Atmospheric Disturbances 2

Leo is a psychiatrist and one of his patients particularly interests him. His name is Harvey, and he seems to believe that he works for the "Royal Academy of Meteorology". He disappears for a couple days and reappears claiming he was doing an assignment by the academy. Leo obviously thinks Harvey is crazy but he gets a call saying, "I'm calling from the Royal Academy of Meteorology; we'd like to invite you to become a fellow"(Galchen 39). This confuses him because he didn't think the academy was real. He believed it was just Harvey's imagination. This plus the fact that he thinks his wife was replaced with an identical copy is causing him to question a lot of things in his life. When Leo is confused or afraid of something he attempts to reassure himself. When Leo is walking home he thinks to himself, "I comforted myself with the likelihood that I would soon see Rema"(Galchen 35). He is trying to tell himself that this was just his imagination and that when he got home Rema would be back. He doesn't seem to actually do anything about his worries most of the time.
As a child, Leo had some very interesting character traits. On the rare occasion that he lies he feels extremely uncomfortable afterwards. When he was with his mom, "In order to avoid saying thank you, upon prompting,for things I wasn't truly thankful for,I would bury my face in my mother's skirt"(Galchen 22). Perhaps this trait is what makes him a psychiatrist. Whenever he lies he feels as if a burden is placed upon him and feels the need to confess the truth. No matter what the reason, Leo is very uncomfortable with lying.