Beach Day

42: Therapy is MKUltra (Real)

As soon as Matt is gone, out the door and out of the motel and down the street, Drew comes out from under the bed. He has the book and Tiff's phone with the flashlight off, and an overly-serious look on his face. "I didn't want to do this with Matt in the room. I think that this— whatever this is— should stay between the three of us and these four walls."

Aunt Esther narrows her eyes in an odd form of suspicion. "And we can't include the one professional in the room?"

"Hey!" Tiff protests. She props herself up on one arm. She isn't sure when she started laying down.

"You don't count. You don't get paid."

"And Matt does? I only know two, technically three people who get paid to do this, and one of them is a clown. Should we invite him?"

"Honestly, Tiff, I think you're just arguing for the sake of an argument."

"I might be."

"Someone needs a nap."

"I'm not a baby, Auntie." She pauses. She considers it with her hair falling in her face. "But Matt is right, I think you do need to see what he has in that book. I found it in Uncle Mike's garage. Or under it. Whatever."

"And what is it you're trying to show me?"

Drew opens the book to the marked page and the linocut. He holds it between himself and his mother. He doesn't say anything. Maybe he just has nothing to say.

Esther frowns down at it. "What is this?"

"It's a book Tiff found in Uncle Mike's garage. I don't know. But I'm pretty sure that's you on the page."

"I wish it weren't." She sighs, but doesn't look away. It's more disappointment than shame.

Drew keeps holding it at her. "Mom, why are you in this book?"

Esther swallows, but doesn't say anything for a moment. "It's... complicated."

"What do you mean, it's complicated? I mean— obviously it is, since you're in this book for some reason, but—"

"Well, I was... supposed to do this."

"Do what?"

"What you and Tiff have been working on— It was supposed to be my job. That's why— It was the kind of thing someone could try to write a prophecy about. The Sword of Vengeance, the Champion of Divinity. Stupid shit like that. As absolutely inconsequential as it was, there it is."

"How come you didn't finish?" he prods, furrowing his brows like he actually cares. Tiff suspects he just can't articulate a question about any of the rest of it.

"It was... hard." She winces. "And I was going through a lot— I mean, I was seventeen and he told me to do that while I was waiting on a pregnancy test, and— Well, when I died... I was going to go back, but that was the night I had to leave. I didn't have a choice. I rarely had choices." She sighs and takes a seat on the edge of the bed opposite Tiff, letting a still-standing Drew stay between them. "I wasn't about to die again, Drew. Not when I had you to think about."

"Mom, you're not dead."

"No, I'm not. You're right. But I was." She looks up at him, voice as level as it can be under the circumstances. "It wasn't for long. There's something I'm meant for that I haven't done yet, and I can't truly die until it's over. Dying over and over again, though... It takes a lot out of you. I'm more Frankensteinian than you know."