Nurse Marion’s voice is urgent now. “Henri’s very restless tonight. He’s recovered from the pneumonia and all his broken bones have healed, but I’ve given him something against the pain as well as opiates to calm his anxiety. Nevertheless . . . he seemed very unhappy today.”

I wish I could crawl into his world and join him.

“It was something about his posture,” Nurse Marion continues. “I don’t know if you can understand, but over the years I’ve learned to tell how my dreamers are feeling from their position in bed. Henri was seriously unhappy, as if . . . I don’t know. Has something happened?”

The footsteps are close now.

“Eddie? Is everything all right?” Wilder stands blinking at the top of the stairs.

“Yes, I’m having a whiskey.” I hang up and put the phone down on the table.

He walks slowly toward me and looks me straight in the eyes. “Eddie,” he whispers once, then again, “Eddie.” He brushes a few strands of hair from my face. Lowering his voice even further, he says, “We need to talk about Henri.”

Sam

The stage is dark. Voices and a tinkling of glasses are audible through the theater’s closed doors. As I walk down the aisle toward the stage, past rows of red folding seats, the crystal lights on the walls begin to glow and so do the curved balconies of the boxes. I thread my way past the orchestra pit and up a small flight of stairs onto the stage, slip through a gap in the drawn curtains, and then grope my way through the dimly illuminated spaces and corridors in the wings.

I know she’s here. I can sense her presence. Opening a door, I find myself in a dressing room. There’s a line of mirrors along the side wall, each with spotlights on both sides and a leather revolving chair in front of it. The dressing room is full of women and girls at various stages of dressing up and having their hair and makeup done. I walk past the revolving chairs. No one pays me any attention, and I’m not visible in any of the mirrors.

Maddie’s sitting in the last chair, and a woman is combing her hair and pinning it up into a tight bun. Maddie’s wearing makeup that makes her eyes look huge.

“Hi, Sam,” she says quietly, her gaze ricocheting off the mirror and straight into my heart.

“Hi, Maddie,” I answer, and it’s then that I realize I’m dreaming.

When she’s ready, the silent woman helps her put on her costume and as she steps out of the dressing room into the dark corridor, a nutcracker sprints past.