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schizophrenia, the second twin has a 48% chance of developing it as well, and frequently within one year of the first twin.” There was also an email waiting for him from [email protected], just one more cheerful dig. “Oh, Miles,” it said. “Do you ever wonder what people think of you going around with your posters and crummy old photos and your sad story about your crazy evil twin brother? Do you ever think that people are going to take one look at your raggedy-looking self and they aren’t going to tell you anything? They’ll think:
Why, it’s actually Miles who is the crazy one
. They’ll think:
Maybe he doesn’t even have a twin brother! Maybe he’s just out of his mind!
”
    That was it, Miles had thought then, reading the email and blushing with humiliation. He was so furious that he’d thrown the book about Alfred Sully out the window of his apartment, where it landed with an unsatisfying flutter in the parking lot. That was it! he promised himself. They were finished. No more of my time—no more of my heart!
    He would forget about Hayden. He would get on with his own life.
    He remembered this resolution. It came back to him vividly, even as he sat there in the car, unshaven, unshowered, sorting through the flyers that he’d printed up on simple, durable card stock. HAVE YOU SEEN ME? at the top. Then the photograph of Hayden. Then: REWARD! Though that was probably stretching the truth a little.
    He angled the rearview mirror and examined himself critically. His eyes. His expression. Did he look like a crazy person?
Was
he a crazy person?
    This was the eleventh of June. 68° 18’ N, 133° 29’ W. The sun wouldn’t set again for about five weeks.

7
    I n the waiting area of Enterprise Auto Rental, Ryan checked through his identification materials again. Social security card. Driver’s license. Credit cards.
    All the flotsam that proved that you were officially a person.
    In this particular case, Ryan was officially Matthew P. Blurton, age twenty-four, of Bethesda, Maryland. Ryan didn’t think that he looked like he was twenty-four, but no one had ever questioned him, so he supposed that he must not look suspicious.
    He sat there politely, thinking about a song that he was learning on the guitar. He could picture the tablature in his mind, and his fingers moved inconspicuously as he thought of the positions on the frets, the ham of his hand on his thighs, palm up, the fingers posed into various combinations like sign language.
    He knew that he ought to be paying more attention; he was going to screw things up if he didn’t take better care. That’s what Jay—his father—would probably tell him.

    And so he lifted his head to see what was going on.
    At the counter, there was a middle-aged African American woman in a navy-blue coat and a small purple hat, and Ryan observed her surreptitiously as she withdrew a billfold from her purse.
    “My grandmother is ninety-eight years old!” the lady was saying. She regarded her billfold as if she were playing a game of pinochle, frowning, then withdrew a bent ancient-looking credit card. “Ninety-eight years old!”
    “Mmmm-hmmm,” said the young man behind the counter, who was also African American. The young man’s eyes were on the computer screen, and he typed out a burst of letters onto the keyboard.
    “Ninety-eight years old,” he said. “That’s a long time to be alive!”
    “It certainly is,” the woman said, and Ryan could sense that they were on the verge of settling into a comfortable conversation. He glanced down at his watch.
    “I wonder how long my lifeline is,” the young man at the computer mused, and Ryan watched as the woman nodded.
    “Only the Lord knows,” the woman said.
    She set her credit card and driver’s license upon the counter.
    “You know,” the woman said, “it’s not easy at that age. She doesn’t talk much at all anymore, but she does sing a lot. And prays. She prays, you know.”
    “Mmmm-hmmm,”