Rollback

Don knew he suffered from a misplaced stubborn pride. When his mother had been dying, slowly, painfully, all those years ago, he’d toughed it out. When Sarah was fighting her battle with cancer, he’d kept his chin up, hiding his pain and fear as best he could from her and his children. He was his father’s son, he knew; to ask for help was to show weakness. But he needed help now.

"I- I don’t know," he said softly.

He was sitting on one end of the couch; Petra, clad in an expensive-looking burnt-orange pantsuit, was at the other. "Is something wrong?" she asked, leaning forward, the beads in her dreadlocks making soft clicking sounds.

Don tilted his head. He could just make out Sarah and Gunter talking, upstairs in the study. "I, um, I haven’t really been feeling like myself," he said.

"In what way?" Petra said, the words lilting a bit thanks to her slight Georgia accent.

He took a deep breath. "I’ve been doing… uncharacteristic things — things I never thought I would do."

"Like what?"

He looked away. "I, um…"

Petra nodded. "Your libido is high?"

Don looked at her, said nothing.

She nodded again. "That’s common. A man’s testosterone levels drop as he ages, but a rollback restores them. That can affect behavior."

Tell me about it, thought Don. "But I don’t remember it being like this the first time around. Of course, back then…" He trailed off.

"What?"

"I was much bigger when I really was twenty-five."

Petra blinked. "Taller?"

"Fatter. I probably weighed forty pounds more than I do now."

"Ah, well, yes, that could be a factor, too, in the severity of the hormonal imbalance.

But we can make some adjustments. Have you noticed anything else?"

"Well, I’m not just feeling" — there was probably a better, more polite word, but he couldn’t think of it just then — "horny. I’m feeling romantic."

"Again, hormones," said Petra. "It’s common as the body adjusts to a rollback.

Any other problems?"

"No," he said. It had been hard enough alluding to what had happened with Lenore; to give voice to this would—

"No depression?" Petra said. "No suicidal thoughts?"

He couldn’t meet her eyes. "Well, I…"

"Serotonin levels," Petra said. "They can go out of whack, too, what with all the changes to your biochemistry that happen during a rollback."

"It’s not just chemical," Don said. "Bad things have actually happened. I — I’ve been trying to get a job, for instance, but no one wants me."

Petra lifted a hand slightly. "Just because your depression might be situational doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be treated. Have you ever been prescribed an antidepressant before?"

Don shook his head.

She got up and opened her leather bag. "All right. Let’s take some blood samples; we’ll see exactly where your levels of various hormones are right now. I’m sure we can fix everything up."

Chapter 34

Don was at home, lying in bed next to Sarah, when he was awoken from a dream.

He and Sarah were standing on opposite sides of a vast canyon, and the gap between them kept widening, geologic forces working in real time, and—

—and the phone was ringing. He fumbled for the handset, and Sarah found the switch for the lamp on her nightstand.

"Hello?" said Don.

"Don, is… is that you?"

He frowned. Nobody quite recognized his voice these days. "Yes."

"Oh, Don, it’s Pam." His sister-in-law; Bill’s wife. She sounded hoarse, stressed.

"Pam, are you okay?" Next to him, Sarah struggled to sit up, concerned.

"It’s Bill. He’s — oh, God, Don, Bill is dead."

Don felt his heart jump. "Christ…"

"What is it?" asked Sarah. "What’s wrong?"

He turned to her, and repeated the words, his own voice full of shock now: "Bill is dead."

Sarah brought a hand to her mouth. Don spoke into the phone. "What happened?"

"I don’t know. His heart, I guess. He — he…" Pam trailed off.

"Are you at home? Are you okay?"

"Yes, I’m at home. I just got back from the hospital. He was pronounced DOA."

"What about Alex?" Bill’s fifty-five-year-old son.

"He’s on his way."

"God, Pam, I’m so sorry."

"I don’t know what I’m going to do without him," said Pam.

"Let me get dressed and get over there," he said. Bill and Pam normally wintered in Florida, but hadn’t yet headed south. "Alex and I, we can take care of all the details."

"My poor Bill," Pam said.

"I’ll be there soon," he said.

"Thanks, Don. Bye."

"Bye." He tried to put the handset on his nightstand, but it tumbled to the floor.

Sarah reached over and touched his arm. God, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his brother. And then it hit him—

Not since before. He normally only saw Bill a couple of times a year, but they did usually go to a Jays game each summer, although Don had begged off this year.

This damned laying low, this foolish embarrassment about seeing people he knew, had cost him his last chance to see his brother.

He left the bedroom, walked to the bathroom, and started getting ready to go. Sarah slowly followed him in. He was about to say she didn’t have to come, that he could get Gunter to drive him. But he wanted her with him; he needed her.