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Arms stretched above his head, Peter rolls to his side and lets his eyes flutter open. He’s had the same dream a dozen times.
Glen pours a bowl of cereal from a box with a bent flap.
The cereal tastes funny, but he pushes through the unfamiliar taste and finishes his breakfast. It was free, after all.
Time speeds forward. Glen crouches over a toilet. He suspects food poisoning. But what has he eaten? It must have been bad sushi. Or the slice of old pizza. After a while, he feels better. He goes back to his normal life, hovering over his web store listings.
Weeks later, a neighbor notices a strange smell coming from the house. No one’s seen Glen in a long time. There’s no answer when they knock on his door. They call the police for a wellness check.
The police find him slumped against his desk. His hands still splayed across his keyboard. His body is lifeless, and everyone realizes it’s for the best. He was an awful man.
A relaxed sigh whooshes through Peter’s nostrils. He rolls to his back and tucks his hands under his head. He stares at the ceiling. It’s been weeks since Glen picked up his grand prize. It’s possible he’s eaten the cereal by now. The fungi’s toxins might course through his veins right this second. Maybe he has a stomachache. Peter hopes he’s dead.
He rolls off the bed and gets ready for work. After loading Glen up with the prize, he decided it was time. He’d still give the remaining prizes away, eventually. But he figures it’s best if he isn’t actively running the contest when they discover Glen’s death. If they investigate, he doesn’t want to be out there dancing around boxes of the same cereal that caused his victim’s demise.
After breaking up with Jeanne, it seemed doubly important to resume regular life. He needs the steady rhythm of a scheduled workweek to get over her. He’s never felt so betrayed by a woman before, and sitting around waiting for Glen to expire is merely adding to his depression.
He replays the conversation with Charles in his mind as he showers. His boss sounded surprised to hear from him when he called. Even more shocked when he’d said his father made a full recovery and doesn’t need a bedside vigil anymore. It had taken some minor coordination to get Peter back on the schedule, but he’d prevailed.
Smiling, Peter shuts off the water and grabs a towel. He’s happy to trade the confused chaos of body hunts and giveaway schemes for the monotony of office work.
An hour later, he’s logging on to his work computer. A fresh project lands on his desk, and suddenly it’s as if he never left. He scans through hundreds of missed e-mails, looking for anything related to his leave. There’s nothing, not even a note from the lady in Human Resources welcoming him back to the job.
In every conversation, people act as if he’s been there all along. Peter wonders if it’s because they’re not sure what to say about his father’s illness, or if they hadn’t noticed his absence at all.
It comes as a surprise when he walks across campus to attend a meeting and Jeff, a random engineer Peter only knows from cc’d e-mails and projects on the fringe of his awareness, stops to ask how he is.
“I heard your dad was battling some kind of cancer. Who won the fight?” Jeff abandons whatever course he was on and matches Peter’s stride.
“You could say my dad won.” Peter looks at his companion with an indifferent expression. “For now, anyway.”
“That’s great!” Jeff pounds him on the back in congratulations. “How’s his recovery coming?”
“I’m not sure. We aren’t speaking,” Peter admits.
Jeff skips a step, then jogs forward until he’s moving with Peter again. “That’s rough. It’s good you were there for him. I lost my dad to throat cancer a few years ago. It was a lot to go through.”
“Sorry for your loss.” The reflexive statement rolls off Peter’s tongue without thought.
Jeff claps him on the back again. “I hope you two can patch things up. What’s the point in getting a second lease on life if you’ve got to live it without your family?”
Peter grunts in disagreement. “Sometimes, family is more of a curse than a blessing.”
Chuckling, Jeff takes the comment lightheartedly. “Don’t I know it. That’s how I feel about my wife some days. How are things going now that you’re back at work?”
“Fine, I guess.” Peter frowns. “You know, you’re the first person to ask me that?” They share an awkward glance. “It’s okay. I picked up a couple new hobbies while I was out. It helps balance the stress.”
“Sounds like you did a bit of growing.” Jeff grabs him by the elbow and pulls him to a stop. “Listen, I’ve got to run to a meeting. It was great catching up with you. Let me know if you ever need anything, okay?”
They shake hands and Jeff trots back the way they came. The exchange stays on Peter’s mind long after the engineer disappears. He thinks about Oliver and the offer to go out with the search crew he’s been ignoring. He wonders how his father is.
He spends the rest of the day pretending to work while skimming through obituaries online. Peter wonders if his dad ever poisoned anyone. He tries to imagine Ollie poring over newspapers, searching for proof of his handiwork.
He scoffs at his own wonderment. His father was never one to go pawing through the news the way Peter is now. Oliver Roberts is direct. Once he decides to do something, Peter doubts he walks away until his deed is done. Peter’s father is a finisher and never leaves a task incomplete.
Filled with exasperation, Peter closes his web browser’s open tabs. His father knows exactly how to help the grim reaper along.