They walked to the street, where he told her to wait. He strode away and around the corner. She looked at the sky. An airplane had left a thin white contrail across the blue. A car peeled out somewhere, its long screech filling her ears. Then it was silent, and soon some birds began singing.

A shiny green van drove up and stopped in front of her. Shumda was at the wheel wearing a San Diego Padres baseball cap. He got out, opened the passenger’s door, and helped her in. She had trouble getting into cars but rode in them so rarely now that it made no difference.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t want a surprise. Just tell me. At least give me that.”

“Be quiet, Miranda. Sit back and enjoy the ride. You haven’t been outside in a long time.”

Folding her hands in her lap she looked out the window. When Shumda spoke again she ignored him, wouldn’t even turn to look. As soon as he realized she wouldn’t respond, he chattered on nonstop. Told her what he had been doing all these years, told her what she had been doing all these years (“They said to keep tabs on you”), told her everything she didn’t want to hear. She looked out the window and tried with all her might to ignore him. If this was to be her last ride, she didn’t want his voice nattering in her ear. A hamburger stand, a gas station. Why had it come so abruptly? Couldn’t they have given her some warning? A day. If they had given her one more day she could have finished everything and been waiting at the door when he arrived. A yellow convertible driven by a beautiful brunette passed them. Then a Volkswagen that looked as though it had been driven around the world six times. The driver was a man with a shaved head. His hands danced back and forth across the top of the steering wheel. A used book store. One day would have been enough. Today while she was working, her stomach had knotted up several times because she knew in her secret self that she would be finished soon, and then what would she do with her days? Why had Shumda been watching her for years? She was no threat. She had never been a threat. Besides, all that had been so long ago. Soon after it was over she’d started forgetting things and despite having written this diary, so many memories of that time were like Greek ruins to her by now.

She had never planned to reread her account, but riding along now she grew furious that she would never even have the choice. All that work, but now she could not go back to relive for a while certain experiences that she might already have forgotten. How much can an old brain hold before it begins to spring leaks from the weight of so many years?

Honey-cooked hams, discount sunglasses, Mansfield Avenue, street signs all flew by the car window. He was driving faster now. Where were they going? She remembered Frances Hatch in her hospital room surrounded by flowers.

Maybe Shumda would drive her someplace but then drive her home again. A flutter, a hummingbird’s heartbeat of hope raced through her but was gone just as quickly. It was over. Whatever he had waiting for her would be appropriate and terrible, she was sure. She remembered walking back into Frances’s room and seeing her crying.

He turned left on La Brea and accelerated. Evening was beginning. The sky was still bright but when they walked to the car from her house the air had been cool and still, already starting to settle for the night. Down La Brea past the cheap furniture stores, cheap drugstores, cheap fast-food places. More people stood out on the sidewalks here waiting for buses, waiting for friends, waiting for some kind of luck or change that would never come.

Miranda had been lucky and she knew it. She had traveled, she’d had an interesting job and been her own boss. She’d made money. For a short time she knew and was loved by a remarkable man. Hugh. If this was the end, she wanted to spend it thinking about Hugh Oakley. As if he knew what she was trying to do, Shumda interrupted her.

“Why did you do it?”

“Why did I do what?” Her voice came out cranky—she wasn’t interested in answering his questions, especially not now when there was so little time left.

He lifted a hand off the wheel and let it fall back again.

“You’re not alone, you know. There were others who did what you did. But I’m just interested, you know? What would possess anyone to voluntarily give up the life you had for this one?” His hand rose again off the wheel and batted the air as if flicking away a fly. “And you didn’t even know who you were giving it to! That’s incredible. You handed over your immortality to a stranger. Someone you never even met!”

Coming to a red traffic light they slowed to a stop. He glanced at her and made a face. She ignored him and looked straight ahead. The light changed but instead of accelerating, Shumda continued watching her.

Eventually she said, more to herself than to him, “I never really thought about it. The moment came and it had to be. That’s all. Isn’t that interesting? I was always fighting with myself—my head, my heart. Sometimes one won, sometimes the other. But with that there was no fight. There wasn’t even a question.” The old woman beamed. Her whole demeanor changed, as if whatever inner storms had been raging had now passed and she was at peace. Shumda had never seen anyone in her position at peace, and he had seen his share. Oh yes, he had seen quite a few.

“Life is about to spit in your face, Miranda. I wouldn’t be too smiley about that.”

They were silent the rest of the ride. To her great satisfaction, out of the corner of her eye she observed that he kept looking at her to see if her expression would change—if the enormity of whatever terrible thing was about to happen to her had finally sunk in. Why hadn’t the great final fear wrapped her in its arms as it always did with the people he had escorted to their destruction?

It took another ten minutes. He kept looking over but her pleased expression never changed. All right, so it didn’t change. Wait till she got there. Wait till she saw what waited!

The road suddenly became hilly and there were oil wells all up and down those hills doing their slow work. The land was khaki-colored, sun-parched. It was a strange part of Los Angeles, neither here nor there, a kind of oddly empty no-man’s land between downtown and the airport.

Signaling with his blinker, Shumda slowly merged into the right lane and then pulled off the road onto the shoulder. He cut the engine and sat there, savoring what came next. He grinned at her. “Remember this spot?”

Miranda looked around. “No.”

“You will.” He opened his door and got out of the van. It was all she could do not to watch him. He walked around to the back and opened the two rear doors. She heard him push and slide something metallic.

“Be with you in just a sec. Sit tight.”

Slowly reaching up, she twisted the rearview mirror so she could look out the back. He was fooling around with something and it took her a moment to realize what it was. He did something and the thing went pop and suddenly unfolded into a wheelchair.

Cars zoomed by, some close, others far away, all of them loud and smooth, rushing and dangerous. And then of course it dawned on her.

So many years ago she was in one of these speeding cars on her way to Los Angeles airport. She had been in bed with Doug Auerbach that day and afterwards they went to a big drugstore together. Afterwards she rode to the airport in a taxicab and the driver, like Shumda now, wore a San Diego Padres baseball cap. She was so young then, so young and busy, and she hadn’t met Hugh Oakley yet. She hadn’t met Hugh Oakley and she hadn’t seen dead James Stillman alive again. She was flying back to New York that night and only days later her entire life changed forever. So long ago. All of it so long ago, but now all of that day and what followed was crushing her and she couldn’t stop the memories and the results, all of them crystal clear.