It gave me a tree-falls-in-the-forest feeling. If a guy kisses you on painkillers, and the next day he doesn’t remember, did it really happen? Or, just as important: If a guy confesses having a thing for you but then, the next time you see him, he looks for all the world like he couldn’t care less … how can you possibly know what to believe?

Honestly, based on his expression, I’d have sworn he was utterly indifferent to me.

Indifferent—with maybe a touch of nausea.

What would he remember if he didn’t remember?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

“How are you?” I asked then. “Any trouble with the—?” I touched my palm to my side.

“No. All fine. Just some bruising.” He could have been talking to his doctor.

“You fell over a couple of times,” I said, watching to see if it sparked anything. “Once when you were trying to get undressed.”

Duncan frowned.

“So, no complications? You’re all good?”

“Yep.” He nodded, not meeting my eyes.

“Any pain?”

“Some.”

“And did you remember to text your sister?”

Now he looked over at me. “My sister?”

Two words. An improvement. “Yeah. She called a bunch of times. You told me to tell her you’d text her later.”

He frowned. “How did that happen?”

“When your phone rang, I answered it.”

“You talked to her?”

“Yes, I talked to her. For a while.”

“What did she say?”

Now it was getting fun. She’d said a lot of things, actually. “She told me about that time in high school you and Jake accidentally mooned your math teacher and got suspended.”

Duncan closed his eyes for a second, and I won’t lie: it felt good to get a reaction out of him—any reaction at all.

But not good enough.

Being around a warm, doped-up version of Duncan had been good—and I didn’t even really register how good until that guy was gone. Being around the robotic Duncan just made me want the human version back even more. I’d been unable to stop thinking about him, feeling a glow of affection that had stayed bright all week. Until now.

I missed the other Duncan.

It created a tightness of frustration in my body.

And so I decided to mess with him a little.

“Thank you for all the hugs, by the way.”

Duncan held very still at that idea.

“And thank you,” I went on, “for being so open and honest about your feelings.”

I gave him a second to ponder what feelings, exactly, I might be referring to.

“And thank you for giving me your succulent collection.”

That got his attention. He looked over at me. “Is that—? You took them?”

“For safekeeping. You’ll be pleased to know I haven’t watered them all week.”

Duncan nodded, like he wasn’t sure if he was pleased or not.

“Also,” I added then, “I saw your scars.”

Duncan got very still.

“But you wouldn’t really talk about what happened.”

Duncan nodded. “I never talk about it.”

“Don’t you think maybe you should?”

“Nope.” Then he turned to me and said, “I will never talk about that. Okay?”

“Not with me,” I said. “But maybe with a professional.”

He gave a curt head shake. “Nope. Not my style.”

I tried to make my voice sound pleasant and informational. “I get it. But I need to tell you something. Babette wants you to get into therapy.”

“Babette?”

“She does,” I said. “And she’s very … all-powerful. She doesn’t make a big thing of it, but she’s basically God around here. She owns this school. And she owns the board of directors.”

Duncan waited.

“Everybody thinks that the board passed her over for you. But that’s not what happened. They begged her to come run the place. She just declined.”

“Understandable,” Duncan said, thinking.

“That’s right. Right? Bad timing.”

Duncan nodded. “Very.”

“But she explained something to me the other night that I didn’t know. They wanted her to run the school then, and they still want her to run the school now. And all she has to do is say the word, and you’re out.”

Duncan turned to look straight at me. “What about Kent Buckley?”

“Kent Buckley only thinks he’s in charge. The board is loyal to Babette. They’ll do anything she says.”

“So, what are you saying?”

And here’s where I had to work really hard to be convincing: “I’m saying your job is on the line. And she’s very tempted to fire you. But she won’t … if you agree to some simple terms.”

“What terms?”

“Well, one: She wants you to get into therapy.” I handed over the business card of Babette’s guy.

Duncan took it. Looked down at it. Read it.

Wow. Life sure was easy when you had Babette in your corner.

I nodded. “Two, she wants you to lay off with the changes to the school—for now. Just put all that stuff on the back burner. No more painting things gray.”

Duncan studied me for a second, then let out a breath, and said, “Okay.”

Looking back, it was maybe a little too easy to get him on board.

But at the time, I just thought, Everything in life should go this smoothly.

“And three,” I said, “she wants you to promise that every single day, you will do one thing that she asks you to do.”

“Like what?”

“Probably something small, like eat a bowl of ice cream.”

“Babette wants me to eat a bowl of ice cream?”

“Or do other things. Maybe something bigger.”

“Bigger, like what?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Swim in the ocean, maybe? Go fishing? Play mini-golf?”

Duncan frowned.

“Nothing terrible. She’s not going to ask you to murder anyone or anything.”

Duncan considered it.

“Not to be pushy, but I’m not really sure you have much choice here.”

“Because if I don’t agree to her terms, she’ll fire me?”

I wrinkled my nose in sympathy. “Kinda. Yeah.”

Duncan closed his eyes, then looked at me. “Is this for real?”

I suppose, if you hadn’t been at the brainstorming session, this might seem a little random. I shrugged. “It’s not forever. Just the spring semester.”

“What happens after that?”

“Good question. She reserves the right to fire you, anyway. But maybe she won’t. She’ll definitely fire you right now if you don’t go along with it, though. So: worth it to take the deal.”

“What is this called? Is this extortion?” He thought about it. “Bribery? Blackmail?”

“I think they call this ‘the kindness of strangers.’”

“Doesn’t feel all that kind.”

“Babette wanted me to mention that she’s a benevolent ruler.”

“Great,” Duncan said, giving me a look.

“So?” I said. “Are you in?”

“Well,” Duncan said, “given that I don’t have a choice … I guess I have to be.”

eighteen

And so began Operation Duncan.

We had a chance to rescue him—and possibly ourselves, as well.

And oh, man, was it fun.

We told Duncan to eat a frozen custard? He ate a frozen custard. We told him to do a handstand in the courtyard? He did a handstand in the courtyard. We told him to tell cringe-worthy math jokes over the school intercom (that one was Alice)? He told math jokes over the intercom.

It was true we had him boxed in—hard. But he sure didn’t put up much of a fight. As far as I know, he never even thought about trying to expose us to Kent Buckley, or anyone else. On some level, I think, he was glad to go along with it.

Maybe even relieved.

For our part, Babette and I did a lot of strategizing about how to structure his journey. We wanted to push him to open up, to try forgotten things, to relax, to feel some feelings, and a million other things—but we didn’t want to push him so hard he got spooked.

We started with small things—easy things.

Every morning, I’d pop by his office with his “thing” for the day. That first week, it was: eat a hot fudge sundae (to help him remember pleasure), jump on a pogo stick (to help him remember who he used to be), take a hot bath (to help him relax), watch a Bill Murray movie of his choosing (to get him laughing), and, on Friday, to juggle something—anything—for the kids at lunchtime (because juggling used to be his favorite thing to do). Duncan’s rented house didn’t have a bathtub, so Babette made him come to her house after school that evening, and then, while he was there, she insisted he stay for dinner (human connection). Likewise for the Bill Murray movie (Duncan chose Meatballs). Babette required that he watch it at her place so we could confirm the task was done. And since he was there, anyway, we fed him dinner and then joined him on the couch (friendship).

Alice came, too.

Babette and I took this project very seriously. We made a color-coded chart for all his required tasks—I’m not even kidding. Laughter was yellow, relaxation was pink, his old self was blue. We had four months, roughly, not counting spring break, and we wanted to make the most of them. On top of that, we read self-help books about overcoming trauma, about PTSD, about finding ways to move forward in life. We read, we highlighted, we took notes and discussed.

At no point did it occur to us that we might be doing any of this for ourselves.

But of course, it helped us, too.

We all needed to move on. We all needed to overcome trauma. We all needed hot baths and good laughs. Granted, I couldn’t juggle, but watching Duncan finally do it that Friday at lunch in front of all the kids—was just as good, if not better.

“It’s juggling day,” I said to him pleasantly, during lunch duty.