Mel said that she came down the greenway looking for Gigi; that their house opens onto the parkland, and it isn’t far.

The darkness in the tunnel of trees is absolute. Path rough, Rose stumbles. Déjà vu. She stumbled in the same place on her last, doomed, escape attempt. Or is this the same attempt, a memory relived in a delusional brain?

Rose walks into the moonlight on the other side. This is new, she thinks. Check out the stylish clothes. A giggle escapes her lips. Given her questionable mental stability, chortling alone in the dark is not comforting.

The moon is still close to full. A good omen for a lunatic, Rose decides. In silence and silvery light, the gravel path leads away to the left and right.

If she has ever known what Mel’s house looks like, she doesn’t remember it. She was hoping she would see a familiar landmark, her memory would be jogged, and, abracadabra, she’d know where she was, and what to do next. No memory is jogged.

That isn’t the only flaw in the ointment. Rose doesn’t know from which direction Mel came. She doesn’t even know which direction she herself went the last time she was on the lam, as it were.

She has a fifty-fifty chance of going the right direction. She goes right.

Anywhere a garden meets the greenway, Rose abandons the path, slogs through the grass, and stabs into midnight yards with Karen’s tiny flashlight. Though it’s small, and the radius of the beam pitiful, it is surprisingly powerful.

Homes up on low bluffs, or with no gate onto the greenway, she writes off. The worst are where the foliage is too dense to tell if there is a gate or not. Forcing herself through the underbrush, she keeps losing her slippers; her makeshift wardrobe catches and rips; scratchy dark and patchy light play tricks on her. Trees loom, menacing. Confusion spins her around until she is dizzy, then spits her out to wonder again whether to turn right or left.

After a time thirst becomes a factor, and she forgets if this is then or now. If this is now, wouldn’t she have remembered to bring water after what happened then?

The moment is the moment, she tells herself, and trudges on.

The houses beyond the trees grow smaller and shabbier.

No bells ring. No lightbulbs come on. Though she can’t remember Mel’s house, she is sure that it is big and nice.

Right was wrong. Refusing to cry, she sits down on a fallen log and looks back the way she has come. The path dwindles away to infinity, then is snuffed out by the night.

Her head swims.

Her legs shake.

Her feet hurt.