Like staring at a Jackson Pollack and trying to find meaning in it.

The casual arrangement of things.

I was looking at one particular pattern-I was forming my own pictures out of it.

When I looked for its source, I couldn’t find it.

When I searched the leafy canopy for cracks, there were none.

Not one ray of sunshine being let through.

I heard the thick drone of insects. Smelled something.

A vague scent-musky, sickly sweet.

Something that must’ve once been truly awful, but was now barely tolerable.

I noticed the clumps of moist black earth flung here and there. Discerned the clouds of swarming insects-horseflies, gnats, flying beetles.

Drive into the woods now and they won’t find you till next year.

I had to push a thick dead vine out of the way to finally stand there.

Up close.

Where the streaks of white sunlight looked like a wrinkled Halloween costume that’s been ripped off and thrown in the corner.

You know the one.

The skeleton.

I had to swat the bugs out of my eyes. I had to keep staring at it.

The white streaks of light that weren’t. The bones. They were dead white.

Bitten in half so that whatever had dug them up could get to the marrow.

I wasn’t a bone expert, of course. I couldn’t tell a deer bone from a human one.

I didn’t have to.

Deer don’t wear pants.

Tan chinos, with the Gap waist snap still attached.

FIFTY-THREE

She answered her phone on the second ring, then even more surprisingly, she didn’t hang up.

Maybe because I asked her if she was going to go back to her maiden name after the divorce.

Back to the name Steiner.

She went silent, one of those strangled pauses that say more than words can. Then she agreed to meet me on Lincoln and Ninth.

The first day I’d met her, she’d told me about her father.

My pop was a mechanic, she’d said, after I thanked her for fixing my coil wire. He basically lived under the hood.

Just like someone else I’d heard about.

He took auto-mechanic classes in jail-that’s what he ended up doing when he got out… The boy-wonder engineer, fixing cars for a living.

There was more.

At our second dinner, after she happened to mention that she’d known Wren.

That’s where we’d met, she said. At the home… to try to scare up some memories.

And what was Anna doing at the home?

My pop. He’s got Alzheimer’s, she’d said.

And when I’d asked Wren-not really Wren, but whoever was on the phone with me that day-if Lloyd Steiner was still alive?

Barely.

Did you try to speak with him?

Uh-huh. Let’s just say he’s not talking.

It was possible.

Maybe even plausible.

So you think Lloyd Steiner went to jail for ten years to appease the public and kept his mouth shut all that time?

Maybe he had kept his mouth shut.

Just not forever.

I called the home. I introduced myself as a concerned relative. I asked a sympathetic-sounding attendant how Mr. Steiner was doing today. “Lloyd Steiner? Is he okay?”

“No change. We’re pretty much down to force-feeding him now.”

It’s what you do for someone you love, she’d said. He’s my dad. I’d do anything for him.

In the end, maybe that’s what she’d needed to do.

Anything.

That picture she showed me.

Cody on the push-and-pedal. The kid pumping his legs like nobody’s business-striking out on his own. Going wherever he wanted to-exploring the great wide world.

Except he wasn’t.

Mom was right behind him holding on to that pole and steering him where she wanted him to go. It was an illusion.

Dirty trick, huh?

Yes, Anna, it was.

It was.

IT’S FUNNY HOW SHE STILL STIRRED SOMETHING IN ME.

Maybe it’s our nature to let the body forgive what the mind can’t.

Or else we’d all be at one another’s throats. And we’d never let go.

“Someone paid you a visit three years ago,” I said. “A creepy-looking man with a voice like a girl’s.”

We were standing on the corner on Lincoln. Early evening, lots of foot traffic heading toward the promenade.

She nodded.

“Your dad was in the early stage of Alzheimer’s by then. It was probably his last chance to get something out. Before he vanished-the part of him that could actually communicate with the world. That could still form words.”

She turned away, rubbed something out of her eye.

“This man paid you a visit. He said something like this-I’ll paraphrase. Your daddy made a deal. A long time ago. He’s got to honor it. Even if he’s gone off the deep end of the ocean-even if he’s begun muttering things to local reporters. A secret’s a secret. A deal’s a deal.”

There was something in her eyes.

Tears.

“He’d begun talking about the past,” she said softly.

I nodded. “Sure.”

“That’s pretty much all he talked about. It’s what happens when you start going… That’s what the doctor said… Like counting backward when someone’s putting you under. And then you’re asleep. You’re gone. Sometimes he was actually there, back in the 1950s…”

“ 1954,” I said. “I bet he spent a lot of time in 1954. The year Wren was interested in hearing about. The year of the flood. By the way, what’s your real name? I feel silly calling you Anna.”

“Does it matter?” she said.

“No. Guess not. The deal your father made. Maybe it was the best deal he could get. Under the circumstances. I think they would’ve gotten him one way or another-he had a history. He spent ten years in jail, but he did something for his family. He got something out of it. You must’ve come later. After he got out.”

She nodded. “They’d had a ten-year coitus interruptus.” She forced a smile. “I guess they were making up for lost time.”

“You met Wren at the home. Maybe the creepy-looking man told you to do that-your dad’s blabbing about things he has no business talking about, and he’s talking about them to a reporter-get over here and keep an eye on him. Or maybe you met Wren first-when you were visiting your dad. And he sought you out and asked if he could speak to him. About a flood. And a town. It doesn’t matter. Either way, you became Wren’s friend-a kind of confidante?”

“Yes.”

“He was excited. Just like you said. He’d discovered something that happened just twenty-three miles down the road. Something awful. Something huge. Your father must’ve confirmed it. Did he give Wren something? Did he hand him more than his memories?”

“No. I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because they got scared enough to do something. Because your father’s memory wouldn’t be considered exactly rock solid. Not anymore. Because…”

“Look, I can’t talk about this.”

She still looked sad-something else now. Frightened. Even here, in the middle of a breezy Santa Monica evening, scared stiff.

“What did he threaten you with?” I asked softly. “Your dad, sure-but he’s half-dead already. You have a son. Your mom-she’s still alive. Did he force you to make the same choice your father did? Protect your family? Or don’t.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

“You became their spy. You kept tabs. They needed to know how much your father told Wren. What. If he’d given him something tangible. That was your job-be Wren’s friend but their eyes and ears. Help put the water back in the bottle.”

A car slowly turned the corner; she took a step back as if she were about to break into a run.

“Did you tell him? That you’re meeting me here?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“You’re sure? You’re not lying to me?”

“No.”

“Good, then you can stop peeking behind your back. Your father. He talked about the past. 1954. He spilled the beans. The dam that really wasn’t. The little explosion the history books don’t tell us about. He didn’t give Wren anything? Nothing?”