For S’s part, the world had shaken off something, a weight, and was waiting for its replacement, or was waiting for the news that a replacement would not arrive (a distinct message, S knew, from the one that might also—that S hoped would—come: the one announcing that a replacement for the thing S was happy to shake off was not necessary).

What they had, once they both were awake, was a morning. They had a shared, groggy memory of the night’s events, and each had an individual memory of their experience of the night’s events. They had—and these arrived gradually, at intervals, for each—the somatic reminders of the ways their words and their bodies had interacted, and they had flashes of interactions they’d imagined but that had not come to pass, or not yet.

They had coffee, and oatmeal, and a long walk with Splice, up the road and into an unknown neighbor’s field, where the dog feasted on smells and the occasional pile of deer shit S and E were walking too languorously to avoid.

As they walked, they were mostly silent. At one point S reminded E of an early-hours moment of misunderstanding, and E reassured S that any damage done had been repaired. At one point E asked S, “Do you think we’re more alike or more different?” and S laughed and said, “We’re really alike,” and then, “We’re really different,” and E said, “Do you think we’ll go back to the field again?” and S said, “We only got as far as figure seventeen—of twenty-seven,” and E said, “I don’t remember the other ten,” and S said, “If they want to bring us back, they’ll bring us back.”

“This is ridiculous,” E said, flashing her version of anger, her face hot in the still-cool air. “People don’t pair-bond in a single night, like birds.” S gave her a look. “I know ‘birds’ is not a very specific category. And I don’t know how long it takes for them to pair. But what I mean is, neither of us is looking for that, right?”

“Splice!” S yelled, and the dog froze in the field as a pickup truck shot past behind them on the dirt road.

“Let’s go in,” S said, when the dust had dispersed. “We’ve got the meeting this afternoon. I’ll need coffee first.”

FIVE

AN ORIENTATION

Pablo has a bad sense of direction. Or he has a bad sense of orientation, or a good sense of disorientation. Whatever you call it, Pablo hides it well.