“I once thought I saw her, in the window of a Penney’s store while I was sitting in the car waiting for you … this flash of red passed the glass and for a moment I was sure it must be her. Over in Coeur d’Alene, of all places. I nearly got out of the car and went inside to inquire, but then you came back—I think you were picking up some caulking or something, at that hardware store over on Sherman—and before I could say anything you’d backed the car out, we still had the old Bonneville at that point, and we were off to lunch. I should’ve said something, I suppose, but I just didn’t. I mean, when I consider it, what happened there, I know in reality it couldn’t have been her, not my sister, in some department store window, but something about it, that rush of color, reminded me of her. And that, I suppose, is what I was saying before, about memory and the like. A remembered moment. How they’re really so important to us, because whether it was her or not—I know, I know, how could it be?—the fact that I now have that memory is stronger and of more comfort than if I’d actually run into her there on the street. Does that make any sense, honey? What I’ve been saying? The pleasure that came from that one moment gave me something—truthful or not—that I might otherwise never have had. Now when I think about Sarah I remember her from the warmth of that car, me sitting inside there with the sun bouncing off the windshield, and it’s a nice thing. It feels good, rather than the loss and surprise and worry that followed her disappearance all those years ago. God, I don’t know if I’m making any sense out of this or not—‘heads or tails,’ as he used to say, my father—but it’s the only way I know how to explain it. What I’ve been feeling as we’ve driven along just now …”

The woman steals another peek at her husband, looking for some kind of validation there. Anything. She doesn’t get it, though, not yet. Rather, he adjusts the rearview mirror, trying to ward off a pair of piercing headlights that suddenly appear on the horizon behind them.