“I don’t know,” Lonnie said. “I think maybe the past is sort of superimposed on the present. Or the immaterial world. And there’s overlap sometimes, but I don’t know why.”

Alex lay down on the floor. I was thinking about all those times in high school we’d parked next to cemeteries at night, wandered around among the graves, waiting for something to happen. All the horror movies I’d watched. All the times I’d walked past the LeRoi house. Nothing ever happened to me, but of course, something would reach out for Lonnie.

“Sometimes I think of dreams as overlap too,” Lonnie said. “Sometimes they’re obviously just your mind jumbling up your experiences, but other times they feel like you’ve slipped into something you maybe shouldn’t have? Something that maybe doesn’t really have much to do with you?”

When neither of us responded she said, “These things are impossible to talk about anyway.”

She got up then, and went to put on clothes. I missed her while she was gone; I worried about her upstairs without really knowing why. The house felt so isolated. I missed the city, missed the idea of my neighbors next to me, even if I couldn’t hear them—when had isolation started to scare me? She returned, of course, in her robe, carrying the baby monitor and an armload of blankets. The three of us spread out on the floor in front of the fireplace. Lonnie curled her body against mine. “Did you have a fireplace growing up?” I asked quietly.

“No,” she said, the words in my ear. “And I missed it my whole life.”

WE FELL ASLEEP NESTED TOGETHER LIKE THAT. FOR ALL HIS childish bravado, I think we’d frightened Alex; I think he was scared to leave. Or maybe he was hoping for sex—hoping our affection toward each other would spontaneously trickle over to him, though he made no move to wedge himself between us. He probably didn’t know how.

IT WAS STILL DARK WHEN THE PHONE RANG. THE FIRE HAD long burned out and the big living room was cold. I rose without fully waking to answer the ringing. It was only when I reached the familiar sound that I realized the time, the place, the year. I hadn’t spoken on a landline since I moved out at eighteen. This was not my phone, not my kitchen, and whoever was on the other end was not trying to reach me.

I picked up the receiver anyway—it seemed wrong to let it ring while William slept upstairs. My palm cradled the object. How many hours had I spent talking on a phone like this growing up? It was funny now—I’d had to do it in the kitchen, waiting for my dad to turn on the television in the other room to ensure he wouldn’t be eavesdropping.