I start with the girl. Madelyn told me that in one of her alternative lives she was married to Samuel, with whom she had grown happily old. If what I’m gently turning over in my mind is true, namely that all our alternative lives—in dreams, in dying, as a memory that can’t actually exist, as déjà vu, or when one feels a chance slip by—come into contact, then there must be one of Madelyn’s alternative lives in which she steps out of the shadow of her fear, survives sepsis, wakes up, recovers, escapes the last shadow that is imprisoning the girl beneath the waves, then takes the path on which my son, Sam, becomes her husband and they grow old together. That path will only be possible if Madelyn lives. And if I . . .

I can feel the tugging darkness below me, pumping and pulsing an insight up to me that I don’t yet fully grasp. When I do, it is as if I am jumping over the side of an enormous tanker that’s plowing through the sea at full speed, leaping out into empty space and—eventually, somewhere—crashing into the water, then sinking, my eyes riveted to the retreating world, life, and the last receding light.

I think it through a second time and fix every individual step in my mind. It’s like solving a formula whose X and Y are known only to the dead.

I’ve made up my mind. Eddie’s deep peaceful sleep was the key, but from now on I go it alone. Backward. To the edge. All I need to do now is allow myself to topple into the dark, billowing night waiting below, and then watch the ship continue on its course. All I have to do is let go.

Adieu, my darling. Adieu. It was the best of all lives.

DAY FORTY-SIX

Early Morning

Sam

It’s half past two. I sit down next to Maddie. My voice is cracking. I’m reading her A Song of Ice and Fire. George R. R. Martin’s epic tale will last us for a while, and I imagine her wanting to hear how it continues, refusing to die before we’ve finished, and then recovering so that she can read it herself.

Maybe it’s a stupid idea, but I don’t see what else I can do to detain her and bring her back. Occasionally when I’m drifting off to sleep, I can hear her in the maze of corridors behind the stage of The Nutcracker. She runs desperately through the wings, up and down stairs, calling my name. She calls for her mother and her father. I sit on the stage and wait. I cannot follow her into the labyrinth. I can only . . .

Hang on a second. What’s this? How long has this been going on?

“A bloody long time, mon ami. Now go!”