The morning of the curriculum vote, John woke earlier than he needed to.
He lay in bed for a while, staring at the ceiling.
The draft was finished.
Harold had reviewed it three times.
There was nothing left to change.
John got up, made coffee, and read the newspaper.
A small story on page four mentioned the meeting.
He folded the paper and put it in his bag.
The committee room was larger than he’d expected.
It was a high ceilinged space with rows of chairs, a long table at the front, and microphones for the officials.
John sat near the back in the last row, where he could see the room without being easily noticed.
Harold sat at the front, his suit slightly rumpled.
He looked calm, but John could see the way his fingers tapped against the table.
He was nervous too.
The draft was discussed, reviewed, and debated.
A few people asked questions, and Harold fielded them one by one.
Then the chair called for a vote.
Hands went up.
The draft was approved unanimously.
John felt his shoulders finally relax.
Then the room went quiet.
A door at the side opened, and the governor walked in.
He wasn’t supposed to be there, at least not according to the agenda.
But he was.
He walked to the front of the room, shook hands with the committee chair, and said something John couldn’t hear.
The room murmured.
The governor sat down at the table and leaned toward the microphone.
“I’ve read the draft,” he said.
“I wanted to come here and say this in person. This is the clearest, most useful piece of policy I’ve seen come out of this department in a long time.”
He paused.
“I know the person who wrote it isn’t an elected official. But I wanted to meet whoever it was.”
Harold turned and scanned the back of the room.
He found John.
He nodded.
John stood.
He didn’t walk to the front.
He didn’t need to.
The governor stood and walked down the aisle toward him.
He was shorter than John had imagined, but his handshake was firm.
“Thank you,” the governor said.
“Where did you come from?”
“Oregon,” John said.
“Originally.”
“And you’re staying here?”
“I’d like to.”
The governor nodded.
“Good. We need people who can write things other people can actually read.”
The room broke into scattered applause.
That evening, John went home alone.
He made himself a simple dinner of eggs, toast, and a cup of tea.
He sat at the table with his notebook and a pen, trying to write something.
Nothing came.
He tried to read a book.
He tried listening to the radio.
He tried to focus on anything other than the feeling inside him that had no name.
It wasn’t loneliness.
It wasn’t sadness.
It was something else.
He went to bed early, but he couldn’t sleep.
The headache started sometime around midnight.
At first, it came slowly.
A dull pressure at the back of his skull, like the beginning of a cold.
He rolled over and tried to ignore it, but it kept building, pressing forward and settling behind his eyes like something trying to push its way out.
By one in the morning, he was sitting up in bed with his palms pressed against his temples.
He saw the truck.
The headlights.
The moment before impact.
He saw Sarah’s face.
Not the way she’d looked when he’d last seen her, with the tired, distant expression she’d worn during the final months of their marriage.
He saw her as she’d been when they first met.
Young.
Laughing.
So alive that it hurt to remember.
Then he heard Emily’s voice, a phrase from years ago.
“Daddy, can you tuck me in?”
He felt the weight of a child in his arms, the softness of hair against his cheek.
He smelled the laundry, the baby shampoo, the faint scent of Sarah’s rose perfume.
Then everything went dark.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he heard the knocking.
It seemed far away at first, as though it belonged to another world.
Then it grew louder.
More insistent.
He heard his name.
Someone was calling his name.
He opened his eyes.
He was on the floor.
The carpet was rough against his cheek, and his head was throbbing.
The door opened.
Kate stood in the doorway, her face pale in the darkness.
She must have used the key he’d given her, the one he’d forgotten he’d given her.
“Sam.”
She was beside him in a second, one hand on his forehead, her voice low and steady.
He tried to focus on her face.
It was blurry.
Then sharp.
Then blurry again.
“Can you sit up?”
He tried.
He managed it, but it took longer than it should have.
Kate helped him to the couch, one arm around his back, her grip surprisingly strong.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Headache,” he said.
“I had a headache.”
“Sam, you were on the floor. You were shaking.”
He didn’t remember that.
He didn’t remember a lot of things.
She left the room and came back with a towel.
She wet it in the sink, wrung it out, and folded it across his forehead.
The cold felt sharp against his skin.
“Don’t move.”
She sat beside him, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her body, her hand resting lightly on his arm.
They stayed like that for a long time.
John closed his eyes.
The headache was still there, but it wasn’t getting worse.
“Are you going to tell me what that was?” Kate asked quietly.
He opened his eyes.
“I don’t know what it was.”
“You were talking in your sleep before I woke you up.”
“What was I saying?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t understand it.”
She paused.
“You kept saying, ‘I need to go back.'”
John closed his eyes again.
The towel was warm now.
He felt the weight of Kate’s hand on his arm.
He thought about telling her.
All of it.
The crash.
The farm.
The months spent pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
The nights lying awake in a stranger’s body, trying to remember the face of his own child.
But he didn’t.
He simply said, “I’m okay now. You can go home.”
“I’m not going home.”
Her voice was calm but firm.
“You’re not okay. You won’t be okay for a while. I’m staying here.”
He was too tired to argue.