I explained as much as I knew. “I have to believe it’s the field adjacent to the silo, the one Doris was forced to sell after your mother died, when the air force found such high levels of radioactivity in it. That’s also the place where your mother and her friends camped out all those years ago. I want to inspect it, but I might need help.”

Her teeth flashed white in the dark. “The Cady Perec Memorial Birthplace: I know it well. I can show you just where to look.”

“They’ve built sophisticated security into the fences,” I warned her. “If you come with me, it could mean you’d have to find some other way to save the world when you get out of prison. I’ll take a look in the morning and see what we might need to bypass it. Of course, if they’ve buried cameras in their sorghum stubble, we’re out of luck.”

Cady laughed, then turned impulsively to hug me before getting into her car. I called to Peppy and walked slowly back into our rented room, feeling better myself for Cady’s friendship.

I climbed into bed and started going through my photo album to look at pictures of the people I was missing. Sal, with her head thrown back, laughing, her four-inch feather earrings brushing her shoulders. Lotty, deep in conversation with Max. Mr. Contreras at the lake with Mitch and Peppy. Even Bernie, skates on, a look of ferocious concentration on her face.

And Jake. Playing onstage at Ravinia, at Symphony Center in the Logan Center for the Arts. In my apartment, his face alight with music and the joy of connecting to me through it.

Jake wasn’t a coward or a grudge holder. If he wanted to break up with me, he’d tell me directly, not play a cruel game of silence. If he was out of touch, I was guessing he’d done something he was ashamed to report—sleeping with another woman came to mind first. It was a hurt but not a disaster.

I took a deep breath and tried to put Jake not out of my mind—I couldn’t—but in a corner where that little wound beneath the diaphragm wouldn’t keep me from working.

I came to the pictures I’d been taking since arriving in Kansas: Peppy running freely in the Flint Hills our first morning here. Had that been only last week? It felt like a lifetime ago. The copse at Fort Riley where the quarters for Negro soldiers used to stand. And on to Lawrence.