The answer did not come to me until Monday afternoon. I had slept poorly the night before (poorly but without dreams), and as I crossed the reservoir that morning, coming out from under the thick of the ridge, I could see that the black sky was beginning to purple at the edges; dawn would break soon. I thought to myself: So this will be one of those days, long and disconnected, made mournful by lack of sleep.

In the afternoon I began to feel the effects more acutely; words were beginning to blur together, to require rereading once, twice, then three times. I took myself back to the break room for another cup of coffee.

I had barely flipped the switch to warm the pot when the thought came to me, fully formed. Of course, I thought, of course! I brought my hand down triumphantly on the counter, causing a selection of teas to jump. I had the piece of information on which my thoughts had snagged, which I had tried and failed to remember that night after dinner. It was, of all things, what Gerry Van Gelder had said about his trip to North Dakota—or rather, it was Ann’s rejoinder: “Don’t forget to call the hotel about the bag,” she had said, as if it confirmed what she had suspected for years about Gerry and bags, that he was incapable of remembering them. Stop, I told myself, that is exactly the kind of thinking you don’t want. The salient thing was that people left their belongings behind sometimes, at hotels, and then they called to retrieve them. It was a usual, natural thing, something people did every day. Or if not exactly every day, then commonly. And I could do it, too. Not exactly like Gerry, of course, because I had no reason to believe that my father had left a bag at the Old Mission Hotel, but I could at least discover if he’d stayed there at all. Because it had occurred to me that a piece of hotel stationery might end up in one’s coat pocket for any number of reasons. There was at any rate something to be gained, I was sure of it. With two fingers, I felt the coffeepot—it was still tepid. But perhaps I didn’t need coffee at all, I decided, and strode out into the hall with new vigor.

Back in my office I retrieved the phone book from the shelf above my desk, and within moments I had located the number and placed the call. Someone picked up on the first ring, but before speaking gave a tiny but noticeable space, like the time one might leave for throat-clearing.

“This is the Old Mission Hotel,” said a male voice, and I was almost certain that it was the smooth-faced young man who had pointed out that my watch had stopped, and who had appeared in my dream.