training schedule, Francis ended up losing five minutes of precious alone time. Lucille was gone the next day and Francis learned not to ask for things he knew he wasn’t allowed to have. 

So at the sleepover, when a pizza with the pull-y kind of cheese arrived with grease pooling on the outside of the box, Francis knew better but did it anyway. It’s not like he’d asked for it. It had been presented to him. And what was he going to do? Go to the kids mom and dad, ask for hard boiled eggs and six ounces of lean ribeye? He may have lost out on a lot of socializing over the years, but he knew that wasn’t what normal kids did. 

But maybe it was kind of normal, he wondered. Like, what if he had an allergy? The kids' parents hadn’t even asked. They actually hadn’t even asked where his parents were, or if they knew he was there, or who he was. 

Had his parents known he’d gone to the sleepover, they’d have sent him with a steak and some eggs, though. So he hesitated before taking the first bite.

Had his parents known he’d gone to the sleepover, actually, they wouldn’t have let him go to the sleep over. So that was that. So he ate seven slices. 

Then he threw up.

His mom and dad were so angry when they finally found him that they pulled Francis right back out of school. Had they been worried he was missing? Maybe. But all dad talked about was how he’d have to rework their entire schedule. Make a new routine. Did Francis know he’d missed an entire day of training? On top of the ten days he’d already missed while going to school?

His mom could teach him just fine, they said. They said they’d try again in high school, somewhere private, and they’d keep a close eye. And they were only doing that because they had to. 

You had to go to high school to get drafted right out of high school.

Thomas sighed. His breakfast bowl would have to wait. Freshly grated cheese, too. On any other morning, Thomas would sit down at his kitchen island, eat his breakfast, pour himself a cup of coffee, and watch the minutes on the clock pass.  

There were no impulses or changes. There was no worry. 

But having the lawyer man sitting at his kitchen counter felt a lot like change, a lot like worry. So much so that he started to feel impulses again. Impulses like what if I drank an entire bottle of vodka right now or what if I got in my car and went as fast as I can down the freeway or what would it be like to drown?

It was ironic, really, that Francis would awaken and shake out his bones and start with his ghoulish moaning in such an uninspired way. 

Because Francis had been there, done that. 

He’d never blame his parents, and he’d never blame the pressure to succeed, he’d never blame getting “robbed” at the draft. He’d never blame the argument him and his father had afterwards, when he told him the truth.

He blamed the impulses.

They were desires that escaped him. Desires that demanded an audience. Desires that felt a lot like his own. 

None of his desires were ever, ever his own. 

But there were impulses, inklings, from deep inside. They didn’t request Francis leave the house in the ten minutes between dad coming home from work and dad meeting him out in the gym to get to the slumber party, they required it. They didn’t request Francis kiss his English tutor, a boy his same age with bright eyes and messy hair, they required it. They did the walking, they did the talking. 

Much like his father. 

And therefore, the impulses couldn’t be trusted. 

But at least they were more aligned with what Francis wanted. Did he want to leave the house and catch a city bus, navigate a system totally unknown to get to a slumber party? No. 

But he wanted a friend. Francis wanted a chance at movies and popcorn and pizza and this felt like the way to get it. 

And he almost got it. 

Did Francis want to kiss Adam, embarrass himself, chance rumors at his sexuality being different in the high school where he was already deemed as too quiet and too serious and too obsessed with baseball because of his rich, famous daddy? No. Of course not. 

But he did want to see if Adams skin felt as soft as it looked, if his hands would push through Adams' too long and too unruly hair as easily as it had in his dreams. 

And it did.

Maybe Francis didn’t know exactly what he wanted but something had been abundantly clear since he was a child. At least the impulses had a better idea than his father did. He didn’t want to train from dawn to dusk, he didn’t want a new workout routine every week, and he didn’t want to eat boiled chicken and broccoli and brown rice. He didn’t want to be a legend like his father. He didn’t want to play baseball at all. 

He wanted quiet. He wanted time he controlled. He wanted privacy. He wanted stability, and sameness, and calm. He wanted rest. He wanted ease. He wanted a life away from cameras and expectations and pressure to score and to win and to conquer. 

And, in their own way, the impulses gave him exactly that. 

The day Francis died, it was the impulses that made him leave his room and go to the liquor cabinet. With a future of more training and more routines and more scoring and more winning and more conquering ahead of him, a very drunk and a very terrified Francis stumbled to the brand new car his father had gotten him. He swayed and he wobbled and he let the impulses work up a plan.

His father wanted, required, demanded Francis sit in his room until he stopped thinking stupid shit. 

Get in the car. Start the car. Drive. Drive fast. Drive faster. When you see the river…

That’s what his impulses wanted, required, demanded. 

But his impulses hadn’t calculated for Adam. 

Adam was in the driveway, backpack over one shoulder, stack of books in his arms.

He’d have to keep tutoring Francis since he wouldn’t be going to the league. Maybe there was a brightside to this after all. He could thank his impulses for that much.

But still, they required something else. 

Get in the car. Start the car. Drive. Drive fast. Drive faster. When you see the river…

So Francis tried to push past Adam and get to the car. He swayed and wobbled as he walked. Adam jumped in front of the driver's side door and put out his hands, dropping his books. 

“Francis, what’s going on? You should be so happy! You said you weren’t ready, right? You have four years to…maybe not even four years, I don’t know how it works. But aren’t you happy? You should be so happy!”

And Francis said, “Well, I’m not, Adam. Now move. I have to go.”

“No,” Adam said, pushing Francis’s hand away from the door, “What happened? You’ve been…you’ve been drinking, haven’t you? Not celebratory champagne.” 

“Nope. Not champagne.”

Francis stopped trying to get into the car but he didn’t move. A light turned on in the house and both of them winced, clinging to shadows. 

The words fell out of Francis, they were coming so fast and he couldn’t stop them, a lot like the impulses. Adam was steady, calm as he dragged Francis over to the garden around back where they’d first read The Picture of Dorian Gray. Adam begged him to speak quieter, more slowly, to stop crying because he couldn’t understand him. And Adam nodded and uh-huh’d and finally said, “Francis, what do you want? That’s what matters. What does Francis want?”

“Francis doesn’t have wants. Francis doesn’t exist. He was created. And he was created to be a legend. To win.”

Adam thought about this quietly. In Francis’s memory, there were two and then three and then two Adam’s. The double vision was making it impossible to place exactly which Adam’s eyes to look into. But he could hear him just fine, and Adam said, “What does Thomas want?”

“Who?”

“Thomas,” Adam said, “you remind me of a Thomas. The name Francis never made sense for a baseball player, I always thought that. Since that time you ran away to my house and told me you were going to be a baseball star, remember that? When we were younger? Do you even remember that?”

“Of course I do.”

“And you ate an entire pizza? And threw up?”

Francis nodded, but he was having trouble keeping track of the conversation.

“You told me that Francis wasn’t a baseball player's name,” Francis said, “and your mom told you to stop being rude.”

“It was rude,” he agreed, “but I didn’t mean for it to be. She chewed me out as soon as you left. Even though your parents really chewed her out, too. Maybe that’s why she was so mad at me. But I kept thinking about it. I thought maybe a good name for a baseball player would be like…Skips or–”

“Skips?!” Francis laughed, too loudly, and it threw him off balance. Adam jumped up to steady him, then pulled him down onto the cement bench with him. He spoke in a whisper.

“I don’t know, I thought about it a lot but we’d only known each other for two weeks and I didn’t know you all that well. I had a whole list I was going to show you on Monday. The only one I remember is Skips. But you never came back. I didn’t think about it until I saw you again. At school. When you finally came back.”

Finally?

“And you thought I should change my name to Skips?”

Adam looked up towards the house and Francis did the same, fearful his mother or father had heard his laughter and were coming to put a stop to it. 

“No. Well, maybe when we were eleven. But I didn’t think you should change your name to anything the second time around. First of all, because I was older, and realized that Francis Willoughby didn’t sound like a baseball name to me but I didn’t know anything about baseball and I didn’t know who your dad was and I didn’t realize you were literally–you know. I didn’t know who your dad was.”

Who didn’t know who Raymond Willougby was?

All the kids at the middle school–for the two weeks he’d attended, anyway–had wanted to be Francis’s friend because they knew Ray Willougby. Who didn’t? Ray Willougby had broken just about every record that had been set for the states major league team. His face was on billboards. They were in the local paper every time they went to the grocery store. His dad was always talking on TV. Francis was always in the peripheral. 

Adam was the only kid who didn’t annoy the living hell out of Francis in those two weeks.

They sat next to each other in science. Adam always had his head stuck in a book, was always scribbling in a notebook with a pen and crossing stuff out and tilting his head in this really interesting way. He wrote stories. And science was kind of boring and over his head so whenever Adam finished a page, he’d tear it out of his notebook and pass it over to Francis to read. 

Francis loved Adam’s stories.

So much so that on day eight of school, a Thursday, Adam brought a few already filled notebooks for Francis to read. 

His address was written on the inside of a composition notebook. 

Francis blew a raspberry, “Listen, Adam. Thanks for coming by to congratulate me. I’ve got plans though. I’ve gotta go.”

“Wait,” Adam grabbed his arm and pulled him back down, “don’t you want to know why I’ve named you Thomas?”

Francis thought about it. The impulses had become quieter. He didn’t want to get in his car anymore, but he didn’t not want to get in his car. 

He didn’t want to play baseball.

He didn’t want to tell his dad that again.

He didn’t want the world to know he wanted to give it all up, this silver spoon future or riches and fame and being a hero, just because he didn’t feel like being rich and famous and a hero.

He didn’t want to tell Adam he’d rather die than live a life that was planned for him, minute to minute, routine to routine, training schedule to training schedule to practice schedule to draft schedule to game schedule to hall-of-fame schedule. 

He didn’t want to tell Adam that their kiss had been a mistake. 

He didn’t want to tell Adam the mistake was that he learned in the moment they kissed that life could be different and beautiful.

But he didn’t want to be away from Adam, not for now. 

So he sat back down.

“Why Thomas?”

Adam shrugged, “You just seem like one. Now that I know you better. Like when your hair grows out a little, right before you get a cut, you’re like a Thomas. And when you put on your reading glasses because your contacts are all dried out. And you talk about books with me. The ones I wrote and the ones we were supposed to read. And you’re sitting next to me all small, not all seven feet tall, you just seem like a Thomas.”

Francis blew another raspberry, but this one with less enthusiasm, and he leaned back on the brick house. He closed his eyes.

“Oh yeah? And what does Thomas do?”

There was a silence, and inside Francis and Adam could hear the slamming of doors and the yelling of Raymond Willougby, the crying of Amy Willougby. Francis prickled, his shoulders tightening, wondering if the stomping of footsteps was coming towards the back door. 

Adam put his hand on Francis’s, and Francis didn’t open his eyes, but he felt his shoulders relax.

“Thomas likes to read the classics, but not in a pretentious way. Thomas wears green sweaters and has a garden full of roses and snapdragons and tulips that he tends to each morning, like the garden in that book he couldn’t put down last summer. Thomas has a basic job where he doesn’t have to talk much or be bothered by people, because he hates talking and being bothered, and he can fly under the radar at work but it’s still a good job because…well he isn’t rich, but his bills are paid and he can pay for the expensive kind of dog food.”

Francis’s laugh felt like it was coming from somewhere else. It surprised him when it escaped his chest. He could feel Adam tense, like Francis had been laughing at him. But he  hadn’t. He didn’t know what he was laughing at, but it wasn’t Adam. 

“He has a dog?” Francis asked. He said it in a joking, soft, sarcastic tone. But he wanted more. He needed it.

“Two,” Adam decided after a beat, “they’re mutts he found at the pound. He picked them because they had sad back stories, like they used to be fighting or racing dogs and their owner ditched ‘em when he lost all his money betting on them. He takes them to the coast every morning and tosses a ball down the beach just to watch how quickly they run, and how joyously they run when it’s of their own volition. He’s a big ‘ol softie, Thomas.”

There was a long silence. More heavy steps. Maybe coming down the stairs. The vodka was melting Francis, deeper and deeper into the bench and the brick wall, but he had to move. He had to go. 

“Thomas sounds great,” Francis said, standing up and dusting dirt off of his shorts. He tilted, tried to steady his vision and spot his father through the window. His dad went the opposite direction, towards the basement, out of view. Where was he going? Heading toward the liquor cabinet? Would he notice the bottle gone? 

Would he ever come looking for Francis? 

He had to go. He had to.

“You can be Thomas, if you want,” Adam said, simply.

Francis pulled his eyes away from the window and looked at Adam. Adam was leaning forward, hands folded, elbows on his knees. He was looking up at Francis with a face that was both serious and gentle. Like he meant what he said, but it was okay if Francis rejected it. 

This made Francis want to accept it all the more. 

“How?” Francis asked. He said it quietly. Not even a whisper. Desperate, just his mouth moving as tears continued to steam down his face though the crying had stopped long ago. His face was one of a silent, almost imperceptible sorrow. It was like he was being held hostage in his own body, and he didn’t want to sound any alarms that he was trying to escape. 

“I don’t know. You said Francis was created. By your dad. Kind of like he was…I don’t know, tritten. You can have Thomas, if you want. I wrote to him. I’ll give him to you. As a gift. A congratulations gift. For getting to choose your own future now. You couldn’t always chosen your own future, I mean. But it’s easier now, right? It would’ve been harder if…”

“I can’t be Thomas. I have to be Francis. And Francis wants to–”

“Get in a car wasted? Drive to the coast? Escape.”

Francis nodded.

“I get that. I felt like that sometimes. Not to the extent or in the same you do, I don’t mean. I just mean…life feels that way sometimes. Just…you can’t let the impulse overtake you. You gotta ask it why it’s there, what it’s running from.”

Francis shrugged.

Adam continued, “Like, you want to get in the car and drive to the coast and…well, maybe it’s because you don’t want to play baseball at all. Maybe it’s because you aren’t ready now. And maybe it’s because you never will be. Maybe you want…a life like Thomas.” 

Francis shrugged again.

“But you…well, Francis, whoever your dad created…he wants to…”

The word hung in the silence. 

“Yes,” Francis threw his hands in the air and shouted, “Yes! It’s all Francis has ever wanted!”

Adam jumped up from the cement bench again, reaching on his tiptoes to cover Francis’s mouth, “Shhh!”

“No!” Francis pushed Adam's arm down with no trouble then leaned towards the house. He screamed so loud he could feel his throat closing, “Francis doesn’t care anymore! Francis is broken! Francis doesn’t want to do this anymore, dad! Francis isn’t you, dad! Francis wants to die, dad!”

He wanted a dreamless sleep, something steady and calm and unneedy. Easy to tend. 

Adam stopped breathing, and it seemed as though all the crickets ceased chirping and the wind stopped blowing. The stomping feet of Raymond Willoughby approached the back door, and Francis could see the three pairs of eyes filled with rage as Raymond Willougby’s doubled and tripled in his vision.

The rest was quite chaotic, blurry even. Francis didn’t remember much when all was said and done. 

He’d turned around to run. His foot caught in a hole in the garden. He twisted his ankle and felt a tendon in his leg stretch and stretch and snap. He was so drunk. But he remembered this pain for years and years and years. What he didn’t remember was what Adam had to explain to him later, in the hospital, when he finally made it past reporters and hospital staff and Raymond. 

Raymond had made Francis get up and try to walk. 

Francis couldn’t walk.

Raymond made him walk.

Francis cried out in pain with each step.

Raymond told Adam to leave before he called the police.

Francis woke up in the hospital, being told it would be a long and difficult recovery if he ever wanted to play baseball again. Raymond told him how lucky he was that it was just his leg that needed recovery, not his reputation. He’d managed to keep his BAC out of reporters hands with a hefty donation to the hospital.  

Oh, the impulses! What a mess they’d made. 

Thomas is feeling them raging through him again. Still there, always there. His parents have a way of doing this to him, making all the impulses and worries come back like a freight train. He hasn’t spoken to them in a dozen years, maybe more.

“Are they dead?” Thomas asks.

The lawyer takes a sip of coffee and says, “Would you like to hear about what the estate entails?”

“Not interested, really,” Thomas says, “donate it to charity.”

“It could be millions, Thomas. Your parents were very wealthy. You could have it all. Private jets, vacation homes. You could have it.”

“I don’t want it. Donate it.”

“You don’t want to hear them out?”

“Are they dead?” Thomas asks again.

The lawyer sighs, “No. But they do miss you. And they want to talk to you.”

Thomas has suspected this, “So you’re a liar. What’s in the briefcase?”

“It’s empty. I just didn’t think you’d let me talk to you if I didn’t have a strategy of some kind.”

“A lie.”

“The value of their estate is real. But you know that. Might be something to discuss with them. You can reconcile, talk about it. Not reconcile, talk about it. It’d be stupid not to. I mean—this house isn’t worth what their cars are worth, Thomas. You know that. What are you doing here? Is it worth some petty disagreements with your dad?”

“Who are you?” Thomas asks, voice smooth.

“A family friend,” the liar says, “listen, your old man can’t possibly want anything out of you. It’s been so long. You’re too old to play. I come with a white flag, Thomas. They want peace. They miss their son. Your dad is softer now that he’s aged. He’s not going to bully you about RBI’s or something like that. You’re grown men now, both of you. Come on, Thomas.”

The fact that this is even a part of the conversation makes Thomas ache for Francis. Is it so clear to everyone else, too, what Francis has been made for? How his father had treated him? Why didn’t anyone do anything?

“Thomas?” His voice is like music. No, not music. A wind chime. Something strictly calming, something hypnotizing, the only thing that could make his heart slow when it raced. Adam peeks his head out of the bedroom.

“I go by Thomas now,” Thomas says to the liar again, “if there isn’t any actual business to take care of, I’d like to politely ask you to leave. I’ve got to take my dogs on a walk.”

Two big, slobbering mutts run from behind Adam, who is still rubbing his eyes.

The liar looks back at the dogs, then at Adam, then back at Thomas. His face is beet red.

“Oh,” Adam says, yawning, “I didn’t realize we had company. Give me a minute, I’ll put some coffee on.”

When Thomas looks at Adam, there are no impulses or changes. There is no worry. When he looks at Adam, he feels like he is in a sleepless dream. It’s always been that way.

“He’s just leaving,” Thomas says, “go put something on. Let’s get going.”

The liar doesn’t speak for a while, but he also doesn’t get up.

Finally, he says, “Is this why you’ve been hiding from them all these years?”

Francis is dead. He isn’t hiding. Sometimes he is a zombie and sometimes he is a ghost, and he likes to haunt Thomas from time to time, less and less with age, but he never hides. Not anymore.

“My parents know about Adam,” Thomas says, “you can guess how they reacted.”

The liar nods. He thanks Thomas for the coffee, pets each dog on the head, and heads towards the door. Thomas follows him. The liar steps onto the stoop and turns back around just as Thomas is closing the door.

“I always felt sorry for how he treated you, kid,” the liar says, “but I tried to understand it, to an extent. I thought maybe he wanted what was best for you. That’s why I never stepped in, is what I mean. I guess. But if this is the reason you all are—” the liar picks his words carefully, “estranged. Then I guess I don’t know Ray like I thought I did.”

“You don’t,” Francis says, and Thomas slams the door.