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spaghetti straps, along with an almost identical red one, only with rhinestone-festooned straps. So, what was she before she became an archaeologist, a hooker? Her mind went back to the little lavender number her faux-fiancé had wanted her to wear. Maybe he knew her better than she had imagined.
    She shivered, closed the closet door, and sat on the bed, frustrated at not being able to remember. But, more distressing than the inability to remember was the fear flowing through her like slow-moving hot lava, turning her insides to raw nerves. She squeezed her eyes shut to stop the tears that were about to erupt. When she opened them, her gaze rested on the bookshelf. Another place to mine for memories.
    Most of the books were about archaeology and physical anthropology, but on the bottom shelf was a neat stack of photo albums. Recorded memory cells. Lindsay grabbed the top one and flipped through the pages. The photos were of a dig—one in the ocean—inside some structure built in the water. There were several photographs of John and some of Harper. They filled her with relief. John and Harper are who they say they are. She rushed over to a collection of framed photographs on the back corner of her desk. Strangers, except for one: Sinjin with his arm around her shoulders.
    Safe. Here was a safe place.
    Lindsay pulled another album from the stack. Another archaeology site. Her eyes darted from one photograph to another, looking for things she recognized. She stopped at a group of guys shoveling. Shovel shaving, her mind said so clearly it was almost aloud. A memory. Her joy at having a real memory was short-lived, as hot black fear flooded her stomach, making her drop the album. Something about the photo. She sat bent over for several seconds before she picked up the album and returned it to the shelf.
    She made her way to the bathroom to the shower.
    It felt good to be clean. Good to have seen photographs of John, Sinjin, and Harper. But the guy, Mark Smith, who said he was her fiancé, had a photograph, too. These could be doctored like that one. “No!” she shouted, “I’ve got to have a safe place with no doubts.”
    “Lindsay? Are you all right?” It was Harper knocking on the door.
    “I’m fine. I’ll be right down.” Harper must think I’m crazy.”
    “No hurry. I just came up to check.”
    She dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and hurried downstairs to be greeted by the aroma of chicken soup. They were all standing in the kitchen. If Harper had told them Lindsay had been talking to herself, they showed no sign of knowing it.
    “You look better.” Sinjin touched her hand as she passed.
    “I feel a lot better. I had a memory fragment,” she said. They all looked up at her, wide-eyed and hopeful.
    “Not much. Shovel shaving. I saw a picture in one of the albums, and I knew what they were doing.”
    “That’s great,” said Harper, smiling as if she had said she had invented penicillin while she was showering.
    “It’s not much, though,” repeated Lindsay.
    “It’s something.” John pulled back a chair for her at the table. “I think you’ve been having quite a few.”
    They sat down at the table that Harper had prepared with four bowls of her homemade chicken-and-vegetable soup and a large round of flat bread sitting in the middle between them. Lindsay took a spoonful of soup—warm, comfort food. Perhaps this was all she would need to get well. Food and home.
    “You have an appointment tomorrow with a neuropsychiatrist,” said Sinjin.
    Lindsay nodded. “They treat people who have lost their mind?”
    “You haven’t lost your mind,” he said, a little too emphatically, Lindsay thought.
    “Perhaps not lost , but I’ve certainly seriously misplaced it.”
    They all laughed. “Your personality is intact,” said John, tearing off a piece of the bread.
    Fry bread , Lindsay thought. John must have made it. Now, how did I know that? Another memory association?
    Harper left not long after they