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put down. Spotless, shiny, and perfect.
An OCDers wet dream.
    Brad stopped in the foyer and threw a glance
over his shoulder. "Have you been…baking?"
    "Shoes."
    "You never bake."
    "Yes, I’ve been baking. Shoes!" Mort stomped
off toward the smell.
    Brad tripped and fumbled out of his boots and
scrambled to catch up. "You never bake! Wait—" He snuck up
to the oven and peered through the small window. "Moooort," he
straightened, "Did you bake Missus Levinson?"
    "You’re real fucking funny, boy. Sit down."
Mort motioned to the stool behind the kitchen island.
    Brad grabbed his chest. "Baking and using the furniture! This just in: Mort’s lost his mind." He
grinned and pulled the stool out, wincing when the legs screeched
across the tiles.
    Mort took the seat across from him and folded
his hands on the counter. He didn’t say any more, just stared at
his young friend and waited.
    "So I went driving today." Brad cleared his
throat. "Sorry I didn’t return your calls, by the way."
    Mort raised an eyebrow and said nothing.
    "Uh, okay. Here’s the thing." Brad rubbed his
face and struggled to find an explanation. "You were right." Brad
stared across his clasped hands. They were pressed to his nose and
muffled his words. "Everything you said yesterday." He paused and
waited for a reaction. When he began to notice the steady tick-tock
of the kitchen clock, he realized he wasn’t going to get one.
"Well? Don’t you have anything to say? Not even an
I-told-you-so?"
    Mort drew in a tight breath. "No."
    Brad’s mouth sagged. Mort always had
something to say. Especially if his student had been wrong about
something.
    Then it dawned on him why Mort might be
tight-lipped.
    "What’s wrong? Something’s wrong." Brad got
up, hurried to the window, and scanned the backyard. "I should have
known. The baking, the sitting, the total lack of lecturing." His
head darted like a chicken’s, first to Mort then back to the
window. Finding nothing, he moved to the backdoor and tried
sneaking a peek through the curtains.
    "Brad, knock that shit off and sit down."
    Brad slunk back to his stool and whispered,
"Are you bugged?"
    "Yes. Yes, that’s it. Except I found it and
stuck it in the pumpkin pie that’s in the oven."
    Least I know how serious this is , Brad thought. I always make him laugh .
    "Okay, okay." Brad’s shoulders slumped. "You
wanted me to talk to you, so here it is. The dreams are back."
    "Goddammit." Mort’s curse rushed out of him
and his body seemed to fold in on itself. Leaning against the
tabletop, he covered his face for a long time. When he spoke again,
it was muffled by his hands. "How long?"
    "Two months," Brad answered.
    "Every night?"
    "Yes."
    "How bad?"
    Brad hesitated a beat before answering that
one. How bad? Bad wasn’t even the word for them.
    "Brad," Mort pleaded, "how bad ?"
    "Pretty bad."
    Mort swore again, but this time it came out
sounding like "fuh." The two men stared at one another across the
silence while the pie burned.

3
     
    Brad gazed out the window with his back to
the living room. He still hadn’t had a chance to confess he’d been
planning suicide, but he had told Mort about the man at the
flower shop. As soon as Brad finished describing that and the
dreams he’d been having, Mort went upstairs to his bedroom and
returned with a small brown book. Inside were phone numbers for
what he called his Book Club. Since then, he’d been rooted to his
spot on the couch making calls.
    "And you’re sure?" Mort asked. The answer he
received wasn’t good, if his swearing was any indication. "Alright.
Keep me posted." He punched the end-call and tossed his phone on
the coffee table. "Dammit."
    "Problem?" Brad asked. His eyes kept straying
to the house across the street. He remembered mowing their grass,
too. Mrs. Henderson always force-fed him cookies afterward, and
they always tasted like coconut.
    Mort stood and paced a bit while flipping a
page in his book. "No, not exactly." He snatched the phone