“People with mental disease have peculiarities in the shape of their skulls. Lunatics have very contracted or deformed heads,” Dr. Self says. “Maniacs have soft brains. Such scientific insights gleaned from a study done in Paris in 1824, which concluded that out of one hundred idiots and imbeciles examined, only fourteen had normal heads.”

“Are you saying I’m an imbecile?”

“Sound all that different from what the doctors here have been telling you? That your head is somehow different, meaning you are somehow different?”

“I’m an imbecile? I killed my dog.”

“These superstitions and manipulations have been around for centuries. Measuring the skulls of people locked up in lunatic asylums and dissecting the brains of idiots and imbeciles.”

“I’m an imbecile?”

“Today, they put you in some magic tube—a magnet—and tell you your brain is deformed, and they make you listen to your mother.” Dr. Self stops talking as a tall figure walks toward them with purpose in the dark.

“Karen, if you don’t mind, I need to talk to Dr. Self,” Benton Wesley says.

“Am I an imbecile?” Karen says, getting up from the step.

“You’re not an imbecile,” Benton says kindly.

Karen says good-bye to him. “You were always nice to me,” she says to him. “I’m flying home and won’t be back,” she says to him.

Dr. Self invites Benton to sit next to her on the steps, but he won’t. She senses his anger, and it’s a triumph, yet one more.

“I’m feeling much better,” she says to him.

He’s transformed by shadows pushed back by lamps.

She’s never seen him in the dark, and the realization is fascinating.

“I wonder what Dr. Maroni would say right now. I wonder what Kay would say,” she says. “Reminds me of spring break at the beach. A young girl notices a glorious young man, and then? He notices her. They sit in the sand and wade in the water and splash each other and do everything they desire until the sun comes up. They don’t care that they’re wet and sticky with salt and each other. Where did the magic go, Benton? Getting old is when nothing’s enough and you know you’ll never feel magic again. I know what death is, and so do you. Sit next to me, Benton. I’m glad you want to chat before I go.”

“I talked to your mother,” Benton says. “Again.”

“You must like her.”

“She told me something very interesting that’s caused me to retract something I said to you, Dr. Self.”

“Apologies are always welcome. From you, they’re quite an unexpected treat.”

“You were right about Dr. Maroni,” Benton says. “About your having sex with him.”