The rain had stopped. As if in an instant, the sky had cleared again and there was a view of the moon, almost full, from the top pane of glass in the French doors that led out to the garden and a star shining brightly just above the moon.

Tess wanted to ask Max if the star above the moon was the planet Venus? Max would know the answer to that.

But “the person who used to be Max” announced, as if he was bored with both of them, “I’ll be out in the garden.” He opened the door and walked out, carefully shutting the door behind him.

Tess didn’t tell him to put his coat on. If it was cold, he could figure that out for himself. The rain did seem to have stopped.

The moment the door to the garden shut, Adele said to Tess, “I had a feeling he was going to do this one day.”

~ CHAPTER NINETEEN ~

trying to get to the truth of the matter

I’m not imagining it then, am I?” asked Tess.

“No, my dear,” said Adele.

“I would think that he would be afraid of you, though,” said Tess, “since you know the truth . . .”

Adele cut in, “Afraid of me? No. Afraid of you, maybe,” she added.

“Me?” said Tess as if the idea of that was laughable. I mean, Tess reasoned, she was on to him and she was good at playing “the game,” as she’d started to call it—catching him on things that were particularly, absolutely, definitively not Max-like. But she also felt she might be playing out of her league. That Colin or “the person who used to be Max” was the one who was actually frightening.

“Yes, afraid of you,” said Adele,

“Why?” asked Tess. “Why would he be afraid of me?”

“Because you’re the only one who can help him, my dear, and I think he’s afraid that you won’t.”

She looked out the window and saw “the person who used to be Max” swinging on an old-fashioned swing hanging from the white birch tree, framed perfectly in the night light. Tess had never noticed the swing before, but she hadn’t spent a lot of time in the garden.

“If he wants me to help him, he’s certainly going about it in a strange way,” said Tess. And then she asked Adele, “Help him, how?”

Adele hesitated before she answered, “You’re the only one who can put him back on solid ground.”

“I have no idea how I could help him do that? Can you tell me, at least, how I might do that?” she asked Adele, letting her frustration show for a minute.