An excerpt from
Perfectly Normal

The alarm sounded at precisely seven in the morning. Nate silenced it with a blind tap, following with another to the static track of the white-noise machine. The room filled with sound. Birds chirping. A car driving by the front of the house. His mother in the kitchen washing dishes. The rattle of the vent cover as the heater warmed the room.

 

One minute later — timed by ten slow breaths of six seconds each — Nate sat up and opened his eyes. From the distance to each sound, the white wall ahead, framed by a gurgling fifty-five-gallon aquarium atop a rustic oak hutch, remained clear. Any spike in the volume of those sounds — such as the clink of dishes against one another or loud tail pipe of a passing truck — registered as a muted flash of color. Nate took two minutes to enjoy the calm, considering the day’s schedule while following the paths of the two discus fish that had been his roommates and friends for four years. Watching them swim gave life to a wide smile.

 

“Good morning, Sebastian. Good morning, Wolfgang. I’m sorry to say that it’s back to school for me today. Winter break is over. Be grateful that your biggest concern is the level of poop you have to swim through. I’m not sure either of you would enjoy school. That is to say, school, as in education. Not the group that you swim in. You probably would prefer that to being in a tank.”

 

With a simple laugh, Nate rose, stretched, and lowered to a seat on the worn beige carpet. Even though Sebastian and Wolfgang were the closest thing to pets they had ever owned — Nate insisted friends should never be considered pets — it had always smelled of dog. His parents claimed they couldn’t smell it, but he could. He always could.

 

From underneath the bed, he moved Mulligan the stuffed hound and Gerry the giraffe aside to reveal his black-framed shadow box. It slid easily, its distance from the bed measured perfectly to allow the square box to fit between his legs and the dangling gray curtain of bed sheets.

 

The set of crayons looked as new as the day they were placed behind the glass. Neatly lined in four rows of six, the lead position was taken by indigo, the color Nate had always loved the most. From there, they moved through blues, then greens, to yellows and oranges, then reds to gray, white, brown, and black. In truth, his preference would have been to place the reds last, ending in red orange, but the transition of colors would have been disrupted. Chaotic.

 

Nate ran his fingers along the frame as he focused on the range of blues to greens for a minute. Studying the colors brought a sense of calm, a center to begin his day. He exhaled, then returned the box to its safe place, the guardian duo of Mulligan and Gerry back on duty at the front, sides and rear guarded by other fuzzy family members still in hiding.

 

Five minutes into his day, he gave himself over to the System.

 

After feeding Sebastian and Wolfgang a teaspoon of fish flakes — as instructed by the container — Nate collected a pile of folded clothes off his dresser, chosen the night before: long-sleeved, white-and-royal-blue-striped golf shirt, the darker jeans that fit loose against his bony legs and waist, knee-high tube socks with the royal stripes, and snug solid-blue underwear. All would go well with the denim jacket with the gray cotton sleeves and hoodie.

 

Much as she had with the System in general, his mother implemented the selection of clothes the night before to help alleviate the anxiety brought on by indecision against the pressure of a ticking clock. After all, choosing clothes was a process. It took time. His mother said it was an important part of the System that helped to keep him calm and focused, so Nate relied upon it.

 

Clothes in hand, it was time to move on to the next stage of the System.

 

An impossible task, as it happened, as his sky-blue shoes were not on the shelf in the closet, where they belonged. They were gone. Not in his room. Pressure tightened his chest, the search for his shoes bordering on frantic. They were supposed to be there. They were always supposed to be there. That was the System. Clothes on the dresser. Shoes on a vertical shelf just inside the closet, the sky blue in their place at the top, indicating favorite status. Nate’s mind whirred, trying to remember where he’d seen them last. How could he have gone to sleep without ensuring they were where they should have been?

 

“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Nate’s hands flexed, tight around the folded clothes, breath drawing in rapid bursts. He was losing valuable time. The System required everything to go as planned or there wouldn’t be enough time to practice his piece on the keyboard. He only had twenty-five minutes as it was.

 

He needed his mother. She could figure it out. She could make it right.

 

No.

 

Nate pushed it away, determined to figure it out on his own. His mother called it “self-management,” an effort on his part to learn how to manage disruptions in the routine, to stave off meltdowns when she wasn’t there to assist.

 

Under his breath, Nate worked through it, pacing the floor of his room, one hand tight to the back of his neck. “Shoes. Where are my shoes? Where are they? I had them. I wore them yesterday. Yesterday. I had them yesterday. They should be here. They must have been here last night.” Except they couldn’t have been, his mother’s voice replied within, or they would be here now. Blue green. Calming. Centering. Think. Nate closed his eyes. “Okay. Think. If they were here last night, I would see them now. So, they couldn’t have been here. That checks out. So, I must have forgotten to look last night. Just like the last time they weren’t here. When they were in the family room, where I took them off. When Dad said he was tired of picking them up. Oh, right!”

 

Nate rushed to the closed door, hand tight on the knob, a risen voice beyond forcing him to a stop, an inch parted from the doorframe. Pops of his father’s red orange fired against the white wooden surface of the door, followed by a series of blue greens from his mother’s sharp reply. They were fighting. Again. About him. Again. Through the narrow crack in the door, Nate peered into the hall. It was empty, the adjoining family room beyond the same. They were in the kitchen.

 

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one focused on where his shoes were. His mother’s blue green moved diagonally from left to right across the backdrop of the family room, softening as her voice lowered.

 

“You could make it easier, Charlie. Putting them outside was a shitty thing to do. You know he wouldn’t have found them. You know what that does to him. It took fifteen minutes just to thaw them out.”

 

“Jesus, Nell, he has six pair of sneakers. Six. Which is five more than I have, for the record.”

 

“He likes options. Each one offers him a different type of comfort. He laid out his blues last night, so I’m sure he’ll want to wear the sky blue with the memory foam. They’re his favorite.”

 

“Sky blue.” His father puffed a blast of a sigh.

 

“You wanna roll your eyes higher next time?”

 

“What? I’ve told him a thousand times to put his shoes away. That I’d start putting them outside if he left them in the family room again. So, I did. Not my fault we had a frost warning. It’s January. Maybe he’ll remember next time. He needs to know there are consequences.”

 

Nate heaved a sigh, body relaxing instantly. At least he knew where they were. Though he wasn’t about to go ask his mother for them. Not yet. Maybe after he showered. Hopefully they weren’t wet.

 

In a few long strides, Nate was in the bathroom, drawing the door shut slow and easy to avoid any attention. The clock on the wall ticked a steady rhythm. He was only a couple of minutes behind. To get back on schedule, he needed to be in and out of the shower in eight minutes instead of ten. Conditioner would have to go.

 

Showered and dressed at seven fifteen, noise-cancelling, blue headphones on to avoid hearing any more of his parents’ argument, Nate wandered into the kitchen, wet brown hair combed hard to the right, gaze on the diamond pattern of black in the white vinyl floor tiles.

 

He poured a bowl of Cheerios and sat at the table, working through his morning playlist of classical pieces on his phone. Today would be Grieg. In the Hall of the Mountain King would last the length of his cereal and set a proper tone to the day. Then he could go practice.

 

Three bars into the piece, he jumped at a tap on his shoulder. His mother stood behind him, expression unsettled, dark circles beneath her brown eyes. Pops of green and yellow light flared in the background with the bounce of each note of music, as if a screensaver danced along the brown cabinets behind her. They faded as he paused the music and removed his headphones.

 

“Yes?”

 

Her turquoise scrubs were clean, though wrinkled. They were his favorite. They nearly matched the color of her voice. Twirls of long brown hair fell over her narrow shoulders, messy. Her shift at the hospital must have been a busy one.

 

“Good morning, sweetheart. You sleep well?”

 

Nate stuffed a spoonful of Cheerios into his mouth and nodded. His mother had an insistence on chitchat in the morning. Though he was more than capable of the same with her, it was quite detrimental to his schedule. Fortunately, she had grown to recognize it and rarely expected a full response.

 

“Good. I’m glad.” She ran a hand across his back, scratching gently. His arms flared in goosebumps. “You left your shoes in the family room yesterday.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“I know you are, honey. Just try to remember, okay? Stick to what you need to have ready for the morning and you won’t forget.” She offered a smile, thin wrinkles notable around her eyes.

 

“I’ll try. I’m really sorry.”

 

The hand found his shoulder and squeezed. “If the worst we have to deal with is you forgetting to put your shoes away, we’ll be fine.”

 

Nate forced a smile to mirror his mother’s. No matter the reason for it, he didn’t like to see her upset. So he couldn’t let her see him upset either. Smiles seemed to accomplish that. “I should apologize to dad. Where is he?”

 

“Putzing in the garage, I think. Or on his phone somewhere. No need to go find him. Stick to your schedule. You can apologize on the way to school.” With another smile, she headed off. “I’m going to go shower. I’ll see you before you leave.”

 

“Okay.” Nate repositioned his headphones, one ear still free. “Mom? Thank you for thawing out my shoes.”

 

She stopped at the corner of the hall, head dropping. “You’re welcome, honey.” Her voice broke in between, fragmenting the burst of color for a split second.

 

Nate waited until he heard the bedroom door shut. Then he returned to Grieg and his Cheerios.