“Oh, you’ve heard the story. Yes, that’s right.”

“Is your father still alive?” I asked.

“He is. We lost my mother last year, though. Cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, her dying brought my father and me closer together. I don’t think either one of us would have made it through that time without the other.”

I tried to imagine a world in which my father hadn’t killed my mother. A world in which they’d both been with me as I grew up, in which my father didn’t drink and took me places and made me a part of his life. I knew nothing else about this Dylan next to me, but I already knew that I envied him.

I began to understand what Eve Brier had warned me about.

You might be tempted to stay.

Around me, more Dylans arrived at the museum. Half a dozen. Twenty. Forty. I soon lost count. They were all completely different and yet all the same. They wore different clothes. Some had beards; some didn’t. Some were heavier than me, some skinnier. One was in a wheelchair. One had an artificial right leg. Some looked almost identical to me, just a few little changes to tell me that a part of their life was different from mine.

But I saw no Dylan wearing my father’s leather jacket.

I wandered through the museum as it got more and more crowded. We kept bumping into each other, all the Dylan Morans squeezed into every wing. Near the American Gothic display, I saw one Dylan stop in the middle of the gallery as others streamed around him. He was dressed exactly the way I was, in a slightly rumpled blazer, dirty slacks, and loose tie. Tears streamed down his reddened face, and his chest heaved with despair.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

His mouth fell open. He unleashed a guttural cry that was pure agony. He stared at me, consumed by pain. “Karly’s dead.”

The words nearly knocked me over. “Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”

“I can’t live without her. I can’t.”

Tragic Dylan reached into the pocket of his suit coat and removed an automatic pistol, which he armed by racking the slide. Instinctively, I took a step backward and put my hands up.

“Dylan, put the gun away.”

He shook his head and continued to sob. As I watched, he opened his mouth and closed his lips around the barrel of the gun. His hand quivered as he slid his finger onto the trigger. Mucus dripped from his nose, and drool leaked onto the barrel. His screwed-up face looked like a version of The Scream, as if he were one more painting in the museum.

“Dylan, no! No, don’t do it!” I looked around at the others; there were hundreds of them now. “Somebody help over here!”

But no one stopped. No one even noticed the drama playing out.