“Holy shit,” Dustin said.

“When his mother came home from work, probably a few minutes later, she asked where the kid was, and got into an argument with dear old dad. When she opened the closet, Moonboy was dead. He’d choked on vomit and stopped breathing.

“The rescue people got his heart and lungs going again. But what if his mother had not come home in time? He could have died permanently or suffered irreversible brain damage.”

“What happened to the father?” Namir asked.

“The record doesn’t say.”

“Moonboy thinks his parents got a no- fault divorce when he was eleven,” Meryl said, “and his father dropped out of his life. Probably into prison or some rehab program, judging from what you say. With an ironclad restraining order.” She shook her head. “It . . . explains some things. It’s a lot to assimilate.”

“The white hair?” I said. He had a tangled nimbus, like Einstein. “I know a person’s hair doesn’t turn white overnight.”

“Old wives’ tale,” Elza said. “But continual stress can cause premature graying.”

“Maybe that memory wasn’t completely erased,” Meryl said, “and he dwells on it at some level. His hair was almost completely white when we met. I think he was twenty-two.”

“Is that why he’s called Moonboy?” Namir asked.

I knew about that. “No, he was born during an eclipse, a total lunar eclipse.” I cringed at the memory of a cheap magazine article when I was famous, putting us together: Moonboy and Mars Girl.

“His mother’s an astrology nut,” Meryl said. “We don’t get along too well. He thinks she walks on water, though.”

Dustin laughed. “Well, she did bring him back from the dead. Even if he doesn’t know it, she does. It could make for an interesting relationship.”

Meryl nodded. “It does explain a lot.”

“His voice,” Elza said. It was a soft, hoarse rasp. “That could be damage to his vocal cords from stomach acid. As he lay there dead.”

Namir broke the silence. “We have to tell him. Now that we all know.”

“Not ‘we,’ ” Elza said. “I have to tell him. I started the whole damned thing, with my curiosity.”

That was a delicate way to put it, I thought. Her curiosity about Moonboy’s medical record came after her curiosity about his body. If that was what it was, her need for different men.

Of course the only man left now was mine.

Chapter 17 - THERAPY

17

THERAPY

I didn’t want my wife alone in a room with the man who had assaulted her. But she felt they had to talk one-on-one, and besides, she would have no trouble overpowering him under normal circumstances. As a compromise, she let me sit in an adjacent room and watch the interview on a notebook, ready to rush in and save her. It wasn’t necessary, as it turned out. But it was educational.