He looked at me again, this time with relief.

“For now I can tell you of her mind, which we both know you’ll have some use for. I can tell you how she’s damaged, but also so clever! She knows she isn’t whole and she creates logic as she goes, to make up for what’s been erased.”

My chest swelled before I realized that I needed a deep breath, and I was too excited to look at any one thing for very long. On the other side of the windshield a blur of evening coats and stoles mingled with the sight of a surprising Dolores, standing at my defense. She was so different from the fractured Sources I had seen. If Harvey’s father could see her now, his wondering over which of us was special might have renewed itself.

When I didn’t hear Harvey’s voice, I turned to him again. He hadn’t asked yet what I meant, had not begun to murmur or muse, probing me to decode all that I’d observed. He was a Banker, but something kept him quiet. I saw a glimpse of it in the heaviness crowding his eyes.

“She’s trying to make sense of the world, so she draws the cleverest conclusion she can. She made me a younger sister, for instance, to explain to herself our resemblance. In someone with a different, more organic condition, it would mean little—but in a fractured mind where we’re used to seeing voids that can’t be refilled? It’s nothing short of amazing. She is, despite all the bits she’s lost.”

Harvey gave a gentle grunt and a smile. “Who’s the scientist now?”

“Is that so surprising? I’ve been surrounded by your kind my entire life.”

He nodded a concession, after which our quiet allowed the life outside to seep into the car, a trickle of laughter and a snippet of conversation sliding in the space between us.

“Was it what you expected?” he asked.

“No.” I did not hesitate. “I expected her to be properly fractured. To fit within that definition with nothing left over. But why should she when I never have. Or I suppose it’s the other way around.”

“I don’t imagine I can ever make it up to you. After what I said.” Harvey gently squeezed my hand, and despite the warm cocoon of his palm and the recent memory of the kiss I’d given him, my heart shrank back a little.

“You weren’t the first,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Elsie. I am. I know it hurt you dearly because seeing it hurt me back. But I can’t—I couldn’t ignore what I know. That you’re not—that you’re a memory. That I don’t know how long you’ll live or whether I should entertain the thought of children.”