“I think I finally did it. I think I finally figured out how to make this thing work. I’ll make a fortune on it. I know I will. I’m taking it to MIT. They’ll love it.”
I slink over to the side, pressing myself up against a wall and staring out over the baroque buildings and old cafés that line the streets of this town.
“Dad…that’s…great. I’m so happy for you.” I close my eyes, and my heart breaks a little more. “Where are you? Are you in your room or somewhere else?”
Because the last time he thought he had it all figured out,he nearly set the facility on fire by reworking a toaster oven and then plugging it in.
“Oh, you know. Your mother will be home soon. Maybe we’ll go to MIT together. You should come with us. You know your mother hates it when you go too far from home.”
Emotion swells up within me and I do my best to keep my voice light and even when I say, “I think that’s a lovely idea, but maybe I’ll join you another time. Tell Mom I say hi.”
“Will do. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Bye, Dad. Love you.”
He hangs up before returning the sentiment, but that’s not new. I shoot out a quick text to my father’s nurse and another to his case manager, asking them to check on him. My mother died eight years ago in a car accident.
My father was the driver.
It was foggy and he didn’t appreciate the curve in the road and went straight into a tree at full speed.
He’d suffered from bouts of depression all his life, but after that accident, he had a complete breakdown. He pulled me out of school in America, left his practice as a psychiatrist, and moved the two of us to Europe. For four years, we bounced around until I told him I wanted to study at a university in Messalina.
That’s when everything else started.
Or maybe got worse. I had noticed small things prior to that.
I’d come home from class to find him staring at a wall, or he’d ask me when my mother was returning home. He’d forget small details like how to work the microwave, or he’d put ice cream in the oven instead of the freezer. It quickly progressed to where he would wander from the apartment and get lost for hours until the police or I were able to find him. My breaking point was when he started a fire in our kitchen and overflowed the bathtub to try to put it out. Our neighbor, who had beenchecking on him, got there just in time before the whole place went up in flames or flooded.
I had no choice but to put him in a facility, and, truly, he’s happier and better cared for there. With that, I had to drop out of my last year at university and get a job teaching English so he has the best and is safe.
But that’s what my life is now. Working long hours, visiting him, and barely making ends meet. I rent a single room with a shared bathroom. My kitchen consists of an electric kettle, a mini fridge, a sink, and a hot plate.
Struggling isn’t new for me. That’s all my life has been, ever since my mother died when I was just thirteen. Now at twenty-one, my life isn’t that different. Very few friends. Even less financial freedom. No life. Now my father, a once very prominent psychiatrist, thinks he’s an inventor and that my mother is still alive and always on her way home to him.
Shoving away from the wall, I decide to put all that behind me for now.
One day at a time, one foot in front of the other.
My big plans for today are to travel over to the river on the outskirts of town and park my ass in the sun and read. Heaven.
I dash into one of the cafés, order myself a coffee, grab a pastry, and then I’m running to catch the shuttle that will take me to the river when I get yet another phone call. My heart stutters to a stop as I answer.
“Maurice?” That’s my father’s case manager.
“He’s eloped, Bellamy.”
Eloped. A fancy medical term for left without permission.
“Shit. When? How long ago?”
“I’m checking the video surveillance now.”
Searching wildly around, I cup the back of my head as panic swims through me. “I just spoke to him. He said he was going to MIT with some sort of invention. Where could he have gone?”
“He was there for morning check-in and had breakfast with the group,” he tells me, his voice much calmer than I feel. “Then he was back in his room…there. He was holding something in his arms and got on the elevator. He walked out of the building forty minutes ago.”
“Forty minutes?! How did that happen?!” How did I not realize he was out when I spoke to him?
