Ted doesn’t give me a chance to unpack, or even brush my teeth after throwing up. I keep flicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth, trying to scrape off the sick, but it isn’t working. I need toothpaste. Mouthwash. I need time to process these images of Astrid, which made me lose my breakfast in the first place.
But Ted can’t be stopped. As soon as I drop my bag at the bottom of the stairs, he hooks his hand around my wrist and pulls me out toward his car, the same green Subaru he’s been driving since I left home for college.
“We’re going to Rusty’s,” he explains.
He plops me into the passenger seat and shuts the door, then walks toward the driver’s side with a particular jaunt I know too well. He’s excited about something. Worked up. Inspired.
“I need typewriter ribbon,” he announces as he lurches down the driveway. “And you need packing supplies.”
“Typewriter ribbon?” I say. “You’re—working? What about retirement?”
He waves his hand as if swatting away a fly. “That’s just from Wicker. But I’m still working, of course. It’s amazing how productive the mind can be when it’s not shackled by the arbitrary edicts of academia. My brain is fizzing, Fern. Like a can of soda that’s been shaken up. I would have gotten the ribbon this morning, but I waited for you, you’re welcome very much. Figured you’d want to go as soon as you got here, for boxes and all that.”
I shake my head, trying to catch up. A wave of nausea crests in my stomach once again. “You haven’t bought boxes yet?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then what have you been packing with?”
Ted looks at me as he brakes at a stop sign. His eyes narrow. “Nothing,” he says. “I haven’t been packing at all. That’s why I need you. You’re always so good at that organizational stuff. Plus, I told you, my mind is a live wire! Packing would waste all that brainpower.”
He’s about to step on the gas again, but I jerk my arm out to stop him. There’s a mother goose, followed by six goslings, beginning to cross the road. They’re oblivious to the dangers of traffic. Of tires. Of impatient men behind the wheel. The only awareness the goslings have is of their mother, the animal that will teach them how to move through this world.
Ted sighs as we wait, and I allow myself to feel the impact of what he just said. He used that phrase again—I need you—only this time, it’s clear that the need is merely a practicality. My stomach roils at how stupid I was to believe it was something else—an expression of love, a desire for connection. Of course it wasn’t, Eric would say. It’s Ted we’re talking about here.
As soon as the geese edge past our car, Ted zooms ahead. I tug on my seat belt, make sure it’s tight. I hate how quickly he drives down Cedar streets. You never know what will dart from the woods, what family of animals you could crush in an instant.
I run my tongue along my teeth, feel the film that’s stuck there. “Your semester only ended a month ago. Maybe you should take a break for a while. Come back to your work once you’ve had a chance to recharge. We could pack things up together. We could—”
“A break?” He spits out the word as if it’s poison. “You know who’s not taking a break? Brennan Llewellyn. I’m sure you’ve seen his new book—The Desolation of Fear.” He says the title with a mocking high-pitched tone.
“It’s complete garbage, of course. I was reading it when you pulled in. Five hundred pages of mind-numbing research and case studies that make the same argument as all his other books. But the critics don’t care. Nor the consumers. It debuted at number nine.” He scoffs. “Everyone’s a brain-dead lemming.”
I lean my head against the window, watch the oak trees whiz by. I’m too weary for one of Ted’s rants about Brennan Llewellyn, his old grad school classmate who went on to enjoy the success that Ted always wanted. Bestselling books. Spots on morning talk shows. The reverence of the entire psychology community. Brennan is Ted’s “friemesis,” a term Ted uses without irony. Whenever Brennan’s in town, the two of them have a meal together, laugh about whichever former classmate is currently embroiled in some university scandal, raise a glass to old professors who’ve recently passed away. But even