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to the hospital, we tried to locate your family. Of course, we discovered you didn’t have a family, no close relatives at all. So we called your employer. I’ve talked to Phil Gomez myself. According to him, you’ve worked at Milestone for more than four years. He was extremely concerned about you. In fact he’s called here, asking about you, four or five times since the accident.”
     
    “Can we call him now?” Susan asked. “If I hear his voice, maybe something will click into place for me. It might help me remember.”
     
    “Well, I don’t have his home number,” McGee said, “and we can’t call him at work until tomorrow.”
     
    “Why not?”
     
    “Today’s Sunday.”
     
    “Oh,” she said.
     
    She hadn’t even known what day of the week it was, and that realization left her feeling somewhat disoriented again.
     
    “We’ll definitely call tomorrow,” McGee said.
     
    “What if I talk to him and still can’t remember anything about my work?”
     
    “You will.”
     
    “No, listen, please don’t be glib. Be straight with me. Okay? There’s a chance I’ll never remember anything about my job, isn’t there?”
     
    “That’s not likely.”
     
    “But possible?”
     
    “Well... anything’s possible.”
     
    She slumped back against her pillows, suddenly exhausted, depressed, and worried.
     
    “Listen,” McGee said, “even if you never remember anything about Milestone, that doesn’t mean you can’t go back to work there. After all, you haven’t forgotten what you know about physics; you’re still a competent scientist. You’ve lost none of your education, none of your knowledge. Now, if you were suffering from global amnesia, which is the worst kind, you’d have forgotten nearly everything you ever learned, including how to read and write. But you don’t have global amnesia, and that’s something to be thankful for. Anyway, given time, you’ll remember all of it. I’m sure of that.”
     
    Susan hoped he was correct. Her carefully structured, orderly life was in temporary disarray, and she found her condition to be enormously distressing. If that disarray were to become a permanent feature of her existence, she would find life almost unbearable. She had always been in control of her life; she needed to be in control.
     
    McGee took his hands out of his pockets and looked at his watch. “I’ve got to be going. I’ll stop by again for a couple of minutes before I go home for the day. Meanwhile, you relax, eat more of your lunch if you can, and don’t worry. You’ll remember all about Milestone when the time is right.”
     
    Suddenly, as she listened to McGee, Susan sensed—without understanding why or how she sensed it—that she would be better off if she never remembered anything about Milestone. She was seized by an arctic-cold, iron-hard fear for which she could find no explanation.
     
     
 
She slept for two hours. She didn’t dream this time—or if she did dream, she didn’t remember it.
     
    When she woke, she was slightly clammy. Her hair was tangled; she combed it, wincing as she pulled out the knots.
     
    Susan was just putting the comb back on the nightstand when Mrs. Baker entered the room, pushing a wheelchair ahead of her. “It’s time for you to do a bit of traveling, kid.”
     
    “Where are we going?”
     
    “Oh, we’ll explore the hallways and byways of the exotic second floor of mysterious, romantic, colorful Willawauk County Hospital,” Mrs. Baker said. “The trip of a lifetime. It’ll be loads of fun. Besides, the doctor wants you to start getting some exercise.”
     
    “It’s not going to be much exercise if I’m sitting in a wheelchair.”
     
    “You’ll be surprised. Just sitting up, holding on, and gawking at the other patients will be enough to tire you out. You’re not exactly in the same physical condition as an Olympic track and field star, you know.”
     
    “But I’m sure I can walk,” Susan said. “I might