I open the door with a smile but stop short when I see a man sitting in a chair, staring at the exam table. His face is drawn, and the scruff on his face is a mix of silver and black. He has olive skin and dark eyes. His collared shirt and charcoal slacks hang on him, and he’s alone—both ominous signs.

When he sees me, he straightens his back and makes a motion to stand.

“Please,” I say, gesturing for him to remain seated. I don’t have his chart, so I cannot refer to him by his name. A mistake as simple as walking into the wrong room can knock a patient’s confidence out completely and get us off on the wrong foot, so I sit on the wheeled stool and roll myself so that we’re face to face. The edges of my white coat hang past my knees. “Thank you for your patience. How are you doing today?”

He meets my eyes.

“Fine, thank you,” he says, his English accented. Iranian, I think. I once shocked a clinic nurse when I took one look into the waiting room and correctly guessed a patient was originally from Kyrgyzstan. She told me that if I ever quit medicine, I had a bright career in either the CIA or the circus.

“I’m Dr. Shephard. Tell me about yourself.”

He looks at me then, as some people do, seeing something in my face that doesn’t quite match my name.

“What do you do?” I ask to nudge the conversation along.

“I work in parking garage.”

I picture him dressed in a uniform, sitting in a booth and reaching for credit cards from drivers. I picture him patrolling a dimly lit lot, and suddenly my heart skips a beat. But my eyes do this sometimes, seeing people I cannot possibly be seeing. Usually, I can talk quick sense into my mind, but not now. Not this time.

I roll the stool backward a few inches and take a long look at his face, his hands.

It cannot be.

He clears his throat to tell me more, but I stand. I mumble something that sounds like Excuse me and open the door, my hand fumbling on the handle as if it’s too hot to touch, as if the office has been engulfed in flames. Red sparks explode in my periphery.

I don’t draw a breath until I’m on the other side of that door. I scramble to get in front of a computer.

I could be wrong. Thirty years and thousands of miles stretch between then and now. And in those thirty years, though I am unrecognizable to anyone who knew me as a ten-year-old girl, I’ve never stopped looking over my shoulder. I arrived in this country disabused of happily-ever-after stories.

I log on and scan the list of names for today’s clinic. And then I see it.