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Mackenzie pulls open the front door to the apartment and waits. “I guess it had a bit of a funky smell at first, but maybe I’ve gotten used to it.” He holds the lapel up to his nose and sniffs. “Is that what you mean?”

“Yup,” I reply.

Although it’s not what I mean at all.

8

I wake on Monday morning a full hour before my alarm. The apartment is quiet as I get ready for work, and Mackenzie’s door remains closed as I lock up and head down the stairs.

Normally, in the mornings, I welcome the fresh air and city sounds as I walk to my streetcar stop, but this morning I am jittery and anxious, having spent most of Sunday night coming up with new theories on what is causing my hallucinations (none of them good).

I did, however, come up with a plan—one that requires the assistance of exceptionally delicious pastry, so I make a quick pit stop at Nana’s for a Boston cream doughnut before heading on to work.

For anyone looking to study the brain, CAMH is a pretty great place to spend your days. They have two cyclotrons, seventeen hot cells, and a state-of-the-art medicinal chemistry lab. After getting my job, my nerd heart fantasized for weeks about the brains I’d be able to see in the center’s very own MRI machine. Never in a million years did I ever think that one day I would hope to be one of them.

My streetcar arrives just as I get to my stop. As I board, my brain shifts from MRIs to Mackenzie’s question about plans after my PhD.

When I started working at CAMH, I saw it as the perfect place to spend my career. The people were passionate, the facilities were top-notch, and it was a great commute from my apartment. However, this past year, my own passion for my work has dimmed from what was once a raging bonfire to a flame barely big enough to heat a fondue pot.

And I feel guilty about it.

I wish I were still that girl who looked at the world and believed she could change it for the better. A girl who turned her grief from her mother’s death into an inspirational charge to put an end to one of the leading causes of death in young adults.

But after Larry died, all my hope morphed into a big, exhausted “what’s the point?”

Even if I did everything I set out to do, there would always be another disease, or accident, or mutating cancer cells waiting to wipe out innocent lives.

Part of me wonders if, when Larry left this world, he took my spark with him. My more pragmatic side, however, suspects that I’ve simply grown up—finally learned the hard lesson that real life isn’t a fairy tale; my purpose is simply to get through it the best way I can.

When I arrive at the center, my lab partner, Dr. Phillip Button, is already in our shared office—a windowless room, not much bigger than a closet, suitable for paperwork and drinking coffee. Phillip and I have been working together for the last year and a half. Although he is only three years older than me, he is in the process of completing his second PhD.

Phillip is what my Uncle Larry would have called “a bit of a different duck.” On the outside he blends in easily in a hospital or research setting with his thick black glasses and light brown bowl cut. Someone once gave him a Lego figurine from their Child’s City Scientist set that looks so much like him I’ve never been able to unsee it. He’s not one for small talk and is so blunt when you do engage him in conversation that he sometimes comes across as rude if you don’t know that he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. He’s also brilliant. I once asked him why he pursued two different PhDs. A doctorate is a doctorate is a doctorate. I’m all for furthering your education, but why go through the pain of defending a thesis twice? His response was to tap his temple with his index finger and reply, “Who knows why we do the things we do, Annalise. But one day I’ll figure it out.”

This morning he has a large Tim Hortons double double in his hand, which is excellent for me because it means he didn’t have time to stop at the fancy place three blocks out of the way of his streetcar commute with the French pastries I know are his kryptonite.

“I picked you up something this morning,” I tell him. “Hope you haven’t eaten.” I toss the Nana’s bag into his lap. He eyes the grease-soaked paper before pulling out the doughnut, lifting it with two hands, and smelling it as one might sniff a Cuban cigar.

“How was your weekend?” I ask, hoping to ease into things with a casual question.

His eyes remain on the still-to-be-eaten doughnut. “Uneventful. I read a book. Did some calisthenics, then I ate a very nice peach.”

“Oh.” I pause, not sure how to respond. “Well, that sounds like fun. Would you like to hear about my weekend?”

Phillip shakes his head. “Not particularly.” He then proceeds to bite into the doughnut, making no indication whether he likes it or not other than a quick, successive second bite.

“Well, I had a bit of a weird one,” I say, knowing his mouth is full and there is now little he can do to stop me. “I had a hallucination,” I tell him. “Actually I had two. The first one happened when I was trying on a leather jacket in a thrift store. One minute I was in the changing room and then poof! I was in the middle of the Bloor-Yonge subway station.”

Phillip begins to chew rapidly. I can tell he’s trying to force a very large dough ball down his throat, because he’s turning a maroon shade of red. Finally, he swallows.

“What about the second?”

“I was in my apartment, trying on the same jacket.” I leave out how I stole it from my new roommate’s room. “I’m not sure where the second one was. Some small-town festival. I don’t think I’ve been there before. There were a lot of watermelons.”

“In the hallucinations?” Phillip asks.

“Just the second one,” I clarify. “I think watermelons might have been the festival’s theme.”

Phillip hums. It’s his thinking hum. He does it when he is working out a problem.