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yet, especially at night.
    We walked in silence through the last stand of trees before coming to a large grass field. Karen came to rest in front of a dirt mound that I realized after a moment was a rounded piece of corrugated iron painted to fade into the landscape.
    “Here, help me open the door,” Karen said.
    “What is this thing, the Hatch?”
    “Huh?”
    “Nothing.”
    “It’s where we keep our food supplies. I want to take stock to figure out if we need to start rationing.”
    “Do you really think that’s necessary?”
    Karen glanced at me over her shoulder. “We’re going to be out here for a while, Emma. I thought you understood that.”
    “No, I know, it’s just . . . rationing.”
    She nodded. “More serious than boyfriend troubles?”
    “Something like that.”
    I stood next to Karen and put my hands on the rough edge of a round piece of metal, thick like a manhole cover. We pushed against it, the arms in our muscles taut, and I thought at first that it wouldn’t budge. But then the seal gave, emitting a sound like a door into a clean room, and it rolled across the ground to reveal a relatively large bunker lined with cheap metal shelving. Karen picked a flashlight up off the nearest shelf and clicked it on. She snapped it into my hand.
    “You take the right side and I’ll take the left, all right?”
    It was hot and stuffy inside; a patch of sunlight followed us through the door. I looked down the long, dark row of jars and cans, half expecting to see the Dharma Initiative’s logo somewhere. It looked like there was enough food for months, but I guess that was the point. I watched as Karen took a clipboard off the wall and affixed a sheet of paper to it, then I did the same, adjusting the flashlight to illuminate a tub of peanut butter.
    Another day in paradise.
    W hen I get home from TPC, it’s after dark, and the apartment is cold and empty. I turn up the heat and walk toward my bedroom. On the way, I glance into the room where Dominic’s been sleeping. It’s full of boxes, and there are a couple of blown-up black-and-white photographs in large black frames propped against one of the walls. I’d always meant to turn this room into a proper study. Maybe Dominic is going to make it a darkroom. Either way, I really shouldn’t stay here for much longer.
    Feeling exhausted, I decide to take a shower. I peel off Dominic’s clothes and step under the hot spray. Maybe if I scrub hard enough, I can erase this day along with another layer of skin?
    Not bloody likely.
    If only my mother could see me now. I know she thought I needed to change some things in my life—why else would she have sent me so far away from it—but she couldn’t have meant for me to have to go through this. And why did she think that, anyway? I was on the brink of partnership at a prestigious law firm. I had a handsome boyfriend. I was, to be honest, the daughter to boast about, the one other parents used with their own disappointing children, saying, “Why can’t you be more like Emma?”
    Craig, Craig, Craig. His numbers are still sitting in my coat pocket, uncalled. What the hell is wrong with me? Why isn’t he the first thing on my mind? Why hasn’t he been for months? Craig, the perfect guy on paper, who loves me and wants to be with me and understands me, but who didn’t feel like enough a continent away.
    When my hands turn to prunes, I turn off the shower and wrap myself in a towel. I hear my cell phone ringing in the distance.
    Steph!
    I run from the bathroom and skid across the floor toward my coat.
    “Hello?”
    “Em?”
    “Craig?”
    “Jesus Christ, Em.” He sounds upset, really upset. “When I didn’t hear from you again, I thought . . . I mean, they said . . .”
    “I know.”
    “Where’ve you been? Why didn’t you call me?”
    “Didn’t you get my email?”
    “What? No. When did you send it?”
    “Four days ago. Five, maybe. From London.”
    “The first time you tried to email me was