He doesn’t, though.
No, he does the only thing he can.
He starts walking back into Amorea.
It’s home, after all.
XIV
FOR THE third time since Mike Frazier came to Amorea on a beautiful summer day in 1951, Bookworm is closed on a weekday morning. A Wednesday, to be exact.
Mike feels guilty about this, of course, especially since this is the second day in a row, but it can’t be helped. Because this Wednesday morning, Mike is sitting in the cozy waiting room belonging to Howard Dunston, a man with a large waist and an even larger laugh who goes by the nickname Doc. He’s the doctor for Amorea, seeing to the needs of its people. He’s always accessible and loves to take care of the townsfolk, even if it’s usually for only minor things. In fact, Sean’s migraines are usually as bad as it gets.
Mike’s the only one in the waiting room this morning, aside from Miss Roberta Addison, a homely woman who handles the front desk for Doc. She’s rather unpleasant, an older crone of sorts who rarely has time to offer even the barest amount of sympathy, but she’s always worked for Doc, so that’s the way things are. It would be odd to come into the office and not see her furrowed eyebrows as she silently judged each person in the waiting room.
And currently, she’s judging Mike, who is doing his level best ignore her. He’s flipping through the newest Life magazine. Judy Garland’s on the cover, but that’s as much as he’s retained. The words are a blur, the photographs unnoticed. He’s thinking about what to say to Doc that won’t make it sound like he’s ready for the loony bin. (“Hey, Doc, so I’m starting to think about what’s outside Amorea and them there mountains and wouldn’t you know, I’m now paranoid we’re on an island! Do you think it’s cancer? What are your thoughts on extraterrestrials?”) He’s thinking about the look on Sean’s face when Mike told him he was going to the doctor this morning, being as vague as possible, saying he wasn’t sleeping much. Sean reached over and put his hand on Mike’s and squeezed until Mike was grounded again, and when Mike left the diner, staying a little later since he wasn’t going into the bookstore this morning, he placed a lingering kiss to the corner of Mike’s mouth. They knew everyone was watching with a smile on their faces, but neither of them cared all that much about it. “You best come back here the moment you’re finished, Mike Frazier,” Sean said, and Mike thought maybe he was a little scared. “You hear me?”
Mike just nodded, but yeah, he heard all right.
He’s lost in thought, and though he’s sure Miss Garland is a lovely woman, he doesn’t much care about what she has to say right now. Certain words are stuck in his head (smartphones and texting and Wüsthof Ikon Damascus) and they’re repeating over and over and over again.
So when Miss Roberta Addison calls his name, it’s with more irritation than normal, and he knows she’s probably had to say it a few times to get through to him. He looks up, and she’s glaring at him, one gnarled eyebrow cocked at him. “The doctor will see you now,” she says in a clipped voice.
“Thank you, Miss Addison.” He sets down the magazine before rising to his feet.
“Don’t thank me,” she says. “For all we know, you’re dying.”
That gives him pause. “Pardon?”
She rolls her eyes before going back to the typewriter in front of her, hunting and pecking out a continuous beat. “You never come here. For anything. You look a little rough around the edges. Maybe you’re dying.”
“Just a little ill. Probably the flu.”
“Or death.”
“That’s… comforting.”
She looks back up at him sharply. “You find death comforting?”
He shrugs. “Shouldn’t we? It’s inevitable, after all.” In fact, he doesn’t find it comforting. It’s more of the opposite, but he’s not going to let her get to him. Not today.
“For some,” she says, eyeing him with barely contained derision. “But I’d think as of late you have quite a few things to live for.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing at all.
“Mr. Frazier, the doctor doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” She goes back to the typewriter, and it’s clack clack clack from there on out.
He passes through the door and into Doc’s office. It’s brightly lit, a window open, a fresh breeze trickling in. Doc sits behind a large mahogany desk. The wall behind him is lined with medical texts, most of which are called things Mike can’t even begin to pronounce. Doc has claimed to have read them all, which is something Mike can understand, because a book is a book is a book.
Doc is familiar to him. Granted, all of Amorea is familiar to him, but Doc a little more than most. He sometimes sits in on a poker game or two, only drinking juice or tea (“Livers, boys, watch your livers”). He’s a big man, almost as big as Mike, but he’s rotund in a way Mike is not. He may care about his liver, but he doesn’t seem to worry so much about his arteries, not with how much he eats.
Doc looks up as Mike walks in, the buttons on his dress shirt straining a little over his chest and gut. He’s in his fifties and bald as the day he was born, or so he likes to say. His scalp is shiny in the overhead light, jowls pulling back as he grins. “Mike, come in, come in. Shut the door behind you, okay?”
Mike does. “Doc, good to see you.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure it is, I’m sure it is. I’m a wonderful person to see.”
Mike likes him. Mostly.