“Call me Eve,” she said. “Please. Anything else sounds strange. I need to ask you some questions.”

“Okay.”

“Have you been having blackouts? You wake up and can’t account for where you were or what you did?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Even when you drink?”

“How do you know that I drink?”

“Just answer the question.”

“No, I haven’t gotten blackout drunk in years. Typically, I remember the stupid things I do.”

Eve frowned. “Have you experienced any kind of trauma lately?”

“Yes. The worst trauma of my life, in fact. I lost my wife in a car accident.”

“Your wife,” she exclaimed.

“Karly. Our car went into a river. She drowned. I wasn’t able to save her.”

Eve inched away from me on the bench. Her voice grew frostier. “I’m very sorry for your loss. That’s a terrible thing.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Is it possible you experienced some kind of memory loss after the accident?”

“If I did, you’re the only thing that got erased,” I told her. “Look, you obviously think I’m someone else. Are you going to tell me how I supposedly know you?”

Eve stood up from the bench and reached out a hand to me. I stood up, too, and we walked eastward, away from the fountain. We crossed the outer drive and then continued until we were within a few steps of the lake. I could taste the spray on my lips. Out in the harbor, sailboats bobbed, their ropes clanging. Beyond the piers, I could see whitecaps dotting the rough water. The skyscrapers glowed behind us.

She turned and faced me. In her high heels, she was taller than I was. The wind whipped her silky hair. “You’re my patient. That’s how I know you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been coming to me for therapy for several weeks.”

I backed away from her. “What?”

“It’s true.”

“No, it’s not. I don’t even know you.”

“Believe me, you do. And I know you, too. Of course, you never told me about being married, which is a surprise.” She cocked her head, studying me like a clinician trying to get inside my brain. “This must be some kind of memory loss. Although I suppose there’s one other possibility.”

“What’s that?”

Eve frowned. “You could be suffering from multiple personality syndrome. Your mind has split into different versions of yourself. One Dylan doesn’t remember what the other Dylan has done. I never saw any signs of that, but other personalities can be very convincing. I guess it’s also possible that my treatment made your condition more severe.”

“Treatment?”

“Yes. You were my first patient in a new experimental protocol I developed. I call it my Many Worlds therapy.”

“What the hell is that?”