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Trumann was fifteen minutes or so from Jonesboro. He'd told her to take her time, no need to worry for his immediate safety. I could fall and bust my skull as she's drivin' away, all the same. What's gonna happen, gonna happen. You'd be better off with me gone anyway. Never gonna be able to take care of myself. You're a young woman, don't need to be throwin' your life away because someone took mine. Not your fault. He still wasn't sure why she was here. Only what she, and his two sisters, had told him. He was in his office chair, Jessica didn't want him getting in or out when she wasn't around. Didn't say anything about falling out, he thought. Not even joking, she wouldn't. She would just worry the whole time she was gone. Roll over to the desk. Actually a big work table made of two doors at right angles, on top of file cabinets. Couple of computers on one, one on the other, printers, speakers, router. Somehow he managed to figure it all out after moving, get everything back in place. He knew, vaguely, not really remembering, this had once been child's play. Data center at work, he built it, provisioned it, racks of servers, power supplies, firewalls and gateways for redundant fiber pipes, backed up by cloud installs on both coasts and one in Denver and one... where? Chicago. How'd I remember all that? I can't remember the past year. Mom and Dad's funerals. Both in the three years before I got locked up in that madhouse. Look at the calendar, last year and this year on the same screen, like a big wall calendar you write stuff on, the blocks on this one got some notes. He opened the editor and moved the cursor to the block for the current date. Dream, usual. There had been a dream two days ago, one two days before that. Had a red star. Those were the really weird ones, he couldn't remember if they were replays. Or unrelated. Didn't recognize Jessica, first time I saw her. Standin' the door. Didn't recognize either of my sisters either. Sometimes after several visits. See'em standin' there, wonder who. Who's that? Come in, start talkin', yeah. Kid sister. Or the older one. Wouldn't let'em both in at once. The Chinavirus hoax was nearing full-trottle insanity, only let one in at a time. For a little while. Bet they blamed every death in that joint on Covid. I missed most of the craziness on that one. Still drugged senseless. And tied to the bed with wire. Explain that one. What? Oh, yeah. Didn't keep the drugs on schedule. Woke up a time or two. Not bueno. At all. Now a a beautiful young woman standin' there in the door. Younger. Should know her. But I should know my sisters after fifty-plus years. Like an angel, out of place in that joint. Can't really describe that beauty. Not magazine-cover model or actress. They mostly fake anyway. Nah. The girl next door. That classmate in high school. No, not the cheerleader, the one in the band. Played the flute. Or the choir. Or one of your sister's pals you were in love with... So natural, so effortlessly enchanting... ya'know. And you found out she had a personality to match. That was Jessica. Only I didn't know who Jessica was. For a while. Still tryin' to figure it all out. Jessica had visited every third day, his two sisters having come to regard her as one of them. She could only hope he was awake. Usually he wasn't. But a few times he was. He'd seemed completely normal for the three hours or so she was there. One night the Jackson-Barrett auto auction was on. They watched, talked about cars. Jessica loved Corvettes, had owned several. Had one now. Alex liked cars too, and was a good mechanic. He'd done a bit of short-track stock-car racing some years back, when he had time. He'd gotten wrapped up in his work though, and had given it up. Everything would seem completely normal. Next time, either out or mumbling incoherently. Something wasn't making sense. Charlie, the oldest sister, and the younger Samantha both told her that the doctor had said he was unlikely to recover. He'd been in cardiac arrest with no /Peathing at the other hospital, they said. Over fifteen minutes, seventeen, something. Probably more if they admit that much. He'd be a vegetable. He didn't seem very vegetative on those occasions. She talked with them, they believed the doctors were incompetent. Or something. They refused to change the medications. Charlie and Sam started looking for a rehab facility to move him to. Finally they did change them, some of them. And what Jessica had seen since had made her angry. Very angry. And when Alex finally absorbed it all, he would... She didn't want to think about it.
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