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sixties. He nodded.
    “Remember the elementary school you went to?”
    “Selma?”
    “How ‘bout the high school?”
    “Chrysler.”
    Brian cocked his head. “So you do remember.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Your first wife?”
    “Nancy.”
    Brian nodded. “And Florida… You remember meeting someone there?”
    “I met a lot of people there.”
    “Joyce?”
    “Uh… I made a couple trips to Florida. The early eighties. I don’t recall a… There was a Joyce in high school.”
    “No…”
    “And the girl in second grade.”
    Brian straightened. “Rubens.”
    “How do you know that?”
    Brian arched his brow. “They’re the same… the same person.”
    “The same? Who?”
    “The Joyce you don’t remember marrying… and the Joyce from Selma. The same person.”
    His eyes locked onto his brother’s. Joyce … Throughout his life, her name had repeatedly surfaced, over and over. It dawned on him that she was on his mind just prior to this crazy ordeal, someone he rarely thought about. The bike path—he was thinking about her then. He was thinking about her as he arrived at the corner of Clinton and John Street. Joyce Rubens … Selma Elementary … He recalled, the day after she came up missing, his standing near her bus after school, hoping to spot her boarding. He’d thought maybe she was there at school, and for some reason was unable to go out for recess. He had waited outside her bus for as long as possible, risking missing his own. Nothing was more important than confirming that she was still within reach, that the connection was intact. He would somehow get her attention—she’d see him waiting there for her, and then smile at him, and everything would be right again.

Chapter seven – visitor
    R oland lowered his face into his hands. It had only just occurred to him that allowing this meeting may be a mistake. Perhaps seeing Joyce Rubens in the physical would burn the bridge to that other life, the life that had existed for him up to this moment, and still existed, most convincingly, in his head—his real life. The idea that this woman, who until now was hardly more than a childhood fantasy, was actually about to walk through the door—walking, talking, breathing—a woman with the intention of comforting her husband, felt unreal—a crazy, abstract concept, and a threat.
    A knock came from the door. It was now too late to change his mind. The door eased open, and an unfamiliar face appeared. “Roland?” Her voice was gentle, like a mother waking a child, and for just a fleeting moment it seemed that that was what he was doing—waking. But then a surge of anger pushed the notion to side—anger for acting so impulsively, for inviting something he had no understanding of into his already mixed up world. He said, “Come in,” though the words felt cold—more like, “Go away.” He realized this, and wished he could draw them back, warm them, and offer them again.
    She stepped into the doorway wearing a yellow blouse, dotted with little, pink, cartoon monkeys. Her light-brown hair, loosely pulled back and fastened behind her head, framed a face he could not recall seeing before. He’d expected someone else—a fabrication, based on an impossibly vague impression of the girl he once knew. The woman standing before him, however, was more mature than the one he had imagined. Roland studied her eyes as they seemed to study him, analyzing him. Was it calm showing in them, or were they possessed by the fatigue, which showed in her voice, though she had not yet said anything beyond his name? She had not, so far, moved beyond the doorway.
    No, he’d not seen her before. He was certain of it, and wanted to reject the notion that she somehow knew him. “What is going on here?”
    She stared at him, unmoving, studying him, her expression, a mix of confusion and wonder. “Whaddaya mean?”
    “I mean, this.” He raised his hands, shaking them while panning the room as though seeking something new,