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of people I knew, out of what the Woodwards seemed to want. He was their natural child—maybe the child they deserved. I played Benjamin for almost three years, one thousand and eighty-five days. And when I turned sixteen I took my birth certificate and a hundred-dollar bill James Woodward kept in his sock drawer, and I left. Didn’t look back, didn’t leave a forwarding address… and I dropped Benjamin like a stone.“ He took a sip of cappucino. ”At least I thought I did.“
    “What are you saying—that
Benjamin
was a symptom?”
    “He
is
a symptom. He came back.”
     
     
    The cool air made Susan shiver. She watched three teenagers in leather jackets and spike haircuts stroll past, eyes obscure behind Roy Orbison sunglasses.
    John said, “I noticed other problems first. Minor but disturbing. Auditory hallucinations, brief fugue states—”
    “When was this?”
    “Three years ago, more or less. I was living in a cabin on a gulf island off the coast of British Columbia. I blamed a lot of it on that—on the isolation. But then, without any kind of warning, I lost two calendar days. Went to bed on Sunday, woke up Wednesday morning. Well, that was frightening. But I was methodical about it. I tried to reconstruct the time I’d lost, pick up on any clues I’d left. I found a receipt in a shirt pocket, nine dollars and fifty-five cents for groceries at a supply store in town, a place I never shopped. It was a family grocery not much bigger than my cabin, and when I went in to ask some questions the woman back of the check-out desk nodded at me and said, ”Hello, Benjamin! Back again?“”
    “And the fugues persisted?”
    “I’m lucky to have a day like this… a day to myself.”
    Susan didn’t know what to say.
    He drained his cappucino and turned the cup over. “You want to know what it feels like? It’s like learning to do a puppet act… and then forgetting which one of you is which. The boundaries fold away. Suddenly you’re inside the mirror looking out.”
    “I see.”
    He regarded her steadily. “Is that what you expected—you and Max?”
    “Not exactly.”
    He stood up. He said, “I think I’m dying because I can’t remember how to be John Shaw anymore.”
     
     
    He walked her back to the hotel.
    He was quieter now, almost reticent, as if he had said more than he meant to. He walked with big, impatient strides and Susan had to struggle to keep up. She was panting for breath by the time they reached the lobby.
    He turned to face her at the door, wrapped in his jacket, almost lost in it. What had he said?
The boundaries fold away.
… He said, “You’ve done your job. You can go home with a clear conscience.”
    “That wasn’t the idea. We hoped—Dr. Kyriakides thought—if you came to Chicago—”
    “Why? So he can watch me fade away?”
    “He has some ideas that might help.”
    “He has a pathological curiosity and a bad conscience.”
    “You haven’t spoken to him for twenty years.”
    “I don’t want to speak to him.”
    “Well,
what,
then? You stay here? You curl up in that cheap apartment until you disappear?”
    She was startled by her own words—John seemed to be, too. He said, “I’m glad we talked. I’m glad you listened. You want to help. That’s nice. And you have. But I’m not ready to leave here.”
    “You don’t have to make that decision now. I’ll be in town for a week.” She could extend her reservation at the hotel. Surely Dr. Kyriakides would pay for it? “We can talk again.”
    John looked closely at her and this time, Susan thought, it was very bad, that X-ray vision stare, the sense of being scanned. But she stood up to it. She stared back without blinking.
    He said, “I… it might not be possible.”
    “Because of Benjamin?”
    He nodded.
    “But if it
is
possible?”
    “Then,” he said quietly, “I know where you are.”
    He turned and stalked away into the cool air.
    She watched him go. Her heart was beating hard.
    Because, she