“I didn’t know.”

That was Jasper’s story, his nightmare, as he had confessed it to P.J. And he was glad he had confessed to her. It had not eased his mind or assuaged his guilt, but it had meant that the dream, and the lessons that went with it, would not die with him. And when P.J. told him her story, he realized how well he had chosen his confessor. She, of all those people he had ever loved and pushed away, could understand the dream and the guilt and the desire for escape. It was too bad, he thought, that he hadn’t met P.J. fifty years ago. But, of course, she hadn’t been born yet.

He had left out only one small detail in his confession to P.J., something that, in the great scheme of what had happened that day, might seem insignificant. Now, as he made the same preparations he had for the past several nights before trying to get a few more hours’ sleep on the sofa, he began to wonder if he ought to have told her.

Jean Simpson taught art history at Ridgefield University. Although the university had grown in the sixteen years since her arrival, she liked the fact that Ridgefield still felt like a small town. Jean knew just about everyone there, and that included Patricia Jameson, who delivered the mail both on campus and in the neighborhood nearby inhabited mostly by faculty members. So when Patricia had a package to deliver to Jean, she usually dropped it by the office, even if it was addressed to the house on College Street.

“From Germany,” said Patricia, setting the parcel on Jean’s desk. “Have you been ordering books again?”

“I haven’t,” said Jean, staring at the box, thick with tape and stamps, and feeling nonplussed.

“Well, enjoy it, whatever it is,” said Patricia.