Of the many difficult things about the season, choosing the tree had been especially hard for me because Kate and Jason had always joined me-a big family event. As soon as we'd gotten home with it, we'd always begun putting on the decorations, often not finishing until after dark. This time, every bulb that I'd put on the tree racked me with greater loss. Normally, there'd have been plenty of presents under the tree, but this year, Kate's parents and I had agreed not to exchange gifts. After all, there was only one thing we wanted, and it couldn't be put under a tree. As usual, Kate's mother made eggnog. It was as delicious as every other year, but I could hardly get it down. A few days later, they went back to Durango. Kate's father felt so poorly that her mother had to drive.

Phil Barrow invited me next door for a New Year's Eve party. I did my best to be sociable, but for me, the holiday was a wake. I went home an hour before the countdown at midnight. As hard as I tried, I couldn't remember what Kate and Jason sounded like.

Spring came.

May.

June.

They'd been gone a year.

17

"I'm leaving town," I told Payne.

"Yes, sometimes it's a good idea to get away from bad memories," he said.

"I was hoping that you wouldn't mind if I had my mail forwarded to you."

"Sure," Payne said. "No problem."

"I've asked the police and the FBI to leave messages with you in case they learn something new."

Payne nodded. "I'll phone you the second I hear anything. Just give me the number where you'll be and-"

"At the moment, that's a little uncertain. I'll have to phone you."

"You don't know where you're going?"

"Not exactly."

"But you don't just board a plane without having a reservation to someplace."

"I'm not going on a plane. I thought I'd simply get in my car and drive. See the country. Go wherever the roads take me."

Payne's eyes narrowed. "Who are you kidding?"

"I don't understand."

"Go wherever the roads take you? Give me a break. You're up to something. What is it?"

"I told you. I just need to get away."

"You worry me."

I avoided his gaze and looked at the fish tank.

"Don't tell me-you're going out there to try to find him," Payne said.

I kept looking at the fish tank.

"How the hell do you figure to do it?" Payne demanded. "It's impossible. You don't have a chance."

At last, I looked back at him. "I've done everything else I can think of."

"Without any leads? It's for damn sure you'll be going where the roads take you. All you'll do is wander."

"But I do have leads," I insisted.

Payne leaned his ample body forward. "Tell me."

"It's hard to explain."

"Give it a try."

"Petey wanted to take my place."

"And?" Payne looked baffled.

"Now I'm going to do it in the reverse. I'm going to take Petey's place."

"What?"

"I'm going to put myself in his mind. I'm going to think like him. I'm going to become him."

"Jesus," Payne whispered.

"After all, we're brothers."

"Mr. Denning…"

"Yes?"

"I'm as sorry for you as it's possible to be. God help you."

Part Three

1

Put myself in Petey's mind? Think like him? It was desperation, yes, but what was the alternative? At least it would be motion. It would keep me from losing my own mind.

I went to the street where Petey had first approached me outside my office-or what had used to be my office. The time was shortly after 2:00 p.m., as it had been exactly a year earlier. Petey had shouted my name from behind me, which meant that he'd been waiting to the left of the building's revolving door. I walked to a large concrete flower planter, where I guessed that he'd been resting his hips. I studied the front door, trying to put myself in his place. Why hadn't he gone into my office? As I leaned against the planter, feeling invisible to the passing crowd, I understood why he'd done it the way he had. In my office, he'd have been under my control, whereas on the sidewalk, yelling my name from behind me, he was in charge.

I recalled our initial conversation, this time from his perspective as he told me things that only my brother could have known, seeing my amazement, winning me over. I went to the delicatessen across the street, where our conversation had continued. I sat where he had sat. I imagined myself from his perspective as he continued to persuade me that my long-lost brother had finally returned. I went home and pretended to be him coming into my house, looking around, seeing all my possessions, the things that he'd never been able to have. Was it at this point that his plan had formed? I deserve this, not you, he would have thought. Picking up this and that object, he would have worked hard to conceal his anger. You ruined my life, and this is what you got for it, you bastard.

Kate would have been easy to look at: her long legs, her inviting waist. But what about Jason? What would Petey really have thought of him? A damned nuisance. Petey's background didn't leave room for paternal instinct. But Jason was part of what Petey would've had if I hadn't destroyed his life by sending him home from the baseball game. Jason went with the package, with the attractive wife and the big house, so Petey wanted him. Petey wanted everything that I had.

I recalled the dinner that Petey had eaten with us and how polite he'd been, helping to clean the dishes. Later, he'd played catch with Jason. He must have hated every second of it, just as he'd hated pretending to enjoy reminiscing about our childhood before I ruined his life. But the worst moment of all, the most hateful for him, would have been when I'd brought him the baseball glove that he'd dropped when the man and woman had grabbed him. He must have wanted to shove the damned glove down my throat.

I went to Petey's room. I lay on his bed. I stared up at the ceiling and discovered that I'd picked up the baseball glove and was slamming my fist into it again and again. He would have wanted a smoke, but he wouldn't have ruined his plan by lighting up in the house and annoying Kate. So he'd crept downstairs, through the French doors off the kitchen, into the moonlit backyard, where he'd sat angrily on a lounge chair and lit a cigarette. I remembered looking from our bedroom window and seeing him down there. I imagined him pretending not to notice when my face appeared. I put myself in his mind. What are you doing up there? he'd have thought. Screwing the wife, are you, bro? Enjoy it while you can. It'll soon be my turn.

2

The next morning, I went to the barbershop where I'd taken him. I sat in the chair, feeling the scissors against my head, imagining that he'd festered from the insult that I thought he looked like shit and I was going to make him presentable. Then I went to the Banana Republic where I'd bought him new clothes. Then the shoe store. Then the dentist, where I'd made him feel self-conscious about his chipped tooth, reinforcing his sense that I thought he looked like shit.

When I walked into the dentist's office, the receptionist glanced up in surprise. "We weren't expecting you today, Mr. Denning. We're just about to close for lunch. Is this an emergency?"

"No." Confused, I realized that I'd almost tricked myself into believing that I could truly repeat the pattern from a year ago. "I must have gotten my days mixed up. Sorry to have bothered you."

As I reached unsteadily for the doorknob, I remembered waiting in the reception area while Petey had gone in to have his teeth cleaned and the chip in his tooth smoothed away. I tried to project myself into Petey, to imagine him sitting angrily in the dentist's chair. Since he hadn't been to a dentist in years, he would have been nervous, tensing a little as the dentist came at him with…