Kate can see the concern on her face, and so she searches for words to reassure her. “Yes, sweetheart, of course,” she says. “Just my arthritis.” Either this is actually something she has, or it is a word the girl has heard before, because she settles back against the seat, her eyes cast down on her phone.

The pain seems strange, but not inconceivable. These days, Kate is used to her body hurting and not understanding why. But where they are going – the more Kate thinks about it, the more her mind gets jumbled. They can’t possibly be going to the package place because they have been driving for too long, and they might even be past the two-word town. They are on a stretch of road that she doesn’t recognize. Kate tries to visualize all of her inner power and energy flowing into her brain, the way Dr. Whatshername at the clinic told her to. She tries to relax and think of word associations – girl, tree, road, car, girl, branch, Halloween – but the space next to each word is blank. She focuses on the last thing she remembers thinking about: Martha Jane and London. Why London? The British flag, the Royal Wedding, tea, the Beatles, Colin and his leather jacket. Is her name Elizabeth? Are they on their way to see a music show? It’s no use. No matter what she does, the path behind her is a complete blank, her footprints erased as soon as they fall, her thoughts thought and then evaporating into the air.

“Nana,” the girl says. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive for a bit?”

Kate gazes at her for as long as she dares take her eyes off the driving path. Can the girl possibly be old enough to drive? Kate can still see her baby face the day her mother brought her home from the doctor place, the two of them equally scared and helpless. The jack-o’-lanterns were starting to decay on the porch, the leaves already gone from the leaf-things, the wind blowing them around the yard. They put the girl in the same room her mother and aunt had been in as babies, still decorated as a nursery, Walter ever hopeful that another baby might come and live in it. And now, one had: Kate’s daughter’s daughter – one seeing it for the first time, the other seeing it as though for the first time. “What’s with these balloons on the wall?” Kate’s daughter is asking. “Why is this door blue?” The baby’s hands are making fists next to her face in the crib, which is not good enough, Kate’s daughter announces, but for now it will have to do.