Weary but curious, and enjoying these rare moments of independence, I decided to walk through the town, to scope it out. I entered a general store and bartered with a merchant, trading my last dozen strips of Quon-made jerky for some gloves and ground coffee.

Strolling aimlessly and looking in storefronts, I came to an abrupt stop in front of a building of dark red brick. My stomach churned—something was uncomfortably familiar about this place. Had I seen it in a dream? Had I been here long ago? Or both?

A teenage girl brushed by me and walked in the front door. She wore dark glasses and carried a baby. Why did she seem so familiar? I shuffled my feet. As I peeked in the window, I saw the girl sit down with a middle-aged man in a white coat. She listened nervously to Whitecoat, looking at the window where I stood, as if expecting someone to join her. Whitecoat then handed her some white forms to sign on a clipboard. Her hand trembling, she signed and gave him a handful of cash.

Who is she?

From behind me and to my left a young boy strolled to the door. He wore a letterman’s jacket and acted cocky and in control. I knew him well but had never seen him from the outside until now. How was this possible?

I looked back at the girl. Marci! Of course—she was just as I remembered. Why hadn’t I recognized her immediately? Walking toward the back room, she hesitated, turning around to the waiting room, her eyes pleading with the boy. He looked at her sternly, this take-charge young man, and insisted that Whitecoat would take care of everything. I couldn’t hear him, but I knew exactly what he said—I retrieved it from storage in the back room of my mind.

The door shut behind her. While the young man sat in the lobby reading Sports Illustrated, I went to the side of the building. I heard through a window desperate cries. I stayed outside for at least an hour, heart racing, until I saw the young couple walk away, the girl in dark glasses now carrying nothing but white forms, the boy pretending what they’d done was no big deal.

Hearing a door open, I walked all the way to the back of the building and saw what I hadn’t thirty-three years earlier. Whitecoat walked out the door with a black garbage bag and put it in a big Dumpster full of other black bags.

I turned away, reeling. The thirty-three years seemed like a day. I remembered it all, unearthing every forbidden detail buried in that unmarked grave in my mind.

Desperate to get away, I walked quickly through the town, looking in storefronts but seeing nothing, thinking only of a past that haunted me worse than any sounds in the night.