Lyrics to The Boys of Summer by Don Henley (1984)

Lincoln Loud stepped off the Greyhound at the Royal Woods station at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon, all of his worldly possessions packed into a ratty Nike gym bag with room to spare. He wore brown corduroy pants, two sizes too big and with worn knees, and a faded red and green checkered shirt that hung slack from his emaciated frame. His hair was short and neatly combed, his eyes were red and bleary with sleeplessness, and his chin was covered in three days worth of stubble.

When the bus pulled to the platform, the dread that had been building in his stomach for two days crested, and it took everything he had to keep from shaking with nerves. He hoped to never see this goddamn town again, and if the court hadn't ordered he live with his mother, he wouldn't have come back - too many bad memories, too many ghosts. A decade and a half might be a long time, but it's not long enough for people to forget. He spent the first twenty years of his life here, he had friends and classmates and coworkers - they would recognize him, and word would get out. Royal Woods was a small town, and all it took was for one person to see him and remember, and by the end of the day, everyone would know.

Stepping off the bus into a dry blast of August air, Lincoln looked nervously around, but being early in the afternoon on a weekday, the platform was empty save for a man in a loud Hawaiian shirt and a woman in a denim dress. A man in sunglasses stood at the payphone and gestured wildly with his free hand while a bored looking teenage girl stood behind the ticket counter, her face resting in her palm and her jaw working as she masticated a piece of chewing gum. Lincoln hefted the bag over his shoulder and went around the side of the building, following the footsteps of a much younger man like riding a bike for the first time in years. Town was a mile ahead, its low brick buildings flanking tree-lined Main Street and a blue water tower with ROYAL WOODS across the front rising over their roofs. Black, wrought iron lamp posts marched along the sidewalk, and people in light, summery clothes moved unhurriedly past glass storefronts, enjoying the weather. Lincoln spotted a woman pushing a stroller, her eyes hidden behind big sunglasses, and a man in an apron sweeping the concrete before the butcher's shop. When Lincoln was a kid, the butcher was Mr. Greene, a big, round-stomached man with twinkling eyes and an accent no one could ever place. He was sixty-three when Lincoln went away, surely long since retired.

A red convertible with the top down passed in the street, music drifting from its onboard radio and lightly scenting the air. Lincoln could just make out the words.

Nobody on the road,

Nobody on the beach

I feel it in the air

The summer's out of reach

Empty lake, empty streets

The sun goes down alone

For some inexplicable reason, Lincoln's stomach clutched, and his resolve began to crumble. He turned to flee, but stopped himself. If he didn't go home and see his probation officer today, they would send the cops...and they would take him back to prison.

Cold horror spread through him, and the fear of going back, of taking more beatings, of being raped again, was stronger than his fear of Royal Woods.

Swallowing thickly, he forced himself on, waiting for a truck to pass before crossing to the other side of the street. He threw worried glances over his shoulder as he walked, each time half sure that a cop would be there to put him in cuffs and take him back - after so long in jail, he must smell like it, and everyone knew what he was even if none of them remembered.

He was passing the bank when a woman with red hair and hazel eyes came out, rummaging in her purse for keys or a breath mint. She looked up, and their gazes met - Lincoln saw in her the same knee-jerk horror he felt.

Cristina.

His heart blasted and, turning his head away quick enough to give himself whiplash he hurried his step. He could feel her eyes hot on the back of his neck as he rushed across Maple Street, and he fought hard to keep from looking over his shoulder. By sundown, Royal Woods would be abuzz with the news that Lincoln Loud was back - he could already imagine the rubberneckers driving back and forth in front of his mother's house, walking by and craning their necks to catch a glimpse, maybe even shouting obscenities and throwing things the way they did during the trial, when he didn't even live there.

He was three blocks away now, the businesses overlooking the way replaced by houses with big front yards. A ball rolled across his path and he stopped...then froze when a little blonde girl in a pink dress came after it, the wind playing in her hair. Before he could stop them, his eyes flicked to her bare legs - her skin was bronze and sun-kissed, lime green ankle socks playing peek-a-boo with the tops of her white tennis shoes. He turned his head away and pushed back against the dark urges rising in his stomach. She stooped, picked the ball up, and bounced by into her yard, glancing at him with a wary expression. When she was gone, he scurried on, his hand gripping the strap of his bag so hard his knuckles turned white.

That was the past, he thought; he wasn't like that anymore. He was normal now, cured - he went through programs in prison, therapy, he was the master of his domain and his domain no longer included...certain things.

Focus on something else, the prison psychiatrist told him, and now he did, steering his mind toward the future; it turned slowly, ponderously, like a giant passenger liner away from a deadly iceberg, but it did turn.

He had a lot to do over the coming week. First, he needed to see his PO, then go to the DMV and reinstate his driver's license, then look for a job, then, eventually, his own place. He was thirty-five and everything he owned amounted to two changes of clothes, a paperback copy of 'Salem's Lot that he'd read to tatters, and his prison toiletry kit; he was middle-aged and starting over from scratch, which struck him as so pathetic he almost cried.

When he reached the house ten minutes later, he came to a shuffling stop and looked up at it, a swirling mix of emotions he couldn't identify rushing through him. He hadn't been here in fifteen years, but he saw it every night in his dreams, a perfect, sepia toned snapshot unchanging and set.

It looked like he remembered it...but different. The vinyl siding was dirty and loose and shingles peeled back from the roof; the lawn was overgrown but free of clutter, no toys because children no longer lived here - all of his sisters had gone off into the world some (like Lori) into marriage and others (like Lily) to college.

And then there was Dad.

Lincoln's mood darkened as he remembered Mom breaking the news to him over the phone - a fatal heart attack at age fifty-three. Fifty-three...maybe that doesn't seem young to a kid, but it is, way too young to die at any rate. He lobbied the prison to let him attend the funeral, but they turned him down; his request form came back with a big red stamp: DENIED. Prisoner 345359 is a danger to society and should not be allowed into it until his date of release.

Danger to society.

Like he was a mad dog.

He sighed and looked away from the facade of his childhood home - it was too painful to look at, because in it, he could clearly see the passage of years, and when he thought of all the time he missed, all the events, the births, the deaths, he sank into depression, and today was not a day to be depressed, it was one to be happy. For better or worse, he was home, and he could start putting his life back together. The prospect honestly excited him - he was at rock bottom, but when you're down, there's just one way to go. The world teemed with possibilities - he felt the way an immigrant must have felt as they passed through Ellis Island in 1901: He could do anything he wanted, be anything he wanted, and if he worked hard and saved, all of his dreams would one day come true.

A slamming door drew his attention to the neighboring house - it belonged to Mr. Grouse when he went to jail, but he died the following winter, Mom told him, and new people moved in. Someone came down the porch steps, and Lincoln's heart sank.

It was a girl - eleven or twelve, with dark brown hair pulled back in a jaunty ponytail. She was lithe and slim, clad in a short, sleeveless blue dress that revealed her dainty arms and shapely legs.

Tested, he decided, he was being tested. Three years ago, as he lay in the prison infirmary after another savage beating, he asked Christ into his heart as his personal savior and begged for protection. The chaplin said that God tests the faith and commitment of his followers; when he prayed, Lincoln promised to never look at another little girl again, no matter how strong the urge. This was God's way of saying Yeah? Let's see.

Sigh.

Right next door.

Maybe she didn't live there, maybe she was just visiting.

He hoped.

Putting her out of his mind, he went up the walk and climbed the steps; they creaked under his feet, and the summer wind slipped through a windchime with a feeble metallic tinkle. At the door, he took a deep, steadying breath and lifted his hand but did not knock. Ever since he did what he did, looking into the faces of his family had been impossible, and when he stood before them (or sat before them behind a pane of glass), he felt naked, exposed, as though they could see into his malignant soul, could peer into the heart of darkness he fought so many years to keep suppressed. He knew they were disappointed in him...knew his sisters looked at him differently, that he caused them so much grief and misery.

He wanted to see his mother, to feel safe and loved in her arms after so long, but he did not want to face her, did not want to see the hurt in her eyes that had been there every time he looked into them over the past fifteen years. If he could, he'd turn around and spare her anymore trouble, but he couldn't, so he knocked instead, his knuckles rapping the weathered wood.

The wait seemed to stretch into eternity, but couldn't have lasted more than a minute - the curtain covering the glass fluttered aside, and his mother's face filled the pane, her face wrinkled and her hair dull blonde streaked with gray. She was almost sixty-six, and the stress of the past two decades had taken its toll: She looked more like she was seventy-six, and her health had deteriorated to the point that she needed a cane to get around.

Seeing her sent a ripple through Lincoln's center that was part regret, part longing, part sadness, and part joy.

When their gazes locked, her faded eyes lit up and the corners of her mouth drew into a smile. She let the curtain go, unlocked the door, and opened it, her pink house dress flapping in a sudden gust of heated wind. For a moment, they simply stared at each other, Mom leaning against her cane and Lincoln with his thumb through the bag's shoulder strap.

"Hi, Mom," he said when the silence became unbearable.

She opened her mouth to speak, and her lips trembled; water filled her eyes, and she held out her arm. Lincoln went to her and hugged her tight, his own tears beginning to fall. He was finally home, and finally safe, the cold, white lights and concrete walls of North Pine State Prison a distant memory - one that would haunt him in his sleep for the rest of his life, but could no longer actually hurt him.

Mom turned her head and planted a fierce kiss on his wet cheek. "Hi, honey."

When the hug broke, she hobbled aside aside and gestured for him to enter. "Come in. You must be exhausted."

"A little," Lincoln said as he crossed the threshold for the first time in nearly two decades. Mom shut the door behind him and he looked around - a soap opera played on TV, and a lamp stood on a table next to her arm chair. Everything was the same as it had been in his childhood, and a flood of memories broke over him, sharp in his heart like the edge of a knife.

"Are you hungry?" Mom asked. "You're so thin."

It was easy to believe that the past fifteen years hadn't happened, and that at any moment, Lola and Lana would come in from the kitchen - fifteen and as identical as always, or that Lisa would descend the stairs, fourteen and already a senior in high school, All three of them were long gone, though, living their own lives in their own time zones, Lisa in California, Lana in Florida, and Lola in Philadelphia. The only ones who lived close were Lori and Leni, the former in Detroit and the latter in Chicago. The last time he spoke to Mom on the phone, she said she was going to try and get everyone to come home for a release party; he didn't know whether he wanted that or not, and he spent most of the ride down from the UP gstulating between one and the other.

"I'm okay," he said, even though he was a little hungry.

"Come sit," she said and nodded to the couch, "how was the trip? When do you have to see your parole officer?"

Mom hobbled over to the armchair and sat with a strained grunt, and Lincoln perched on the the edge of the couch, his hands clasped between his knees. "It was okay," he said with a nod. That wasn't entirely true; after fifteen years of structured confinement, being thrust into the world, totally alone and in control of himself, was downright terrifying. And so was the paranoia - at any moment they could stop the bus and make him go back. He was theirs, after all, and had been for so long he could barely remember what it was like to be his. "I have to check in before five." He reflexively glanced at the clock on the mantle, but it wasn't there, and he frowned in confusion. He looked around, but it was nowhere. "What time is it?" he asked at length.

Mom picked up the remote, pushed a button, and a menu appeared on the TV. "2:45," she said. "Do you want me to drive you over?" she asked. "We can leave in a bit, I just need to take my pill and get dressed."

"No, it's fine," he said, not wanting her to exert herself, "I'll walk." He didn't want to - what if he saw more people he knew? What if pedestrians stopped to stare at him with hate and revulsion?

What if he came across more little girls?

That thought scared him shitless, and he almost changed his mind, but Mom could barely walk, and the last time he talked to Leni on the phone a year ago, she said it was getting harder and harder for her to leave the house - she had her groceries delivered now and only went abroad when she absolutely had to.

He'd already caused her so much pain and heartache, the least he could do was walk down the fucking street. It was only two miles.

In the heart of town.

Gulp.

"You better go then," Mom worried, "better early than late."

He took a deep breath. She was right. "I'll just...put my bag away," he hooked his thumb over his shoulder. "I-Is that okay?"

Mom blinked in surprise. "Of course it is, honey," she said. "Your room's still set up; we haven't touched anything. I only go in there to dust and turn the sheets."

Lincoln got stiffly to his feet and stood. "Alright, I'll be right back."

She smiled at him and held her hand out; he took it and squeezed, a tight-lipped smile forming across her creased face. "I'm so happy you're home," she said.

"Me too, Mom," he replied and kissed the back of her hand; it was dry and wrinkled like old leather.

Taking his bag, he climbed the stairs, his steps slow and plodding. Mom had told him several times over the years that she kept his room just as he left it, and the thought of walking into it, like stepping into the past, sent sharp pangs through his stomach.

The hall looked exactly as it had before right down to the fake white roses in the blue vase on the end table. At his door, he paused and amped himself up for what was to come, for the memories; it would be like the last fifteen years hadn't happened. He would be twenty again, young and seemingly carefree, but filled with dark urges, black, bubbling impulses that had built for years and became, toward the end, uncontrollable - they kept him awake at night, pacing the floors and ranking his fingers through his hair; distracted him in class, which lead him to flunk a semester at RWCC; and followed wherever he went, like a hateful poltergeist bent on tormenting him until he snapped. Those days leading up to the...incident were not happy ones...and neither were the ones after...when he found himself wanting to do it again, to go farther this time, to go all the way.

He wasn't like that anymore - he went to therapy - and walking into his old room...into yesteryear was not walking back into that life; that life was dead. This was a new one. He was a Phoenix rising from the ashes, and what lay before him was the future, not the past.

Reaching out, he took the knob in his hand, twisted it, and opened the door. What he saw was exactly what he expected, but it made his heart skip nevertheless.

His room was, as Mom said, just as he left it, except the bed was neatly made, the laundry hamper (overflowing the day he was arrested) was gone, and the floor was free of clutter and recently vacuumed. The same posters that had been on the wall since he was a kid stared back at him - Ace Savvy, hands on his hips and a toothy smile spread across his rugged face. Looking at it now, Lincoln detected a mocking inflection in the set of his muscles, the grin too wide, too phoney. Welcome back, Linc. Gonna pick up where you left off?

No.

He was not.

Standing there with his hand on the knob, he scanned the room as if in search of demons, but none were there - he left them at the prison, where they would stay. He took a deep breath, crossed to the bed, and sat the bag down. He unzipped it and rummaged through its contents, looking for and finally finding an envelope with his initials and prison number on it. He opened it with shaky hands and took out a stack of pictures, some dog-eared and faded with age, some newer, cleaner: His sisters, their children, their husbands, beaches and forests he'd never been to and birthday parties he didn't get to attend. Here, Luan with her son, Caleb, on her lap - he was three when Lincoln went to jail, now he was eighteen and going off to college in the fall; there, Luna and her daughter, Adrianna, sitting on the stoop of an apartment building out west, Luna with a cigarette in her hand and Anna, six, flashing a cheesy, gap-toothed smile for the camera. She was...twenty-one now? His sisters had all lived rich and meaningful lives...meanwhile he was locked in a cell, on pause while everything changed around him. Cars were different now, smaller, sleaker; the clothes people wore were strange; and everywhere he looked, he saw little signs that this world was not quite the one he had left - similar, like an image in a funhouse mirror, but not exactly the same.

He sat the pictures on the nightstand with careful reverence, turning the stack face down because if he spent too long looking at them, he would begin to dwell on all that he missed. Those snapshots, static images of happiness he could bask in but not hold, got him through many long nights...they also killed him slowly. Like alcohol.

Before leaving, he unpacked the rest of his things, putting his clothes in one empty drawer and his book on the nightstand: The cover was creased and torn and depicted a fanged phantom. STEPHEN KING was emblazoned across the top, and 'SALEM'S LOT along the bottom. There were a number of Stephen King novels in the prison library, various editions, and Lincoln noticed a trend: As King grew more famous, his name grew and the title shrank. He couldn't say he was a huge fan of his work, but he really liked 'Salem's Lot - the town in it reminded him of Royal Woods, and when he read it, he could imagine himself there and not lying on a thin, lumpy cot in AD-SEG, his rectum hurting and wounds healing on his face. Nope - he was walking through the sunny town square with the main characters, and if he tried just a little harder, he could break away from them and go home. There was a year long period where he read it back to back to back to back; now he didn't think he could even look at it, but it was his book, and he was going to keep it regardless.

His eyes went to the window over the desk, and the urge to walk over and peer out came over him...to see if she was there.

That's when he turned around and left.

Lincoln's probation officer was a fat, stony-faced man named Jim Evans: He was bald in the middle save for a little tuft of graying hair directly above his forehead, and all during their meeting, Lincoln had to make a conscious effort to keep from staring at it. An island in the sea, he thought. Why not shave it?

The probation office was in the basement of the Royal County Courthouse - a uniformed policeman stood by the door, and when Lincoln entered, it was through a metal detector. The waiting room, off the main hall, was a tiny, cramped space with too white walls and uncomfortable metal chairs. The magazines were all old - Lincoln paged through a People as he waited, gazing at pictures of celebrities he didn't recognize (and some he did...God, they were so much older now). Before going in, the receptionist handed him a plastic cup and directed him to the bathroom. He was expecting this: Drug and alcohol test, standard procedure. He'd rarely ever drank and never once touched drugs, not even pot, but everyone has to do it.

Next, he went into Evans's office: A potted plant stood on one side of the desk and a metal filing cabinet on the other; framed certificates dotted the walls, and the rank smell of the man's lunch hung heavy in the air. Evans, clad in a white dress shirt and red tie, a laminate card hanging between his man breasts, nodded curtly as Lincoln sat, the harsh fluorescent light reflection on the lenses of his glasses. "Mr. Loud," he greeted, his voce tight and dripping with distaste. Lincoln returned his nod, suddenly feeling very ill at ease. Evans looked at him for a moment, his eyes hard, then glanced down at a sheaf of papers on the desk. "I have your contract here," he said, "I want you to look it over." He slid a form across the desk. "These are stipulations of your release, if you don't meet them, I will violate your ass in a heartbeat."

Lincoln blinked in surprise. Evans glowered at him as though he were a particularly repulsive bug, his lips puckered in a contemptuous sneer. In the fifteen years since his crime, Lincoln had grown accustomed to the expression on his PO's face. You're a scumbag, it said, fuck you. The guards at North Pine looked at him that way, and the inmates too - anyone who knew what he'd done...what he was.

He reached out and took the paper, his eyes darting away from Evans'. "I understand." he said.

"Good," Evans spat.

The terms of his parole were simple. He was to continue living with his mother for the first year; be home no later than 6pm and to leave the house no earlier than 6am; meet with Evans every Thursday at 2; stay 1000 feet from schools, daycare centers, parks, playgrounds, and places of business that primarily cater to children.. He was expected to submit to random drug tests and to seek continued counselling. He was also to register at the police station as a level three sex offender within 24 hours.

At the bottom, he signed his name, then handed it back to Evans. "You understand the terms and conditions?" Evans asked.

Lincoln nodded. "Yeah." His mouth was dry.

Evans sat the form in front of him, his eyes boring into Lincoln. "Now get out of my office."

From there, Lincoln walked through town square, his hands in his pockets and his head down. People in pastels and tennis shoes moved around him like the tide, their apathy strangely comforting. To them, he was no one, and being no one was good...it was safe. The best days in prison were days when everyone ignored him. Alone in his cell or in the cafeteria, he was happy, because alone, no one could hurt him. The stares, the dirty looks, even the insults (chomo, pedo, faggot) no longer wounded him after a while, but fists, pipes, and kicks never stopped hurting.

At the corner of Main and Pine, he pressed the pedwalk button and waited for traffic to stop. An old black man walking along the opposite side of the street slowed to look at him, his brow furrowing in puzzlement. Lincoln's heart clutched and he hurriedly looked down at his shoes. He was familiar, Lincoln thought; it was only later that he realized it was Harold McBride, his old friend Clyde's adopted father. He hadn't thought of Clyde in years - he was in college across the country when Lincoln was arrested, and unsurprisingly, he never heard from him again.

A mile from home, his feet and legs aching, Lincoln sat on a bench flanking Pottsdamn Avenue and facing the old dance hall, now an arcade. As a child, he spent many long, lazy afternoons there with Clyde, and eventually Ronnie Anne Santiago. As an adult, he went there for other reasons...until someone complained and they kicked him out.

Was he a thousand feet away?

Cold horror filled him when he realized he couldn't be - he wasn't a very good judge of distance, but there was no way he was more than eight hundred feet from the front door.

His heart began to pound and the back of his neck prickled as though a cop were standing over him. Offending already, huh, Loud? Back to prison with you. He jerked a nervous glance over his shoulder, but no one was there. He jumped to his feet and rushed off anyway.

Two blocks later, he passed Carl's Ice Cream; a line of people waited at the window while others sat at the stone picnic tables licking soft serve and eating frozen custard. His stomach clutched and he started to turn around, but stopped - it was an ice cream shop, it didn't cater specifically to children. He could walk by, right? He wasn't stopping, so it should be okay.

His eyes were drawn inexorably to the queue. A little girl about nine stood next to an older woman, twisting back and forth with impatient excitement, the wind fluttering the hem of her aquamarina dress around her knobby knees. Curly brown hair spilled over her shoulders in a hopeless tangle, and her skin was the most delicate shade of brown he had ever seen. He imagined her turning, her eyes big and doe-like, filled with childlike curiosity, adolescent inquisitiveness...and innocence. Hi, mister, he could hear her say, staring shyly down at her feet. Can you help me learn about my body?

A harsh, humorless laugh burst from his throat, and a black man sitting on a bench with a strawberry cone in his hand glanced up, eyes narrowed. Lincoln swallowed and hurried past.

No, I can't, because that's wrong; go away, little girl. Leave me alone. Just leave me alone; I want to pick up the shattered remains of my life...stop tempting me. Just. Fucking. Stop.

It wasn't her, though.

It was him.

No, no it wasn't. It used to be but not now. Heh. He was fresh out of prison - he hadn't seen a woman in fifteen years save for the fat prison nurse. Of course he was going to be enticed to look, but he didn't feel anything.

Anything at all.

Dinner that night. Lincoln and his mother alone at the table, the overhead light casting muted white glow. Lincoln stared down at his plate and pushed a meatball with his fork. He'd been waiting fifteen years for mom's meatballs (that sounds off putting), but they weren't like he remembered: Before they were warm and good, but now they were spicy, greasy, and sat heavy in his stomach. You never realize how much goes into our food until you spend almost twenty years eating the blandest fare tax money can buy - everything out here made him sick: His first day out, he bought a Big Mac and five minutes after finishing it, he ran to the bathroom with explosive diarrhea. Prison was a terrible place, but he couldn't deny that he was clean when he came out, his body purged of all the toxins of the outside world.

The silence was the worst part - save for the scraping of Mom's fork, the steady tick tick tick of the clock on the wall, and the distant droning of the weatherman on TV, the house was absolutely still. When he shifted in his chair, it creaked, and the refrigerator hummed on and on and on, a low, neverending purr that rattled his teeth. In prison, it was never quiet, even at 3am; doors clanged, guards' footsteps echoed, men wept in their bunks or cried out at penetration, whether consensual or not, you could never tell. He took a bite and chewed, his lips and tongue tingling, his stomach rolling. No more, it said, I can't take anymore. He sat his fork down and took a drink of milk.

"I talked to Lori earlier," Mom said, "she's going to try to come up this weekend." She cut a meatball into fourths and stabbed one with the tines. "Leni too. She's very busy, though. I swear I see less of her than I do Lynn and Luna." She chuckled wryly. Leni worked for a fashion designer in Chicago...as a secretary, not the position she wanted but the only one she could get. She was married for a time, but her husband was manipulative and cheated on her. Given Leni's...childlike disposition, it was inevitable that someone would take advantage of her; the world is a cold, cruel place.

He snorted sardonically. Hi, Kettle, I'm Pot.

That was different, though.

He didn't mean to take advantage of anyone. He just...snapped. The urges kept building and building, and he buckled under pressure. Breaking like that isn't the same as something sustained and consistent over a long period of time. It isn't the same at all.

"I'd like to see them," he said. His voice sounded small and tinny in the big quiet, and a shiver raced down his spine. The last time he saw Lori and Leni in person was...God, eight years? He frowned thoughtfully. Had it really been that long? No, it couldn't be. It was right before Christmas the year the prison spent three months on lockdown. He counted and no, it wasn't eight years.

It was nine.

Nine years since they sat behind a smudged pane of glass, Leni smiling nervously and Lori looking disinterested, nine years. Jesus, in a way it felt like only last month, and in others, like a century ago. Leni was...Leni; she tried to be as supportive as she could. Lori, on the other hand, didn't even speak to him for the first three years, and for a long time after that only rarely. It wasn't until after that last (and first) visit with Leni that she started to write him regularly. Lincoln always felt like she took it hardest of anyone in his family because of her daughter, Lora - she thought he would do something to her, or may already have.

He hadn't.

Luna was the same after he was first arrested, but she came around pretty quick. It's a disease, bro, she told him, you're sick...you're not evil. He nodded in agreement even though he didn't know: Was it a disease? Was it really?

Or was he just a monster?

"Leni wants to see you very much," Mom said. "She said Tell Lincy I'll eventually be there or be circle." She laughed and Lincoln smiled. "Lori said she could probably make it, but she isn't one hundred percent sure; she's always on call at work, so things could change at the last minute"

Lori was an administrator at Grady Memorial Hospital, the largest medical complex in Detroit and home to both the Michigan Cancer Center and the Lower State Pediatric Center - he'd have to say 1000 feet from that one. She made good money and lived with her husband in a nice neighborhood. Their marriage was strained, though, and Mom once wrote that she thought he sometimes hit her. She drinks too, Mom told him on the phone. I can smell it on her.

Whether she drank or not (or if her husband hit her, which, God, Lincoln hoped he didn't), she did the best out of everyone financially except Lisa. Luan was next: She worked as a collection agent for the IRS. Lynn was a personal trainer at a gym, Lucy was a librarian in New York City (where she decided to stay after college), Lola owned a beauty salon that was always on the verge of bankruptcy, Lana worked as a groundskeeper for a place in Colorado called The Overlook Hotel, and Lily was still in school studying to become a graphic design artist - she wanted to one day work on children's animation.

Then there was Luna.

Luna wasn't a bad woman, she just had some tough breaks over the years, and made some admittedly awful decisions. She spent eleven years with Adrianna's father - who most certainly was abusive - and when she finally left, she couldn't get on her feet. She never had any money and lived in friends' garages and basements, cramped studio apartments, motel rooms, and homeless shelters even now. Adrianna, Mom told him, blamed Luna for their life and rarely spoke to her, which killed Luna every single day. A part of Lincoln pitied her, but another part, a deep, reptilian pit of avarice in his brain, didn't...because she had a daughter, she had a life. What did he have?

"I didn't get a chance to talk to the others," Mom said and took a drink, "I figured you could call them if you like. I'm sure they'd love to hear from you."

Lincoln nodded; he honestly didn't know if they would or not, but he was planning on calling them anyway. "I'll probably do that tomorrow," he said. "I'm kind of tired."

That wasn't the whole truth, but it wasn't a lie either - it was closing in on seven o'clock and the only sleep he'd gotten in the past forty-eight hours was on the bus, his bag wedged between his head and the window and the urge to stare into the night, at freedom, strong in his stomach. "I kind of want to get an early start tomorrow," he added. "Looking for a job."

"You can…" she trailed off. "I was going to say you can take the car but you don't have a license."

"I need to do that too," he said. The county DMV was in Elk Park, ten miles north. "The buses still run up there, right?"

Mom thought for a moment. "I think so. I can drive you, Lincoln, it's not a problem."

She said that, but he'd seen the way she moved - slow, hunched, wincing in pain at every other step. "It's fine. I like being on my own." He flashed a sheepish smile. He did, but he also didn't. Schizophrenic, maybe, but it's how he felt. Being in charge of himself and his life after fifteen years was exciting, but it was terrifying too.

Mom favored him with soft scrutiny. "Are you sure? It's really no trouble, honey."

"It's okay," he said.

After dinner, he insisted on washing the dishes; Mom put up a half-hearted protest, but eventually went into the living room. Standing at the sink hurt her back and hip, she said in the past, so she was probably glad to have a break.

The surreality of such a simple domestic task made his head spin, and though he hadn't opened his mouth since Mom left, he felt like he was lying, an imposter going through the motions of a strange and alien ritual that he did not fully understand.

When he was done, he went to go put the plates away, but when he opened the cabinet to the left of the sink, he was met with cups and mugs, which so confused him that his head spun even more. The plates had always been on this side, and the cups on the other.

Right?

He tucked his chin against his chest and tried to remember; he was mortified when he realized that he couldn't. He thought they were, but he wasn't sure. He closed the door and opened the flanking one.

Cans and boxes of food greeted him.

Now he was so lost and unsteady he had to hold onto the counter for support. He was certain there had never been edibles in here - those all went into the pantry. Mom must have moved things around at some point.

But why?

Why was there food where the plates went?

"Mom?" he called, the word tasting strange and cumbersome on his lips.

"Yes?"

He swallowed; he started to speak, but couldn't believe he was asking this - he hadn't lived here in fifteen years, but he felt like he should know. "W-Where do the plates go?"

Bemused silence. Then: "Oh, they go over the microwave now." She laughed. "Luna moved things around the last time she stayed here and I haven't put them back yet."

As far as Lincoln could remember, the last time Mom mentioned Luna staying with her was two years ago - she lost her home (a trailer) again and had nowhere else to go.

Closing the cabinet door, he carried the plates across the kitchen and put them away, then went into the living room. Mom sat in her chair with her feet up and her head back; on TV, a contestant on Wheel of Fortune spun the wheel and asked to buy a vowel. The only light came from the lamp on the end table; it painted the room in warm, muted tones. "I'm going to bed," he said.

Mom twisted around to look over her shoulder. "Alright, honey." She puckered her lips, and he leaned it, letting her kiss his cheek. The memory of prison rapists kissing the back of his neck came back in a rush, and the sensation of her lips touching his skin made his breath catch. "I love you."

"I love you too," he said.

In his cell - room - he sat on the edge of the bed, balled his hands between his knees…

...and cried.