“Yeah, but you’re not normal. You’ve got all that crazy annoying yellow, and . . .” I trailed off, realizing too late that I’d casually been talking about my synesthesia. Of course, I’d told him all about it at his bedside, but he apparently didn’t know that, and now that he was alive, awake, looking right at me, it felt weird to talk about it. Why was I able to do so many things when he was sleeping that I was unable to hold to when he was awake? Why was I such a chickenshit? It was disgusting.

“Yellow?”

I shook my head. “Never mind. I just mean . . . you were meant to be a cop. I wasn’t.”

He thrust the envelope toward me again; I still didn’t take it. “Listen, Nikki. I can’t remember what happened that made me give you this, but if I thought you could be a cop, then I probably had a good reason.”

“The reason was charity. Or, I don’t know, recruitment quotas? Do you have those? I told you then that I couldn’t do it, and I’m still telling you that.”

“Okay.” He dropped the envelope on the ground between us. He started to make his way past me and to his car.

“Okay?”

He turned. “Okay.”

“That’s all you have to say? I’m telling you that I’m giving up on the cop thing, and it’s just okay?”

He shrugged. “What’s it supposed to be? No, please, think about it some more? Don’t give up? You can do it? It’s natural to be afraid? Will any of those things help?”

I gritted my teeth. “No.”

He shrugged again. “Then okay. You already told me you didn’t want to do it, and I don’t remember any of this anyway. So do it or don’t do it. Nothing I can change about it. All I know is I’m exhausted and my leg hurts and I want to sit down and drink a beer and get this day over with.” He started toward his car again, his limp more pronounced now that he’d been standing for a while.

“This is the first time you’ve seen me since you were mowed down right in front of me and you want to go home and drink a beer? Nice.”

He turned back to me. “Mowed down. You were there?” he asked. Or maybe he said it: “You were there.” I couldn’t tell. Maybe he couldn’t tell, either.

I nodded. He shuffled toward me.

“Why?” He licked his lips. “Why did I do it? What had me so distracted?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Why did you do what?”

“Walk out in front of the car,” he said. “Was I going somewhere?”