I took a step and stood over her, studied her face. “She slept the whole way. You think it’s just the excitement?”

“She forgot her name,” Meg said.

“We don’t know that,” I said. “Maybe she just spaced out, wasn’t paying attention.” Even I didn’t believe what I was saying. “I guess this is what it’s going to look like.”

I thought of how we take for granted that the space of the world and the time in which that space exists and in which our immediate experience is located are really the only space and time that matter. Yet somehow I believed, like all others, that moments are causally connected, tied together and moving influence in only one direction.

“Does your room smell of cigarette smoke?” Meg asked.

“A little,” I said. “I can’t smell it in here.”

“I can.” She opened the window a crack, folded her arms across her chest against the cold.

“France,” I said.

Meg sat on the sill with her back to the window. “Should we wake her? I don’t want her to be up all night.”

I nodded. “That sounds right.” I nudged Sarah. “Hey, slug, let’s go out and see something.”

“What time is it?” Sarah asked.

“Time to find some grub,” I said. “In French that would be grubsine.”

“I want a real French croissant.”

“I’ll bet we can find you one. Croissant or pain au chocolat?”

“Chocolate.”

“I say we get cleaned up before we go out,” Meg said.

“She’s right,” I said.

“Yeah,” Sarah said. “You stink.”

“I do, do I?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?” Meg said.

“Fifteen?”

“Twenty.”