I stopped, flipping back a page and rereading the words. He had written of an occasion on which he had struck Chloe with such force he was afraid he might actually have killed her. He went on to describe a previously unrecorded incident when he had beaten her badly with his fists. The details were recorded impassively, with little in the way of emotion.

I felt as if something cold and greasy had clambered inside my belly and taken root there. What had started out as a diary had instead turned into a kind of confession of domestic violence that nauseated me. Their fights had been furious and, to me, incomprehensible. He begged forgiveness for his actions, but his words did not convince even me.

I put the diary down with trembling hands and stared out my window for a long time. I had never struck any woman in my life, nor could I imagine myself ever doing so.

It occurred to me that this might well be the reason for Chloe seeming so reticent in my presence. If I – if he – had been so dreadfully violent, I could hardly blame her for keeping her distance. But then she had reached out to kiss me just days before, and the memory left me sick with confusion.

I could no longer feel any kinship with the man who had written those words, and yet the fact remained that up until the point of his retrieval, I was absolutely identical in thought and history and deed to that other Jerry. How could I – how could he – really have changed so much, that he would commit such monstrous, unjustifiable acts?

I knew I needed to find Chloe and talk to her about this. I wanted more than anything to prove to her that I was different, that I could never be the same as that other me, pouring out his wounded regrets.

Assuming, of course, given what I now knew, she had any intention of talking to me ever again. And who could blame her if she didn’t?

And yet . . . that kiss. It made little sense, even though the memory of it seemed to dominate my thoughts at times.

I remembered, then, what she had said – that she was taking as many missions as she could, to distance herself from the island – and, by implication, from me. No matter: as soon as she returned, for however long, I would go to her and talk with her about what I had read. Assuming, that is, she was willing to listen. Even so, I felt I needed some form of absolution, some way of distinguishing myself from the other me.

I wondered if she even knew he had written of these events in their life.

I put the diary down and found my jacket, a new and more immediate purpose on my mind. There was something I had to do before anything else: something I had to see with my own two eyes.