Scanned & Semi-proofed by Cozette

Amnesia

SPINE-TINGLING SUSPENSE FROM

ANDREW NEIDERMAN

What would you do if you couldn't remember. . .

Who you were?

Where you lived?

Or what you might have done?

Rush hour, Grand Central Station. Aaron Clifford stops dead in his tracks, commuters swirling around him. . . but he doesn't know he's Aaron Clifford. He doesn't know who he is at all. No matter how hard he tries, he has no memory of why he is there, where he came from, or where he's going. It's impossible. . . maddening. . . but it's true.

The clues come slowly: from his surroundings, from his wallet, from the taste of the dry martini still on his lips. Soon Aaron Clifford will piece together the keys to his life. With that relief will come cold-blooded fear-as he learns more than he ever knew before. Things he shouldn't know. Things he doesn't want to know. Things that could get him killed. . .

CURSE

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH

IN DOUBLE JEOPARDY

THE DARK

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE

A major motion picture from Warner Bros, starring Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves

Books by Andrew Neiderman

Sisters

Weekend

Brainchild

Someone's Watching

Tender, Loving Care

Imp

Night Howl

Child's Play

Teacher's Pet

Sight Unseen

Love Child

Reflection

Illusion

Playmates

The Maddening

Surrogate Child

Perfect Little Angels

Blood Child

Sister, Sister

After Life

Duplicates

The Solomon Organization

Angel of Mercy

The Devil's Advocate

The Immortals

The Dark

In Double Jeopardy

Neighborhood Watch

Curse

Amnesia

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"Why don'cha make up your mind which way ya goin^’!"

The man glared at him furiously as he shuffled by in what literally looked like a pair of worn old black leather slippers without socks, rims of scratches and dark red and sickly pale white blotches on both of his ankles.

"I wish I could!" he cried after him and watched him disappear into the crowd, actually jealous of the disheveled black man for knowing where he was going.

The voice over the public-address system announced train departures and arrivals. It had the sound of urgency. People were moving faster. Everyone knew something he didn't. That short moment of amusement he had experienced a few moments ago started to ice into a panic. What if everyone made it to his or her destination and he was left in this great lobby, his cries echoing and dying?

Which way was he supposed to go?

Where exactly was he heading?

Why hadn't it come back to him?

And worst of all, he thought as he turned slowly in a circle, Who the hell am I?

A NOVEL BY

ANDREW NEIDERMAN

amnesia

POCKET BOOKS

New York London Toronto Sydney Singapore

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-7434-1267-2

First Pocket Books printing June 2001

10 987654321

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Cover art by John Vairo, Jr.; photo credits: ©Ed Dimsdale/ Photonica, PhotoDisc Book design by Jaime Putorti

Printed in the U.S.A.

For my nephew Joe,

whose laughter and smile

remain forever in our hearts

amnesia

prologue

Suddenly he stopped walking. The realization that he didn't know where he was going struck him like a blow to his head. In fact, the feeling was so similar, he actually combed his fingers through his hair and over his scalp to see if there were any wounds, bumps, or blood. He looked at his palm and then turned his hand and saw it was clean.

Someone knocked into him rather roughly, nearly bowling him over. He fell forward, reaching out as if to grab an invisible railing to catch himself. The individual, a young Chinese man, didn't acknowledge the collision, but that wasn't really unusual here in Grand Central station, especially this time of the day. People nudged and bumped each other all around him. For a moment they all literally turned into frenetic bees whose hive had been disturbed, their wings flapping, their stingers whipping dangerously close to his face as they passed. The image made him gasp and cringe. He scrubbed his forehead with his dry right palm and looked about him again.

The bees changed back to people.

"What was that about?" he muttered and laughed to himself. No one else would pause near him long enough for him to ask if he or she had seen it, too. It was rush hour and the air was electric with the frenzy of those who had minutes to make their trains and those who feared not getting a seat. He recognized the reasons for this barely controlled mass hysteria. He vaguely remembered it all, including his own frantic pace at times, especially here; however, at this moment for the life of him, he hadn't the slightest hint as to which way he was to go. He felt adrift, lost way out at sea, the tiller broken, the sails ripped away. No matter in what direction he looked, there was no sign of any shore.

He gazed up at the large timetable above him and studied the names of various destinations. None of them rang a bell. There wasn't even a tinkle. And then the timetable burst into flames. It simply exploded into a conflagration right before his eyes, but apparently, no one else but him noticed this, too. He actually started to point it out and was on the verge of shouting when the flames suddenly disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.

His first reaction was to laugh again at himself. What the hell is happening to my mind? he wondered. People turning into bees, fires exploding! Did he have too much to drink? Did he have anything to drink? He moved his tongue around in his mouth. The flavor of the extra-dry martini was still there. At least he knew that he had a drink. He couldn't remember where, how many, or how long ago, but he realized it couldn't have been too long ago.

He gazed back at the entrance on Forty-second Street. He couldn't remember who had dropped him off. Was he in a taxicab or a private car? Or did he walk here from someplace relatively nearby?

So am I drunk or what? he wondered. He didn't feel drunk, at least not in the usual sense. He thought he could walk as well as he ever could. No wobbling. Actually, he felt terrific except for these ridiculous hallucinations and the fact that he didn't know what to do.

"What the hell's happening?" he asked himself again, this time loud enough for a woman in her early thirties dressed in an expensive-looking business suit to hear, pause, turn, and look back at him.

"Pardon?" she said a puzzled smile on her face. "Did you say something to me?"

"I. . . I'm so confused," he told her. He held out his arms, pleading for a look of compassion. Instead, she widened her smile and looked relieved.

"So? Welcome to the human race," she said and continued on.

Was she right? Was everyone in this gargantuan railroad station rushing to nowhere?

He searched the timetable again, still recognized nothing, and then decided to take a few steps to the left. That seemed wrong so he took a few steps to the right, which seemed just as wrong. He paused too abruptly and someone else ran into his back.

He turned to see an elderly black man in a pair of tattered dungarees and a torn flannel shirt half in and half out of his pants. The white stubble on his chin and cheeks looked more like tiny white pimples. His eyes were a mixture of white and pink twirl, the pupils resembling spots of ink. The man's lower lip had a purple bruise in the corner, and the middle was cracked with dried blood coating it.

"Why don'tcha make up your mind which way ya goin'!" he snapped and glared at him furiously as he shuffled by in what literally looked like a pair of worn old black leather slippers without socks, rims of scratches and dark red and sickly pale white blotches on both of his ankles.

"I wish I could!" he cried after him and watched him disappear in the crowd, actually jealous of the disheveled-looking black man for knowing where he was going.

The voice over the public address system announced train departures and arrivals. It had the sound of urgency. People were moving faster. Everyone knew something he didn't. That short moment of amusement he had experienced a few moments ago started to ice into a panic. What if everyone made it to his or her destination and he was left in this great lobby, his cries echoing and dying?

Which way was he supposed to go?

Where exactly was he heading?

Why hadn't it come back to him?

And worst of all, he thought as he turned slowly in a circle, Who the hell am I?

one

The answer to the last question was easy to discover. He sat on a bench and reached into his inside jacket pocket to take out his wallet. He held it before him and studied the gold letters embossed on the outside: A.C. It didn't stimulate any recollections, so he flipped it open and turned to his driver's license. The photo identification told him his name was Aaron Clifford and he lived at 5467 North Wildwood Drive in Westport, Connecticut. He was thirty-four years old, had blue eyes and light brown hair. He weighed one hundred and sixty-four pounds and stood five feet nine.

Is this who I am? he wondered. Why didn't confronting the information jolt his memory? Maybe this isn't me. Maybe this is someone else's wallet, he thought. Feared was more like it because why would he have someone else's wallet? And if he indeed did, where was his?

He stood up and gazed around until he spotted the rest rooms. Then he hurried into the men's room and went directly to the sink to look in the mirror and compare himself with the picture on his license. He held it up against his image in the mirror.

A fifty-one-year-old transit company employee in a pair of coveralls stepped out of a stall and went to the sink beside him, watching him make the comparison. The man shook his head, washed his hands quickly, and reached for a paper towel.

"This looks like me, doesn't it?" Aaron asked him, turning the wallet toward him.

The transit employee tilted his head away as if he believed he would be the victim of either a practical joke or a crime and then looked at the picture and at Aaron.

"So?" he asked. "What'cha think, it doesn't do you justice or somethin'?"

"No," Aaron said, smiling. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," the man said and, wearing one of those smug I've seen it all looks, walked away from him.

Aaron continued to search his wallet. There were two credit cards and then a medical insurance card. At the bottom of all this were three business cards with his name on them. They told him he had the status of an associate who worked for an architecture firm, C.W. Clovis and Associates on Madison Avenue. The card said they were specialists in creative design solutions, custom, residential, or commercial. He stared at the cards, but no memories came to mind, no visions of offices, employees, projects, nothing.

He had no other wallet or case other than this slim leather one. In his right pants pocket he found a small fold of bills which amounted to ninety-one dollars and some loose change. There was nothing in his other pants pocket. His sports jacket pockets were empty, too, and there was nothing in the back pockets of his pants.

His frenzied search of himself drew the attention of two young men who watched him for a moment before going to the urinals. While they urinated, they kept their eyes on him as if they were afraid to turn their backs completely on someone who looked so panicky.

Embarrassed by his own actions, he smiled at them and stepped out of the bathroom to continue the search of his own person.

He wore a Swiss Army watch, a black onyx pinky ring in a silver setting, and a wedding ring. He was married. What was his wife's name? Why didn't he carry a picture of her? Did he have any children?

His legs suddenly felt wobbly, so he had to sit again. He found an empty bench nearby. After a moment he looked up at the people rushing by, hoping to see a recognizable face or a face that seemed to recognize him. Some glanced at him, but few made any real eye contact or acknowledged his existence. They looted toward him but not at him. He touched himself on the chest to be sure he was really there. Was this all some nightmare? Would he wake up any moment and find himself home in bed—wherever that was?

Noise, odors, tastes in his mouth told him this was real; this was no dream.

The panic which now had begun at the base of his stomach fanned out like long fingers of cold steel to puncture his lungs and then his heart before moving up to his throat. It felt as if it were slowly closing on him and soon would shut off all the air. He seized his throat and massaged it, nudging his Adam's apple a bit too hard to help himself swallow, making himself choke and cough.

Sweat had beaded on his forehead and temples. When was this cloudiness, this emptiness going to pass? He embraced himself and rocked for a while on the bench. It gave him some relief and some comfort, but it was short lasting.

Now that he was beginning to act out, people did begin to take more note of him. A tall redheaded woman of about forty gazed at him and sped up, but as she moved away, her legs grew thinner and thinner until they looked like the legs of a grasshopper.

He groaned loud enough for two teenagers to smile and laugh at him when they walked by. An elderly lady shook her head in disgust, waving her bag in the air between them like some ancient priestess clearing the world of evil demons. She sounded like she was hissing, and he did see a mist come out of the bag and hang in the air between them.

"You all right?" a man about his age, dressed in a dark gray pin-striped suit, asked. He had stopped by the bench. He had wavy blond hair and deep blue eyes and carried a soft black leather briefcase.

"Actually, no, I'm not all right."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm suddenly having some serious memory problems. I'm so confused and I keep having these horrible visions.

"Are you on your way home?"

"I think so," he said.

"Well, do you know where you live?"

"Yeah. I mean, my address is here," Aaron said, digging out his wallet and opening it to show his license. The young man leaned over to read it. Aaron inhaled the man's cologne and aftershave. It had a sweet maple aroma. The man nodded and straightened up.

"So you're going to Westport. No problem." He looked up at the board. "Go to Gate Four. There's a train in about ten minutes. I'm sure when you get home, you'll feel better," the young man said, smiling.

He started away.

"Thanks," Aaron called to him.

The young man just lifted his hand and waved without turning around.

Aaron rose, took a deep breath, and went to the ticket seller's window to buy a ticket. He proceeded to the platform.

When the train arrived, he stepped into it, found a seat, and stared ahead. However, nothing about this was even slightly familiar. He couldn't recall when he was on a train last, and the failure to remember made the experience feel new.

The train rocked, its wheels groaning with the effort to move like some old arthritic man rising out of a chair, and began its journey. He closed his eyes and sat back for a moment. Then he opened them quickly and stared at each and every other passenger. He saw nothing but vague interest in anyone else's face. Most eyes were glassy orbs appearing frozen in their heads.

Everyone resembles me, he thought. They all looked like they had lost their memories. Didn't at least one recognize him? They were all going in his direction. Why wasn't anyone smiling or nodding some acknowledgment?

I'm on a ghost train, he thought, moving with the dead toward some dark place.

And then he thought maybe this just wasn't the usual train and time for him to be going home. He checked his watch. It was nearly seven-thirty. What time was he usually home? What did his home look like? My home, my house, my wife, he thought and closed his eyes, struggling to resurrect some sleeping memories, but nothing came. There was just this grayish black wall that seemed impenetrable, and if he tried too hard to remember anything, a sharp pain tore across his forehead, making him feel as if he wore a crown of thorns.

The train rocked on, the vibrations traveling up his legs, into his spine, and then shaking him so hard he opened his eyes. It was already quite dark outside. Despite the sudden unusually warm temperatures, the early October days were growing shorter and shorter. A much cooler September had caused most trees to lose their leaves. Now they glowed like radiated bones in the moonlight. The world looked full of twisted and mangled skeletons. The houses he saw looked empty, deserted, no one even silhouetted in the curtains or shades. There was an urban air about, an indifference. It was a world in which no one touched. The people in it had taken on the characteristics of steel and cement. He longed to feel some humanity, especially now, especially in these moments of utter desperation.

He closed his eyes and embraced himself, waiting for his memory to start working again, searching his mind for a solid thought to comfort him. However, when he opened his eyes and looked down, his feet were immersed in what looked like a pool of blood up to his ankles. He cried out and lifted them.

The train rocked on. People gazed at him, still mostly with indifference, some with a little interest, but no one caring enough to ask what was wrong, why was he holding his legs up like that? Were they all in a trance? How could they not see what was happening? He started to point out the floor when he noticed the blood was gone.

First people turn into bees, then a fire appears and disappears, and now this. What is happening? Christ, what's happening to me? he asked himself again.

People looked away or returned to their books and newspapers. Only a young woman, homely with brown hair chopped short about her pale face, looked in his direction. She started to smile. He was about to acknowledge her when the smile turned into a melting of skin at the corners of her mouth, revealing more and more teeth and gums and then bone. He gasped and closed his eyes. He kept them closed until he could feel the train slowing down. When he opened them, he saw that the young woman was standing in anticipation and facing the door. She looked back at him quickly, her face now a complete skeleton, but still with eyes, an inky gooey liquid drooling down her chalk cheekbones.

Why didn't anyone else notice the horror of her?

When he arrived at the Westport station, he quickly fled the train. He was hit by a cold gust of wind coming off the ocean. Did I have an overcoat I left somewhere? he wondered.

He squeezed the collar of his sports jacket closed with his right hand and stood there trying to decide what to do next. He had hoped that once he arrived, all his recollections would come rushing back. It would be as if a dam had cracked. He looked forward to drowning in memories and laughing about all this, but nothing happened. There were no faces, no voices, no sounds in his mind except the reverberation of some echo making him feel as if he were inside an enormous metal drum.

Other passengers hurried off the train, knocking into him, but not pausing even to say pardon me or excuse me. They were all fleeing, he thought. Maybe they finally saw the horror. As he walked along slowly, he gazed at as many people as he could, hoping that someone would say something and strike up a conversation. No one here gave him more than a passing glance, either. They carried their urban indifference into the suburbs like Typhoid Marys infecting everyone with the same anomie. Couldn't anyone see what kind of trouble he was in? What was he to do, stop someone and say, please help me? I forgot where I live and terrible things are happening to me?

Yes, he told himself. That's exactly what you have to do.

He checked the address on his license and walked up to a man and a woman who had just greeted each other. He waited for them to pull out of their embrace.

"Pardon me," he said, "but could you tell me where this would be?" He read off his license.

They stared at him and then looked at each other before the man spoke.

"Yeah, that's about four miles west of here," he said.

"Four miles? Either someone picks me up or I drive there, I guess," he muttered.

The two looked at each other again.

"Was someone supposed to meet you at the station?" the woman asked.

"I'm not sure."

"Well, are you visiting someone there?" the man asked with a tone of impatience.

"No. I guess this is my address," Aaron said, turning his wallet so they could see he had read it off his license.

"You guess that's your address?" The man's eyebrows nearly jumped up and off his face. He looked at the woman, who shook her head. "If it's on your license, it should be your address, don't you think?"

Aaron gazed around. There wasn't anyone waiting for anyone.

"Are you all right?" the woman asked.

"No," he said. "I'm having trouble remembering things, anything about myself actually, and I keep having horrible visions," he said. "Bees, fires, blood, skeletons," he catalogued, laughing at his own list of madness.

"Huh?" the man asked. His look of annoyance settled into a confident smirk. "Did you drink too much before you got on the train?"

"I don't think so. I can't remember. I don't feel drunk exactly. I just feel . . . invisible."

"But you did have something to drink before you boarded the train, right?" the man concluded with satisfaction, driving home his point like some trial attorney. He probably is an attorney, Aaron thought.

"Yes," Aaron admitted.

The man's smirk deepened as he nodded.

"If you had a car left for you, it would be over there, the commuters' parking lot," the woman said, speaking fast, pointing and stepping back as if he had some contagious disease.

He looked in that direction.

"I don't know," he said.

"You don't know what? You don't know if someone left you a car?" the man asked gruffly.

He shook his head.

"I don't know that, no."

"Well, is it something often done for you?" the woman asked softly, compassionately.

"I don't know what kind of car I have anyway."

"Well, you have to know," the man said. "This is ridiculous. No one gets that drunk, for crissakes. Look, do you have any car keys on you?"

"No," Aaron said. "That's right. I would, wouldn't I?"

"So then someone is supposed to pick you up," the woman concluded happily. "Why don't you call someone and ask for help?" the woman said.

"Yes," Aaron said, lifting his eyes toward her. "Good idea. I'll call someone and ask for help," he repeated as if it was some doctor's prescription.

"There's a pay phone over there," the man said, nodding to his left.

"Good luck," the woman said.

The two started away, the man shaking his head.

"Too many martinis," he muttered loudly. "There's a guy not eager to come home."

Could that be true? Aaron wondered. Could my unhappiness with my life be the cause of this amnesia and these hallucinations?

He found the pay phone and dialed for information. They wanted money for that. He scooped up his change and found the required amount. A mechanical voice asked, "What listing, please?"

He thought a moment and then asked for himself.

"One moment, please."

The number was given. He had no trouble committing that to memory. In fact, everyone he saw and heard now was as vivid as could be: the battered drunk who bumped into him, the well-dressed woman who had laughed at him, the elderly lady who swung her pocketbook at him, the man in the pin-striped suit who had helped him at Grand Central, the faces of the couple with whom he had just spoken, all of them, strong, vivid recollections. His memory was functioning fine on an immediate level.

Then why can't I remember anything before now? he wondered.

He hung up and then lifted the receiver and tapped out his telephone number. More money was required. He didn't have the exact change, but he overpaid and that worked. It rang.

Sweat was streaming down the back of his neck as if his brain had sprung a leak. Maybe that's it. Maybe my brain developed some hole at the bottom and all my thoughts, my memories are spilling out.

"Hello," he heard a little girl say.

"Hello. Who is this?"

"Is this my daddy?"

"It's Aaron Clifford," he said.

"That's you, Daddy," the voice replied and followed it with a giggle. "You sound funny."

He heard someone in the background ask who it was.

"It's Daddy. He says he's Aaron Clifford."

"What's he doing?" This older female came on the line. "Where are you, Aaron? I waited over an hour for you and finally brought Sophie home. You're over two hours late!"

"I'm at the station," he said.

"Well, where were you? I called Charlie Levine and he didn't know anything."

"I don't know," he said.

"What?"

"I can't remember."

"What are you saying, Aaron? You're talking stupid. I've already eaten, too. And you knew we had so much left to do tonight. Of all nights to be late."

"I. . ."

"What? What's going on?"

"I can't remember anything," he said. "Nothing. I had to look at my wallet to discover who I am."

There was a silence.

"Have you been drinking, Aaron?"

"Yes, I had a drink."

"A drink? One drink?" she asked with some incredulity.

"I can't remember. It might have been more. I'm seeing things, terrible things, too."

"Jesus, Aaron. It's after nine. I've been worried sick. You don't call. You don't let me know you're going to be late. I have all this pressure on me and you do this at precisely the wrong time."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I really can't remember anything, anything at all."

"What are you saying, Aaron? You're not making any sense."

He hesitated.

"I can't remember your name," he confessed.

The silence lingered a bit longer.

"Are you fooling around? Is this your idea of a joke because we're moving tomorrow and you were never crazy about the idea? Because if it is—"

"We're moving tomorrow?"

"I can't take any more of this, Aaron. I'm going to hang up. I swear. You can call a cab."

"No. I'm serious. I really am," he emphasized, his voice a bit shrill. This woman's voice, this phone connection, had become his lifeline. "There's fire sometimes and ugly creatures and blood, too."

She was silent.

"I don't even remember what our house looks like, much less where it is," he said in as calm a voice as he could muster.

"All right. Just stay where you are, Aaron. I'll ask Mrs. Domfort to watch Sophie. I'm not dragging her out again. It's late. I should be getting her ready for bed."

"I'm sorry. I can't help it," he said.

"I'll be there in about a half hour."

"Good."

"And Aaron?"

"Yes?"

"My name is Megan. You do remember what I look like, don't you, Aaron?"

He was silent.

"Jesus, Aaron," she said in a voice as tight as piano wire. "Don't move from the platform."

The click was like a gunshot. He stood there for a moment with the dead receiver in his hand. Then he turned and looked down the tracks. They ran into the darkness.

Just where he was.

two

She was pretty, outstanding, with the sort of energy in her eyes that all but guaranteed she would be quite photogenic. As she approached him, even in the diminished glow from the lights at the station, he could see she had a rich complexion a shade or two lighter than pecan with a greenish-blue tint in her eyes that was extraordinary.

Standing in light pink sneakers, she was still almost as tall as he was. Her hair was dark brown, thick, and healthy. It was styled so it angled at her jawbone and framed her face, the portrait of natural beauty with not much makeup, just a slight tint of lipstick. She wore a light blue soft leather jacket, a black body suit, and tapered jeans. A gold bracelet hung loosely on her right wrist.

There was something about everyone, about their personal energy, their aura, that was either positive or negative, Aaron thought. Often, someone was positive to one person and for no apparent reason negative to another. Although Megan's physical beauty impressed him initially, it was truly the feeling he had the moment she stepped before him that helped him relax and not only feel good, but great. He felt he could bond with this woman again and again, no matter what. He mused that if he had to, he could actually fall in love again with this woman and it would be as if it was the first time.

Looking at her small, perfectly straight nose with its almost imperceptible turn-up at the tip and her full, sensuous lips, he was almost grateful he had forgotten her as well as himself. The surprise was too delicious, too wonderful, not to be appreciated. What a funny idea, especially now, he thought. I am going mad. Only a madman would find something pleasant in all this.

She stood in front of him and stared at him for a moment, looking as if she wanted to be sure herself that this was Aaron Clifford, her husband, the father of the little girl who spoke to him on the phone. He waited anxiously, his heart pounding. A new and terrifying possibility occurred to him. What if he wasn't Aaron Clifford? What if she asked him who he was and how he dared to impersonate her husband's voice on the phone? How did he get her husband's wallet? Had he done something to the man?

"What's going on, Aaron?" she finally asked. He felt his body sigh with relief.

"I don't know," he said. He shrugged and tried to smile, but it was as if his face were frozen. He swallowed and looked around. "I can't remember anything about my past, my identity. I really had to look in my wallet to see who I was, and I had to get telephone information to find out our phone number."

She continued to study him, scrutinizing his eyes for validity.

"I swear," he said. "I'm telling you the truth. I wouldn't kid about something like this." That made him smile. "Funny, saying that. How do I know I wouldn't? That's the odd thing. There are feelings, very general ideas, instincts that are familiar," he said, fixing his eyes on her so she would understand that, "but not details, not specific and essential information about myself, the sort of information anyone needs to have, I suppose."

"What are you saying, Aaron? You're babbling."

"Am I?"

He gazed around.

"Even this doesn't feel right. I could be on some Greek Island and it would be the same. Do I always come home by train or do I commute with people? You mentioned someone named Charlie Levine. Do I commute with him?"

"You're scaring me," she said, taking a step back.

"Imagine what it's doing to me. You said your name was Megan?"

"Stop it, Aaron. You'll terrify Sophie, especially if you act like you don't remember her, too."

"I don't," he admitted. "How old is she? Do we have more than one child?"

"Aaron!"

"Sorry," he said. Actually, he felt like crying. Tears did form in his eyes. He rubbed his forehead.

"Did you get hurt—mugged or something?"

He looked up, encouraged that he was finally getting through to her.

"I don't think so. I have money and I don't have any injuries I can see or feel. How do I look?" he asked her, actually hoping she would find something wrong, some way to explain all this. He turned so she could look at the back of his head, his neck, anything.

She shook her head.

"You don't look injured." She thought a moment. "Maybe we should go right to the hospital," she added, her voice dropping. It was more to herself than to him.

He thought for a moment. Of course they should, but he was feeling a little better now that he was with someone who knew him. There was some relief and this situation couldn't last. Surely this can't last, he thought.

"No," he said. "Let's just go home. Maybe this will pass as soon as I'm in familiar surroundings. It's really sort of embarrassing. How can you not know your own home, right?"

She considered him.

"Perhaps you just drank too much," she offered. "I've heard that alcohol can do this to you sometimes. People wake up after a wild night and are unable to recall what they did the night before."

"Yeah, maybe that's it," he said. "It's something temporary, right? Could be just a reaction to something I drank. Or maybe"—his eyes lit up with the possibility— "someone put something in my drink! You know, like LSD? Some sort of hallucinogen for a practical joke, huh? I could have had a very bad reaction."

"I don't know, Aaron. I wasn't with you and you don't remember where you were, is that true?"

"No, no, I don't," he said. "I just found myself wandering in circles in Grand Central. But that's exactly what could have happened: Someone slipped me something. Sure. I bet that's it." He felt himself relax a little more. "I'll be all right," he said. "Once whatever it is goes out of my body, I'll be all right." His chant became a little mantra. "I'll be all right."

"Yes, you will," she agreed.

She threaded her arm through his and led him toward a black Mercedes 420 S-class.

Nice car, he thought. Beautiful wife, nice car. So far, I'm happy.

I will be all right.

The house was a good size classic two-story Queen Anne with wedgewood blue siding, ebony shutters and a sidewalk bordered by trim hedges. There was an attached garage, and the driveway was illuminated by replicated late nineteenth century brass streetlights. The lawn was a carpet of vibrant green. Even in the darkness he could see how well manicured it and every plant, tree, and bush was. It looked like it was set on a nice size piece of land, too, with the nearest home blocked by a patch of birch and maple trees.

"I guess we really are moving," he muttered when the garage door went up.

Cartons were piled along both walls and in the rear, leaving barely enough space for their car. Some pieces of furniture had been broken down and set out as well, along with pictures and lamps.

Megan had said barely a word all the way back from the station. She looked sullen, waiting for the door to stop rising. Aaron gazed at the front of the property again.

"Why are we moving?" he muttered. "This is very nice."

"This is really all a joke, isn't it?" she snapped back at him. "It's all part of some sick plan of yours, right, Aaron? Who put you up to it, Charlie Levine?"

"No!" he practically shouted. "I'm not joking. I can't recall why we're moving. And I don't remember any Charlie Levine, either. Who is he? I'm serious. I don't remember him. Do we commute together?"

She stared at him a moment, scrutinizing his face again and looking as if she was reluctantly giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"Sometimes you do," she replied. "Seeing the house hasn't stimulated any memory?" she asked in a softer tone.

He shook his head. "Sorry," he said.

She sighed deeply.

"We're moving to a nicer community and we're moving because of my work," she said. "It's a little longer commute for you, but we agreed the trade-off was worth it. Does any of that sound familiar?"

"What work? What do you do?"

"I'm a graphic artist, Aaron. I'm working for an advertising firm there."

He thought a moment.

"And I'm an architect, right?"

"Yes. That's how we first met. You were designing a building for this firm I was with in Westchester," she said and shook her head. "I can't believe I'm doing this, Aaron. If you're telling me the truth and this amnesia is so deep and complete, you need to see a doctor right away, even if you were the victim of some practical joke and someone put drugs in your drink. Who knows how serious that can be? I should have taken you to the hospital emergency room instead of home."

They drove into the garage.

"I guess I will see a doctor if this doesn't end soon. Certainly by tomorrow."

She shut the engine and then turned to him. "You honestly don't remember anything? Your name, me, your eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, our whole life together? Ten years of memories, gone?"

"It's like a blur. I try to remember and I see this foggy gray wall. Sometimes it's even painful to try to break through it. It's like a wall of smoke, yet I'm not a total idiot," he quickly added. "I mean, I'm not absolutely mindless. I seem to be able to do things and remember everything that happens at the moment, but all the important stuff is gone, yes."

"How do you feel otherwise?"

"Otherwise?" He shrugged. "Okay, I guess. I mean, no continuous pain, no headaches, nothing, but I did have these strange visions: people turning into bees, insects, fire in the train station, blood on the train floor."

"Okay," she said, sounding now like she truly believed him, "I'll give you something to help you get a good night's rest, and then in the morning . . ."

"You said we're moving in the morning, right?"

"Yes, but because of my job we have all sorts of support systems where we're going. We'll be able to go right to a doctor in our new community, if need be." "Where are we going?"

"It's called Driftwood. It's only another twenty-five, thirty miles northeast of the city."

"That's appropriate," he said. "It's what I feel like . . . driftwood." She smiled.

"At least you haven't lost your dry wit, Aaron. You'll be all right," she assured him. She started to open the door and then stopped. "Wait." "What?"

"You can't show your condition to Sophie. She'll get very frightened. You know she's a very sensitive child."

"I know now," he said.

''And Mrs. Domfort, too. Why let the whole world know our problems? If you could remember her, you'd remember she loves to gossip." "Okay," he said. "I'll do my best." He followed her out of the car and through the door from the garage into the house. It took them directly into the kitchen, where the woman he imagined to be Mrs. Domfort sat across from his little girl at the small table in the breakfast nook. His daughter had Megan's eyes and her color hair. She was in a pair of jeans and a pink and white blouse with a frilly collar, and her hair was braided. A small dimple in her left cheek flashed on and off as she moved her lips. She is adorable, he thought.

"Hi," he said. "Sorry I'm late," he added, which obliviously pleased Megan. She nodded to show him he had said the right thing.

"Thanks so much, Mrs. Domfort."

"Oh, it's nothing, dear," the short, bluish gray-haired lady said, rising. She didn't look much more than four feet two at the most with an ample bosom and wide hips. Her face was rosy, her eyes cheerful.

She looks like the generic grandma, Aaron thought, a model for a Hallmark Grandparents Day card.

"Sophie and I were just talking about your new home and how wonderful it was going to be for her to start a new school with new friends, weren't we, Sophie?"

His little girl nodded.

"It's like opening a surprise package. That's so much fun, isn't it?" Mrs. Domfort continued.

It seemed to Aaron she was asking him, and asking him in the same, childlike tone of voice as if he was the infant to comfort and not his daughter. He nodded, too, and looked at Sophie, who was gazing at him with her eyes narrow, almost suspicious, as she waited for his reaction.

"Yes, it will be fun," he promised.

Sophie smiled.

"You took so long to come home, Daddy. We went to the train station and back, and you weren't there. Mommy was mad at you," she added, her eyebrows knitting together and her lips tightening in imitation.

"I know. I'm sorry," he said.

I guess I'm not late often, he thought. He smiled at her and she smiled back, looking proud of the fact that he was offering her an apology. He could see it made her feel older, more like her mother.

"Is there anything else I can do for you, dear?" Mrs. Domfort asked Megan.

"No, Mrs. Domfort. "You've done so much for us as it is. She helped me finish packing all day today, Aaron."

"Oh?" he said. There were cartons of dishes, kitchen ware, silverware, all neatly and safely packed and stacked on the floor by the counters. He nodded. "Lotta work, moving," he muttered.

''Anyway, we're fine now, Mrs. Domfort. Aren't we, Aaron?" she asked, raising her voice sharply.

"What? Oh, yes, yes. Thanks."

"I'll come around in the morning to help get you off. It breaks my heart to see you all go," Mrs. Domfort said sadly, pressing her lower lip over her upper and looking as if she might actually start to cry. Her over-the-top reactions nearly made Aaron laugh. It was as if they were all in a big dollhouse or performing on some children's show. He half-expected to hear music and see puppets pop out of the kitchen cupboards.

"You're always invited to visit us, Mrs. Domfort. You know that," Megan said.

"Oh, I know," Mrs. Domfort said, "but Mr. Domfort hates to drive these days. He says everyone drives too fast for him, and I haven't driven a car since I was twenty. I don't want to tell you how long ago that was," she added, smiling at Aaron.

"Well, if you can't come to see us, we'll come to see you, then," Megan promised when Sophie looked disappointed.

Megan stepped beside her and put her hand on Sophie's shoulder. Sophie pressed her cheek against her mother's wrist. The touching was obviously very important, reassuring.

Aaron watched, warmed by the sight and moved to perform some affectionate act as well. Should he kiss his daughter? Did he always do that when he came home?

"What time are the movers arriving?" Mrs. Domfort asked. She looked as if she was asking him. He turned to Megan.

"Seven-thirty," Megan replied. "So we all have to get an early night. C'mon, Sophie. Let's get you into your bath and then ready for bed."

When Sophie stood up, Megan looked at Aaron.

"Your platter is in the microwave. Just put it on for a minute and a half and everything will be hot enough," she told him. "We left your dishes and silverware out and enough for our breakfast tomorrow."

He gazed at the microwave and nodded.

"Okay," he said.

"I want Daddy to read me a story," Sophie said.

Aaron turned sharply and raised his eyebrows. Megan looked worried.

"Your father has to eat his supper," Megan replied, her lips tightening.

"I want him to," Sophie whined.

"It's all right. I'm so hungry, I promise I'll eat fast and come right up."

"We'll call you when Sophie's ready after her bath.

Eat something, Aaron. You need it," Megan said and swung her eyes at Mrs. Domfort, who had remained to listen. He understood.

"Oh. Right. Okay," he said. "I was so eager to get home, I didn't stop to eat a thing," he told Mrs. Domfort and went to the microwave. He studied it a moment and realized he'd have no trouble remembering how to use it. Did that mean his memory was returning? He couldn't say for sure because he did remember so many basic things. But how can you forget just the important stuff? he wondered again.

"Well," Mrs. Domfort said with a sigh so deep he thought her heart would burst. "Good night everyone. Have a restful sleep." She smiled at Aaron. "I do hate to see you all go, Aaron, but Driftwood is a wonderful community. You'll do your best work there."

"Thank you," he said even though he wondered what she meant. He watched her leave. Megan glanced at him and nodded before she took Sophie out.

"Come read to me, Daddy," Sophie called back.

"I will!" he shouted.

Aaron stood there gazing after them. He had no idea what the rest of the house was like and that drew his curiosity more than his hunger drew him to the food. Nevertheless, afraid of doing something wrong, he started the microwave before exploring.

The house was obviously in a state of flux. The walls were bare. Furniture had been moved about. There were cartons on the floors. He wandered through the living room, hoping to find something that would jolt his memory.

He looked in the downstairs bathroom, the dining room, and what was probably his or Megan's little office-studio before he heard the microwave buzzing. Nothing had seemed familiar; nothing opened a floodgate of recollections. Quickly returning to the kitchen, he took out his food, set it on the table, and started to eat. It was roasted chicken, a pat of creamy mashed potatoes, and string beans. All of it was tasty, and as soon as he began, he realized he was ravenously hungry. He practically gobbled it all down before he heard Megan calling from the top of the stairway.

"Sophie's ready for you, Aaron."

"Coming!" he cried back and swallowed some water to wash down his food. Then he went to the stairway and started up, studying the carpeted steps, touching the carved banister carefully, studying the lines, looking for something to sting his mind and like a key open a locked door.

Still, nothing happened.

He paused at the top of the landing. Megan stood there in anticipation.

"Well?" she said.

He shook his head.

"Nothing significant yet," he said. "It's all still quite a blank to me." He gazed down the upstairs hallway. "I don't even know which room is hers," he said in a loud whisper.

She sighed and lowered her shoulders as if she carried the full weight of his malady.

"First door on the right, Aaron," she said. "Be sure you don't let her know anything. Getting up and moving away from her friends and school is traumatic enough for a little girl her age."

"I won't," he promised.

He took a deep breath and stepped into his daughter's bedroom. It was stark because everything had been taken off the shelves and the walls. Sophie looked so much smaller in the queen-size canopy bed. He saw that the drawers had been removed from the dressers and the vanity table. The mirror was taken down and boxed. It lay atop the table. Just a pair of old-fashioned twin rag dolls remained alongside Sophie. In the corner was a doll almost as big as she was.

Sophie's hair was spilled down her face and over the fluffy pillow. Her eyes were bright with anticipation. The book he was to read rested on her lap. He glanced at the chair beside the bed and then moved quickly to it.

"Well," he said. "What do we have tonight?" He looked at the book.

"It's the same book as last night, Daddy."

"Oh. Right," he said. He widened his eyes with surprise at the title: Sophie Moves to a New Home.

"You and Mommy bought it for me last weekend," Sophie said.

He stared at the book and then he looked toward the doorway. Megan stood there, watching and listening.

"What a coincidence," he remarked. "Sophie moves to a new home."

"Very funny, Aaron," Megan said. He shook his head. "What?"

She glanced at Sophie.

"You know I had it made. I did the art and you did the copy."

"Oh. Right," he said. He looked at the book. "Right." He opened it and sat back.

"'Sophie was unhappy,'" he began. "'She thought moving to a new home was going to be sad, but boy, was she in for a surprise.'"

He looked up at Megan.

"I'll be waiting for you," she said softly, undoing the top buttons of her blouse. "Maybe I can do what has to be done to get that memory of yours back on track. The first and last night in your home is supposed to be special," she added with a naughty smile. "And anyway, Aaron, it's in love and sleep that we learn to trust each other, remember?"

He widened his eyes and stared after her.

He should feel terrible, he thought. He should absolutely be in a state of great anxiety. His heart should be pounding. He should be in a sweat. He should want to scream, especially after the terrible hallucinations and all.

But he didn't experience any of that at the moment.

Instead, he was settling into this house and this family like someone who was lowering himself into a warm bath, someone who didn't want to remember anything, someone who just wanted to close his eyes and feel good and forget the world.

Which was what he had done.

"What happens next, Daddy?" Sophie asked.

He wanted to say he didn't know.

But instead, he began to read the story he had supposedly written. Vaguely it sounded like something he might have done, he thought, but everything was still too far out there for him to touch.

How precious is something as simple as your own name, he concluded.

three

She was already in bed, the thin beige quilt up around her, but with enough cleavage showing to draw his eyes. She didn't have a smile on her face as much as a tiny, tight smirk.

"She fell asleep quickly," he said.

"Good. I hate waiting." She smiled. "You remember this at least, don't you, Aaron?" She peeled the blanket down to reveal her bosom completely. Her breasts were full and round with nipples rising out of two slightly orange splashes. She ran her right forefinger seductively down between her breasts. "You always call this your private Grand Canyon. You remember that, don't you, Aaron?"

The truth was he didn't remember any of it, but whereas all other forgetting made him anxious and concerned, this suddenly seemed more pleasureful and exciting, as it would if he were viewing her for the very first time. Innocence, discovery, surprise, and revelation had a certain special flavor that turned into something more with time. Sex was even supposedly better after the virgin wrapping was torn away, but there was always that initial taste that could never be duplicated. He was having it again and that was an unexpected benefit. For now, he didn't care why it was back or what had caused it to happen. It was happening, and the warmth and the rush it sent through his body was as much a relief as it was exciting. This, he could understand. It was something in which he could find comfort and some respite from the terrible storm raging in his troubled brain.

"You still remember how to make love, don't you, Aaron? It's like riding a bike," she continued, teasing. "You fall off; you get back on."

He laughed and began to undress. For a moment he stood there looking at the closet doors. It was like The Lady or the Tiger. He was frozen, afraid to make a mistake. Which should he chose? Which door should he open? It was almost as if he expected to find another man's clothes behind one of them, and then all this would fall apart. He'd no longer be Aaron Clifford. He'd be back in total limbo. He hated these little indecisions, these small confusions. They were like tiny cracks in a precious diamond, soon to join and shatter the jewel. Was he on the verge of some massive brain meltdown? Shouldn't he have gone right to the hospital?

"Your closet's on the right, Aaron," she offered. "There's not much left in it, however. Just tomorrow's clothes. You said you wanted to wear your sweat suit because we are going to be working all day moving in the house."

"Right," he said. That was logical. He opened the closet door and glanced at the light blue sweat suit and the pair of sneakers on the floor with a pair of sweat socks folded neatly over them.

I guess I did say that, he thought.

Carefully he took off his clothing, hanging it all neatly, making sure he didn't lose the pleat in his pants. She laughed.

"You seem to remember all your little habits very well," she said. "I'm always calling you my personal valet. You've always been more organized and neater than I am, Aaron."

"Am I?" He gazed at his clothes on the hangers and nodded. "Right," he said.

"I shouldn't have told you. Some things I'd like you to forget forever," she jested.

He turned to her. Standing only in his underwear and socks now, he felt himself blush. Why should he blush?

"Don't stop now," she said. "You're doing so well. It won't be long before your memory rises to the top. I promise," she said, turning to him and pursing her lips as if she was about to pass judgment on the size of his anticipation.

His building erection did make his underwear seem a size too small. Slowly he lowered his briefs and stepped out of them, folding them neatly, and then looking around for the proper place to lay them.

"For god's sakes, Aaron. Just leave them on the chair," she said with a small note of annoyance. Was he that fastidious, even at times like this? "We'll put it with our other clothes to be washed in the morning. I promise." She raised her right hand to swear.

"Right," he said and took off his socks as well. He couldn't help but be embarrassed by the way she scrutinized him. She seemed to be studying him for some sign of change now that he was nude.

"Looks like everything's still where it was when you left the house this morning," she joked. "Glad to see you have no memory problems in that department; otherwise I would have begun electric shock treatments on the spot, and I mean, on the actual spot!"

He laughed. She was funny. He liked her. How weird it was to make discoveries about a woman he was married to for ten years. How long had they known each other before? There were so many questions looming.

"Did we have a long engagement?" he asked.

"Aaron, shut up, will you. Just shut up and get into bed," she said, lifting the blanket.

He obeyed and she practically seized him around the neck and plunged her lips against his. The kiss was long, drawing, her breasts pressing against his chest, her hips turning as her leg rubbed up and over his. Then she reached down to touch his penis. He moaned.

"Remember? Remember this, Aaron?" she said, stroking him. She lowered herself under the blanket, and moments later he felt her mouth slide over his erection. It made him gasp. He let his head fall to the pillow. She moved gently but firmly, and then she rose and straddled him, taking him into her quickly. He looked up. Her eyes were closed and she had a wonderful smile of satisfaction on her lips.

How perfectly shaped her breasts were. How smooth ran the lines of her neck into those tender shoulders. And her skin, nearly alabaster, not a blemish, not the slightest imperfection. He was making love to a goddess. Passion flowed from her body and washed over him. Her vigorous movements made him reach around to hold on to her waist. She was bouncing so hard, he thought she might crack his spine. For a moment he was actually overwhelmed by her demand for pleasure. Then she cried out and turned over, pulling him along so he would remain in her and start again without a second's pause.

It seemed to him she had at least a half dozen orgasms before he exploded with his own cry of erotic delight. Both of them were gasping like fish out of water. He held on to her until he caught his breath, and then he turned to roll on his back.

"That's my old Aaron," she whispered. "No gaps in memory there."

He nodded.

"Like riding a bike you said. It's coming back."

"Remembering?" she asked.

He squinted.

"I . . . "

"What?"

He did have some new images, but they were flashes with different faces, different smiles, and the women he saw were not as perfect, although attractive. Confusing.

"A little," he offered.

"Good. You'll be fine in the morning."

"Are we, I mean, are you on the pill? I noticed we took no precautions."

She laughed.

"You're such an idiot, Aaron. It's funny to see you this way, to see Mr. Clifford, the perfectionist, the meticulous perfectionist, the careful man, an Eagle scout, oh so good and so healthy in your body and your mind, confused, dependent, insecure."

She sounded as if she was really mocking him. He actually felt a bit indignant, even though he also felt as if he was defending someone else.

"I'm sorry, I just don't remember, and I thought. . . "

"We decided months ago," she said, bracing herself on her right elbow and looking down at him. With her right forefinger she traced a line down his chest. "We're having another child now. I've already discussed it with Mrs. Masters. I can work at home during my maternity leave, remember?"

"No," he said. "Who's this Mrs. Masters?"

"My boss, the owner of the advertising firm in Driftwood. I've spoken so much about her, I can't imagine your forgetting who she is."

"Well, I have," he said. "I've forgotten more important things, Megan."

Why didn't she realize that? What was so important about forgetting Mrs. Masters compared to forgetting her and his own child?

"Anyway, that's the answer to your questions and concern about our unprotected sex," she said a little irritably. "I don't mind you having a lapse of memory for a day or so, but I don't want to have to fight old battles. You'll just have to take my word for some things."

"Some things?" he said, laughing. "Megan, I have to take your word for everything at the moment."

"Well, so what? You'll just have to trust me," she said and kissed the tip of his nose. "You can trust me, can't you, Aaron?"

"I don't remember why I shouldn't," he said diplomatically.

She smiled.

"A perfect Aaron Clifford answer: tactful, logical. Temporary problems with your memory or not, you're the same man I married," she told him, nodding and widening her smile.

"Am I?"

"I told you to trust me, didn't I?"

"Okay," he said.

She turned and rose from the bed. He watched her walk to the bathroom. She was beautiful with that narrow waist, that smooth, graceful turn in her back, that firm rear. Forgetting so much is disconcerting, but at least there is no pain now, he thought, and there is all this pleasure.

She returned with a glass of water and held out her left hand. There was a pill in her palm.

"What's that?"

"I told you I'd give you something to help you sleep."

"What is it?"

"Cyanide," she said with a smirk.

He laughed and plucked the pill from her palm. He hesitated a moment.

"If you kill me, Mrs. Domfort will tell everyone in the neighborhood," he warned.

She laughed. "That's my Aaron," she said. "Always with the witty retorts."

"I guess I am your Aaron then," he replied and put the pill in his mouth. He swallowed it down with some water and lay back on the pillow. She got into bed beside him again and reached for his hand.

"This change, everything. It's all really a new beginning for us, Aaron. "You'll see. It's like being reborn, given a second chance in every way," she said, the excitement brightening her eyes.

"I guess so," he said. 'At least it is definitely that for me."

"For all of us," she said. She kissed him. "Good night, Aaron. Tomorrow, you'll be all right again."

She cuddled up beside him and closed her eyes. He held her in the nook of his arm and stared up at the ceiling. Darkness crawled in from the corners and gradually stopped the questions. In moments there was silence.

And he slept, strangely contented for a man who might have lost his very soul.

Morning was abrupt, as sudden as a slap in the face. His eyes snapped open and he had to close them because the brightness was too intense. All of the curtains had been stripped from the windows. Unblocked, the sunlight bounced off the white walls, making him feel as if he were inside a light bulb. He lay there, waiting for his first thoughts like someone watching a computer monitor, anticipating e-mail.

Megan already had risen, dressed, and gone downstairs. He could hear some muffled conversation below and then some laughter. He sat up, scrubbed his face with his dry palms, and took a deep breath before holding his breath to think and search his mind. The bed he was in was the only piece of furniture left in the room. How had they taken all the rest of it out without his waking?

More important, he thought, what about my memory?

He waited.

There was a trickle of images. He saw himself in an office, working on an architectural project, penciling in fountains, walkways. He remembered every little detail of yesterday's tumultuous journey home, even the horrendous hallucinations, but he needed to go back much further in time. He squeezed his eyelids shut and pressed his hands against his temples as if he were trying to squeeze juice out of an orange. There wasn't any sharp pain in making the attempt now, but that's where the recovery apparently stopped. There were no additional recollections. Where was he born? Where had he lived? What about his family, his parents? How did he actually meet Megan? Why wasn't it all back? Damn it!

The laughter below grew louder. Doors were opened. He heard some heavy footsteps. After another frustrating moment, he decided to get up. He went to the bathroom and then thought that maybe if he had a cold shower, it would help. He was still in the stall when Megan came to the bathroom. He turned, opened his eyes, and realized she was standing there, observing him through the glass door. Funny how he felt like someone who had been exposed, the victim of a voyeur. He shut the water and opened the door. She handed him his towel.

"How are you this morning, Aaron?" He shook his head.

"I remember things about my work, scattered details, but other than that, other than remembering everything about my trip home yesterday . . . nothing," he said.

"Well, maybe it's coming back slowly but surely if you remembered something new at least."

"I wish I could be as confident and as cool about this as you are," he said.

"I'm not taking it lightly, Aaron, but if we go into a panic at this moment with all we have to do, we'll only make things worse."

She helped wipe his back.

"Let's get ourselves moving, and when we get to Driftwood, I'll call Mrs. Masters and she'll put us in touch with the right doctor, okay? The movers are nearly finished. The car is full." "How long have you been up?"

"Hours, Aaron."

"I can't believe they took out the dresser and the armoire without my hearing them. They must have thought it odd, too. They could have carried the bed downstairs with me in it!"

"They were laughing about it, but I explained that you had to take a sedative. I don't think we have to worry about the opinion moving men have of you, Aaron."

"No, I was just . . . amazed at myself." He stood there, dazed.

"Aaron, it's nearly eleven-thirty!"

"It is! What the hell did you give me?"

"At least you're rested," she said. "You were great last night for a man without a mind," she added with a wink.

"Come on downstairs as soon as you're dressed. Sophie is getting nervous and needs you," she added. "I want to send them up for the cartons."

She left quickly. He started to dress and paused to look at a partially opened carton. He could see a framed photograph in very thin paper on top of everything else in the carton. After he slipped on his sweat pants, he knelt beside the carton and opened the lid to lift out the picture. He cleared away the tissue paper and gazed at a picture of himself and Megan. They were standing on the steps of some hotel. From the vegetation and landscape, he thought it looked like somewhere in Hawaii. On closer inspection, he could read the words Kona Paradise on the front door of the hotel. They both looked somewhat younger in the picture and so he wondered if it was their honeymoon.

Oddly, they weren't embracing or even holding hands. They were just standing beside each other as if they had been caught unaware by the photographer. Studying the picture, he even thought they were looking in two different directions. Not a terribly romantic picture, he thought. Was that really the way he was, so formal? Stuffy? Megan had implied that last night. Maybe it was good he lost his memory then. He didn't want to be that sort of a person. He felt as if some casting director had assigned him a role to play that he wouldn't enjoy He was more comfortable relying on his instincts. He sifted through the rest of the carton, hoping to find other pictures, but all he found in this carton were cases holding costume jewelry, tie clips, cuff links, a gold pocket watch, and neatly packed handkerchiefs. For a moment he considered going through the other cartons here. Perhaps seeing these things would help stimulate his crippled memory.

''Aaron!" he heard Megan call. "Are you coming down today? We are on a tight schedule."

"Coming!" he cried and hurriedly slipped on his socks and sneakers, grabbed his sweat shirt, and descended the stairs.

The moving men, two husky guys built like potbellied stoves, were carrying out the large sofa. He waited for them to get past and out the front door before going to the kitchen, where Megan had a glass of orange juice and a cup for his coffee set out on the table. There was only one chair left.

"They're going upstairs to get our bed in a few minutes. I have to go up and pull off the sheets, pillows, and comforter," she explained, "so let's get your breakfast finished."

"Where's Sophie?" he asked.

"She's out front with Mrs. Domfort watching them load the truck, looking like it's the end of the world or something. I swear, the way that child behaves sometimes, you'd think she was a grown woman. She has such mature reactions, thinks so deeply about everything. Remember when you had to explain why dead people don't come back?"

"No," he said, drinking the juice.

"My mother had died. Dad had died before Sophie was born and your parents ..."

"What about my parents?"

She stared at him.

"Maybe it's not good to do this like this, Aaron. Maybe we should wait for your doctor's visit."

"No," he said, putting the glass down. "What about my parents?"

"Your parents and your younger sister were killed in a car accident, Aaron. You were barely four at the time and survived only because you were the only one belted in the car. Your mother was holding your sister on her lap instead of keeping her in an infant's car seat."

He shook his head. "I don't remember any of that."

"And when you do, it will be terrible. It will be like reliving all the sadness. Actually, I'm very worried about you now, Aaron. I've tried not to show it because I didn't want to get you any more upset than you were, but this is really beginning to frighten me. I was expecting to see a nearly complete recovery this morning. We'll have to make the call and get you a doctor's appointment first opportunity, Aaron."

"It's terribly frustrating, Megan," he said. "I am trying so hard to remember. It makes me feel like I'm standing outside my own body, watching it go through all these motions."

"You weren't outside your body last night," she reminded him.

He laughed. "You know what I mean," he said. She nodded. "Okay, honey."

"If my parents were killed when I was four, who brought me up?" he asked.

"Do we have to go through this now?"

"I can't stand not knowing anything important about my past! It makes me feel so temporary, limp. I can't appreciate anything we're doing, and I know how much you want me to get into it all."

''All right. All right," she said calmly. She took a breath and said, "It wasn't your grandparents who brought you up. Your mother's parents were gone and your father's were self-centered, living in Florida in one of those golden days retirement communities. They wanted nothing to do with raising a four-year-old. So you ended up living with your mother's younger sister, your aunt Geraldine. I don't blame you for not remembering her from what you told me about living with her and her on-and-off-again husband, your uncle Charlie, who eventually died of lung cancer. You said his lower lip had an indentation from his constant cigarette dangling there."

A tiny spiral of smoke rose in the air between them. He even smelled it.

"Yes," he said. "I can remember that."

"Once you were able to care for yourself, you were on your own. You won a scholarship to Iowa State, the writing program, remember that? You became editor of the literary magazine in your senior year, and for a while you considered a career in writing before you settled into architecture. You're a very talented man, Aaron. You could have done many things with your life. Does that help?"

"No, I don't remember anything about college, but that doesn't matter at the moment. I just want to know about family now. Where's my aunt Geraldine?"

"Last we heard she was in a clinic outside of Philadelphia, suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Jesus," Megan suddenly said. She brought her right hand to the base of her throat.

"You think that's what's happening to me?"

A cold wave swept over his face and sent a shaft of ice down his spine.

"I don't know if these things have anything to do with genetics. No," she added after a moment's thought. "It can't be that, Aaron."

He stared at her. "How can we be sure?" "Let's not jump to any conclusions. Let's wait until you see the doctor Mrs. Masters recommends."

"What doctor? Who exactly is this Mrs. Masters? How will she know what to do, who I should see? She's not some medical expert, right?"

Megan smiled. "When you meet her, I'm sure you'll understand why I have such confidence in her and her advice. She's a very bright, dynamic woman who runs the company and who is probably the most influential person in Driftwood. There's even talk of running her for mayor when the present mayor retires, not that she would seriously consider politics. She's too busy building a multimillion dollar firm. You'll even get some work through her connections," she offered quickly.

He raised his eyebrows. "What? What work?"

"I was just seeing if you would explode again. When I suggested last week that you open your own offices in Driftwood, you nearly heaved me out the window. You and your New York City life," she added with disdain. "Every place else is the boon docks to you and your cronies."

His legs weakened, so he sat and shook his head. "I can't stand this. Everything you tell me is so new I feel like I'm forming a whole new person."

"Have something substantial to eat. I still have a bowl unpacked and a frying pan. I could fix you some eggs. How about your favorite scrambled eggs, the ones with a little Jack cheese? I've still got the ingredients and I've got those bagels you like."

He nodded slowly, recalling the tastes. "Do we have time?"

"Yes."

She started to prepare the eggs. "I suppose we've sold this house," he said, looking around. "Right?"

She glanced at him and smiled. "Some things are fun to repeat," she began. "We sold this house for 100,000 more than we paid for it, Aaron, and Mrs. Masters helped us do that, too. She put us together with the right real estate agent."

"This Mrs. Masters sounds bigger than life." "Sometimes I think she is. When she wants someone to come work for her, she makes sure it's attractive and easy. Until I find someone as good as Mrs. Domfort, my hours generally will correspond with Sophie's school hours."

"You keep mentioning Mrs. Masters. What about a MR. Masters?" he asked. "He died years ago."

"Is that where she got her fortune, inheritance?"

"Hardly. She was the one with the fortune."

He was about to ask how she achieved her fortune when Sophie came rushing in. She looked flustered.

"What's wrong, honey?" Megan asked.

"We forgot the clubhouse Daddy built. We forgot it and Mrs. Domfort says we can't take it."

"Why can't we take it?" Aaron asked Megan.

"It's up a tree, Aaron. You nearly broke your neck building it."

"Oh. Oh, yeah," he said, looking at Sophie. "Well, tell you what. . . " He paused. There was something coming through. His eyes widened. "Sudsy," he said. That was his nickname for her, he guessed.

Megan brightened, her eyes full of glee.

Maybe he was getting better. It cheered him.

"Tell you what. I'll build you a new one at the new house and a bigger one and a prettier one, okay?"

Sophie's sad eyes instantly metamorphosed into gleaming orbs of happiness.

"Yes, Daddy!" she cried and ran to him. She threw her arms around him and he held her close.

When he looked up, Mrs. Domfort was in the doorway looking at Megan.

They were both smiling.

But both had the same strange smile.

A knowing smile.

That smile shouldn't be doing this, he thought, but it made him feel afraid.

And he had no idea why.

four

Don't forget to fasten your seat belt," Mrs. Domfort told Sophie after she got into the car. Aaron got in and Mrs. Domfort put her hands out to take Megan's and hold it. The two looked at each other so lovingly and held on to each other so tightly, Aaron felt tears in his eyes.

For a long moment the two women looked at each other without speaking. Finally, Mrs. Domfort smiled. "You're starting a whole new wonderful life, dear. No one deserves it more."

"Thank you, Mrs. Domfort."

''Aaron," she said, turning to him and fixing on him like a schoolteacher chastising a student, "you've got a wonderful woman here. You're a very lucky man, you know. I hope you appreciate it."

"I'm trying," he said. Megan shot him a look of warning. "Trying to be worthy of her, I mean," he added quickly.

"Of course you are, dear," Mrs. Domfort said, reverting back to her granny face. "It just takes men a little longer to appreciate the good things they have," she said.

She and Megan laughed. It was almost as if they shared a private joke.

"Maybe you're right," Aaron said.

"Oh, I know I'm right," Mrs. Domfort said.

"I'll call you," Megan promised her.

"Be a good girl, Sophie. I'll come see you somehow," she promised.

Sophie just looked at her. Now that they were actually leaving the house, the little girl appeared more terrified. Aaron felt sorrier for her than he did for himself. He looked at Megan, who tightened her lips and shook her head.

"Hey, Sudsy, wait until you see how pretty our new house is," he said, even though he had no recollection of it.

Megan smiled and started the engine.

"Bye," she called back to Mrs. Domfort. The old lady stood there, waving from their now former driveway. Aaron watched her until they made a turn and she and the house were out of sight. Then he turned to Megan.

"Maybe you ought to remind us about our house, Megan," Aaron suggested, smiling at Sophie.

Megan tilted her head and pulled up the right corner of her mouth. "Aren't you being the clever

one?"

"Just trying to deal with this," he replied, wiping his right palm over his forehead. She nodded.

"Our new house is nearly five hundred square feet larger than our old house. It's also a two-story, but it's a Gothic Revival. Remember, Sophie, I told you Daddy was the one who found it?"

"Uh-huh," Sophie replied.

"I did?"

"Daddy's exact words were, if we have to move, we should find something with style, something that makes a statement. Daddy hates clones. He's always looking for something special, and our new house is very special. Remember, Sophie? Remember how you called it the Storybook House."

"Yes, Mommy."

"Why did she call it that?"

"Because of its steeply pitched roof. Actually, it is pretty elaborate, Aaron. I was immediately impressed with those cross gables with decorated vergeboards and those windows with the pointed arches. I love the full-width porch, but I must admit, when I first saw those fanciful decorative ornamentations and those bas reliefs, I kept thinking this is a house for Rosemary's Baby, even though it was one of the homes Mrs. Masters had recommended for us."

She laughed.

"I was a little reluctant until we stepped inside and I saw the size of those rooms and that lovely French door in the dining room allowing the view of the woods and the stream. The patio just outside it is quite big."

"How much land is it on?"

"Nearly two acres. Can't you remember walking with me down to the water?" she asked with the tone of someone coaxing. "Remember what you said?"

"Refresh my memory."

"You said, if we open our windows on summer nights, we'll sleep to the sound of this bubbling brook and wake to it as well. "You can be quite romantic when you want to be, Aaron Clifford. A woman likes that in a man, his flirtations with sensitivity, feelings, sometimes just the little things like bringing home a flower. I love little surprises. Don't forget that, Aaron," she warned.

"Don't worry. I get the feeling that anything I'm told or learn now will be more dominant in my mind than anything I learned before," he remarked.

She glanced at him, her eyebrows poised, her lips tight. "What do you mean by that?"

"Everything we do now is all I have, including everything and anything you tell me."

"Don't say it like that, Aaron. "You'll make me think so hard about everything I tell you. You make it seem like a big responsibility."

He lowered his head and looked up at her with a Give me a break, expression. She burst into a delightful peal of laughter that painted a smile on his face. He was struggling with his memory, but it was sure fun to fall in love all over again and feel like a teenager. He wondered if she had the same feelings because of his condition.

He looked back at Sophie. Her eyes were closing. She was falling asleep. He watched her a moment and then turned back to Megan.

"Am I a good architect?" he asked her.

"You've never had any trouble finding work, Aaron. I was never crazy about the people you work for now. Charlton Clovis is a pompous, chauvinistic horse's ass who thinks that just because he's made a lot of money, he has a place in God's temple or something."

"Really? How old is he?"

"He says he's sixty-seven, but I have it on good authority that he's closer to seventy-five. Admittedly, maybe regretfully, I have to say he looks younger. He takes great pride in his stamina, his appearance, but he's too demanding. Look what happened to his son."

"What happened to him?"

"With all the pressure Clovis put on him to achieve, the young man eventually killed himself," she said, lowering her voice. "The man was creative. He had always wanted to be a songwriter, but Clovis never encouraged him. He did everything to discourage him, forced him to get his MBA and planted him in a job and work that stifled him. The stories you would bring home, how he treated him in the office whenever he appeared, how disdainful he was of his son's achievements in college, his friends, the woman he married, everything."

"How did he die?"

"Oh, they called it an accident, but a single-car accident where someone drives headlong over a two-thousand-foot embankment and has no alcohol or drugs in his blood? It was all kept quite hush-hush. If you ask me, Clovis was more embarrassed than he was saddened. That was the fastest funeral I ever attended. The coffin was already in the grave when we reached the cemetery."

"What about Mrs. Clovis?"

"Perpetually out of her mind with booze or drugs. It's only a matter of time before she's committed. He tolerates her because he can keep a leash on her, a choke collar made of diamonds. You're lucky you can't recall all this. How many of us would love to delete our most unpleasant memories from our minds forever?"

"I guess that's a way to rationalize and handle my problem, but I think I'd still take the bad with the good just to be mentally healthy again."

"Um," she said. ''Anyway, to answer your question, Aaron, you're the best he has and he doesn't appreciate you. That's why we've been having this ongoing argument about your starting your own company in Driftwood. Mrs. Masters will help you if you change your mind."

"I see."

"She will."

"Megan, right now I'm having trouble remembering where I put my socks two days ago, much less what I need to be an independent contractor."

"I bet when you sit down in front of your drafting table, you'll just get right back into it all. Matter of fact, Aaron, that might be a good idea. There are many paths leading home," she remarked.

He smiled. "That's very philosophical of you, Megan."

"It's the advertising impulse. Just think of it as a television commercial. For all you poor people who have lost your memories, consider Gobble Di Gook, the mind enrichment cereal, and remember there are many paths leading home," she recited, pretending to write it in the air with her right hand as she drove on.

He laughed harder.

Then he paused and thought.

What am I laughing about? We're talking about me!

"Aren't I expected to be at work today?" he asked.

"No, Aaron. You planned this time off for our moving. Mr. Clovis wasn't exactly overjoyed about it, from what you told me, but you were owed the time anyway. You're a workaholic, Aaron. He gets much more out of you than you have to give him, which is why I wish you were working for yourself. At least then you'd have someone who appreciates you." She turned and smiled. "You. And of course, me."

He nodded and shrugged.

"At the moment I don't know what I'm capable of doing," he said.

"A lot more than you think," she insisted. "You'll see. Just wait. You'll see."

He wished he had her confidence about it.

They drove on. When Sophie woke, he played a game with her, the color game. She had black, so anything black she spotted was a point for her. Of course he let her win. As they played, he vaguely began to recall doing it before. Something is happening, he thought happily. It's returning . . . my memory, in bits and pieces, things are coming back. Megan is right.

He had to admire Megan. Despite what had to be one of the most traumatic and shattering events of their lives, she didn't lose control; she didn't panic and drop the ball. She maintained herself, kept determined and fixed on what they had to have done, and she did it. She was practically carrying him along as if he were another child, and her calm demeanor went a long way toward helping him not panic.

I married a strong woman, he thought. I married a talented, beautiful woman, but also a woman with grit. I guess I am a pretty bright guy. The old lady was right: I'm a lucky man and here I am just realizing how lucky. Maybe I was taking her for granted before; maybe in a strange, twisted way, this is all giving me a second chance.

"You okay, Aaron?" Megan asked when he was quiet for a long spell, thinking.

"I must admit, Megan, you amaze me. I would expect you to be so much more concerned and worried about this," he said.

"If you didn't look so good, I probably would be. I got a little panicky this morning when I realized you couldn't even remember your parents, but whatever your problem is, Aaron, it's going to be solved. I'm too excited about our new opportunities to let anything discourage me, even this. You're going to be all right. I just know it," she assured him.

"Yes, but I've got to find a way to get it all back faster," he said. "I meant what I said back there. I feel. . . left out."

"I know, honey. Let's just get settled into the house a bit and I'll get on the horn. Before the end of the day you'll be seeing someone who can help you. I promise," she said.

He nodded and sat back.

"Let's sing, Daddy," Sophie said. "That funny song."

"Funny song?" He looked at Megan. "You made up your own words to 'Mary Had a Little Lamb.'"

"I did?"

She looked at him and suddenly began to hum the tune. He listened and, after a moment, words did come.

"Daddy had a little girl, little girl, little girl. Daddy had a little girl, her name was Sophie Suds. And everywhere that Daddy went, Daddy went, Daddy went, everywhere that Daddy went, his Sudsy held his hand. First they went to see the zoo, see the zoo, see the zoo. First they went to see the zoo, and talk to Mr. Chimp."

It all came back . . . the zoo, the park, the lake, the fun rides, on and on, a menagerie of places a father and a mother might take their little girl. And he could add to it, of course, or Sophie did by shouting a place out.

"Disney World! The beach!"

They must have sung for miles before he saw the first billboard announcing their entry to Driftwood. Population: 11,000.

"Only eleven thousand? This is really small-town life," he muttered.

"But only minutes from anything, Aaron. There's even a small airport here. Mrs. Masters has her own plane and will invite us to fly places occasionally." "She's a pilot, too?"

"No, silly. She has a pilot. I told you about all this before and you said Mrs. Masters sounded like a true twenty-first century career woman."

"I did?"

"You said self-made women are more impressive than self-made men because they have so many more obstacles to overcome."

"You're amazing," he said. "You seemed to have taken notes on all my dialogues and experiences." She was quiet a moment. "I'm only trying to be of some help, Aaron." "Oh, I didn't mean that to sound critical. It's just . . . impressive, that's all. Actually, it's flattering. I'm beginning to feel like someone important, someone with his own biographer following him everywhere, someone whose every word is taken down for posterity."

"It's true. You're important to me," she said firmly, her eyes narrow, dark. "And to Sophie."

"I'm glad," he said.

"Good." She smiled. "We're coming to Main Street!" she cried.

Aaron could see that for Megan it was as if they had passed through some sheer veil and entered a magical new world. She beamed, her smile almost illuminating, her eyes ecstatic, a true glow falling over her.

"Pretty," he said, looking at the well-maintained, clean, sharp buildings, sidewalks, and streets. Most of the buildings were vintage early twentieth century, the stores with large front windows and old but nicely restored metal and wooden signs above their doors. Nowhere was there anything glitzy or cheap.

In fact, Aaron thought Driftwood looked like a little dream town, something precious from the past, the sort of sleepy little town where everyone waved hello to everyone else. As if to emphasize his thoughts, two young women in expensive-looking jogging outfits moving gracefully down a side street waved at them, their faces relaxed, healthy. An elderly woman stepped out of her house with a toy poodle tugging excitedly on its leash. She tightened her grip and began to chastise it. Farther along, the mailman lumbered to his next address. A female driver pulling away from the curb waved to him and he nodded back.

"The place looks almost unreal, like a movie set," Aaron remarked. "Old-fashioned, stuck in another time. I half expect to see vintage automobiles."

"It is like that, but it's more. It's . . ."

"What?"

"Safe," she said. "Very, very safe."

The house was just as she had described. The architect in him did seem to come back to life and fill him with appreciation. Some more of his memory returned. He had done some major project recently, an entire urban mall that was family oriented. There was a place for children, a temporary daycare center while parents or mothers shopped. There were rides and there was a medical center to handle any sort of emergency. The theaters were underground, but there was a short subway ride from them to the parking facility should people come specifically for that, and all of the restaurants had areas for outside dining. He could also see artisans, people dressed in Old English costumes doing demonstrations. Where was this mall? How long had he worked on it?

The moving van was already there at their new house, of course. Megan wanted to hurry into the house to be sure the pieces were all placed where she had intended. He strolled through the wide entryway, admiring the elaborate moldings and trim, the hardwood floors, the large windows in the living room and the view from the dining room Megan had mentioned. The stairway had a very thick, hand-carved mahogany balustrade and led up to three good-size bedrooms. The master bedroom had an oval window above the headboard and two windows facing east so they would get the morning sunlight. Already down was the large area rug beneath their bed.

These guys work fast, he thought. "Okay," he asked Megan, who had taken Sophie into the kitchen, "what do I do first?"

"Do your home office, Aaron. Unpacking everything in there might help you restore your memory."

"Okay," he said. "Good idea." The office was off the downstairs hallway, just before the kitchen. The walls were done in a rich, dark oak paneling. It had windows facing the woods with just a glimpse of the highway in front of the house as it turned east. It was a thick section of forest, with the trees now bare, but the woods were still quite dark and deep and he could see the edge of that brook Megan had described, but he didn't recover any memorable moments walking with her near it.

He went right to work organizing his files, gazing at each and every old project for a while. It was almost like tuning in a radio or television station. As he studied the drawings and notes, the project would come back to him. He could envision them in their completed states. He found the mall he had recalled, too, and realized it had been somewhere in upstate New York. All this encouraged him and gave him renewed energy.

Then he discovered a beautiful picture of Megan and Sophie, Sophie obviously being a few years younger. Beside it was a picture of the three of them, but instead of standing beside them, he was standing behind them, looking over Megan's shoulder at the camera almost as if he was an observer or a director.

Stupid picture, he thought, but put it on his desk nevertheless.

By the time Megan looked in on him, he had his library up, his files created, and his supplies organized. He was seated at his desk, reviewing his Rolodex to see if the names in it stimulated further recollections.

"Wow," Megan said. "You've done so much."

"Motivated, I guess," he said. "You were right about some of this. Looking over the work has brought back some memories, especially of my work."

"Oh, good, Aaron."

"But these people, these names, I can't place a face or a purpose to any of them," he said, flipping the cards.

"You will."

"I was thinking . . . maybe I should spend time just looking over our family albums, videos of holidays, birthdays, whatever. What do you think?"

"Sounds like a good idea. I have to warn you that we don't have all that much. We eloped and got married in Virginia Beach, you know, so we don't have a wedding album."

"We don't?"

"No, and you always hated bringing the video camera along on our trips, Aaron. Whenever you did, you barely used it. You used to rant how people have all these pictures and videos in their homes and never look at them. I think you figured out that if all the wasted photos were strung together, they'd go to the moon and back. But you're right. At least we have something to help restore some memories, I suppose."

"Daddy, when are we going to build the new clubhouse?" Sophie asked.

"You've got to give Daddy a chance to get the house organized, honey," Megan told her. "In a few days. Maybe by the weekend."

Sophie looked dissatisfied.

"Maybe sooner," he said. "We've got to plan it first, don't we, Sudsy? You and I will draw it up here," he said, tapping his drafting table. That brought a wide smile to her face.

"Just like last time," she said.

He looked at Megan.

"That's right," Megan said. "Just like last time. Hungry?"

"Yeah, matter of fact, I am."

"Well, let's go downtown to Grandma's Kitchen. I'm not ready to use our kitchen yet. You said you wanted to eat there first chance we had since I raved about the pot roast and one of you favorite desserts, peach cobbler. You said you were jealous."

"Sounds good," he said. He thought a moment. "I do remember loving peach cobbler. Someone made it well, right?"

She laughed.

"Stomachs have better memories," she said. "Mrs. Domfort made it for you. Oh, I called Mrs. Masters. She made a quick phone call and got you in this afternoon to see Dr. Longstreet. She's a renown specialist in things like Alzheimer's disease. Not that I believe you are suffering from it," she added quickly. "However, the doctor has been involved in important studies of memory. She's connected to the Innovative Clinical Research Center in Stanford."

"What kind of a doctor is she?"

"Neurologist. Mrs. Masters said she's perfect for the problem. She was very concerned about you and wants me to call her as soon as we are finished with the doctor's visit. It's nice being involved with people who see you as a human being and not some number or a tax deduction, like your former employer."

"Yes," he said, mostly recalling his feelings in the train station yesterday. "It is."

They got back into their car and started for town.

"Very nice piece of land," he remarked, gazing back at the house and the grounds. "Looks like the closest neighbor is about what, a third of a mile away?"

"Precisely. You always cherished privacy, Aaron. You have this insane love for the city, but you like the change. You like being able to escape."

"Yes," he said, nodding. It did sound like him.

"I think you could do better work out here, Aaron, and there is plenty on the boards. There's an expansion underway, and they need creative planners. The town fathers don't want this community to become just another suburb. They want it to keep its character, its charm. You like those sort of challenges, Aaron."

"It's seems weird being told what you like and don't like," he muttered quickly.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be overbearing," she replied quickly.

He looked up sharply. She was staring ahead, looking suddenly very nervous.

"I didn't mean to say you were. It's just a strange feeling, Megan."

She smiled. "I'm sure it is, but if I tell you something and it's wrong, you'll surely sense it, Aaron. That's only logical, right?"

"Right," he said. He thought a moment and repeated, "right," but he didn't feel as confident about that as he should.

He glanced back at Sophie. She was staring out the window quietly, her eyelids blinking rapidly from time to time. It brought a smile to his face. She looked as if she was taking things in and recording them, each rapid blink another click of information.

"She always so well behaved?" he asked, nodding toward the rear.

"Compared to other children, she's a cherub, Aaron, and you know why?"

"Why?"

"She has loving parents. She feels secure and supported. She knows we're always thinking of her, her best interests. It makes a difference, Aaron. You, of all people, considering what you've been through, your own family history I mean, should know that."

"Right," he said. He glanced at his daughter again.

She turned and smiled at him, but eerily, as if she not only understood what Megan was saying, but helped write the scenario, as if she were part of some insidious conspiracy to steal his very soul.

A chill ran through him.

"We're here," Megan announced, pulling up to the curb. "Isn't it a pleasure to be able to find a place to park so easily? Notice, there aren't even parking meters here, Aaron. People don't speed around, either. Remember that commercial with the appliance mechanic who was bored because he rarely received a service call, the product was so good?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do," he said firmly. It was almost as if he remembered where there was gold buried.

"Well, the Driftwood police department, all three of them, are vegetating in their offices," she said and smiled. "Safe," she reminded him.

"You ought to be the president of the chamber of commerce," he kidded.

She didn't laugh. "We're all members of the chamber of commerce as soon as we become residents here, Aaron. It's expected."

They got out and entered the small restaurant. As if they were put there by central casting, an elderly man and woman worked behind the counter of Grandma's Kitchen. A dozen tables and three booths made up the restaurant proper. There were also ten stools at the counter. Presently, three people sat at the counter and two of the booths were filled. One waitress, a woman with strawberry-blond hair and emerald green eyes, smiled at them. She was carrying a tray to one of the booths.

"You can have the booth if you like, Mrs. Clifford," she said, nodding toward it.

"Thank you, Arlene."

"They know you by name already?" he asked. "How many times have you been here?"

"Only one, but that's what I mean about charm, Aaron. It's truly a hometown. This is my husband, Aaron Clifford, Arlene," she said after the waitress had served the other patrons and stopped at their booth.

"Please to meet you. So," Arlene said, "are you people moved in yet?"

"We're moved in, but not quite organized yet, Arlene."

The waitress nodded and looked at Aaron. "How do you like Driftwood, Mr. Clifford, or is it too early to ask?"

"I like it," he said quickly, glancing furtively at Megan, who stared intently at him. "How long have you lived here?"

"All my life," she said with a sigh. "I'm one of those hometown girls who marries her high-school sweetheart. Jake, my husband, owns the Shell station at the end of the village."

"He's a very nice young man," Megan said. "Very helpful and very good at what he does."

"You know what the town slogan is, Mrs. Clifford: Everyone does their best work here," Arlene remarked and followed it with a laugh. "It's true, even for me. In fact," she said in a conspiratorial whisper, "if you ask around, you'll learn that I'm the best waitress in town."

"You are!" Megan declared.

Arlene smiled and gave them menus. "Lemonade for you, Sophie?" she asked. Sophie nodded.

"I'll have one, too. They're homemade, Aaron," Megan told him.

"Sounds good to me."

Megan waved to the elderly lady working behind the counter. She had her gray hair tied in a tight bun and wore an exaggerated amount of makeup, especially around her eyes. The elderly man working beside her never looked up. He moved like a drone, evincing little emotion.

"That's Mrs. Morris. She's Grandma. She's actually in her late seventies." She leaned over to whisper. "Her husband, Aubrey, is her third husband. The first two died, one after only four years of marriage."

"Really? Is it the food?" he asked.

Megan laughed. "That's my Aaron," she said. "Quick wit. You're coming back, honey," she said, reaching for his hand across the table. "You're coming home to me."

He looked into her eyes and then he glanced at Sophie, who held tightly to her rag doll and gazed up at him, smiling as if she believed that, too.

"I hope so," he said.

But in his heart he still felt more like a stranger.

He hoped it would soon end.

five

Dr. Longstreet didn't simply have an office; she had a fully equipped clinic with a hematology lab and a radiation department that included the latest in CT and MRI equipment. Aaron was very impressed.

"I would have expected something this sophisticated to be in a major urban area," he told Megan when they arrived, registered with the receptionist, and saw the brochure describing the clinic. "Not in a small town like this."

The lounge was plush with a thick beige carpet, original oil paintings by contemporary artists in expensive frames, soft leather settees and matching chairs, and rich dark wood paneling. There was a built-in television set and a slew of up-to-date magazines on the long glass coffee table as well as in racks on the left. Through a door on the right was a playroom for children with an assortment of toys and video games that would occupy a child from the age of two up to early teens.

The windows in that room had soft, dark blue velvet drapes and looked out on the sprawling grounds which rolled over a grassy acre of land before reaching a patch of forest. On the left of the building was a small pond.

"I told you how important Dr. Longstreet was. Her work is supported by private foundation grants. She likes being out here, and she has no trouble having people come to her. She draws from all the bigger urban areas," Megan explained.

Aaron smiled. "How do you know so much about her?"

"Mrs. Masters knew how nervous I was and how concerned that you get the best doctor available, so she practically gave me Dr. Longstreet's Who's Who in Medicine bio. Stop making fun of me," she added and smacked him playfully on the arm.

"Hey. I'm not making fun of you. I'm just overwhelmed with the information you seem to have on your fingertips," he replied, defending himself.

Megan took Sophie into the children's playroom and set her up with some toys while Aaron sat waiting to be called. He noted there were no other patients waiting and mentioned that to Megan when she stepped back into the lounge.

"This isn't the doctor's day for patients," she explained. "She sees patients only three days a week. The rest of the time is devoted to pure research. That's why we have to thank Mrs. Masters."

"She helps us sell our house back in Westport and make a big profit. She knows the best real estate in Driftwood. She has her own plane, runs a big company, and knows the best doctors. I can't wait to meet this amazing woman," he muttered.

"The moment you do, you'll see I'm not exaggerating," Megan said confidently. "And don't sound so disdainful. Be happy, appreciative."

"Disdainful?"

Aaron shook his head and stared at the receptionist. She remained hovering over some paperwork behind the closed glass window until a buzzer sounded. Then she opened the window and looked out at them.

"The doctor will see you now, Mr. Clifford," she said.

They rose. Aaron looked back at Sophie.

"She'll be fine," Megan said, seeing his fatherly concern.

"Yes, don't worry. I'll keep an eye on her," the receptionist promised.

Aaron noted that his daughter didn't show the least sign of being afraid of being left alone. She was intensely involved with one of the video games. No insecurity there, he thought, but he felt less like a father full of pride and more like a child therapist, analyzing. He blamed that on the detachment his loss of memory had caused.

They proceeded through a short hallway. The receptionist indicated the first door on the left, and they entered a rather Spartan office with a long table on the right upon which files were neatly piled. There was a large light maple desk that was more a computer station. Dr. Longstreet sat at the monitor and didn't turn to them until the receptionist closed the door.

The doctor was younger looking than Aaron had expected. She was a dark brunette with her hair trimmed neatly at the base of her neck and around her ears. She practically had no bangs, which emphasized the wideness of her forehead under which two almond-shaped hazel eyes fixed intently on Aaron's face. Her thin nose was a bit long and sharp and her mouth cut deeply into her tight cheeks as if it had been sliced further as an afterthought sometime after she had been born. Her jaw line was emphatic, but the way her facial bones were embossed contributed to her youthful look. There wasn't a crease in her nearly transparent skin, much less anything resembling a wrinkle, just some thin blue veins visible in her temples and at the rear of her jaw. He wondered if she had recently had extensive plastic surgery. Her skin was that taut. However, she might not be much older than her mid-thirties, he thought.

When she rose to greet him, he saw she had a very slim, boyish figure, almost asexual in her white lab coat. She was tall, nearly five feet eleven. He moved quickly to take her outstretched hand that gripped his with surprising strength in those long, bony fingers when they shook.

"How do you do, Mr. Clifford," she said. "Please, take a seat. Mrs. Clifford," she added, nodding at Megan.

"Thank you for seeing us on such short notice," Megan said as she sat.

"Mrs. Masters expressed your sense of urgency to me. I hope I can help." She sat and pressed her fingers to each other like a Hindu about to bow in greeting. "Let's start at the beginning, Mr. Clifford. When did this present problem rear its ugly face?" she asked.

Even though she skipped any small talk designed to make the patient feel at ease, Dr. Longstreet had an unexpectedly soft tone to her voice, soothing, compassionate. To Aaron it seemed out of place with her hard, scrutinizing gaze.

He began by describing his experience at Grand Central and then went on to describe all that he had experienced after Megan had rescued him at their Westport station.

"Have you had any problems with memory since your return?" she quickly followed. "I mean, holding on to new things, new information?"

He gazed at Megan, who shook her head.

"No. Whatever I do now, whatever I hear, I can remember," Aaron said. "And some things from the past do seem to be returning, but very slowly and unclearly. I mean, I have images in my mind that seem more like dreams. It's all so confusing," he concluded.

"I see. Well, let me begin by explaining that there are three main types of amnesia, Mr. Clifford. First, there is retrograde amnesia, which refers to a deficit in recalling events that happened before the onset of amnesia. Second, there is anterograde amnesia, which refers to a deficit in learning subsequent to the onset of the disorder, and last is what we call post-traumatic amnesia. This refers to a range of cognitive impairments, including memory loss, that occur following an accident. Memory loss will often stretch back in time substantially, but will, shall we say; shrink to the point that only the events that occurred just prior to the accident cannot be recalled."

"I'm having trouble remembering everything, my childhood, my education, family, everything," Aaron emphasized.

"Yes, that's why I'm going to quickly diagnose this as retrograde. Now what we have to do is locate the cause or causes," Dr. Longstreet said. "I'll need to run you through a battery of tests. I assume you haven't suffered any serious accidents, otherwise you wouldn't be so puzzled as to this condition, but do you have any evidence of any injury, most obviously any blow to your head? "

"No," Aaron said, "although sometimes it feels like it."

"Yes," she said, smiling and then with barely a beat asked, 'Are you or have you been involved with any so-called recreational drugs?"

Aaron shook his head, but then looked at Megan for confirmation.

"I guess I wouldn't know if I had been," he realized.

"He hasn't as far as I can testify," Megan said. "I mean, there was some pot when we were younger, but no acid, nothing stronger."

"Unless someone put it in something I drank," Aaron pointed out quickly. "Without my knowing, I mean. I've had that suspicion. Both of us have," he added, looking at Megan.

Dr. Longstreet studied them both for a moment and nodded.

"Stranger things have happened," she said.

"We were a little concerned about the possibility of Alzheimer's," Megan said. 'Aaron has an aunt currently in a clinic, and we wondered if there is any genetic linkage."

"It's not Alzheimer's," Dr. Longstreet said firmly with the power of a true psychic in her eyes. "According to what you're both telling me, you're not suffering mental lapses currently, Mr. Clifford. You don't appear to have any problem with language. You're not disorientated as to time and place. You don't do something and forget you've done it and then do it again. Some of my Alzheimer's patients misplace things in a bizarre manner. They put an iron in the freezer or a wristwatch in the sugar bowl. You haven't done anything like that over the past few days, have you?"

"No." He laughed and then looked at Megan for confirmation.

"No, he hasn't," she said softly.

"And you seem very anxious to get back to yourself, get back to work. Alzheimer's victims suffer a loss of initiative, become very passive. I would strongly doubt you are suffering from that ailment, even though there are a number of cases of younger people falling victim to it."

"That's a relief," Megan said.

"Especially since there is no cure at the moment," Dr. Longstreet agreed. "Okay. Why don't we just go right to the tests. I'll do a blood work-up and we'll get X rays, an MRI done so we can rule out some things as quickly as possible. I must tell you," she added, "that there is also the possibility you have suffered a stroke or even what we call a series of smaller strokes and your brain was denied necessary blood."

"Stroke?"

"It's on the LBI's most wanted list," the doctor said.

"Huh? LBI?"

"Longstreet Bureau of Investigation," she said and Aaron laughed. It was truly a surprise to see she had a sense of humor. He wondered if he would when it was all over. Stroke sounded very frightening. She fanned that fear by adding, if it was, it could happen again. It could get worse, far worse.

She was calm, thoughtful, but clearly driven by a sense of urgency.

"Let's get right to it," she said and stood up. She looked at Megan. "Why don't you return in about four, five hours," she suggested.

"That long?" Aaron asked.

"To scratch the surface," Dr. Longstreet said. "This is one of those opportunities for a wise Chinese saying . . . you know, the sort that tells us a journey of five thousand miles begins with a single step. Let's go take our single step," she added and gestured toward the door.

"You're in good hands now," Megan assured him.

"I just want to get to the bottom of it all," he said, nodding. "I feel like my life has been put on hold. Someone pushed a Pause button and stopped me dead in my tracks."

"Dr. Longstreet will get you moving forward again," Megan promised, kissed him, and left.

He turned to join the doctor, who continued her lecture on human memory and its vulnerability as she walked him toward the lab.

It was already a good hour beyond twilight when Megan returned for him. He was sitting in the lounge, looking dazed, tired. The receptionist had gone home and the lights were out behind the glass window. He was actually dozing when Megan came in.

"Hey," she said, and he looked up. "How are you doing?"

He rose slowly. "I feel prodded and poked, turned inside out," he said.

"Did she say anything?"

"She wants us back here tomorrow about two, when she expects to have all the results she needs. In the meantime, she prescribed this," he said, showing Megan a packet of pills. "Something to help me relax. I took one just before you came. The doctor's worried my anxiety could exacerbate the problem. I get the feeling she's leaning toward diagnosing it as a result of a stroke.

"Where's Sophie?" he asked, first realizing she was missing.

"Oh, she's back home with Laurie Corkin, Terri Richards, and Debbie Asher, some of my co-workers at the firm. They came over to help us get organized and worked with me all afternoon. Wait until you see how far we've gotten. The girls are great. You'll especially love Laurie. Besides being drop-dead gorgeous, she's so bright and energetic, as bubbly as a glass of champagne. Sophie and she hit it off immediately. She's great with kids and looking forward to having what she calls a whole batch. However, there's a minor problem with that plan at the moment."

"Which is?"

"She's not married. She hasn't found the right man. She's looking for someone perfect, someone like you."

"I haven't met her, too, have I? I'd hate to be forgetting attractive women," he quipped.

"No," she said, smiling, "but I told the girls all about you. Laurie wants to know if there's more where you came from."

"Yeah, well I can't suggest anyone," Aaron said and paused. "I can't recall a single close friend. It's as if I was dropped into this world a few days ago. Maybe that's it, Megan. Maybe I'm an alien in your husband's body."

"You don't make love like an alien," she kidded.

"Oh, and how many aliens have you had as lovers?"

She started to count on her fingers.

''All right, all right," he said. "Believe it or not, I'm hungry."

"Laurie's cooking for all of us. She brought all the ingredients. She makes great pasta dishes."

"She's great with kids, full of energy, is beautiful, and cooks, too. She's not Mrs. Masters daughter, is she?" he joked.

"How did you know?" Megan asked. "We're all Mrs. Master's daughters," she followed thoughtfully. "She's adopted us."

"Yeah, well, now she can adopt me, too," Aaron muttered.

"That won't scare her," Megan declared, threading her arm through his and leading him out to the car.

When they arrived back at their house, he was impressed. All of the cartons had been unpacked and everything had been put in its proper place with magical speed. They had even done grocery shopping. With the furniture set up and even books organized on the shelves in the office, it already looked as if they had been living there for some time.

On the way home Megan had given him more details about all the women he would soon meet. She was positive he would agree that Laurie Corkin was far and away the most attractive of Megan's three new friends. When he saw her, Aaron thought she resembled Michelle Pfeiffer, only when she spoke, she had a much deeper voice, deep and sexy.

Terri Richards wasn't unattractive by any means. She was just more on the cute side, petite, almost childlike in the way she moved and talked with that delightfully innocent look in her soft blue eyes. Her hair was the shade of fresh peaches and was in a short, French style. Terri was married to one of the two dentists in town.

Debbie Asher was a tall, light brunette who looked Germanic, strong with firm lips and darting dark brown eyes that lingered in judgment over Aaron's face when they were first introduced. She was cut like a statue with a confident posture and a demeanor of strength that actually intimidated him a little. When he commented about her, Megan revealed that Debbie had been a varsity athlete, nearly making the U.S. Olympic volleyball team. Now, she was married to an accountant, and they had two children, a boy fifteen and a girl twelve, who, he quickly learned, was following in her mother's athletic footsteps.

The moment he had entered the house, the women were around him, inquiring about his health, urging him to relax. He enjoyed the attention they lavished on him, making him feel like some sort of conquering hero returning from the great wars. Laurie actually brought his slippers down from the bedroom and helped him take off his shoes. Debbie brought him a cold glass of water. Terri made sure the seat was comfortable.

Sophie watched from the doorway with an amused look on her face. For a moment she looked as if she was much older, much more aware of the nuances and the flirting going on between him and the women. Every now and then he felt his daughter was a stranger, and he hated having that feeling. He hoped she didn't sense it, that he had done a good job up until now keeping her from realizing how serious his mental problems were.

"How about a drink? You're a martini man, right?" Laurie asked. She looked up from where she was kneeling at his feet, putting on the slippers. Her thin, white blouse was unbuttoned and opened far enough down to show him the perfect curves of her perky breasts. He looked at Megan.

"What did you do, tell them everything about me?"

She shrugged. "They helped unpack. They know the most intimate details of our lives," she joked.

"At this moment, then, she knows more than I do," he quipped back.

Terri looked sad for him. Debbie raised her heavy eyebrows and glanced at Megan. Only Laurie laughed.

"Let's see if we do," she challenged. "What kind of cologne do you use?"

"Laurie!" Terri cried. "That's sick. Stop teasing a sick man."

"He's not sick. He's just vulnerable. I like a man to be vulnerable," she said with a small smile.

"That's why you only go out with immature men and end up complaining about not being able to find someone substantial enough for a committed relationship," Debbie said. "Laurie's got this thing about being in control," she told Aaron and then turned back to her, her face in a tight expression of disdain. "Well, don't you, Laurie?"

"So? Some men like being under my control," she replied and laughed, swinging her gaze from Aaron to Megan and then back to Aaron, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I made your favorite pasta for dinner," she continued. "Angel hair, basil and tomato with a little Mozzarella cheese mixed in."

Aaron thought a moment. It did sound good, appealing. Was that really his favorite pasta?

"It is your favorite pasta, right?" she teased.

"Laurie!" Debbie cried.

"I . . . " He looked to Megan who nodded.

"Yes, I guess it is."

"Actually, it's ready to be made. I know you like it al dente and that's the way we'll have it," Laurie said.

"I can't stay for dinner," Debbie said.

"Why not?" Laurie demanded in a harsher tone of voice than Aaron expected and apparently Debbie did, too. "We're all supposed to be here to help Megan get settled in. We agreed and when we left work early, we told Mrs. Masters—"

"I didn't tell Morgan I was staying for dinner," Debbie said quickly. "I just forgot."

"So call your husband and tell him now," Laurie said sharply. "He can fend for himself and so can your children. Men tend to take us less for granted when we don't show up once in a while," she added, looking at Aaron and smiling.

"I don't have that problem," Debbie said dryly. "No one takes me for granted." Her eyes were narrow, dark, intimidating. "Why did you say that?"

"She's just teasing," Terri said quickly. "Weren't you, Laurie?"

"Yes. Don't be so sensitive," she warned Debbie.

The two locked gazes as if in a confrontation that could turn into life and death. Then Laurie burst into laughter and Debbie shook her head and smiled. Aaron tilted his head with curiosity as he watched her emotional metamorphosis. They were like tigers testing each other and then retreating to laugh about it.

"Foam," she said. She smiled and took a breath. "The woman's got foam for a brain."

"I'm actually hungry," Terri declared. 'All this work. Aren't you hungry, Debbie?"

''All right," Debbie relented. "I'll stay for dinner. If I go, I know you'll all just talk about me anyway."

The girls laughed. Even Sophie laughed as if she understood.

"Give me twelve minutes," Laurie cried, hurrying out.

"The table is all set," Terri called after her, "but we'll help you get the salad out and the bread and the wine. Sophie, you can help too," she added, taking Sophie's hand. Debbie followed behind them.

Megan came to Aaron and placed her hand softly on his shoulder.

"You all right?" she asked.

"A little tired from the poking and prodding," he admitted. "But I am hungry."

"Good. Isn't this just wonderful?" she asked, turning to look over the living room. "Having it all done so fast and having friends to help us settle into a new home."

"Yes. You guys did an amazing amount of work," Aaron said. It was wonderful, he thought. If only he knew more about himself, he might be able to appreciate the good things happening to him, he thought sadly.

However, even if Aaron wanted to be depressed, he couldn't. The chatter at the dinner table, the jokes and the laughter was infectious. As hard as it was for him to believe he could, he was able to put aside his terrible condition and laugh along with Megan and her friends. They were just the panacea he needed to forget his troubles. Everything about them was intoxicating. The four of them seemed more like teenagers, kidding each other about their clothes, their hair and makeup. It made him feel much younger, too.

From their conversation about work, Aaron gathered that there was someone at the company, a young man named Edmond Spenser, whom they all apparently teased. From the way they described his job, he sounded like some glamorized office boy.

Laurie went on to elaborate on some of the practical jokes they had pulled on him, like the time they sent an anonymous love note through the Internet, making it seem as if one of them had a terrible crush on him.

"Talk about a vulnerable man," she began. "He's, what? Twenty-eight, nine?"

''Actually, Mrs. Masters said he was thirty-one," Terri said.

"Who'd believe it? He acts like he's twelve and doesn't look like he's much older. Anyway," Laurie continued, directing herself to Aaron, "I know he's been drooling over me every time he looks my way. Just like most men I know, he's idiotically obvious about it. I mean, he doesn't even have sense enough to keep his bulge hidden."

"Laurie!" Terri cried. She glanced at Sophie, but the little girl didn't seem to be paying much attention. ''Aaron might not be used to such talk."

Laurie considered him and smiled. "Don't worry about Aaron. He can't remember if he's shy or not, right Aaron?"

"She's incorrigible, Aaron," Debbie said. "Don't listen to a word she says."

"Incorrigible, maybe, but no question about her cooking skills," he said. "This is very good. Where'd you learn how to cook so well?"

"My father had a restaurant in New York City, on the Upper East Side. It's gone now, but it was once a very popular place and I was brought up in the kitchen. I don't mind cooking for special occasions, but I'm going to have a live-in maid and cook when I get married. If I ever get married," she added.

"Oh, you know you'll get married, Laurie," Debbie said, nodding and smiling. "We all know you'll get married," she added with confidence.

Everyone looked down for a moment. Megan shifted her gaze to Aaron. He leaned forward.

"Why?" he asked.

"Excuse me?" Debbie said.

"Why are you so sure Laurie will get married?"

"I told you, Aaron," Megan said quickly. "Laurie wants children."

"And she's not one of those women who don't see the need for a father in the house," Debbie said.

Laurie didn't disagree. She poured herself more wine and smiled at Sophie as though she was used to having the others talk about her in her presence.

"I bet you can't wait to start school here, can you, honey?"

"No," Sophie said. "Mommy's going to take me every morning on her way to work if I want her to, right, Mommy?"

"That's right, sweetheart."

"Speaking of work," Aaron said, "how many days have I taken off?"

"The whole week," Megan said. "But let's not worry about that now, Aaron. Let's worry about you and getting you up to speed."

"How fast was I going?" he asked and laughed. Maybe it was the wine; maybe it was the company; maybe it was both, but he suddenly felt very giddy. "I thought I had broken the speed limit already."

"You all right, honey?" Megan asked.

"Sure. What could be wrong? I just realized if I don't remember anything, I don't remember any bad romantic experiences."

All of the women were staring at him, all of one face, concerned, waiting for his next statement. He laughed.

"For example, I don't remember any drooling, or for that matter unfortunately, any bulges."

That brought hysterical laughter to all their lips, even Megan's, but then she raised her eyebrows and nodded to Debbie. They both stood.

"Why don't you lie down for a while, Aaron," Megan said. "You've had a hard day with all those tests and everything."

"I'm okay," he said, but the table seemed to rotate. He closed his eyes and swayed so hard, he nearly fell out of his chair. Both women moved quickly to his side and scooped him under his arms. Debbie could lift him practically by herself. She took on most of the burden of helping him out of the dining room and to the stairway. For a while he thought she was literally flying up steps. His body felt as if it were rising, floating. And then suddenly he was lying in bed and they were taking off his shoes, their shoulders looking like wings. He closed his eyes and told himself he was really drunk. Wings. He laughed and then he fell asleep to what sounded like the music of a harp.

I must be in heaven was his last thought.

When he opened his eyes again, it was dark and he was under a blanket, naked. Not only couldn't he remember his past; he couldn't remember the last few hours. Was he getting worse instead of better? Had he had another small stroke? Panic fluttered in his chest.

He turned and nudged Megan, who groaned.

"What's going on?" he asked. "What time is it?"

"It's late, Aaron," she said. "Go to sleep, honey. Everything will be better tomorrow."

"Huh?"

She was asleep again. He blinked and stared at the doorway of the bedroom. For a moment he thought he was dreaming. There was a little girl standing there, dinging to a rag doll, only the little girl wasn't Sophie. She was smaller and she had darker hair. He sat up and looked closer.

There seemed to be a stream of blood running down the right side of her face, bubbling out of her temple as if it were boiling in her body.

"Tammy?" he said. He had no idea why.

"What is it, Aaron?" Megan asked. She waited and then she turned and sat up beside him.

He blinked rapidly. The girl was gone.

"There was someone standing there," he said, pointing at the doorway. "A little girl, not much older than an infant, bleeding badly. I don't know why, but I called her . . . Tammy."

"Tammy?" Megan sat up quickly, looking at the door herself as if she expected to see such an infant.

"Yes. That's the name that came to me. Why?"

She was quiet a moment and then she nodded.

"It was just a dream, Aaron. Some sort of nightmare or something, maybe a result of what's happened to you."

"Maybe it was Sophie," he said. "Maybe she's afraid or something. Maybe she's hurt!"

"It's not Sophie. She's fast asleep."

"I saw a little girl with blood on her face," he insisted. "I know what I saw, Megan."

Megan groaned, rose from the bed, and walked out of the bedroom. He waited a moment and then he followed. He went to the open door and looked in at Megan fixing Sophie's blanket. She indicated he should be still.

"She's asleep," she told him. "You should take another pill, Aaron. You're very nervous and that's not good."

He stared at Sophie for a moment and then he followed Megan out and got back into bed. She got him a glass of water and he took a pill. Then she slipped into bed beside him, kissed him on the cheek, and turned over after saying, "Let's go back to sleep, Aaron."

Tammy, he thought after a long, quiet moment.

Who the hell is that?

six

He slept late into the morning again. This time he didn't open his eyes until ten-thirty. Intuitively he knew this wasn't like him. He did feel rested and much stronger, but his thought process still seemed slow. For nearly a minute he continued to lie there, gazing around the room, trying to acclimate himself to his new surroundings. For him, everything in the room was still unfamiliar: all the furniture, the lamps, the miniature grandfather's clock, the vases and especially the watercolor painting on the wall before him, depicting what looked like a fishing village on some Greek island, the boats, the small houses and the fishermen, all of it in vibrant colors. Was it some favorite place? What was the history of this picture? Did he buy it? Did she or did they buy it together? Were they there on holiday?

At the right corner of Megan's vanity table was the photograph of him and her he had seen in the carton. There was another picture on the large dresser, a picture just of him in a suit looking as if he was accepting some award, and then there was a picture of him, Megan, and Sophie standing on some beach. Megan was holding Sophie's hand and he was beside them gazing off left as if something had caught his attention.

In both pictures of him and Megan, he had an air of indifference about him, he thought. What kind of a husband and father have I been? Do people like me? Am I a nice guy? Do I like myself? Still having such basic questions about himself and his family made him feel naked.

The images we create about ourselves, our persona, our moods and our ideas, all of it serves to protect us, to dress us, he thought. Being so indecisive and unclear stripped away the shields. He had to rely on others to tell him who he was, and that made him helpless, naked, and weak, someone always at the mercy of someone else, sometimes even strangers, always dependent upon their goodwill and kindness, especially Megan's.

Where was she? He listened. The house was very quiet. He sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. Where was he supposed to go today? The doctor's in the afternoon, but what about the rest of the day? Was there something he was supposed to do? He couldn't stand this confusion. If he wasn't crazy now, he would soon be, he thought and started to get out of bed when suddenly Megan burst into the room almost as if she had been standing just outside the door waiting for him to make a definitive move. She wore a light blue sweatshirt and a pair of jeans with beige sneakers.

"Good morning, Rip Van Winkle!" she cried.

She was fresh and fully awake, her eyes vibrant, an air of the outdoors about her. She didn't wear any makeup, but her cheeks were red. When she kissed him quickly, he could feel how cool her skin was and smell the aroma of blossoming flowers.

"Maybe it's the pills," he said. "I don't usually sleep late, right? I mean, how could I if I have to be in the city every morning?"

"Don't beat yourself up about it, honey. You're recuperating. You deserve lots of R and R, with emphasis on the recreation. The doctor's orders," she added with a wink. "So, how are you today?"

"I feel stronger, but I'm pretty much still in a fog about everything, Megan, and it's so frustrating."

"I know, honey. I can see it in your eyes. You do still have that very vague look, except," she added with an impish grin, "when you look at me."

He laughed. Was it true?

"Where's Sophie?"

"I took her to school hours ago," she replied. "She was so excited about it. Now, it's just you and me in our new home," she added standing and holding out her arms. He nodded and continued to get up. She put her hand on his head to hold him down. "And where do you think you're going?"

"I thought I'd take a shower, start another day in oblivion," he replied.

"This is far from oblivion, Aaron, and it's customary to break in a new abode. I let you off last night because you were exhausted from your tests and all, and you drank a little too much wine, but now it's morning and it's a different story," she said and in one quick motion lifted and removed her sweatshirt. He gazed up at her firm naked breasts and watched as she kicked off her sneakers, slipped out of her jeans, and dropped her panties.

"Don't forget," she added, "we're making another baby. If it hasn't happened yet, wouldn't it be wonderful if it happened today, here, our first morning in our new home?"

Without another word she lifted the blanket from him and crawled in and over him, dropping him back to his pillow by pressing her lips to his. For a moment he wondered if it was safe for him to be sexually active in his condition.

But what is my condition? he wondered.

Megan didn't seem concerned, and his body certainly had no hesitation. Most of the time now he felt as if he were floating on some cloud, but Megan sure had a way to bring him down to earth whenever she wanted him, he thought.

I guess I'm in a great marriage, he realized as she turned over on her back and looked up at him with expectations. She was beautiful and warm, and she wanted him so much he could not step out of her aura even for a moment to catch his breath. Whatever the risk, he was committed to satisfying her and that was just what he intended to do.

Once again their lovemaking was vigorous. When he opened his eyes and looked at her, she seemed to be concentrating hard on every move as if an extra effort would make her pregnant. If someone could will it to happen, he thought, she could.

She opened her eyes and then reached up to draw him down to her so he couldn't observe.

"Oh, Aaron," she said, "Aaron, this is so good. We're so good together. I love you. You do love me, don't you, Aaron? No matter what, you do."

"Yes," he said, but it came more like a memorized line he was reciting in some scenario. It was automatic. She said she loved him; he said he loved her. Wasn't that the way most couples behaved? Especially during the act of lovemaking?

Did he really love her? Was love outside the realm of factual memories? Could he be suffering amnesia and still be as strongly attracted to Megan as ever, and more than just sexually? She didn't seem to skip a beat when it came to their relationship. None of what was happening to him disturbed her that much when it involved their lovemaking; none of it prevented her from wanting him. Shouldn't that please him?

It should and yet, it troubled him, too. Was she being this strong for his sake? he wondered. Putting on an act, making him feel at home so things wouldn't get any worse, or did she truly love him with so consuming a passion?

She cried out when he came and held on to him so tightly, his movement was constricted. It was as if she wanted to be sure she absorbed every last drop. Not a single sperm would be wasted inside her, he thought.

"Ouch," he said, feeling her fingernails dig deeper into his buttocks.

She relaxed, her eyes still closed for a moment, and then she looked up at him and smiled.

"Welcome to your new home," she said.

"Thanks, I think."

She laughed. "You think?"

"Well, for a few minutes there, I thought you might suck me in, hook, line, and sinker."

She turned serious and moved out from under him.

"I don't mean to sound unhappy about it," he quickly added.

"It's all right," she said. "No," she continued, turning back to him, "I guess it isn't. I guess I should tell you the truth, Aaron. For quite a while now, you haven't been all that. . . shall we say, amorous."

"I haven't?"

"No. You've been coming home exhausted, eating, watching the news, and falling asleep in your bathtub chair."

"Bathtub chair?"

"That's what Sophie calls it because it's so soft, she thinks you sink in it when you sit. For a while there, we turned into a one-night-a-week marriage . . . Saturday night. On Fridays you'd come home late and be too tired for us to do anything, including joining friends, see a show, even go to dinner. Sundays, you were always preparing for Mondays, so that left Saturday night."

"I see. So I am a workaholic."

"A terrible one. We've had words about it, but nothing changed. Now that you've had this medical problem, I guess I can understand a little, and I hope you'll make a serious lifestyle adjustment. What good is any success if you don't enjoy the fruits of it?"

"I don't know why I would disagree with that," he said.

"It's not that you disagree. You always agree, but you always have a reason why you can't do this or can't do that. Family life is a bigger investment than people tend to think. Sacrifices have to be made, accepted," she lectured.

"Of course," he said.

"You say of course, but when it comes to actually making the important ones, you rationalize and don't," she said, not letting him ease out of this.

"I do?"

"Yes. Why can't you consider working here? You could be around Sophie more, and when the new baby comes . . . "

"Hey," he said. "Easy. I don't even know where you put my socks. Give me some time, will you?"

She smiled. "Okay. I'm sorry. You're right. I shouldn't be putting any pressure on you."

"A little late for that apology," he said.

"Huh?"

"I know now why women sometimes feel they're being sexually exploited," he teased.

"You didn't like it?"

"Oh, no. I loved it. Exploit me all you want," he quickly added.

"You idiot," she said and threw a pillow at him. After he showered and dressed, he joined her for some breakfast. Of course, it was lunch for her. She prepared some omelettes and they ate in the breakfast nook, a small room off the kitchen with large windows looking out at the woods and the mountains in the distance.

"I can hear that brook babbling to us," she said.

"This is a very pretty place," he admitted. "I don't just mean the house. I mean the whole area. How did you get involved with this Mrs. Masters and her firm?"

"Through a headhunter you recommended," she replied. "We were talking about my wasting my education and talent, and you suggested I try for some work. You connected me with the agency, and they got me an interview with Mrs. Masters, who offered me the work on a little more than a part-time basis so I could be here for Sophie and you and I could have a family life as well as a career. She's very sensitive to all of that."

"You did say she had been married. Does she have any children?"

"No, and that's why she's so concerned for the rest of us. She blames her unbridled ambition, wishing she had been able to have children along the way. That's probably why she treats us all as if we were her daughters, why she is more than just an employer. I was very lucky to find her, Aaron."

He sipped his coffee and nodded.

"Yes, it does sound like you were."

"Like we both were," she corrected.

"Right. When do I meet her?" he asked.

"This weekend we're having dinner at her home. There'll be some other people as well. Okay?"

"Fine, but what do we do about Sophie? We don't have Mrs. Domfort with us."

"Debbie's daughter is baby-sitting for us. See? Everything is easier here. Everyone tries to help everyone else."

"It's sounds like a kibbutz," Aaron said, smiling.

"Yes, exactly. That's what we all are. . . a kibbutz, a collective enterprise, sort of a Three Musketeers outfit. . . one for all and all for one."

"Where do I fit in?"

"That's up to you, Aaron."

"You mean, if I agree to start my own company here. . . "

"Exactly," she said, smiling. "It couldn't be any easier anywhere else. If you're up to it, I'll show you a perfect building for your offices," she continued. "You'll be far too busy to work out of our home, and it's more professional for you to have a place downtown."

"You mean you've already scouted it out?"

"Mrs. Masters told me where to look," she replied.

He shook his head and gazed out the window. For a moment the scene changed. There were other houses out there. He was part of some home development. He put his hand over his eyes and squeezed his temples.

''Aaron?"

"I keep having these disconnects . . . images from nowhere that make no sense," he muttered. When he took his hand away from his eyes and looked again, he saw only the woods and grounds, no homes.

"You didn't take your pill this morning," Megan said. "I'll go get it."

"Maybe I'm taking too many."

"No. It says every four hours as needed, Aaron."

"I'm all right," he insisted. "Let me try to get by a little longer. I hate being dependent on any drug." He paused and thought. "Yes, I do hate that." He looked at her quickly, excitedly. "Things are returning to me, Megan, feelings, beliefs."

"Good, honey. You're going to be fine," she said.

He spent the rest of the time before his doctor's visit learning about his new home and reviewing papers in his office. Work projects continued to emerge, bubbling up out of the dark pool of forgetful-ness. The details returned, the images becoming more and more vivid. It was truly encouraging.

"It's about that time, Aaron," Megan said, coming to the office doorway.

"Right," he said. He stood up and looked at his papers. "You'd think Mr. Clovis would call to see how I'm doing," he muttered.

"Oh, he doesn't know about your memory problem, Aaron. I didn't call him. I thought the week you took off would be enough to get you back on your feet, especially after seeing Dr. Longstreet and being in her care."

"I see," he said.

"Besides, I don't think you'd get much sympathy from him. He'd probably accuse you of some deception."

"You really don't like this man," he said.

"In truth, Aaron, neither do you. You tolerate him, but you don't have to do that anymore, and I would bet my bottom dollar that working for him helped create this medical problem anyway," she said. "Stress is the killer. Here," she continued with a smile, "you won't have it."

She scooped him under the arm and led him out.

All the way back to the doctor's clinic, Megan elaborated on the advantages and benefits of living in Driftwood. She emphasized the low crime rate, the lack of traffic and crowds, the pretty scenery, the good restaurants, and the proximity to bigger areas for shopping and entertainment. She did sound like the president of the chamber of commerce.

He smiled at her and yet, as he listened and looked at the scenery whizzing by, he couldn't help feeling he was being molded like some mound of clay that had once been shaped one way, lost that shape, and was being carved and pounded into another. But was that bad? Nothing Megan said was really threatening or contrary to what most anyone would want for himself and his family, and yet. . . there was something, something that gnawed away at him.

What was it? What?

Dr. Longstreet's receptionist invited them into the inner offices almost immediately. When he entered the clinic, he saw a man who looked as if he was in his late thirties, early forties waiting in the lounge. He looked very fragile, his eyes full of apprehension. Aaron also noticed how he was squeezing his hands together in his lap. The veins were lifted around his knuckles. The man looked up at him but didn't smile or nod. In fact, he seemed to cringe at the sight of Aaron.

"Did you see that guy out there?" he asked Megan when they were situated in the examination room.

"I didn't really look at him. Why?"

"He looked . . . crazed."

"Well, this is a clinic for neurological studies, Aaron. All of the patients probably do have serious problems of one kind of another," Megan said casually. She sat thumbing through a magazine.

Aaron read some of the diplomas on the walls. Dr. Longstreet certainly had been around, he thought, even studying in Switzerland.

"Hello," she said, entering and closing the door behind her. She carried a folder in her hand and set it down on the examination table. "How are you doing, Mr. Clifford?"

"I feel all right."

''Anything?" she asked, waving her hand in circles.

"Lots of images, memories of projects, occasionally some music, colors." He looked at Megan. "Last night I had a terrible hallucination. I saw a little girl bleeding. She was an infant, so it didn't look like our daughter, and then I was afraid it was. Not pleasant," he added.

"I understand," Dr. Longstreet said. "That image could have come from anywhere in your memory bank, maybe even from something you saw on television or in the movies, something that impressed you. We carry everything we see and hear with us to the day we die, Mr. Clifford. Most of it is well buried, never to be consciously retrieved, but as you know, psychiatry delves into the unconscious and helps us understand the nature of some of these memories and their effects on us. Right now you're a little like a television set drawing pictures in from different networks.

''Anyway," she continued opening the folder. "You have no evidence of trauma to your head. You CT reveals no tumor, but you have had what we call an Ischemic CVA, a cerebrovascular accident or stroke caused by the sudden interruption of blood to the brain."

"How did that happen?" Aaron asked.

"An embolism or thrombus obstructs a cerebral artery. There is also a hemorrhagic CVA when a vessel in the brain suddenly ruptures, allowing blood to permeate the brain tissue. After extensive testing, I'm convinced you have suffered an embolic CVA. Not to get too technical. . . "

"You can get technical," Aaron said.

"Aaron," Megan said softly.

"It's fine, Mrs. Clifford. I don't mind. Most often the underlying cause is atrial fibrillation, an arrhythmia that allows blood to pool in the atria. When the embolus reaches a cerebral artery that's too narrow to pass, it lodges, blocking blood flow to part of the brain."

"Ugh," Megan said.

Dr. Longstreet smiled.

"However, your heart doesn't show signs of any serious damage or problems."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we have another cause, but nothing symptomatic at this time. We'll keep you under observation. In time, as blood returns to the areas of your brain where you lost blood, I also believe memories will return.

"However, now what we must do is make every effort to prevent it from happening again and in a bigger way. Fortunately, there is a good drug therapy for this problem, and we'll have you start it immediately. We've got to keep your blood flowing properly. As I said, we'll monitor you frequently.

"I'm also going to recommend you find ways to reduce as much stress in your life as you can. I want your blood pressure as close to a normal blood pressure for a man your age and size as possible."

"How do I do that? I don't even know what makes me stressful," he said.

"Perhaps Mrs. Clifford can be of some help here," she replied, looking at Megan.

"Oh, sure," Megan said, looking up quickly as if she had just been snapped out of a daydream.

It annoyed Aaron a little. Why was she so disinterested in the details? Or was she just avoiding them, afraid to hear them?

"In every other way you're a relatively healthy man, Mr. Clifford."

"In every other way?" he muttered.

"Yes. You will improve and you will live a good and productive life," she predicted with such authority and confidence, Aaron couldn't help but be confident, too.

"I see."

"I want you to begin the drug therapy, the exercise program, the reduction of stress immediately, and return here in say, in a week, unless of course, you have any reason to come sooner."

"Okay."

"You're starting a new life here in a wonderful little community. You've already made a very good move. You could do your best work here," she added.

"Maybe so," Aaron said.

"Any questions?"

He looked at her and thought. "When will the strange images and thoughts stop?"

"Not for a while," she said, "but don't let any of that disturb you. I'm sure they'll always go away seconds after they occur. It's very important that you don't work yourself up over these things, Mr. Clifford. Stress is a insatiable monster when it comes to feeding on our health," she added. ''And that's especially true now in your condition."

"I've told him that," Megan said.

"You gave him good advice."

"I'll keep him too occupied with the present and the future," Megan said.

"Precisely," Dr. Longstreet said, smiling. "That will help."

"Well, okay," Aaron said, looking from Megan to the doctor. "I guess I'll wait for it all to pass, then."

"It will," Dr. Longstreet said. She opened the door. "The next time I see you, you'll be a lot better," she added and left.

Aaron looked at Megan, who smiled and then hugged him.

"That's good news, Aaron. We know what you're problem was, we're working on keeping it from happening again, and you have a good prognosis. Be happy, honey."

"I'm happy," he said, shrugging. "As happy as I can be, I guess."

He walked out with her. The other patient was gone from the lobby.

"Don't we have to pay or leave a medical card or something?" he asked Megan as she headed for the entrance.

"It'll be taken care of," Megan said.

"It will?"

"Stop it, Aaron. Stop worrying about the little things. You heard the doctor."

"Right," he said. "Okay." He put up his hands as if he was surrendering, and they walked out.

"Just breathe in that air, Aaron. Isn't it wonderful here?" she said.

"Yes," he admitted. "It is."

She looked at him. "Where you live and work has a significant influence on your health, Aaron."

"All right," he said, "ease up." She looked troubled until he smiled at her. "I'll think about working here as well."

"Oh, Aaron!" she cried. She hugged him. "I just knew you would."

He nodded and laughed. "You did, huh? Well, somehow, that I do believe," he said.

As they were getting into the car, he looked back at the clinic. There was a man talking to Dr. Longstreet in the rear parking lot. He was apparently very agitated. His hands were moving about her face, sometimes looking as if they might strike her. She stood firm, staring at him. Then the man suddenly stopped and put his hands to his side. He looked down for a moment.

Megan started the car.

The man looked up.

Aaron felt himself blinking rapidly.

I know that guy, he thought.

I've seen him recently.

Megan was talking quickly, describing all the things they had to do in the house, things they needed to buy, things they needed to arrange. She catalogued them off in rapid fire. He turned and looked back at the clinic.

Who the hell was he?

It wasn't until they were nearly home that he remembered.

It was the blond-haired man at Grand Central, the man in the gray pin-striped suit, the man who had told him to get his train ticket.

He was sure it was that man.

Wasn't he?

seven

''You're so quiet, honey," Megan said as they pulled into their driveway, "your heart is fine. The doctor just wants to monitor you and be sure you don't have any reoccurrences and she's predicting a good recovery. Aren't you feeling a little relieved?"

He debated whether or not he should tell her about the man he saw with Dr. Longstreet. Was it another hallucination? How could he trust his senses, his vision, the very mechanics of his mind at the moment? He knew she would tell him he was either mistaken or imagined it, and then she would remind him of Dr. Longstreet's assurance that these things wouldn't last. Most of all, he shouldn't pay attention to them.

Even if the man he saw was the same man who had helped him in Grand Central, so what? People see each other again coincidentally. Was paranoia another consequence of his condition? He was determined to fight it back. He was determined to be happy.

"Yes," he told Megan, "I am feeling relieved. Matter of fact," he said, slapping his hands together, "I think we should get on with this new start. Let's go look at the property you think would serve as offices for me. Let's do it today," he said after they pulled into their driveway.

Megan's smile exploded like fireworks, filling the air with brightness and light and making him laugh. She threw her arms around him and hugged him. After she kissed him, she looked pensive.

"I've got something to confess," she said. "It might sound terrible to you, but I like you so much more since your problem started, Aaron. Whatever happened to you changed you for the better in so many ways."

"Oh?"

"I can see it even in the way you look and talk to Sophie. You're suddenly more of a father, Aaron. And I've already told you what a better lover you are."

"I really must have been distracted by my work, huh?"

"Absorbed to the point of neglecting those who love you. Like so many men these days, you were taking a lot for granted. I just know that's not going to happen again. Alarms have been rung and we're paying attention. We're finally a family."

He grimaced.

"Funny thing to say considering what's happened to me, Megan. You are making me think you're happy I had the strokes."

"What doesn't destroy you makes you stronger, Aaron. You've heard that famous quote before, only the stronger this time means stronger as a father and husband," she told him.

He nodded. "I've got to take your word for it," he said.

"Why shouldn't you?" she snapped back.

He looked at her and then he smiled.

"No reason not to. You're right. Maybe I shouldn't fight so hard to regain my old self."

Her eyes warmed again.

"I love you, Aaron, for who you are to me now and forever, not who you've been."

He smiled. "I must admit you make me feel good about something that should be devastating, Megan."

"That's what a good wife does. Okay. I have to call Mrs. Masters and then we're off to look at your new office space," she declared and stepped out of the car. He followed her into the house, and while she called, he went to the master bedroom bathroom to freshen up.

When he looked at himself in the mirror, he pondered every detail of his face. Was that a tiny scar just above his right eye? He touched it and focused on it as hard as he could. Suddenly he grimaced and jerked his head to the right, instinctively reliving an accident. Something sharp had struck his head. Where had he been? How old was he? There was terrible pain when it happened. He experienced it enough now to grimace and suck in his breath. He felt his whole body shake so hard, his back muscles wrenched and his neck snapped back. His face was red from the déjà vu. When he looked down at his hands, they were wet with blood and there was blood in his lap, blood on his shirt.

He had no idea that he was actually shouting until he heard Megan in the bathroom doorway.

"What is it, Aaron?"

His eyes refocused and she came into view.

"I. . . " He held up his hands.

"What, Aaron? So?"

He turned his palms to him and saw they were clean.

"There was blood," he muttered. "Everywhere." He looked in the mirror and touched the tiny scar. "I guess I just had a vivid memory of this," he said.

"What kind of memory?"

"I don't know. It was something very violent, and there was so much blood."

She came closer and touched the scar. She shook her head.

"That has nothing to do with your problem now, Aaron. You did that when you were seven years old. You told me about it. You were running with some friends in the basement of your aunt's house, and you hit your head against the wall. There was some metal in the cement, rusty metal. You had to have a tetanus shot, and your aunt was so angry that you were playing in her basement and got hurt that she wouldn't let you have friends over or go to their houses for nearly a year. Does any of that help you remember?"

He shook his head.

"It seemed different when I recalled it just now. It seemed like something else."

"That was it," she said sternly. ''And anyway, you're doing it again, Aaron. What's the point of going to one of the country's most renown neurologists if you won't listen to her orders? Remember what she said: Don't dote on the images. Let them come and go and bury them. Concentrate on the here and now. I thought you said that's just what you would do."

"It was so shocking for a few moments, Megan. It's not as easy as you think."

"Well, it's over," she said. "Put it aside. Are you ready to go look at the property?"

"What? Oh, yeah," he said. He glanced at himself in the mirror one more time, and then he followed her out to the car.

"Mrs. Masters is very happy for you, Aaron, very happy for us. She is going to serve champagne before dinner at her dinner party to toast your good prognosis. And when I told her of your decision to set yourself up here, she was even more pleased. She says she has at least a half a dozen significant clients for you in the wings."

"How did she know I would decide to do it?" he asked.

"She didn't know for sure. She just mentioned the possibility to them," Megan explained. She turned to him and smiled. "You sound a little testy about it, Aaron. Why question good things? What's that saying about looking a gift horse in the mouth?"

"Don't," he replied.

"Exactly, don't."

"Do I really sound testy?" he replied. "I don't mean to," he said, but that wasn't true. I'm lying, he realized. Some instinct is taking control and setting up a defense. Why?

"I guess it's nothing," she said after a moment. "You're not yourself yet. It's not fair to criticize anything you say or do," she declared.

She glanced at him and then looked at the road. Her eyebrows were still hoisted. She was very pensive, concerned.

What is it? he wondered. What else is happening here? Megan knows something else about me, something she hasn't figured out how to tell me yet, he thought.

It's a worry, a terrible worry.

And the doctor had warned him sternly about that.

I'd better stop, he told himself, and concentrate on the here and now. That became his new mantra.

Gloria Bell, the real estate rental agent, had taken them to the office space and then been beeped on her pager. She left them and said she would return in fifteen minutes.

"Rent's relatively cheap for this much space," Aaron commented after he had walked through the vacant offices. There were two small offices, a large room where he could work, and even a lobby. All the walls had a light maple paneling and the floors had relatively new gray carpeting. There were many good-size windows for natural lighting, and four phone lines already set up. "You couldn't get a closet for this kind of money in Manhattan."

"This isn't Manhattan," Megan said. "The location is great, too, isn't it?" she asked.

They both gazed out of the front window at the side street. "Plenty of parking, walking distance from the downtown area," she continued.

"Downtown area?" he asked with a laugh. "What do we have, three restaurants, a couple of drugstores, a department store, a few supermarkets, movie theaters, bowling alley, and what, a half dozen bars?"

He was amazed at how well he had rattled all that off. How had he committed that much detail to memory after only his short visit? However, Megan didn't seem overly impressed.

"It's downtown enough for what we need, Aaron. You're not going to start on the values of cosmopolitan life as opposed to small-town provincialism, are you?" Before he could reply, she added, "You haven't seen the school. All the classes are small enough for students to get individualized instruction. The building is in very good shape, and there is new equipment, computers, everything. It's practically a little private school. We've got to think of Sophie's welfare, too."

He nodded and continued to gaze out one of the windows facing front. She came up beside him and threaded her arm around his right arm, putting her head on his shoulder.

"Don't you feel even a little lucky?" she asked in a whisper. "Don't you even stop, take a good look at all this, and feel fortunate, Aaron?"

He turned and gazed at her. She wasn't being critical as much as she was trying to understand him, he thought. Now she looked more like Dr. Longstreet, scrutinizing him.

"Feel fortunate? After what's happened to me?"

"You'll get better, Aaron," she said sharply. Her eyes looked hot, angry. "Think of what we'll have now, what life will be like for all of us," she said, her tone more chastising, angry.

"Yeah, I guess I should feel lucky about that.

You're right. I'm sorry. Every once in a while I get seized by this self-pity. I suppose I'll learn how to shake it off."

"Don't worry," she said, changing into her seductive demeanor instantly, "I'll help."

She kissed him on the neck. He laughed and she kissed him again, pressing herself against him so hard that he fell back against the wall.

"Hey, that's a little more help than I expected."

"You never get enough of this kind of help, Aaron," she said, lowering herself down his body and unbuttoning his pants.

"Megan!" He looked at the doorway. "That rental agent could walk in any moment."

"She won't," Megan said. She dug her hands under the waist band of his underwear and with one swift motion lowered it and his pants down to his knees.

"Megan!" he cried, laughing. "What are you doing?"

"You oughta know by now," she said, looking up at him.

"This is crazy," he said, looking toward the door. "And in a small town, too. We'll be ruined before we even begin," he warned.

But she wasn't hesitating. He was aroused, the tip of her tongue toying with him. He felt himself weaken and sink slowly to the floor.

"It's more fun when it's impulsive, spontaneous, Aaron. I've been telling you that for years, and finally. . . finally, you're hearing me," she said.

They made love with such passion on that carpet that he had skin burns on his rear end. Her kisses were long, demanding, making him feel he was being absorbed into her at times. The more she enjoyed him, the more he wanted to please her. She did make him feel like a wonderful lover, and that was good for his ego, especially now, especially after what he had suffered.

Afterward, he pulled himself back and sat against the wall catching his breath. She was still lying facedown.

"My heart's pounding like a jackhammer," he said. "I hope that's all right."

"It's fine, Aaron. The doctor would have warned us about it if that was necessary," she said. "Besides, she told you your heart was fine."

She started to pull up her jeans when suddenly her hair changed right before his eyes. She was a light brunette, blonde, with hair down to her shoulders, and when she turned and looked up at him, her face was rounder, her eyes a hazel brown, and her chin was cleft.

"Megan?" he said.

Her hair returned, her face following. He shook his head.

"What is it now, Aaron?"

"I . . . you were different for a moment."

"Different?"

'A whole different face, a different person."

"Damn it, Aaron." She looked furious enough to claw him like a wild cat.

"I can't help it. I don't want it to happen. It happens."

"Ignore it," she commanded. "See me. See only me." She seized his wrist so quickly and so hard, it frightened him. And then she looked him directly in the face, her eyes small, intense. "Megan, see only Megan. I love you. Do you hear me?"

"Yes," he said. He tried to swallow, but he couldn't for a moment. "Sorry," he said. "I'm all right now. I'm okay. Wow." He took a deep breath. "I guess an adulterous affair is out of the question," he quipped to lighten the moment. She didn't laugh, but before he could say another word, they both heard the sound of footsteps and rose quickly to their feet.

"Damn it, she's here," he said, pulling up his zipper just as Mrs. Bell entered, smiling.

"So?" the forty-five-year-old rental agent said. "How is it?"

"Aaron?" Megan said with a wry smile. "Tell her how it is."

"What? Oh. It's fine, Mrs. Bell, perfect," he said, brushing his hair back with his hands. He looked at Megan, who widened her eyes in expectation. "We'll take it," he said.

"Of course you will. How nice," Mrs. Bell replied. "I'll have the lease ready for you to sign in the morning. Welcome to Driftwood, Mr. Clifford. I know you'll do your best work here."

"You want to go look for furniture, or are you tired?" Megan quickly asked him. "We have about an hour before Sophie comes home."

"Fodder's is having a sale on office furniture this week," Mrs. Bell told them.

"Are they? How fortuitous," Megan declared. She looked at Aaron.

Suddenly he was feeling like someone who had foolishly stepped out into a hurricane and was being carried off in the wind.

"Aaron?"

"No harm in taking a quick look," he muttered.

"Thank you, Mrs. Bell," Megan said and hooked her arm through his to lead him out.

She kissed him on the cheek as soon as they were on the sidewalk.

"I'm so happy," she said.

They got into the car and she started the engine.

"I feel silly asking this," he began, "but how are we fixed for money? I can't even remember where we bank."

"We bank here now, Aaron. All our funds have been moved to the Driftwood National. Our private banker is Teresa Krepski. In fact, you've got to go in with me and complete the signature cards for our checking account and stuff. We're fixed fine. I told you about our profit on the old house, and despite old man Clovis's penurious ways, you made a good salary working at his firm building our net worth close to a half million. It took a threat from you, urged on by me, I have to say, for him to give you the raise you deserved last year, and the bonus for the new clients you brought in with your work. Not appreciated enough," she added, wagging her head. "This is the best move you could make."

"I see," he said.

"When we get home, I'll show you all our account balances, our portfolio, everything, all right? I want you to feel secure, Aaron. I know how important that is for a man," she said.

"For a man? For anyone," he corrected.

"Of course," she said, laughing. "For anyone."

They crossed town and went about a half a mile out to Fodder's furniture store. Mrs. Fodder, a woman in her early sixties with very vibrant gray hair and a pair of jeweled framed glasses on a gold chain, came out of her office to take care of them herself. The designer suit she wore complimented her trim figure.

"Hello. Welcome to Fodder's. You're one of the new young women working for Mrs. Masters, aren't you?" she immediately asked Megan.

"Yes," Megan said proudly.

"How did you know that?" Aaron asked her.

"Oh, just the gossip. This is a small town, Mr. . . " She made it sound as if she was testing him.

"Clifford."

"Right, Clifford. Well, Mr. Clifford, we don't have much to do all day but talk about each other. But," she added, "it's generally not malicious."

Megan laughed.

Aaron saw a man behind the glass wall working at a desk. He glanced up at them and then back at his papers as if he was afraid he'd be caught doing it. He looked to be about Mrs. Fodder's age.

"My husband has decided to set up shop here," Megan said. "We're taking the property on Corin Street."

"Oh, yes. Very nice. Recently refurbished, as I recall."

"Aaron is an architect," Megan continued. "We'll need everything . . . drafting tables, desks, chairs, lobby furnishings, lamps."

"Of course. I have a beautiful office package over here," Mrs. Fodder told them and indicated down left. Megan took Aaron's hand and they followed her. Less than an hour later they had chosen most of what he would need. The feeling that he was caught in a whirlwind was much stronger.

"By this time next week," Megan said, "you'll be working for yourself in your own offices, Aaron," she told him as they left the furniture store.

"Don't you think we're moving a little too quickly?" he asked her.

"Of course not, Aaron. We have a lot to do here. Why waste any time? If your medical problem should have taught you anything," she continued, "it should have taught you how valuable every minute is, honey."

He nodded.

Yes, that made sense, he thought.

"Let's get home before Sophie," she said. "You know something, Aaron," she said, turning to him when they got into the car, "I think this is the first time ever that you'll be there, too, when she returns from school. You just can't describe what she looks like coming off that bus and running up the walk, so full of excitement and the need to tell us everything that happened and everything she did."

He smiled.

"I guess we never know how much we've missed until we get the chance to see it for ourselves," he said.

"That's exactly it, Aaron. You're beginning to understand just how wonderful all this will be. See what I meant by enjoying you more now? I didn't mean I wanted you to suffer or be sick. I meant I wanted you to be yourself, be all you could be to us and to yourself.

''And that," she concluded, "is what's happening."

She drove off, a smile set in her face like a sculpture in glass.

"I guess the next thing I'd better do is call Mr. Clovis to tell him my decision, huh?" he asked her.

She nodded.

"Funny," he said, thinking aloud, "I can't even remember the sound of his voice."

"Oh, you will. When you tell him, you'll recall that voice, I'm sure. He'll be gagging on his own tongue," she predicted and laughed, a cold, thin laugh, a laugh unlike any he had heard before, a laugh that would more properly be described as a laugh of revenge.

What had Clovis done to her? Aaron wondered.

When they arrived at the house, she immediately reminded him to take his pill. He hadn't forgotten. He was about to do it.

"You don't have to worry about my immediate memory," he said.

"Don't try to stop me from making sure you're going to be all right, Aaron Clifford," she retorted. "A wife has a right to be a nag when it comes to what's best for her husband." She looked braced for a fight over it.

"Okay, okay," he said, laughing.

He went to his office to phone Clovis. One of his business cards was right on his desk, waiting for him. He wondered if he had left it there himself. Megan stood in the doorway, sipping from a glass of water, watching.

"You put this here?" he asked, holding up the card.

"No," she said.

He knitted his eyebrows and then shrugged and tapped out the number. The receptionist answered and he identified himself.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Clifford," she said. "This is Maggie. One moment."

Megan shifted in the doorway and peered at him over her glass as she sipped some more.

''Aaron," he heard Clovis say in a gruff, loud voice, "glad you called. Why the hell do you need a whole week out there? You don't have to do it all at once. You should come back to work tomorrow."

"Actually, Mr. Clovis, I'm calling because I've had some medical problems."

"What? What the hell is this now? You're in perfect health, Aaron."

"Something snuck up on me, Mr. Clovis. I've been diagnosed as having had a CVA."

"What? What the hell is that, some Yuppie disease?"

"Hardly . . . Anyway, it's affected my memory. I'm afraid I'm not coming back to work."

"Not coming back? For how long?"

"Forever, Mr. Clovis. I'm relocating completely out here. The illness has served as an alarm, a bell ringer, and . . ."

"You ungrateful son of a bitch. I know what you're doing. You're trying to get more money out of me."

"No, that's not so."

"Fine," Clovis said. "Stay out there."

Aaron heard the click. He held the receiver for a moment, and then he set it down slowly.

"What?" Megan said.

"He hung up on me before I could do any explaining. He made me feel like I was lying to him."

"Good," she said. "Saved you the trouble of hanging up on him. See what I meant about him? You've made the right decision."

"What about my things?" he asked. "I must have a lot there."

"Don't worry about it, Aaron. I'll see to all that."

"You?"

"Remember the doctor's warning, honey. Please. Don't stress out over it. I said I'll take care of it," she emphasized.

"I can't put all the burden on your shoulders," he moaned.

"I won't be alone. I'll have Mrs. Masters's help. She has friends in New York. Okay?"

"Yes, I suppose," he said.

He felt a bit dazed suddenly.

"Mommy!" they heard. "Daddy!"

"She's home," Megan said. "C'mon. Forget about everything else for now. Enjoy your family," she said firmly.

He nodded and rose to greet Sophie.

Why is it? he wondered as he did so, that everything sounds like an order?

eight

Mrs. Masters's estate has to be the most impressive property in Driftwood, Aaron thought when the spired black cast-iron gate opened before them. For a good half an acre on both the north and south sides, an eight-foot-high stone wall ran along the road, making the property look forbidden, private, and special. Spaced just behind the walls were twenty twenty-five-feet-high Colorado Pine trees, the tops of which loomed against the full moon sky like dedicated sentinels at full attention guarding the property against any form of intrusion.

As soon as Megan and he had approached the entrance, the gate had begun to move.

"How come you didn't have to call in or something?" he asked her.

"There's a laser light reader built into the corner there," she said, nodding to her right. "It picks up this small patch in our windshield." She pointed to a blue window sticker barely two inches wide pasted in the driver's side upper-left corner of their windshield.

"Oh," he said, even though he didn't see it. "It's something like those fast checks at tollbooths."

"Exactly, Aaron. High tech has come to the hinterlands, too," she kidded. 'Actually, Mrs. Masters has a very sophisticated sentry system utilizing laser lights, heat sensors, even radar. You'll be impressed."

"I'm impressed already. But I thought you said this was a very low crime area. Why the need for such state-of-the-art security?"

"Now, just think for a moment like a criminal, Aaron. If you came here to rob someone, who would you choose? What's that story about the bank robber, Willie Sutton? He said he robbed banks because that's where the money is. Well. . ." she said, holding her right hand out as they drove in and started up the drive that was lit with gas lamps, the flames flickering like torches, a good quarter of a mile up to the house. "Pretty easy to see this is where the money is."

Along the way Aaron saw the elaborate statuary, replicating a variety of animals including lions and tigers, bears and wolves. Most of the pieces were kinetic, the animals depicted in the beginning or middle of some movement. As they drove on, Aaron thought the light played tricks with the shadows and the stone, giving him the illusion that the statues came to life for an instant and did indeed move and then freeze again.

The house, which Aaron thought was better called a mansion, was set at the top of the knoll. He recognized it immediately as a classic Greek revival.

"Wow, beautiful," he remarked as they pulled into the parking area in front. "But this is so much more common in the South than here."

"Mrs. Masters's family is from the South. You'll detect a slight Virginian accent," Megan said. She turned off the engine and glanced once more at herself in the mirror on the sun visor, smoothing a strand of her hair and confirming her makeup.

"You look great," he told her.

"Thank you, Aaron."

She had chosen a form-fitting white nylon and Lycra dress accessed with a gold grape pendant necklace, and gold cuffs with Austrian crystals, which she claimed he had bought her for their last anniversary. He had no memory of it and none had been stimulated by the sight of the jewelry. The top of the dress was cut just at the crest of her shoulders. Her dark skin looked radiant and the lines of her neck were alluring. He had an urge to press his lips to that soft place where her shoulder turned into her neck. It made him feel like a vampire.

"What?" she said, seeing how he stared at her.

"You're a very beautiful woman, Megan."

"Why, thank you, Aaron. That's something you rarely did before."

"What?

"Give me compliments. I was forever reminding you to tell me how I looked or even how much you loved me. You always came back with that stupid male rationalization."

"Which was?"

"Why do I have to say it? It's obvious. Nothing is ever obvious to a woman, Aaron. She needs constant reinforcement, reassurance. It's our nature. We are really very fragile and delicate creatures."

He laughed. "Right, delicate, and Grant's not buried in Grant's tomb. So, how do I look?"

"Very handsome, Aaron. When you dress up, you make me very proud."

"Hmm," he said. "That seems like something I should have said to you."

"Another misnomer hits the dust. A woman, especially today's woman, Aaron, is often proud of the way her man looks and is not afraid to say so. I helped you pick out that suit, you know."

At her behest, he wore a dark blue three-piece suit she said he had worn only once when they had attended a charity function in Westport. It did seem brand new, as did his shoes.

They stepped out.

The great house had a central porch extending the full height of the mansion, but less than the full width. There were Doric columns.

"That's interesting," Aaron said, "the columns have no base."

"So?"

"Distinguishes them as Greek revival as compared to Roman. Very authentic. Who designed this house for Mrs. Masters?"

"She did it herself. She loves architecture. That's why she wanted to meet you and hopefully to talk you into working in Driftwood."

"Beautiful, the trim, the cornices, elaborate attention to authentic detail," he remarked, barely hearing what she had said.

Just like the gate, the front door opened as they stepped up before it. For a moment there was no one in the wide, beige breccia marble floor and entryway. They could hear the New Age music flowing from the room off right. They stepped in and Mrs. Masters appeared almost like an apparition in the hallway.

Aaron was shocked. He was expecting a woman at least in her sixties, elegant and classy. Mrs. Masters didn't look all that much older than Megan and her friends. She was also far more beautiful and sexy than he had anticipated. Her eyes were green jade and electric. He felt seized in her gaze. Shoulder-length blazing red hair streamed down her neck and over her bare shoulders. She wore a clingy, black satin dress with folds in the bodice that fit snugly around her firm, full bosom. At the top of her cleavage rested an oval-shaped black sapphire on a gold chain. When she drew closer, he realized she was just an inch or so shorter than he was.

She extended her hand, and Aaron, barely over his initial shock, lifted his quickly to take it.

"Welcome, Aaron. I finally get to meet you. I'm so sorry about your medical problem. How are you feeling?"

"I feel fine. I haven't regained my full memory yet, but we're hopeful," he said, glancing at Megan.

"I know you will be just fine," Mrs. Masters said. "You're under the care of a wonderful doctor." Her voice was soft and youthful. There was great aura of energy about her.

"Yes, thank you for that," he said.

"I'm glad I could do something, even in a small way."

She turned to Megan. "Did everything go well today with the offices and rental?"

"Yes, thank you for your help with that, too."

"It's my pleasure," Mrs. Masters said. "I'm so happy you've made this decision, Aaron. I'll introduce you to a builder who wants to get together with you as soon as possible. But first, let me introduce you to everyone. Your doctor is here," she told him, "so you can ask any questions without fear of cost. That's why I invite doctors and lawyers to my dinner parties. To take advantage of them," she said, leaning in toward him, a wry, impish smile on her face.

Aaron's eyes went from her lips down to her neck and then her bubbled bosom before he turned quickly to Megan and laughed.

"Great," he said. "What a beautiful home you have. I was surprised to find such an authentic Greek revival in the North."

"Thank you. I never believed in that idea that you must conform your styles and tastes to where you happen to be living at the time. Style and taste should be part of you, something you can take anywhere. I'd build this house in the Southwest if I lived there. Or even in Wyoming," she added with a defiant flick of her hand, "and risk being called out of touch or something. I'm sure a man of your creative insight understands," she added and slipped her arm under his left arm. "Shall we share him, Megan?"

"Reluctantly, yes, Mrs. Masters." They both laughed. He smiled at their foolery and thought, just as with her girlfriends, Megan and Mrs. Masters behaved like teenagers.

She and Megan then led him to the drawing room, where fourteen other guests were gathered sipping champagne and eating from a variety of hors d'oeuvres being brought around on silver trays by three waitresses. A bartender made drinks behind a charcoal gray slate bar to the right. A variety of liquors and wines were displayed on glass shelves above which were recessed lights. The room's general lighting came from a half dozen gas harps with antique opalescent swirl shades.

Aaron looked everywhere, overwhelmed by the opulence. The style and taste Mrs. Masters referred to before wasn't exactly in evidence, however. The room was too eclectic; it looked like it had been adorned by a half a dozen different decorators, all in competition with each other. Scattered about were pieces of African art, small statues of African men and women as well as wild animals, but there were Italian and French and Austrian artifacts as well, including Viennese glasses, Renaissance goblets, and Roman vases. While one wall had a few nineteenth-century European artists displayed, on another wall were placed selections of Oriental art, and in the far corner on a black marble pedestal was a three-foot statue of Neptune and a snake.

The furniture was just as eclectic, a mixture of woods and stone, French Provencal chairs, Colonial, some modern pieces, clean sharp wood cuts, cubes, as well as what Aaron recognized as Scandinavian tables and chairs. There were two Persian area rugs, but in front of the large, fieldstone fireplace was what looked like a white bear rug.

"A little something for everyone," Mrs. Masters remarked, seeing the look on his face. "I've collected over the years from different places I've lived in, and I don't see any reason to give away or sell any of it. Everything you see, believe it or not, has some sentimental meaning. Gifts from admirers, trophies from various journeys."

Aaron nodded.

He wanted to suggest that in a house this size you could probably organize the different styles in different rooms rather than throw everything together like this, but he didn't think it was his place even so much as to sound critical.

"I love it," Megan said. "I hate sameness."

"Exactly," Mrs. Masters agreed. She clapped her hands together. Everyone stopped talking and looked their way. "Please let me introduce our guests of honor tonight, Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Clifford, our most recent new family."

There was applause.

"And to start the evening off with a pleasant surprise, I would like to announce the creation of Aaron Clifford Architectural Services, 213 Conn Avenue, Driftwood, Connecticut."

The applause was louder and longer.

"Let me get you two some champagne before you are accosted by everyone," Mrs. Masters said and led them to the bar. "Ule, two champagnes, please."

The bartender set out the glasses obediently and quickly filled them both. Aaron's attention went to the man's dark eyes. They looked vacant, almost artificial glass orbs. He barely looked at the person he was serving and moved with a robotic methodical rhythm.

"Thank you," Megan said. She took hers and turned just as Laurie approached them. Aaron thought she looked sexier than the first time he met her. Her dress was as tight as Megan's, but hers was almost translucent to the point where he could clearly see her nipples as well as the aureolas around each.

"Hi, Aaron. Remember me?" she joked.

"Laurie provides our sense of humor," Mrs. Masters said a little sharply.

Laurie laughed. "He knows I'm teasing, don't you, Aaron?"

"I know I've seen you before," he joked, "but I'm not sure just where."

They all laughed.

"Megan said you had a witty sense of humor," Mrs. Masters said.

He glanced at Megan, who was beaming with pride, and then he sipped his champagne and gazed around. The men were all in suits, all looking very distinguished. Megan's other two friends, Terri and Debbie, waved. They, too, looked especially alluring, Debbie wearing a dress with a deep V-neck, very revealing, and Terri with a light, off-the shoulder lace garment that looked like it might just fall away if she was a bit too active.

In fact, as he studied the other women, he realized they all had very sexy figures and pretty faces. Even Dr. Longstreet looked enticing in her spaghetti-strapped black gown, her small bosom boosted by one of those so-called wonder bras.

"Let me start the individual introductions," Mrs. Masters said and led them toward the first two couples. "Aaron and Megan, I'd like you to meet our present mayor and his wife, Mayor Ron Allan and Charlene," she began.

"Welcome to our little community," Ron Allan said, shaking Aaron's hand. "From what I've heard about you two already, I know you'll be a great added asset."

"Thank you," Aaron said.

"I hope you'll have time for our Woman's Auxiliary, Megan," Charlene Allan said. She looked as if she was in her late forties with just the smallest indication of the onset of crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes.

"Of course I will," Megan replied.

Aaron raised his eyebrows.

"We both believe it's important to give to your community, don't we, Aaron?"

"Oh, sure," he said.

"Sometimes our husbands have to take on a little more domestic responsibility to enable us women to do our good work," Charlene emphasized. "I'm sure you won't mind."

"Whatever we're able to do, we'll do," he said.

"Precisely," Charlene Allan replied.

Aaron felt as if he had just signed up to be scout master or something.

"Whatever you were told before about American society, my boy, forget it," the mayor said. "Women have been running things around here ever since Eve decided to move her and Adam out of Paradise."

"Why, Ron, I thought you told me Driftwood was paradise," Mrs. Masters quipped.

"Well, it is. Right," he said, nodding. He looked confused for a moment and then sipped some champagne. "Right," he muttered.

"I do look forward to seeing you next Wednesday, Megan," Charlene Allan said as they moved to the next couple.

"This is Harlan Noel and his wife Patricia. Harlan is one of the major builders in our area, and he's thinking of building our first mall, right, Harlan?"

"Absolutely. I'm putting the financing together as we speak," the tall, lanky dark-brown-haired man said. He stood at least six feet four and had a lean face with a long nose. Aaron actually thought he was rather unattractive and wondered if it was simply his money or some unapparent great personality traits that had attracted the beautiful lithe blonde to him. His wife Patricia looked as if she had just stepped off a runway, modeling the latest designer fashions from Italy. "We've got to talk very soon," he told Aaron.

"Just give him a chance to set up his office," Mrs. Masters said.

"No problem. When Mrs. Masters recommends someone, I listen," he told Aaron.

"Thank you," Aaron said, bedazzled. How did anyone know the quality of his work? He wasn't even sure of it himself.

"Oh, Dr. Longstreet," Mrs. Masters said. "How does your patient look tonight?"

Dr. Longstreet stepped toward them.

"You look well rested, Mr. Clifford. Everything all right?"

"I feel okay, but I'm not there yet," Aaron said. "Those wild images—"

"Just be patient and be sure to follow the drug therapy," she advised quickly, looking as if she wanted him to keep his symptoms to himself.

"See," Mrs. Masters told him. "In her office, that's about two-hundred and fifty dollars."

Dr. Longstreet laughed. "Not quite," she said, "but not that far off, either. You'll be fine," she reassured Aaron with a soft patting on his hand, and then turned back to the stout dark-haired man with whom she had been conversing. He nodded at them and raised his glass.

"That's Renaldo Wells, a very sharp and aggressive tax attorney. Doctors and tax attorneys seem to have a synergistic relationship in this society, don't you agree?" Mrs. Masters added with a laugh. "However, beware of Renaldo. He's a lady's man . . . Actually," she added in a whisper, "the new Lady Chatterly's lover, if you get my meaning."

"I'll keep him out of our garden," Aaron said, and Mrs. Masters laughed harder and pressed herself tighter to him.

"I do love your husband, Megan, and I see what you mean about his witty sense of humor. You're going to just love it here, Aaron. I promise," she said.

"Hi," Debbie said. "Aaron, I'd like you to meet my husband, Morgan." She tugged a slim man with thinning dark hair forward, and he held out his small, soft hand.

"Pleased to meet you, Aaron. Debbie was saying all sorts of nice things about you earlier."

Aaron shook his hand, which felt like a limp paw. Morgan was a good two inches shorter than Debbie, and Aaron immediately envisioned him overwhelmed by his athletic and far more energetic-looking wife. He wondered what drew these two together and thought here was another couple that was puzzling.

"Morgan is a brilliant accountant, Aaron," Mrs. Masters said. "He figures out the angles for all of us and keeps the IRS away."

"I see," Aaron said.

"I never ask anyone to put on a shoe that doesn't fit," Morgan quickly inserted.

"Hi!" Terri Richards cried. She had her arm wrapped around her husband's. He was a tall blond with the sort of blue eyes that made Paul Newman a dream for camera operators in movies. There were tiny freckles on his cheeks, which added to his young-boy look.

"You've met Terri, now meet the best dentist in Driftwood, Dr. Leonard Richards."

"Pleased to meet you and welcome to Driftwood," Leonard Richards said.

"Thank you."

"Leonard keeps us all smiling brightly," Mrs. Masters said.

"I've got good material to work with," Leonard said, nodding. "You golf?"

"No," Aaron said.

"Aaron's never had time for anything but work before this," Megan said. "But now that he's cut out that stupid commuting, he'll have more time for pleasurable things."

"Good. When our wives untie us, we can get together on weekends over at the Driftwood Lodge and play a round, maybe."

"I've never played," Aaron repeated.

"It won't take you long to learn," Megan said.

"No," Morgan Asher parroted. "It didn't take me long, not that I'm any good."

"You don't have to be good at golf. That's what makes it good," Leonard Richards said.

Everyone but Aaron laughed.

I don't start out to do something if I know I'm going to be a failure at it, he thought and wondered from what cache of memories that one emerged. Would there be more thoughts completing a self-image? Soon, he hoped.

Mrs. Masters decided to whisk him along for more introductions, more champagne and hors d'oeuvres before dinner was announced.

The party paraded behind her and Aaron and Megan to the dining room, or, as Aaron thought the moment he saw it, the dining hall.

"I was wondering how you could feed so many at a dinner party," he remarked when he gazed at the palace-sized, rich dark walnut table. Three enormous silver-plated brass chandeliers with crystal swags hung above it. The bulbs were turned down so that soft light flowed over the beautifully adorned table with its Japanese China. The Royal Satsuma Nippon Plates had a white background with shades of gray and tan separated by gold lines. Hand-painted on the plates were three different pictures, all with ladies with fans in various poses and all featuring a red bridge or fence with red cross.

Aaron saw there were name tags in front of the settings and that he was sitting to the right of Mrs. Masters with Megan on her left. Charlene Allan, the mayor's wife, was on his right and the mayor was on Megan's left.

On both walls of the dining room were hung floating mirrors the length of the room. It made it possible for everyone to see anyone on his or her right or left as well as the guests in front of him or her, but the mirrors also reflected the images across from each, and that gave the room and its inhabitants a depth that made it seem as if they were all extended back to infinity. The depth grew deeper and deeper for Aaron after another champagne toast and a few glasses of a wonderful French Merlot.

It was a seven-course meal with the sherbet pause to cleanse the palate. A half dozen waiters and waitresses served the guests while a young woman with long, flowing light brown hair played a harp in the far right corner.

Shortly after the main course of succulent duck l'orange, Aaron took a breath, sipped some more wine, and sat back just to listen to some of the conversations. The women were all charming and witty. Laurie peppered her remarks with frequent sexual innuendos that made some of the men blush. Rendaldo Wells sat between her and Dr. Longstreet, but Laurie seemed to be dominating him. Terri and Debbie continually chastised her, which only seemed to give Laurie more encouragement. Aaron couldn't help but burst out in a laugh occasionally himself, each time drawing the amused attention of Mrs. Masters, who sat forward, her eyes sparkling with pleasure and even pride like some guru who had trained her apprentices well.

The men tried to talk about the economy, the opportunities for the community, politics, but if Laurie didn't find some way to lighten their conversation with her teasing, one of the other women either belittled the comments or made the men seem like the ones wasting time on idle talk. Gradually Aaron began to realize that the men were fading, becoming obedient little boys as the dinner continued.

Just before the table was cleared for their dessert and coffee, Aaron closed his eyes because a tiny, lightning flash of pain crossed them. For a moment it actually took his breath away. No one seemed to notice. He was grateful for that, but when he lifted his gaze from the table and looked into the mirror, he saw a shocking scene. All the men were large boars in suits and ties. He, too, was a gross pig, only his hands were still human hands instead of hooves. The women were grotesque old hags, except for Megan, who looked strangely familiar. She was the woman he had seen emerge in a flash after he and Megan had made love on the new office floor, a blonde, with hair down to her shoulders, her eyes a hazel brown and her chin cleft.

He turned toward Mrs. Masters, but instead of seeing her, he saw Mrs. Domfort.

He gasped and accidentally knocked over his glass of wine. Mrs. Allan leaped back with a cry as the wine splattered onto the beige bodice of her dress. Instantly the grotesque images disappeared and Mrs. Masters was no longer Mrs. Domfort.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" he cried.

"That's all right," Mrs. Masters said. "Melina," she called to one of the waitresses. "Take Mrs. Allan to the powder room and help her get those stains out immediately."

The waitress moved to Mrs. Allan's side.

"I'm sorry," Aaron said again as Mrs. Allan rose.

"It's all right," she replied and glared at her husband, who sat shocked. "Usually, it's Ron who does something stupid."

Her husband blushed and Aaron felt terrible for him. Why pick on him? It was my fault, he thought.

Mrs. Masters laughed, and everyone but Aaron joined her, even the mayor who was literally laughing at himself.

In moments the waitresses had cleaned up the mess, and the waiter was pouring Aaron another glass of wine.

"I think I've had enough, thank you," he told him.

The waiter looked at Mrs. Masters, who nodded. He stepped away.

"Please," she told Aaron, "don't get yourself upset. Everyone here knows you've been going through a difficult time. Everyone understands. Dr. Longstreet?" she said turning to her. "Tell him not to be concerned," she ordered.

"You're doing fine, Aaron. Don't get yourself worked up. Remember what I told you about stress," Dr. Longstreet warned, raising her eyebrows for emphasis.

He nodded.

"Sorry," he muttered and glanced at Megan.

She was staring at him in a funny way, not angry or displeased with him as much as indifferent, as if he was someone else's husband.

Then she smiled.

"Aaron's just tired," she declared. "He has had a big day, you know."

"Of course," Mrs. Masters said.

"It might be better if we say good night," Megan continued, her eyes still fixed on him.

"Whatever you think best, dear," Mrs. Masters said. "Dr. Longstreet?"

"One can't rush these things," she agreed. "Proper rest is very important."

"We do want you to be strong and well enough to get a good start here, Aaron," Mrs. Masters continued, patting him on the hand. He felt like a little boy. They were all looking at him that way, too.

Megan stood up. Aaron understood he was being rushed away and rose slowly.

"I hope I haven't ruined everyone's good time," he said.

Everyone chanted their "nos" and "ridiculous to say such a thing."

Mrs. Allan returned, the stains gone.

"All is forgiven," she declared. "Oh, are you two leaving?"

"Yes," Mrs. Masters said. "It's better Mr. Clifford not do too much too soon. His doctor says so," she added, nodding at Dr. Longstreet.

"Please, don't think anything of this. See, no harm done," Charlene Allan said, sticking her breasts up and at him.

He nodded and smiled. Megan came around and took his arm.

"I'll see you two out," Mrs. Masters said, and they went to the front door, which opened before they reached it.

"I'm sorry," Aaron told her as they stepped out.

"Don't say that again, Aaron," she snapped. "There's no need for any apologies, and I assure you, no one in there thinks anything negative about you. Everyone is happy you're part of our little community.

"Megan will take good care of you. I'll see you on Monday, dear," she said, and she kissed Megan on the cheek. "Good night, Aaron. Sleep well," she said and kissed him, too.

Instead of the perfume he had inhaled when she had greeted him earlier, he smelled a sweet maple aroma that seemed strangely familiar. A man's face flashed before his eyes. He forced himself to ignore it, nodded, and walked down the steps to their car. Megan opened the door for him.

"I'm okay," he said. "Don't treat me like an invalid," he said sharply.

"Of course you're okay," she said.

He got in and she got in.

Mrs. Masters had gone back into the house. He stared at the entrance as Megan started the engine.

"It was a wonderful evening, wasn't it, Aaron?"

"Yes," he said, still looking toward the house.

"So many nice people, right?"

"Yes."

"And isn't Mrs. Masters super special?"

"How old is she?" he asked as they started away. "From what you were telling me about her, I envisioned a woman in her sixties."

"She's in her fifties," Megan said and smiled.

"Terrific shape," he said. "Lots of plastic surgery?"

"Not that I know of," Megan said. "Just good genes, I suppose. You can't underestimate the importance of heredity when it comes to all that, Aaron."

"Right," he said.

"Feeling okay?"

"Fine," he said but sat back with his eyes closed.

That aroma. That face.

"But I do feel foolish about what I did at the table. I don't know what came over me. I had this sharp pain and then these ridiculous hallucinations. The men . . ."

"Stop doting on it, Aaron. You were told."

"I know. It was just so bizarre."

He continued to massage his temples, keeping his eyes closed.

"I'm sure when you get home, you'll feel better," he heard a man say, and his eyes snapped open.

He turned quickly and looked back up the driveway.

"Who?"

"What, Aaron?"

He didn't speak.

''Aaron?"

"Nothing," he said. "Damn," he quickly added. "If I don't get better soon. . . "

"You will. Just follow the doctor's orders, Aaron."

"Right," he said and squeezed his temples hard with his thumb and forefinger.

Where was I? he wondered and struggled for the answer. Where had I been just before I found myself in Grand Central? If I can remember that

I can remember who I am, he thought.

It was such a powerful thought, it gave him a chill.

But strangely enough, it also gave him hope.

nine

Aaron did feel stronger and stronger during the week that followed. As Megan described an event or something significant in their past, the memory of it seemed to jell. He was growing more and more confident about himself every day. He looked better, felt stronger and far more relaxed. Megan took so much joy in every little improvement, too. They were continually celebrating something he said or something he recalled, and often the celebration spilled over to passionate love-making.

He was more confident with that as well, now taking more of an aggressive role. Megan was pleased about it.

"That's my old Aaron," she would tell him. By old Aaron she meant the Aaron of their first years together. She always made that clear, which gave him the distinct impression he had changed dramatically in their marriage and as a result their marriage had lost most of its spark.

"You're bringing it all back," she told him when he asked her about that. "We're both undergoing a resurrection here, Aaron. I'm so happy," she said.

That made him feel even better, prouder, gave him a sense of accomplishment which spilled over to his work.

He spent much of the following week getting his office organized. Toward the middle of the second week she suggested they go out to buy another car.

"I don't mind dropping you off and picking you up every day, but it's silly. Now that you're no longer a commuter, we definitely need a second vehicle, Aaron," Megan told him. "What would you like?" she asked.

He shook his head and smiled. How ridiculous, he thought, when nothing jumped out. Most people who suddenly had the opportunity to acquire a new vehicle would have little problem with such a question. Most people daydream about a new car and see themselves behind the wheel. Where are my daydreams?

"I don't know. I guess I've been part of the public transportation system too long. Well," he said after a moment, "something sporty, I suppose. After all, we have the Mercedes for family outings."

"Just what I was thinking, Aaron. I'd like to see my husband tooling around Driftwood in an expensive sports car. Let's go look at the new Corvette."

"Corvette?" He thought for a moment. "Yeah, new Corvette. Why not? We can afford it," he agreed. She had shown him their portfolio, and he knew the balances in their bank accounts. They were very well off.

That afternoon they drove over to the dealership. Megan had already called the sales manager, who greeted them herself. Her name was Adya Lund. She was originally from Morocco. She looked no more than in her late twenties and had short, styled raven black hair with eyes as black. Aaron was genuinely impressed with her knowledge of cars, engines, and all the bells and whistles.

"How did you end up here, selling cars?" Aaron asked when it came to sitting in the office and filling out the paperwork. They had chosen a white Corvette with black leather.

"I ended up here when my husband was transferred from Newport, Rhode Island, but I've always been around cars," Adya explained. "My father was a world-class race car driver." She laughed. Her eyes are dazzling, Aaron thought, like black diamonds. "We have an Italian lineage on my father's side, and my grandfather used to swear to me that one of my ancestors was a champion Roman chariot driver."

Aaron nodded, glanced at Megan, and then looked back at Adya.

"I must say," he said, "you're not my idea of a car salesman."

"That's sexist, Aaron," Megan chastised.

"Is it?"

"Yes. Adya happens to be one of the most successful car salespersons in the state," Megan said. Up until then she had sat by quietly and listened with a smile on her face. "People come from everywhere to have Adya sell them a vehicle. I knew we'd get the best deal with the most important information."

"You're too kind, Mrs. Clifford."

Megan's smile widened.

"Not at all, Adya. You know how we all feel about false modesty here."

"Yes, your wife is correct, Mr. Clifford. The truth is, I've done my best work here, and so will you," Adya said.

Twenty minutes later Aaron was sitting behind the wheel with Adya going over the dashboard and controls.

"This phone is voice activated," she explained, indicating the car phone. "When it rings, you just say hello. It will automatically lower the radio if it's playing too loud, and you'll be on. You don't need to lift your hands from the steering wheel, and when you want to call home, just say home. Your number already has been programmed into the phone."

"It has? When was that done?"

"While we were filling out papers, Aaron," Megan replied for her.

"Oh. Right."

"You understand all the other things on the dashboard, Mr. Clifford?" Adya asked.

"I think so."

"Call me if you have any questions, Mr. Clifford, or stop by anytime."

"Thank you."

"Ready?" Megan asked. He nodded. "Just follow me home," she said. She made him put the top down even though it was a bit nippy.

"It'll put some color in your face, Aaron," she said.

Adya laughed. Her sexy eyes and ruby lips set in that dark skin stirred him, made him feel like a teenager. He revved the engine.

"What fun," Megan said. "Those mufflers sound more like some wild animal's low growl."

''Aren't you afraid all the young girls will come after me?" he teased.

"No," she said, "but not because you're not a handsome sight in the car and out," she said. "They just wouldn't dare," she added. She sounded very serious.

Adya nodded.

He raised his eyebrows. "Why wouldn't they dare?" he asked.

"I'd put a spell on them and make them break out in pimples," Megan quipped.

Adya laughed harder.

"Good luck with your car, Mr. Clifford. You wear it well," Adya said.

He thanked her and watched her walk back to the office—sway was more like it.

"Did you really know about her or was that all flattery to butter her up for a better price when we were talking in there?" he asked Megan.

"I got the lowdown first from Terri. Everyone knows everything about everyone else in this town, Aaron. So," she kidded, "don't even think of having a secret rendezvous with some other woman."

"Why, they know your thoughts here, too?" he retorted.

She shrugged and smiled.

"Let's go home," she said.

As they drove Aaron realized this was the first time he had driven a car since the terrible case of amnesia hit him in Grand Central. He had no problem with driving, and it was truly exciting to feel the wind whipping his hair, listening to the radio and cruising behind Megan, who occasionally glanced in her rearview mirror and waved back at him.

They drove past the pretty homes owned by people who obviously took pride in their property. The residential areas of Driftwood looked as if they had been designed after some scene out of a Norman Rockwell painting: America, folksy, family-oriented, backyards with swings and playground equipment, some with pools, all with patches of flowers and manicured gardens. The front windows were draped in flowered curtains or plain white ones, but all the houses had bright, clean glass catching the reflection of well-placed trees, bushes, and lawns that looked as if they were scissor-cut. Women and men talking quietly in driveways turned to see him pass, all smiling. No dark clouds loomed; no one looked affected by the paranoia that seeped into urban lives, sometimes insidiously, sometimes crashing in with the sounds of gunfire or screams in the night. He didn't sense any distrust, suspicion, or fear.

Megan's right, he thought. This is an island, a precious little community with magic walls keeping out the lead stories on the six o'clock news, making it seem as if that America was across an ocean, or at least on the other side of some moat dug and filled by these people determined to raise their children in healthy climates, keep their streets and buildings free of graffiti, and their homes sacrosanct. No madness was raging here, no soulless, mindless, amoral young people lingering in the shadows, causing Grandma and Grandpa to shiver every time they stepped out of their homes.

I feel good, he told himself. I'm happy, but I shouldn't be. Even with all this ... a new career opportunity, a beautiful new home, a wonderful community, a great wife and beautiful child, I'm still, after all, in a state of limbo. I should be more upset. Where's my anxiety? My frustration? Is Dr. Longstreet right? It would all pass if I just stopped thinking about it, worrying about it?

He heard a horn and saw Debbie Asher driving a Land Rover out of a side street. She had a young girl in the front with her whom he imagined was her daughter. Debbie stuck her head out the window and called to him.

"Nice car. Fits you!" she screamed.

He laughed and waved back.

As soon as he pulled into the driveway behind Megan, she stepped out of the Mercedes and came to him.

"Don't shut off the engine. Go to the school and pick up Sophie. She'll be so excited, Aaron."

"Really?"

"Sure. No problem. You go to the main desk at the principal's office and sign the pickup sheet."

"Maybe you should do it," he suggested. "Or both of us!"

"Aaron, it's your car and it seats only two. You should get used to picking up your daughter. We don't have just soccer moms here. We have soccer dads, too. And besides, you don't want to stand out," she told him a little more sternly than he expected. It almost sounded like a threat. She quickly smiled when she saw his face. "I mean, you don't want Sophie to feel different from the other kids her age."

"No. Of course not. Fine," he said. "Where's the school again?"

She gave him directions and he was off. When he walked into the building and approached the desk, the principal's secretary turned from her filing cabinet and smiled at him. Before he had a chance to introduce himself, she said, "Why, hello, Mr. Cifford. Are you here to pick up Sophie?"

"Yes," he said, "but how do you know me? I haven't been here before, have I?" he asked. He tried to make it sound like a statement, but it was really a question to him. Was he here before and didn't remember?

"No, sir," she said widening her smile. "We have photographs of all the parents on file." She flipped through a drawer and quickly produced his and Megan's document with their pictures attached. He glanced at it. Of course, it was his picture, but he couldn't recall when it was taken.

"Oh," he said. "Yes. Very good idea. Thank you."

"We think so," she said. "And some people stay in your memory a little better than others," she added, blushing at her own little flirtation.

He smiled and then turned to gaze down the immaculate hallway. The floors glimmered in the light of the afternoon sun coming through the glass doors and windows. There wasn't a shred of paper, anything. The bulletin boards had announcements and schedules neatly organized. This is what a school should be, he thought.

"It's amazingly quiet," he commented as he wrote his name on the sign-out sheet.

"Just wait until the final bell and our little urchins come tearing out of those rooms. You'd think they had been kept in dungeons, but I remember it was that way for me, too," she said. "Wasn't it for you?"

He thought for a moment. School. There were some distant memories mixed with memories of college classes, older students, basketball games, the sound of cheering. He was on a team, yes. He played basketball. I was the play maker. There was a chant ringing in his head.

We're from Fallsburg and couldn't be any prouder, and if you didn't hear us, we'll say it a little louder.

"We're from Fallsburg," he said.

"Pardon?" the secretary replied.

He didn't hear her or answer.

"Everything all right, Mr. Clifford?" the secretary asked him.

"What? Oh, yes, sorry. What were you saying?"

"I was just reminiscing. Nothing much," she said. "I'll call Sophie out so you can make a smooth getaway before the actual floodgates open," she offered.

He laughed and watched her go to the intercom.

"Mrs. Walker. Could you please dismiss Sophie Clifford? Her father's come for her."

He heard a muffled voice say okay, and moments later he saw a door open and Sophie come timidly up the hallway toward him, her arms cradling her books. She walked very slowly, almost stopping. He imagined her hesitation was because he was backlit and his face was in complete shadows.

"Hi, Sudsy," he said when she drew closer. "Mommy sent me to get you so you could ride in our new car."

She paused and looked up at him as if she was actually deciding whether she wanted to go with him or not. It took the light out of his smile.

"Okay?" he followed.

She nodded and walked beside him like a little lady.

"I made up a story in class today during storytime and Mrs. Walker said it was very good. It was about you."

"Me? What about me? I mean what was the story?"

She paused at the door and looked up at him.

"It was the story of how you came out of a plant."

"What?" He grimaced. ''A plant?"

"Uh-huh. "You were gone into the ground and Mommy kept watering where you were with her magic water until one day a flower sprouted, and soon after that you popped out and came back to us."

She opened the door and shot out in front of him.

"What? Come back to us? Sophie, wait a minute."

She stopped and looked out at the Corvette parked at the curve just across the driveway.

"Is that our new car?" she asked.

"Yes."

She nodded. "It's very pretty, Daddy." She turned and reached for his hand. "Never cross any street or driveway without holding hands," she told him.

"Right," he said. "Where did you get the idea for that story you told in class?" he asked her as he opened the car door.

"I don't know," she said. "My 'magination. That's what I told Mrs. Walker, too."

"Great imagination," he muttered.

He got her into the car and fastened her seat belt.

"Should I put the top up now?" he asked her. "It's cool."

"No, don't!" she cried. "I want to look up at the sky as we ride and see the clouds and the birds."

"Okay," he said, laughing. He studied her face for a moment. It was hard not to think of himself as having been away. Now that he was back, he realized he hadn't spent all that much time with Sophie. She had the sort of petite facial features that would keep her looking young forever and ever, he thought. He liked the way she looked at him, too, her eyes full of expectation and trust, waiting for some wonderful surprise as if daddies, and he especially, had magical powers at their fingertips. Who wouldn't want to come back to this? he thought.

"Ready to take the magic carpet?"

Sophie laughed. "Yes, Daddy."

He heard the bell ring and started the car, pulling away from the school just as the promised wave of shouting children came surging out of the building toward the waiting schoolbuses. As they pulled onto the street, Sophie leaned back on her seat and looked up. He could see the wonder in her face and thought of it as the wonderful innocent sense of discovery we spend the rest of our lives trying to recapture.

"Like the car, Sudsy?"

"Uh-huh." She sat straight again and opened one of her books. ''You want to hear me read, Daddy?" she asked. "I learned new words today."

"Sure, sweetheart. Go ahead."

"This is a story about Chips, the computer dog," she declared. "It all began one day in Mr. Modo's base. . . base."

"Basement?"

"Yes, basement. When he was a little boy, Mr. Modo had a dog named Dinky. He wanted a dog now, but Mrs. Modo said a pet is a big res. . . respon. . . "

"Responsibility?"

"Uh-huh. So Mr. Modo said what if we had a dog that took care of itself?"

Aaron leaned back and slowed down to a pleasant cruising speed. He knew this story. Had he read it to her before? His smile widened as he listened, but as Sophie continued, her voice began to change and the pace of her reading slowed down until it sounded a bit distorted. At first he thought she was doing that to be dramatic, and then he turned and looked at her and his heart seemed to unfold and spill boiling hot blood down the inside of his chest.

Sophie's face was shattered, blood streaking down her cheeks and her neck. When her lips moved, small red bubbles formed and then popped.

He gasped.

A driver coming toward him sounded her horn. He looked up in time to jerk the car to the right just before a head-on collision, and then he hit the brakes and pulled the car to the curb.

Sophie was frightened but had nothing else wrong with her when he looked at her again, no blood, no trauma. She sat there, stunned.

"What happened, Daddy?"

He was still shaking badly.

"I don't know," he managed to say. His arms seemed frozen at his side. He willed his hand to go to the steering wheel, but it didn't.

"Daddy?"

"I'm okay," he said. "We're okay. Don't be frightened." He looked at the phone and said, "Home." He could hear it dial and then Megan come on.

"Hello."

"It's me. I'm having a little problem, and I don't want to frighten you know who," he said.

"Where are you, Aaron?"

He described his location.

"Just sit there. Someone will be there in moments," she promised.

"Okay." He heard her hang up and then he turned to Sophie. "We've got to stay here and wait for someone, but keep reading your story," he said. "It's a very good one."

She nodded and turned back to the book. He closed his eyes. It didn't seem long, not even ten minutes before a police car pulled up behind him and a tall, stout policeman stepped out. His name tag read Brock.

"How we doing here, Mr. Clifford?" he asked.

Aaron took a breath.

"I'm better, but I think I'd feel more comfortable if someone else drove," he replied.

"Fine." Brock signaled to the other officer in the car and a much shorter, younger, round-faced man with his hat back so far it looked like it would fall off, got out to join them.

"Simpson, Mr. Clifford would like someone else to drive his car home."

"Sure," Simpson said, looking at the car with glee and envy. "No problem."

"Didn't think so. Let me help you into the patrol car, Mr. Clifford. I'll pull it right up alongside first," Brock said and did so quickly.

"The nice policeman is going to drive the car for a while, honey," Aaron told Sophie. She looked at Officer Simpson, who smiled. "Just stay where you are."

Aaron felt wobbly. Brock got him seated and then signaled for Simpson to start away. They watched him go.

"You made Simpson's day, lettin' him drive your car," Brock said.

Aaron closed his eyes as they drove off, but when he opened them, he saw they weren't heading for his home.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

Before Brock responded, Aaron knew.

Dr. Longstreet's clinic was coming up ahead of them.

Brock looked at him.

"Your wife told me where to take you. You'll be fine, Mr. Clifford. You're in good hands here," he said.

Aaron nodded and closed his eyes. When they pulled into the clinic driveway, Brock drove around to the rear. An attendant came out quickly, pushing a wheelchair.

"I don't think I need that," Aaron said.

"No sense not making things easier for you until you're on your feet, Mr. Clifford," Brock said. He helped the attendant get Aaron into the chair, and then the attendant wheeled him into the clinic.

Aaron looked back to thank Brock, but he was already gone.

The attendant wheeled him into an examination room and helped him up on the table.

"Just lay your head back on this pillow and relax, Mr. Clifford. The doctor will be in to see you shortly," he said.

Aaron did so and closed his eyes. He felt tired, so very tired. Moments later, he realized his arm was being lifted and a nurse was putting a blood pressure cuff around it. She smiled at him. He didn't remember her from his previous visits.

"Where's Dr. Longstreet?" he asked.

"Please try to relax," she said.

"But—"

"It's very important that you relax. Please," she said in a soft voice. It was a mother's voice, the kind of voice that was full of warmth and concern, the sort of voice he could trust and would welcome.

He closed his eyes. She stroked his hair.

"That's good. That's very good," she said.

A whirlpool of images played on the inside of his lids. He was looking up into a stream of whiteness interrupted by blazing lights every few seconds. He had the sense of movement, too, as if the table was rolling along, and there were voices around him. He could hear them, but he couldn't make out the words.

Maybe he fell asleep; maybe he dreamed for a while, but the murmuring voices did get clearer until he was sure he was listening to Terri Richards.

"Maybe it was too soon," she said, "maybe we're rushing him."

"You should have seen him, how well he was doing. We're not rushing him."

That was Megan's voice.

He tried to open his eyes, but they seemed to be glued shut. He tried to call to her, but his mouth wouldn't open, either.

"Well, what do we do?" another voice asked. It sounded like Debbie Asher.

"It's not unusual," he heard Dr. Longstreet say. "We'll increase the dosage."

"She's not going to like this. She's going to want to send him back," Laurie Conklin said. He was sure it was she.

"No!" Megan cried.

"She has to know, of course," Terri Richards said.

"I'm sure she already knows," Doctor Longstreet said.

"He was doing so well. He was. I deserve him," Megan insisted. "I deserve him. I deserve him," she chanted until her voice began to fade, falling away down a tunnel.

All he could do was listen, but was it a dream?

"Mr. Clifford," he heard loud and clear. "Mr. Clifford."

He was able to open his eyes. He looked around quickly, but the only one there was Dr. Longstreet. She stood beside him, the stethoscope around her neck.

"How are you feeling now?" she asked.

"I don't know. What happened?"

"A little setback. Nothing terribly serious. We're going to change your prescription, give you a stronger dosage."

"Yes, I know," he said.

"Pardon me?" She smiled.

"I heard you say it, but where's Megan? Where are Debbie, Laurie, and Terri?"

She stared at him, her smile tightening.

"Your wife is on her way. She wanted to be sure your daughter was doing all right first," Dr. Longstreet said. "I don't know anything about Debbie, Laurie, and Terri. Had someone called them for some reason?"

"I heard them here," he said.

She smiled at him and shook her head.

"Just your confusion, Mr. Clifford, but that's over now. I assure you. I've given you something to help you rest, to keep you calm. Just relax. You'll be fine."

"There's so much blood. There's always so much blood," he muttered and did close his eyes.

He had no idea how long he slept, but when he woke, he was home in bed. Megan had done a wonderful job decorating the room during the first week. There was a sitting area a step down on the right where she had placed an oversize chair and ottoman, a glass-top table, and a standing lamp. The ceiling mirror had been installed just today. He gazed up at himself floating in the king-size bed with silk sheets and pillowcases and a down comforter that felt as if it were woven out of clouds.

"How are you doing, Aaron?" she asked from the doorway.

"All right, I guess. How did I get here?"

He propped himself up on his elbows and then she moved quickly to fix the pillow behind him so he could sit comfortably.

"We got you into the back of the Mercedes. You seemed awake at the time, but I guess you were just too groggy and you fell asleep. Dr. Longstreet had given you something to help you relax and sleep."

"But how did you get me upstairs and in bed?"

She stood back.

"Word traveled fast and the girls came over from work."

"The girls? You mean Laurie, Terri, and Debbie?"

"Exactly. Debbie said she had just seen you riding in the car and you had looked great."

"Yes," he said, remembering.

"Dr. Longstreet is not overly concerned. She's modified your prescription and feels it will all work out okay."

"I know. I was sure I heard them all at the clinic, Debbie, Laurie, Terri, too."

"They were there, but not until we were getting you ready to go home," Megan said. "Hungry?"

"Actually, yes," he said. "I'll get up."

He started to get out of the bed, when she stopped him.

"Just relax," she said. ''You're about to be spoiled."

"What?"

"Sophie wants to bring your dinner up. She's playing nursemaid."

"Did she get badly frightened?"

"Amazingly, no. She said the policeman who drove her home was funny."

"Wasn't she frightened by what happened to me? I mean she didn't cry or anything, but that had to be very traumatic for a child her age."

"She was worried when she came home, but she has this great confidence in me." Megan laughed. "She thinks I can fix anything just because I cure her colds with one of my grandmother's herbal recipes."

"I know. She told me this fantastic story about how you grew me out of a plant or something to bring me back."

"That's not a fantastic story, Aaron."

"What?"

She smiled. "I am bringing you back."

She leaned over and kissed him softly on the lips.

"Just relax and enjoy it," she added, then winked and started away. "Dinner is on its way, your majesty."

He stared after her.

Had he heard her girlfriends at the clinic? Had he imagined all that?

It was getting so he couldn't tell the difference between a dream and reality now. He felt as if he were orbiting. Soon, he thought, soon I'll either fall to earth or drift away into space and completely disappear.

At the moment he wished one or the other would happen.

ten

Aaron was delighted with the wonderful sense of renewal he felt the following morning, considering what he had gone through. Sophie had served him his dinner in bed the night before, taking great pains to be a little perfectionist, unfolding the napkin properly, setting out the silverware in its proper place, pouring him a cup of coffee without spilling a drop.

"See, she takes after you," Megan pointed out. "Miss Prim and Proper."

They both sat and watched him eat. Sophie, who he was afraid had been traumatized by his little crisis in the car, talked continuously, telling him about her activities at school, things she wanted to do with him and with Megan, and making him laugh with her imitation of Officer Simpson, who had driven her home. The child's ability to handle emotional trauma amazed him.

'At times she does seem so adult," he said. "I guess you're right about her feeling secure, and you're right about her faith in you, Megan. Before you came upstairs, she was telling me not to worry. You would make me better."

"She just inherited your emotional strength, Aaron. In many ways she takes after you more than she does me."

''Am I handling my own crisis all that well?" he wondered aloud.

"Of course you are, Aaron. Even Mrs. Masters made a point of telling me so. She thought you were a real gladiator the other night when you had the problem at dinner."

"Gladiator?"

"You know. . . " She looked troubled for a moment as if she was the one who struggled for thoughts these days. "Trooper, good egg, whatever."

He laughed.

"I'll take gladiator. Sounds more romantic."

"It is," she said.

When he had finished his dinner, he took a shower and his medicine and went to sleep. It was one of the best night's rests he had since the events at Grand Central. There were no nightmares he could recall, no hallucinations, either. Maybe it was a result of the adjusted medicine, he thought. I'm finally getting the correct dosage.

As soon as he awoke, he saw Megan had already risen and taken Sophie to school. He dressed, made himself some breakfast, and then decided he would return to his new office and continue setting it up. He left her a note explaining that he felt terrific and saw no reason to waste time.

It was when he delved into his work that he was most happy and least anxious about his condition anyway. It both pleased and amazed him how little, if anything, he had forgotten when it came to his work. Somehow, the amnesia hadn't touched it. He wondered how that could be. Were his work, his career, his skills stored in some other place in his brain? When the blood had been cut off by the cerebral strokes, had it been cut off only to certain memory bins? He made a mental note to bring the question to Dr. Longstreet at his next appointment. For now, it was back to work getting himself all set up.

Two days earlier when he had arrived at his offices, Aaron had found all of his things from New York on the floor in the right corner of what would be his studio area. Megan told him that Mrs. Masters simply had arranged for it all to be retrieved from the Clovis agency in Manhattan and delivered. She said there was no reason to thank her. She was happy to rescue him from that unpleasant environment and underlined that by telling Megan that the only remark old man Clovis made about Aaron's things being fetched was "Good, it was all taking up valuable space."

Aaron wished he could remember more about his former boss, if only so he could appreciate Megan's distaste for him.

He was just finishing setting up his computer so he could activate some graphics, when he heard a knock at the door and looked up to see Harlan Noel, the developer he had met at Mrs. Masters's dinner party.

"Hope I'm not disturbing you," the tall man said, standing there with a briefcase in hand. His height was made even more emphatic by the western boots he wore.

"No, it's fine. Please, come in," Aaron said and moved quickly to set up a chair. "Just forgive the mess. I'm not quite there yet," he added.

"It looks ten times neater and more organized than my office already," Harlan said, sitting. "I thought I'd have a quick preliminary talk with you about the project, the one I mentioned at Mrs. Masters's dinner party."

"Oh, sure," Aaron said. He took a pile of folders off his desk chair and sat.

"I've had the opportunity to see some of your work."

"Really?" Aaron leaned back. "Where?"

"Sandburg Village in particular. What a brilliant concept," Harlan said, "a modern mall set up to look like an old English village with the artisans complimenting the retail shops. I especially got a kick out of the glass blower, and an actual blacksmith creating the metal for those bed frames and chairs. The way you spaced out the little garden areas, ponds, and fountains was beautiful. You've turned a shopping plaza into a major tourist attraction. All that free publicity for the merchants, terrific."

"Yes," Aaron said. He recalled this, but he had forgotten exactly where it was.

"Isn't it a big trip to go to Sandburg?"

"Naw, only about three hours from here, but I was on my way back from Albany, New York, and made a short detour to take it in. I had been hearing about it."

Harlan paused for a long moment as if after reporting all this, his thought process had stopped. His eyes looked as if they had shut down. They glittered like glass, without thought, without feeling, reminding Aaron of Mrs. Masters's bartender. It made him nervous. He cleared his throat loudly, and Harlan snapped back and reached for his briefcase.

"Right," he said, as if Aaron had made a comment. "So, what I'd like you to do is come up with something similarly exciting for us."

He opened his briefcase and took out a folder, spreading the contents on the desk.

"Here are the prospective retail outlets and a description of the food court and the entertainment area. Why don't you noodle it a bit, and we'll get back together say in a week and knock around some of your thoughts. I'd be happy to take you out to the site right now, if you like. It's only about fifteen minutes from here.

"Great location," he continued, "far enough from downtown Driftwood so as not to rile up the store owners, but close enough to a half dozen other communities to draw from those populations as well. The research is all in that folder, population studies, competition, projected growths, all of it."

"Okay," Aaron said.

"So you want to go look at it?"

Aaron gazed at his office. Not having things organized the way he wanted them to be gnawed away at him. It was definitely a major part of his personality to be as meticulous and as orderly as possible. Megan had him pegged when it came to that. However, Harlan Noel looked so excited about his project, Aaron sensed that to refuse would deflate him and maybe spook him.

I need the work, Aaron thought.

He nodded. "Sure. Let's take a quick look at it. That will help me envision things when I go through all this," he said, indicating the papers.

"Just what I was thinking," Harlan said. He stood and Aaron went for his jacket. "Love your new vehicle. I had one of those once."

"Oh? Why did you give it up?"

"Those were my wild-oats days," Harlan said. "Before I became a respectable businessman and family man."

They left the office and Harlan nodded at the dark blue Volvo station wagon.

"These days, I'm Mr. Conservative. Hell, I'm even a Republican delegate, and if you would have known me ten years ago, you never would have thought that would be."

Before Aaron got into Harlan's vehicle, he glanced across the street at a man who seemed to be standing there just watching them. The man looked familiar. Aaron opened the car door and looked back once more before getting in. The man had turned his back and was walking away.

Harlan started the engine.

"Half the time I look in the mirror and wonder who the hell I am these days," Harlan continued.

"What? Oh. Where are you from?" Aaron asked him.

"Rochester, New York. My father was in construction. Taught me a lot whether I wanted to learn it or not. Everyone thought I would just take over his business when he was killed. I was an only child. My mother died four years before, a cancer victim. She was a heavy smoker. I remember how she would smoke while she ate, a bite, a puff, a bite. I used to dream about mowing down tobacco company executives."

"How was your father killed?"

"Freak accident on a site. A crane cable snapped. It wasn't a pleasant sight. I kinda blocked it out of my memory, if you know what I mean."

"Yes, I think I can appreciate that," Aaron said.

"Um," Harlan continued. "Those days afterward are like . . . foggy. I was in my early twenties. My father and I were very close, even closer after my mother's painful death. I took it bad."

He looked at Aaron. "I actually went into therapy. That was a result of a little incident and the judge's decision. I guess I became rebellious, angry. That's when I bought the Corvette, tooled around the country, wasting myself, going nowhere really, until I met Patricia."

"Where did you meet?"

"Biloxi, Mississippi. Great resort spot. I was coming back from California, taking the southernmost route, and I stopped at this motel for a few days. We met on the beach. I was just sitting there staring out at the ocean, wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life, when I heard this beautiful voice say, 'They tell me if you look long enough, you can see the end of the world.' "I turned and fell in love almost as quickly as my eyes brought her to my brain."

Harlan laughed at his own words.

"She told me I looked like it, too. You know, smitten. We walked on the beach, talked, quickly got to know each other, went to dinner, and that night couldn't keep our hands off each other. I'll never forget what she told me when I asked her why she let me take her to bed so quickly."

"What was that?" Aaron asked, smiling. He was surprised that this big, rough-looking man could be so sentimental and romantic. That might explain why so beautiful a woman was drawn to him, he thought. Megan had made it crystal clear that women like and need romance, but maybe men did, too, maybe more than everyone, especially men, believed.

"'It's in love and sleep that we learn to trust one another,' she said."

He turned to Aaron and nodded.

"When you think about it, sleeping with someone is the most intimate of things we can do with someone else, and when you're asleep, you're so vulnerable, You'd better be sleeping with someone you trust, huh?"

"Yes, it does make sense," Aaron said. He thought a moment and nodded. "I know I've heard that before."

"Sure. Well, there it is!" Harlan cried as they made a turn.

Before them was an expanse of relatively flat, cleared land that looked gracefully cut out of acres and acres of forest. Blue mountains ran along the northwestern horizon.

"Magical," Aaron muttered.

"Exactly my thoughts. A real find. We've already brought in the water and sewer pipes. We're burying the electric. This road leads to a major highway, and from there people can reach us in relatively short driving times from larger population centers."

They parked, got out, and walked some of the frontage.

"Be nice if the restaurants had windows facing those mountains," Aaron said.

"My thoughts exactly."

Aaron felt his creative juices stirring. Nothing wrong with me on that score, he happily concluded. Maybe this was exactly what he needed to restore himself completely, an exciting new project.

"This is terrific," he muttered. "We could do something that would fit in scenically, lots of trees, gardens. Make it blend in with the setting so that people wouldn't feel like they're coming to just another commercial plaza."

Harlan laughed and slapped his hands together as if they were going to begin right then and there.

"Something told me you'd get excited about the possibilities here. I'm glad you moved to Driftwood, Aaron," Harlan said. He turned and patted him on the shoulder as they both looked out at the property. "You're going to do your best work here," he added.

"What?" Aaron said, smiling.

"What?" Harlan responded.

"What did you just say about my work?"

"It's wonderful work. I've seen some of your work. I visited Sandburg Village."

"I know. You told me that. I thought you said something about my work here," Aaron questioned.

"I did. You're going to do great work here. I can feel it, and Pamela tells me that I should trust my feelings, even in business. Above all, trust your initial instincts about people, she tells me."

He looked out again and smiled.

''And trust your feelings about the land and the sea."

"Sea? What sea?"

"Any sea. She just meant a body of water, a lake, a pond. The way I felt that first day we met when I was staring at the ocean. She was right. Water gives you a different feeling, doesn't it, a good feeling? We come from the sea, they say, so I guess that makes sense."

Aaron nodded, amazed at the way Harlan could babble when something excited him.

"What brought you to Driftwood?" he asked as they walked back to the car.

"Pamela brought me to Driftwood," Harlan said.

"Oh?"

They got into the vehicle.

"Why did she bring you here?"

They started away, Harlan making a U-turn to head back to the village.

"She had family here and I had let my father's business go to hell. Her sister and her husband are my silent partners in another venture, a small mall in Stanford."

"Really? Who is her sister?"

"Terri Richards. I get free dental," he bragged and pulled his lips back as far as he could to exhibit his teeth.

Aaron laughed.

"There are all sorts of benefits to living in Driftwood," Harlan muttered, nodding as he drove. "Driftwood is a wonderful place to live and work."

Why is it, Aaron thought as they headed back toward the village, that everything he says sounds. . . recited?

The phone was ringing when he reentered his office. It was Megan and she sounded angry.

"How come you didn't call me at work to tell me what you were doing, Aaron?"

"What?"

"I was worried about you after yesterday. It's not like you to be inconsiderate."

"I left you a note," he said.

"Aaron, did you forget I go to work, too, after I drop Sophie off at school?"

He was silent. He had forgotten. This was the first thing he had forgotten in his renewed life, as he liked to think of it now. Was that a sign of something more serious?

"I did forget," he confessed. "I'm sorry." His voice was tainted with deep worry. Megan heard it.

"It's all right, Aaron. I haven't talked about my work all that much. It could just slip through the cracks. It's no big deal."

"Why haven't you talked about it much, Megan? I don't even know what you're working on."

"I think we've been a bit preoccupied with other things, Aaron."

"I see." He thought a moment. "Still, I hope it's not the sign of another CVA or something."

"It's not, Aaron. Stop it! Normal, healthy people forget things all the time. It's part of being human."

"Okay." He took a breath. "I didn't know Patricia Noel was Terri's sister. Harlan was just here. He and I went to look at the site of his project and he told me."

"Is she? I didn't know that," Megan said.

"I thought you told me everyone knows everything about everyone else in this town."

"We haven't been in this town long enough, Aaron. Why the cross-examination?"

Her irritable tone had returned.

"Oh, I don't mean it to sound that way. I was just curious," he said.

"Forget it. It's not important," she added quickly. He realized she had other things on her mind. "Do you want to meet me for lunch?"

"Grandma's Kitchen?"

"In an hour," she said. "I have a surprise for you. I'm not sure that's the best place for it, but I don't want to keep it hidden any longer."

"So tell me now. What is it?"

"Face to face, Aaron. We do our best work face to face," she said, laughed licentiously, and hung up.

He smiled to himself and put the receiver back on its cradle as he sat back and gazed out the window. Megan could sure make him feel good about himself, he thought. He was musing on that and their love-making when he noticed that man he had seen earlier. He was back where he had been, staring at Aaron's offices.

What's he doing? Aaron wondered. He rose and went quickly to the door. He opened it, but by the time he stepped out, the man was gone again, not a sign of him on the street in either direction.

He would have thought him to be a phantom if he hadn't just remembered where he had seen him before today.

That was the nervous, distraught man in Dr. Longstreet's lobby.

Megan was already seated at a booth when Aaron entered the restaurant. She smiled at him. The small eatery was already jammed. Another waitress, younger but far plainer-looking with dull brown hair that looked hacked around her neck by a psychotic beautician, was helping Arlene. She waved to him and he smiled back. Then he kissed Megan and slipped in across from her.

"Waiting long?"

"Years," she said. "I've been waiting for you for years."

He laughed. '"You almost sound like you mean it."

"Meat loaf special looks particularly good to me today," Megan said.

"Yeah? Sounds good."

Arlene took their order quickly and the other waitress, looking sullen and overwhelmed, brought them lemonades while Arlene was doing so.

"Did I order that?" he asked.

"Oh, sorry. Did you want something else to drink?" Arlene asked, overhearing.

"No. The truth is I was going to order it anyway." He turned to Megan when they left the table. "Does everyone here know what everyone else thinks and wants?"

"People just get used to each other in small communities, Aaron, but they don't do what people do in big cities. They don't take each other for granted."

"Were you always a country girl, Megan? I know it sounds silly for me to be asking a question like that of a woman I've been married to for nearly ten years, but—"

"No, it's all right, Aaron. I expect those memories will be returning a little more every day now. No, I'm not exactly from the rural world. I was brought up on an island, however, so I had what you might call a confined or somewhat isolated life."

"What island?"

"Granville Island. You reach it by bridge from Vancouver."

"Canada?"

"Yes, Aaron," she said, shaking her head. "My parents went there on a vacation when they were younger and fell in love with it."

"Sorry," he said, shaking his head. "I can't believe how much I've forgotten."

"My father was a sailor and a fisherman, and my parents ran fishing trips that ran two to five days at a time. Mom prepared the breakfasts and lunches onboard. We had a thirty-eight-footer and fished for salmon, lingcod, red Snapper, rock Cod, and even crab. I grew up on the water. My friends were all from fisherman families."

"How did you get into graphic art and advertising?"

"I had a natural talent for it, did all the print promotions for Daddy, and one thing led to another. Naturally, I got the wanderlust and left the cozy little island worlds up there."

"I feel so stupid sitting here and having my wife of ten years tell me who she is, where she's from."

"I understand," she said, "and it's not stupid under the circumstances."

"I know you told me your parents are no longer alive."

"No, they're not," she said quickly. She looked down at her glass of lemonade.

"I'm sorry to make you relive sad memories," he said. "I'll stop."

"It's all right."

She looked up, smiling.

"What is it? You do have something wonderful to tell me, don't you?" he asked.

"I do," she said and reached across the table to take his hand. "It's happened."

"What?"

"I'm pregnant, Aaron."

"Already? But we just—" He paused and lifted his eyebrows.

She was nodding with a look of disgust that made him cold. "I can take your forgetting my name, even what I look like, your place of work, our moving, my family, but Aaron," she said, leaning over the table, "I can't stand the idea of your forgetting when we had sex. We did make love a few times before we got here, you know. You weren't as passionate as I would have liked you to be sometimes, but you were kind enough to make a little effort. After a little encouragement, of course. In fact," she said, sitting back, "the doctor thinks I might have contributed to your problem by being too demanding."

"Really?"

"You've heard that expression, fucked his brains out, haven't you?"

His mouth dropped open.

She continued to look angry for another moment and then broke into a wide smile.

"You don't believe that, do you, you idiot?" It was his biggest laugh yet, so loud and dramatic, the entire restaurant clientele paused in their own conversations to look at him and Megan. She got up to kiss him and then sat next to him instead of across from him.

"So tell me about Harlan Nolan and his project," she said when their food was served.

He described it all, infusing his own enthusiasm and excitement.

"It sounds like a big job."

"It is. A real opportunity," he said and wondered if he should add a note of darkness by mentioning the man who had been standing outside his offices.

"So, you're happy about all this, right?" she pursued. She reached for his hand when he hesitated. "Aaron?"

"I want to say more than ever, but I don't know what to measure it against, and I keep feeling like I'm letting you down, Megan."

"That's ridiculous. Don't measure it against anything," she said with a definite tone of command. "Measure it for what it is, Aaron and be happy."

"I'm very happy," he said. "I love you, Megan."

He meant it, he thought.

Why was that so strange?

eleven

Word of Megan's pregnancy spread so quickly through the small community, Aaron had to wonder if it hadn't been a headline story on all of Driftwood's local radio stations. He actually asked her that at dinner one night after the phone had rung and another one of the people they had met offered congratulations and best wishes. This time it was Adya from the car dealership.

Every time someone called or spoke to Megan about her pregnancy, she seemed to turn into a younger, more excited woman who was having her first child. He attributed it to his overworking imagination these days, but she looked as if she was actually glowing. Her eyes were positively luminous, her complexion even more radiant. She seemed to float about the house, and whenever she spoke, her voice was as merry as a Christmas carol, full of holiday happiness, joy to the world, a new baby is coming.

When he remarked about it, she said she mentioned his remarks to her obstetrician, Dr. Patricia Crawford, who told her to explain to him that women are actually in their most healthy state when they're pregnant. She did so at dinner that night.

"Despite the morning sickness or when that ends," she emphasized.

"You didn't seem to have any," he said. "I guess that's why your announcement was so surprising."

"Some women are luckier than others when it comes to those symptoms, Aaron. I didn't suffer much with Sophie, either. Can you remember any of that?" she inquired, her gaze more intense than usual. She was reading his face as an air traffic controller would read the radar screen.

He sat there, trying hard to remember. Finally he nodded.

"What?" she asked quickly.

"I can recall being in the hospital lobby. I brought something to read, a novel I thought I'd probably finish before you gave birth."

"Yes," she said, her voice full of encouragement. "That's right. Go on."

"I hadn't been there an hour and had just gotten a cup of coffee when the nurse came to me and said, 'You've got a little girl."' His eyes brightened with the recitation. "I remember it all! I really do, Megan."

"Oh, good, Aaron. This is so great."

He felt like a cripple taking his first good step after intense therapy. He was eager to go on and on, go as far as he was able.

"She was there so soon, I thought she had mistaken me for someone else, one of the other expectant fathers. Yes, I remember asking, Are you sure?' And she gave me this funny look and said, 'I think I know the difference between boys and girls, Mr. Clifford.'"

Aaron laughed. He looked at Sophie, who was almost a mirror image of Megan, both with this happy little smile on their lips. Sophie almost looked as if she understood everything. He had to wonder how much Megan had explained, if anything.

"I remember the exact dialogue, Megan. I do! Every single word!"

"It was such a dramatic moment for you, Aaron. It's the sort of memory that lasts forever," she said, "a happy memory, one you don't want to block out."

"Yes."

"I'm not surprised it's one of the first things to come back so vividly for you."

He nodded. "I suppose so. Anyway," he continued, now impatient with any interruptions, "I told her I didn't mean that it was a girl. I meant that it was so soon, especially since Sophie was your first."

He laughed again.

Megan's face seemed to freeze, the warmth and the glow fading.

"What?" he asked.

She glanced at Sophie and shook her head.

"Not your first? I don't understand."

"Later, Aaron," she said.

It seemed to take the air from his lungs. He felt a tightening in his chest and a wave of heat rise from his stomach, over his heart, and into his throat. He was so anxious and nervous he didn't think he could be patient. What did she mean? What new horrible revelation awaited him?

Megan moved Sophie along so she would finish her meal, and then she suggested he go help her with her reading while she cleaned up after dinner. He sat in the living room, helping her, but keeping one eye on the door, waiting for Megan. She took Sophie up to prepare for bed nearly a half hour later.

He turned the television on, but became disgusted with the choices and turned it off. He tried to read, but his eyes continually slipped off the pages. He realized that until he spoke with Megan and learned what she was trying to tell him at dinner, he couldn't concentrate on anything.

He stared down at the floor and waited, listening to Megan's and Sophie's footsteps above and their muffled voices, to the sound of the bathwater, their laughter, and then the silence which set his heart racing in anticipation.

"Come say good night to Sophie, Aaron," Megan called down to him.

He shot up from his chair as if he were on springs and hurried up the stairs.

Sophie was in bed, the blanket nearly to her chin, waiting for him.

"Hey, Sudsy," he said, approaching.

He could see she was tired, fighting to keep her eyelids open just for him. He kissed her on the cheek, and then he kissed the tip of her nose and she smiled.

"Kisses roll up, kisses roll down. Kisses keep love all around," she recited.

"Yes," he said. He remembered that. He could hear himself reciting it, and he could hear the giggle, however, it was Megan who was giggling, looking up at him in bed and teasing him, kissing him on the tip of his nose. As he stared down at Sophie, whose eyes slowly closed, he envisioned Megan, but her face seemed to fade in and out and sometimes ... it was a different face looking up at him, smiling, teasing him with the verse: Kisses roll up; kisses roll down. Kisses keep love all around.

"Is she asleep, Aaron?"

"What?"

"You've been standing there for nearly ten minutes. I haven't heard a word from either of you," Megan said from the doorway.

"Oh." He looked at Sophie and nodded. "She's asleep."

"Come downstairs," Megan said.

He followed her into the living room, where she sat on the sofa.

"What else have I forgotten?" he immediately asked. He held his breath while she raised her gaze from the floor and looked up at him.

"We lost our firstborn, Aaron. She was born with a defective heart valve and died five days later."

"A girl, then?"

"Yes," she replied.

He stared.

"Her name was Tammy, wasn't it?" he asked her.

"Yes, Aaron."

"And that night I told you I saw a little girl, bloodied, and called out Tammy?"

She shook her head.

"Why didn't you tell me about her then?"

"It didn't fit, Aaron. She didn't live more than five days, and the blood made no sense."

"But still—"

"I didn't want to do anything until I spoke with Dr. Longstreet about it," she said quickly. "The doctor said confusion of memories was a common symptom of your problem, and I shouldn't worry about it, but for now, she said, let's let him find his way back to these more tragic remembrances on his own. She told you the same thing, didn't she?"

"Yes."

"She was afraid of too much emotional trauma, too quickly. That's why I was holding my breath at dinner when you started to remember being in the waiting room. I thought for sure it was going to lead to the earlier, painful memories."

"I see," he said. He sat. "I had been hearing the name Tammy in my mind more and more. However, I don't think I've heard it for the last week or so, and I didn't put it together with anyone or anything. Then it seemed to stop completely. You'd think it would have been the other way around. As I recuperate, the memories get stronger, especially one about your own child." He looked up at her. "Right?"

She shook her head. "There is so much they don't know about the behavior of the human brain, memory, all of that, Aaron. Even someone who is much in the forefront of the research as Dr. Longstreet doesn't have anywhere near all the answers. She did say painful memories are more readily suppressed. The brain does that as a mechanism of defense."

"Defense?"

"Too much hardship, too much tragedy is like taking on too much water in a boat. It will sink you, Aaron. Sorry for the seafaring simile and image, but it's what comes to mind, how I still think. Years haven't changed much of that, I suppose," she said, smiling, "which shows you how powerful memories can be."

"Yes," he said. He was silent for a few moments and then asked, "Where is Tammy buried?"

"We put her in your family plot at Wildwood Cemetery."

"Where is that?"

"Ten miles northwest of Goshen, New York."

"I'd like to go there," he said.

"We will. Let's wait for the doctor to tell us when," she added.

"Why does the doctor have to tell us when to go to a cemetery?" he asked, shrugging.

"Same reason as before . . . We're sort of rationing the bad memories, Aaron."

"Then there are more?"

"You're thirty-four years old, Aaron. Like anyone, you have good and bad things to remember, especially with your tragic youth, losing your entire immediate family, living with your dreadful aunt. Remember the incident concerning that small scar above your eyebrow? That wasn't pleasant and there must have been dozens more for you living in that house."

"Right," he said, nodding.

She smiled.

"But now that we're here, all that is behind us, Aaron."

"Maybe I really would be better off not remembering things," he muttered to himself.

She stared at him, and he looked back at her and nodded.

"Maybe I'm a fool to keep trying. This whole thing could be a blessing, huh? I mean, how many people can erase their past, wipe away the negatives, and start fresh like we're starting? I've got a good mind not to ever go back to Dr. Longstreet."

She laughed. "Don't go overboard, Aaron. Oops," she said, covering her mouth and smiling, "those damn fisherman terms just keep sneaking in on me."

He smiled.

She was looking radiant again, her eyes so soft, so appealing, teasing him. She moved her lips, the dimple in her left cheek clicking in and out.

"Maybe we oughta go upstairs and use my rod and reel?" he suggested.

She giggled. "Why Aaron Clifford, since when did you get so licentious?"

He shrugged.

"I don't know. You'll have to tell me."

They both laughed at that. Then they went upstairs and made such passionate love that both of them were wet with the heated sweat. Nevertheless, he held on to her, reveling in their moist skins, enjoying the taste of her shoulders, her neck, her breasts, her lips, and inhaling the scent of her rich, thick hair as though he was smelling the most fragrant of flowers.

"If I wasn't already pregnant," she said, "I'd bet anything that would have done it. You were an animal," she told him.

"Sorry."

"Sorry? I loved it," she said, kissing him on the tip of his nose.

"Kisses roll up, kisses roll down ..."

They both laughed.

"Not so loud," she said. "You'll wake Sophie."

"Right."

He felt drunk and had to smother another giggle. He braced himself on his hands and pushed himself up and over her, so he could look down at her lovely face. She stared up at him, her lips relaxing into a gentle smile.

"What?" she said when his eyebrows lifted.

Funny, he thought. She doesn't have a dimple now. How can that be? She had such a pronounced dimple when she looked at me downstairs. How can that be?

He touched her cheek with the tip of his forefinger.

"What is it, Aaron?"

"I thought you had a dimple there," he said.

"Sophie's the one with the dimple, Aaron."

"Right," he said. He started to think about it when she reached up to grasp him behind his neck and pull his lips down to hers.

The kiss was long, her tongue jetting into his mouth and filling him with an electric excitement that seemed to rattle his very spine.

Then she pulled back, her eyes radiating with fury.

"What?"

"Stop trying to make sense out of everything," she warned. "Just enjoy your life, Aaron. You've been given a second chance. You just had to read between the lines of the things Dr. Longstreet told us to realize most people end up in mental clinics or in cemeteries after what happened to you."

"Yes," he said. "You're right." He closed his eyes and lowered himself into her again, wrapping her sex around him like a suit of armor to keep out the memories of what Shakespeare's Hamlet called "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

Megan's right. Who needs that? he thought.

For Aaron, acceptance seemed to be the key ingredient to the creation of deep happiness. Combined with a deliberate new resistance to dark and troubling thoughts, bending with and not battling the wind not only made him happier, it made him stronger. If this is the direction my life has taken, he thought, so be it. He embraced it.

There were no longer shadows around his eyes. He ate better, gained weight, and had terrific energy. He didn't permit himself to sleep a minute more than was necessary. The moment his eyes opened, he was ready to grasp the day, to dive headfirst into his work, and the work did flow. Ideas seemed to be born one after another, one concept merging with another, leading to another until he had such a rush of images, he couldn't physically keep up.

He was a dynamo, arriving in his offices by eight-thirty and not lifting his head until one, sometimes one-thirty, and only if and when Megan called. There were even days when he worked right through lunch, and it was simply because of a rumble in his stomach that he paused. He'd look at the clock, amazed at how much time had gone by. He truly felt as if he was shooting through space, as if he had changed form and become a particle of energy, driven and now underway on its own, unstoppable.

What about the intensity of his efforts and its effect on his medical problem? he vaguely wondered. Shouldn't I slow down? Shouldn't I worry about overdoing it? When he asked Dr. Longstreet about it, she laughed and shook her head.

"Your body will tell you when you're overworking it, Mr. Clifford," she said. "What's remarkable about the synergetic relationship between our minds and our bodies is when we're enjoying ourselves, enjoying our work, it proves to be much less of a strain, much less of an effort, and takes much, much less of a toll. In fact, hard work can, as old timers avow, be good for you, too.

"Just keep up your medication," she advised. "You can wait a week or so longer now before coming back to see me, unless you have a problem, which I must say, I don't expect."

"Great," he said and glanced at Megan, who was beaming.

"You two have other things to occupy your time and energy now anyway," Dr. Longstreet said.

They smiled. It was truly a happy time.

Between the coming new baby and his excitement about his work, Aaron didn't even notice an occasional gray sky. Life was good here. He really could almost forget his mental problems. In any case he liked to keep it from the forefront of his thinking as long as he could and whenever he could.

One day, when he pulled up to his office, thinking about all the positive new things in his life, he didn't even notice the man in his doorway until he had gotten out of his car. The man stepped forward, agitated. Aaron knew immediately who he was. He had seen him again and again on the street, always seemingly looking his way, watching him.

"What do you want?" he asked him when the man stood there, blocking his path, but not speaking.

"Listen to me," he said. "Stop taking the pills." He smiled. "I did and they don't know."

He seized Aaron's upper arm, squeezed it, smiled, and walked off. It shook Aaron up for a few moments. He called Megan as soon as he entered the office and told her about him.

"Don't worry about him, Aaron."

"But. . . why has he been following, watching me?"

"Who knows? I'll have Mrs. Masters speak to Dr. Longstreet. Don't worry about it. Please. Just concentrate on your work." Her tone changed to a happy one. "I've heard good feedback already."

Harlan Noel was excited by Aaron's first drawings and listened attentively to Aaron's ideas. He didn't object to a single thing. Afternoons, he and Aaron went out to the site and watched the utilities being installed. They paced out the property and began to envision it as Aaron was designing it.

"You know," Aaron told him one afternoon, "I really value the way you've taken to my concepts, but what about the other investors? Don't you have any feedback from any of them, any criticism, other suggestions?"

Harlan smiled and looked toward the mountains.

"Well," he said, "I know I've implied that there are a number of investors, but I have a confession to make. There's really only one other investor besides myself."

"Oh? And who would that be?"

"Mrs. Masters," he said. "She's a silent partner under her own corporate entity."

"I see," Aaron said. He was troubled by the revelation, but he seemed to anticipate it, know it, and he wasn't sure why. "She's got a finger in many pots here, apparently."

"Yes, but she's great, a woman with lots of vision, Aaron. She loves your work. She doesn't want to change a line on one of your drawings, a block of cement, a stick of wood, anything you've suggested. And I'll tell you something else, another big secret at the moment," Harlan continued. "She's already won a major department store for our anchor in the mall. That woman knows how to network. She has friends in all sorts of high places. I'm surprised and amazed by her and what she can accomplish every time I meet with her."

"What surprises me is how well some things are kept secret in this small town," Aaron said. "Sometimes, I believe everyone knows when and how often you sneeze around here."

Harlan laughed. "Ain't that the truth."

"I suppose it's who the secret is about, when it comes down to it," Aaron said. "In that sense, Driftwood is not much different from anyplace else."

"In that sense, maybe, but, Aaron, it's a lot different. You just haven't been here long enough to appreciate how much. This is a real close-knit community."

The big man patted him on the shoulder and walked on. Aaron watched him, thinking to himself that every resident of this village is truly a member of the chamber of commerce.

That evening Aaron told Megan what Harlan had revealed. She didn't seem at all surprised, either.

"Did Mrs. Masters talk about the mall project at work?" he asked.

"No."

"Well, don't you think it's something significant that she's involved in this big project?"

"Not Mrs. Masters, Aaron. Nothing she does surprises me. She's truly a leader, a woman with great talents. I know," she said when he was silent. "You saw an attractive woman, a widow, and you thought that was it. She's inherited some money and has a business, but she's a lot more than just a pretty face. It seems to me that men have a great deal of difficulty looking past a woman's beauty to really appreciate the full potential she might possess, whereas women have no problem seeing that in men. Why do you think that is, Aaron?" she asked as if he knew the answer and was being tested.

He shook his head. Then he smiled. "Men are just not as perceptive, I guess."

"I guess not," Megan agreed. "Men are more easily fooled. That's why the femme fatale is far more dangerous than your run-of-the-mill Don Juan. She has more to exploit and an easier time doing it."

He started to laugh. Megan looked dead serious, even angry.

"What? Did I do something else I don't remember, something unpleasant?"

She turned away.

"Well?"

"We aren't bringing up anything unpleasant if we can help it, remember?"

"Yes, but if I committed some heinous crime—"

"You did nothing of the sort," she said quickly. "You just. . . flirted with it. Okay? Enough said, Aaron."

"Jeeze," he muttered. "I feel terrible, guilty, remorseful, and I don't know what I did. It doesn't seem fair."

"It's fair," she said, smiling.

"Does this have something to do with that other face I see occasionally, like that dimple in your cheek I mentioned, a dimple that isn't there?" he asked softly.

She took a deep breath, as if his question squeezed her so tightly she couldn't breathe.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to pursue unpleasant memories, but—"

"I don't want either of us to suffer anymore, Aaron. Let's just be happy. Please, honey. What's in the past is gone, swallowed up by time, the good and the bad, especially all the bad, okay?"

"Sure," he said, shrugging. "Who'd turn that down?"

"You'd be surprised at how many fools there are," she said cryptically. "You'd be surprised."

Aaron wasn't particularly immune to surprise, but when someone was retrieving most of his past in small and unexpected ways, it was natural he would grow used to being jolted, stunned and dismayed. It had gotten so he was full of anticipation every time he turned a corner, answered the phone or looked up to see someone entering his office. Like meteorites sailing through space and being pulled toward earth when they entered its gravitational circle, his memories could be plucked out of the darkness by the sound of someone's laugh, a particular color or shape or a particular scent and aroma. It all came packaged in surprise, waiting for him to unwrap it and relive a moment. It was truly like being caught in a tape replay of his very existence.

But one afternoon he was shocked in a different sort of way. It was as unexpected as anything he had experienced, but it carried with it something more. It brought along a dark, foreboding layer of abject terror.

It was day of his next appointment with Dr. Longstreet. She had asked him to keep track of his memory retrieval in some fashion, and he had decided to keep a sort of diary. Just recently his college days had come tumbling in like water falling over a rocky cliff. He would stop work and recall an event, a person, and smile to himself. Or he would remember something that was particularly inspiring, something a teacher had said or done, something he had done in class or on a special project. Whole portions of his past were fitting back neatly in place like pieces of a puzzle. Whatever it was and whenever it came, he jotted the notes in his Memory Book, as he liked to call it now. He was eager to share this with the doctor, and he was sure it would please her.

Normally, Megan would go along for his doctor visits, but it was open house at Sophie's school, and one or both of them had to attend. He promised to rush over as soon as he was finished with Dr. Longstreet.

The extraordinary Indian summer that had possessed the East Coast had begun to show signs of weakening. Nevertheless, it was a very bright sunny day with one of those skies similar to skies caught or tinted in travel magazine advertising photos placed to tantalize possible tourists. He wrapped a black silk scarf around his neck and wore his tweed sports jacket. He thought he looked like a college professor who worked in one of the Ivy league schools. Fantasizing was not something he did often these days, so he was delightfully surprised at his playful imaginings. Anyone who saw him driving along was sure to think that there goes a very happy and contented man. What a smile.

When he pulled into Dr. Longstreet's clinic parking lot, he caught sight of an ambulance parked in the rear of the building. What peaked his interest, however, was what he saw after he stepped out of his car. A patient was strapped on a gurney and apparently left alone just to the rear of the ambulance. It was a man, and when the man turned his head and saw him, he managed to lift his lower left arm and beckon him.

Aaron stared for a moment, a confused smile on his face. He listened for the sounds of other people, voices, movement, something, but it was very quiet. He started toward the man, and as he drew closer, he started to recognize him. This was the man who had been watching him from time to time, the man who had accosted him in his office doorway, the disturbed patient from the clinic lobby.

"Hello there," Aaron said. "What's happening?"

The man held out his hand and smiled. Aaron stepped closer, smiling back.

"What can I do for you?"

Suddenly the man jerked his hand forward and wrapped his fingers tightly around Aaron's wrist. His smile disappeared and the look of abject terror Aaron had seen on his face that day in Dr. Longstreet's office lobby returned.

"Hey!" Aaron cried.

"I'm going back," the man said in a throaty whisper.

He seemed to have great strength. Aaron tried to pull his hand free, but the man's grip was as good as steel handcuffs. He pulled Aaron even closer and lifted his head. "I warned you." He began to sob, his face shaking and his whole body trembling so hard, the straps around him tightened. "I'm going back because I remember."

"Mr. Moly," a woman's voice sang. "What are you doing to this nice gentleman?"

She stepped out of the rear of the clinic, a clipboard in her hand. She wore an ambulance attendant's uniform. A moment later, a man stepped out behind her, also in uniform. He glanced at the woman and then at Aaron.

"What's going on here?" he asked.

"I. . . he was waving to me when I got out of my car, so I just stopped to see what he wanted and he took hold," Aaron said, lifting his right arm. The man's hand was still wrapped around Aaron's wrist, but the man's eyes were closed. It was like being caught in the grip of someone in rigor mortis.

The male attendant stepped forward and pried the man's fingers off of Aaron. His wrist was bright red.

"Sorry about this. Jenny," he said, and the female attendant moved quickly to open the rear doors of the ambulance. "We'll take care of him from here, sir. Thank you," the man said.

Aaron nodded and started away. He looked back to see the man being loaded into the ambulance and the woman getting in as well. Then the male attendant closed the door and paused to look back at Aaron, who had stopped to watch. He stared for a moment and continued around to the driver's side.

Aaron shook his head and walked toward the entrance. He had his hand on the door when a memory came rushing back. He turned quickly, just in time to see the ambulance pulling away, the driver still in view.

He had seen those two before. He felt positively sure of it. Who were they? Who?

And then it came to him. They were the couple he had seen embracing at the station in Westport, the couple who eventually directed him to the pay phone to call Megan.

He was sure of it.

twelve

It isn't unusual for you to be experiencing some paranoia, Mr. Clifford," Dr. Longstreet began after Aaron described who he had seen at the ambulance. "We all suffer some paranoia normally. It's a holdover from more primitive times when every sound, every movement in the dark seemed foreboding. Paranoia was once essential to survival, especially at a time when trust was weakness. The fact that it's intensified in you at this time is expected."

"Really?" He did feel some relief hearing this from his doctor.

"Absolutely. The mechanisms in your brain which organize your thoughts, your memories, images, have, for the lack of a better way to describe it, malfunctioned. It's like having the power interrupted to your computer," she continued, obviously happy with the comparison she had found for him, "and all that you have set up gets jumbled and confused inside."

"Often some of it gets lost," he added.

"Yes, some of it will be lost. You'll have to make the best of that," she said.

For a moment he considered how easily, unemotionally, she could write off large portions of his past and expect him to do the same.

"Now, what we're doing, you're doing, is going back and reorganizing what we can, making sense of as much of it as possible, if you will. Until you're fully restored, these confusions, hallucinations, will continue for a time.

"However, you, yourself have told me and shown me that this is happening less and less now, correct?"

''Actually, up until this morning, I haven't had any serious problems like this for a few weeks," Aaron admitted.

"Precisely and your energy level is good. All your vitals are in the normal range. Your heart is fine. Your work is going well, and so is your family life. I wouldn't change a thing we're doing," she said, smiling with confidence. Then she paused and thought a moment, a new look of concern flashing. "You're not doing anything else that you haven't told me, are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're not drinking any alcohol within a few hours of taking your pills, are you?"

"Oh, no. I take the pill in the morning as you prescribed, and I don't drink anything but juice and coffee and water in the morning. I don't really drink very much anyway, just at social gatherings, some wine at dinner, but not every night."

"Fine." She smiled. "Then let's not worry about this. Actually," she added, "it's a good sign, a very-good sign that you were willing to tell me about those people, that you trusted me with it."

"I just. . . it was so confusing, I thought you had to know."

"I did. Very good," she said.

"That man being taken away in the ambulance," Aaron pursued. "What happened to him? I recall seeing him in your office some weeks ago, and then I've seen him on the street near my office. Recently he seemed to be waiting for me to arrive at work so he could give me some crazy warning."

"About what?"

"My medication, his medication, I don't know."

She smiled.

"Paranoid-schizophrenics are often suspicious of their medications. I know some physicians who actually put the medication in food. I suppose that justifies the paranoia in a sense," she said, actually laughing. "Think nothing of it."

"But who is this man? What's actually wrong with him? Where's he being taken?"

She kept her smile, but her tone became quite stern.

"I don't discuss my other patients with anyone but their doctors or my colleagues."

"Sure. Sorry. I didn't mean to sound nosey. He was just frightening."

"He'll be fine," she said.

"And so what about those attendants?"

"They come out of New York City, not Westport. You're just confusing them," she assured him.

"Why would I do that?" he pursued.

She sighed and thought for a moment, as if she was deciding whether or not to continue.

"Well, I'm not trained as a psychiatrist," she began, "but it's not hard to figure out, Mr. Clifford. From the way you described those two people when you first saw them, they were like ambulance attendants, coming to your aid, giving you the advice you needed. Now you see two attendants helping someone. It's understandable," she said, "isn't it?"

He nodded. "Yes, I guess that sort of makes sense."

"Precisely," she said and stood. She made some notations on his chart and then said, "See you on the seventh, unless there is another problem beforehand, which I don't expect."

"Okay," he said, rising. "Thank you."

He left the office and drove to the school to join Megan at Sophie's classroom for the open house. On the way he decided not to talk about the incident at the clinic. Dr. Longstreet had made it clear that it was quite detrimental to obsess about any of these dark events. He had to concentrate on the good things, the happy things, if he was to restore his mental health, and, she made clear, he had to do this to help Megan deal with him and his problems as well.

"Don't forget that your wife is under some strain here, too, and even though it's harder to see sometimes, your daughter as well," Dr. Longstreet underlined. It impressed him.

As soon as Megan asked him how things went at the clinic, he smiled and said, "Okay. Everything's going along fine," he told her.

Her worry dissipated quickly and was replaced with a happy glowing smile. They both turned to Sophie's teacher, who was now showing the parents how the children learned math on the computers. The students performed in front of their mothers and fathers, who glowed with pride almost as brightly as the computer monitors.

"Computers in the third grade, imagine. When I was her age, I was lucky to have ten fingers to count on," Aaron quipped afterward as they were leaving the school building.

"Now I know you're getting better. You always loved to make it sound like you had the hardest childhood, especially compared to the way children have it today."

"I thought I did," he said, maybe too quickly.

Megan's smile faded.

"You did, Aaron. Emotionally, that is. But you still had a warm house, clothing, food, and attended a good school. You went to college, too, Aaron. You were denied a great deal; you lost so much so young, but you didn't grow up in an urban slum or on some tobacco-road dilapidated farm where they made you trek ten miles to a one-room schoolhouse with no heat in the cold winter months."

"Right," he said. The memories of childhood were still locked behind a wall of thick smoke. "Maybe it would help to go back and visit some of my childhood places, Megan. What do you think?"

"We'll ask Dr. Longstreet," she replied. "I'm sure it will be fine after a while."

"What's a while? I've been treated for weeks and weeks. I don't see what difference it makes now," he protested.

"The doctor will tell us what to do and when, Aaron. You seem very agitated today Is something wrong? There is something you're not telling me."

"No," he said quickly. "Not any more than usual. I'm just as impatient as ever, that's all."

Megan's beeper went off. She checked it.

"I've got to get back to work right away. You're doing so well, Aaron. Everyone says so," Megan assured him. "See you at dinner. I'll make something special," she promised and hugged him.

He watched her go to her car and then he got into his. For a moment he just sat there, thinking about the morning's events. What did that hysterical man mean by "I'm going back." Back where? And what did that have to do with memory? More important, why did he pick him out of everyone else in this small community to give warnings to anyway? Was it just because he knew that he was being treated by Doctor Longstreet as well? It did sound like blatant paranoia, Aaron thought, and I can see some of that in myself. The doctor had made sense. She was good. He was lucky to have her.

But still, it was more than a bit frightening to think he could end up like that man. He wished he knew what his problems had been and how similar they were to his own.

On the other hand, every patient was different, and Dr. Longstreet was dealing with some very unique and unusual cases, according to what Megan had been told and what she had told him. This man simply had other problems, he concluded. What right did he have to assume there could possibly be any similarity between them?

He started his car and pulled out, driving slowly at first and then a bit faster when he saw Megan's car turn right at the end of the street. Odd, he thought. He had lived here long enough and been to the school enough times to know his way around. She should have gone left toward the village and her offices. She said she had to hurry back to work, didn't she?

He paused at the corner and watched her disappear around another turn.

Was it the ugly face of that paranoia showing itself again? Whatever it was, it was strong, he thought. He couldn't help it. He started to follow her, making the same turn. Moments later he found himself on the road to Mrs. Masters's beautiful home. He made another turn just in time to see Megan's car pass through the gate and the gate close behind her. He pulled to the side and looked at the grand property for a moment. It was so quiet. Even the birds seemed afraid to make too much noise. Despite the clouds and brisk breeze, the wind seemed to stop just outside the gate and walls. The trees were still. It was almost as if he were looking at a Hollywood set and not a real place.

He was about to start the engine and drive away when he saw another car approaching. He could see the driver clearly. It was Terri Richards, and she was talking in a very animated fashion to Debbie Asher, who sat beside her. He was sure that was Laurie Corkin in the rear. They, too, entered through the gate and disappeared within.

Oh, well, he thought, maybe they're all just having a work session at Mrs. Masters's home rather than at the offices. Nothing especially unusual about that. Stuff your blatant suspicions, he told himself. What the hell was there to be suspicious of anyway? It is unreasonable and illogical paranoia after all.

He went to start his car again, but before he made the U-turn, another vehicle approached from behind him, a black Chrysler Town Car. As it went by, he glanced to his left. There was no doubt in his mind this time. The driver was the same man he had seen speaking to Dr. Longstreet behind the clinic months ago, the same man who had helped him back at Grand Central, the young blond man in the pin-stripe suit.

But that wasn't what sent a cold shock through his heart. After all, Dr. Longstreet had made it clear that he would still experience confused, recurrent images. Maybe this was just another instance. What stunned him was who he saw sitting in the rear. It was Mrs. Domfort. There was no question. It was little Grandma-looking Mrs. Domfort.

What was she doing here? And why was she being driven to Mrs. Masters's property? He hadn't seen her since he had experienced that hallucination at the dinner. Was this just another one?

But that car wasn't an illusion. He watched the limousine move through the open gate and disappear as well. He remained for a few minutes, waiting, watching, trying to make some sense of this.

Then, his heart thumping, he turned around and headed back toward the village, never feeling more lost and confused. He was floating about like an astronaut in a space vehicle trying to tether himself to something that would end this pointless floating. What would he find to grab and set himself straight?

The morning's events, especially seeing Mrs. Domfort, hallucination or not, made it impossible for him to concentrate on his work. Despite the good prognosis Dr. Longstreet revealed and her satisfaction with his progress, he was increasingly frustrated with the gaping dark holes in his memory. Ignoring it, keeping busy wasn't enough now. He had to find a quicker way back to the past.

He decided to return to his home and try to stir up some of his lost memory by searching their possessions. There were things Megan had described as wedding gifts or anniversary gifts, as well as Christmas and birthday gifts. Some items, like the Llyadro figurine of the farm girl feeding chickens, rang up sights and sounds from a past birthday of Megan's. He could see her smiling, her eyes filling with tears of joy. Candles on a birthday cake flickered and were blown out. He could hear himself and Sophie singing "Happy Birthday" to her.

But the odd thing about these memories was they came and went, and when they left him, they returned to that darkness that hovered in a corner of his mind. They were like the temporarily resurrected dead, brought back to life for a short time simply to prove they had once existed and then to return to their graves. They felt artificial to him, staged, unless they were somehow mixed and confused with the images that made no sense, the hallucinations, the mistakes of his mind as Dr. Longstreet described. Those memories, as distorted and confusing as they were, effected him more deeply, filled him with a stronger sense of longing, but a longing for what? What?

When he entered his home, he went to the living room and sat staring at the furniture, the art, the vases and the decorative pieces. What's missing here? he questioned. Why do I still feel like a stranger sitting among my own things? I should feel more of a connection.

He rose and wandered through his home, looking at everything, no matter how small, even their salt and pepper shakers. He stood before the works of art on the walls. He sat at the dining room table. He fingered the silk napkins and traced the embroidery. He paused over every framed picture of him, of Megan, of Sophie. Sometimes, a place crystalized and some events returned, but they floated through his mind on the skin of balloons, bursting in that corner of darkness.

Upstairs, in his and Megan's bedroom, he rifled through drawers, held up her lingerie, brought her undergarments to his face and inhaled her perfumed scent, stirring his libido and filling the screen in his mind with images of their lovemaking. He fingered her jewelry and his own. He went over their possessions like a miser counting his accumulated quarters and dollars. Some items brought up those instant memories, some were very unfamiliar.

Afterward, he stood at their bedroom window and looked out at the patch of trees to the west. What was it? How could he put it into words that would make sense and help him to get someone like Dr. Longstreet to understand what he felt inside, why he was so empty, why he had this persistent tiny rubber ball bouncing about in his stomach and in his chest until it bounced with every heartbeat? What am I not saying to her? To anyone that could make this all go away?

He looked back at the room and his recent memories here. It's like dots, he thought, a thousand different dots, some connecting, but most not. He had all these minutes and hours, these days and months emerging here and there, returning and disappearing, rising like bubbles in water, popping. The thing of it is that even if they were all connected, even if they were all tied together, they still didn't form him.

They didn't give him what he needed the most.

The didn't give him his name. Not yet.

The struggle and the emotional turmoil exhausted him. He retreated to the bed and kicked off his shoes. Then he lowered his head to the pillow and closed his eyes. In moments he was fast asleep and didn't awaken until he felt himself being gently shaken.

"Hi, Daddy," Sophie said with a laugh on her lips. "Why are you home so early today?"

"What?" He focused on her. Then he looked toward the doorway, where Megan was standing, watching. "What's going on?"

"That's what we'd like to know, Aaron," she said. "You left the car right in the middle of the driveway as if you had to rush into the house. I couldn't pull around to get to the garage. I called your office earlier to see if you could pick Sophie up today, and you didn't answer. I called here, too, but you didn't pick up the phone."

"I never heard it ring," he said, wiping his face with his palms and sitting up.

"Look!" Sophie said, thrusting a drawing in front of him. "I made it."

He gazed at the picture of a pig sitting behind a classroom desk.

"What is this?" he asked. "A cartoon?" He looked up at Megan, who shrugged.

"Her teacher thought it was a pretty good drawing, and she couldn't wait to bring it home to show to you."

"It is a good drawing!" he said. "Very good. She's inherited some of your artistic ability," he added.

"Yours too, Aaron."

"I see that. Very good, Sophie, but why did you draw a pig in the classroom?"

"I saw it there," she said.

"You saw it there?" he asked. His mind was reeling again. He had seen pigs, too. Where?

Oh, yes, he thought, the dinner at Mrs. Masters's.

"Quite an imagination, she has," Megan said.

"Yes, quite."

"You really like it, Daddy?"

"Sure. I love it. Can I put this in my home office?" he asked.

"Yes!" she practically screamed.

"Good."

"Go change, honey," Megan told her, "if you want to help me with dinner."

"Okay, Mommy. Here," she told Aaron and left the picture on his lap.

He lifted it and shook his head.

"Those eyes she drew are quite good, very human," he said. "Don't you think this is a bit strange, Megan?"

"Why did you come home, Aaron?" she asked, ignoring his question. "What happened?"

She looked as if she knew, as if she just wanted to hear him say it.

"I just got so tired," he said instead. "I thought it would be a good idea to take it easy for a day. I've been going full blast for weeks."

She nodded, her eyes still small, suspicious. ''You all right now?"

"Yes," he said. "Fine."

"Okay. I'll start on dinner," she said.

"Maybe we should go out."

"No, it's fine. Like I promised, I'm making one of your favorite things, Cornish hens."

"Great."

She started to turn away.

"Megan?"

She looked back. "What is it, Aaron?"

"I was thinking about someone before."

"Who?"

"Mrs. Domfort," he said.

"Oh? Why?"

"Well, we've been here for months and you haven't mentioned her and she hasn't paid us a visit as she said she would. You haven't sent for her either, right? I mean, being she was so close to us and all."

Her eyes darkened, her shoulders slumping.

"I didn't want to say anything. I didn't want to add any unpleasantness while you were going through this healing period, Aaron, and while Sophie was adjusting to a new home and a new school."

"What unpleasantness?" he asked.

"Mrs. Domfort passed away a week after we left, Aaron. She had congestive heart failure. I'd rather we didn't say anything to Sophie about it, okay?"

He simply stared at her for a moment.

"You're saying Mrs. Domfort died?"

"Yes, Aaron. I'm sorry, of course. You're right about her. She was like a grandmother to Sophie, and in many ways, a mother to me. It's been hard keeping it buried and to myself, but I thought it was best. I'm sure you understand, right?"

He nodded.

"Odd that you thought of her at this time. What made you?" Megan asked.

"I don't know," he said, now afraid to mention what he had seen. She would definitely think he was going as mad as a loon. "I guess we'll have to wait until I see Dr. Longstreet again. She's the only one who seems able to explain anything I think or see these days."

There was an edge to his reply, a sarcasm Megan apparently missed or chose to ignore.

She smiled. "Good idea," she said. "I'll go see how Sophie's doing and get started on dinner. Why don't you take a good hot bath and relax? I'm looking forward to a cozy evening with you. We've both been going at it too hard. Got to take those little joyful breaks from time to time," she added, raising one eyebrow.

She left and he thought a hot bath wasn't a bad idea. He went into the bathroom to run the tub. Then he looked at his pills in the medicine cabinet for a moment, took them out and turned one of them in the palm of his hand. Maybe that madman made some sense. Maybe there was something to the warning, despite how he had ended up.

Tomorrow, he thought tomorrow, he wouldn't take one. He'd see how it went after he stopped the medication.

"I'm going back!" Mr. Moly had screamed at him. The man had sounded both desperate, sad, and yet strangely happy, especially when he had added, "I remember." He almost sounded as if he was bragging.

What the hell did he mean? And why was he pursuing me, watching me?

Instinctively Aaron felt he would soon find out.

And instinctively he knew he would be terrified, perhaps as terrified as that Mr. Moly.

thirteen

His fingers trembled as they held the pill bottle the following morning. What if by stopping his medication he brought about another cerebral stroke, one that incapacitated him fully, perhaps one that killed him? Who could he blame but himself? Maybe that sick man wasn't telling him the truth about his medication anyway. Perhaps he was delusional and thought he had stopped taking it. What dreadful irony then, huh? He would have listened to a madman instead of his world-renowned doctor, and lost his health and his family and his life, and this after all these people had made a great effort to help him get well again.

He had seen Dr. Longstreet's diplomas. What about that? Doesn't her opinion carry more weight than the opinion of an obviously mentally ill man? Look at how much the doctor had done for him already. He was feeling better, wasn't he? Look at all he had accomplished these past weeks, despite his condition. As Megan had said, most men or women who had suffered what he had suffered would probably be under more severe doctor's care if not dead already. They certainly wouldn't be operating a brand-new business and creating a multimillion-dollar shopping plaza.

And yet, he did see Mrs. Domfort in that Town Car, didn't he? Or did he see someone who looked enough like her for him to be mistaken? Worse yet, was it just another confused image, something from the past? After all, he had hallucinated about her at that dinner. Perhaps this was the last or nearly the last time something like that would happen? It had to have been an illusion.

Why would Megan lie to him about Mrs. Domfort anyway? What could possibly be her reason for such deception? Shouldn't he at least confirm Mrs. Domfort's passing or get evidence to the contrary before he went around making these accusations, even if only in his own mind? If it came to the point where he couldn't trust Megan, he would really be suffering severe paranoia, he concluded. I've got to put a stop to this or I'll do myself greater harm, he concluded, and unscrewed the top of the pill bottle.

For now I've got to stay with the program, he thought and swallowed his pill.

When he went down to breakfast, he could see that Megan was still worrying about him this morning. Despite his emphatic pronouncements of good health and energy, she insisted on following him to his office and seeing him at work.

"Besides," she said, "I haven't been there in a while, and I want to see how you've arranged everything since the new rug was laid and your lobby furniture arrived."

"It's all just as we discussed," he said, but he knew she was simply using that as an excuse anyway. He felt her concern. She loves me, he thought, she loves me more than I can imagine. He wondered if he deserved such devotion. What was that cryptic reference to his having an affair? Had he done something once that hurt her deeply? Was his amnesia a just result, an act of poetic justice? Despite what anyone else might think, it was important to remember your past sins as well as your acts of goodness, he thought. Otherwise, you never understood the dark cloud that occasionally made itself visible, trailing along like some relentless pursuer, determined to be there on your judgment day to reveal your faults.

They sent Sophie to school on the school bus, and Megan followed him in her car. When they arrived at his office, the phone was ringing. While he talked, she walked through the rooms, looking at what he had done.

"It looks terrific, Aaron," she said as he hung up his phone. "You've done wonders with it and so quickly."

"Thanks. That was a Mr. Carpenter," he said, nodding at the phone. "Another job."

"David Carpenter?"

"Yes, you know him?"

"Sure. We're doing an advertising program for him. He owns Computer World."

"He bought a property on Island Center and wants to develop an e-mail cafe, a software department store, and incorporate it all into his Computer World. He said he wanted to do something very twenty-first century, something where people feel they've entered the new millennium the moment they've entered his store. We're meeting for lunch today."

"Oh, that's wonderful, Aaron! Soon you're going to need a receptionist here and soon after that, an assistant or something, I bet."

"It is kind of exciting," he admitted. "If I only wasn't troubled by this damn memory mess."

"Remember, don't dote on it, Aaron. Follow Dr. Longstreet's advice as much as possible, honey. She's had a remarkable success record with all her patients."

"Not all," he said. It just slipped out.

"What? Why did you say that, Aaron? Who said otherwise, Aaron? Tell me," she insisted, practically lunging at him.

"No one said otherwise."

"Then why did you say that? Aaron?"

"I wasn't going to say anything, but yesterday before I went into the office, I saw a man being taken away in an ambulance. It was the same patient we had seen in the lobby one day, the man I had told you was out here, watching, waiting for me."

"Oh, that man," she said, smiling.

"You found out about him?"

"Yes. He's Mayor Allan's younger brother, Stanley. He's been in and out of mental hospitals almost all his life. He's a chronic paranoid-schizophrenic whom Dr. Longstreet was more or less forced to treat. Mrs. Masters told me about him. The mayor, it seems, did Dr. Longstreet some favors with the zoning board, building inspectors, things to help her get her building constructed quickly, and in return she agreed to see what she could do about his younger brother.

"It's not fair to attribute that failure to her," Megan continued. "She inherited him and all the maltreatments, mistaken diagnoses, trial and error performed on him for twenty years or more."

"How come you didn't mention all this before, when I told you about him being out here?"

"I didn't find out about him until just yesterday, and I simply forgot, Aaron. Jesus, what is going on in your head?" she cried, her arms out in desperation. "Why didn't you mention him yesterday yourself? Why didn't you tell me about what had happened at the clinic? You didn't say a word when you met me at Sophie's school. Well?"

"Dr. Longstreet didn't want me to dote on things like that," he admitted.

"But now you're doing it anyway." She nodded, grimacing with a look of chastisement that rivaled any primary schoolteacher's. He had to look away from those angry eyes.

"That's great, Aaron. Just keep doing the opposite of what your doctor, your expert doctor, tells you to do. Just keep prolonging this problem and making your life and my life and Sophie's life miserable."

''All right. It happened. You weren't there at the time. It was quite a dramatic scene, Megan."

"Put it out of your mind," she ordered, her eyes small, angry. "And certainly, most certainly, don't hold it against Dr. Longstreet or permit it to challenge your confidence and trust in her."

He looked up. Her voice was uncharacteristically hard, threatening.

"You're suffering an unfortunate medical condition, Aaron. I know. I appreciate your anxiety, but every once in a while, I wish you would stop and consider what I'm going through, what Sophie is going through, and now, especially now when I'm pregnant, too. As difficult as it might be for you, I wish you would be a little more caring and a little less self-centered. Maybe that would stop your paranoia," she added. "Maybe you would have a little more faith in me, too."

"I have faith in you, Megan. I'm sorry. Damn," he said, shaking his head. This was exactly what Dr. Longstreet had advised him to consider. He felt like such a cad.

"All right, Aaron. All right. Let's end it quickly. Look at all this," she said, holding her arms out again. "You've got a wonderful new life. It's all coming together. We're going to have a new baby. Please, honey. No more doubts about us, or our doctor, okay?"

"Okay, Megan. I've got to get to work," he said.

"Me, too," she said, smiling. "Now that Mr. Carpenter has called you, I'd better be sure we do a great job for him at the advertising firm."

"I suppose I'll have to thank Mrs. Masters for this as well," he said.

''And you'll get your chance. We've been invited to her home for Thanksgiving dinner a week from next Thursday night."

"Oh," he said without enthusiasm.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just imagined we would have our own little family thing."

"We will, but Mrs. Masters invited us, Aaron, and really, when you think about it, she doesn't have any other family. We're her family now. All of us," she added.

"Right," he said.

She kissed him. "Have a good day honey. I'll call you after lunch so you can tell me all about the Carpenter project."

"Okay, Megan," he said and kissed her again.

She stared into his eyes for a moment, but so intensely, he had to smile.

"What do you see?" he asked.

"Our future," she said. "Clear as could be."

He watched her go, and then, feeling ashamed and guilty, he turned to his work station determined to be cooperative and trusting and make Megan happy and proud of him.

He really was determined to do that, but when he sat back and thought quietly for a moment, he had to confess to himself at least that his heart wasn't completely in it.

Not yet

And that was like a lingering toothache, annoying, but also still threatening.

The lunch with David Carpenter took his mind off any of his personal problems. David was a good-looking, thirty-eight-year-old, dark-haired man with extraordinary brown eyes the color of burnt toast. He had a slim, athletic build and was about as tall as Aaron. He did have a virile, sportsman's energy about him, a strong handshake, a vibrant gait with firm posture. With his robust complexion completing the picture, David Carpenter looked as if he belonged on the cover of some health magazine. His energy carried into everything he did and said. When he spoke about his vision for his enterprise, those eyes became so charged Aaron couldn't look away for a moment. David Carpenter's excitement was that infecting, mesmerizing.

They had their lunch in a restaurant called the Rider's Inn, modeled after an English pub, the bar filled with brass, the walls and tables old dark hickory with all sorts of English memorabilia, riding implements, leather saddles, old boots, hats, antique guns, and humorous plaques and signs from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on the walls. One sign forbid the entrance of women with too much bosom showing. Another warned about the plague that had nearly wiped out the city of London.

For lunch he and David even had shepherd's pie and glasses of stout.

"You see how important the ambience is," David pointed out after Aaron remarked how delightful it was to be having lunch at the Rider's Inn. "The same food, quality, and preparation could be served to us down at Grandma's Kitchen, and it wouldn't taste as good or as interesting to us, would it?"

"Exactly," Aaron agreed.

"I'm not saying the food is bad there. It's very good, homemade taste, all of that, but it's a different feeling, a different culinary experience," David rattled on.

"Yes, it is," Aaron agreed.

"Ambience affects customers in stores as well. If they feel the place has quality, the merchandise has quality. If the establishment is interesting, exciting, so is the merchandise," David continued. "But I don't have to tell you any of this. You know it well. I've seen your work."

"You have? Where?"

"Sandburg Village," David replied. "That's why I thought you'd enjoy lunch here today, the Old English concept."

"You saw that, too?" Aaron smiled. "Harlan Nolan saw it. You know I'm doing his mall?"

"Of course, but it's not unusual for me to look at malls, Aaron. I'm always considering places for my stores," David said, "and if something strikes me as interesting, I find out everything about it and the people who created it. When I learned that you were living here now, I was very excited."

"Thank you," Aaron said, still amazed at how famous he was to some people here.

"I don't want to steal you away from Harlan, but I'm sure you can give your attention to more than one thing at a time, right?"

"I think so," Aaron said. "I'm pretty far along with the mall anyway."

"Good." David sat back, contented. He smiled. "Driftwood is just a great place to live and work. People are decent to each other here. There's a real sense of community. It harks back to another time, another age."

"Yes," Aaron said. He was convinced of that. "How long have you lived here?"

"Going on ten years. My wife and her younger sister inherited their parents' home when they were killed on holiday in Europe. They were on that ferryboat that sank in the English Channel. You might remember that. Two hundred and twenty people died."

Aaron nodded. "Yes, I do recall that."

How true it is that I can recall historical events, even relatively recent ones. There's that selective memory again, he thought.

"Anyway, the house was too beautiful to sell, and Keely's heart was set on us living in it. Laurie was already living back here, working for the Masters advertising firm."

"Laurie? Laurie Corkin is your sister-in-law?"

"Yes, have you met her?"

"Of course. My wife is working for Mrs. Masters, too. Laurie helped us move into our new home."

"Really? I didn't know that," David said.

"You didn't know that? How could you not know that?" Aaron asked with a puzzled smile.

David thought a moment and then shrugged. "Maybe I was told, but forgot. I'm so busy these days, I can't remember the simplest things sometimes." He leaned over to whisper. "You know, I was in Stanford, having lunch with a buyer last week, and we got to talking about our younger days, and suddenly, for no reason, I drew a blank on my college days. I couldn't recall a single teacher's name, not that I was any sort of a good student. I nearly flunked out."

Aaron stared at him. "What did you do?" he finally asked.

''About what?"

"Remembering their names?"

"Oh." He sat back again and waved down the story. "It came back after a few more minutes, some of them, at least. I'm sure they've all forgotten me, long forgotten," he added with a laugh. "What's the difference now? The important thing is to remember what you're doing today and what you'll be doing tomorrow, and Aaron, I hope you'll be doing my project," he added.

Aaron nodded slowly. David began to talk about it again, and they were both soon back into the concept, brainstorming as Aaron scribbled some lines and expressed a flood of ideas. The excitement regained its position at the forefront of his thoughts. In fact, when they parted, Aaron left so charged up that he really did fear he would have trouble concentrating and redirecting his attention to finish the mall project.

He got right to work when he returned and was even annoyed at the ringing of the phone interrupting. He answered too abruptly for Megan.

"You shouldn't say, yeah, Aaron. You should say Clifford and Associates or something," she corrected.

"I don't have any associates."

"You will. I'm sure of it," she told him. "How was lunch? Did you like David?"

"Yes, he's very nice and energetic as hell. You forgot to tell me he's Laurie Corkin's brother-in-law," he said. "Or are you going to tell me you didn't know that?"

"I knew it, but I didn't want you to think you were getting these jobs solely because of people we knew or people Mrs. Masters knew. David Carpenter has seen your work. When Laurie told him you were living here now, he got excited about you himself. Shoot me," she said.

"I wasn't angry about it. I was just curious," he explained. She was quiet a moment. "Really."

"How many times do I have to remind you that you're in a small community now, Aaron? People know people, people have business relationships with each other. Word of mouth is more effective than anything."

"You shouldn't be saying that," he quipped.

"Why not?"

"You're working for an advertising firm, aren't you?" he asked with a laugh. "If it took only word of mouth, you'd be out of a job."

She laughed, too, but more nervously, he thought.

"Well, we're experts in gossip."

"I believe that. Now that I think of it, women do make better advertising executives."

"Don't be so smug, Mr. Man," she warned. "Men are bigger blabbermouths than you think. I bet you and David had a field day talking about Laurie."

"No. Why would we?"

"David didn't talk about her being young and beautiful and currently unattached?"

"No."

"And being a flirt?"

"Never mentioned a word. He was too excited about his project to talk gossip."

"Okay. If it's all right with you, I thought we'd join Debbie and Morgan Asher for dinner tonight. We've got reservations at the Lighthouse. You'll enjoy it."

"Have you been there before?"

"No, of course not," she said quickly.

"Then how do you know I'll enjoy it?"

"From what I've been told, Aaron. Jesus. I really do have to watch every word I say these days, don't I?"

"I was—"

"Just curious, I know. Can you pick up Sophie today? I promised her I would, but I have to do something for Mrs. Masters."

"Sure. I hope she's not nervous about riding with me since the last time," he added.

"She hasn't mentioned it once, has she?"

"No," he said. He thought about it a moment. It was as if his daughter suffered from periodic amnesias as well. "That is amazing."

"It's not so amazing, Aaron. Dr. Longstreet had a nice talk with her about it. Sophie is a very, very bright little girl. The doctor was very impressed."

"I don't remember that," he said. "When did she have this talk?"

"Right afterward, Aaron. In fact, it was her idea. Her exact words were 'We've got to treat emotional trauma with the same urgency we would treat a serious wound to the body. There's a bleeding that has to be stopped with emotional trauma, too.'"

"You're very good at quoting people, Megan," he said.

"You say that often, Aaron. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. I was just impressed. Now who's beginning to sound paranoid?" he replied.

She was quiet again, and then she laughed.

"I always forget how clever you are, Aaron, how witty."

"It amazes me how many memory problems people around here suffer," he muttered. "I'm beginning to feel less and less unusual."

"Oh, you're unusual, Aaron. You're very unusual," she said in a seductive tone. "Later, we'll remind you of it."

Now he laughed. "You're pregnant, Megan. You've got to be less passionate."

"My doctor says it's fine. She believes it makes the fetus feel wanted more."

"How's that?"

"His or her daddy keeps sticking his head in to look around."

He roared. "You're a madwoman!"

"That's why you love me so. Don't forget Sophie," she warned.

"I'll write it on my palm this minute."

"Good. See you about six. Tell her I'll be picking up a basket of fried chicken for her. She loves it," she said and hung up.

He shook his head and laughed to himself over some of the things she had said. Then he returned to work and did indeed almost forget to go for his daughter. At the last minute he noticed the time and rushed out so quickly, he neglected to turn off lights. Later, the Driftwood police would call to ask why they were all on.

At school he went directly to the sign-out sheet. The principal's secretary had already called Sophie out of class, anticipating his arrival.

"Your wife phoned ahead," she explained when he looked surprised. "It's always nice when parents consider what we have to do."

"Right. Thank you," he said.

Sophie, who had been sitting patiently, rose and reached for his hand.

"Have a good day in school?" he asked her on the way out.

"Yes, Daddy. I have homework," she announced with pride.

"Really? What is it?"

"I have to read one of my books that I have at home and write down what it was about. I have these questions to answer," she said, showing him the assignment sheet.

He glanced at it and nodded.

"Very good," he said.

"Will you help me?"

"Sure. You choose the book and we'll get right on it," he promised.

He watched her closely when he sat her in the car and helped her buckle her safety belt. She didn't seem in the least nervous.

"Too cold now for the top down," he explained.

"I know. It's all right. I'll look out the window," she said.

He started the engine, glancing at her from time to time as they drove off. She talked about her school day, her friends, and a video they had watched on the human body. Her vocabulary amazed him. Megan was right, of course, their daughter was exceptional. He felt guilty about not noticing more about her, not spending enough time with her.

"Maybe we can get started on the tree house this weekend, Sudsy, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy."

"Sorry I haven't gotten to it before."

"I understand, Daddy. You're busy starting a new life for us."

"Yes," he said, laughing. "Exactly. Anyway, you and I will work up the plans Friday and then go get the materials we need on Saturday morning. Of course, we'll have to pick out a good tree first."

She laughed. "We already picked it out, Daddy."

"What?"

"We picked out the tree, remember?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "You're probably thinking about the old tree house."

"No, I'm not, Daddy. I'll show you the tree as soon as we get home," she promised.

He glanced at her.

"You're so silly sometimes, Daddy," she said.

He nodded.

How could he have forgotten that? He couldn't. She was confused for sure, he thought and sped up.

When they pulled into the garage, she got out and led him around the house. At the right corner she stopped and pointed.

"There it is, Daddy. You said it was perfect."

He stared at the large old maple.

Maybe she dreamed it, he thought. Maybe she saw the tree and imagined they had chosen it together. His instincts told him not to continually deny it and cause her to feel foolish, but it was a good tree for their purpose.

"Oh, right," he said. "Perfect."

As soon as they went into the house, she ran upstairs to get one of her books. He made himself a glass of iced tea and sat in his home office, waiting for her. He sat there, sipping the tea and staring at the photograph of him, Megan, and Sophie. That picture continued to bother him. Something about it made him feel as if he was an observer at the time. Why the hell was he standing behind them like that? What an unusual posture for a family shot.

Sophie burst into his office, excited about her assignment.

"What did you choose?" he asked.

She set the book down in front of him. It was a children's version of Jason and the Argonauts.

"Wow." He opened the cover. It was a good-size book, and just a glimpse at the writing on the first page told him the vocabulary was for an older child. ''Are you sure this is one of your books, honey?"

"Yes, Daddy. You gave it to me," she said.

"Oh. Well, you can't do this all in one night, Sudsy," he told her.

"I know that, Daddy," she said, laughing as if he were the child and she were the adult. "We don't have to have it done until next week, but I want to start it," she insisted.

"Of course. That's good. You should try not to put off your responsibilities," he lectured.

"Let's start right now," she said eagerly.

She pulled a chair nearer to him and put her paper and pen alongside her question sheet on his desk.

"Okay, here we go," he said and lifted the book to open it. As soon as he did so, a picture fell out from between some pages. It floated onto his lap. "What's this?" he asked, lifting and turning it to look.

A man who looked to be in his mid to late twenties leaned against a white Corvette. He had his arms folded across his chest. He was muscular, buff with dark brown hair and a handsome smile. He wore a tight T-shirt and jeans.

"Who's this?" Aaron wondered aloud. He stared at the picture, desperately trying to stir up a memory. Something about the man's face was familiar, but no recollections came back to him. "Huh?" he asked, turning to Sophie.

She was staring at the picture, too.

Only she was crying. Her tears were thick and flowing freely down her cheeks, yet she didn't seem to know she was crying. She was just looking at the picture.

"Honey?"

She turned to him.

"Do you know who this man is?" he asked softly.

She shook her head.

"Then why are you crying, Sophie?"

She looked surprised. She touched her cheeks and then looked at her wet fingers.

"I don't know," she said.

fourteen

Aaron handed Megan the picture as soon as she entered the house and begun to take Sophie's dinner out of the bag. Sophie was upstairs in her room, watching television. After she had begun to cry, he had quickly put the picture away and started reading her book with her, getting her mind off whatever it was that had so disturbed her. Nearly an hour later he declared they had done enough for the first day and gave her permission to watch television until Megan had returned with her dinner. Aaron heard her come in and joined her in the kitchen.

"Hi," she said without looking up from the bag she was unloading. "How's everything?"

When he didn't reply, she paused and turned to him. He handed her the photograph. She took it and stared at it a moment.

"Where did you find this?" she asked.

"It fell out of the book Sophie had chosen to read for a book report. I was helping her with it," he said. "Who is that?"

She pressed her lips together as if she was trying to keep the answer locked in her mouth.

"Sophie just started to cry when she looked at it, but she said she didn't know who he was," he continued, pushing for the answer.

"Cry?"

"Yes. Who is he, Megan? Why did Sophie start to cry when she saw him?"

Megan sat at the table, seemingly falling into the chair as if her legs had given out.

"That's amazing that she cried. And she couldn't tell you who he was?" she quickly followed.

"No, Megan, she couldn't. I got her mind off it immediately, but it was weird. So?"

She looked at the picture. "You don't remember who he is?" she asked, still gazing at the photograph.

"Would I ask if I knew? Would I be so upset about it?"

She shook her head. "I suppose not. He's my brother, Aaron. It's Jason."

"Your brother? Jason?" His eyes widened. "That's the book the picture was in, Jason and the Argonauts."

"Of course," she said. "I should have remembered. He bought it for her just for that reason and put his picture in the book. Of course," she said.

She sounded as if she was talking to herself, chastising herself.

"Sophie said I bought it for her."

Megan continued to stare at the picture, shaking her head. "That's terrible," she said, "but understandable."

"Huh? Why don't I remember your brother?" Aaron asked.

She looked up. "There's so much you still don't remember, Aaron. You don't remember your own family members, parents, your aunt. Why does this surprise you?"

"I guess you're right. It was just such a shock. Where is he? Why didn't you tell me about him when you told me about your parents that day we had lunch at Grandma's Kitchen? I know you didn't mention him," he said quickly. "Why not?"

"Because he's dead, Aaron," she snapped back at him.

"Dead?"

"Sophie was only just four when he was killed. That's why I was amazed to hear she cried, even though she was close to him. In those days he probably spent more time with her than you did. In fact," she said almost bitterly, "he and I took her for her first time to a zoo. Then he got us tickets to see Beauty and the Beast on Broadway, but you had a business meeting in Toledo and couldn't come. Jason was always there for her."

"Have I really been such a poor father?" he asked, shaking his head and sitting. He felt stunned.

"You've been, shall we say, otherwise occupied, Aaron."

He looked up hopefully.

"But the funny song we sang in the car, Daddy had a little girl. We sang about places like zoos and Disney World and—"

"Poor substitution for the actual experiences, Aaron. Sophie was recalling her times with Jason when she sang along with you, whenever she sang along with you," she added.

He swallowed hard. "What happened to him?"

"He was with the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration and was killed in Colombia in a military action that our government denies took place. It took me forever to find out anything about him. His body has never been returned. I couldn't even give him a proper funeral," she said, her lips quivering.

"Oh. How come I don't see any other pictures of him?" he asked, looking around the kitchen as if there might be one hidden behind a plate or a pot.

"I have the other pictures put away. Whenever I look at a picture of him, I want to cry myself. It's always been easier not to talk about him. That way I can convince myself he's still alive and someday coming home. We all need some illusion."

"Maybe he is still alive," Aaron said quickly.

"No, Aaron. It's been nearly five years, and anyway he was in a plane that was seen going down after it had been hit by one of those handheld missile things. I have a formal government letter about it and an expression of deep regret with a vague promise to retrieve his remains when and if it ever becomes possible. 'I'll be so informed at the time' were the exact words in the letter."

She laughed. "By now there wouldn't be enough of his body left to bury. Don't hold your breath," she muttered.

"I can't get over how Sophie just started to cry, and when I asked her who he was, she said she didn't know. She didn't even realize she was crying!"

"Her little mind won't accept such a horrible realization as Jason's death. We've had her with child therapists you know," Megan continued.

He shook his head. "I don't remember any of that, either."

"It wasn't that often or very much. She used to ask for him so much and break out in tears that I thought maybe she should see a therapist. After a while she stopped asking and stopped crying. That's why I was so surprised to hear she cried now. When I told you how she asked you why people didn't come back after death, I thought you'd remember all this, too, but you didn't. Actually, I was very happy you hadn't yet retrieved those memories."

She wiped a fugitive tear from her cheek.

"Maybe the suddenness of seeing his picture like that revived her sad memories," Aaron said.

"Yes," she said quickly. "I'm sure that was it."

"She really seemed to be struggling with his identity," Aaron emphasized.

"I'm sure she can remember who he is but doesn't want to. It's too painful for her."

"We know that's why I don't remember so many things," he muttered.

"Your mind will select what it's comfortable with and what it's not."

He nodded. "Dr. Longstreet said something similar to that to me recently when I asked about my ability to remember my work skills, my knowledge of architecture, and yet not remember so many other things."

"It's only logical," she said.

"So many things we absorb in our memory, we really didn't like or want, but we depend on our subconscious to keep them out of sight and out of mind," he recited.

"Sounds like you two had a very good and deep discussion about it."

"Yes. She is impressive."

Megan smiled. "I'm glad you feel that way."

She gazed at the platter of chicken. "We'd better call Sophie down to dinner. The baby-sitter will be arriving in a half hour, and we've got to get dressed for dinner ourselves."

"Right," he said. "I'll go get her."

Megan rose and returned to the counter and the food she had brought for Sophie. He looked back at her just before he left the kitchen.

She was gazing down at the photograph, but she wasn't crying. She looked more angry than sad.

Probably thinking about the government's insensitivity, he thought and headed for the stairway.

Debbie's husband Morgan seemed to be brought in from central casting. He was the quintessential stereotypical accountant, droll, slow and scrutinizing, offering little of interest or energy to their conversations at dinner. Periodically he would remove his glasses and clean them with his napkin as if they were all sitting in some fog. He became somewhat animated only when the topics touched on economic development in Driftwood. In the course of it, Aaron learned that Morgan was both Harlan Noel's accountant and David Carpenter's. The way in which relationships evolved and connected in this small community was impressive. He wanted to know more about it, but Aaron didn't really get a chance to talk with Morgan until the women went to the powder room.

"I heard you're working on Harlan's mall," Morgan Asher said immediately.

"Yes, it's an exciting project. Money doesn't seem to be an issue, either. I've presented some fairly expensive ideas, and he hasn't complained yet."

"It will be filled with tenants before it's halfway completed," Morgan predicted with confidence, removing his glasses and wiping them one more time. "Besides," he added in an unremarkable tone of voice, "you're spending your own money, too."

"Pardon me?" Aaron smiled and waited while Morgan Asher adjusted his glasses comfortably on the bridge of his nose. "What do you mean, my own money?"

Morgan Asher buttered another piece of bread and stuffed it in his mouth as if he wanted to gag himself. He chewed, gazed around, and swallowed before replying.

"You're spending my money as well," he said.

"I don't understand. I thought Harlan Noel had only one partner, Mrs. Masters."

"She's the president of the corporation. We're in it because our wives are in it," Morgan Asher explained.

"Megan never has mentioned that," Aaron said, half to himself.

"Don't despair. I didn't learn about my own involvement until I read the paperwork. But why complain about it anyway? We didn't have to make any investment. It's really a gift or a perk as they say."

"How can that be? What about all the seed money required for a project like this?"

"The women put a portion of their earnings at the advertisement firm into a trust that invests in the stock market. Those investments have been paying off in a big way. If I didn't know better, I'd say they, or Mrs. Masters in particular, have insider information half the time. They formed another S-corp for entrepreneurial enterprises such as the Driftwood Mall. It's all on the up and up, you can be sure. I wouldn't tolerate anything underhanded. I pride myself on my record with the IRS. I've never had a client lose an audit or be penalized since I've been an accountant," he added with arrogance.

"So, I'm really working for myself in a way," Aaron muttered to himself.

Morgan Asher finally cracked a smile.

"We all are, Aaron. All the time and in every possible way here." He laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Don't you get it? The slogan . . . you do your best work here. You have to. It's yours in every way. The corporation is the biggest landlord, owns the most property, pays the most in taxes, including school taxes. In short, we have a vested interest in every business and enjoy all the success stories. Since I've lived here, no one has gone bankrupt or closed his business. It's continuous prosperity, even when the national economy dips. We even have an interest in the two

banks, which is important when it comes to lending ourselves money."

Morgan Asher laughed again. "It's an accountant's heaven, all the legitimate write-offs, depreciation, K-l's."

He buttered another piece of bread and drank some wine.

"You don't look pleased," he remarked.

"I didn't know all this," Aaron said.

Morgan shrugged. "I hear that all the time from other husbands like yourself and me, but who can keep up with it? I certainly wouldn't if I wasn't directly involved in the tax preparations."

He leaned toward Aaron to lower his voice. "Before I came here to live and work, wives were always complaining to me about what they did and didn't know concerning their own financial affairs. Husbands either neglected to tell them or didn't care to tell them. How many widows were shocked to learn how little they had when their husbands died or how much they still owed."

He laughed. "Here, it's just the opposite. The wives know more about the family's finances than half the husbands, and you know what, most of the husbands don't complain. They just sit back, watch television on the big-screen sets, drive their big cars, go on their vacations, and do their best work in Driftwood.

"Just like me," he added and sat back as if it was something about which he should be proud. "Never lost an audit," he muttered.

"Tell me something," Aaron said, seeing the women starting back toward the table.

"What?"

"Who are you related to here?"

"Related?"

"Yes, related," Aaron pursued.

Morgan Asher shrugged. "You know Thelma Morris, the owner of Grandma's Kitchen?"

"I don't know her, no, but of course I've eaten there a number of times. Why?"

"She's Debbie's grandmother, through her first husband. Great meat loaf, eh?"

Aaron sat back as the women took their seats.

"How are you two getting along?" Debbie asked.

Morgan Asher shrugged again. "How does everyone get along here?" He smiled. "Just terrific. Just one happy family."

"Good," Debbie said.

Megan fixed her gaze on Aaron. He looked down quickly.

"You all right, honey?" she asked.

"I'm a little tired," he said. "Big day."

"Sure. We'll skip dessert."

"Go on," Debbie said. "Take him home. We need healthy, productive husbands in Driftwood."

"Don't worry about the bill," Morgan Asher said, as if on cue. "I'll take care of it. Write-off," he added. "We've been discussing business."

"Oh?" Megan said. She and Aaron exchanged a glance, and then she stood.

"Good night," Aaron said. "Thank you," he told Morgan Asher.

"Thank yourself," Morgan Asher said with a laugh.

Debbie and Megan kissed, and then Debbie kissed Aaron good night too.

"Get a good night's rest," she said, glanced at Megan and then smiled at him. "Well, maybe not too much rest. Pregnant women still need to know they're loved."

"Oh, I bet Megan knows she's loved," Morgan Asher said with unexpected energy and humor. They all looked at him. He laughed quietly and drank some more wine.

"Morgan's had a little too much. He gets that way sometimes," Debbie whispered. "I hope he didn't say anything to upset you in any way."

"What could he say to upset me?" Aaron fired back at her a little too aggressively.

She glanced at Megan and then smiled at him.

"Nothing. Of course not. See you tomorrow, Megan," she said and sat.

He and Megan started out of the restaurant. Their Corvette was brought up by the valet parking attendant, and Aaron drove them off. Megan noticed how quiet he had become.

"Are you all right? Was Debbie right to ask? When we were in the bathroom, did Morgan say anything that upset you, Aaron? You look upset," she emphasized.

He remained quiet for a long moment and then turned to her slowly.

"I can understand your keeping some things from me, Megan, things that might complicate my problem, unpleasant things, perhaps things Dr. Longstreet advised you to keep from me for good reason, but there are so many other things you haven't told me about our life here, about the people here."

She made no effort to deny it.

"Isn't it more fun for you discovering it yourself?" she asked with a smile.

He raised his eyebrows. Was she serious?

"No, not when I look stupid in the process," he replied.

"Oh, I'm sorry. What exactly did Morgan Asher tell you? The man can be such a horse's ass."

"He told me about your participation in some corporation engineered by Mrs. Masters and how that corporation has an interest in practically every business in town, especially the mall. When I told you Harlan Noel had revealed Mrs. Masters corporation was involved, you never said you, we, were part of that. And don't say you kept it from me because you didn't want me to think I deserve the assignments I'm getting," he added quickly.

"That's not the reason. I didn't know about it myself at the time you mentioned it."

"What? I don't understand. You're part of this corporation, right?"

"It's all so complicated, Aaron. I'm just learning about the projects the corporation is involved in, and I thought it was better for you if I waited before loading you down with everything, too. You're working on some elaborate projects. You're under a doctor's care. You're just getting acclimated to a new community. I didn't want to add to the burden, especially when it's all still so new to me as well. Sorry," she said. "You can attend the next corporate meeting if you like and learn all you want. Honest, I don't know the half of it yet, and frankly, I find all of it quite boring."

"And all these interrelationships . . . Debbie's grandmother owns Grandma's Kitchen?"

"So?"

"You never mentioned that!"

"It wasn't exactly my idea of a news flash, Aaron. Jesus."

"Who else is related to whom here?"

"I don't know," she said. "When I find out, I'll be sure to tell you, okay? Just don't talk about anyone to anyone. You never know who's related to whom," she added with mock-seriousness.

"It's not funny," he said. "I feel too much like a stranger in my own home as it is, but to learn intimate details about my own finances and from a man who I really just met. . . "

"I'm sorry, Aaron," she said and snuggled closer to him, taking his arm and laying her head on his shoulder. "I guess I'm just being overly protective, but I love you so much and I worry about you so much, I can't help it. It's a good fault, but I promise one I'll correct."

"I appreciate your reasons for doing it, Megan," he said, relenting. "I really do. I just don't want to feel like an outsider or worse yet, foolish. I've still got this old-fashioned idea about the man being the head of the household."

"I know. I'll make sure you don't get sandbagged from now on. I promise, honey."

"Umm," he said.

She leaned forward and turned on the CD player. Edith Piaf came on singing "La Vie en Rose."

"Remember this?" she whispered, kissing him on the neck.

"Sure," he said. He looked at her, looked in her eyes. Memories swirled about. They were in some cafe. "It was in New York, some special little place, right? I met you there after work."

"That's right," she said. "The last time was about four months ago. Is it all coming back?"

"Yes," he said. "The music, the food, candlelight. . . yes, I remember us there," he added excitedly.

"See. You're going to be fine, Aaron," she whispered. "Soon you'll be completely back with me again."

The music flowed through the car. It made him feel warm and content.

For the moment at least, his anxieties were contained.

He hadn't been in Driftwood that long, and already he was a success, a part of a rather dynamic corporate entity, actually, wealthy.

Why be angry about anything?

Sophie was asleep when they arrived home. Megan paid the baby-sitter and straightened up the living room and the kitchen before joining him in their bedroom. He was standing by the bathroom sink, staring at himself in the mirror when she appeared. His face was so close to the glass, he looked as if he was searching for a small imperfection.

"What's so interesting, Aaron?" she asked as she began to undress.

"Did I ever have a mustache or a beard, Megan?"

"Yes, for a while you had a mustache, but both Sophie and I complained about the bristles. She used to call it the pins, whenever you kissed her, and after a while you hated trimming it. When you were in college, you had a full beard."

"How come I don't have any pictures of myself in college?"

"I don't know, Aaron. You never showed me any if you did have some. Besides," she said, now only in her bra and panties and stepping beside him, "I like you better just the way you are." She ran her lips over his cheek and stopped at the corner of his mouth to nibble gently.

He laughed. "That tickles," he said.

Her hand was in his shirt, moving up over his chest.

"Come to bed," she said, "and stop worrying about what you looked like. Forget the past. Think only of the here and now."

Her right hand reached around his hip and grasped his rear.

"Hey, a bit aggressive for a pregnant woman, aren't you?"

"So? Take control," she challenged. "Be the head of the household."

She kept her finger in under his belt and tugged him out of the bathroom and to the bed where she sat, undid his pants and lowered his shorts along with them. Then she put her hands around his hips and pulled him toward her, taking him in so quickly, he nearly fell over her. In seconds his heart was pounding. She had the tip of her tongue down the stem of his penis, tantalizing him until he cried out that he was losing control.

She pulled back and laughed.

"So?" she said. "That's the way I like you best."

She undid her bra and lowered her panties. Then she urged him beside her, kissed his neck and suddenly turned over on him, fitting herself to his erection, and starting to move in slow, long pumps that drove him crashing into an orgasm quickly. She laughed at his gasps of pleasure, and then she rolled over on her back while he caught his breath.

"Wow," he said. "Were we always this good?"

"When you had your mind completely in it, we were," she said.

"I can't imagine not."

"Good. Don't ever go back to that."

He laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Another thing I can't imagine is Morgan making love to Debbie."

"Debbie's pretty good at getting him to perform the way she wants," Megan said. "Don't underestimate her."

"I wasn't thinking of her powers. I was thinking of his."

"A good woman makes a man good."

"Really? Is that another slogan here in Driftwood?"

"Matter of fact," she said, kissing the tip of his nose, "I made it up myself. Advertising, remember?"

"Yes, but what are you trying to sell with it?" he asked, turning and staring at her.

Her lips pulled back in an impish grin.

"Success, Aaron. Just success for women as much as for men. That's all right, isn't it?" she asked.

He squeezed his eyebrows toward each other.

Of course it was, he thought, but why did it sound so ominous when she said it?

fifteen

Megan was up and dressed by the time Aaron opened his eyes the next morning. She had just completed brushing her hair and fitting her earrings and had not yet put on her blouse. The skin on her back looked so smooth, radiant, glittering in the morning sunlight spilling through the windows behind him. He was drawn to the turn in her neck and the tantalizing sight of the side of her firm breast. Her beauty stirred him. She was his private goddess. What an exquisite sight to see the moment he woke.

However, when she moved slightly to the left, he glimpsed her image in the mirror. For a second or two, he thought he had gone mad. The woman in the glass looked as if she was ninety, her face as wrinkled as a dried fig, her hair thin and gray, her breasts two sagging sacks of white flour. Almost as quickly as the horrid image appeared, it vanished. Thankfully. Must be a lingering nightmare, he thought, like an image remaining on the retina.

She turned, smiling at him.

"Finally waking up, sleepyhead?"

He ground his eyes gently with his closed hands. His beautiful wife stood before him again, putting on her blouse.

"What's happening? Why are you up so early?" He gazed at the clock. "It's only a little past six."

"Oh, I have to go somewhere with Mrs. Masters this morning. Didn't I tell you that last night?"

He shook his head.

"What about Sophie?"

"I'll get her dressed and give her breakfast before I leave. She's already up. You don't have to take her to school. She can take the school bus this morning. Just make sure she's out there by seven-fifteen, okay?"

She came over to kiss him. It was a longer-than-expected kiss, her lips pressed softly and yet full of demand.

"A kiss is a strange thing, isn't it, Aaron? Two people giving so much to each other and yet taking so much. You can tell how much someone loves you by how much he wants his lips touching yours, don't you think?"

"Yes, but there are different kisses for different times," he said.

"Not for me. For me, every kiss is far more than a hello or a goodbye. It's feel-my-heart time." She laughed at his puzzled expression. "I'll call you later this afternoon," she said.

"Hey, wait a minute," he called as she started for the door. "Where are you going?"

"To that other world, New York City," she replied, raising her eyes toward the ceiling. "We have a meeting with some executives at a firm that wants to use us. Don't forget your medication," she added and started out again.

"Hey," he called. She paused at the door. "Where do we keep our albums, videos, stuff like that? I was looking for it the other day and couldn't find any of it."

"That stuff's still in one of the cartons in the basement, Aaron. Wait until I'm home tonight, and we'll look for things together," she replied.

"And what about our important papers, insurance documents, title deeds, marriage certificates, stuff like that?"

"Why, that's all in our safety deposit box, Aaron. You don't leave things like that around. You're the one who told me that," she said.

"Well, which bank is it?"

"Driftwood National, of course, the bank where we have established our accounts, silly."

"Well, there are two banks here. I just wanted to be sure we didn't split things up to keep everyone happy. Where's the key?"

"What are you up to, Aaron Clifford?" she asked with a tight smile.

"I just thought if I started to review all that stuff slowly, I would help my memory."

"Did the doctor tell you to do that?"

"You keep telling me to wait for the doctor's permission to do things. Some things are just plain common sense, Megan. I don't need the doctor to tell me every little thing," he replied sternly.

She stared at him.

"The key is in the top drawer of my jewelry chest in the closet," she said. "If you want to wait, I'll go with you to the bank tomorrow afternoon. Okay?"

"I guess," he said, lying back.

"Don't fall back to sleep. Sophie has to get on that bus," she warned.

"All right, I won't."

She smiled at him and headed for Sophie's room. By the time he did get up, showered and dressed, she was gone and Sophie was waiting patiently for him in the kitchen. It was just after seven.

"Mommy told me to wake you by seven if you didn't come down here by then," she said, looking at the clock.

He laughed at the intensity of her facial expression. She took her orders from Megan very seriously.

"Mommy made you coffee, and she told me to be sure you had your orange juice and took your pill."

"Is that right? Well, with all this attention I'm getting from my favorite girls, I guess I'll be fine," he joked. She didn't smile. She's such a serious little girl, he thought. "All right. You can watch me," he said and poured himself a glass of juice.

"What about your pill, Daddy?"

"Took it already," he reported. "Okay, boss?"

She finally laughed.

"I'm not your boss, Daddy. You're supposed to be the boss. You and Mommy."

"Yes, well, these days I feel more like a private than a general."

She laughed again. "It's not the army. It's a family," she said.

"I'm not so sure anymore. All right, I guess we'd better get you outside to catch that bus. You like riding on the bus?"

"Yes," she said, getting up. "When I can sit by a window."

He escorted her out. There was a cool breeze this morning and some ominous clouds blowing in from the north. Winter was on the horizon.

"As soon as I'm home today, we'll read some more of your book and answer some more questions, okay?"

"Yes, Daddy."

He thought about the things Megan had told him, how he had neglected Sophie when she was younger and how his brother-in-law had filled in.

"Maybe we can all take a trip soon. Where would you like to go?"

"I don't know. Where can we go?" she replied.

"Let's see," he said, looking down the road for signs of the approaching school bus. "We can go see a big show in New York or go to the zoo."

"I like the zoo," she said quickly. "I like throwing peanuts to the monkeys and making monkey faces back at them."

"Okay."

"You do, too, Daddy," she said and laughed. "Mommy made you stop."

"Oh? You remember that?" He smiled at her, envying her childhood memories. "Wasn't it very, very long ago, Sudsy?"

She shook her head.

"Here comes the bus, Daddy," she cried.

He stepped back with her and held her hand. She's confusing me with Jason, he thought sadly.

"We'll go to the zoo," he promised and watched her get on the bus.

As it pulled away, she waved. He stood there for a moment and then returned to the house to have some breakfast. He wasn't all that hungry, however, and had just a slice of buttered toast. While he nibbled on it, he stared at the wall and tried to recall more about his immediate past. Why couldn't he remember Sophie's birthdays, things like her first steps, her first words, holding her, walking with her? What kind of a father had he been that those kinds of memories still would be lost? How could he have been that detached from his own child? Surely there was nothing painful about his memories of Sophie. He shouldn't be repressing any of that, he concluded.

The need to know more obsessed him. Instead of heading out for his offices, he went down to the basement and sifted through those cartons that were yet unpacked. He didn't find any loose pictures, just a single family album and two videos. Not very much for ten years of marriage, he thought. Megan was right about his disinterest in taking pictures, or else there was more that she had put away someplace else. He decided he would start with this at least.

He brought it all upstairs. Sitting in the living room, he thumbed through the album. The first half dozen or so pages were all of Sophie as a baby with an occasional picture of Megan and her. A photograph of Megan and him appeared on a page, but it slipped off because it wasn't glued. He studied it. Megan looked older and he didn't look very much different from how he looked now. There were a number of pictures of her brother Jason, and just as she had described, he was seen doing things with a much younger Sophie, especially at the zoo. It made him feel terrible to see the proof of his fatherly neglect.

With my background, losing my parents, anyone would have thought I'd realize the importance of being a good parent, being close to my child. I guess the good doctor would analyze me and say I had some subconscious fear of attachment, of losing someone I loved.

Toward the end of the album, he found a few more pictures of himself and Megan and three pictures of him with Megan and Sophie taken at what looked like the Seaport in lower Manhattan. He couldn't avoid the verdict. Anyone examining his past through these pictures would easily conclude that family wasn't as important to him as it should have been. He felt like someone who had woken up from a nightmare to learn it hadn't been a nightmare after all. It had been real. It amazed him that Megan still loved him as much as she did. At least it helped him understand why she wasn't as upset as he was about what he had forgotten and how much he had changed.

Now I'm more of the husband she wanted, more of the father Sophie needs, he thought, and with a new baby on the way, that was good. He smiled to himself thinking about the comedy Harvey. In both his case and Elwood P. Dowd's, the main character, the cure was worse than the illness. Elwood was better off being daft, talking to an imaginary giant rabbit, and he was better off forgetting the man he had been. I should stop going to the doctor entirely, he thought.

He closed the album and then gazed at the videos on the table. I should go to work, he thought. What was the point of all this? It was like rubbing mud in his own face. Nevertheless, his curiosity took hold and he inserted one of the videos into the player. He sat back to watch. The first one was mainly pictures of Sophie from infancy to about three. At least he saw her take what looked like her first steps. He heard Megan's voice, saw her, but didn't hear himself or see himself. Where the hell was he when all this was going on? Was he always the one behind the camera? He fast-forwarded to a recent birthday party and heard Megan call to him.

Suddenly a clown appeared. That's me, he thought and watched the clown's antics around the table of children. Megan called to him again, and he produced a gift wrapped in a big box. Sophie opened it to discover the nearly life-size doll she had in her room.

"Tell Mr. Clown thank you, Sophie," Megan called to her.

Sophie smiled up at him and said, "Thank you Mr. Clown Daddy."

Later in the video he saw Megan's brother walking with Sophie, holding her hand as she walked her big doll. He waved toward the camera and that video ended.

At least I was prominent at one of her birthdays, he thought, even if I was hiding in a clown's costume. That's what I was as a father anyway, a clown.

He inserted the second video. This was a Florida vacation. He recognized Palm Beach. Megan looked terrific in her bikini. Sophie was digging a hole and filling a pail. He waited for the sound of his voice or the sight of himself. He desperately needed one or the other. Finally he saw himself walking on the beach. The sun was going down. It was a beautiful twilight, and he looked pretty fit. A close-up caught him smiling back at Megan, whom he could hear urging him to take a pose. He pretended to be Mr. America, and he could hear her laugh. Where was Sophie? Why wasn't he at least walking with her here?

Disgusted with himself, he shut the player off and turned off the television set. This wasn't helping him. It was making him feel worse. Get back to work, he thought. Follow the program and let the recovery take its own course. He put the album and the videos in his office and headed out.

However, he couldn't stop thinking about himself, about the things he had learned from Megan and from his own research. Despite it all, he didn't feel like that kind of a man. He'd have to ask Dr. Longstreet more about this. How could memory lapses make such a change in his personality? How could they make me a nicer person?

And indeed he was a nicer person than the man Megan had described, wasn't he? He wanted to do things with his child now. He enjoyed helping her with her homework, seeing her facial expressions when she made discoveries. He had just been considering buying one of those newer digital cameras, too. Why were these things important to him now if they had never been before?

It's maddening, he thought and reviewed some of those video pictures in his mind.

And then, something occurred to him that nearly caused him to have a serious accident. The realization blocked out his awareness that the traffic light was red. He went right through it, just missing a collision. The driver of a pickup truck sounded his horn and waved his fist. He looked as if he was going to turn around and chase him down. He pulled over. Aaron shouted back apologies and pulled to the side himself. He waited, his heart pounding.

The truck driver pulled away and disappeared. After a moment Aaron started away from the curb, but instead of continuing to his office, he pulled into a driveway and turned around so he could head back to the house. Inside again, he went to his office and scooped up the second video. He brought it back to the player, turned on the set, and fast-forwarded the tape ahead to where he appeared on the beach. He stopped it and studied the picture. Then he rewound it to where Megan was walking on the beach with Sophie. He moved it forward to himself again and then sat back.

Megan and Sophie were walking the beach in Palm Beach. No doubt about that, but when he appeared in the video, the sun was dipping below the sea.

The sun set in the West.

This was not a beach in Florida. This was a beach in California or Oregon or even Mexico.

The pictures of him had been edited into this tape.

Why?

What the hell did this mean?

Another thought occurred to him, another possible place to discover some answers.

He extracted the tape, turned off the player and television set, and went upstairs to Megan's jewelry cabinet. He opened the top drawer and found the safety deposit box key. Twenty minutes later he pulled into the parking lot of the Driftwood National. It wasn't his first time there. He and Megan had been there before to open their checking account. He remembered Teresa Krepski, one of the vice presidents, and went directly to her desk.

The bank executive gave him a warm smile. "Why, Mr. Clifford, how are you? I've been hearing so many good things about you," she said quickly.

"Really? From whom?" he challenged. His aggressive tone took her by surprise, and her smile quickly faded.

She shook her head. "So many people," she said and then brightened to add, "Especially Mrs. Masters."

"What are people saying?" he pursued.

She smiled as if he was asking dumb questions. "Why, just how quickly you've adapted to the community, how eager people are to work with you, and how your initial projects are so brilliant."

"It's like everyone gets reviewed here or something," he muttered.

"Pardon?"

"Nothing. Forget it."

"How can I help you today?"

"I have to get into my safety deposit box," he said.

"Oh. Of course," she said. She produced the book for him to sign, and he noted that Megan hadn't been there since they established the box. After he signed, Teresa Krepski led him around the counter to the door and opened it with a key. He followed her in, and she asked for his key. She inserted hers into his box and then his and turned them both. "There you go," she said. "Use either of the two examination rooms."

She indicated them on his right. He thanked her, removed the box, and went into the first room. There he sat at the table and opened the box. As Megan had described, the insurance policies were on top. He pulled them out, looked at the house deed, and then found an envelope containing his, Sophie's, and Megan's birth certificates. It all looked in order. At the very bottom was his and Megan's marriage certificate. As she had told him, they were married in Virginia Beach. The year was right. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.

The house, fire and car and life insurances all had his signature. He recalled signing them. He couldn't recall signing the marriage certificate, but that didn't surprise him.

This is ridiculous, he thought. I'm wasting my day. There's probably some good explanation for that video. He put everything back, returned the box to its place, locked it, and started out of the bank.

"Everything all right, Mr. Clifford?" Teresa Krepski asked when he was almost out the door.

"What? Oh, yes, thank you."

"Have a good day, Mr. Clifford, and please don't hesitate to call on me if you need anything," she said.

"Thank you," he said. She stood there watching him leave, a strange, soft smile on her face.

He could recall seeing the woman only once before, he thought, but she acts as if she's known me forever. And why is she so proud of me?

Could this town be too much of a good thing?

Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing?

He hurried to his office, moving now like someone being chased. When he arrived there, however, he couldn't get himself back into his work. The video still haunted him. He couldn't wait for Megan to return so he could confront her.

But what if it amounted to nothing? What if that video was simply a compilation of various trips? Many people did that with their videos, didn't they? She'd surely think he was severely paranoid. Maybe he was. Maybe that part of his condition was really getting worse. Shouldn't he be seeing another doctor, taking more tests?

He rose and walked to the front of the office. He truly was feeling as if he had stepped into a sea of anxiety and was on the verge of drowning. Gazing out his front windows at the quiet street in Driftwood, he was convinced that every single pedestrian, every driver in a car that passed his building, looked his way. The whole town was watching him, waiting to see what he would do next. He stepped back from the windows and closed the curtains quickly.

They'll put me away, he thought. I'm going to end up in some looney bin next.

Get back to work, he ordered himself. Recuperate, stay with the program. If you can't return to your old self, then at least strengthen the new Aaron Clifford, if not for your own sake, then for the sake of your family.

My family, he thought.

He felt something warm on his cheek and touched it. When he looked at the tip of his fingers, he saw they were wet, and when he glanced in the mirror in his office bathroom, he saw he had tears still streaking down his face.

For no apparent reason, just like Sophie, he had started to cry.

sixteen

Aaron decided not to make his questions about the video seem very important. As hard as it was for him, almost like keeping something rotten down in his stomach, he put it aside and instead, pretended to be busy at work and content when Megan returned from her trip with Mrs. Masters. At dinner she was crackling with excitement and very talkative herself, going into great detail about how she and Mrs. Masters had won the account of a major New York jewelry chain.

"Every precious jewel, every crystal has something unique about it, something that can stir up an emotion, an image, a whole scenario. What we did was take some of their products and create a storyboard for each. The sequences were mostly my own creation," she interjected with some modesty, "but they were good enough to impress the corporate suits. You know there was only one woman on the board. Can you imagine?

"Why is it that men are in control of things that mostly involve women, and not only in this country, but in most countries? Can you explain that to me, Aaron?"

He laughed. "No," he said.

"Even if men own the predominant bulk of shares, you'd think they would be smart enough to realize they can't make these decisions for women, these right decisions."

"But they did," Aaron said.

"Excuse me?" She looked up from her dinner plate.

"You said they agreed to use your firm, right? So they did realize it would be smarter for you gals to direct their marketing campaign."

She stared at him a moment and then smiled.

"But that was because of Mrs. Masters. She can be very persuasive, Aaron."

"Nevertheless, the men made the right decision in the end, didn't they?"

She looked as if she was attacking her food for a moment.

"They had no choice," she muttered. "If they wanted to be successful."

"Same thing," Aaron said.

"It's not the same thing, Aaron," she fired back at him. The tone in her voice startled him and alerted Sophie to the tenseness. Aaron glanced at her and saw she looked as if she might start to cry.

"All right, Megan," he said.

"It's not the same thing because we have to work harder for every opportunity, even the ones that logically belong in our hands. It's always been like that, always!"

"Okay, Megan. I understand."

"No, you don't," she said, still furious, "but that's expected."

"Why?"

"You're a man," she said. "You can't get beyond your gender."

''And you can?"

"Women have always had a more logical and perceptive intelligence, Aaron."

"Eve wasn't so perceptive," he countered.

She stared at him and then smiled, but so coolly she actually gave him a chill.

"That's a man's myth, Aaron. Naturally, we're the villains in it. Eve, Delilah, Jezebel, Lot's wife. . . It almost makes you think men actually fear women. Deep down inside their testosterone, they feel threatened by us, maybe because from birth to death they're so dependent on us and they think we'll desert them for something better."

"I thought it was the other way around. Women depended on the food getter, the protector."

''Another male myth, Aaron."

He stared back at her for a moment. She looked so different when she was angry, androgynous, with the physical strength to crush him.

Sophie ate slowly now, moving carefully like someone trying to get past a wild animal and not stir it up. The whole scene frightened him a bit. Megan seemed to sense it and smiled more warmly.

"But a good marriage like ours is true give and take, compromise and sharing, Aaron. I need you as much as I hope you need me, and I love feeling protected by you."

"Some protection," he muttered. "I'm like a shell. Strong wind comes along and I'll blow away."

"No, you're not. You're becoming perfect!" she cried.

"Becoming? How do you mean?"

"I mean you're regaining yourself, your talents. You're a wonderful lover, and you want to be a good father. That's perfect to me, Aaron."

"Sometimes I wonder what you saw in me originally, Megan. I said it once before and I'll say it again. I get the feeling you're happy I'm going through this struggle to regain my memory. It wouldn't bother you if I didn't remember anything before we moved to Driftwood."

"That's silly, Aaron, and not very nice. I love you and I feel terrible about what has happened to you. I'm trying to do everything I can to help you and so are my friends. Our new friends, I mean."

"Um," he said.

She looked furious again, shooting hot glances his way.

"Come on, Sophie, finish eating. It's getting late and you still have your book report to finish," Megan snapped, her tone sharp and hard.

"I'll help her," Aaron said quickly.

"Good," Megan said. They ate quietly for a while, and then Megan asked him about his day.

He wondered if he should start to talk about it, but opted to keep it on hold.

"I had a good day," he said. "I think I did some very good work."

"Oh, I know you did, Aaron."

"How do you know?"

"I'm just trying to be encouraging. Why are you jumping on my every word?"

"Sorry," he said. He did sense the testiness between them. It was as if their dinner conversation had been turned into a Ping-Pong game with words and innuendos the ball and rackets.

He was relieved when dinner ended and he could lose himself in Sophie's children's book version of Jason and the Argonauts. He sat beside her, looking over her shoulder and helping her read aloud. They were up to the part where Jason had to get past the sleeping dragon to get the golden fleece. Her children's book ended with his accomplishment and didn't mention anything that happened between Jason and his wife Medea afterward. That would be a horror for children to read anyway, Aaron thought. Medea took vicious revenge on her own children for Jason's desire to be with another woman. Not the fodder for elementary school book reports, he concluded.

For a moment he thought, how remarkable for me to remember all that. His vivid memory of history, books he had read, and lessons he had learned intrigued him. There is a very selective process to my amnesia, he thought, and yet Dr. Longstreet ruled out traumatic amnesia. How could these small strokes dull and destroy only certain things? he wondered again. She's never really answered that question for me. Oh, she's talked about repression and defense mechanisms and the like, but that explains why I have forgotten things, not why I remember things.

I should go to another doctor, he concluded. Megan would probably think of it as some sort of betrayal of Mrs. Masters and even of Dr. Longstreet, but it's my life, my health. Everyone involved in a serious illness should get a second opinion. It was just prudent behavior to do so. He vowed to himself that he would, even if he had to do it secretly for a while.

Megan helped Sophie get ready for bed, and as usual, he kissed her good night and then went down to the living room to relax. A short while later Megan joined him. For a moment she just stood there staring at him. Then she nodded, concluding.

"Something's bothering you, Aaron, and I don't mean your condition. You're not telling me everything."

"How do you know that?" he asked, impressed. ''You obviously know me far better than I know myself."

"Woman's superior perception," she joked, sitting across from him. "So?"

"Well, I decided to try to regain some memory by looking at the pictures and the videos. I can't believe how little we have," he quickly commented. "Isn't there more?

"No. I told you what you believed about all that. You could be very adamant when it came to your opinions, Aaron. Your conclusions were written in stone."

"You tell me that, but I just don't feel like that sort of person."

"People experience personality changes with your condition, too, Aaron."

"How do you know that?"

She hesitated and then sat back.

"I had a private session with Dr. Longstreet. I didn't want to upset you, so I didn't tell you about it," she added quickly.

''And?"

"We talked about your changing behavior and personality, and she said it was very common with right hemisphere CVA's. Usually, it involves more negative changes. People are less tolerant, insensitive, driven to rage quicker, stuff like that. We agreed that what you're experiencing so far doesn't require any additional medication."

"Thanks for letting me know."

"I'm sorry. I was just trying to—"

"Protect me? That superior female perception is at work again," he said bitterly.

She was quiet, looking more hurt than angry now.

"I saw something on one of our two family videos that confused me," he said.

"Oh?"

"We're on a beach, or at least you and Megan are, and in the next sequence, I'm on a beach."

"So?"

"I'm not on the same beach," he said. "I'm on the West Coast, and you two are on the East."

"What? Oh," she said, smiling. "You were editing some other tapes once. Maybe you put things together."

"Yeah, but why did I put only myself walking on a beach?"

"It was practically the only time you went before the camera," she said. "You were always the one taking the pictures. What's the big deal? That's what bothering you so much?" she asked with a look of incredulity.

He nodded.

"Is that why you decided to go to our bank deposit box today instead of waiting for me to go along?" she asked.

"How did you know?"

"Mrs. Masters and I stopped at the bank on the way back into town, and Teresa Krepski told me you were there earlier."

He stared at her.

"It was a harmless revelation, Aaron. Stop looking like you were being spied upon or something."

"That's the way it makes me feel."

"We're a small community. It's not unusual at all. Wouldn't you rather people were personable than indifferent to each other?"

"I don't know. I'm beginning to feel that a certain indifference has its charm."

"That's silly, Aaron."

"Well, aren't you going to ask me why I went to our safety deposit box?"

She shrugged. "To check on the policies, documents. I don't know. What's the difference? You needed the reassurance that we have the proper insurance policies, or maybe that we were indeed married, I suppose. Did you get it? Was everything about what you would expect it to be?"

"Yes."

She grimaced. "You still look displeased, Aaron. Why? Did you want to find something wrong?"

"Of course not. I just—"

"What?"

"Feel so. . . so temporary. I needed to see those documents, to see some of my history in a sense."

"Aaron. . . "

"No, you don't understand it all, Megan. I don't either, and that's what scares me sometimes. This afternoon," he said after a pause and a deep breath, "I realized I was crying and I didn't know why. I was like Sophie, tears running down my cheeks without my realizing it. It frightened me," he admitted.

Rather than looking sorry and compassionate, Megan appeared angrier.

"That's not unexpected," she said sharply, "for someone who has had your problem, but it would end quicker if you would stop fighting everything."

"Fighting?"

"Looking under the bed, in closets, scouring through old papers and pictures. You're behaving like some trapped animal, clawing at the walls."

"I am?"

"Yes, you are," she said angrily. "What did you think that stupid video meant anyway?"

"I don't know," he said. She looked aggressive enough to leap off the chair and do all the clawing herself. It occurred to him that she was feeling terrible, distrusted, even a little betrayed. He really didn't know what the video meant, and now he felt foolish for creating such a crisis. "I'm sorry. I'm sure you're right about me."

"Look," she said in a calmer tone. "You've suffered and you have symptoms and you have some problems to overcome. Nothing new here since this all began, Aaron. Just try harder to relax. Enjoy your new life. Please. You're going to make bigger problems for us," she warned.

"Us?"

"What happens to you, happens to us," she said. "Don't you believe that?"

"Yes," he said, relenting.

"I think we both need an early night, Aaron. I'm going up to do some reading in bed and relax."

"Okay. I'm sorry," he said.

"Nothing to be sorry about yet. Call the doctor tomorrow and go ask her more questions and get yourself the relief you need from these concerns, Aaron, okay?"

"Of course."

"Good," she said, smiling. "Want me to run you a nice hot bath? You always liked that when you were upset."

He nodded. "Sounds good."

"I'll even wash your back," she offered with that now familiar lusty smile.

He laughed. "Okay," he said.

"Oh, it's more than just okay, Aaron. It's a lot more than that," she said and left to go upstairs.

He looked after her, smiling to himself for a moment. It was just as he thought: nothing to write home about.

Funny expression to come to mind, he thought as he stood, especially since he was home.

The steamy, fragrant water reached his nostrils in undulating waves stirred by Megan's gently dipping the soft sponge into the bath and then bringing it to his back and shoulders, washing his neck and his shoulders in small, delightful circles. She guided his head back to rest on the soft foamy pillow stuck to the rear of their whirlpool tub, and then she brought her hands around and down his chest. He had his eyes closed, but when he opened them, she was hovering over him, naked, her breasts grazing his face. He moaned his pleasure. She smiled and reached lower and lower.

"Happier now?" she asked.

"Like a pig in warm mud," he said, and she laughed.

"Exactly," she said.

She got him aroused, and then she stepped over the edge of the tub and lowered herself into the water. They kissed and she rested her head against his shoulder, keeping the sponge on his lower stomach, tantalizing him with her small, effective caressing.

"Why can't you just accept what we are now, Aaron?" she asked as she kissed his ear, his cheek. "Why can't you do battle against any and all challenges to that?"

"I will," he promised. "I will."

She brought her lips to his, and then they made love in the bathtub, slowly, with long, deep thrusts that seemed to draw him deeper and deeper inside her, inside himself. He felt like a man gradually loosening his grip on the sides of a deep hole, dropping himself into a place so soothing and warm, it rivaled the womb.

This was as close to erotic ecstasy as he would ever be, he thought and vowed not to do anything to spoil it.

Afterward, he slept like a baby, and when he woke in the morning, he couldn't remember why he had been so uptight the day before. Some forgetfulness is good, he concluded. He ate a full breakfast and went off to work like a man who intended to brand his name on the hide of history.

Over the next week his work went exceedingly well. He and Harlan Nolan had a number of meetings at the site. He made some changes, adding another small green area with benches and a Roman fountain. Again, Harlan agreed quickly and made no complaint about the additional costs. Aaron truly enjoyed having so great a sense of creative freedom. Every time they met, Harlan bragged about another retail shop signing a contract.

''And it's all because of your concept, Aaron. People will come from all over to see this place," Harlan assured him. "You're going to get a lot more work because of it."

His enthusiasm for this project spilled over to David Carpenter's. They, too, had a number of meetings. In fact, his work absorbed him and ate up so much of his time, he began to fear he was returning to the type of husband and father Megan had described him being before the Event, as they both liked to refer to it now.

Megan laughed at his fears. "Don't worry, Aaron," she said. "I'll let you know when you're neglecting us. That's a promise."

Except for the occasional day when she or he was late coming home from work, their family evenings did seem sacrosanct. They made it a cardinal rule not to answer the phone during their dinner hour, and both of them made sure to spend quality time helping Sophie do her homework.

That weekend he called Sophie into his home office, and they began together to design her new tree house. She had made a number of new friends, and she had informed him that they, as well as she, were waiting anxiously for the finished product.

"We might declare it our clubhouse," she told him. "If it's big enough."

"How many members of your club do you expect to have, Sudsy?"

She thought a moment, her eyes moving back and forth as if she was reading the names of her classmates in the air and deciding whom would be chosen and whom would not.

"I should think at least four, Daddy," she said with an air of certainty that brought a smile to his lips. She could sound so much older at times.

Indeed, Sophie was developing her own personality, he concluded, especially after this week of activity with her. She's a little like me, a lot like Megan, but really more and more different from the both of us. At times she was intense, determined, focused even more than he could be, and at times she was suddenly a dreamer, back to being an innocent child with an imagination that knew no boundaries. Logic and reason were tossed out the window. She would pretend to have magic powers and make her eyes small while she looked out at someone, or some thing, she was going to change.

"There," she would tell him, "it's done. The flower is alive again" or "That car is now pink."

She was so convincing, she made him laugh. How he enjoyed her, enjoyed the affected way she would turn her hands to express herself, holding up her pinkie finger, or spin herself around after asking for something and cry, "Please, Daddy, please, please, please."

She was truly a magical child. How could he ever turn her down or even discipline her—not that there was much need for discipline. A more obedient child would have to be robotic, he thought. Megan simply had to tell her something, and she would obey. Rarely did Megan or he, for that matter, have to explain why or why not. Sometimes he thought Sophie instinctively knew it all anyway. Sometimes, she seemed older, wiser than any other child her age, not that he was all that familiar with children and child psychology. It was just an observation, and observing is what he often caught himself doing.

Frequently he would sit back or step away and watch his daughter as if he had just arrived from another planet and wanted to learn about Earth children. He caught the way she would scrutinize her work, how her eyes fixed on purpose, or how the smile took form on her face when she achieved whatever she set out to do, and then suddenly, as if she had a sixth sense, she would look up at him and see how he had been staring at her. Neither of them seemed embarrassed by it. It was almost as if she understood it was something he couldn't help, something she expected.

"I'd like my tree house to have a steep roof this time, Daddy. Okay?"

"Hmm," he said, thinking. ''You mean like our house?"

"Yes, wouldn't that be nice?"

"I suppose it would, but I don't know how much room we have on that tree, Sudsy. Let's go do some measuring," he decided, and the two of them went out.

Megan was on the phone in the kitchen talking with Laurie Corkin.

"Laurie's found someone," she whispered to him. "Apparently, she's been seeing him often. He's a very successful CPA. She's thinking of inviting him to Mrs. Masters's Thanksgiving dinner."

"Great. We're going to plan our new home," he said, nodding at Sophie.

Megan smiled and watched them leave through the back door.

They approached the tree, and he stepped back to contemplate how he would hinge the tree house safely, what branches he would cut.

"It's got to be bigger than the one we had before, Daddy," Sophie instructed, "and I need more windows and I want curtains and maybe we could have the rug on the floor, too."

He thought for a moment and looked at her.

"Is that what we did in the last one?"

She laughed.

"Of course, Daddy. It took you a week to build it last time. Can you build it faster this time? I'll help. I'll have my friends help, too, if we need them."

"A week?"

He looked back toward the house and thought again. How come he had been so good a father when it came to building the tree house? How long ago had he done it? Was Sophie confusing him with Jason again? Jason would have been gone by then, and anyway, Megan had given him credit for building the tree house. He remembered that. Still, Sophie might have that confusion again.

"Did your uncle help us?" he asked softly, practically holding his breath.

Sophie stared ahead as if she hadn't heard him.

"No one helped us then, Daddy," was her reply.

"Okay," he said quickly. "I've got it in my head. Let's go draw it and see if it will work for you."

She nodded and started back toward the house. He gazed up at the tree. Why didn't he have vivid recollections of this sort of thing? He had really done well over the last week, not having a single strange hallucination. That all seemed to be coming to an end, just as the doctor had predicted, but the subsequent return of good memories wasn't following as rapidly as Aaron had hoped. He felt as if he was not only being cheated by losing the happy times, but he was cheating his daughter as well.

I've got to do something to stimulate it all, he thought, and came up with an idea. Without knowing why, however, he felt sure Megan would not approve. She was content, very content, with his not making any efforts that would in any way disturb the smooth and successful course they had taken and were now following. Nevertheless, despite his new and vibrant happiness, he needed more. Megan wouldn't want to hear about that. She would come back as she often had with, "Why do you need any more than this? Why would any man?"

He supposed that was so for most men, at least most of the men he had met in Driftwood. Whenever he talked with them, spent time at dinners or lunches, he had the sense that they were complacent and as content as—and it made him smile to think it—pigs in mud. Morgan Asher had told him that night at dinner that most of the men here didn't care what they knew and what they didn't know about their wives' financial endeavors. They had what they wanted to make themselves very comfortable, and nothing else seemed to matter. It was as if they were truly locked up in the present. Worrying about the future, reliving the past didn't occur, didn't have a place in Driftwood.

In a real sense, Aaron thought, they were all just drifting. What looks more contented that a log floating along, bobbing gently in the water, not concerned with direction? Everyone here, especially the men he knew, was on his back, hands behind his head, soaking in the sunlight and smiling. Why do anything to change that?

Why indeed?

He debated all the next day, sometimes concluding that he shouldn't do it and sometimes feeling he had no choice. In the end he decided it could do little harm just to look, just to take a few quick glances to see what it brought back.

He was thinking of going home, returning to the house in Westport, walking on the property. Maybe the old tree house was still up. Maybe the new owners wouldn't mind his coming into the house. What harm could any of this do? It actually excited him just contemplating it.

On Saturday he had the lumber for the new tree house delivered. Late that day and most of the next, he worked on securing the floor and building a safe ladder. Megan stepped out to watch during the morning, sipping coffee and smiling at Sophie and him. Later, Terri Richards and Debbie Asher came over to have lunch and visit and watch as well. Sometimes, when he looked back at the three of them sitting on the patio, they all had the same strange expression of deep concern on their faces. They did a lot of whispering and some laughing, but for the most part, they sat as if they were in some sort of theater enjoying a serious performance of some very serious play

He even kidded them by asking, "Well, what are the reviews like?"

"It's going to be a beautiful tree house, Aaron," Terri said with so wistful a smile, he had to laugh. She made it seem as if he were building her dream house and not a child's playhouse.

"I'd have you build our new house any day," Debbie said. "We're thinking of it, you know."

"Oh, are you?"

"We're all thinking of building bigger houses, Aaron," Megan said. "We should. We deserve it, don't you think?"

"This is a pretty nice and unique house," he replied. 'And plenty big enough."

"Of course it is and that's why it will be easy for us to sell it when we are ready to," she said. "We're all thinking of building on the crest of Aeaea Circle. We thought it would be wonderful to have our own private custom home development."

"Aeaea Circle? Where's that?" he asked, smiling.

"It's really behind Mrs. Masters's property. We're thinking of getting it developed within the year," Debbie said. "Morgan's doing the preliminary work for us."

"Oh. You never mentioned it to me," Aaron told Megan.

"It's just in the wishful-thinking stages at the moment," she replied.

"Doesn't sound like it if Morgan's doing preliminary work," he shot back.

The girls held their soft smiles, but their eyes met and then turned back to him.

"Aeaea Circle? Who came up with that name?" he followed.

"We all did," Megan replied quickly. "At work one day. You know what it is? It's a palindrome."

''A what?"

''A palindrome, a word that's the same when read backward or forward."

"Oh."

"Don't you like it?" Terri asked. "It's Greek and sounds sort of mythical."

He shrugged. "It's fine," he said. "Whatever keeps the boys close to home," he added, and they all laughed as if he had said the most hysterical thing.

"That's it exactly," Debbie said.

"Yes," Terri added.

Aaron smiled, shook his head at them and returned to work. Their own housing development, Greek names. They made it all seem so simple. How could he be upset with them anyway? he thought. They were attractive, bright, and took joy in everything, keeping the world around him and themselves rose-colored. Sometimes, being with them made him feel as if it was always the holiday season in Driftwood, with happy surprises waiting under every tree.

Nevertheless, on Tuesday morning, he made the impulsive decision to visit the old house instead of going to work.

He didn't know it yet, but that would change everything.

seventeen

He had not yet corrected the address on his driver's license. He glanced at it before he left. If it wasn't for that, he might not have remembered where exactly to go. It was part of that gray area that swept in over his memory like fog, mixing numbers, names, and places in a potpourri of images and recollections that often made no sense. Megan apparently had done a good job of having their address changed at the post office and informing everyone and every company with whom they had business or contact. Not a single envelope arrived with Forward To stamped on it. It was truly as if their former address had popped into thin air along with so much of his past life.

Tuesday began completely overcast. He feared a heavy downpour and almost decided to postpone his trip, but around nine the clouds began to break up and shafts of sunlight, almost like the beams of an enormous search light or spotlight, glittered on the roads and streets, encouraging him to travel.

As Megan was leaving with Sophie that morning, he told her he would be in and out of the office and might have lunch with David Carpenter.

"So don't be concerned if you call and I'm gone for a while," he said.

"Okay. Oh. Terri mentioned the possibility of our joining her and Leonard for dinner tonight," Megan said. "How's that sound?"

"Fine. You know," he added, "I was wondering about Mrs. Masters. How come you don't mention her when it comes to going out to dinner or anything on weekends?"

"She travels so much during the week, she values her private time, especially on weekends. She enjoys having people over for her grand dinner parties more. Don't forget, Thanksgiving dinner at her house Thursday. Laurie will definitely be unveiling her new male discovery."

"Right," he said.

They kissed.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Fine," he replied quickly, hopefully not too quickly. Megan often surprised him with her intuition. Did she sense he was keeping something from her? Her look of concern dissipated.

"Don't work too hard," she warned from the doorway.

"I didn't think that was possible or rather, necessary in Driftwood."

Megan laughed.

"You're beginning to fit in perfectly, Aaron. I always knew you would," she added and left.

An hour or so later when the sky began to clear, he was on his way to 5467 North Wildwood Drive, Westport. He didn't know why it should, but just thinking about it and actually heading in that direction made his hands tremble so much he had to squeeze the steering wheel hard and hold on to it as if he were steering a sailboat in a storm.

As he approached the outskirts of Driftwood, a terrible sense of nausea overtook him, almost causing him to go off the road. He slowed down to take deep breaths, and then he pulled to the side and looked at himself in the rearview mirror. He thought he looked very pale, ashen, his eyes sunken, his lips a dull orange.

What's wrong with me? he wondered. I'm just taking a relatively short ride. Nothing he had eaten could have made him feel this way. Actually, all he had for breakfast was some orange juice, lightly buttered toast, and coffee. Was he coming down with some sort of flu? His heart was racing so hard, he felt a bit dizzy. He debated turning around and heading for the doctor's office. Maybe he was about to have another attack!

Suddenly, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, a sleek black Town Car pulled up beside his and the rear window went down. He looked out to see Mrs. Masters.

"Aaron," she called to him.

He lowered his window, too.

"Hello," he said and forced a smile.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "I saw your car pulled over and was concerned."

"I'm okay. I just had a little nausea. It seems to be passing," he added.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I was just looking at some land out here, thinking of a project."

"Oh? Megan didn't mention anything out here," she said.

He looked closer at her and thought she looked rather attractive and elegantly dressed for this time of the day.

"No, it's something I've been considering only in my mind. I thought I'd surprise everyone if it turns out to be a viable idea."

"Love to hear about it at dinner Thursday," she said. "Did you need anything? I carry some of those antacid drops or something, don't I, Ule?" she asked the driver. Aaron couldn't see him through the darkly tinted windows, but he heard a man say, "Yes."

"I don't think I need them," Aaron said. "It's passing."

"Good. Well have a good day, Aaron. We're all very proud of you and what you've already accomplished in so short a time," she added.

Her window went up. Aaron watched her automobile pull away, gliding silently, gracefully over the highway until it disappeared from view.

He took another deep breath and put his gearshift back in drive to pull away himself and continue, but as he accelerated, his car began to buck.

"What the hell?" He took his foot off the accelerator. The engine hummed. He accelerated again and again, the car bucked and jerked as if the gas flow was being interrupted. "Damn it!" he cried and pounded the steering wheel with frustration. I guess I'll have to call for a tow, he thought.

Before he did so, he looked at the engine himself. In neutral, it seemed to purr as usual, but as soon as he shifted and started forward, the engine hesitated. He played with it for a while and then put it in reverse and tried turning back toward town. When he did that, the engine didn't sputter and the car didn't buck at all. He hit the brake and listened.

It sounds all right now, he thought. Maybe I blew out some dirt in the gas line, he concluded, and turned around, again heading out of Driftwood. Just as he approached the next turn, the car did it again. It bucked, jerked, and nearly stalled. Nevertheless, he kept his foot on the accelerator. A hundred or so yards ahead of him was the sign that indicated a driver was leaving Driftwood and across from it was the welcoming sign for those approaching from the opposite direction. The sign greeted people who left by thanking them for shopping in Driftwood. Below the words were a pair of bright red feminine lips in a smile.

He nearly didn't make it to the sign. The engine died, and then, when he rolled past the sign, the engine suddenly came back with a roar because he had the accelerator down hard. The rear wheels squealed, spun, and burned rubber as the Corvette shot forward with such thrust, he nearly lost control. It spun to the right before he managed to pull it back onto the road and slow down. After that, the car ran smoothly.

What the hell was all that about? he wondered. He realized one good thing had resulted—his concern for the car engine had taken his attention from his nausea. Now that he was sailing along, he found that had disappeared as well. He settled back, tried to relax, and continued on his journey. When he glanced in the rearview mirror, however, he thought he spotted that black Town Car back by the Driftwood Chamber of Commerce sign. It backed up, turned, and headed toward Driftwood. Had Mrs. Masters been following him? Why would she do that? She was dressed, heading somewhere important when he had seen her. It had to be someone else.

All this made his heart pound, and he was concerned about a possible relapse. How would he explain collapsing on some highway outside of Driftwood? Megan would be furious. Everyone would think he had gone mad and maybe his lightning-like rush toward success in the community would come to an abrupt halt. He was actually terrified of that and filled with an onslaught of anxiety that made him feel weak. It chopped away at his resolve to continue.

Turn back, turn back, he heard a voice chanting in his mind. Or like Lot's wife in the Bible, you'll become a pillar of salt. All will be lost, Aaron. Stop this madness. Go home, go forward, not back. Don't look back.

He shook his head as if the person speaking to him were there in the car beside him.

I've got to regain my identity. I've got to keep working at finding myself, he insisted.

I am a schizophrenic, he concluded. I'm arguing with myself like some lunatic.

He drove on. When he entered Westport, he found that he couldn't recall the way to Wildwood Drive. Megan had picked him up in the evening that fateful day, and he really hadn't paid much attention to the route. He had been far too upset.

He pulled into a gas station and went to the cashier. When he asked for directions, the young woman thought a moment and then shook her head.

"I don't know that street," she said. "Sorry."

"Thanks," he replied and gazed around. He decided to pull in front of the supermarket across the way. He chose a bald-headed man in a sports jacket and slacks who was heading for his vehicle and carrying two shopping bags.

"Wildwood Drive?" He stood there a moment and shook his head. "No, don't know it, and I've been living here nearly twenty years. Sure it's in Westport?"

"I . . ." Aaron looked around. "Yes," he said. He wanted to pull out his wallet to show him, but how would he explain to a stranger that he was carrying the address on his driver's license and didn't know how to get to his own former address?

"My suggestion is go to the fire department," the man said. "They've got to know every address."

"Good idea, thanks," Aaron said and followed directions to the firehouse.

Three fireman were sitting around a small table, having coffee, reading the newspaper and talking. The station was quiet, immaculate, as if it had not yet been used for its first alarm. The firemen looked up when Aaron entered.

"Sorry to bother you," he began.

"How can we help you?" the tallest of the three asked. They were all pretty well built and tall, none looking more than forty at most.

Aaron asked for directions, and they looked at each other and shook their heads.

"Let me check our maps," the tallest one said and rose. He went into a side office and spread his map on the table. Aaron watched him run his finger down the index before looking up. "It's not in Westport," he declared firmly.

"No, you don't understand. It has to be," Aaron said with new urgency. He decided to relate his story. The three listened with interest and amazement.

''Amnesia?" the youngest of the three asked. "Wow."

"You said your next-door neighbor was a Mr. and Mrs. Domfort?" one of the other fireman asked.

"Yes."

"What about that, Bill?" he asked the tallest of the three.

He nodded. "Let's see," he said and checked another book of records. He shook his head. "No Domforts, sorry. I'm sure your confusion has—"

"Wait," Aaron said and took out his wallet, turning to his driver's license. "Just look at this." He handed it over to the fireman, who read it and looked up at him.

"I don't understand, sir," he said.

"That's what I'm saying. If I had that address on my license, it has to be here, right?"

"But you don't have that address," the fireman said.

"What?"

Aaron took it back and read it. He stood there, blinking down at his license.

Printed clearly on it was his Driftwood address.

"I swear, when I set out today. . . "

He looked up at the three of them, all of them looking at him with expressions of pity.

"Maybe you ought to go back to speak with your physician, Mr. Clifford," Bill said. The other two nodded.

"How about my name?" Aaron asked desperately. "Would there be a record of me having owned property here?" he asked.

"Was the change made this year?" Bill asked with a note of skepticism.

"Yes."

"Just a moment," he said and returned to his office. Aaron waited, watching.

The fireman looked up.

"Well?"

"No Aaron Clifford, sir. Sorry," he said. "I'm afraid you never owned property in Westport."

They were all of one face now, a combination of pity and amazement.

"Maybe you ought to go down to the police station," Bill said. "Explain it to them, get them to call your family, sir. If you're lost. . . "

"We can call the police for you," the closer of the other two offered.

"No," Aaron said, terrified of the idea. He couldn't imagine what would happen if he was returned to Driftwood in a police car. He smiled at the three firemen.

"I'm fine," he continued. "I just got a little confused. No problem. Really. Thanks. I'm all right," he added and backed up. "I've . . . I've got to go home," he insisted and left quickly.

For nearly fifteen minutes he drove aimlessly through the small city's streets. Finally he parked where he could see Long Island Sound and sat there, watching a small sailboat navigating the bay, moving lazily in the wind. He envied the sailor, the peace of mind and contentment he must be feeling. Out there, caught in the wind, held in the palm of the water, he surely thought of nothing and for a while at least, felt connected, felt part of something greater than himself and in that sense, felt truly free.

Aaron had hoped that when he came back here, he would discover a faster route to his recuperation. Now, instead, he believed he had delivered himself to an even worse situation, not only disconnecting himself from his distant past but also his most recent history. In fact, he had no history now except for his history in Driftwood, he thought. Why? More important, what was he to do now?

He looked toward Manhattan. According to what Megan had told him, he had once had an active career there. If he couldn't connect any dots here, maybe he could do it in the city where he had spent so much of his work life previously. There had to be associates, friends, acquaintances who would help him fill in blanks. Surely, there were many familiar places where there would be people who remembered him and remembered him well.

He checked the time, started the car, and drove out, determined to go to New York. However, he had to stop at a service station to get directions. Was that because he had never driven into the city, he only had taken public transportation? Or was it because he truly never lived anywhere near here? he wondered.

The attendant put him on 1-95 South and told him it would take him a little more than an hour. Aaron was in lower Manhattan in fifty minutes. He almost wished he would be pulled over for speeding. The traffic cop would have had to consider his driving history and might have given him a hint as to who he has been. He'd welcome anything, even an arrest record.

When he reached Madison Avenue, he found a parking garage and walked to the corner of Fiftieth, where from the business cards he had in his wallet he knew the Clovis offices to be. He was gratified when he found the company's name in the lobby directory. At least he wasn't wrong about this. No fireman here to tell him no such place existed. Finally he would touch something substantial.

He took the elevator to the fifteenth floor and went right to Clovis and Associates.

The entryway was impressive, two extra-wide and tall dark maple doors that opened to a chocolate-and-white marble floor. These offices looked plush, proudly announcing a very successful firm through its expensive paintings on the panel walls, the elaborate lighting fixtures, and costly artifacts on tables and pedestals.

The receptionist's desk faced the door. A young woman, not more than twenty-five, twenty-six at most, looked up at him, but talked to someone on her headphone. He waited. She smiled at him and then paused after directing a call.

"May I help you?"

"Are you Maggie?" he asked.

"Maggie? No. Who's Maggie?"

"Oh, I thought that was the name of at least one of the receptionists. I spoke to her recently."

"There's no one working here named Maggie," she said a bit irritated. "My name is Deana. Unless Maggie was one of the temps we've hired from time to time," she added.

"Okay. I'm Aaron Clifford." He waited, but she didn't respond. "You don't remember me, know who I am?" he asked.

She stared at him and then spoke into her tiny microphone. "Clovis and Associates. One moment please." She looked at him again. "I'm sorry," she said. "What were you saying?"

"How long have you been working here?"

"Four years," she replied.

He shook his head.

"That doesn't make any sense," he muttered.

"How can I help you?" she asked with far more irritability.

"I need to see Mr. Clovis immediately," he said. "It's urgent."

"You don't have an appointment?"

"It's truly a matter of life and death," he emphasized.

She raised her eyebrows, but he wasn't sure if she was impressed or she was going to burst into a fit of laughter at his dramatic response. Instead, she curled her lips in at the corners and said, "Clovis and Associates. One moment please."

He could feel his patience shrinking inside his stomach and quickly being replaced with a ball of fire.

"Please, tell him Aaron Clifford is here," he demanded. "He'll see me."

"Just a minute," she said. He waited and listened.

"Excuse me, Mr. Clovis, but there is an Aaron Clifford out here who insists on seeing you immediately." Her smile cut into her face as if it had been carved with a sharp knife. "He says it's a matter of life or death. Yes," she replied to some question. "Very well, sir."

She looked up at Aaron.

"You go to your left, third door on your right," she instructed.

"Thank you," he replied. Now we're getting somewhere, he thought. She's just an airhead.

As he walked through the hallway and inner offices, he realized nothing about the place seemed even remotely familiar to him. He wondered which office had been his and if he entered it now, would that help restore all the memories here? He did have memories of architectural projects, but where did he work on them?

He knocked gently on the door and entered the office. A man no more than in his late forties at most looked up from a very large, dark oak desk. He was a slim, tall man with short, dark brown hair and dark eyes, almost ebony. His facial features were sharp, his nose especially, and his lips thin and cut above a nearly square jaw. He wore a dark gray three-piece suit and tie and looked distinguished, confident, and successful, a quintessential New York City corporate executive prepared to be featured on the cover of GQ or the like. He even possessed a George Hamilton tan.

He sat back in his desk chair.

"Mr. Clovis?" Aaron asked. The man he had spoken to on the telephone had a much older, gruffer-sounding voice and, from what Megan had told him, was in his seventies. Was there more than the one son who had possibly committed suicide?

"Yes. How can I help you?"

"You don't know who I am?"

Clovis sat forward, studying him and shaking his head.

"Sorry. Refresh my memory."

"That's what I'm here to do for myself," Aaron said, his voice soaked with self-pity, "to no avail it seems."

"Excuse me?"

"Is your father here?" he asked, hoping.

Clovis sat up straighter.

"Not for the last four years. He worked until the day he died," he said.

"Died?"

"What is this about, Mr . . ."

"Clifford, Aaron Clifford. I used to work here until relatively recently," Aaron said and stepped forward, reaching into his breast pocket.

"What? Worked here?"

Without further comment, Aaron pulled out his wallet, dug out his business cards and put them on the desk in front of Clovis who gazed down at them.

"I don't understand. What's this have to do with Clovis and Associates?"

Aaron looked at his puzzled expression and then lifted his cards and read one.

It had his new business on it and the address was in Driftwood.

"No!" he cried. "Not these cards, too. This can't be happening."

"Listen, Mr. . ."

"Clifford. Aaron Clifford."

"Mr. Clifford. The associates and my one partner who are here now have been here for more than ten years. Even if you had worked here before my father's death, I think I would know that. What exactly is this about?"

"I don't know," Aaron said staring blankly at the window and the skyscrapers in view. He seemed to fall into a daze, and it was a few moments before he heard the man speaking.

"Excuse me? Mr. Clifford?"

"What?" Aaron looked at him. "Oh. I'm sorry. I'm very confused. Recently, I suffered a cerebral stroke and lost much of my memory. I've been trying to track back, restore my past so to speak."

"Well, that might explain it. I'm afraid you've confused this firm with another."

"Didn't I do a project here, Sandburg Village? A mall in upstate New York?"

Clovis shook his head. "Sorry. We've never done a mall anywhere."

"Never?"

"I can't help you," he emphasized. "Are you under a doctor's care?"

"Yes, yes, I am."

"Perhaps you should go back to see him."

"My doctor's a woman, a renown neurologist."

"Fine. You should speak to her again about all this."

"Yes. Yes, I guess I should. I'm sorry I bothered you. Thank you. Sorry," he said and backed up to the door.

Clovis stared at him, shaking his head gently.

"Thank you," Aaron repeated and stepped out of the office. He felt as if he had stepped into a sauna. He could feel the sweat running down the back of his neck and over his spine. He tried to swallow and take a deep breath.

I can't faint in here, he told himself. Got to get outside. Got to get some air.

He hurried down the hallway, barely glancing at the receptionist, who was ignoring him anyway as he left the offices. The elevator was stifling. Everyone in it seemed to be watching him suspiciously. He could feel eyes on the back of his head, the sideward glances. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead like pimples. He wiped them off with his jacket sleeve to keep them from running into his eyes. The moment the door opened in the lobby, he shot out and into the street, where he stopped, closed his eyes, and took deep breaths of air. Car horns blared. People brushed against him. The city was exploding all around him.

I've got to get out of here, he thought. I've got to get home.

He practically ran up the street, knocking into people, pushing through clumps of pedestrians until he reached the parking lot. After he got into his car and paid his fee, he tore into the street nearly rear-ending a delivery truck. People on both sides stopped to look at the sound of his brakes screaming. He gazed around at them all.

The whole city was watching him now, he thought. They could see; they could tell he was a man without a mind, a man without an identity, a man without a soul. Some grimaced; some shook their heads in disgust and turned away. No one smiled. No one looked sympathetic or compassionate. He was back amongst the same people who had sat with him on that train when it all had begun. He was back amongst the indifferent citizens in the country of the dead.

He made a number of wrong turns, got lost repeatedly, and was finally forced to pull over and ask a taxi driver for directions. The man spoke a poor English. He was a Seek and was hard to understand. Aaron struggled with the instructions and finally found his way into the heavy line of rush-hour traffic leaving New York. He had entered the arteries of hell, flowing slowly, painfully toward the promise of relief if one would just suffer the penance. In the meantime the stop-and-go movement intensified his headache. It felt like a vise had been put over his head and was tightening at the temples. He tried to keep himself calm.

Stress is a killer. I'm surely about to have another stroke, he warned himself, but the warning only created more and more anxiety. Soon he began to sound his horn the same way other frustrated drivers around him were doing. In minutes he was indistinguishable from the maddened people, his face contorted, his eyes bulging with rage at construction, hesitant drivers, and aggressive taxi cab drivers who cut him off.

His clothes felt sopping wet. When he glanced at himself in the rearview mirror, he looked distorted, the veins in his temples embossed, his complexion crimson, his nostrils flared. What he wanted the most was to crawl, claw, pull himself up and out of his skin and leave this grotesque shell of a body beside him, discarded like a banana peel, fodder for garbage compactors.

The car itself, once a wonderfully engineered work of luxury, now seemed to be a metallic coffin, closing in on him, shrinking. Soon he would be crushed to death between the steel and glass. They'd find his body stamped on the highway, his eyes wide, hysterical, ghastly.

But no one would care. They'd shovel him up and dump him along with the rest of the litter that grew on city streets. What value was there to the remnants of someone who had no name, no place in time, no reason to be? He couldn't even cry about it because he didn't know what he had lost.

Suddenly the traffic lightened up, and he discovered he was able to drive faster and with less tension. The tension seeped out of his body. He settled more comfortably in his seat and felt himself breathing easier. He had no idea how he had found his way, had made the right choices, and had headed in the right direction, but what after was literally over two and a half hours later, he saw that familiar sign beckoning him ahead, the sign welcoming the oncoming traffic to Driftwood.

A community where everyone does his best work.

eighteen

It was late in the afternoon when he returned from New York. His house had an abandoned look. Shadows cast by a retreating sun sliding below and between streams of lazily flowing, soiled-looking gray clouds deepened and stretched over the arched windows and the full-length porch. Some of the windows gleamed like mirrors. It was as if the inhabitants wanted to prevent even the birds from gazing into their lives. Curtains were drawn closed, and no lit lamps glowed behind them. When the garage door went up, Aaron saw that Megan's car was not there.

He drove in, sat there a moment listening for sounds from the house after he turned off the engine. Hearing nothing, he got out and entered the house. Weakly illuminated by the late-afternoon light, the inside was no less gloomy. It had more of a sense of desertion. It had the feel of a home from which the residents had made a very quick and frantic flight. His footsteps actually echoed as he moved through it.

"Hello?" he called in case Megan was there or someone was there with Sophie. His voice died in the entryway hall. He flicked on a light, gazed around, and then hurried to the stairway. He had something he wanted to check, one last vestige of hope that he prayed would connect him with the events that had brought him here, that would help him make some concrete sense out of what he was able to remember. Without looking at anything else, he went directly to his closet in the bedroom after turning on the light and sifted through the garments until he located the jacket he had worn the evening of madness when he had returned on the train from Grand Central.

He searched so frantically, he ripped one of the pockets. When his fingers touched the slip of paper within the right inside pocket, he took a deep breath and slowly brought it out.

In his palm he held the receipt of the ticket to Westport he had purchased at the suggestion of that young, blond-haired man in the gray pin-stripe suit. He wasn't going mad after all. These events had occurred. He had the ticket to prove it. Still, seeing this proof, this reality before him, left him cold and even more frightened. If he had been there and he had gone to his home there, why was it all gone now?

The ringing of the phone shook him out of his musings abruptly and made his heart pound. He looked at the telephone on the nightstand by the bed and listened to it ring again and again before he approached it and slowly lifted the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Aaron."

"Megan, where are you? Where's Sophie? What's going on?" he asked in quick succession.

"We've been waiting for you to return. We're at Mrs. Masters's house, Aaron. You have to come here now," she said. She sounded drugged, her voice listless, distant.

"What is it? Why are we meeting there?"

"It will all be explained when you arrive, Aaron. When you go out, you'll see Mrs. Masters's Town Car waiting for you. Just get in."

"Why?"

"Please, Aaron." He heard her take a deep breath. "You've embarrassed me enough."

"Embarrassed you? I don't understand."

"The car's waiting for you, Aaron."

"I'm the one who's been embarrassed, Megan. I'm the one with all the questions that have to be answered."

He heard only silence.

"Where's Sophie? Is she with you?"

"The car's waiting," Megan repeated and hung up.

He stood there holding the phone, feeling it go limp in his hand like a taut fishing line that had ripped. A wave of abject fear rose up his body, followed by a chill that made him think of himself falling through thin ice. He started out of the bedroom, pausing at the top of the stairway. A heavier cloud glided over the declining sun, casting the house in more darkness and gloom.

Suddenly a tiny voice could be heard. It seemed to be coming from someplace below. At first he thought it was Sophie. She was calling for him.

"Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. He started down, the voice growing louder with each step taken, but midway he realized that it wasn't Sophie's voice. It was a different voice, thinner, younger.

The name returned, emerging from the deepest dark corner of his blotted memory. . . Tammy.

He cried out, calling for her.

The voice grew louder. He turned at the foot of the stairway and rushed to the rear of the house, past his office, past the dining room, to the back door. She was calling from outside. He unlocked the door and nearly ripped it off its hinges to open it quickly. The dark cloud above stalled over the sun. Trees denuded of their leaves looked forlorn, stripped by violent storms and left behind like stakes placed above the graves of soldiers in a great routing and defeat. A small pile of red, orange, and yellow leaves stirred and then settled.

The voice he had heard dwindled and died as if it was being carried off in the wind.

"Tammy?" he called and then stood there wondering why he was doing that. Why would he call to a dead child, a child who had lived only five days?

Nevertheless, he screamed for her again and listened. The world was suddenly so silent, so very, very still. It was as though a great hand had seized it and held it from spinning on its axis. All life had been put on pause, everything frozen in place. Only he had the power of any movement. Slowly he closed the door. For a long moment he stood there listening, waiting. He heard nothing now so he turned and walked to the front of the house.

When he opened the front door and stepped out on the porch, he saw the black automobile in the driveway. The engine was running. It purred, hovering, looking more like a big black cat than a car, the headlights resembling tiger eyes gleaming with the animalistic pleasure of hunting prey. Tinted windows kept him from seeing the driver from the side, but when Aaron stepped down, he recognized him through the windshield. . . Mrs. Masters's driver, bartender, Ule, a man with such emptiness in his glassy orbs, he made Aaron feel he was looking at someone whose head had been completely hollowed out like some pumpkin for Halloween.

He didn't look at Aaron and he didn't get out to open the door. He had been sent here to wait and that was all. Aaron hesitated, looked back at the house as if for the last time, and then reached for the rear door handle. Even before his fingers touched it, the door clicked and swung open. Aaron jumped back, surprised.

"Hi, Daddy," he heard Sophie say. She was sitting within, her schoolbooks in her lap, smiling out at him.

"Sophie? What are you doing in this car?"

"Mommy said I could come get you and ride back with you," she replied.

"I asked her about you, but she didn't say you were in the car."

"We didn't finish my book for school," she continued, ignoring his remarks.

"Yes, we did."

"No, Daddy. Look," she said, holding up the book. He took it as he got into the vehicle.

Instantly the door slammed shut and the automobile was being backed out of the driveway. He looked up sharply toward the driver, but the partition window was closed and that, too, was tinted, looking like dark steel. They were practically locked in a metallic cell, he thought.

"See, Daddy," Sophie emphasized.

He gazed down at the book. It was thicker. When he perused the pages following her bookmark, he realized the rest of Jason's story had been added.

"No," he said. "This part isn't good for you to read."

She laughed. "Don't be silly, Daddy. I have to read it. It's all right. I won't be upset."

He shook his head and thumbed through the pages. There were even illustrations. After Jason had deserted Medea, she had sought revenge and sent his new bride a gift of a robe. When she put it on, she burst into flames. That was illustrated. Following that were Medea's words describing her determination to kill her own children. "' . . . I who gave them life will give them death.'"

"I've got to speak with your teacher," Aaron said. "You shouldn't be reading this."

"Silly, Daddy. Silly, silly, Daddy," Sophie chanted.

"It's not silly!" he nearly shouted. Raising his voice was enough to wipe the smile from her face. She looked as if she was on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry, honey," he said, closing the book, "but it's not for you. It's not for a little girl your age."

"Mommy said we should read it."

"Mommy didn't read it carefully, or she wouldn't have said that," he insisted.

"Yes, she did," Sophie countered.

"Okay, honey. After I speak to her, we'll look at the book. I promise."

He set the book aside.

Was this meant to be some veiled threat? Did Megan seriously believe he had a lover? Was she trying to tell him she could be ruthless if he hurt her?

"What's going on? Why is Mommy at Mrs. Masters's house?"

Sophie began to cry, the tears streaming down her face.

"Sophie, honey?"

He started to get up to sit beside her when suddenly the car veered abruptly to the right and then snapped back to the left, tossing him against the door and dropping him to his knees.

"Hey!" he cried. "What the hell is. . . "

When he turned around, Sophie was gone. He stared in disbelief at the empty black leather seats.

"Huh?" he said. "Sophie? How can . . ."

Had he simply imagined her? Was it part of all the hallucinations he had been suffering?

He answered his questions by looking to his left and seeing the book where he had left it beside him on the seat. The realization made him shudder. He practically lunged at the partition window and pounded on it.

"Stop the car. Stop it. What's going on here? Stop the car!" he screamed.

Over the speakers he heard a tape recording of Sophie singing, "Kisses roll up, kisses roll down. Kisses keep love all around."

"Stop that. Stop playing that. Pull over. Do you hear me? I said, pull this car over now."

The automobile continued until it reached the grand entrance of Mrs. Masters's estate. Frustrated and helpless, Aaron sat and gazed out the side window. He saw the gate open and watched as they drove into the compound. The gate closed behind them. They continued up the drive. The statues of animals came alive again, just as they had in what he had thought was an illusion the first time he had been brought here. They turned, stood, stepped forward.

"What's happening?" he muttered.

"Where am I going?"

He wiped his forehead and shook his head.

"Where have I been?"

The automobile stopped at the foot of the steps to the portico. The door swung open. Slowly Aaron stepped out. The door shut behind him and the engine was turned off, but the driver did not get out. Aaron looked at the front entrance and then started up the steps, glancing back at the car, looking out at the grounds. There was still barely a breeze, still the feeling of being stuck in time. The statuary was all still and in place again.

The front doors opened. He heard some laughter over some harp music. Mrs. Masters, still laughing at something, emerged from her eclectic living room. She was wearing a turquoise peasant skirt and blouse with gold ring slave bracelets from her wrist to her left elbow. Her hair was down, loose, and although she wore no makeup, she looked radiant, her eyes as bright and electric as ever, her lips richly ruby, her cheeks highlighted by the rush of blood that had come from either a few glasses of wine or some very recent excitement.

"Aaron!" she cried as if she was really surprised to see him. "You're just in time. Everyone's here now and everyone's been asking for you."

"Where's Megan? What's going on?" he demanded. "Oh, don't be upset, Aaron," she said, approaching and taking his arm. "Everything is fine. Things aren't always turning out the way we want, but even we understand that we have to take the good with the bad sometimes. The main thing is there should always be more good, don't you think?"

She laughed and urged him forward. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about," he muttered.

They turned into the room. Truly everyone was there, everyone with whom he had had any real contact in Driftwood, that is. Megan's friends and their husbands were on the right, sipping from glasses of champagne. Adya, the Wonder Woman car salesgirl, and her husband were at the bar talking with Harlan Noel and his wife as well as David Carpenter and his. Grandma Morris and her third husband Aubrey sat at a small table. The waitress Arlene was standing behind them, dressed in her waitress uniform, but she, too, had a glass of champagne and her garage mechanic husband, still in his uniform and looking as if he had just been pulled off a job, stood next to her.

To their right was Gloria Bell, the real estate agent, Mrs. Fodder from the furniture store and her husband, Mayor Allan and his wife, and the elementary school principal's secretary, all with glasses of champagne.

At the center of the group was Dr. Longstreet and her receptionist, surrounded by the young blond man in his gray pin-striped suit, and the couple who had given him the suggestion to call home that fateful night, the same couple who had become the ambulance attendants taking that man called Mr. Moly away from the clinic.

Everyone had stopped talking and laughing and was looking at him with a soft smile of pity on his or her face. The harpist continued to play, but softer. The bartender had his hands on the bar, and the waiter paused at the corner of it, his tray holding only one glass of champagne. Mrs. Masters nodded at him, and he started toward her and Aaron.

''A glass of champagne, Aaron?" she asked.

"Where's Megan?" he demanded. "She called me and told me she was here."

"She is here. Champagne?"

"No, I don't want any champagne."

"Pity. It's very good," Mrs. Masters said. 'Aged," she added, and the entire entourage laughed.

"What is going on here?" Aaron asked, now more frightened than angry. Their calmness, their politeness and apparent glee was terribly unnerving.

"Well, we have a rather modern attitude about things these days, Aaron. Back in what is known as mythological times, people of charm didn't take lightly to defeat. Revenge was the usual reaction."

Some light laughter flowed through the now attentive little audience.

"Just finish rereading about Medea. Help Sophie with her homework, and you'll realize how terrible it could have turned out," she added, and the laughter became louder, longer.

"Are you all crazy?" Aaron shouted at them. Their laughter stopped, but not their smiles.

"I wish you had taken the glass of champagne, Aaron," Mrs. Masters said, "if for no other reason than to linger a bit longer here among us. Everyone here likes you very much."

Some nodded, a few raised their glasses as if to add a toast as punctuation.

"I want to see Megan," he said, swallowing hard. "Please."

"Of course," Mrs. Masters replied. "She's understandably, what's the expression? Under the weather?"

Another little titter passed around him, but there weren't as many smiles. A number of them, especially Laurie, Terri, and Debbie, looked more upset now. Suddenly Laurie stepped forward, coming right at him with such force, he thought she might blow him over. She paused inches from him.

"You're such a damn idiot, Aaron," she said.

"What?"

"If I had my druthers, I would have gone back to the days of Medea."

She turned to Mrs. Masters. "I've got work to do," she said.

"Of course. Good luck, Laurie."

"I expect I'll have better luck than Megan," she said, glaring angrily at Aaron.

"Now, now, don't be catty, Laurie," Mrs. Masters chastised. "It's not becoming."

Laurie glanced back at the small crowd. All of them cried, "Good luck."

She looked at Aaron once more, shook her head, and left.

He watched her go and then turned back to Mrs. Masters.

"What the hell is she talking about?"

"Laurie's always been hot in temper and in passion. Don't pay any attention to her." She sighed. "All right, Aaron," she said. "Right this way. Carry on, everyone," she told the crowd, and they started up their conversations where they had left off. The bartender began pouring more champagne, and the harpist played louder.

Aaron glanced back at them as he followed Mrs. Masters out of the living room and up the grand staircase. No one was looking after him anymore. He was old news.

As he and Mrs. Masters ascended, he remained a couple of steps back. Suddenly she began to metamorphose right before his eyes, shrinking, widening in the hips, her hair graying. Her clothing remained the same, but adjusted to fit her new form. When she turned, he gasped.

It was Mrs. Domfort.

The shock of it turned him to stone. He barely breathed.

She smiled.

"Hello, Aaron, dear. Don't be afraid. This is the time, unfortunately, for revelations. There really isn't anything for you to fear from us. As I told you downstairs, revenge is no longer a consideration. We accept our failure gracefully.

"Of course, Megan's still quite upset, but I'm sure you'll be able to appreciate that in a few moments."

"Who are you?" he practically gasped.

"I'm Mrs. Domfort, kind old Mrs. Domfort," she replied with a little giggle. "No," she said, growing serious again. "Of course I'm not just Mrs. Domfort. Sometimes I think of myself as Mrs. Relief or Mrs. Escape. Everyone at one time or another during his or her lifetime, Aaron, wishes to come under my spell, wants to come live and work in Driftwood.

"Oh, it hasn't always been Driftwood, you understand. There have been so many places, so many different names for them. Originally, I lived on an island called Aeaea. My father brought me there."

''Aeaea?"

"Yes, a palindrome," she said, laughing. "Driftwood just happens to be the contemporary island of sorts, but they are all the same, perfect in many ways, full of contentment, happiness, success."

She smiled and leaned forward to put her hand on his chest.

"A place where you will do your best work, remember?"

"I still don't understand."

"You will. Be patient. Do you know what myths are, Aaron?"

"Myths?"

"There's been so much written about them, made of them. Some use myths as a way of explaining creation, the way things are. Some use myths to explain the human condition. Freud, for example did that. You know, the Oedipus complex, the Electra complex? Every culture has them.

"Think of yourself as being part of a myth for a while. We had hoped for as long as you lived, but alas, that couldn't be so for you.

"But you still need us, Aaron," she warned. "You will always need your myths if not to escape from your reality, then to help you understand it enough so you can tolerate all the illogical, unjust, seemingly senseless things that happen.

"At one point in time, people explained their misery by blaming it on the gods who played with them like puppets. People just got caught in between the arguments and battles the gods had. Believe that and nothing is hard to understand. Accept maybe, but not understand."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"Everything. There you were, Aaron, screaming out for understanding, raging, shaking your fist at the heavens, demanding justice, answers, compassion. You were what we like to think of as prime prey. You were eager to accept us.

"Or at least, Megan thought. Poor Megan," she said, shaking her head and looking at the door of the bedroom. "She takes this so hard. It's not her first time, but unfortunately, she has now suffered two succeeding defeats. It will go hard for her."

Mrs. Domfort leaned toward him again, this time to whisper. "She might not be allowed to continue."

"Continue what?"

"Finding prey, bringing a man like yourself to a place like Driftwood to make a wonderful life for herself, too," she replied. "All of the men downstairs have accepted it. None of those candidates accepted Moly."

"Moly? Moly?" He thought. "Mr. Moly, the man I confronted behind Dr. Longstreet's clinic?"

"Well, that happened to be his name because he was going back. It will be your name for a while, too," she said. "It's just a little thing we do to remain loyal to the myth, a silly little thing."

"What myth?"

"The myth of Circe, Aaron. Remember your mythology? The powerful witch who with the use of some magical herbs and incantation or prayers to her particular gods could turn men into beasts or cause them to forget. . . yes," she said, smiling, "amnesia."

He stepped back, grimacing.

"Don't be afraid. I told you we don't seek any vengeance, Aaron."

"This is madness. Magic?"

She laughed. "You know it's not madness, Aaron. Too many strange things have happened to you, especially over the last few hours or so, right?"

He nodded, his eyes wide.

"Besides, what's mad about it, about calling it magic? It's not really all that different today in the so-called modern world, Aaron. People look upon their doctors as if they were magicians, some even as if they were mythological gods, and as for magical herbs, brews, today we have medicine, pills. Even witches change with the times, Aaron. We're not immune to progress.

"Isn't it like magic when you take some ibuprofen and your ache or pain disappears? How many people who take the drugs have even a small understanding of how they work? They accept it just the way people once accepted magic, believed in the waving of a wand or the sacrifice of a lamb."

She laughed.

"Dr. Longstreet is just practicing good magic," she said. "Modern-day witchcraft has moved into the realm of pharmaceuticals. Why, we even participate on the stock market, Aaron, and own many of the companies. It's where I accumulate so much of the wealth we need to live and play."

He nodded. "So, as I once suspected, I was given some drug?"

"Something like that, Aaron, but believe me, at the time you welcomed it. Too soon after, a part of you began to put up a battle against it, a far stronger battle than poor Megan anticipated, but I can't fault her for choosing you. As I said, it was just her bad luck to have one failure soon after another."

Aaron stared, thinking. "Jason," he said

She nodded. "Yes, Jason. He was actually Sophie's father."

"I think I knew that," Aaron muttered more to himself.

"Yes, I believe that," she said. "You're a very perceptive man, maybe too perceptive. Who was it who said 'The wise are doomed to suffer simply because they understand the tragedy of the human condition more'?"

She shook her head.

"It's getting to be too much for even someone like me to remember. Thank heaven computers were invented. You can't even begin to imagine how much easier they've made our work, improved our searching capacities. Nowadays, our prey float by in cyberspace. They're flagged and we, should I say, pounce? Megan did and for a while thought you were Mr. Perfect, the man with whom to start a family again."

"Is Megan really pregnant then?"

"Oh, yes. Family is very important here in Driftwood, Aaron, good families, good husbands, success, good health, very important.

"Of course, I don't know what's going to happen. Even I don't know all of it, Aaron."

"Who are you, then, Circe herself?"

"That was my mythological name, yes, and all these beautiful and talented young women downstairs are my daughters."

"Circe's Daughters."

"Yes. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? I've had many daughters, Aaron, and they are everywhere. In fact, I'm rather proud of how many places we inhabit, control, so to speak. You'd be surprised at how many men are willing to give up domination in exchange for happiness, how many would rather dress themselves in designer shirts and nauseating Bermuda shorts and spend mindless hours on golf courses whacking and tapping a little white ball into a hole. I suppose Freud could make a great deal out of that imagery, couldn't he?" she asked, laughing. "How they might be trying to get back into the comfort and security of the womb. How else can you explain the utter ecstasy that accompanies the great 'hole in one'?"

He nodded. "So that's why I saw those horrible images, the hallucinations, the men turned into pigs?"

"Very good, Aaron. You remember your mythology. Of course, there's always a little exaggeration."

She laughed again and then looked at the bedroom door. She took a deep breath, lifting her heavy, matronly bosom.

"Well, it's time for you to see Megan."

She opened the door and stepped back.

He looked at her.

She smiled. "I really did like you, Aaron," she said and walked toward the stairway.

At the top, she turned and metamorphosed back to beautiful Mrs. Masters.

"Got to return to my guests. It's still a little party, you understand. In Driftwood, we're always looking for some excuse to have a party."

She laughed, smiled at him, and then she began to descend, slowly disappearing like some demon into the very bowels of the earth.

nineteen

The bedroom was grand in size with a high ceiling, the center of which was a full-length mirror, making the room look even deeper, wider, longer. However, the decor of the room itself was so gaudy Aaron actually paused immediately after entering to blink and acclimate himself. There were four large oval mirrors in gilded frames along the wall to his left and far left as well as very big oil paintings of beautiful naked women in settings ranging from bedrooms to the seaside, the pictures more prurient than artistic. All the women had lascivious smiles on their faces and had bodies painted in such rich flesh tones they resembled photographs. Along the floor by the walls were statues of men who looked like Greek gods, their bodies muscular, lean.

The room itself was carpeted in a plush bloodred rug. All of the cherrywood furniture pieces were oversized, with a long built-in vanity table running nearly the entire length of the wall to his right. There was a wall-length mirror above it as well. The table was crowded with pewter, gold and silver containers, brushes and jeweled combs, perfumes, and skin creams. It was an alter to narcissism.

He was soon overwhelmed by the redolent maple scent so heavy, he could almost see it coming at him in waves.

A movement above him in the ceiling mirror drew his eyes to the four-pillar bed so oversized it looked like a small stage. He saw Megan's head on one of the large, fluffy pillows, her eyes fixed on her own image above. She was under a light pink comforter.

"Megan?" he called.

Slowly, like someone drugged, she turned to him.

He started toward the bed. Suddenly the harp music from below grew louder. It was being piped into the bedroom through some speakers he couldn't see.

She held out her hand, and he came around the bed faster to take it, but stopped before their fingers touched.

"It's all right, Aaron. I'm not going to hurt you. Quite the contrary. You've hurt me."

"How?"

"By refusing to do what I asked, accept the here and the now and stop trying to retrieve the past. I thought we were succeeding, Aaron. I thought we were going to have a good life in Driftwood, but you wouldn't stop searching, going through pictures, questioning videos, checking bank deposit box documents, hunting yourself down. I suppose I should have spent more time laying a foundation. How was I to know you would jump on something like a badly edited video or find Jason's picture because he had put it there without telling me?

"Of course, they'll say I was too arrogant, too much in a rush, and didn't pay enough attention to detail. That's what they'll say. That's why they'll criticize me. But even I can't be expected to know every little thing!"

"Then you are one of them, too, one of her daughters?"

"Of course I am, Aaron. That's what makes this such a tragedy for you as well as for me. You would have had all the advantages: never, ever suffering serious illness, always successful in your work, always contented. All you had to do was accept the present and forget the past."

"I couldn't do that," he said.

"I know." She smiled. "No one knows that better than I do, Aaron. However, you know what it makes it seem like? It makes it seem like I couldn't satisfy you. We've got pretty big egos. Just look at Laurie."

"You're everything a man could want, Megan. That's not true."

"Of course it isn't."

She sighed and then she smiled, pulled back her blanket, and moved over in the bed.

"Come, lie with me a while. We have some time. It's like being granted your last request, your last meal."

He started to shake his head.

"You won't be disappointed, Aaron. You've been through a terrible time. I'm sure you're exhausted, tired, and very upset, aren't you?"

"Yes. I went back to Westport today."

"Tell me about it," she said, smirking. "Any other man, all of them downstairs in fact, would have turned back when the car did what it did as you were trying to leave Driftwood, but not you, not my persistent Aaron Clifford."

"I couldn't find our home, and there was no trace of us, and then I went to New York and to Clovis and Associates. All that was a lie, too."

"It served its purpose, Aaron."

"So the rest of my past is a giant lie as well, right? And your past, your stories?"

"Most of it, yes. Some of it was simple embellishment or the truth with a little twist, a little variation here and there."

"So that man was right, that Mr. Moly. I should have stopped taking the medication, the brew, as Mrs. Masters called it. Now I know what Moly meant by he was going back, but I didn't listen. I didn't listen."

"Don't, Aaron. It doesn't do any good to relive it all now," she urged.

"Why? Why was all this done to me?"

"Come on, Aaron. Lie here beside me a while. It's the best way."

He gazed at her beautiful body. She smiled softly.

"I do love you, Aaron," she said.

"Will you tell me everything? Will you tell me who I am, give me back my past?"

"Yes, Aaron. I promise. In fact, it has to be done now, so you need not worry," she said. "Forget all that about Medea. Laurie did that, not me. You're just lucky she wasn't the one who had originally chosen you. Come to me, Aaron. Come."

She kept her hand out. He considered it and then he touched it and she closed her fingers around his. He lowered his head.

"I'm very tired," he said.

"I understand."

"And very shaken."

"Of course you are," she said, pulling him toward her. He didn't resist.

She sat up to kiss his lips and then his cheek. He closed his eyes. He was warmed, the tension receding. He sat beside her, and she undid his jacket and pealed it away, undid the buttons on his shirt, and helped him get undressed. The music continued, and when he gazed around, it seemed as if all the women in all the lascivious pictures had turned toward them and were smiling more.

Her body was so warm, so soft and wonderful against his. She drew his face toward her breasts, and he kissed her and held her.

"You're really going to have our baby? That's not another lie?"

"Yes, I will have our baby. Thank you for that, Aaron," she said.

"I heard the other child's voice, heard her calling to me."

"Shhh," she said. "Don't talk about it now, Aaron. Don't think, don't remember, don't try to do anything but be happy for a little while longer."

"What's going to happen to me?" he asked, looking into her beautiful eyes.

She smiled. "You're going to make love to me for the last time, Aaron Clifford," she said and brought her lips to his chest, moving down over his stomach until she was kneeling over him, her nose nudging his genitals, her tongue tantalizing him.

"I'm dreaming," he muttered to himself.

"Yes," she said. "Dream on and on."

She mounted him and moved slowly, drawing him into her, drawing pleasure from him. He looked up at her and then he reached to take her at her hips and hold her.

She smiled. "What it could have been, Aaron," she said. "What it could have been."

She moved faster, driving him toward an amazingly long orgasm that made his head spin. The spinning grew faster, deeper, until he felt as if he was falling through space with nothing upon which to grab. He was helpless, drifting toward the darkness below.

"Megan!" he screamed. "Meg . . ."He fell farther and father, deeper and deeper, until when he opened his mouth to scream again, he didn't know what name to call for a moment. Then it came to him and he screamed at the top of his lungs, or at least it seemed he was.

"Diana!"

It felt comfortable, familiar. There was no longer any hesitation.

"Diana!"

His whole body shook. Something was squeezing his shoulders.

"Diana! Diana!"

"Mr. Martin," he heard. It sounded as if he was in an echo chamber. "Mr. Martin."

His eyes fluttered and then opened, the focus slow to come.

He looked at a round-faced woman in her mid to late forties. She was wearing a nurse's uniform with a identification tag that read, RN: Block. She was leaning over and had her hands on his shoulders.

"What?" he said and gazed to his right when he heard a lab wagon being wheeled past the door of the waiting room. It had the feel of being very, very late. There was no one else in the room.

"You were shouting at the top of your voice. I'm sure it was just a bad dream, Mr. Martin. I was just coming down to get you."

"She stood up, smiling. "The doctor wants to see you. It's about your daughter."

"My daughter?" He sat up quickly. "How is she?"

"He has good news for you, Mr. Martin. He sent me to get you. Would you like a glass of water first?"

"No, no, I'm all right," he said and stood. "What time is it?"

"It's four A.M. Dr. Longstreet was in the operating room until three and then made her rounds, otherwise she wouldn't have been here," the nurse replied. "We would have called her, of course, and then you. It's been a long, dreadful four days for you, I know."

"Yes," he said.

They turned down another corridor and headed toward the Intensive Care Unit of the Beth Israel Hospital in New York City. He could see Dr. Longstreet standing outside the door, speaking to a special-duty nurse. The nurse nodded and walked away, and Dr. Longstreet turned to greet him as he approached.

"Mr. Martin," she said with as wide a smile as he had thought possible on the forty-five-year-old doctor's taut, thin face, "Tammy's come out of the coma. The pressure is relieved, and I believe she's going to make a full recovery."

"Thank God," he said.

"Yes."

"Can I see her?"

"She's quite groggy, but she'll recognize you."

"I've got to tell my wife," he said.

The doctor's smile diminished.

"That might take a bit longer, Mr. Martin. The important thing now is to have patience and understanding."

"Yes," he said. "I know."

Dr. Longstreet accompanied him into ICU and to Tammy's bedside. The four-year-old had her eyes open.

"Hi, baby," he said and leaned over to kiss her cheek.

She smiled. "Hi, Daddy. Where's Mommy?" she asked in a voice so weak it made his eyes tear.

"She's coming soon," he said after glancing quickly at the doctor, who nodded. "You feel better, honey?"

She closed her eyes and then opened them. "I want Sophie," she said.

"Who's that?" Dr. Longstreet asked.

He laughed.

"That's her rag doll. She's had it since she was two and she named it Sophie. Don't ask me why. Neither my wife nor I have any close relatives named Sophie."

Dr. Longstreet smiled and nodded.

"The more I work with children, the more I'm convinced they dwell in a world of mystery," the doctor said.

He looked at her with surprise. She actually sounded human. Vaguely he understood that doctors probably wanted to remain as cool and aloof as they could until a prognosis was clear. If they became too involved in each and every patient, emotionally involved, they couldn't survive their own work and responsibilities.

"That's for sure," he said.

"You ought to get some real rest now, Mr. Martin."

"I will. I just want to sit with her a while and hold her hand."

"Of course, but when you go to see your wife, you want to be as fresh and bright as can be. It will help."

"I understand. Thank you."

"It's a pleasure when this sort of result occurs," she said, gazing at Tammy.

He nodded.

"I'll be in early in the afternoon tomorrow," Dr. Longstreet said.

She started away.

"Thank you," he muttered toward her, but she kept walking.

He sat beside the bed and held his little girl's hand, watching her breathe and occasionally open her eyes to look around. Whenever she turned to him, she smiled and he smiled and his heart felt as if it were returning to full strength, warming, pounding his blood back into his body, resurrecting him from his own private death, a death that was born in his own sense of fault.

After all, he had taken his eyes off the road just as that pickup truck came out of the driveway, its driver not bothering to look right. They had little chance.

Now Diana was in a state of shock upstairs in her room. She blamed herself more. She had undone Tammy's seat belt and permitted her to crawl into the front.

Still, he knew he had been driving too fast, and he should have been more alert.

Reliving it was almost as painful as it had been to see it all unfold: their little girl smash her head on the windshield, the screams, the blood.. . . it curdled his stomach now. Would he ever be able to forget it all enough to stop the nightmares?

"Mommy," Tammy muttered. "I want Mommy."

His chest ached. "She'll be here soon, honey," he said. "She'll be here soon."

He rose, determined.

I've got to bring my family back from the land of the dead, he thought, and headed out of ICU.

At a pay phone just outside the unit, he called Diana's mother. She had told him not to worry about the time. She wasn't going to be doing much sleeping these nights anyway. She lived alone in an apartment not far from their home. Diana's father had died just last year, but her mother was a very independent woman, strong, still working three or four days a week as a real estate agent.

"It's Bob," he said when she answered, sounding fully awake. "Tammy's come out of the coma. The doctor says she's going to be all right."

"Oh, how wonderful, dear. How wonderful!"

"I'm going up to see Diana."

"Yes, that's good. I'll be there as early as I can," she added.

"The doctor wanted me to go home and get some rest first, but I can't."

"Well, take care of yourself, dear. You've got to be even stronger now."

"I know. How are you?"

She laughed. "Just like you to ask. Don't worry about me, dear. Just worry about your girls."

"You're one of my girls," he told her, and she laughed.

Amazingly, he felt revived. Two or three hours' sleep over three and a half days was all he had managed, and that only because he passed out from time to time. At the moment he thought he could run a couple of miles. After he hung up, he started toward the elevator with a determined gait.

The floor was only dimly lit now. He walked past dark rooms filled with patients either asleep or tossing and turning with real mental anguish. At his wife's room the private-duty nurse he had hired for the first week at least sat thumbing through a magazine. When she had been recommended to him, he had first thought she was too old, but the doctor had such high praise and she did impress him with her competence quickly.

She looked up as he appeared in the doorway.

"Mr. Martin," she said, rising. "Why aren't you home, getting some rest?"

"My daughter," he said, choking on the words.

"Yes?" She looked as if she was holding her breath, her right hand pressed to the base of her throat.

"She's come out of the coma. She's going to be fine."

"Oh, how wonderful, Mr. Martin, but I'm not surprised. You had the best doctor in the city on this case."

"I think so," he said, nodding. He looked at his wife.

Diana's normally radiant blond hair was now spread around her face on the pillow, looking more like drab strands of broken thread. Her face was still quite ashen, making the cleft in her chin look deeper, darker.

"How is she?"

"Unchanged, I'm afraid."

He nodded. "I want to talk to her now. I want her to know about Tammy." His nurse nodded.

"I don't think she's really asleep anyway. I think she's just drifting through some vast mental space, stunned and confused."

"Yes," he said, looking at the older woman as if for the first time. She seemed to possess such wisdom, such a quiet awareness like the awareness of someone who had lived centuries and knew just what the next moment would bring.

"You can take a break, Mrs. Domfort," he told her. She smiled. "Okay, Mr. Martin." She patted his hand and walked out of the room, pausing to look back and smile at him before he pulled his chair closer to the bed.

He could lean over and kiss Diana's cheek. Her eyelids fluttered but didn't open.

"Honey," he said in a soft whisper. "I have good news. Tammy's going to be all right. I just came from her bedside. She's out of danger, Diana. She's going to get better and be fine."

His wife stirred but didn't open her eyes.

"You've got to get better quickly, Diana. She's already asking for you. I need you; she needs you. Please try, honey. Please."

He took her hand and gently squeezed it. She didn't stir.

"I know what you're doing," he said in a deep whisper. "I wanted to do the same thing . . . run away, forget, block it all out, find some way to make it go away. It doesn't, Diana. You've got to turn and face it. You've got to come back to us.

"We made a mistake, a terrible mistake that might have caused us the deepest, most horrible tragedy of all, but we've been given a second chance, honey. Don't turn away from that. Please. I couldn't go on without you beside me."

He pressed his forehead to her hand and closed his eyes.

"I love you," he said. "Tammy needs you."

He waited. She didn't stir. After another long moment, he took a deep breath, rose, leaned over to kiss her cheek, and then started out. He would go home now and get some rest and hope, he thought.

Just as he turned, he heard her call him.

"Bob!" she cried in a voice almost inaudible. He spun around.

Her beautiful hazel brown eyes were open.

For him, it was as if a curtain of black steel had been raised and all the memories of his love and his family came rushing back on stage, just waiting for him to rejoin them.

He returned quickly to his wife's side and held her.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind he had the thought that he had almost lost far more than any man could hope to have.

epilogue

"What the hell. . . " he muttered.

Two rather attractive flight attendants walking by turned to him. One smiled, the other looked a little annoyed. They were pulling their small carry-ons and walking toward the arrival exits. He watched them leave as if by doing so he would learn where he was to go, too. The annoyed one looked back at him as they passed out the door. She shook her head and muttered something to her fellow attendant.

He turned to look back at the escalator pouring travelers continuously down to the baggage level and arrival doors. Many were smiling, the faces radiating with the relief that comes from getting to their destinations safely, anticipating being welcomed by loved ones or associates, a tangible end to their journeys in sight.

He was immediately envious of each and every one of them.

Whom was he supposed to meet? Was he supposed to meet anyone? Where had he come from and where was he going? Should he go to the baggage carousel?

He spun around, searching for a face that was brightening at the sight of his, but all he saw were more people rushing around and in between each other, charging toward their destinations. A mother went by ordering her children to stay close. A chauffeur met an elderly lady who looked so weighed down by her jewels and furs, he wondered how she could make even her small steps.

People hugged, ran into each other's arms, shook hands, kissed cheeks, handed pieces of luggage over to welcoming friends and relatives. The world around him was filled with social and familial warmth and especially the kind of security that resulted from finding a friendly, loving companion happy to see you, greet you, take you into his or her world.

He felt none of this warmth. In fact, he was struck with a terrible chill. It nearly made his teeth chatter. The more people greeted each other around him, the more isolated and alone he felt. He brought his hand to his eyes and rubbed his temples. He took deep breaths and waited for some sensibility to return to his brain that for now felt filled with smoke, waves and waves of empty smoke.

He tried to retrace his steps. He vaguely recalled being on a plane. He left it and went through the gate and then he started toward the baggage carousels, and somewhere just at the top of the escalator, he lost it, lost his sense of direction. He was filled with the sort of panic someone might have if he or she suddenly realized they had arrived at the wrong city, taken the wrong plane, made a terrible mistake.

"This is crazy," he said aloud and shook his head vigorously, as if he believed it was some sort of pinball machine that could be jolted into a sensible pattern of lights and bells. He saw a transit policeman looking his way, probably wondering why he was standing in the same spot for so long while people rushed by on all sides.

Maybe I should sit and think, he mused, but realized there wasn't any place nearby to do that. Should he go back? he wondered. But go back where? Back to the arrival gate? Was someone supposed to be there? Who?

"Something wrong?" someone asked him, and he turned to see a good-looking young blond man in a gray pin-striped suit carrying an attaché case. "I couldn't help but notice how you've been standing here."

"Yes," he said eagerly. "I can't believe this. I don't even know how to say it, but just as suddenly as I stepped off the escalator, it seems, I've forgotten where I'm going and who, if anyone, is coming to greet me."

The young man smiled calmly.

"Had some drinks on the plane?" he asked.

"A few, I guess. Yeah, now that you mention that, I did. I was in first class, and you know how they keep pouring them in first class."

"Yes," the young man said, laughing. "What's your name?"

"What?"

"Who are you? Maybe if you give your name to the desk up there, they'll announce your arrival, and whoever is supposed to meet you will be here in minutes."

He stared at the young man.

"Something wrong with that idea?"

"No, but it just occurred to me that ... I don't know who I am. I can't remember my name."

"Don't panic," the young man said calmly. He set down his attaché case. "You've got to be carrying some identification on you in order to have gotten on a plane. Check your wallet."

"Right," he said. "Right."

He dug into his inside pocket and brought out his wallet, opening it like someone who expected to find a winning lottery ticket inside. Then he turned it about and read his pictured license.

"Greg Corkin," he announced. He looked up at the young man. "My name's Greg Corkin."

"Great. See? You're on your way."

"I live in Driftwood, Connecticut," Greg continued, announcing it as if he was on This Is Your Life or something.

"Very nice. I've heard of it."

He continued to thumb through his wallet, making discovery after discovery about himself.

"I'm a CPA," he said. "I work at Morgan Asher and Associates."

"Very good." The young man lifted his attaché case. "I see you're married, too," he added, nodding at Greg's hand.

"What? Oh, yes."

"So I would imagine your wife is either with you or going to meet you?"

"I don't know. I don't know what she looks like," he declared sadly.

"You'd better not tell her that," the young man said. He nodded toward the baggage carousels. "Take out your tickets and look for your baggage numbers. That's a start."

"Yes, that's a start. Thanks."

The young man smiled and walked off.

Greg watched him leave the terminal, and then he turned toward the carousels. It still looked like a prodigious job. He had to check tags against the numbered receipts stapled to his ticket folder. He couldn't remember if he had black bags, hard bags, soft bags, what?

"This is terrible," he muttered.

He stopped, checked his ticket receipt, noted the flight he had been on, and looked for the corresponding carousel. After he located it, he started toward it. When he got there, he paused and watched the bags being plucked eagerly by other travelers. This was going to take all damn day, he thought sadly. That sense of exhaustion and defeat came over him again. He lowered his head.

"Greg," he heard. "Greg."

Slowly he turned and gazed into the face of a truly beautiful woman.

"Sorry I didn't meet you at the gate, but the traffic was horrendous," she said and kissed him.

He stared at her.

"What's wrong, honey?" she asked.

"I. . . forgot everything," he said.

She smiled. "You mean the perfume I asked you to remember? Don't worry," she said, laughing, "I knew you would so I bought it at Saks yesterday. C'mon, let's get your bag," she said, turning toward the carousel.

"No," he said, grabbing her arm. "I mean everything, my name, your name, where I lived, where I came from, what I was doing, everything!" he cried.

She stared at him, her face washing over with concern. "I don't understand," she said.

"My memory . . . it's some sort of amnesia. It must have just come over me."

"Oh, Gregory. You poor dear. I didn't realize what you were saying. Don't worry, sweetheart, we'll get you to a doctor right away." She smiled. "I know. We'll call Mrs. Masters from the car as soon as we get to it. She'll know what we should do and whom we should see."

"Mrs. Masters?"

"My boss, Greg. Oh, this is such a bore. I've got to get you better quickly. We've got so much to do now."

"Really? What?"

"The new house for one thing," she said. "Remember? It just came on the market? The Clifford house? It was so unique, we couldn't believe our luck."

He shook his head. "I just. . . don't remember."

"You will," she said brightly. "I'm sure it will all return quickly. Let's just get home, okay."

He nodded.

"There's your bag!" she cried, pointing at the carousel. She started toward it.

"Wait," he said, holding her arm.

"What?"

"I can't remember your name, for godsakes."

She smiled. "Silly boy," she said, leaning over to nibble his earlobe and then whisper. "It's Laurie, honey.

"And. . . " she added after she kissed him, "Welcome home!"