What turned out to be a kind of storage room underneath the garage was a little over a hundred square feet, and apart from a few dusty shelves, a broken lamp and some empty beer bottles in the corner, there was nothing inside.

“Well, this is a bit disappointing,” Lily said. “I was hoping for treasure or an expensive wine collection or something. Oh, well...” She made her way up the first couple of rungs of the ladder before looking at me over her shoulder. “Are you coming? Ash...?”

Her voice faded away as the scent of the earthy ground filled my nose and lungs, the musty air taking me back to the decrepit house I’d hidden in next to the petrol station, and the flashback I’d had of someone playing hide-and-seek.

“Maya,” I whispered. “It was Maya.”

“What do you mean?” Lily stood next to me now, her hand on my arm.

“She wanted to play hide-and-seek with me all the time and I’d indulge her, even though I moaned and complained and said I was too old. I used to hide—” I pointed to the corner “—over there, so when she opened the trapdoor she couldn’t see me.”

“Ash, this is amazing.”

“Providing it happened,” I said, explaining what the doctors had told me about confabulation and false memories, which Lily had never heard of, either, and finishing with, “That’s why I never know if what I’m experiencing is real.”

“Do you remember anything else? Maybe I can help?”

“Blueberry pancakes,” I said with a smile. “For whatever reason, you remind me of blueberry pancakes.”

“From Patti’s,” she whispered. “It’s a café in Brookmount. We’d get blueberry pancakes whenever we went, or you’d bring them to my place, and we’d eat them in bed.”

I scrunched my eyes shut again, trying to force an image, but nothing appeared. “This is almost worse than not remembering anything at all,” I said. “Having stuff come back but not knowing if it really happened, having to verify everything with other people, almost having to ask permission to allow whatever images to stay in my brain. Jesus, it’s so frustrating.”

“But you’ve just experienced a few memories in a row, Ash, that’s huge, and two of them—the paint and the pancakes—are definitely real. More will come if you give it time, they have to. I know it’s stupid to say you should chill out, but...”

As I looked at her, I felt the same sense of calm I’d experienced when we’d sat outside the bar, and again at the motel. “You’re right,” I said, hoping it was the truth, and headed for the ladder. “How about we go to town and pick up the stuff for the garage? Maybe we’ll find a new pancake place, too.”

Lily smiled. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”