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mother walking back and forth above me in the attic. I

thought I wasn't imagining it. Then I realized I was at

my uncle and aunt's home and it was the two of them

walking. I relaxed, but I'll never forget the

disappointment I felt, too.

Now I lay back on the pillow and listened with

my eyes opened, and I thought that somewhere out

there, somewhere far away, my mother was asleep or

lying in bed as I was. Perhaps her eyes were opened

too, and maybe, just maybe, she was remembering

giving birth to me and wondering what I was like

now, what I looked like, and thinking about what she

would say to me if, we ever met.

I felt sorrier for her than I did for myself. Imagine not remembering you had lost

something, someone, so precious, and then one day

realizing it.

It would come like a hard blow from out of the

blue. It had to be terribly frightening. How do you forget something so traumatic and important to you? Maybe she began to shout and they had to give

her something to keep her quiet.

And maybe that caused her to forget again, and

just like a bubble popping, I was gone, lost to th

at

place where everything forgotten and never retrieved

is stored somewhere so deep down in the darkness

that even God had forgotten it existed.

I shuddered and closed my eyes.

Sleep surprised me like raindrops surprised the

surface of a lake.

Tyler was always up early, even before the sun

had risen. Both summers I was here, I found he was as