The meal ended, and Mr. Elroy told him it was time for them to get back to the room, so they could get to unpacking. Harry forced himself back to his feet with a grimace, leg shaking–he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make it all the way back there, not like this. “What’s wrong Harry, need some assistance?”
“No, I’m fine,” he said, through gritted teeth, hobbled over to the wall and used it as a prop to get down the hallways, and back up to his room. Mr. Elroy followed a few steps behind, saying nothing, but always being just loud enough to make sure Harry knew he was there–that there was nowhere for him to go, not really. “Why are you doing this?” he mumbled to him in the elevator, panting a bit from the pain in his leg.
“Because I have to. Because I can,” Mr. Elroy said with a shrug, “Bigger reasons than you’ll ever know, really.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s all the answer you’ll get. Besides, I suggest you worry less about me, and more about you.”
Harry didn’t know what he meant by that, exactly, but the elevator arrived at his floor, and he was at the home stretch. He made it to his door and opened it, making a beeline right for a chair at the table in the kitchen, and he sat down in it with a grunt. Mr. Elroy entered behind him and shut the door, and checked the clock. “We’re behind schedule, Harry–if you can’t keep up, then I’m going to have to make you use the cane.”
“Fuck you–just…fix it. I won’t run.”
Mr. Elroy shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that, Harry. There’s no going back, not for you.”
Harry did his best to keep his face neutral…but what if he was telling the truth? He’d want him to think that, no matter what though–so even if it was true, it wouldn’t do him any good to believe it.
“Look, everything will make much more sense in a little while. Why don’t we get some of the sheets here uncovered, eh? I’m sure you’ll be feeling more like yourself in no time.”
Mr. Elroy went around the room and began pulling sheets off the furniture. Everything looked like an antique, and to Harry’s confusion, every piece also seemed…familiar to him, somehow, like he’d seen them before in a store, or some stranger’s house. No–that wasn’t right. He knew them because they’d been in his house!
That wasn’t right. He knew that wasn’t right. He’d never owned a house–hell, he’d never even moved out on his own from his parent’s home. Yet…his mind was telling him something else, that all of this furniture was his. That he’d had it all in his house, and moved as much of it as he could into this cramped little apartment…but the context was simply missing from all of it. “Stop…Stop!” he shouted. “I…how are you doing this to me? Why do I know everything about this stuff?”
“Because it’s yours, Harry,” Mr. Elroy said, “I mean, if you don’t want to remember this, we can do that too. But let me tell you Harry, it can be very, very lonely, not recognizing anything around you. Never knowing who the person at your bedside is–the nurse, your son, your grandson. But we can do things that way, if you want.” He walked over to Harry, and looked down at him, “But trust me–it’s better to have a life like this, than nothing at all. If you’re good, I might even let you forget about that old you–give you a bit of peace. If you beg.”
Next, Mr. Elroy opened a box and started pulling out framed pictures, took a hammer, and started hanging them up around the room. First, his wife–Patricia, who’d passed away close to twenty years ago. How…how could he have forgotten her? Then, a photo of him and several other men in front of an old factory–the factory he’d worked his entire adult life, until the accident, which had mangled his leg, and left him disabled. Lastly, there on a shelf, a smaller photo of him…him and another man, back when he was in his thirties, both of them smoking cigars.
Wilbur. Fuck. His heart broke, looking at him, all over again. Losing Patricia had been hard, but losing Wilbur–he’d never felt like the same man again, after burying his best friend in the ground. No–more than his friend, they’d been…lovers. Lovers since the day they’d met on the factory floor, sneaking around behind their wives all their lives, but fuck, they hadn’t been able to stop themselves. But he was gone, and Harry was alone now. He got up, went to the humidor and pulled out a cigar, lit it, and sat down in his favorite recliner, lost in his resurgent memories, reliving his life as it sprang up around him, feeling those old thoughts and memories begin to recede away into the depths of his mind. Mr. Elroy let him stew for a while, and went about unpacking more of the apartment, arranging things around Harry, until it was a little while before noon, and he went up and gave him a light shake of the shoulder. “What do you say Harry, ready for lunch?”
Harry gave a start–he’d been so lost in his memories, between this life and his old one, that he’d completely forgotten Mr. Elroy was there at all. He looked up at the nurse beside him, and his breath caught in his throat–how…how had he not noticed it before? Smiling down at him, he looked…exactly like Wilbur. Well, not…exactly, but it was so close that Harry muttered his name under his breath, as he stared up at him, trying to sort everything apart in his mind.
“Something wrong, Harry?”
He shook his head, and looked away. “No, it’s a trick. This is all just a trick!”
“Sounds like someone’s a bit grumpy without their meal. Now come on, let’s go eat some lunch.”
Bracken's Corner 