Monday

1999

Sandra Alan was truly happy. She had to be. The studio was watching.

Sitting in her chair with her monogram where they were making her show, she had caught her dream. She couldn’t let anything distract her. Not the pink cupcake of a dress pinching her skin in all the wrong places. Not the beads of sweat threatening to flood away her fresh makeup. Not even the constant eyes of the crew—always looking at her and darting away before she could look back. They felt like fire on her skin. She told herself they lit her up. She would never allow herself to admit that they threatened to burn her alive.

She fought away unhelpful feelings and tried to study her script. Yes, Papa had called her that morning. She always had to brace herself for those conversations. Yes, today’s call was even more difficult than usual. Mama had never come home from her trip to the grocery store. She had been struck while crossing the intersection of Main and Humphreys. Papa said the driver was later arrested for driving under the influence after running into the Dove Hill’s flag pole. Mama was already dead when he found her. And yes, Sandra was going to have to miss the funeral.

But she had to stay. Mama had always told her to chase her dream. She was doing this for her. She would feel later.

She read the script over and over again–memorizing each line like a sacred text–praying it would distract her from the memory of Mama. Mama who used to sing silly songs to distract her from bad feelings. Mama who wouldn’t sing again.

She reminded herself of the call from the night before. Her show had been picked up. The network had ordered 20 episodes to air in their Saturday morning preschool block. She and her characters had the chance to help raise the next generation. The work started today. Mama would have to wait. She would have wanted to wait.

She started to read the episode, “Put on a Happy Face,” for the fourth…fourteenth…she couldn’t remember how many times before a production assistant shouted, “Five minutes to take one of Sunnyside Square episode one.”

On cue, Sandra shouted, “Thank you five!” Her training in Dove Hill’s now dead community theatre had never left her. She had come a long way from her hometown’s mere two stop signs.

Her assistant walked up to her—a bit too excited like always. She needed to learn to not look like she was trying so hard. Sandra knew how hard that was. As she began to tidy Sandra’s blonde beehive wig, the assistant asked “How are you holding up?” a little too kindly. “You know, no one would judge you if you went to be with your father.” She was doing her genuine best to be reassuring, but Sandra could tell that she was nervous. If she left, production would stop, and jobs would be in danger.

“I’m fine really, but that’s very kind. Thank you…” Sandra felt horribly rude for not remembering her assistant’s name. “Thank you.”

Her assistant laughed a little too hard. “You better be! This is what you’ve been working for!”

Her assistant walked away with the nervous energy of someone waiting for a callback, and Sandra could breathe for a moment. Before she could fully exhale, her director called for her. “Sandra Alan to the stage!” It was a demand more than a request. The network had assigned Sandra this director. One of the executives told her agent he was the best children’s TV director in their Rolodex. She didn’t let herself question how he could be with the way he avoided the child actors like frightful pests. She also didn’t let herself question when the director called her hotel room late the night before to “invite” her to his suite. Or when he insisted she have a scotch. Or when he started to loosen his belt. She knew her part.

When she stepped foot on the sound stage, she felt genuine joy. It was everything she had dreamed of. The painted background showing a happy green park. The white wooden bench just like the one in her grandmother’s garden. And the red brick wall standing waist-high to let her friends talk to her. She was going to get to share this world she had built with the children watching the TV. Of course, in her dreams, Joey the puppeteer was not behind the wall trying to steady herself through the after effects of last night’s cocaine binge.

Spreading the short tulle skirt of her Barbie dress and sitting on the bench, Sandra knew everything was perfect. Then she noticed the waist pinching her too tightly. She needed to try that cleanse again. A production assistant handed her the only prop for that scene: a simple chocolate ice cream cone made of hard plastic. She nodded firmly at the director. “Rolling!”

She felt the fires back on her skin. With everyone watching her, Sandra tried to stay in the character of her sweet and innocent alter ego, Sunny Sandy. She remembered how she felt in her childhood: safe and at peace, so long as she played her part. She licked the ice cream cone. It tasted like a medical glove. Right on cue, she pushed the ice cream part of the prop onto the ground with her tongue. In perfect time, she made her face look surprised and then sad. Then she started to cry.

Her old friend Maggie the Magenta Moo Cow rose walked up from behind the wall. Covering Joey’s shaking hand, Maggie looked like she did when Sandra first imagined her when she was five. She was friendly and familiar like an ordinary dairy cow, but her felt was magenta with white spots.

In a loose imitation of the voice Sandra had used when she presented Maggie to the network, Maggie mooed, “Oh, hi Sandy. What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

With a dramatic sniffle to dry her artificial tears, Sandy responded, “Oh, Maggie. I’m not feeling very sunny today. I dropped my ice cream.” 

Her puppeteer doing an admirable maternal cow—all things considered—Maggie bleated, “Well, don’t be sad. You know what your Granny Rainbow always says…”

From behind the acrylic park, an old piano started playing a syrupy melody just out of tune. Maggie began to sing:

“If you’re not feeling happy today,

Just put on a happy face.

It’ll make the pain go away

Before you forget to say…”

Sandra readied herself for her turn. When she mentioned Granny Rainbow, Maggie had reminded Sandra just for a moment of her family—Grandpa George, Granny Ruth, Mama. As Maggie finished her refrain, Sandra snapped her heart to attention and joined in harmony.

“If you’re not feeling happy today,

Just put on a happy face.

It’ll make the pain go away

Before you forget to say…”

The crew visibly relaxed as Maggie and Sandy sang on. The show was going to work. The rest of the puppeteers brought out Sandra’s other creations: an orange owl, a red rabbit, geese, goats, and more. Through the camera lens, the scene was pastel perfection.

But, in the flesh, something was wrong. Sandra’s assistant chose not to see it. Sandra’s teeth were dazzling white, but her smile was stretched too thin. Her eyes gleamed, but it was a gleam of tears threatening to break through. Caroline watched carefully. These weren’t tears of sadness or grief. They were tears of frenzied determination—of someone who was cutting her heart open to make herself feel joy.

The song played on. Playing her part perfectly, Sandy forgot about her ice cream and sang along with her animal friends in all the wrong colors. And, as she sang in her cotton candy frills, Sunnyside Square built itself around her.

2024

Mikey Dobson woke up precisely at 7:55 like he had every morning he could remember. He had not needed it since he turned 13, but he always set an alarm just in case. Reaching for his phone to turn it off, Mikey remembered the dream he was having when he awoke. A green park in a small town square out of a picture book. Surrounded by an old crimson brick wall that somehow looked as new as if it had been built yesterday. And a polite white bench.

Mikey knew he had never been to this park. He doubted that anyone had been to a park like that since the 1950s. He had only had recurring dreams of it—first when he started his senior year of high school and now again since Bree started his campaign. But it still felt deeply familiar. Like a park that he might have visited when he was a young boy.

This time, though, something was subtly different. More the impression of the dream than the experience. The trees in the park were still tall, but they were ominous—not lofty. The brick wall was still solid, but it was impenetrable—not sturdy. And remembering the dream now, Mikey thought it ended differently this time. He couldn’t remember how, but there was something new. A presence that woke him up with a sense of overwhelm instead of peace.

When he picked up his phone, Mikey saw he had already missed several texts from Bree. One a perfunctory good morning, “Hey, little brother! Big day today! Proud of you!” Then a handful laying out his schedule for the day. Work at the office from 9 to 5. Then at the campaign headquarters from 5 to 9. He knew that his days would grow longer as the election approached. For now, working the schedule of a normal lawyer seemed easy.

He put his feet down on his apartment’s cold wooden floor and walked to the television hanging opposite his bed. He turned it on just as the theme song for the local morning news started.

Somehow, Dotty Doyle was still hosting. She may not have looked like a general store brand Katie Couric anymore, but she was still holding on. Even if her permed blonde hair seemed to be permanently strangling her gray roots.

“Good morning, Dove Hill!,” she rasped in an effortful echo of her younger voice. “It’s another sunny day! Even if the clouds disagree.” Mikey let some air out of his nose. Dotty’s jokes had not gotten better with age. “Today’s top story: the race for Dove Hill’s seat in the state legislature. Young hometown attorney Mikey Dobson is running to unseat 12-term incumbent Edmund Pruce whose office was recently the subject of an ethics investigation that has since been closed at the governor’s order.”

Bree’s publicist had done a good job. Mikey barely recognized himself in the photograph. In the mirror, he saw a too tired and too skinny nerd whose hair was too black to be brown and too brown to be black. On the TV, he looked like John F. Kennedy with an Adam Driver filter. The glasses he was always anxious about keeping clean actually made him look smart. Especially next to his wrinkly plum of an opponent. Mikey didn’t hate Pruce, but he was certainly made for the world before Instagram.

“The latest polling shows Pruce with a substantial lead thanks largely to the district’s heavy partisan tilt. Dobson’s campaign, led admirably by Dobson’s sister Bree, is under-resourced but earnest. And Dobson’s themes of bipartisanship, town-and-gown partnership, and clean government along with the campaign’s mastery of social media seem to be appealing to younger voters.” Mikey couldn’t disagree with the narrative there. With only a fraction of their parents’ promised funds having come through, Bree had done a lot with a little.

Still listening to Dotty’s monologue about the job losses threatened by federal cuts to Dove Hill College’s budget, Mikey showered and shaved. He put on his Monday coat and tie while Harry Carey—the frumpled weatherman with a pun for a God-given name—tried to make a week of clouds sound pleasant. When Mikey grabbed the remote to turn off the TV, Dotty Doyle teased, “Remember to join us this Friday night for the first and only debate between Edmund Pruce and Mikey Dobson. The world–or at least our studio–will be watching.” At exactly 8:50 am, Mikey grabbed his coffee and opened the door.

Walking out to find his door being watched impatiently by Rosa the cleaner, Mikey paused for just a moment. He reminded himself that he was happy. He had graduated from an Ivy League school. He had opened his own law office. He was running for office. And his parents, according to their Facebook posts, were proud of him.

Using the mindfulness techniques that his therapists had taught him, Mikey brought himself back to the present. He turned to Rosa and gave her a pleasant smile. “Buenos días, Rosa!,” he recited in perfect Spanish. “Gracias por limpiar mi lugar y todos tu arduo trabajo.” Every person was a potential voter.

Looking into the mop water on Rosa’s cart, Mikey found himself thrust back into memory of that morning’s dream. He remembered that he had been stirred by the strange feeling of drowning in something other than water. Something thin and gauzy. Then he remembered the sight that he saw right before opening his eyes. The material he was drowning in was bright, almost neon pink—somewhere between Pepto-Bismol and that hard bubblegum he used to get at church. He knew the park dream happened when he was stressed, but this hot pink funeral shroud was something new.

Mikey caught himself. It was time to work.

* * *

Mikey looked out his office window onto Main Street. At the corner of Main and Humphreys, he spent his days in the center of Dove Hill’s downtown—or what the town had of one. He had been lucky to find this place when he hung out his shingle. The realtor, an old acquaintance from Colvin Preparatory School, had tried to tell him that something sad had happened at the intersection back in the 90s, but Mikey ignored him. The rent was cheap, and that’s what mattered.

That morning and afternoon, he had worked on pleasantly mundane tasks: drafting a complaint, reviewing a deposition transcript, checking the mail. Mikey even found something to like about billing hours. He was fortunate. Unlike most of his law school classmates, he actually liked being a lawyer.

Or he had at one point. As he had brought in more and more work, his family had started to help him. His mother emailed him to make sure he was keeping at a healthy weight. His father had Bree check in to make sure he was making enough money. When Bree started to plan the campaign, she started to advise Mikey on which clients and cases he should take. Of course, none of his family’s suggestions were optional.

With 4:00 pm approaching, Mikey prepared for a meeting with a potential client. Since he was one of the very few attorneys in town—perhaps the only one without a drinking problem—Mikey never knew what kind of client or case these meetings were going to bring. At precisely 4:00 pm, Mikey opened the door to see a round man with a look like he was meeting an old friend.

Mikey welcomed him in and listened to his story. The man explained that he had just been released from the Mason County Correctional Facility. Apparently, this was going to be a civil rights case. The man described the conditions in the prison. Mikey wished he could be surprised at the routine violations of basic laws and human rights. He couldn’t be. He had grown up hearing the same stories from some of his extended family—third cousins and the like. This was the kind of case Mikey had become a lawyer to take. But he knew he couldn’t take this one. He couldn’t look anti-cop with the election just months away.

“So that’s my story,” the man concluded.

“I understand,” Mikey lied kindly. “Thank you for sharing with me.” He meant that part.

“Do you think you can help me, Attorney Dobson?”

“I’m not sure. Let me step out and call my associate.”

Mikey left the cramped conference room that used to be a kitchen. Pulling up his recents to call Bree, he realized he had been using a creative definition of “associate” over the past few months.

Bree answered efficiently. “Hey! Are you on the way?”

“Not quite. I’m wrapping up a meeting with a potential client.”

“Is this another soft-on-crime case?”

“It’s not soft on crime. It’s…,” Mikey began to protest.

“No. Absolutely not.” The law had spoken. “You know we can’t take those cases this close to the election. You’re running to make the change that will keep those cases from happening in the first place. You can’t let your feelings make you sacrifice your future.” Mikey wondered why Bree said that “we” couldn’t take the case.

“Yeah. You’re right. I’ll see you soon.”

As Mikey opened the door to tell the man the news, the man’s phone rang. Mikey knew he remembered that song. Jaunty. Sweet. But he couldn’t place it. If you’re not feeling happy today… Remembering those lyrics, Mikey felt seen. And watched.

“So, what’s the verdict?,” the man hoped out loud.

“I’m sorry, sir. The firm just can’t take on a case like yours at the moment. If you’d like, I can refer you to some other attorneys.”

“No thanks. I’ll take this as my answer.”

Mikey flinched at that then continued the script.

“Well, thank you for coming in. It’s always a pleasure to meet someone from our town.”

Waiting for Mikey to open the door, the man mumbled genuinely, “Sure. Thanks for your time. I’m still going to vote for you.”

He went to close the door behind the man but couldn’t stop himself from asking. “Excuse me. Sir?” The man turned around halfway down the brick walkway. “I love your ringtone. What song is that? I know I heard it when I was a kid, but I can’t remember the name.”

The man looked at Mikey like he had just asked if his prison had been on Jupiter. “I think it’s called Marimba or something. It’s just the default.”

Mikey gave the man a kind nod. Closing the door behind him, he tried to shake off the feeling that came over him when he heard that song. It had made him feel uncomfortably aware of the man’s eyes on him when he braced to deliver the bad news. It was like the man was suddenly joined by an invisible audience that waited for Mikey to say the lines he had rehearsed so many times. The song reminded Mikey of something always waiting just out of sight—waiting to swallow him whole if he ever failed to act his part. Or, the song would have reminded him of the void. Fortunately, the song was just the default smartphone ringtone.

Mikey walked back to his desk, shut his laptop, and grabbed his blazer on the way out the door. In the past, he might have stayed late to work on cases. Not this year.

Driving down Chelsea Street, he passed the old bookstore where he had spent hours on afternoons when his parents were working and Bree was building her resume with one extracurricular or another. The owner, Mrs. Brown, had always made him feel at home. He wasn’t sure if it was because of her failing memory or because she saw just what he needed, but Mrs. Brown had always left Mikey alone. He had cherished that time alone with Mrs. Brown where he could breathe without someone’s eyes waiting for him to do something wrong. Something that the kids at school would make fun of and his family would try to fix. In Mrs. Brown’s store, Mikey could just be.

By the time memory had taken him to his junior year when Mrs. Brown’s store was run out of the market by internet sales, Mikey had arrived at his campaign office. That was probably not the right word. It was more the building that his campaign office was in. The building that had been the town civic center some decades ago. Now it had been converted into a rarely-used venue for weddings and receptions and overflow offices for some of the mayor’s staff. One of these town employees was a daughter of one of Bree’s favorite professors, and he had convinced her to let Bree borrow it after city work hours.

Walking from his car to the double dark-panel wooden doors, Mikey appreciated that the mayor who had ordered the renovation had at least thought to preserve the building’s frame. It had been there longer than anyone still alive in the aging town.

Bree was waiting just inside the dust-odored lobby when Mikey opened the doors. Before either of them said anything, Bree gave Mikey a flash of a smile. They always had this moment. Before they started talking about the campaign or their careers or what they could do better, Bree looked at Mikey like a proud big sister happy to see her little brother. Mikey remembered this smile from their childhoods, but it had become fainter and rarer as Bree aged and took on more responsibilities. Ever since their father informed them that Bree would be running Mikey’s campaign, the smile had only come in these flashes.

“Hey. Good day at work?” Bree asked perfunctorily. Mikey loved her for trying.

“Normal,” Mikey said, following Bree down the side hallway to the cramped office. “So I can’t complain.”

“I’m glad,” Bree answered. Mikey wasn’t sure if she was glad he said he had had a good day or glad he was not complaining. Probably both.

The two sat down in the professor’s daughter’s town-issued pleather chairs, and Bree commenced.

“Thank you for coming this evening.” She ran these meetings like she was reading a profit and loss statement in a Fortune 500 conference room. Mikey often wondered if she would rather have been. “The polling is still not optimal. We’re trailing 45 to 50 with 8 percent undecided. The latest social campaign went well. The A-B testing found that the voters prefer you in a red tie so we’ll stick with that going forward.”

Tired of fighting it, Bree pushed her a runaway wisp of black hair out of her face with a red headband. Mikey smiled to himself as he realized that she had done that ever since they were kids. She was always too serious to bother with her hair.

“Anti-corruption is still your strongest issue. People seem to like that coming from someone young and idealistic. The question is whether it will be enough to get people to the polls when Pruce has the culture war on his side.”

Mikey nodded at the right time. He wanted to pay attention. Bree had worked hard to prepare this report. It was hard when he knew his opinions didn’t matter. Bree made the decisions for the campaign, and the polls made the decisions for Bree. He hated himself for being so cynical, but he was a politician now. He was just the smiling face on the well-oiled machine.

While Bree started to explain Mikey’s campaign schedule up through Friday’s debate, Mikey thought he heard something familiar. It sounded like a woman humming in the room next door. Except, in the office at the end of the narrow hallway, there was no room next door. Mikey decided he wasn’t hearing anything.

Bree dictated, “Tomorrow, we have a meeting with Ryan Scarnes, your publicist.”

If you’re not feeling happy today…

The wordless music continued, now coming from both the room that wasn’t next door and behind the professor’s daughter’s desk.

Mikey’s decision failed him. He was definitely hearing something. He told himself maybe it was an old toy in one of the cardboard boxes that towered in the corner opposite him. He looked up at Bree to see if she heard anything. She reported on without a moment’s hesitation.

“Then on Wednesday we have the meet and greet at the nature center.”

Moving his head as little as possible, Mikey began to dart his eyes around the room. The music was coming from above now. Mikey thought there might have been an attic there before the renovation.

Just put on a smiling face…

He tried his best to look focused. He always tried his best.

“On Thursday, we have your appearance for seniors at the YMCA.”

He was fighting to keep breathing, but the air was leaving him. The music, now all around him and getting louder, was almost suffocating. He felt like he was drowning in it.

It’ll make the pain go away…

His nerves began to demand his body move. First his fingers began to tap the chair’s worn arm. The music grew louder. Then his feet joined in. The music was nearly deafening.

At that, Bree looked up from her papers. For another fleeting moment, she looked at him like a sibling instead of a campaign manager. But this time it was a look of concern instead of affection.

“You good?” Bree’s question was almost drowned out by the song.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Probably just too much coffee.” Mikey felt like he was shouting, but he knew he was using his inside voice.

Almost as scared of Bree’s disappointment as the music from the void, Mikey ventured, “Do you hear something?”

The music stopped except for the faint hum from the woman in the room that wasn’t next door.

Before you forget to say…

“No.” Bree’s face looked just as Mikey had feared. Worried but not willing to show it.

Silence kindly returned.

With an earnest attempt at earnestness, Mikey pivoted. “And the debate’s Friday?”

“Right…” Bree said as if she were asking herself for permission to continue. “But I’ll do the walkthrough of the venue on Thursday.”

While Bree haltingly continued to the financial section of her report, Mikey remembered. The song was called “Put on a Smiling Face,” and it was from Sunnyside Square.

Tuesday

1999

Sandra knew she must have finished the day on set. Maggie and their friends must have descended behind the wall. Joey and the rest of the puppeteers must have congratulated her on her first day as an actor. Dorian—Dory, she had to remember he wanted to be called that—must have grabbed her in a smothering hug after he called it a wrap. She must have returned it.

She didn’t remember any of it. When she began to sing with Maggie, holding herself together with small-town hunger and grit, she had gone somewhere else. Something else—someone else had taken over her. Someone better.

When she came back to her body, Sandra was in the middle of another performance. This time, the venue was Saint Beatrice’s United Methodist Church. The network had decided she had to go to Mama’s funeral after all. The public relations department had insisted. The network couldn’t chance a scandal so early on in their newest talent’s career. They had even sent Caroline along to keep their eyes on Sandra and make sure she made it back to set within 24 hours.

Sandra reminded herself that she only had to get through the song. At the reading of the will, Attorney Pruce had told her and her father that one of her mother’s final wishes was for Sandra to sing her favorite song at her funeral. At least Sandra wouldn’t have to learn a new piece. Mama had sung this one to hear every night before bed.

Sitting in the hard wooden pew where she had spent every Sunday morning as a girl, Sandra thought of all the lessons she had learned in the small sanctuary under the eyes of Brother Joel and the beautiful dead man on the stained-glass cross.

Make sure the hem of your skirt never rises above your knee.

Never ruin a conversation with talk of unpleasant things.

Smile kindly when a deacon’s eyes linger on you a little too long.

Smile kindly when Brother Joel starts to scream about you and everyone you love burning in hell for eternity.

Always smile kindly.

And, most importantly, do all the good you can for all the people you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can. No matter what.

She tried to keep her mind on that last commandment as she watched her black heels walk up the thick blue carpet of the stairs. Singing this song was what Mama wanted. It was doing good. She was commanded to do it.

The smell of charring salt on fresh fried chicken from the kitchen behind the stage brought her back to Mama’s kitchen in their little white house. She looked down into the casket and saw her mother in an old-fashioned rose pink cotton dress. The funeral director had painted the makeup on her corpse with a precision that she would have appreciated. Looking down at her mother, Sandra hoped she was finally happy. Not just smiling, but happy.

In the moments before Dr.  Jo, her old piano teacher started the song, Sandra felt the eyes burning her skin again. There were only a few dozen people in St. Bee’s on this Tuesday morning, but Sandra’s heart pounded like she was in the center of the Coliseum. Her father and Caroline, the two people she most needed to please, were in the front pew staring up at her with expectation. Everyone in the church was waiting for her to do good. Her head reeled at the thunder of Dr. Jo’s cough and the earthquake of Brother Joel opening a peppermint. By instinct, she looked towards her mother.

She was gone. Maggie was lying in the casket instead. Dr. Jo played the first lilting notes of “The Rainbow Connection,” and Sandra went away again.

2024

The next day was more of what had become Mikey’s normal. He woke up at 7:55 to Bree’s compulsory good morning and text-message briefing. He left for the firm at 8:50. He tried to enjoy being a lawyer while he still could. Then he left for the campaign at exactly 5:00.

He turned right off of Main and left onto Reading. Coming to a stop sign, Mikey wished he could take the ramp to the interstate and leave town. He could hang another shingle in another small town—maybe Redford or Gaynor. That’s all he had ever wanted to do: practice law and help people. He knew that winning this campaign would mean going into politics as a career and leaving the law behind for good.

Driving down Reading towards Highway 130, Mikey remembered that he had at least been able to take a new client that day. Dr. Wei Tate, the family doctor who had seen Bree and Mikey their whole lives and seen their parents even before then, was finally retiring. Mikey was happy for Dr. Tate. The old man certainly deserved to rest.

Mikey only wished he was doing something to help Dr. Tate instead of representing Quality Care, the regional hospital chain that was buying out the old doctor’s clinic in an offer he couldn’t refuse. Mikey had read about how hospital monopolization hurt small towns like Dove Hill, but their grand opening would bring dozens of new jobs and a guaranteed ribbon-cutting. Mikey told himself it was the greater good. Even if it wasn’t, Quality Care’s offer to start a financial relationship with a rising star politician was one that Bree couldn’t let him refuse.

Lost in dreading work on the Quality Care acquisition, Mikey realized he had arrived at the publicist’s office. Set as close to the town line as it could be, the building looked ashamed to be in a place like Dove Hill. It wouldn’t have been within the municipal limits but for a favor the construction company’s owner owed Mayor LeBlanc. Mikey wasn’t sorry for the distance. The building’s ostentatiously corporate aesthetic would definitely have disrupted the streets where he grew up.

“Walking in,” Mikey texted Bree. Bree responded with a question mark.

Passing the two-story’s unnecessary stainless-steel elevators, Mikey walked to the end of the entrance hall and took the stairs. He found the publicist’s office at the end of the hall that smelled like fresh ink and cold paper. The glass of the door was frosted and printed with “SCARNES AND BLUMPH” in large red letters.

Mikey entered a small overwhelmingly white lobby with a kind looking older lady sitting behind the desk. Her name plate read “Mary Ann.” Mikey approached her. “Hi there,” he smiled. She smiled back a bit surprised, like she had not been spoken to in some time. “Excuse me. I’m here for a meeting with Mr. Scarnes.”

“Of course,” she answered. It seemed like she was happy to have something to do. “Right this—”

Before Mary Ann could stand all the way up, Ryan Scarnes entered with the energy of a used car dealer. Without so much as acknowledging Mary Ann, Ryan reached out to shake Mikey’s hand. It was a demand. “Well hello, Mr. Dobson. Welcome to our humble abode.” Mikey glanced at Mary Ann who was already back in her chair as though she had never moved.

“Hi,” Mikey said while feeling his hand reach to meet Ryan’s. Mikey knew it was the right thing to do, but he thought his hand might leave the shake coated in grime. Despite Ryan’s clearly tailored suit, razor-straight teeth, and stone-set hair, Mikey couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something filthy about him. “I’m Mikey Dobson. Nice to meet you. Thank you for meeting with me today.”

Ryan looked down at Mary Ann. “Mary Jane, would you please get Mr. Dobson a sparkling water in a champagne flute?” Mikey didn’t bother to mention that he didn’t drink sparkling water. Turning back to Mikey, Ryan forced a laugh. “It’s a little early for champagne, but we can pretend.”

Ryan walked back down the hallway where he had emerged while continuing his monologue. Mikey assumed he was supposed to follow. When they reached the large conference room stuffed with as many mirrors and gilded paperweights as Ryan Scarnes’s idea of taste would allow, Bree was poring over a table covered in pictures of Mikey.

“Hey sis,” Mikey ventured.

“Hi,” Bree said, partially looking up from the oversized conference table. In the second she turned her eyes to him, Mikey saw that same flash of warmth.

“Good to see you…again,” Mikey joked while opening his arms for a hug.

Bree responded with a polite laugh and a reach for a more professional welcome. “You too. How long has it been? 21 hours?” Of course she knew the precise time.

Sinking into one of the gold-trimmed leather chairs, Mikey thought that Bree and Ryan looked like the actual politicians. Bree in her dark gray pantsuit and Ryan in his bespoke charcoal coat and glaring red tie. He laughed at himself as he looked down at his department store slacks and wholesale button-down.

“Now where were we, Ms. Dobson?” Ryan asked with a humility that almost broke under the weight of pretense.

Bree seemed not to notice. She seemed not to notice a lot about Ryan Scarnes. In her mind, the campaign was all too fortunate to have signed with a publicist as young, tenacious, and data-loaded as him. She promised Mikey that Ryan’s discounted prices were worth the implicit promises of access she had made on Mikey’s behalf.

“We were just reviewing the options for the final mailer,” Bree reported.

“Right. Our focus group suggested that they liked seeing Mikey outdoors. They said it made him look approachable, friendly. You’ll see the outdoor shots in the top-left quadrant.”

As Ryan and Bree walked to the other side of the table, Mary Ann gently entered the room. She was like a friendly mouse: eager to help but afraid to be seen.

“Here you go, sweetie,” she cooed to Mikey.

“Thanks, Ms. Mary Ann. I appreciate it. I’m Mikey by the way. How’s your day—”

“That’ll be all,” Ryan interrupted. He looked at Mary Ann like she had been caught.

“Yes, Mr. Scarnes.” Mary Ann and Mikey exchanged a smile as she snuck back out the door.

Bree and Ryan continued to talk about Mikey. Or at least about the face in the gallery. Ryan had done his job once again and made Mikey unrecognizable to himself. They examined every picture on the table as if it were a unique masterpiece with hidden details in every inch. Mikey just saw the man he didn’t know. In one, the man was sitting on a bench. In another, he was standing in front of a tree. In another, he was leaning on a brick wall. The only thing Mikey especially liked about the pictures was that they were all taken around the Mason County Courthouse.

“I’m torn between the ones standing in front of the doors and the ones sitting on the steps,” either Bree or Ryan said. They had both long since forgotten Mikey was in the room.

Mikey felt their conversation grew louder and louder as it went on. It grew from a business transaction into a cable news debate. Looking at all of the photos of the man who was not him, he felt his breath catch in his chest. “Who is this?” he thought. His head began to spin into lightness. “It’s not me.” He wanted to scream. That would have been inappropriate.

Inching his eyes up and down the rows of pictures of the other him, Mikey caught something strange in the corner of his eye. In one of the pictures on the courthouse steps, Mikey saw something in a bright shade of blue. Not the cautious blue of a politician’s tie. The rich, glowing blue of a gemstone.

Mikey stood from his seat and leaned over to the picture with the blue presence. He saw it. Sitting over his shoulder on the white concrete steps was a smiling blue turtle. The turtle sat like a small child with its legs out in front and its eyes looking straight at Mikey. Mikey couldn’t tell if the turtle’s eyes were looking at the him in the conference room or the him on the courthouse steps. But they were looking. Watching. The turtle’s smile was stretched so far that it looked like its felt was going to rip at the seams.

Mikey didn’t know how he knew the turtle was made of felt. He just did. He also knew it’s—his name was Tommy and that he liked trains. Mikey had met Tommy before. But it hadn’t been at the courthouse. No one had been there except for Mikey, Bree, and Ryan. Mikey remembered that because, despite his silent objections, Bree and Ryan had convinced the city judge to end court early that afternoon.

Looking into Tommy’s eyes, Mikey felt two conflicting emotions. His panic continued to build. He knew that turtle had not been at the courthouse that day. Why were his eyes telling him otherwise? But he also felt a sense of peace. Even though Tommy’s eyes were watching both Mikeys like they were afraid he would stop smiling, Mikey somehow felt like Tommy was an old friend. Like they had played together as kids.

Before Mikey could decide what he was supposed to feel, Ryan turned his schmooze away from his conversation with Bree. “You have good tastes, Mr. Dobson. Ms. Dobson and I were just deciding to use one of the courthouse steps pictures on the mailer.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Mikey said without turning away from Tommy.

Ryan turned back to Bree. “Now just to decide which one.”

While Bree and Ryan carefully discussed which of the nine seemingly identical photos to use, Mikey carefully picked up the one with Tommy. When he looked at it more closely, Tommy was gone. If Bree or Ryan noticed one of their pictures missing, they didn’t show it as they continued their deliberations.

Folding the picture and placing it into his shirt pocket, Mikey noticed a new sensation. Pressing against his skin, the picture felt warm. It was a comforting heat—a log fire at Christmas. But it was also narrow and pointed—an eye staring through his heart.

* * *

By the time Bree ended the meeting at Scarnes and Blumph, Mikey had convinced himself to forget the burning in his shirt pocket. His skin felt it, but he decided he didn’t. Following Bree’s car back into town, he could only think about Tommy. How did he know the too-friendly turtle? And how had he seen him?

Mikey was reassuring himself of his senses when he and Bree pulled up to Delano Plaza, one of the several strip malls that had risen from Dove Hill’s ground during the early 2000s. They got out of their cars and met each other in front of China Delight. Their town’s sit-down dining options had dwindled to not much more than a handful of nearly identical Chinese buffets.

Mikey appreciated Bree making the time on his schedule for this. Every Tuesday since they had moved back home after school up north, the Dobson siblings had kept the standing commitment. During these weekly dinners, they tried to avoid talking about work. Or politics. Or anything “real,” as Bree had put it. When the campaign started, Mikey made her promise to keep their sibling dinners sacred. He wondered if she could with only weeks to the election.

Bree followed Sue Lee, the restaurant’s newest waitress, through the winding path to the back of the building. Sitting the Dobsons at a table next to a wall strewn with red and yellow lanterns, Sue Lee asked about their parents. Bree confirmed that they were doing fine. As Sue Lee handed Mikey the menu that no one ever read, he asked her how she liked working at China Delight. She said it was a job. Still, Mikey was happy for her. He had known Sue Lee in her harder times in high school.

After they made their plates of fried chicken, fried rice, and fried donuts, Mikey attempted small talk. That had never been the Dobson family’s gift.

“So have you heard from mom and dad?”

“Yeah,” Bree said with all the care of someone saying they had seen that afternoon’s episode of Judge Judy. “Mom texted—either last week or the week before. She asked how you were.”

Between sips from his oversized red cup, Mikey looked at her with expectation and mild dread.

“Don’t worry. I told her you were fine. She said that dad said to make sure you were keeping up at the firm. Still not sure why I’m always the messenger.”

“You know how they are. Honestly, though, I’m glad they text you and not me.” Mikey wished he meant that. It was one of those technical truths that their dad had taught him to use to avoid making anyone uncomfortable. Truthfully, Mikey would have loved to feel his phone vibrate with a text from his mom. But ever since spring of his senior year, and everything that had happened, his parents’ words to him had faded from well-meaning smothering to benign silence.

“You’re welcome,” Bree smirked. Mikey knew she was only half joking. Even when they were kids, Bree had taken care of him. When their mother scolded him for using the wrong fork for salad, Bree would change the conversation to her recent science fair win. When their father had had too much wine and soap-boxed about the wrong kind of people coming to Dove Hill, Bree would distract everyone by playing “Clair de Lune” for the twenty-second time. As they blew the powdered sugar off their donuts, Mikey realized he had never told Bree how he felt.

“Really though, thanks,” he said. Bree paused with dough in her mouth and looked at him like he had spoken Welsh.

“For?”

Mikey hesitated as he worked to express something “real.” He laughed to himself when he saw the bit of dough sitting in Bree’s mouth. He hadn’t seen her that unpolished in years.

“Oh, no,” Bree said, laughing and finally swallowing. “I’m not paying again this week. You’re the fancy attorney after all.”

“No,” Mikey stammered. He mentally smacked himself for ruining the fun and tried to find the words he had lost. He needed to say this. “It’s just… You’ve always taken care of me. Especially with mom and dad. I appreciate it.”

He could tell he had struck a nerve. Bree Dobson didn’t like to receive gratitude. At least she didn’t think she did. It felt unwieldy.

“Well, you can start paying me back by ordering me a beer.” Looking at his sister, Mikey knew that was the best he was going to get. Bree was her mother’s daughter after all.

Mikey turned his eyes towards the ceiling in an attempt to escape the awkwardness that had come to sit with them. He noticed the television sitting in the far corner.

Pointing towards it, he asked, “Do you remember watching TV on Saturday mornings? When mom and dad were on their weekends in the country?” Mikey had always loved those weekends. “I can’t believe our eyes didn’t fall out from staring at the screen that long.”

“Those were good days. Not exactly how I remember them though.”

“What do you mean? We would watch TV. And eat our weight in sugary cereal. And—” He stopped. He could tell Bree was forcing a smile now. It was the polite thing to do. “Hey…what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she lied. “It’s just…I’m glad you were happy. But for me, those days were for cleaning the house for mom.”

Mikey went quiet with a guilt he couldn’t name. He had forgotten about it, but Bree was right. While he was watching cartoons, Bree was doing the chores for the whole family. “You…you could’ve asked me. I would’ve helped you.”

“I know,” Bree said with a proud smile. “I know you would have. But I wanted you to be a kid. To be happy. I was happy to help.”

Seeing the faintest hint of longing in his sister’s dimples, Mikey felt the burning on his chest again. Sue Lee brought Bree her two-bit beer. Even on a supposed night off, Bree was minding the money. The heat rising in his pocket, Mikey remembered the picture. And Tommy.

“Do you remember me watching a show called Sunnyside Square?” The burning stopped, but Mikey didn’t notice. He was onto something.

“No. But honestly, you watched so much TV that it would be a miracle if I remembered any of it. You would even wake up before I did to start. And that was an achievement even before I started Adderall.”

Mikey kept thinking out loud. “I think it was like a puppet show… Hand puppets maybe?”

“Well, I may not remember what shows you did watch, but I know it wasn’t that. I never saw anything but cartoons. I tried to turn on a science show for you once, and you asked where the talking animals were.”

Mikey paused. Describing Sunnyside Square to his sister, he remembered more and more. It still wasn’t much, but he knew he had watched a show called Sunnyside Square. He remembered seeing the blue turtle sitting on a brick wall: the brick wall from his dream. His mind felt like there was someone else there. Someone he loved—but didn’t know.

“Really? I remember puppets I think? And always feeling…happy…”

It was more than that. Mikey couldn’t see Sunnyside Square, but he could feel it. He had felt lost so often as a kid—and as an adult. He had felt left behind when his parents went to the cabin and Bree went to work. But, when he would watch that show, it felt like home. He always felt seen.

“Must have been some show,” Bree teased, taking a sip from her bottle. “But yeah, I’m sure I don’t remember it. It was cartoons or…well, different cartoons.”

No. Sunnyside Square was something better than cartoons. Something real. Someone real. With that thought, Mikey remembered. Her name was Sunny Sandy. She was perfect.

* * *

Mikey wanted to drive straight home. Instead, he tried to finish the sibling dinner as normally as possible. He read his fortune from the freshly stale cookie, paid Sue Lee a 25% tip, gave Bree an awkward hug, and then rushed back to his apartment going as fast as he could without speeding.

He didn’t stop to undress when he got home. He pulled his laptop from his bag and sat at his desk. He couldn’t stand to lose any glimpse of Sandy’s face in his memory.

Then he realized he had no idea what to search. All he knew was the name Sunny Sandy and the title Sunnyside Square.

Searching “Sunny Sandy” led to a handful of beach-focused social media models and a few cloyingly cute children’s books about a yellow cat. He spent what felt like an hour looking through the results only to learn that both the models and the smiling cat in the books looked almost desperately “sunny.”

Searching “Sunnyside Square” at least brought up places, but none were the park that hauntingly graced his dreams. He wondered why a name that was anything but subtle had been used for everything from parking garages to a neighborhood in Cambodia. Still, trying to find anything that would lead him to his Sunnyside Square, he spent an hour—or two—three?—working through every turn on the phrase he could think of.

Pausing for a breath, he looked at the clock in the corner of his screen. 1:52. He had to be back on the campaign trail in a little over six hours for the first of his morning meet-and-greets. He needed to rest. He was going to face a firing line of voters all wanting a piece of him in exchange for their ballot. He could already feel the exhaustion. He felt the dread in his bones. The guilt in his marrow.

Then it came to him. The words that Sunny Sandy used to start every episode of the show. “Welcome to Sunnyside Square—where the sun can never stop shining!” He had always been struck by that phrase. Not “where the sun always shines” or even “where it’s always sunny.” Sandy said the sun could never stop shining. He didn’t know whether that inspired him—or petrified him.

He typed “where the sun can never stop shining” into the search engine. This time there were zero results. If Mikey ever allowed himself to feel anger, he would have felt it then. He had been so sure that that was the one. Standing from the thrifted office chair, he walked to his kitchenette. He wasn’t hungry after all the fried rice, but he wanted to consume.

Reaching towards his dusty counter for the hard candy he had taken on the way out of China Delight, Mikey found an invitation in the dark. After seeing what his father had become, he never drank alcohol, but a corporate client had recently given him a bottle of what Bree had told him was bottom-of-the-barrel red wine. He had wanted to throw it away, but it was a polite gesture. Looking at the glass reflecting the moonlight, Mikey decided he had earned a drink. He was working hard—for Dove Hill, for his parents, for Bree, even for Ryan Scarnes. He was happy to do it, he reminded himself. It was his job. This would make it easier.

He took the bottle back to his desk and took a long drink. He almost spit it out, but he was supposed to like it. Lifting his hand to close his laptop, he noticed it. He figured the search results had refreshed while he was picking his poison. There was one result now. “Keep On the Sunny Side.” A PDF file with the URL https://www.dovehilldaily.com/news/1999/alwaysonthesunnyside. He clicked it.

A black-and-white scan of a newspaper clipping appeared, pinched and pulled in strange places. Whoever had scanned it was shaking. The distortion made him think of the screeching scrapes of a dial-up. He started to read. SANDY MAKES GOOD. He trembled and told himself it was from excitement. He took another drink.

Right below the title and the byline, surrounded by faded text, was a picture. It was her. She was on a stage receiving a bouquet of flowers and a sash that said “Miss Mason County.” She held a friendly-looking puppet at her hourglass side. A dairy cow. He couldn’t be sure through the grayscale, but her ballgown looked pink—almost electric. Her hair was a lighter gray than the rest of the picture.

Mikey’s mind flashed with memory. On TV, she always kept her hair in a stone-stiff blonde beehive. Here, it was natural and flat. Her face was the brightest part. She was happy, or at least she was trying to be. In the caption, the journalist nicknamed her “Sunny Sandy.”

Mikey drank more of the cheap wine and kept reading. The article said that the woman was Sandra Alan. When she was in community college, she had won Miss Macon County and a scholarship to finish her degree in elementary education at the state school. The cow in the picture was her talent: Maggie the Magenta Moo Cow. On the day the article was published—June 22, 1999—her mother had just told the editor that Sandra and Maggie’s show Sunnyside Square had been picked up by the National Television Network. They wanted 20 episodes. Sandra had been in Los Angeles for 5 years, and she had finally caught her dream.

Mikey remembered it all. Sunnyside Square was about a girl named Sunny Sandy and her multi-colored menagerie of farm animal friends. One was Maggie, the cow from the picture. She always sang a song when the mail came. Another was the turtle from the picture: Tommy the Turquoise Turtle. Every episode, Sandy would help one of the animals learn how to be sunny. Whether they were sad, angry, tired, hungry, or hurt, Sandy fixed them.

Mikey had loved the show. He felt like Sandy understood him in a way that no one in the real world did. She knew that all he wanted to do was make people happy.

Mikey looked at her smile again. Even reduced to black and white, it felt like looking directly into the sun. Then he looked at her eyes. They looked at the audience—at him—like an old friend lost in time. Like a ghost who knew his name and saw him too clearly. Mikey finished the bottle and fell asleep.

* * *

That night, he dreamed of the park again. This time, he was in the park. The benches were still white, but they weren’t polite any more. They were like still specters surrounding him—their frames carved from bone. The trees were still green, but they had spread beyond ominous. Their branches formed cages in the air. And the wall—the wall that Mikey finally remembered Sandy and Tommy and Maggie playing on—looked like its bricks had been dyed in blood. Even through his sleep, Mikey felt relief when the park faded into pink. Then the drowning started again.

Wednesday

1999

What felt like mere moments later, Sandra found herself standing in the sunlight and shadows of her childhood bedroom. There were tears in her eyes, but she didn’t remember why. She hadn’t cried before she sang at the funeral. She had felt like she might, and then she had gone away.

The western angle of the sunlight shining over the weeded field outside her window told her that the funeral had ended hours ago. Papa’s footsteps in the stables behind the house sparked flashes of memories.

Papa hugging her after her song. “You did good, girly.” He was crying for the first time in her life. “Mama would be proud.”

The quiet ride back to the little white house that morning. “How are you holding up, Sandra?” Caroline only wanted to be kind. Sandra wanted to let herself cry, let herself be held in her grief. She couldn’t. She wasn’t herself anymore. “I’m fine. Thanks.” Then an impenetrable smile.

The last moments before Caroline drove down the dirt path to home. She was only going to say goodbye to her father. They were shooting again in 12 hours.

The conversation with her father that had just ended moments ago.

“Hey baby. Are you okay?” He pulled her into a hug that felt like home even with the sweat and the smell of cow manure.

“I’m fine, Papa. What can I do for you before we go?” She needed to help him with something. It was all she knew to do.

“Why don’t you just come inside for a spell? Maybe have a glass of lemonade?”

“I’ll come in for a minute, but then we have to go. Our plane leaves in an hour.”

Time froze when they walked through the back door with its screen full of holes. The house was just like she remembered it. Her mother’s purse was still on the kitchen’s oversized white table. The air still smelled of her favorite candle: Yankee’s Vanilla Cupcake. The smell made her feel like a girl again. Like the child she had been before pageants and auditions and the world found her with their spotlights.

“Welcome home, Sandra.” Her father’s voice carried a warm sadness. He was happy to have her home, but they both knew it would never really be home again. She wanted to stay with her father and rest in their shared inexpressible feelings. She couldn’t. Sunnyside Square was waiting.

“Excuse me for a moment.” Her feet knew where she needed to go. She left Caroline and her father in the kitchen and walked down the house’s one hallway.

She walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. For the first time since Monday, she let herself cry. Finding herself in the air of her girlhood, she realized she had gone away again. She hadn’t been herself since her song at the funeral. Everything that had happened since had happened to someone else. Someone who could be who the world needed.

Sandra didn’t know how long she had been crying, but she knew that Caroline and her father were waiting. She couldn’t let them see her like this. Squeezing through the pinch of a path between the vanity and the pink-quilted bed that her mother had kept perfectly made, she looked into the face of an old friend. Her first friend: Rupert the Rabbit. Granny Ruth had given him to her as a baby, and he had waited on her pillow for her even though his red fur had grayed with age.

She turned to the mirror to make herself presentable. She saw someone she didn’t recognize. The woman looked like her, but she was more. Her hair was higher. Her eyes were bigger and brighter. And no matter what Sandra did, the woman in the mirror held a toothy smile that stretched from ear to ear. She was everything Sandra tried to be. She was horrifying—and beautiful.

Sandra had never seen her before, but she had known her as long as she could remember. She was the one who smiled through the pain, who sang at her mother’s funeral, who lied through this morning’s conversations with Caroline and her father. She was Sunny Sandy.

2024

Mikey woke up gasping for air. Finding himself at his desk, he noticed it was too bright outside. Still half asleep, he reached for his phone and saw that it was almost 10:00. Panic. He was two hours late for the meet and greet.

Even then, Mikey couldn’t afford not to take time for appearances. With visions of the twisted park and the pink void lingering in his mind, he showered and shaved while his head reeled from the empty bottle of wine. While he tied his tie in the mirror, he almost thought he saw Sunny Sandy’s smile where his should have been. He reminded himself to smile correctly for the voters. They wanted him happy, but not too happy.

He drove a little too fast to make up for his tardiness. He never sped, but he was not as careful as he would have normally been driving through Primrose Park. The neighborhood demanded decorum. On the north side of Dove Hill, its residents were either wealthy retirees or people who would inevitably become wealthy retirees. The train depot where Bree was hosting the meet and greet was a relic of the town’s early days as a railroad hub. Some time during the great exodus of union jobs, ambitious housewives had decided to build a gated community around the abandoned station—with everything from its own private park to its own private country club.

Mikey knew there would be trouble when he couldn’t find a parking space near the depot. Primrose Park was full of people who would never allow more parking to be built but would always complain about having to walk. Bree had not expected much of a turnout when she planned this event. She knew that most of the neighborhood’s residents would vote for Pruce, the Chamber of Commerce’s preferred candidate. This was a stop that had to be made for appearances. Now though, people were lined up out the door.

Mikey tried to enter the building without demanding attention. He circled the long way around to enter through the back door. He was almost there when a grandmother in a sharp white pantsuit gave him an expectant wave. That was when hungry whispers joined the sound of graceful gossip.

Mikey took a deep breath and opened the wooden door. As he entered, the way his breath felt in his body made him think that Tommy would have liked the train depot before it was transfigured by Primrose Park. He liked trains. Mikey had too.

Of course, Bree had the depot perfectly set for the scene. Mikey was an actor walking onto the stage two hours after his cue. He worried that Bree would notice something wrong. Maybe it would be his wrinkled shirt or the scent of old wine that had clung through his shower. While he tried to fight the memories of his dreams—now joined by pictures of a large purple pig and a red rabbit—part of Mikey wished that his sister would notice.

“You’re late,” Bree stated bluntly from behind the welcome table. It was surrounded by pictures of the man who wasn’t him. His eyes were full of promise. Bree’s were empty. There was no flash of affection this time.

“I know. I’m sorry. I woke—”

“No time for that.” Mikey wished she would be angry with him. It would be better than the annoyance that boiled like a covered pot. Annoyance was all that Bree would show. Walking to the door, she flashed on her smile like she was biting something hard. Mikey followed her lead just like he had done since they were kids.

He turned to shake hands with Bree’s friend who had gotten them into the depot for the event. She worked as the groundskeeper for the neighborhood and knew the residents would relish an opportunity to meet someone who might soon matter. “Thanks for your help today,” Mikey said with words Bree would have found too simple.

“You’re welcome,” Bree’s friend said. She made an empathetic grimace behind Bree’s back. Mikey didn’t let himself laugh.

The air that entered the historically-preserved building when Bree opened the door tasted of pressed flesh. One by one, the Primrose Park residents brought their pushing pleasantries. Bree walked back to the welcome table and noticed that Mikey was matching their effortful energy. She gave him a stern look that felt like a kick. He did his best to smile better.

During the first onslaught of guests, Bree strategically mingled around the room. Bree worked her way to the residents her research said would be most likely to influence the others. Mrs. Gingham who worked as the provost at the school. Mr. Lampton, the Mayor LeBlanc’s deputy chief of staff. Bree’s friend followed her: a tail to a meteor.

Mikey manned his post with force. He greeted each and every resident of Primrose Park with a surgical precision. To one, “Hi there, I’m Mikey Dobson. Nice to meet you!” To another, with a phrase turned just so, “Good morning! I’m Mikey. Thanks for coming out today!” Never anything too intimate or too aloof. Though they came in tired and glistening from the summer heat, the residents seemed to approve of Mikey’s presentation. They at least matched his graceful airs with their own.

He wished he could get to know these people—ask them about their concerns or their hopes for their town. But this was not the time for that. It was certainly not the place. This was the time to be serviceable—just like the trains that used to run through this station. Mechanical and efficient.

Months ago, Mikey would have felt anxious. Now he just felt absent. Every time he shook a hand or gave a respectably distant hug or posed for a picture, he felt himself drift further and further away. By the time the first hour on the conveyor belt ended, he had nearly lost himself in the man on the posters—the man who wasn’t him. That was when he noticed Bree smiling towards him over the shoulder of a grumpy old man with a sharp wooden cane. It was the smile of a satisfied campaign manager, of an A student proud of their final project. The man who wasn’t him was doing well.

When the old married couple at the beginning of the end of the line entered the station, Mikey was nearly gone. “Well, hi there! I’m glad you made it through that line. Thanks for stopping by today!” He had just given the wife a kind squeeze of the hand when he was snatched back to the depot. Reaching for the hand of a handsome young man who smelled like a lobbyist, he saw her in the door frame. Sunny Sandy. She was wearing her signature pink dress.

Mikey correctly exchanged business cards with the lobbyist and gave a cursory look at the VistaPrint creation. When he looked back, Sunny Sandy was gone. She had been replaced with a harried-looking young mother in a couture tracksuit. Only the color was the same. The woman continued down the line.

Another forgotten exchange and she was back. Sunny Sandy with her aura blasting bliss. Mikey knew it was her from her smile. She hadn’t aged in 30 years.

Another disposable photo and she was gone again. The woman in the line looked much too ordinary to be Sunny Sandy. She had had struggles and challenges. And feelings. Still, there was something about her. Like Sandy, she was trying to play her part the best she could.

Mikey gave a firm handshake to the grumpy old man Bree had been talking to. He thought he made a good impression. The man at least said “Thanks, son.”

Then he was standing before the woman. She wasn’t Sunny Sandy, but she had her smile. Up close, it looked different than it had on TV. It was a smile that strained from the pressure on her teeth. A smile of a woman insisting on her own strength. A smile that blinded with its whiteness. Mikey went to shake the woman’s hand, but he could only see her teeth in that dazzling determined smile. Then he could only see white.

* * *

For a moment, Mikey felt relief. While he floated in the liminal white space, he did not have to perform for anyone. Not for the people of Primrose Park, not for Bree, not even for himself. He could just be.

Then he started to remember what he had left behind. Bree was certainly staring stakes into him as he stood there blankly. The young mother was surely doubting voting for a candidate who seemed to be somewhere else. He could feel everyone in the depot watching him. It felt like all of Dove Hill. He hoped the man who wasn’t him could take the pressure better than he had.

Before he could start panicking, the floating ended. His feet landed on firm ground. He closed his eyes and braced himself to continue the performance.

When he opened his eyes, he was not at the depot. He wasn’t sure where he was exactly. He could tell he was outside from the air that smelled like an oak-scented candle and the sun that beat down with a heavy glare.

He was in a grass square enclosed by a brick wall. White benches surrounded him. They looked like they had just been painted. For him. The walled square was surrounded by a larger square made from four rows of buildings. Their facades were stylized down to the individual knots in the wood. A stainless steel staff wrapped by two golden snakes rose from one. Another displayed a tin sign reading “Post Office” in crimson red letters. It was difficult to see through the windows that reflected the harsh shards of light, but most of the buildings looked empty, deeply empty, on the inside.

The sunlight drew Mikey’s eyes to the sky. He expected to have to strain to see the sun, but it was easy. The piercing light wasn’t coming from the sun at all. The sun was a large paper mache ball the color of a cautionary traffic cone. It was surrounded by sharp yellow triangles of construction paper. He remembered that sun from Saturday mornings. He was in Sunnyside Square.

He couldn’t understand the feelings that flooded his brain like the light crashing from everywhere but the sun. There were too many of them.

He was relieved to have landed somewhere after the white abyss. When he found himself in the park from his dream, his legs felt strong beneath him, and his mind stopped racing. That stillness was something he had not felt in years.

He was glad to be in a place he remembered happily. In the Square, he knew how the day would end: with a nap and a snack. When he watched it as a child, everything in Sunnyside Square made sense. It made his world make sense. It made him make sense.

But none of this made sense. He was in a place that didn’t exist. It had never existed in reality; it hadn’t existed in a studio since the 1990s. Mikey felt his stomach wretch as his mind tried to locate his body. While the scene around him was familiar, it was also wrong. It was like a song he learned in music class had been transposed into an atonal scream. On his television, Sunnyside Square had felt full of life. Sunny Sandy and her friends seemed to love playing together in the Square. This place, whatever it was, felt dead. If his Sunnyside Square had been an old friend, this place was that same old friend smiling up from their casket.

As his heart slowed in his chest—he couldn’t tell whether it was from calm or dread, both maybe—he felt something standing behind him. He turned and saw a large wooden door towering above him. A door hadn’t looked so tall since he was a kid. He recognized this one. It was the door to Sunny Sandy’s house that sat right in the middle of the park that sat right in the middle of the square.

Through all the feelings he couldn’t ignore—the comfort and the confusion, the peace and the panic—Mikey felt his hand reach up to the gold knocker: a sunflower with a stem for the handle. Part of him wanted to be welcomed into his friend’s house. Part of him wanted to run and never look back. His hand knocked without his permission.

One. Two. Three.

On what would have been the fourth knock in common time, the door opened to a large hallway in the same dark wood as the door. Like the door, the hallway loomed over Mikey. Its roof was so far above him that it faded into black. All he could see above him was a dark space swirling with dust.

In front of him, a grand staircase followed the roof into the void. Beyond each bannister, the hallway was lined with two rooms forming yet another square. Mikey felt like the walls were closing in to suffocate him in a hug.

He could hear voices from the other rooms. Two quiet clucks from the kitchen. A muttering from the library. Mikey stepped into the threshold to follow a hoot coming from the music room.

The staircase cleared its throat, and the voices ended in a frightened silence. Mikey turned to look. Out of the black, a bubblegum ghost descended the carpeted steps.

Sunny Sandy. For a moment.

When the ghost was near the end of its walk, Mikey felt his feeling. Fear. It was something that might have been Sunny Sandy…before.

Now the figure looked like Sunny Sandy made into a living mannequin. Its thigh-high hot pink dress was frozen into a hard A-frame. It wore electric blue high heels that fixed its legs in a pounce and a large yellow belt that made its waist want to snap. Its hair was formed into a cyclone of a jaundiced beehive that did not move with the air. The only part of the friend Mikey had known that remained was the shape of its smile. Even that was hard; its teeth razor-sharp.

The figure was now facing Mikey. Though its frame was petite, it shadowed him by at least a foot. Mikey felt his limbs stick like plastic.

“Hi friend!” the figure chirped. “Welcome to Sunnyside Square!”

Mikey’s eyes were painted open. “I’m Sunny Sandy!” said the figure that was not Sunny Sandy. “What’s your name?”

Mikey did not want to tell the figure his name. He did not want to invite it inside. Still, even in this place, wherever it was, Mikey had to be polite. He started to ask, “Excuse me. Can you please tell me where I am?”

He couldn’t. When he tried to open his lips, they formed a rictus smile. The feeling reminded him of the meet and greet. He tried again. And again. The whole time, the figure simply stared at him in pedantic expectation. Mikey’s lips trembled in their unwanted expression.

Animals in the wrong colors peeked out from the rooms around him. A red rabbit. An orange owl. A blue turtle: Tommy. These were the friends he remembered. They were still there. With this creature. They watched nervously while hiding from the figure’s gaze.

What had become of Sunny Sandy giggled at Mikey. She was laughing at him. “Silly, Mikey.” She knew his name. “If you can’t say anything nice, you won’t say anything at all.”

From the doorway to the kitchen, Maggie the Magenta Moo Cow waved a hoof nervously. She pointed to herself and mouthed, “Hello, Sandy! My name is…” Her eyes worried for her friend. He should have remembered. It was how every episode started.

“Hello, Sandy! My name is Mikey. It is nice to meet you.” He did his best to mean it. Somehow he knew that Sandy would accept nothing less.

Sandy smiled on cue. Through her glassy eyes, Mikey could tell he had tested her patience. “Nice to meet you, Mikey! We’re going to have a super sunny day today! Because, in Sunnyside Square, the sun can never stop smiling!”

* * *

Before Mikey could try to speak again, he was back in the campaign. He was with Bree in their makeshift office in the civic center. The dust from the boxes of unused festival trinkets formed in the same lines as it had in the black above Sandy’s house.

Bree was pacing in the few square feet of space around the ill-fitting desk. She was in the middle of a critique.

“...believe that Stephanie let us into that depot without warning us. Even if the polling had been right, that shack would have been too small.”

Mikey waited for his review. He recognized Bree’s tone. It wouldn’t be good.

“We had to leave those old people outside in the heat. At least Stephanie could have told me to bring fans and extension cords.”

Bree continued to berate the air for what felt like half an hour before she noticed Mikey. Wherever he had gone, she apparently hadn’t noticed.

When Bree looked at him, Mikey began his apology. “I know… I was awkward. I didn’t ask the right questions. I looked uncomfortable. I—”

“Huh?” Bree asked. “No. You were, you were fine. Good even.”

“Thanks,” Mikey wondered aloud. He had expected to feel the fire that was his sister aiming for an achievement.

“Yeah. It seems like you’ve really gotten the hang of this politician shtick.” She smiled at him like she was impressed he had learned to tie his shoes. He appreciated his big sister for trying to compliment him in the only way she knew how. It was all he was going to get.

“I guess.” Mikey didn’t feel like he had gotten used to anything. Making small talk still felt like speaking a foreign language. Asking for votes was opening a vein. He wouldn’t even try soliciting donations.

The longer Bree paced, the more Mikey allowed himself to forget what had happened in the Square. He told himself that it had just been a daydream—even if it had felt more like a nightmare. He hadn’t dissociated. He had just gone away for a while. That was healthy.

“How did you feel about it?” Bree asked. Mikey had not expected that. He didn’t have time to calculate the correct answer.

“I…I made it,” he said with a forced laugh. “It’s still scary, but I think I’m—”

Like giving directions to the interstate, Bree answered, “You’re doing fine. There’s nothing to be scared of. Just think of all the people in their underwear.”

Mikey had never understood that lesson. He knew Bree had learned it at the community theatre and then passed it onto him, but it never helped. He wished not being scared was as easy as that.

“Yeah. That’s good advice.” Mikey really did love her for trying. It was what she did best.

The Dobson siblings sat in silence for a moment. Bree started to take notes on the rest of the week, strategizing how to make up for the meet and greet. Mikey stared out the window streaked with grime on the inside.

“Uh…” he stammered. Bree looked up for a moment. Mikey tried to look like he was thinking to himself. As he watched out the glass, he saw a rabbit bounce past the window. He decided to take a chance.

“Honestly…” Bree stared at him. Her eyes tried to hide her discomfort. In the Dobsons’ lives, the word “honestly” had never meant anything good.

He pressed on. “I think the stress may be getting to me. Just a little. I’m fine. I probably just need to walk more and eat better.” He thought he should probably stop drinking too.

Bree’s fear broke through. She didn’t scream, but her perpetual momentum paused. “Mikey,” she soothed. “Are you okay?”

He knew what that meant. That’s what she had asked when their parents stopped calling. After the hospital.

One minute, he had been giving a speech for his campaign for student body president. The next he felt like he was going to die at the podium. Then he was in a bed under fluorescent lights. The doctors called it “extreme exhaustion” and gave him a prescription for Prozac. He spent the spring semester of his junior year taking classes from Bree’s apartment.

“I’m good.” He had learned the words that would stop this conversation. “I promise.”

This time, it didn’t work. “If you need to take a break, we can spare a day.” Bree’s offer was genuine, but Mikey could tell it pained her to make it.

When he lost the student election, Bree told him not to blame himself. His parents didn’t say anything. He wondered if they even remembered—or cared. Looking in his sister’s scared eyes, Mikey scolded himself. His mind had cost him his last election. He couldn’t let it cost him this one. He couldn’t be weak again.

“I think you might combust if we did that,” Mikey deflected. “No. I’ll just rest tonight. I can make it to Friday.”

Bree’s eyes were still scared, but she persisted. They really needed to continue the campaign. Everyone was watching them. “Okay. Well then, tomorrow is senior day at the gym…”

* * *

Mikey tried to keep his promise to rest. He put down his phone at 9:00. He took melatonin. He lit a vanilla candle. He even had a large glass of a new bottle of cheap red wine. His mother had always used alcohol to help his father rest when he was particularly…frustrated.

It was no use. Even in the deep black of his apartment, his mind wouldn’t stop showing him pictures. The darkness was the same as the void behind the streets’ manicured storefronts. The burning candle’s soft glow looked like the sourceless light of the handmade sun in the Square. It was like he had never fully left it. He did his best to rest, but his eyes were afraid to close.

Thursday

1999

Sandra only lived fleeting moments of the next day on set. Most of the time, Sunny Sandy stood in for her. Sandra’s soul threatened to break under the tension between her mourning and her determination. Sandy didn’t have to feel anything. She only had to sing and smile.

After a lunch she didn’t remember eating, Sandra realized that surrendering to Sandy was easy. Looking back, she had been doing it her entire life. Every time her mother pinched her for whispering questions during church. Every time a teacher called her stupid. Every time a boy touched her without asking. Sandy was there. Sandy was who she was always meant to be. She was the one the world wanted.

When Dory called for the final scene of the day, Sandy was ready. She sat on her plain wooden stool in front of the green field on the backdrop. It was a country scene painted masterfully by artists who had never been to the country. It was unreal in its perfection. It was made for Sunny Sandy.

At Dory’s reluctant cue, the child actors took their places around her. He had been dreading the children all day. They arced around Sandy like the giant wooden rainbow arced over them all. It was colored with precise, unblemished curves showing every color of the rainbow in a strident technicolor hue. In the middle of its bend, the rainbow had large googly eyes and a small smile with dimples at the ends. It was Granny Rainbow, the character Sandra had created in honor of her Granny Ruth. Now, Sandy, Granny Rainbow, and these children were going to sing the last song of the show’s first season: a reprise of “Put On a Smiling Face.”

“Is Mrs. Nell ready?” Dory called to Caroline.

“Yes sir!” Then into her walkie, “Mrs. Nell to set, please.”

Nonaree Nell glowed as she walked into the sound stage. She was the network’s first country star, and Sandra had watched her with Mama on Sunday nights. Part comedian, part puppeteer, part singer, Nonaree was the woman that had made Sandra want to be on TV. If Nonaree could make it all the way from Cobbler’s Corners, Sandra could make it from Dove Hill.

Standing feet away from Nonaree Nell, Sandra would have made a fool of herself. She would have spoken first or, worse, said she admired Nonaree. Sandy was better than such unprofessional nonsense. This was a job—her job—and she was damn good at it. While Sandra wondered what Mama would say if she could see Nonaree Nell playing the rainbow tribute to her mother, Sandy waited for Dory’s cue.

Nonaree took her place behind Granny Rainbow as Sandy and the children waited. Sandy looked into their eyes. She was teaching them all what it took to succeed. They would carry on her legacy. These children and all the children watching at home on Saturday morning.

Sandra tried to take in the moment. The sweet faces of the children. Her idol only feet away from her. The friends she had made in the cast and crew. She didn’t want to forget it. She wished she had worn something more her style for this scene, but Dory had decided that her thigh-high pink dress was her only costume. Still, she had earned this moment, and she wanted to remember it.

Dory boomed from the director’s chair. “Ready the finale!”

Sandra felt the burning on her skin again. Nonaree was watching her. Dory was watching her. The children were watching her. The entire world was watching her. It hurt. She wanted her Mama to be there with her to celebrate just like she had been for all of the pageants. She was gone. She wasn’t coming back. Sandra reviled herself. She was supposed to be happy, but she was too weak.

“Action!”

Sandy smiled into the camera and waited for her cue. Like with Maggie, Granny Rainbow would sing the first round of the song, and she would join in the second. The children would join in the third. Granny Rainbow started up.

If you’re not feeling happy today…

Her voice was wrong. It wasn’t the award-winning croon of Nonaree Nell. It was brash, offkey. It sounded like Sunday mornings and uncomfortable dresses. It sounded like singing hymns in St. Bee’s. It sounded like her mother. Was she there after all? Breaking character, Sandra reached her head to look at Nonaree.

The children looked confused. Dory looked furious. “Cut! Damn it, Sandra…”

Sandra’s heart broke. Of course her mother wasn’t there. Behind the technicolor rainbow, there was only her idol looking frustrated. Sandra had known it all along. She wanted this, but she couldn’t handle it. She had made a mistake. She had failed.

For the last time.

They wanted a doll. Someone who could smile even when she wanted to scream. She had tried to be her. She had tried to be Sunny Sandy. She couldn’t. She had too many feelings, too much of a heart. She was made of flesh. The world needed plastic. She couldn’t break down. Not where they could see.

She needed to run. To hide. But where could she run? Cast and crew were waiting on either side of the stage. Dory was standing in front of her glaring. With her world spinning and nowhere else to go, she turned towards the cloth field behind her.

She saw a door. Or at least the shape of one. It was a deep shadow of a rectangle. Somehow it appeared inside the field. She reached her hand forward. It went inside. She followed.

She didn’t know where she was going, but she left Sunnyside Square. She took what was left of her heart and ran. Behind her, she heard a voice that sounded like hers—only prettier. “Sorry about that, Dory.” The voice giggled. “Let’s take it from the top?”

She heard the crew reset the stage. “Reset! We roll in two!” They didn’t even notice she was gone. Her show would go on without her. It had what it needed. It had Sunny Sandy.

2024

Mikey woke when his alarm rang at 6:00. Senior day started early. Sleep had claimed him, but he was more tired than the day before.

He pitched himself out of bed and lumbered to the kitchenette. He almost fell asleep waiting on the coffee machine. His legs buckled when he fell asleep in the shower. As he wrestled the morning, he admitted it was a fight he was going to lose. He had won perfect attendance awards every year in grade school. His mother had never believed in sick days. That morning, Mikey knew she had been wrong.

He picked up his phone from where he had thrown it into his sheets. Bree had sent her morning briefing at 4:45. She survived on coffee and high-functioning anxiety. Mikey texted back.

“Hey. Feeling sick. Can’t make it. Sorry.” Bree read the message immediately. He thought of calling her. It would have been the nice thing to do. The right thing. But he couldn’t bear to hear her voice. This time, there wouldn’t even be any anger to hide in. She would know something was wrong. He turned his phone on vibrate and tossed it on the couch.

He sat down and noticed that his head had stopped spinning. He hadn’t realized it had been reeling like what he had heard of hangovers. He didn’t remember drinking that much the night before, but the empty bottle waited for him in bed.

Still, this wasn’t a hangover. It was less than that. And more. He didn’t just feel loopy. He felt like he was in the wrong place.

When he turned on the TV, the sound split his head with an axe. He turned down the volume, but the noise barely obeyed. Still, he needed the distraction. He clicked through the infomercials and syndicated sitcoms. Most people his age never even had a cord to cut, but Dove Hill local news and C-SPAN were free on cable. He hadn’t watched anything else since those Saturday mornings with Bree.

Joni Jarrett was just signing off when Mikey found channel 3. Mikey always felt bad for her having to start her day in the dark. During the hour’s changeover, the channel aired the low-budget ads for the dentist and the school and the national spots for fast food and a new diabetes medication. The fifth ad was different though.

In it, a large man whose stomach was too big for his suit stood in front of a lot full of clearly used cars. The oversaturated light and amateur production value proved it was local, but there wasn’t a used car dealership in 100 miles of Dove Hill. The man’s hair piece shook as he shouted his pitch. Mikey felt nauseous watching it shiver.

“Hey, hey, hey! Come on down to Papa’s Playhouse where the low prices aren’t pretend!” Mikey’s head cracked again as Papa’s shout made the TV impossibly louder. Under a slithering saxophone solo, the screen showed a line of cars that looked like they were manufactured well before the turn of the millennium. “Hurry quick because we aren’t hiding these deals! Seek them now before they’re gone!”

Mikey breathed a sigh of relief when Papa left the screen. It was 7:00: time for the channel 3 news. The music should have been the Muzak jingle that the station had used since the 1970s. Instead, it was Sunny Sandy singing her theme song. The piano that played along came from somewhere in Mikey’s apartment.

* * *

By the time the ghostly piano played its last phrase, Mikey was back in the center of the Square. No time had passed in the last day of his life. When he opened his eyes, Sandy’s were staring at him like he was a statue she was carving from stone.

“Now!” she said in a mechanical squee. “Where are my other friends?” Mikey knew it was time for another call-and-response. “Say it with me.”

After the compelled introduction, Mikey didn’t even try to fight. He remembered his part. Together, the two shouted, “Howdy dee! Howdy day! Where is everyone today?” When Sandy’s voice rose, it sounded like she was projecting to the last aisle of a crowded theatre.

The piano started up again. Its sound was distant. Was it still playing from his apartment? Or from the black above them? As its invisible mallets struck its hidden strings, the animals emerged from their rooms. One by one, they bounced towards Sandy and encircled her and Mikey. He could tell that they had also learned to not struggle against their matriarch.

Maggie stood to Mikey’s right side. Tommy was to his left. The others—now including a purple pig and a silver spider—completed the embrace. Mikey realized he had never seen them in full. They weren’t humanoid. They each kept their characteristic shapes. Maggie, Tommy, and the pig on all fours; the owl and the chickens on their talons; and the rabbit on its haunches. They weren’t humans, but they were people. With hearts and minds they were clinging to under Sandy’s uncompromising benevolence. Even before he was brought to the Square, Mikey knew that pain. These were his allies.

“Thank you for joining us, friends!” Sandy believed it was a kindness to pretend like they had a choice. In the past, one of them might have corrected her. Now they didn’t dare. “I’d like you to meet our new friend: Mikey Dobson!” The animals smiled at him with a commiserating kindness. “He’s a very good boy.” He didn’t want to know what Sandy would become if he wasn’t.

“Now what are we going to do today?” Mikey remembered that this is where every episode really started. Every day in Sunnyside Square started with a game, and each had very specific rules. Mikey had always liked that part of the show. He looked around the circle expecting one of his friends to answer Sandy’s question. When their lips pinched in silent fear, he remembered that this wasn’t the Square he had known.

“Oh! I know!” Her voice was that of a fairytale princess who had become an authoritarian monarch. “We’ll play Hide and Seek!” The animals stood quiet for a fleeting moment before the light coming from Sandy’s eyes turned harsh with confident expectation. Mikey’s friends cheered as demanded. He followed their lead.

The red rabbit raised his paw and asked eagerly, “Sandy! Sandy! Can I please help teach our new friend the rules?” Mikey noticed his foot thumping anxiously.

“Oh! That is such a sunny idea!” Sunny said. “Thank you, Rupert! That will be a very nice thing to do!” Rupert concealed a flinch when she gave his head a firm tap.

“Now, do we all remember the rules? I’m going to close my eyes and count to 100. Then you’ll all hide somewhere you feel safe. Then I’ll come find you.” There was a threatening fist in the velvet glove of that promise. “Mikey, Rupert will teach you the rest.” She giggled eagerly.

The animals nodded politely, and Mikey played along. Sandy placed her hands over her eyes like the young playmate she still should have been. “One, two—”

This was Mikey’s chance. He broke through the circle and towards the imposing front door. He took a short sigh of relief when he found it unlocked. As he ran out, he looked on with confusion at his animal friends walking grudgingly to their hiding spots. Didn’t they want to leave too?

Rupert was the only one to match Mikey’s speed. He called out to Mikey as the two ran out of the park. “Wait! Stop! That’s not how the game works. Not anymore…” Mikey didn’t stop to listen.

He first tried to hide in the post office right across the street from Sandy’s house. He flung open the door and started to enter. He had forgotten about the black behind the buildings. He caught his foot just as it was about to fall into an abyss swirling with trails of dust. Catching his breath for only a moment, he slammed the door as he ran around the Square.

Rupert did his best to follow along. “Mikey, let me help you. You know I’m your friend.” He wanted to trust Rupert, but he couldn’t trust anyone here.

Sandy was coming. Her voice blared from her house like a tornado siren. “Twenty-two, twenty-three…”

Mikey passed more doors into the void. One for a bakery that didn’t exist. Another for what looked like a school. Then a church with a golden plaque reading “St. Beatrice’s.” All the while, Rupert hopped frantically behind him. “Please…”

Mikey only stopped when he came to a long window with a real room behind it. It looked like a library. Like Mrs. Brown’s bookstore. He threw himself through the door as its bell tingled above him. Rupert finally caught up to him when he was hiding between two bookshelves that must not have been touched for an eternity. From his hiding spot, Mikey could see the back of Sandy’s house through the window. Her garden was filled with statues of kind-looking creatures that he assumed were animals.

Sandy’s voice shined on. “Sixty-six, sixty-seven…”

Rupert hopped up to Mikey. With Mikey crouching, they were almost nose to nose. “Thank you. I was trying to follow you.”

“You’re welcome?” Mikey asked. Something old inside him knew he shouldn’t be afraid of Rupert, but he knew it wasn’t safe to trust him. It had been years since he had truly trusted anyone but Bree.

“Now listen,” Rupert continued. “Hiding like this is not going to work. That’s not how Hide and Seek works. Not now.” Mikey eyed him suspiciously. “The Square is too small for that. It’s not just about hiding your body. It’s about hiding your feelings. You have to be sunny. If she sees you looking scared or upset or angry or anything else…” Rupert’s muzzle quivered.

“Then…what happens?” Mikey asked.

“You’re Out.”

“Out? What does that mean?”

“Seventy-nine, eighty…”

Rupert huffed with frightened impatience. “We’re running out of time.” Mikey’s survival instincts held him in place. His bones told he should take up less space.

“Out,” Rupert explained desperately. “Into the black behind the buildings. It’s dark and dusty and—”

“Ninety-nine, one hundred. Ready or not, here I come!”

Mikey couldn’t move. Rupert matched his voice to the speed of his pounding feet. “Time and space don’t exist. It’s just you and the light beams too far above to see. You forget who you are: your thoughts, your feelings…even your name. Before long, you’re just…fine. Fine…but empty.”

Rupert’s ears twitched when he heard Sandy’s heels clacking on the bricks outside. Mikey saw the front of her pink skirt intrude into the window.

“Mikey,” Rupert begged. “You have to feel better. Now.”

Sandy heard Rupert’s whisper shake. Mikey saw her turn her rosy cheeks to stare through them. “Silly, Mikey! Silly, Rupert! There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just Sunny Sandy!” She continued her cheerful walk down the sidewalk.

Mikey lunged from his hiding spot between the shelves and shouldered past Rupert. “I’m sorry. For everything.” He bolted out the door so narrowly that he could smell Sandy as she reached for him. She smelled like a candy-scented permanent marker.

Mikey ran down the brick sidewalks and past more doors to Out. He didn’t know where he was going. He just had to get away from Sandy. As he turned the corner, his foot caught on the bend in the path. He tried to catch himself, but his elbow struck the ground. His arm vibrated down to the bone.

He heard Sandy’s heels walking up behind him. He couldn’t bear to look. “Oops! Did Mikey hurt himself? That’s what happens when you make mistakes. I’ll fix it.” Her sweetness made him want to vomit.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, he was back in his apartment. His heart was making his entire chest shake. He felt his phone vibrating from the other side of the couch. He didn’t have to look to know it was Bree. When it stopped, he saw that she had called twenty times in the last two hours. Had it only been that long?

He pressed the screen to call her back. Apparently she was not going to let him be sick alone. She answered halfway through the first ring.

“Hey, brother.” There was the worry he had been dreading. It only lasted a minute before the fixing started. “We need to get you feeling better now. We’re supposed to have the walk-through of the auditorium today. What do you need?”

“Hey Bree. Sorry I missed your calls. I was resting.”

“It’s fine. What can I do? What do you need to feel better?” He could hear her biting the impatience in her tongue. Bree always wanted to fix the problem. Understanding it wasn’t important. Mikey knew this wasn’t the kind of problem Bree could fix. She couldn’t so much as understand it even if he could explain it somehow.

“I’m okay. I slept in, and it helped. What happened with the seniors?”

“Don’t worry about it. I made it work. What matters is tomorrow night. Are you going to be able to debate?” It was more a demand than a question, but it was a demand from desperation. Mikey couldn’t let his sister—or himself—down. Not again.

“Yeah. Of course. I’ll be fine. I’m going to go into the office to catch up on some work. Then I’ll meet you at the high school.” He tried to convince them both with false confidence. Part of him hoped Bree would hear the dishonesty.

“Okay. That sounds smart.” She paused. “Mikey…” He could hear the uncertainty in her breath. He wished she would ask again, demand he tell her the truth. It was the only way he could.

“What’s up?”

“Remember, tonight is at 6. Don’t be late.”

He knew better. “See you then.”

Mikey didn’t bother to shave or change before he went to the office. He knew Dove Hill well enough to know he wouldn’t see anyone on his route on a Thursday morning. Still, he put on some deodorant and a baseball cap just in case.

When he arrived, he was still reeling. By then, he knew it couldn’t be from the wine more than twelve before. He thought he might be even less stable without it lingering in his blood. The dizziness was from hide and seek with Sandy. As he climbed the weathered stone stairs, his shoelace caught in one of the cracks. He tried to catch himself but landed on his elbow. Exactly where he had struck it running out of the bookstore. His eyes squeezed shut in fresh pain.

* * *

He was still feeling the crash when he opened his eyes to see the inside of a doctor’s office. Or at least a caricature of one. The walls were a sickly sky blue painted with large clouds. The clouds would have been a comfort if they were not lined like sheet metal. Between the sharp clouds were anatomical diagrams of what he thought were supposed to be humans. The artist had seen a human but never been one. Instead of ligaments and skin, the people in the diagrams were made of large colorful shapes arranged in the frames of men and women.

Someone was holding a sign in front of Mikey. He had seen something like it when he saw Dr. Tate as a boy. It showed six cartoons of Mikey’s face ranging from a Mikey with a crying Mikey on the left to a smiling Mikey on the right. The crying Mikey was the picture of pure pain. The smiling Mikey’s lips were stretched so tightly that the skin was splitting around them. It was Sandy’s smile. From left to right, the Mikeys were labeled “Bad,” “At Least You’re Trying,” “Not There Yet,” “Good Effort,” “Almost Enough,” and “Good.” Sandy’s pink-pointed finger was hovering between “At Least You’re Trying” and “Not There Yet.”

“Dr. Percy,” Sandy chimed. She sounded like the pleading ingenue she had been once. “You can make Mikey better, can’t you?” Mikey looked up from the sign and saw Sandy talking to a purple pig in a doctor’s coat standing on his hind hooves. His other animal friends were standing along the walls waiting on their turn to speak. Mikey wasn’t sure if they had chosen their silence.

“Of course, I can,” Dr. Percy answered with over-rehearsed confidence. Sandy’s tone had told him the answer. She coughed politely to tell him to finish his line. Dr Percy looked at Mikey and smiled through, “I’m a doctor. I can always make you feel better.” His voice carried a sad knowledge.

“Oh good! I know we can always count on you, Dr. Percy!” Sandy cheered. The other animals joined in her ritual joy. Mikey knew he had to play along.

“Thank you, Dr. Percy. I am so thankful for your work.” As he reached his other hand to shake Dr. Percy’s hoof, Mikey’s broken elbow throbbed in improper pain. Sandy discreetly pursed her lips when Mikey recoiled before completing the gesture.

“You’re welcome, Mikey,” Dr. Percy sighed. “It’s what I’m here for.”

“Shouldn’t we call for Nurse Silvia?” Sandy dictated.

“I suppose so.”

On cue, Dr. Percy and the rest of Mikey’s friends joined Sandy in calling, “Oh, Nurse Silvia!” Immediately, a silver spider with the calm air of a veteran nurse entered the room through the white wooden door.

“Yes?” she said hopefully. Mikey could tell she wanted to help. She hoped she would be allowed to.

“We need your help to fix our friend Mikey,” Sandy explained. “You always know just what to do.”

With Sandy’s last sentence, the hope left Silvia’s eyes. She knew that she was not going to be allowed to do what needed to be done. Only what Sandy demanded ever so sweetly.

“Okay, everyone.” Silvia recited. She looked at the rest of the animals as though she were teaching teenagers about the letter S. She knew how unreal this was. “We know how we heal our friends in the Square. Count with me now!”

The animals started counting in unison. “One.” Mikey saw Sandy pucker her lips. “Two.” She reached down to his elbow. His nerves screamed for him to move it, but he knew he couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been nice. “Three.” On three, Sandy kissed the part of Mikey’s bone that had broken through his skin. Somewhere, the piano played a triumphant melody.

“There,” Sandy said with pride. “All better.” Mikey felt nothing. The bone was still.

He looked into Sandy’s eyes. He expected to see malice or spite. The look of someone gloating in their punishment of his transgressions. What he saw made his blood stop cold. Sandy truly thought she had cured him. She thought she had helped.

Before Mikey’s blood could continue pumping, Sandy and the animals erupted in cheer. They all thanked Sandy and told her how special she was. Sandy grandly turned to Dr. Percy and Silvia. “No, no, friends. I didn’t do anything. It was all Dr. Percy and Nurse Silvia. Let’s thank them together.”

“Thank you, Dr. Percy and Nurse Silvia!” the whole room chorused. The two helpers beamed painfully through the applause.

Dr. Percy knew his next line. “Of course, it’s our job.”

Nurse Silvia didn’t want to speak. She had to. “You’ll always feel better when you go to the doctor.” The hairs on Mikey’s neck raised with the sense of watching eyes.

* * *

When the stone surface rematerialized under his palms, Mikey still sensed that he was being watched. He turned his head to see a sweaty young man in a tight tank top staring at him like the animals had stared at him in Dr. Percy’s office. “I’m good. Just checking the foundation,” Mikey shouted with attempted ease. The man waved and jogged away. Mikey went to wave back and felt his arm tighten. It was still sore, but it wasn’t broken. When he looked down, there was no sign it ever was.

His blood rushed to his head as he stood up. If he had been dizzy when he fell, he had become a spinning top. His stomach convulsed either from motion sickness or from the afterimage of what he had last seen in the Square. When he walked under the ringing entry bell and lumbered his way to his desk, he felt like he needed something to steady his nerves. He remembered a bottle of champagne he had opened months ago to celebrate a win in an employment discrimination lawsuit. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk. It was still there. Looking in the dusty bottle, he could tell it had gone bad. None of the bubbles had survived. The bottle’s lip tasted like mothballs, and the liquid felt like stale water on his tongue. He drank it anyway.

He settled in to work before realizing he had left his laptop in his car. He figured it would be fine. What was the worst that could happen? Still determined to play his part, he opened an unmarked file he had tossed to the side of his desk. Inside he found the purchase agreement for Quality Care’s acquisition of Dr. Tate’s clinic. Mikey wondered if Dr. Percy ever had to deal with buyouts. He laughed to himself as he realized that Sandy would never allow such a thing. His eyes grew heavy as he pored over the bulletproof boilerplate he had written.

* * *

Before he could turn to the second page of jumbled jargon, he was back in Sandy’s house. Someone had taken him from Dr. Percy’s clinic and tucked him into a bed that was too big for his body. His feet only reached halfway down, and his limbs drowned in the sharply starched white sheets. The bed set in the dead center of a room lined in the same haunted sky and cutting clouds as the clinic. Above Mikey’s head loomed a large letter M carved into the ceiling’s dark wood. This was his room. He wondered how many other people had their own rooms in Sandy’s house.

He could feel the artificial sunlight coming in from a large heart-shaped window to his left. In his periphery, he could see that the window opened onto the spherical cage formed by the park’s tree limbs. He remembered that the stairs from the entranceway rose into black. From there, he hadn’t been able to see a second story. How was he on one? Was his room the only one with a roof?

As his heart raced to a higher tempo, Mikey tried to soothe his rising fear by looking out the window. He pushed up with his arms only to feel the unhinged bone shift. No one had closed his wound since Sandy’s failed kiss. He opened his mouth to scream, but he remembered the rule. “If you can’t say anything nice, you won’t say anything at all.” After the last time, he didn’t bother to try.

He laid his head back on his pillow. It felt like it was filled with fiberglass insulation. He winced before remembering this was probably the safest place in the Square. At least he was alone. At least Sandy didn’t light up the dark room with her blinding effervescence.

Mikey heard scuttling coming from the window sill he couldn’t see. He held his breath and felt six points of pressure on his foot. They were soft and pliable like fingers made of the fuzzy pipes he had once used in arts and crafts. The fingers crawled up his leg, then onto his stomach, then through the valleys of skin over his rib cage.

His nerves began to form a scream in his throat. There was a spider crawling near his mouth. “Shh…” it said calmly. He noticed that, in the barely sunlit room, her silver felt made her look like an old woman. Like the kind of nurse you only see in picture books. “It’s okay, honey,” she whispered. “You’re safe here.” Nurse Silvia sitting on his chest. 

Mikey’s eyes flashed with remembered fear. Sandy couldn’t see him in the dark, and she couldn’t hear him in the quiet. But could she still feel him? Silvia recognized the terror in his eyes. “It’s alright, Mikey. I know you’re scared. You’d be a fool not to be. But Sandy can only feel what she can see. That’s all that’s left of her.” There was a sadness in this last assurance. “Now let me fix you up for real.”

Mikey’s nerves started to relax. There was a spider in his bed, but she was a friend. He remembered that she had wanted to help him in the clinic. She just hadn’t been allowed. “Thank you, Silvia.” It was the first genuine thing Mikey had said in the Square.

“It’s what I do,” Silvia answered. “Come on now. I can’t move the sheet myself.” Mikey lifted the sheet to expose his bare bone to Silvia.

“Is that okay?” he asked.

“That’ll do, dearie. Now,” she said as she climbed onto the end of his bone. “This will sting a bit.” Mikey nodded. He chose to trust Silvia.

His spider friend then began to weave a cast around his elbow. As she spun it tighter and tighter, the bones began to line up again. Mikey couldn’t tell where her silk came from, but it shone like faint moonlight in the dimness of the room. When she was finished, Mikey realized he had not been breathing. This time, it wasn’t from fear. It was from awe. And gratitude. His arm still hurt, but he could already feel it healing.

“There now,” she cooed. “That should be a start.” She scurried back onto his chest.

After a silent moment, Mikey began to find his words again. “How—how did you do that? It was incredible.” He had been terrified to let her so close to him even though he knew she was a friend. It didn’t make sense. She was a spider nurse crawling on his chest in a giant’s bed sitting in a dark room in a place he knew didn’t exist. But letting her touch his wound had let her help it start healing.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time, Mikey,” Silvia said with pride. “Sandy doesn’t like my methods, so she takes care of the healing herself.”

“Or she tries to.”

“She tries her best. She just doesn’t understand that healing isn’t pretty. It’s messy, even ugly. But it’s real. And it helps. Never perfectly and certainly never easily. But it helps if you let it.

Mikey hoped what Silvia said was true. He needed to heal a lot more than his elbow.

Silvia continued to smile at him with a grandmother’s warmth. “Now, try to get some rest. It’s nap time now. Sandy will call us for snack time soon.” Silvia climbed out the window, and, for just a fleeting moment, Mikey felt calm—even in the Square.

Friday

1999

She kept running. She didn’t know where the darkness would lead her. She only knew she had to escape. From the set, from the crew, from Dory, from Sunny Sandy. Time changed while she ran into the black. She couldn’t tell how, but she knew it didn’t matter anymore.

When her feet started to hurt, she kicked off her heels. The sight of the pink prisons disappearing into the void gave her energy to keep running. When the sweat started to pool on her head, she threw her wig into the abyss and kept running. She was freer than she ever remembered being. Before that moment, she would have worried what her makeup looked like after such exertion. Now, like time, it didn’t matter anymore.

By the time she saw the light, she had broken herself from everything except her dress. The surface she was running on turned to loose dirt before she found herself in a familiar clearing. The smell of the pine trees told her she was home. The little white house waited for her in the center of the circle made by the tree trunks. It was different though.

The breeze didn’t rustle in the grass. The birds didn’t chip, and the cows didn’t low. Her mother didn’t sing inside. Her father’s work boots didn’t tramp around the stables.

Sandra looked behind her to see where she had come from. Only the blackness waited there. She knew she could never go back. Sandy had won her place. She would be good.

Walking up the old wooden stairs, she saw a butterfly perched on the rusted door handle. She decided to wait for it to move. She didn’t have anywhere else to be. She was home, and she would never leave again.

2024

Mikey found himself back at his desk as faint rays of light peeked into his office’s cracked window. As he reoriented himself from his deep sleep, he was at peace.

Then it all came back to him. It was the next morning, and he had missed the walk-through with Bree. He looked at the grandfather clock his landlord had left him. 10:30. He had missed his spot with Dotty Doyle. His nerves all firing at once, he jolted upright in his sagging chair. On his desk, he saw the Quality Care contract and the bottle of turned champagne. It was empty. He must have drunk it all. He didn’t remember anything after starting to read the contract.

Pushing himself to stand, he felt a tickle in the cuff of his sleeve. A large, skeletal spider walked out. A soft smile crossed Mikey’s face. Then he saw his phone on the desk. Champagne had dripped onto it. He wiped it off on his pants and braced himself.

He had 33 missed calls and 109 missed texts. Some were from Bree, but the rest were from people he hadn’t talked to in months—years even. His one friend from high school. His law school study group. His parents. Something must have gone horribly wrong. He opened the text from his mother.

“You are going to win this election!” Cartoon balloons flooded the screen. “I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!” Mikey didn’t know how to feel. His mother hadn’t said anything like that since the hospital. After the screaming encouragement, she had sent a link to an article from the town’s online-only newspaper, The Laurel. Even in the website’s muted millennial color palette, the headline blared at him.

MIKEY MAKES GOOD.

Scrolling past the headline, he saw a picture of a young boy in what were surely his best over-ironed church clothes. The boy was dressed in pastels and sat before a plastic screen printed with an unending grass field and a smiling rainbow overhead. He was posed perfectly, smiling from ear to ear. The smile looked like it hurt. Mikey didn’t recognize the boy, but he knew it was him from a lifetime ago.

“A bombshell detonated in Dove Hill politics today. On veteran journalist Dotty Doyle’s morning show, hometown girl Bree Dobson, currently managing her brother Mikey’s campaign for the state legislature, shared her candidate’s mental health history.”

Mikey’s heart stopped. Then it raged.

“Dobson explained that Mikey’s diagnoses of insomnia and generalized anxiety disorder have kept him from attending several recent campaign events. She apologized for any inconvenience but thanked the good people of Dove Hill for their love and support. In her conversation with Doyle, Dobson said, ‘I’m proud of my brother. Here in the heartland, we don’t talk about mental health enough. He’s man enough to take responsibility for himself and fight on to represent the people of our hometown. This is only a hiccup. Mikey is happy and healthy, and, this Friday night, he is going to show everyone what he’s made of.’”

How could Bree do this? His mind wasn’t anyone’s business but his. Not Bree’s. Not his parents’. Certainly not Dove Hill’s.

“After Bree ended her morning appearance, the campaign shared a statement from the candidate himself. ‘I want to thank all of my friends, family, and supporters for their encouragement during this time. Like everyone else, I get sick. Sometimes it’s a head cold. Sometimes it's just my head. But, no matter what, I always fight through. My struggles have made me stronger and made me want to fight for our beautiful town. I’ve fought for myself and come through better. Now I want to do the same for Dove Hill.’”

The picture under this quote was the man from all the social media ads and flyers that had been going up around his hometown. The man who had his name. The man he didn’t know. In the picture, the man beamed as though he had never seen a cloudy day. Mikey’s blood boiled. He could feel magma erupting through his veins. It felt like his father had described his heart attack.

He fought to steady himself as he returned to the unwanted congratulations. In his email, he found endorsement announcements from everyone from incumbent legislators to the state’s leading mental health advocacy group. Endorsements like these didn’t come quickly. If they were all rolling out on the same day, Bree had been working on this for weeks. It had been her failsafe. At the end of the day, it was her campaign.

As he was rereading the words that she had excised through his throat, Bree called again. “What the hell, Bree!” he shouted. He didn’t remember the last time he had shouted. It sounded wrong.

“Well hello to you too,” she snarked back. “Thank you for finally answering my call.”

“What have you done?” His voice thundered with furious betrayal.

“What had to be done. And you’re welcome.”

“Welcome for what?!? That was my story to tell. You have no idea how it feels to live with that.”

“Oh? May I remind you that I’ve been living with it just as long as you have. I lived with it when you couldn’t.”

Mikey paused. She was right. After everything she’d done, he owed this to her.

“I…I’m sorry. You’re right. You’ve been there with me from the beginning. You’ve always fixed things for me.” Still, it was his story to tell. Wasn’t it?

“It’s okay. I’m sorry that it surprised you. I had to do something when you missed the spot with Dotty. I would’ve told you if you had answered.”

“I know.” He wanted to believe her.

“But, hey…” Bree was done with this part of the conversation. “Good news! Everyone loved it. Especially your statement. It’s been shared over 1000 times on socials. It’s even trending in other states. People are inspired. You’re helping people. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

It was. He just never thought it would be like this. That it would feel like he was the medicine instead of the doctor. Like he was a tool in someone else’s hands.

“It is. I…I’m happy with how it turned out.”

“Me too,” she said. “People love healing narratives. The authentic. They just want it be pretty. That’s where I come in.”

She was right. This was Mikey’s story, but Bree told it better. That’s what people wanted. And he wanted to be whatever people wanted.

“Again, I’m sorry for blowing up at you. And for not answering your calls. Or your texts.” The world was still confusing, but he could never forget how to apologize.

“It’s okay, Mikey. I’m proud of you. Mom and Dad even called to say they saw the article in The Laurel. Mom sounded…as happy as she ever does.” In the short silence that followed, they were siblings again. Just a brother and a sister mourning the warmth they had never known. “Now are you okay? We can’t have you missing any more events. Especially not the debate.”

“I’m fine. I just fell asleep at my desk. Hard I guess. You know how tough this campaign is better than anyone.”

“Well, that’s okay. Just rest up for tonight. You’re going to be good.”

* * *

“You’re going to be good.” As he drove down Main Street, he turned the words over and around in his head. It was the campaign promise of his life. He was going to be good. Even if it hurt. Even if it scarred. Even if it left him not recognizing himself. He was going to be good. He didn’t have a choice.

On the way to his apartment, he stopped at the liquor store. When he made it home, he paced his bedroom while he should have been practicing his talking points. In a way, he was practicing them.

Point one: he was thankful that he could count on Bree to fix things for him. Point two: he was eager to serve Dove Hill—whatever it cost. Point three: He was exactly where he was supposed to be. Closing: that night, he was going to be good. Every time his mind wound its way back to that existential truth, he took a drink. By the time he was tying his best ragged black shoes, the bottle was empty.

He knew that driving after emptying a bottle wasn’t safe, but he had made up his mind. He had to show everyone how strong he was. He hadn’t been weak again.

Bree welcomed him when he arrived at the auditorium. “Good news!” she cheered, pulling him in for a  hug. “You’re leading in the polls for the first time. If you do well tonight, you can win this race.” Just days ago, he thought he still had a chance, maybe a choice.

“I’m going to be good. I promise.” He wasn’t going to let her down this time. For a second, his sister looked at him like she didn’t fully recognize him. Like something had changed. He was more certain than she had ever seen him.

“Alright, then. I’m glad to see you sharp and ready to go!” She couldn’t tell it was certitude in surrender.

Trying to convince himself he wanted this, he took his place on the stage. His opponent, Senator Pruce, had the easy bearing of someone who hadn’t faced a challenge anytime in his career—or his life. Looking out into the audience, Mikey noticed it was only a third full. Still, it felt like the whole world was watching him. Like a billion eyes were burning his skin.

At 7:00 pm sharp, Dotty Doyle began talking to the camera, her oldest friend. “Good evening, Dove Hill. I’m Dotty Doyle.”

“And I’m Joni Jarrett,” Joni Jarrett chimed in. Dotty Doyle could barely hide her disdain for her younger colleague.

Dotty continued. “And welcome to debate night in Mason County. Tonight, our town’s two candidates for Dove Hill’s seat in the state senate are squaring off. In one corner, we have 12-time incumbent Edmund Pruce.” Senator Pruce waved as the high school student operating the spotlight turned it onto him. He glowed as though the entire town was his birthright. Behind him, his official portrait frowned on the projector screen.

“Good evening, Senator!” Joni chirped to Dotty’s annoyance. Senator Pruce eyed her luridly.

“And in this corner, riding a wave following a courageous personal revelation, we have Dove Hill’s own Mikey Dobson!” Even a consummate professional like Dotty couldn’t hide her preference for Mikey. Joni clapped like Sunny Sandy in Dr. Percy’s clinic.

He looked behind him. The screen broadcasted a large picture of the man he had come to accept was him. He recognized the desperate, toothy smile. As he looked on, resigning to his fate, the smile on the screen grew wider and wider. Its skin started to tear. Blood pooled at the corners. Mikey came back to himself.

He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be him. Somewhere above him, music started. The ghostly piano. If you’re not feeling happy today, just put on a smiling face… The spotlight turned its blinding beam onto him. All he could see was white.

* * *

The only thing that told Mikey he had left the auditorium was the smell. Instead of the scent of sweat soaked into old chairs, he was surrounded by the saccharine smell of artificial vanilla. He knew he was back in Sandy’s house before he opened his eyes. When he did, he saw a large white wooden rectangle the size of a conference room table. Looking down, he saw that he was sitting in a matching chair that was too big for his body. He felt like a child someone had sat down for a snack. His animal friends sat around him: Maggie, Rupert, Silvia, Percy. Tommy sat right beside him. If Mikey was too small for his chair, his friends were dwarfed by theirs. Further down the table, Mikey saw an orange owl and a green horse he didn’t recognize. Mikey felt more at home with these friends than he had in the high school. At least they knew he needed help. He didn’t have to hide from them. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. They knew he was imperfect, and they accepted him anyway.

He noticed they were all looking patiently at the head of the table. He followed their eyes and remembered why he had been afraid of coming back here. At the other end of the table, Sandy was sitting proudly with perfect posture. Her chair was painted pink and fit her like a throne. Her eyes wandered around the table. A judge examining livestock at a county fair—scouring each of Mikey’s friends for any imperfect feeling, any emotion that didn’t belong in her pastel playland. She turned her face to him. He fought the fear that flooded over him at the sight of her manic eyes and slicing smile. Around her table, joy was a demand. He did his best to obey.

Apparently he did well enough because Sandy kindly moved along. She then raised a large crystal glass of milk and struck it ceremoniously with her knifepoint pink nails. The ruffles of her dress shook with the motion. After a polite cough, she proclaimed, “Alrighty, friends! We’ve had a lot of fun today. Now it’s snack time! We all know what to do.” She gave Mikey a knowing look. “Let’s all call Maple and Mabel together.”

Mikey and his friends joined her. “Oh, Maple and Mabel!” Two plump chickens walked into the room then. They both looked painted: one the color of corn syrup and one the color of coal. Other than their colors, they looked like ordinary chickens who should have been flapping their wings and clucking to each other. Instead, they were as silent and as lifelike as marionettes. They walked around the table and gave each animal a large tan cookie. In turn, the animals said, “Thank you, Mable!” to the black chicken or “Thank you, Maple!” to the brown one. Sandy’s work had been fruitful. He couldn’t tell if his friends were genuinely grateful for their cookies or not.

After Maple gave Sandy her cookie, the chickens walked noiselessly back into what Mikey hoped was the kitchen. “Okie dokie!” Sandy cheered. “Everybody eat up!” The animals bit into their cookies in unison. Their expressions were blank. Sandy savored her snack. Mikey followed a moment behind and sunk his teeth into his, expecting the flavor to match the overwhelming aroma of peanut butter.

It felt like coarse sand in his mouth. He almost choked on it. When he picked up his napkin to spit it out, Tommy poked his flipper into Mikey’s side. His eyes were a warning. Realizing his mistake, Mikey darted his eyes towards Sandy. She was lost in the flavor of her cookie, somehow enjoying it in a way that nothing purely human could. Mikey braced himself and swallowed the bark-flavored paste that had coagulated on his tongue. He leaned down to whisper where Tommy’s ear should have been.

“What is this? How are you eating it?”

Tommy looked at Mikey like he was a child asking why they needed to shelter from a tornado. “It’s sawdust. Sandy only allows food that won’t make you grow. She wants us all to be small forever so she can take care of us. Eventually, you get used to it. It’s all you have.”

Mikey’s fear broke into sadness. Sadness for his friends who were left with no other choices. Even sadness for Sandy who thought she was helping. He was still afraid of her, but it was a fear mixed with heartbroken compassion. She was doing what she was made to do.

He looked across the table to the glinting glass window that overlooked Sandy’s garden. He had seen it from Rupert’s bookstore, but he could truly see it now. The statues had looked like animals from a distance—like memorials to Mikey’s friends. Looking more closely, he could see that they were humans: people of all kinds, from every gender, age, race. Anyone could see themselves in Sandy’s garden. They had looked like animals from across the street because their postures were not natural. They were contorted into shapes of uncanny joy, shapes that humans were not supposed to make. One statue faced the window like he was eagerly waiting for his snack. His eyes were wet.

Sandy chirped again just as Mikey began to see something moving in the statue’s eyes. “Friends, we’ve had another sunny day in Sunnyside Square, haven’t we?”

Mikey and his friends all nodded enthusiastically and muttered their gratitude. They knew their lines.

“Now it’s time to share our sunniness with each other. Just like we do every day, we’re going to go around the table and everyone’s going to share something they’re thankful for.” Something he was thankful for? Like being silenced? Like his broken arm? Like sawdust? “And, remember,” Sandy continued. “No repeating. Everyone has their own sunshine to share.” Mikey’s heart beat between anger and panic. What was he going to say? What could he say?

Sitting next to Sandy, the orange owl whose name was Orville said that he was thankful for Sandy. Sandy liked that and gave Orville a kiss on the cheek. Orville squeezed his eyes shut as she bent towards him. The green horse was next. Her name was Gertie, and she was thankful for the cookies. Every one of Mikey’s friends made their offering. They had had practice. By the time it was Mikey’s turn, he sat in silent terror. He had to be grateful, or Sandy would help him.

Then he realized that he did have something to be thankful for. Something that none of his friends could have ever known. “I’m thankful for my friends,” he said with plain honesty. “I’m so thankful that you all taught me how to be sunny in Sunnyside Square.” He may not have wanted to be sunny, but it was better than what would happen if he wasn’t. He really was grateful. He was feeling just as Sandy demanded.

“Oh!” Sandy giggled happily. “That’s so sweet! That’s what Sunnyside Square is all about. Learning how to be sunny.” Sandy almost moved along to Rupert before something in her shifted. “But, Mikey…what do you mean that our friends taught you to be sunny? Being sunny happens inside of you.”

The animals looked at Mikey with petrified eyes. Their felt bodies twitched with fear. They wanted to say something, even to make a gesture. They couldn’t. Sandy was watching them all. Mikey didn’t understand. For once, he knew he was doing exactly what was expected of him.

“Y-yeah,” he stuttered. “Everyone here helped me today. Maggie, Rupert, Tommy, they all showed me how to play in Sunnyside Square. They’re my friends.” They looked at him like he had stabbed them all in their backs with one fell swoop. They didn’t even try to hide their terror any longer. It was too late.

“But…” Sandy stammered, her voice unsure for the first time. “If…if…if,” she was like a malfunctioning computer. Then her voice fell with the gravity of a crashing star. “Everyone in the Square is supposed to learn the rules themselves. That’s the reason I cr—the reason the Square exists. To help people learn to be sunny.” She rose from her pink throne. Her petite frame and pillar of blonde hair loomed over them. She was mutating. Mikey looked at her wide-eyed. His friends looked like they were saying their last rites. “If they,” she said with derision, “helped you, that would be cheating. And cheating is lying.” With every pinched sentence, the volume and pitch of her voice rose until they composed a howling siren. “And friends don’t lie to each other. And if you’re not my friends…” She turned to the animals with a quiet sentence. “Then you can’t be here.”

Mikey looked for reassurance from his friends around the table. They were as frightened as he was. No one knew what Sandy would do. Her smile had shattered.

She stomped her foot. An otherworldly whoosh thundered through the room, and one by one, Mikey’s friends…changed. A moment before they had been alive. Animals, yes. Frightened, yes. But alive. Now, they were…empty. They each lay flatly in their chairs like scavenged carcasses. They had been his friends. Under Sandy’s fury, they had become nothing more than puppets. Lifeless piles of felt. Mikey looked down at Tommy. He could see the hole where a puppeteer’s hand should have been.

Mikey stood up and tried to shout. “What have you done?!? Put them back! Put them back now!” He couldn’t open his mouth. Sandy didn’t want to hear angry words. He could only smile from ear to ear while he saw red.

“I’m sorry, Mikey,” Sandy said. It made him angrier that she meant it. She had turned back into the figure he had met on his first day in the Square. Deathly sweet. “They weren’t good for you. They had to go.”

Mikey began to cry through his smile. He had done the right thing. He had done exactly what Sandy wanted. And he had still lost his friends. He had killed his friends. He had been strong and still broken.

“It’s okay, though,” Sandy said as she walked across the dining room towards him. “You tried so hard to be sunny, and that makes you very special. Since I built the Square, I’ve had lots and lots of friends who did their best to be sunny. It’s just so hard when you have all those ugly feelings inside.” He didn’t know what to say. Or think. Or feel. She was comforting him like a mother, but there was a fatal certainty in her words. “So, when one of my friends has a day like yours, I help them become something better.” She hugged him. He stood like a stone, but her limbs were as heavy as lead. When she released him, she gestured towards the garden. “After a few more days, you’ll get to join them!” He knew why the statues looked so alive. “I’m so happy for you!” she cheered and clapped her hands together in pride.

His instincts took control. He pushed past Sandy whose small cloud of a skirt poofed when she hit the floor. He ran out of the dining room, through the entranceway, and out of Sandy’s house. He sped through the park and onto the sidewalks of the Square. He didn’t know where he was going. He just had to get away from her. He couldn’t let her help him.

* * *

“Mr. Dobson…” Dotty Doyle prompted. “Mr. Dob…Mikey…” The show had to go on. Mikey didn’t respond. He was in the Square. If he had known the audience was staring at him, he would have thought they were judging him, rejecting him. He would not have been able to see the fear and concern in their faces. Senator Pruce stood awkwardly and waited for someone to tell him what to do. He had made a career out of that after all. Mikey smiled into the spotlight.

When she could tell that something had gone wrong, Bree rushed onto the stage. The audience could tell that she was no longer playing the part of campaign manager. Now, she was only a big sister scared for her brother. Before Bree could get to him, Mikey collapsed behind the podium almost striking his chin on the way down. Even Senator Pruce gasped and reached to help him. With all her might, Bree lifted her brother into her arms. She looked like a girl under his lanky frame. As Bree carried him off, Mikey vomited through his tight lips.

“May I help you, Ms. Dobson?” Senator Pruce asked, eager to prove himself a responsive and caring leader.

“No comment.”

“Is Mikey alright?” Dotty Doyle echoed. She didn’t want to seem cold. The whole town had been watching Mikey. Now it feared for him.

“No comment.”

As Bree carried her brother down the stage stairs, Joni Jarrett came to her. She had left her microphone at Dotty’s table. “Bree, how can I help? Should I call an ambulance? Are you…”

“No comment!” Bree snapped.

Joni frowned. She hadn’t been performing. “I’m sorry. I…”

* * *

“It’s okay, Mikey!” Sandy’s voice clapped like thunder through the air. Mikey was panting as he ran past the clinic, but he could still hear Sandy as though she were right behind him. “You were so close today. We’ll just try again tomorrow!”

Mikey had decided there would not be a tomorrow. He was going to leave now. Sandy’s giggle echoed so loudly that the earth shook under him. Bricks in the sidewalk began to come loose. Above him, the paper mache sun began moving backwards. Back to where it was when he had first been brought to the Square.

As he turned the corner by Rupert’s bookstore, he heard the theme song. The piano started to play. Sandy started to sing. “If you’re not feeling happy today, just put on a smiling face…” Running past doors to nowhere, Mikey knew that he would never leave the Square if the show started again. At the end of the sidewalk, he saw a dark shadow. He didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t the Square. He bolted towards it.

“It’ll make the pain go away before you forget to say…” Just as Sandy finished her last phrase and the sun that didn’t shine assumed its position, Mikey threw himself into the shadow.

He found himself in an impossibly dark alley. Overhead, he could see faint beams of focused, yellow light. He walked through the dust that tried to enter his lungs. Then he remembered what Rupert had said. This was Out.

Mikey's knees buckled under him as he recalled what Rupert had said. He didn’t want to be Out, but he couldn’t be in the Square anymore. He reached his arms out to see if there were any other ways to safety. His fingers brushed against dusty brick. The only way was forward. He walked on.

Just as Rupert had said, he started to forget himself. He forgot about the campaign. He even forgot about Dove Hill. But he knew he had to walk on.

He reminded himself to place one foot in front of the other. He had to keep walking on even if he was forgetting how. By the time he forgot what time was, he found himself feeling empty. Happy but empty. He walked on. Something inside of him told him there was something better. Something more real waiting for him.

Just as he was about to forget his name, Mikey saw light coming from the end of the alley. It was a faint light barely breaking through the dark, but it was there. It was real.

When he stepped out of the alley, he found himself in a clearing surrounded by a rough ring of pine trees. The sun shone through clouds overhead. Its light fell softly but warmed his body.

He looked behind him to see what he had survived. From the other side, Out was just a brick-lined walkway, a path through the dark. It almost felt welcoming, but Mikey knew he didn’t belong there. Not anymore.

He turned back to look at the clearing surrounding him. It was full of wildflowers and unkempt flower beds with early signs of life. In the middle of the garden stood a small, plain house. It was made of the same white wood so popular in Sandy’s Square, but its wood was roughly weathered and unevenly painted. It had been lived in. It had survived. A large flutter of butterflies flew around the house in all directions. They weren’t trying to be beautiful. They simply were.

Mikey felt at home in the garden. He had thought he felt at home in Dove Hill and then, for a moment, in the Square. But this was different. In those places, home was being loved for being exactly what everyone told you to be. It was belonging through obedience. Here, wherever it was, home was being free. Free to do nothing more than breathe. And to be loved anyway.

He felt the screened door to the simple house calling to him. He walked up the stairs kept together with rusty nails. He knocked three times on the door.

One. Two. Three.

Nothing happened. Mikey sighed. He had been foolish to expect anything more. No one could live in a place this peaceful.

Then he heard a voice from inside. “One second, hon!” It was the voice of an old, tired woman, but it sounded bright. When the woman opened the door, Mikey knew her instantly. He didn’t yet know her name, but he knew she was a woman who had lived a hard life and yet, somehow, held on to joy. Her long blonde hair was tied in a messy ponytail, and she wore a thin white button-down shirt and torn blue jeans. She wasn’t glamorous. She wasn’t even especially pretty. And her nails and her home were unmanicured. But she was happy.

“Hey there, baby!” she said warmly. She was a person who had never met a stranger. “How do you do?” she reached out her wrinkled hand to shake Mikey’s. “I’m Sandra Alan.”

Mikey put his hand in hers and shook unsteadily. He thought he had escaped the Square. He had just entered a new one. Sandra could feel the fear in his pulse. “It’s okay, sweetie.” Sandra patted his hand gently. “If you don’t want to shake, you don’t have to. Hell, you can turn around and leave if you want.” She smiled at him playfully. She meant those words.

Before he knew what he was doing, Mikey threw himself onto Sandra and hugged her. She had felt his fear but not judged him. She had given him a choice. Sandra put her small arms around him. Mikey was much taller than her four-foot frame.

“Now, now, it’s alright.” Sandra took a step back and placed her hands on Mikey’s shoulders. “You’re not there anymore. You’re safe.” Mikey stared at her and wiped the tears that had begun to form in his eyes. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions. You wait on the porch and I’ll bring us some coffee.”

Nodding tiredly, Mikey stepped back onto Sandra’s porch and found two weather-eaten rocking chairs. He sat on one and listened to the faint sound of Sandra pouring their coffee. A few minutes later, Sandra walked through the screen door holding a silver coffee service with chipped mugs and a spotted coffee pot. She poured Mikey his cup and sat down in the other rocking chair. She patted his leg with calm firmness.

“Alright,” she said. “Whatcha got?”

Mikey had so many questions. He thought he ought to understand who this was first. “Are you her…?”

“Starting with the hard one, huh?” Sandra laughed kindly. “Well, yes. And no.” Mikey held his breath for her next words. “My name is Sandra Alan. The local papers called me Sunny Sandy during my pageant days. That was a long time ago.” Mikey thought she was trying to be self-deprecating. He gave her a polite laugh. “It’s okay, Mikey. I know I’m not that funny.” That made him laugh from his belly. “They called me that because I was always grinning, even when my heels were hurting or the spotlight was in my eyes. My parents were old-fashioned, so they made sure I knew how a good kid was supposed to smile.”

Mikey started to relax. Even if this woman was some strange relative of the Sandy he had just escaped, she knew what his life had been like. It had been her life too.

Sandra continued telling her story. “Well, before you knew it, a talent scout from the big city saw me at one of my pageants. He was real impressed by my talent: my puppet friend Maggie.” Mikey’s heart hurt as he started to tell Sandra what had happened to her friend. “It’s okay, Mikey,” she said like she had been expecting it. “Sandy and I have been through this day more than a few times by now.”

“So…” Mikey said after listening so far into Sandra’s story. “If you’re Sandra Alan, the TV host, what’s…she?”

Sandra sighed sadly. “That’s what’s hard to explain, Mikey. She’s…me. Or, part of me.” She could see the confusion in Mikey’s eyes. “I know that doesn’t make very much sense, but it’s the best I can say. I gave every piece of myself to make Sunnyside Square. I didn’t even stay with my Papa after my Mama’s funeral so I could get back to the city for the finale shoot. Me and Papa didn’t talk much after that. Looking back, every time I told myself I wasn’t sad or angry or hurt, I sacrificed more of my life to the show. To the Square.”

“I know the feeling.” Mikey had been doing the same with the campaign.

“One day, I couldn’t do it anymore. My heart just couldn’t take it. I ran away and wound up here. The next day, I tried to go back, but the studio was gone. There was only the Square. When I saw Sandy, I knew what she was. She was what I had become making the show. She was the part of me that wouldn’t let myself be anything but sunny. She told me she could help me be like her. I ended up running back here.”

Mikey could see the resignation in Sandra’s eyes. A sadness that said she deserved that day. “Well, you can come back now, can’t you?” he said hopefully. “I know Dove Hill would love to see you again. No one’s heard from you in decades.”

“That’s very kind, Mikey,” Sandra said as she gently blew a butterfly off the rim of her coffee cup. “But I can’t. After the Square brought me here…” She couldn’t continue. Mikey didn’t need her to. He knew Sandy had stolen her world.

“Well, can I stay with you?” He thought she needed a friend, but he also didn’t want to face what he had to go back to.

“You can…” Sandra explained. “But I don’t think you really want to. You still have a life to live. Your firm, your parents, Bree.”

“I don’t know. I think all they love is who they want me to be.”

“That’s because that’s the only person you’ve let them know. You’ve never been yourself with them. Or with anyone. And I’m afraid that’s partially my fault. You should be allowed to feel however you feel. Sunny or not.” Sandra set down her coffee cup and took Mikey’s hands in hers. “I’m sorry she—I didn’t teach you that.”

“You did the best you knew how.”

“I did, but now you can do something different. Live your life honestly. Let the people you love know how you feel even if it’s hard. Be wild and messy and real. That’s the only way to really be good. For yourself or anyone else.”

Her words crashed into him like water breaking over a dam. She was right. He had never trusted himself to let anyone know him. He wondered if he could do anything more.

“Mikey, I’m never leaving here.” Her hands held his like she was pleading for him to save his own life. “You still can.”

After

Mikey opened his eyes to see that dim fluorescent lights had replaced the gentle sunlight on Sandy’s porch. He noticed the taste of coffee on his tongue. The only coffee he had had in days came from Sandra.

“Hey there, look who’s awake.” Someone else was holding his hands instead of his new friend. It was a plump older nurse who had a look like she had not expected to be seen. “Sorry to bother you, sweetie. I was just adjusting your bedding. But looks like you’ll be going home soon.” Mikey smiled confusedly at her. She scurried away to call the doctor.

Mikey looked around him as his heart sank in his chest. He was back in the hospital. He had promised himself that he would never come back, and there he was. His memory flashed with the last sights he could recall before the Square: the heat of a blinding spotlight from the floor of the stage, Dotty Doyle and Senator Pruce’s faces hiding irritation, someone lifting him.

Searching his memory, he saw Bree’s frightened face above his. She had carried him off the stage. She had had to carry him again—like she always did. He had let her down. She had given her life for the campaign, and he had killed it with his weakness. His failure. If anyone could save the campaign now, it was Bree. But he knew too much damage had been done. He laughed at himself with wry derision. He had wanted the campaign to end.

Before long, the nurse returned with a doctor who must have been near the end of his long career. His chipped nameplate read “P. Shelley.” While the nurse checked Mikey’s vitals and helped him dress, Dr. Shelley told Mikey what everyone in town already knew. Generalized anxiety disorder. Insomnia. And what only Mikey had known. The struggle that hadn’t been presentable: extreme exhaustion, severe dehydration, dissociative symptoms, high blood alcohol levels. Dr. Shelley had Mikey sign some forms he didn’t care to read and then continued on to his next patient. Watching Dr. Shelley walk away, Mikey noticed that the linoleum floors were just the same as they were five years earlier. So was he.

The old nurse explained Mikey’s prescriptions to him and advised him against alcohol consumption with the patient exasperation of a high school guidance counselor. Mikey nodded and waited for her to finish. Her warning was unnecessary. The taste of coffee had cleared way for the taste of bile in his throat. After remembering the feeling of vomit pouring through his locked teeth, he wasn’t going to drink again anytime soon.

The nurse walked him out to the lobby to retrieve his personal effects. Mikey could hear a caller shouting at the receptionist through the landline. The receptionist gave Mikey a friendly smile and handed him a large plastic bag with his watch, phone, and wallet. Taking out his things, Mikey saw the visitor log through the bag’s clear plastic. A hospital this size normally didn’t have many visitors, but the same name was written for every day that week: Bree Dobson. Mikey’s stomach twisted into a knot of guilt.

Mikey turned on his phone out of habit. No one had called. Not even his parents. Relieved, he turned his phone back off. He wasn’t talking to anyone. The nurse helped him close the clasp of his watch. He didn’t need her to, but he appreciated her trying to help. “Thank you, Ms… I’m sorry I didn’t get your name.”

“Silvia,” she said. Mikey gave her a familiar smile. “Thank you, Silvia. For everything.”

When he was almost out the waiting room door, Silvia called to him. “Hey sweetie…” She beckoned him back and lowered her voice to a whisper. Standing closer to her, he could smell cigarette smoke on her scrubs. “If you don’t mind me asking, what was that song you kept singing?”

“Um…I don’t remember. Was I singing? Sorry about that.”

“No, no. It’s okay. I was just curious. You kept singing to yourself while you were out. I thought I almost recognized the song. It was something like, ‘If you’re not feeling happy today, just put on a smiling face…’” Silvia didn’t have any idea of what that song meant.

Mikey intended to keep it that way. “I have no idea. Sorry.”

“Oh, it’s okay, hon. Now you go home and get some rest.” She gave him a kind squeeze on the arm.

He left the hospital with the sinking feeling that he would be back soon. He had thought he had handled his mental health—closed the file and checked the box for that part of his life. Apparently, it was a problem he would never solve. Walking to his car, he fought to keep the refrain of Sandy’s song from circling his mind.

He forgot it for a moment when he opened his car door and the heat almost knocked him out again. He should have remembered what a warm Mason County fall did to a locked car. When the song started to start up again, he turned on the radio. The station had been on public radio for years, but he turned it to the classic country station his mother had played when he had been a boy. One of her favorite songs was playing.

“Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side…”

* * *

Once he got to his apartment, Mikey lost all sense of time. It didn’t matter anymore. He had left his laptop in his car and didn’t want to see all the emails from concerned clients asking about finding new representation. The campaign was over. His parents hadn’t called even after what they surely saw on the TV. And he certainly couldn’t talk to Bree—or even face her. Her disappointment would be unbearable. He badly wanted to drink. He was thankful that he couldn’t bring himself to go to the liquor store.

Though he couldn’t see the sun rise or fall through his curtains, he felt like days had passed since the hospital. He just sat. Sometimes his mind showed him images of the local press reporting on his collapse and the campaign’s implosion. Sometimes he saw pictures of his parents going about their social lives as their associates conspicuously avoided his name in conversation. Most often, he saw Bree desperately holding the campaign together with prayers and press releases. He wished her the best. He couldn’t do it any more.

* * *

He heard a knock at the door. He ignored it. It was probably a canvasser for Pruce or one of the ballot initiatives. They would go away eventually.

The knock came again. Mikey couldn’t move. He was sure whoever was out there had already judged him. He couldn’t do anything to impress them.

“Mikey,” the person at the door shouted. “I know you’re in there. You know I have a key…” It was Bree. She was angry. He thought about trying to hide before realizing how childish that would have been. He heard Bree’s key in the lock.

“Have you just been sitting here in the dark?” she scolded as she let herself in. “I’ve been trying to call you for the last thirty minutes. I went to the hospital, and they told me you had checked yourself out. What do you think—” She saw her brother sitting silently. She sat down her purse and sat by him.

“I’m sorry,” Mikey muttered.

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” She put her arm around his shoulders in an awkward attempt at warmth. “I was just scared when I couldn’t find you.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m just glad you’re alright.”

They sat in silence for a long moment. Neither of them had ever been taught how to handle this. They had been taught how to fight fear, how to power through pain. Never how to feel it.

“Mikey…” Bree said quietly. She was using all of her effort to form her emotions into words. “Um…”

With nothing left to prove, Mikey hugged his sister. She hugged him back. In that instant, they didn’t need words.

“I’m sorry…” Bree continued as she instinctively held back her tears.

“It’s okay—”

“No, it’s not okay. Thank you, but no. I’m sorry for overworking you. I’m sorry for ignoring you when you tried to talk to me. I heard your words, but I didn’t listen for your feelings. I was scared to. I just tried to fix it. I thought that—all of this was what we were supposed to do.”

“I know. I did too.” They were sharing the same secret. “So, what happens to the campaign now? I’m sure you’ve been working overtime since I imploded.”

Bree caught the self-deprecation in her brother’s words. “Hey,” she said with protective anger. “Don’t say that. You didn’t implode. You let go. And I’m proud of you. The campaign doesn’t matter right now. You can decide what to do about it later.”

It felt like a weight was lifted from his lungs. He breathed freely for the first time he could remember.

“Mikey, are you okay?”

There was the question again. But it sounded different this time. Bree wasn’t asking it like she was expecting him to say his next line. She was asking to understand. To listen.

“I…” Mikey wanted to meet his sister in her honesty. It took all of the little strength he had left to say the words he had to say. “I don’t know.”

Even in this unfamiliar vulnerability, he was afraid of what Bree would say. Saying he didn’t know was saying nothing. It didn’t give her anything to fix. It was only a confession.

“That’s okay.” Her voice told him he had no need for a pardon. “When you figure it out, I’ll be here for you.”

Looking at his sister in the darkness, Mikey saw someone he had never seen before. It was still Bree, but it was like they were meeting each other for the first time. Not a fragile fallen angel and a wonder woman of steel. Just two people who saw each other’s broken hearts and loved each other anyway. Just a brother and a sister.

They sat in silence for another long moment before Bree stood up and walked to the curtains. “Mind if I open these? We need some light.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

When she opened the curtains, the amber sunlight of late afternoon peeked through the window. Behind her head, Mikey saw a butterfly fly through the light. The soft warmth that fell on his skin felt like Sandra’s smile.