Now I can see the young woman again. She’s leafing through the contents of the boxes, taking out certain scrapbooks and carrying them down to the master bedroom, where she sits cross-legged on the bed to peruse them at her leisure, these instants of time that she has no right to, her uncombed hair wild about her, mixing with the smoke spiraling up from the cigarette resting in the ashtray beside her. I can feel my heart thudding in my ears.

But I’ve changed the locks. She can’t roam through this house or these memories again. I’ve changed the locks.

I’m suddenly struck with an absolute need to escape the confines of this attic before it’s somehow too late. I take the stairs two at a time and reach the kitchen before I realize I’ve picked up the framed photograph again; I have it in my hands. I dump it on the countertop and take a few deep breaths as if coming up for air—which in truth is exactly what it feels like. Upstairs I was certain of things that down here, with the light streaming in through the wide kitchen windows, seem ludicrous. Glancing at my watch, I see it’s almost time for the lunchtime news. I’m in the living room turning on the television before the oddity of that occurs to me: surely I wasn’t in the attic room for a whole three quarters of an hour? But my watch is right; it matches the time on the strapline that runs across the bottom of the news screen. The top story is still the malevolent Icelandic ash cloud—flights have apparently been resumed, though it’s nothing like normal service yet, with planes and travelers stranded all over Europe—but the oil rig disaster is second in line, and suddenly Jonathan is filling the screen.