“The point of being lost is this dislocation. This point of entry to the real. Some never lose it. But most do. You have to shock it awake. Be in real danger. Create real danger. An unknown.”

Idealistic? Maybe. But I found it moving.

Even if I’d never been lost that way, or suffered that disconnect. At best, we plotted sometimes to buy a mountain retreat deep in the forests. Build a house in the wilderness, connected to town by a dirt road. Emergency generator, childhood knowledge of semi-rural life. Woodsy, roll-up-your-sleeves self-sufficiency. Except, we’d have good internet access. Except, on the weekends we’d drive down to a local pub and eat farm-to-table and drink microbrews made from the neighbor’s clean well water. Free of mindless conformity. We’d do it debt-free, pay off the credit card, a burden that had always made me nervous.

We talked about it, never did anything about it. Deep down, we liked the comfort of our generic house. Experienced amnesia about the cost. It was easy, like sinking into the cushions of a comfortable leather couch. Of which we had two.

We lived in a generic version of reality. The house we settled on in a suburban neighborhood had few differences from the other houses on the block—and the block after that. Call our neighborhood “Meadow Brook” or “Canopy Trail” or “Lake Shores” or any other name that fucks with your head if you think about it too long. Because there isn’t a meadow or a canopy or a lake. Anymore.

“It was hard to remember what to forget,” she wrote. As if she could read my mind.

I think about the Quito part of her life often, even now. That tiny cross section, a matter of two months or fifty-nine days. How it changed her. What it stole from her. What she could never reveal.

What it helped make her into.

[9]

I called my assistant “Allie” into my office. Let’s say she wore a lot of black, had piercings, highlighted her eyes to make them look bigger, and wore purple lipstick. She might’ve been a brunette. Sometimes she wore dark, floral-print dresses with thick socks to fend off the cold outside. I didn’t put her in front of clients.

Or maybe I did. And maybe she was brash and bold and not a waif at all. Let’s say she was tall. No, short and stocky. She was white. No, she wasn’t. She’s been erased. I erased her. It was the safest thing to do. Make up whatever you want to about her. I did, because I had to.

“Add the Better Days Storage Palace to your research list,” I told her. “Key word ‘Silvina.’ Anything you can find on a Silvina connected to the storage palace.” I made sure to look her in the eyes; my only tell is when I look away. Some people find me impassive. I think it is more that they focus on my body, not my face.