“Just think of it as an extended camping trip — the kind where you get away from it all.”
“Great! A million-dollar camping trip!”
“My mind is made up on this, Miles.”
“Off to some godforsaken…”
“My mind is made up!”
The hard edge to his voice left them both shaken. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, feeling the distance between them widening as if a chasm had opened. Then Ben rose and came quickly around the desk. Miles rose as well. Ben put a hand on his shoulder and gripped it.
“If I don’t do something, Miles, I’m going to lose myself,” he whispered. “It may take a few months or even a year, but in the end I’m going to slip into the cracks and be gone. I can’t let that happen.”
His friend looked at him wordlessly, sighed and nodded. “It’s your life, Doc. I can’t tell you how to live it. I never could.” He squared himself. “Will you at least take a few days to think about this some more? That’s not asking too much, is it?”
Ben smiled wearily. “I’ve already thought it through a hundred different ways. That’s enough. I’m all done thinking.”
Miles shook his head. “Guess a blind man could tell that, couldn’t he?”
“I’m going to tell the others now. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep what you know to yourself.”
“Sure. Why not? Why let anybody else know that the leading light of the firm is deranged?” He gave Ben a final glance, shrugged and turned toward the office door. “You’re nuts, Doc.”
Ben followed him out. “Yeah, I’ll miss you, too, Miles.” He called the staff together then and told them of his plans for a leave of absence from the firm. He told them of his need to get away from his present life, the city, the practice, everything familiar; he told them that he would be leaving in the next few weeks and that he might be gone for better than a year. There was stunned silence and then a flurry of questions. He answered them all patiently. Then he left and went home.
He never mentioned Landover to any of them. Neither did Miles.
It took him the better part of three weeks to put his affairs in order. Most of that time was spent in tying up the loose ends of his law practice — communicating with clients, clearing his court calendar, and reassigning his case load. The transition was difficult. The staff had accepted his decision with stoic resolve, but there was an undercurrent of dissatisfaction in their looks and conversation that he could not mistake. They felt that he was deserting them, bailing out. And truth be told, he was feeling a bit ambivalent about that possibility himself. On the one hand, the loosening of ties with the firm and his profession gave him a newfound sense of freedom and relief. He felt as if he were escaping a trap — as if he were beginning his life all over again with a chance to discover things he had missed the first time around. On the other hand, there were undeniable twinges of uncertainty and regret at letting go of what he had spent the better part of his adult life building for himself. There was that sense of abandoning the familiar for the unknown that characterizes all journeys made for the first time.
Still, he could come back whenever he chose, he reminded himself. There was really nothing permanent in any of this — at least, not yet.
So he went about the business at hand and tried not to think about the ambivalent feelings, but the more he tried not to think about them, the more he did, and in the end he gave up on it altogether and accepted that it was inevitable. He let the feelings buffet and rage within him, let the doubts and the uncertainties gnaw, and found that he gained a certain measure of strength by being able to withstand them. He had made his decision; he found now that he could live with it.
The three weeks came to an end and he had completed the transition at the firm. He was free of his professional obligations, free to pursue whatever other paths he might choose to follow. In this instance, the path he had chosen led to a mythical kingdom called Landover. Only Miles knew the truth, and Miles wasn’t talking. Not to him, not to anyone. Miles was in a determined funk. Miles was convinced he was crazy.