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although he’s never discussed it. They caught him with a nurse.”
    The changeling nodded. “Nurse Deborah. She is kind . . . was kind. To me.”
    “They let her go.”
    Dutch looked Jimmy up and down. “They should have paid her extra. Poor kid must be going crazy.”
    “Crazy.” The changeling nodded emphatically. “They say I am. Crazy.”
    “Are you?” she whispered.
    “I don’t know.” Jimmy pointed at Grossbaum. “He should know.”
    “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Jimmy. You do some things so well.”
    “You should know,” Jimmy repeated.
    “Bruno . . .” She touched Grossbaum’s arm. “I think you may be inhibiting him. Could you leave us alone for a while?”
    He smiled psychiatrically. “Would you report . . . everything to me?”
    “You know me, Bruno.” He did, in fact, very well.
    He looked at his watch. “I do have a patient coming to the clinic at one. I could be back by two thirty.”
    “That should do.”
    He stood up. “Jimmy, I’ll be gone for a while. Dutch will keep you company.”
    “Okay.” The changeling understood part of the exchange. Dutch wanted to be alone with Jimmy. The way Nurse Deborah had.
    After Grossbaum went out the front door, Dutch stared at the changeling for a long moment. “You don’t remember what happened to you?”
    “No.” He returned her stare.
    “How long ago was it?”
    “One hundred eighty-three days.”
    “Do people who knew you before—your schoolmates—do they come by to visit?”
    “They . . . do. They did. No more.” He looked at the ceiling. “Since sixty-two days.”
    “You’re lonely.” He shrugged. “I could be your friend, Jimmy.”
    “You could?”
    She stood up and held out her hand. “Show me around the place? I want to see how the other half lives.”
    The changeling was confused. If she wanted the kind of union that Deborah had, she was going about it in an indirect way. It took her hand, though—she squeezed it, and the changeling returned the soft gesture—and followed her out of the breakfast nook. They walked around into the kitchen.
    It was spotless and elegant. Tile and gleaming enamel everywhere; a constellation of stemware hanging over a bar, shining brass pots and pans on the wall. A Mexican cook, small and fat and timorous, cowering in the corner.
    “Buenos días,” Dutch said. “Jimmy me muestra la casa.”
    “Bueno, bueno,” she said, and turned her attention back to the clean pot she was scrubbing.
    Through the kitchen into the dining room, heavy mahogany table under a glittering crystal chandelier, gas converted to electricity. Old paintings on the walls.
    A new painting over the fireplace in the formal living room, of Mr. and Mrs. Berry standing on a lawn with a little boy and a Dalmatian. “Is that you?”
    “No.” The changeling thought. “Was who was me.”
    The furniture in this room was antique, very English, reupholstered in a lush red velvet. It didn’t see much use.
    “It’s hard to believe there’s a Depression on,” she said. The changeling shrugged. It had only heard the word in its psychological sense.
    The music room was cheerful, north light flooding through a picture window that looked down over a formal garden. There was a Steinway baby grand and a harp.
    She plucked the deepest bass string. “Do you play these?”
    “No.” The harp was new; he’d never tried it.
    “That’s surprising. I should think they would make you take piano lessons, considering . . .”
    The changeling sat down on the stool, uncovered the keys, and played the opening bars of “Appassionata.”
    Jimmy returned her stare. “I play this.”
    “I understand.” It began to play soft chords in a strange rotation, not quite random. It didn’t know the words for them, but they were alternating major and minor chords, wheeling on the flatted third. The effect was unearthly, not quite irritating.
    She stood behind Jimmy and kneaded his well-muscled shoulders. “Could