Aaron had expected something else.
The lawyer was totally ordinary looking, but not in the ordinary way that Aaron expected an ordinary lawyer to look. Not a little pudgy, nor overdressed, nor exuding false friendliness.
He introduced himself as Dale Cooper. "Your dad's lawyer, and friend."
He was early thirties, looked like he might have played basketball. Tall, big-boned, with an easy way about him.
Aaron wondered if he could get Holly in here for another show, but it was her day off and she had been avoiding him.
"So, there aren't as many things to sign as you might expect," the lawyer said.
"There will be a trust that you can draw on for living expenses while you are in college, and the trust - basically my office - will pay the tuition, room, and board directly. Once you get your degree, the rest is yours. It's not an enormous amount, not enough to live off for more than a couple of years, but you'll graduate without debt. And then there's the house."
It turned out there were quite a lot of things that were going to need to be taken care of, but the signatures would come later. There would be a financial advisor, a real estate agent if he wanted to sell the house, an estate sale, if he wanted to unload the belongings.
"Finally," Dale said, "there's one other thing."
Aaron, hadn't seen this coming, and as he felt into the lawyer's tone, he realized he still couldn't. Dale Cooper, unlikely looking lawyer, apparently had some tricks up his sleeve.
The lawyer leaned in close. "I know the full story, Aaron. I don't blame your father, and I don't blame you. But you're going to have to be more careful now. There are others. They won't learn from me, but... you had better learn some fucking subtlety."
Cooper smiled blandly as he stood. He folded a faux-leather binder.
"Is there anything else?" Cooper asked.
What is the full story? Who am I? What did my father do? What did I do? Who are
they
?
Aaron found himself unable to gather his thoughts quickly enough.
"Good luck, then. Call my office if you need anything."
* * *
Aaron could move now, but he couldn't get out of bed without help.
Everything hurt.
After Cooper left, Aaron suddenly wanted him back. He wanted to talk it through.
He had been thinking that perhaps his injuries had unleashed some superpower: this ability to feel what people were thinking, and even some things about a person that they weren't thinking. This ability to, maybe, influence their thinking.
But unless there was some
other
deep, dark secret, it seemed as though maybe Cooper already knew about it. Maybe it had something to do with his father. Or even, Aaron wondered, his family's death.
Large portions of his memory, however, were still missing. He remembered being in college, but he didn't know what he was studying. He couldn't remember any friends. Maybe, possibly, a vague recollection of a petite blonde.
He could not remember his family. At all. Nothing.
He could not remember having any special abilities... and yet he knew full well this was unusual.
Aaron had questions.
And he had just missed the chance to get some answers.
* * *
He relaxed into his bed and turned on the television. News was best. It was live, or purported to be. He had been working his abilities on the newscasters, or at least pretending he was. It didn't work.
This was interesting, because he could feel the difference between
getting
someone, and imagining stories about someone. These were two different exercises of his brain.
But they were related, because although the results felt different when he tried it on the newscasters, what he was consciously doing felt the same.
He had picked up interesting tidbits from other nurses, and he could feel when it was the real deal. It was like: something hooked his mind, and fed him the inside scoop.
With regard to influencing people, he wasn't sure. He couldn't be completely sure that he had even influenced Holly and Jayden. It could have been coincidence. It was certainly in keeping with what he knew about Holly, and how could Jayden say no?
It had seemed very, very real at the time, but in retrospect, he couldn't be sure. He had tried some very little influences with other nurses, and nothing had panned out.
Aaron also didn't remember any "pandemic." How could someone forget something that changed the whole world? But he was lucky to have incurred his injuries when he did, after the worst of the pandemic was over and the right anti-viral cocktail was available to keep him safe. Apparently just a few months earlier, and he would have been very unlikely to survive, if they had even had a respirator available.
Still, it dominated the news. The political fallout continued. The country was practically at war with itself, and the rest of the world was an even greater mess.
That
at least felt familiar.
Aaron supposed the world must always be in a mess.
* * *
The night nurse this on this occasion was Jenny. Aaron had seen her before.
She had an absolute torch of red hair, and was otherwise completely unremarkable. No particular figure, plain face. She was quiet, and scrupulous with her procedures.
And, Aaron had gathered, she had a love/hate relationship with her hair. It came from her father's side, which was a big problem, because her father was not the man her mother had married. Jenny had a difficult time with the man who raised her. He tried to treat her like his own child, but neither of them were particularly good at it. Her family wanted her to dye it, to flatten it, to change it.
So she grew it wild.
But at the same time, she knew it didn't really suit her quiet, studious, careful personality. She felt like, with hair like that, she should be bigger than life.
Sometimes she wanted that life, the life her hair should have had. Buxom, loud, funny, clever, a little mean, a little sweet, snarky, passionate, feisty. She should have some major talent that made everyone jealous. She should be a world traveler. Speak five languages. She should have been a doctor, not a nurse. And when she walked into the operating room, everyone would back away from her radiant command of the situation.
Other times, she wanted that hair that matched her actual life, and which would have made her family so much happier. Quiet, brown hair. Not too long, not too short. Unpretentious hair. Good, calm, peaceful, quiet hair that never drew any attention, that never got anyone in trouble.
Aaron smiled to himself.
Jenny thought about her hair a lot, apparently.
"Do you get tired of people commenting on your hair?" he asked, at just the moment when she was wondering if he was thinking about her hair.
She snorted before she caught herself.
"Yeah, I do."
"But you don't exactly minimize it."
She shrugged and slid the clipboard back in its holster.
"You need anything?" she asked.
"When's dinner?"
She eyed him suspiciously. "Dinner would have been two hours ago."
He winked. "Still hungry, though."
"Well," she said, "That's a good sign. I can get you something, probably."
He really wanted to know what she looked like under the baggy scrubs. He had begun fantasizing.
