Thora swallows down the old hurt. “My mother—she died after a stroke when I was sixteen years old. And I feel—I can’t help feeling like that wasn’t supposed to happen. That there’s a world where it didn’t happen, and in that world, other good things came after.” Like maybe I made it to the stars. She has to stop herself from saying it. She doesn’t know why she’s talking this way to a patient. But it’s important to her that he understand what she means. “I used to think if I tried hard enough, if I really concentrated, I could travel there. To another world. A better one.”

Mr. López is looking at her with tears in his eyes. Thora panics. “Oh. I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

He rubs the wedding ring on his veined right hand. “My wife. Thirty years ago, she resisted being robbed at knifepoint, and—they killed her. I tried to stop them, but . . .” He trails off.

Héloïse. The name jumps into Thora’s head. She frowns, and focuses: her patient just disclosed a personal tragedy, and she’s staring into space. “Jesus,” she says, forgetting that Mr. López probably believes in Jesus and doesn’t appreciate her blasphemy. “I’m sorry. I guess you have your own reasons for wanting to be in another universe.”

He reaches inside his jacket. Thora expects him to bring out a photograph. She already knows who it will show: a dark-skinned woman with thick braids and an uncertain smile. She waits, breathless, for him to prove her wrong. But Mr. López’s hand stays in his pocket, clinging to something.

He looks past her to the window, to a city the rain turns to a blurred mosaic. “I’m—a fatalist, I suppose you could say. I don’t believe it could have happened any differently. And I’ve found meaning in it. For it to have happened and not happened—for there to be a place where she is alive and still with me—no, with someone who is me and not me—it would make a mockery of everything I am.” He dashes tears from his eyes with one shaking hand.

Thora stares at him, wondering what is happening to her. Nothing is happening to her. The name, the image, are just random firings in her brain. Nothing to do with Mr. López or his dead wife. Prove it, a voice whispers. It would be easy. Say her name. Describe her and see how he reacts. But this conversation has already gone far enough. Her curiosity, however fierce, is not worth his distress.

“I’m sorry,” Thora says. “It’s not my place to . . . You’re my patient, I shouldn’t be speculating about alternative versions of your life. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”