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I shiver, even though I am drenched in sweat. “Please,” I beg him, “just leave me alone!”

But he takes a deep breath and his soprano sax starts to sing the bright notes of “Songbird”—and immediately I’m upright in my sleeping bag, repetitively slamming the heel of my right hand into the little white scar above my right eyebrow, trying to make the music stop—Kenny G’s hips are swaying right before my eyes—with every brain jolt I’m yelling, “Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!”—the end of his instrument is in my face, pounding me with smooth jazz—I feel the blood rushing up into my forehead—Kenny G’s solo has reached a climax—bang, bang, bang, bang—

And then my mother and father are trying to restrain my arms, but I’m screaming, “Stop playing that song! Just stop! Please!”

When my mother gets knocked to the floor, my father kicks me hard in the stomach—which makes Kenny G vanish and kills the music—and when I fall back gasping for air, Dad jumps on my chest and punches me in the cheek, and suddenly my mom is trying to pull Dad off me and I’m sobbing like a baby; my mother is screaming at my father, telling him to stop hitting me, and then he’s off me and she’s telling me everything is going to be okay even after my father has punched me in the face as hard as he could.

“That’s it, Jeanie. He’s going back to that hospital in the morning. First thing,” my father says, and then stomps down the stairs.

I can hardly think, I’m sobbing so loudly.

My mother sits down next to me and says, “It’s okay, Pat. I’m here.”

I put my head in my mother’s lap and cry myself to sleep as Mom strokes my hair.

When I open my eyes, the ventilation fan is back on, sun is streaming through the screen in the nearest window, and Mom is still stroking my hair.

“How did you sleep?” she asks me, forcing a smile. Her eyes are red and her cheeks are streaked with tears.

For a second it feels nice to be lying next to my mom, the weight of her small hand on my head, her soft voice lingering in my ear, but soon the memory of what happened the night before forces me to sit up—and then my heart is pounding and a wave of dread courses through my limbs. “Don’t send me back to the bad place. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please,” I beg her, pleading with everything I have, because that’s how much I hate the bad place and pessimistic Dr. Timbers.

“You’re staying right here with us,” Mom says—looking me in the eyes like she does when she is telling the truth—and then she kisses me on the cheek.

We go down to the kitchen, where she cooks me some delicious eggs scrambled with cheese and tomatoes, and I actually swallow all of my pills because I feel I owe it to Mom after knocking her down and upsetting my father.

I am shocked when I look at the clock and see it is already 11:00 a.m. So I start my workout as soon as my plate is clean, double-timing everything just to keep up with my routine.

The Dress-up Dinner

Ronnie finally comes to visit me in my basement and says, “I’m on my way home, so I only have a few minutes.”

As I finish my set of bench presses, I smirk because I know what that statement means. Veronica does not know he has come to see me, and Ronnie needs to keep it quick if he does not want to get caught doing something without Veronica’s permission—something like saying hello to his best friend, whom he has not seen for a long time.

When I sit up, he says, “What happened to your face?”

I touch my forehead. “My hands slipped yesterday, and I dropped the bar on myself.”

“And it made your cheek all puffy like that?”

I shrug because I do not really want to tell him my father punched me.

“Man, you really have trimmed down and bulked up. I like your gym,” he says, eyeballing my weight bench and Stomach Master 6000, and then he sticks out his hand. “Think I could come over and work out with you?”

I stand, shake his hand, and say, “Sure,” knowing the question is only yet another one of Ronnie’s false promises.

“Listen, I’m sorry I never came to see you when you were in Baltimore, but we had Emily, and well, you know how it is. But I felt like the letters kept us close. And now that you’re home, we can hang out all the time, right?”

“As if—,” I start to say, but then bite my tongue.

“As if—what?”

“Nothing.”

“You still think Veronica hates you?”

I keep my mouth shut.

He smiles and says, “Well, if she hated you, would she be inviting you over for dinner tomorrow night?”

I look at Ronnie, trying to gauge whether he is serious or not.

“Veronica’s making a big meal to welcome you home. So are you coming, or what?”

“Sure,” I say, still not believing my ears, because Ronnie’s promises usually do not come with specific words like “tomorrow” attached.

“Great. Be at my house at seven o’clock for drinks. Dinner’s at eight, and it’s going to be one of the wife’s formal candlelit three-course meals, so wear something nice, okay? You know how Veronica is about her dress-up dinners,” he says, and then hugs sweaty me, which I tolerate only because I am so shocked by Veronica’s invitation. With a hand on my shoulder, Ronnie looks me in the eye and says, “Man, it’s good to have you home, Pat.”

As I watch him jog up the stairs, I think about how much trash Nikki and I would talk about Ronnie and Veronica if apart time were over and Nikki was going to the dress-up dinner with me.

“Dress-up dinner,” Nikki would say. “Are we in elementary school?”

God, Nikki hates Veronica.

If I Backslide

Knowing that if I wear the wrong thing, Veronica will say I have ruined her night—the way she did that one time when I wore Bermuda shorts and sandals to a dress-up dinner—I can’t stop thinking about what I am going to wear to her dinner party, so much that I don’t even remember it’s Friday, and therefore, time to see Dr. Patel, until Mom calls down in the middle of my workout, saying, “We’re leaving in fifteen minutes. Hit the shower!”

In the cloud room, I pick the brown chair. We recline, and Cliff says, “Your mother tells me you’ve had quite a week. Want to talk about it?”

So I tell him about Veronica’s dress-up party and how my old dress clothes don’t fit because I have lost so much weight, and I have no swanky clothes other than the shirt my brother has recently given me, and I am pretty stressed out about going to a dinner party and wish I could just spend some time alone with Ronnie lifting weights, so that I would not have to see Veronica, who even Nikki says is a mean person.

Dr. Patel nods a few times like he does, and then says, “Do you like the new shirt your brother gave you? Do you feel comfortable wearing it?”

I tell him I absolutely love my new shirt.

“So wear that one to the dress-up dinner, and I’m sure Veronica will like it too.”

“Are you sure?” I ask. “Because Veronica is really particular about what you should wear to dinner parties.”

“I’m sure,” he says, which makes me feel a whole lot better.

“What about pants?”

“What’s wrong with the pants you have on now?”

I look down at the tan khakis my mom purchased for me at the Gap the other day because she says I shouldn’t wear sweatpants to my doctor’s appointments, and even though the pants are not as swanky as my new Eagles jersey, they do look okay, so I shrug and stop worrying about what to wear to Veronica’s dinner party.

Cliff tries to get me to talk about Kenny G, but I only close my eyes, hum a single note, and silently count to ten every time he says Mr. G’s name.

Then Cliff says he knows that I have been rough with my mother, shaking her in the kitchen and knocking her down in the attic, which makes me really sad because I love my mom so much and she rescued me from the bad place and has even signed all those legal documents—and yet I cannot rightly deny what Cliff has said. My chest heats up with guilt until I can’t take it. Truth be told, I break down and cry—sobbing—for at least five minutes.

“Your mother is risking a lot, because she believes in you.”

His words make me cry even harder.

“You want to be a good person, don’t you, Pat?”

I nod. I cry. I do want to be a good person. I really do.

“I’m going to up your meds,” Dr. Patel tells me. “You might feel a little sluggish, but it should help to curb your violent outbursts. You need to know it’s your actions that will make you a good person, not desire. And if you have any more episodes, I might have to recommend that you go back to the neural health facility for more intensive treatments, which—”

“No. Please. I’ll be good,” I say quickly, knowing that Nikki is less likely to return if I backslide into the bad place. “Trust me.”

“I do,” Dr. Patel replies with a smile.

I Don’t Know How This Works

After some more lifting in the basement, I put on my trash bag and run my ten miles. Afterward, I shower, spray some of my father’s cologne, and walk into the mist—just like Mom taught me to do back in high school. I roll on some underarm deodorant and then don my new khakis and my Hank Baskett jersey.

When I ask my mother how I look, she says, “Very handsome. So handsome. But do you really think you should wear your Eagles jersey to a dinner party? You can wear one of the Gap shirts I bought you, or you can borrow one of your father’s polo shirts.”

“It’s okay,” I say, and smile confidently. “Dr. Patel said wearing this shirt was a good idea.”

“Did he?” my mom says with a laugh, and then she removes an arrangement of flowers and a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator.

“What’s this?”

“Give these to Veronica and tell her I said thanks. Ronnie’s been a good friend to you.” And then Mom looks like she is going to cry again.

I kiss her goodbye, and with my hands full of flowers and wine, I walk down the street and across Knight’s Park to Ronnie’s house.

Ronnie answers the door wearing a shirt and tie, which makes me feel like Dr. Patel was wrong after all and I am underdressed. But Ronnie looks at my new jersey, checks the name on the back—probably to make sure I am not wearing an outdated Freddie Mitchell jersey—and says, “Hank Baskett is the man! Where did you get that jersey this early in the season? It’s great!” which makes me feel so much better.

We follow the meaty aroma through their swanky living room and their swanky dining room to the kitchen, where Veronica is feeding Emily, whom I am surprised to see looking much older than a newborn baby.

“Hank Baskett’s in the house,” Ronnie says.

“Who?” Veronica answers, but she smiles when she sees the flowers and the wine. “Pour moi?”

She stares at my puffy cheek for a second, but doesn’t mention it, which I appreciate. I hand her what my mother has sent, and Veronica kisses me on my un-puffy cheek.

“Welcome home, Pat,” she says, which surprises me because she sounds sincere. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve invited someone else to dinner,” Veronica adds. She winks at me and then lifts the lid off the single pot on the stove, releasing a warm tomato and basil aroma.

“Who?” I ask.

“You’ll see,” she says without looking up from stirring her sauce.

Before I can say more, Ronnie is lifting Emily from her high chair, saying, “Meet Uncle Pat,” which sounds strange until I realize he is talking about me. “Say hello to Uncle Pat, Emily.”

She waves her little hand at me, and then I have Emily in my arms. Her dark eyes examine my face, and she smiles as though she approves. “Pap,” she says, pointing at my nose.

“See how smart my girl is, Uncle Pat,” Ronnie says, petting the silky black hair on Emily’s head. “She already knows your name.”

Emily smells like the mashed carrots that coat her cheeks until Ronnie wipes them clean with a wet napkin. I have to admit that Emily is a cute kid, and I instantly understand why Ronnie has written me so many letters about his daughter—why he loves her so much. I start to think about having children with Nikki someday and I become so happy that I give little Emily a kiss on the forehead, as if she were Nikki’s baby and I was her father. And then I kiss Emily’s forehead again and again, until she giggles.

“Beer?” Ronnie says.

“I’m not really supposed to drink, because I’m on medications and—”

“Beer,” Ronnie says, and then we are drinking beers on his deck as Emily sits in her father’s lap and sucks on a bottle filled with watered-down apple juice.

“It’s good to have a beer with you,” Ronnie says, just before clinking his Yuengling Lager bottle against mine.

“Who’s coming over for dinner?”

“Veronica’s sister, Tiffany.”

“Tiffany and Tommy?” I say, remembering Tiffany’s husband from Ronnie and Veronica’s wedding.

“Just Tiffany.”

“Where’s Tommy?”

Ronnie takes a long swig of his beer, looks up at the setting sun, and says, “Tommy died some time ago.”

“What?” I say, because I hadn’t heard. “God, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Just make sure you don’t bring up Tommy tonight, okay?”

“Sure,” I say, and then drink a few large gulps of my beer. “So how did he die?”

“How did who die?” says a woman’s voice.

“Hi, Tiffany,” Ronnie says, and suddenly she is standing with us on the porch. Tiffany’s wearing a black evening dress, heels, and a diamond necklace, and her makeup and hair look too perfect to me—as if she is trying too hard to look attractive, like old ladies sometimes do. “You remember Pat, right?”

I stand, and as we shake hands, the way Tiffany looks into my eyes makes me feel really funny.

We move back into the house, and after some small talk, Tiffany and I are left alone on opposite ends of the living-room couch as Veronica finishes cooking the meal and Ronnie puts Emily to bed.

“You look very pretty tonight,” I say when the silence grows awkward.

Before apart time began, I never ever complimented Nikki on her looks, and I think this really hurt her self-esteem. I figure I can now practice complimenting women on their looks so it will come naturally to me when Nikki returns, although Tiffany really does look pretty, even if she is trying too hard with the makeup. She is a few years older than me, but has a fit body and long, silky black hair.

“What happened to your cheek?” Tiffany asks without looking at me.

“Weight-lifting accident.”

She just stares at her hands, which are folded in her lap. Her nails have been recently painted a blood red.

“So where are you working now?” I say, thinking this is a safe question.

Her nose crinkles, as if I had farted. “I got fired from my job a few months ago.”

“Why?”

“Does it really matter?” she says, then stands and walks into the kitchen.

I down the remainder of my second beer and wait for Ronnie to come back.

Dinner is elegant, with candles going and fancy plates and special silverware, but awkward, as Tiffany and I are completely silent while Veronica and Ronnie talk about us as if we aren’t there.

“Pat is a big history buff. He knows everything about every single U.S. president. Go ahead. Ask him anything,” Ronnie says.