Lakewood. It was her tone. The slow way she spoke. I kept my eyes on my food because I knew to make eye contact would mean we would have to be honest. We would have to have another conversation: this pays for your pills. For the first time in over 15 years, you get to have an ordinary, boring life. I can give up a year for you to have that for forever.
But that was probably paranoia speaking. Because she said next I might never want to leave. I’ll get comfortable.
I told her when she gets a full-time job, we’ll talk it over again. My voice was not as kind as I meant for it to be. My phrasing was completely wrong. One of the reasons why I love my mom is every feeling is on her face. It makes me trust her. She looked ready to shake me, she looked like she understood my point.
I’m writing this back in Lakewood. I start doing studies again tomorrow. This afternoon, I had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Lisa. We did shapes, colors. I told her who the president was, what day it was, how long I’ve been gone. I wrote things down. We looked it over together. My handwriting looked different before—straight up and down, not leaning, less connection between letters. I had written some words down wrong. Pirple instead of purple. Brownie instead of cereal. Lint instead of drove. So, she assigned me to write in a journal every night. I decided for 20 minutes each day, I would write the boring things down for them to see. Then I would write you a letter.
You probably know this—the schools you went to were much better than mine—but when a person performs an experiment, they’re supposed to have a hypothesis. Something they’re attempting to prove. With Madison’s experiment, the only hypothesis I can assume is: What can we do to make a child completely turn on her parents? With mine, they claimed they’re testing a medication. But what does it do? It was just a pill to help us memorize words? Well, why?
Lakewood is isolated from all major highways. You have to drive 15 miles south to connect to the interstate. The closest town is 10 miles away, but it’s really just a few streetlights, a party store, a bar called JJ’s, and a gas station surrounded by a cluster of ranch-style homes. The roads here are redder than other places. It’s mostly farmland outside of town, but there’s the woods behind Great Lakes Shipping Company, a small state park six miles outside of town, and Long Lake. The water here is terrible. I’ve become a bottled water person when I’m home. I know it’s irresponsible. And the people here are different. They’re so, so mindful. I don’t mean in like a meditation way. I mean, they’re always aware of each other, the people around them. There’s the usual Midwestern judginess, but everywhere I go I feel noticed. Some of it is the I-only-encounter-black-people-from-watching-conservative-news-stations look. But.
Could it be possible that the entire town is somehow not real? There were so many people working in the facility I was in. Is it like some sort of fucked-up Disney World? Everyone except us, the guests, were in on it. But what about Charlie, his friends? When I did a street view of Lakewood, there were the donut shops, the Methodist and Lutheran churches, the gas station where I filled up, my apartment. Maybe it wasn’t that widespread.
But my phone doesn’t let me search for research studies.
My apartment is still very clean. Someone had gone through my refrigerator when I was away, threw away all the rotting food. They bought me new produce, fresh milk, and eggs. A sticky note on the fridge where someone had written Welcome back! with a smiley face below it.
Do you remember that city in South America that was in the news, maybe six months ago? They had changed their name to McDonald’s. I think it was maybe in Peru. There was a crisis there after an earthquake, and someone had convinced the town’s leaders that changing the name might help them get some sort of corporate sponsorship. They painted every house red and yellow. People started dressing in those colors, but some took it further: Ronald McDonalds roamed the streets. A man dressed as the cheeseburger robber guy. People were writing op-eds and blog posts about whether it could possibly be real. It seemed like a fucked-up corporate