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AT THE TOP of the steep hill between Norway Valley and Arden, the zigzag, hairpin turns of Highway 93, now narrowed to two lanes, straighten out for the long, ski-slope descent into the town, and on the eastern side of the highway, the hilltop widens into a grassy plateau Teatherbeaten red picnic tables wait for those who choose to stop for a few minutes and appreciate the spectacular view A patchwork of quilted farentle landscape, not quite flat, threaded with streareen hills form the horizon In the i like fresh laundry

Fred Marshall steers his Ford Explorer onto the gravel shoulder, co"

When he cli a slightly worn black leather briefcase, and the case is now lying flat across his knees Jack’s father’s initials, PSS, for Philip Stevenson Sawyer, are staold beside the handle at the top of the case Fred has glanced curiously at the briefcase a couple of times, but has not asked about it, and Jack has volunteered nothing There will be time for show-and-tell, Jack thinks, after he talks to Judy Marshall Fred gets out of the car, and Jack slides his father’s old briefcase behind his legs and props it against the seat before he follows the other rass When they reach the first of the picnic tables, Fred gestures toward the landscape "We don’t have a lot of what you could call tourist attractions around here, but this is pretty good, isn’t it?"

"It’s very beautiful," Jack says "But I think everything here is beautiful"

"Judy really likes this view Whenever we go over to Arden on a decent day, she has to stop here and get out of the car, relax and look around for a while You know, sort of store up on the irind Me, soet impatient and think, Coet back to work, but I’ht? So every time we turn in here and sit down for a few minutes, I realize my wife knows more than I do and I should just listen to what she says"

Jack s for the rest of it Since picking him up, Fred Marshall has spoken only two or three sentences of gratitude, but it is clear that he has chosen this place to get so off his chest

"I went over to the hospital this , and she ¡ª well, she’s different To look at her, to talk to her, you’d have to say she’s in h she’s still worried sick about Tyler, it’s different Do you think that could be due to theher"

"Can you have a normal conversation with her?"

"Fro she was telling irl from La Riviere who nearly took third place in the statewide spelling bee, except she couldn’t spell this crazy word nobody ever heard of Popoplax, or so like that"

"Opopanax," Jack says He sounds like he has a fishbone caught in his throat

"You saw that story, too? That’s interesting, you both picking up on that word Kind of gave her a kick She asked the nurses to find out what it meant, and one of them looked it up in a couple of dictionaries Couldn’t find it"

Jack had found the word in his Concise Oxford Dictionary; its literalwas unimportant "That’s probably the definition of opopanax," Jack says " ’1 A word not to be found in the dictionary 2 A fearfulnervously around the lookout area, and now he stations hilance finds the otherpanorama "Maybe that is what it means" Fred’s eyes remain fixed on the landscape He is still not quite ready, but he is reat to see her interested in so like that, a tiny little item in the Herald"

He wipes tears from his eyes and takes a step toward the horizon When he turns around, he looks directly at Jack "Uh, before you s about her Trouble is, I don’t kno this is going to sound to you Even to me, it soundsI don’t know"

"Give it a try," Jack says

Fred says, "Okay," knits his fingers together, and bows his head Then he looks up again, and his eyes are as vulnerable as a baby’s "AhhhI don’t kno to put this Okay, I’ll just say it With part ofAnyhoant to think that On the other hand, I don’t want to foolthat just because she seems to be better, she can’t be crazy anymore But I do want to believe that Boy oh boy, do I ever"

"Believe that she knows so aroused by opopanax di that isn’t even real clear to her," Fred says "But do you reives Jack an anguished look and steps away He knocks his fists together and stares at the ground Another internal barrier topples before his need to explain his dilemma

"Okay, look This is what you have to understand about Judy She’s a special person All right, a lot of guys would say their wives are special, but Judy’s special in a special way First of all, she’s sort of aly beautiful, but that’s not even what I’ about And she’s tremendously brave, but that’s not it, either It’s like she’s connected to soin to understand But can that be real? How crazy is that? Maybe when you’re going crazy, at first you put up a big fight and get hysterical, and then you’re too crazy to fight any I have to talk to her doctor, because this is tearing s does she say? Does she explain why she’s so much calmer?"

Fred Marshall’s eyes burn into Jack’s "Well, for one thing, Judy seems to think that Ty is still alive, and that you’re the only person who can find hi to say more until after he can speak to Judy "Tell me, does Judy ever mention someone she used to know ¡ª or a cousin of hers, or an old boyfriend ¡ª she thinksthan it had in Henry Leyden’s ultrarational, thoroughly bizarre kitchen; Fred Marshall’s response weakens it further

"Not unless he’s na, or Abbalah All I can tell you is, Judy thinks she sees soh it makes no sense, I sure as hell hope it’s there"

A sudden vision of the world where he found a boy’s Brewers cap pierces Jack Sawyer like a steel-tipped lance "And that’s where Tyler is"

"If part of ht just possibly be true, I’d go out of ht here and now," Fred says "Unless I’o talk to your wife," Jack says

From the outside, French County Lutheran Hospital reseland: dirty red-brick walls with blackened buttresses and lancet arches, a peaked roof with finial-capped pinnacles, swollen turrets,facade stippled black with ancient filth Set within a walled parkland dense with oaks on Arden’s western boundary, the enorrandeur, looks punitive, devoid of an h a narrow, peaked wooden door and enter a reassuringly familiar lobby A bored, uniformed man at a central desk directs visitors to the elevators; stuffed aniift shop’s ; bathrobed patients tethered to IV poles occupy randomly placed tables with their faainst the side walls; thite-coated doctors confer in a corner Far overhead, two dusty, ornate chandeliers distribute a soft ocher light that ild the luxurious heads of the lilies arrayed in tall vases beside the entrance of the gift shop

"Wow, it sure looks better on the inside," Jack says

"Most of it does," Fred says

They approach the man behind the desk, and Fred says, "Ward D" With a ular cards stah The elevator clanks down and admits them to a wood-paneled enclosure the size of a broom closet Fred Marshall pushes the button olden light pervades the coo, an elevator rerand Paris hotel, had held Jack and a UCLA art-history graduate student named Iliana Tedesco captive for two and a half hours, in the course of which Ms Tedesco announced that their relationship had reached its final destination, thank you, despite her gratitude for what had been at least until thatit over, Jack decides not to trouble Fred Marshall with this information

Better behaved than its French cousin, the elevator treht display of resistance slides open its door and releases Jack Sawyer and Fred Marshall to the fifth floor, where the beautiful light seems a touch darker than in both the elevator and the lobby "Unfortunately, it’s way over on the other side," Fred tells Jack An apparently endless corridor yawns like an exercise in perspective off to their left, and Fred points the ith his finger

They go through two big sets of double doors, past the corridor to Ward B, past two vast rooain at the closed entrance to Gerontology, down a long, long hallway lined with bulletin boards, past the opening to Ward C, then take an abrupt right at the men’s and woy and Records Annex, and at last coht seeressively to darken, the walls to contract, the s to shrink Shadows lurk in the corridor to Ward D, and a slimmers on the floor

"We’re in the oldest part of the building now," Fred says

"You et Judy out of here as soon as possible"

"Well, sure, soon as Pat Skarda thinks she’s ready But you’ll be surprised; Judy kind of likes it in here I think it’s helping What she told me was, she feels completely safe, and the ones that can talk, so on a cruise, she says"

Jack laughs in surprise and disbelief, and Fred Marshall touches his shoulder and says, "Does that mean she’s a lot better or a lot worse?"

At the end of the corridor, they eood-sized room that seems to have been preserved unaltered for a hundred years Dark broainscoting rises four feet froray wall to their right, two tall, narros fraht A man seated behind a polished wooden counter pushes a button that unlocks a double-sized n and a so in, Mr Marshall, but who is he?"

"His name is Jack Sawyer He’s here with me"

"Is he either a relative or a medical professional?"

"No, but my ants to see hih theA minute later, the attendant reappears with a nurse whose heavy, lined face, big ar She introduces herself as Jane Bond, the head nurse of Ward D, a coest at least a couple of nicknames The nurse subjects Fred and Jack, then only Jack, to a barrage of questions before she vanishes back behind the great door

"Ward Bond," Jack says, unable not to

"We call her Warden Bond," says the attendant "She’s tough, but on the other hand, she’s unfair" He coughs and stares up at the high s "We got this orderly, calls her Double-oh Zero"

A few s open the metal door and says, "You may enter now, but pay attention to what I say"

At first, the ward resear divided into a section with a row of padded benches, a section with round tables and plastic chairs, and a third section where two long tables are stacked with drawing paper, boxes of crayons, and watercolor sets In the vast space, these furnishings look like dollhouse furniture Here and there on the ceray, lie padded rectangular mats; twenty feet above the floor, s ago given a couple of coats of white paint In a glass enclosure to the left of the door, a nurse behind a desk looks up froht, well past the tables with art supplies, three lockedin a hangar gradually yields to a sense of a benign but inflexible imprisonment

A low hum of voices cohout the enor to visible companions They pace in circles, stand frozen in place, lie curled like infants on the ers and scribble in notebooks; they twitch, yaeep, stare into space and into thereen hospital robes, others civilian clothes of all kinds: T-shirts and shorts, sweat suits, running outfits, ordinary shirts and slacks, jerseys and pants No one wears a belt, and none of the shoes have laces Two muscular men with close-cropped hair and in brilliant white T-shirts sit at one of the round tables with the air of patient watchdogs Jack tries to locate Judy Marshall, but he cannot pick her out

"I asked for your attention, Mr Sawyer"

"Sorry," Jack says "I wasn’t expecting it to be so big"

"We’d better be big, Mr Sawyer We serve an expanding population" She waits for an acknowledgoing to give you soround rules If you listen to what I say, your visit here will be as pleasant as possible for all of us Don’t stare at the patients, and don’t be alarh you find anything they do or say unusual or distressing Just be polite, and eventually they will leave you alone If they ask you for things, do as you choose, within reason But please refrain fro them money, any sharp objects, or edibles not previously cleared by one of the physicians ¡ª some medications interact adversely with certain kinds of food At some point, an elderly woman named Es-telle Packard will probably come up to you and ask if you are her father Answer however you like, but if you say no, she will go away disappointed, and if you say yes, you’ll make her day Do you have any questions, Mr Sawyer?"

"Where is Judy Marshall?"

"She’s on this side, with her back to us on the farthest bench Can you see her, Mr Marshall?"

"I saw her right away," Fred says "Have there been any changes since thisphysician, Dr Spiegleht have more information for you Would you like me to take you and Mr Sawyer to your wife, or would you prefer going by yourself ?"

"We’ll be fine," Fred Marshall says "How long can we stay?"

"I’ you fifteen e, and I want to keep her stress level at a minimum She looks pretty peaceful now, but she’s also deeply disconnected and, quite frankly, delusional I wouldn’t be surprised by another hysterical episode, and we don’t want to prolong her evaluation period by introducing new medication at this point, do we? So please, Mr Marshall, keep the conversation stress-free, light, and positive"

"You think she’s delusional?"

Nurse Bond sly "In all likelihood, Mr Marshall, your wife has been delusional for years Oh, she’s ed to keep it hidden, but ideations like hers don’t spring up overnight, no no These things take years to construct, and all the ti huers the psychosis into full-blown expression In this case, of course, it was your son’s disappearance By the way, I want to extendto have happened"

"Yes, it was," says Fred Marshall "But Judy started acting strange even before"

"Sa, I’m afraid She needed to be comforted, and her delusions ¡ª her delusional world ¡ª came into plain view, because that world provided exactly the co, Mr Marshall Did your wifeto other worlds?" Jack asks, startled

"A fairly typical schizophrenic ideation," Nurse Bond says "More than half the people on this ward have similar fantasies"

"You think my wife is schizophrenic?"

Nurse Bond looks past Fred to take a comprehensive inventory of the patients in her domain "I’ years of experience in dealing with the mentally ill On the basis of that experience, I have to tell you, in my opinion your wife manifests the classic symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia I wish I had better news for you" She glances back at Fred Marshall "Of course, Dr Spieglenosis, and he will be able to answer all your questions, explain your treatives Jack seeeal the moher on the family than it is on the patient Some of these people, they don’t have a care in the world Really, you almost have to envy them"

"Sure," Jack says "Who wouldn’t?"

"Go on, then," she says, with a trace of peevishness "Enjoy your visit"

A number of heads turn as they walk slowly across the dusty wooden floor to the nearest row of benches; ress Curiosity, indifference, confusion, suspicion, pleasure, and an ier show in the pallid faces To Jack, it see toward theun to cut through the tables, looking as though he fearshis bus to work At the end of the nearest bench, a thin old wo white hair stands up and beseeches Jack with her eyes Her clasped, upraised hands tremble violently Jack forces himself not to meet her eyes When he passes her, she half-croons, half-whispers, "My ducky-wucky was behind the door, but I didn’t know it, and there he was, in all that water"

"Um," Fred says "Judy told h the side of his eye, Jack has been watching the fuzzy-haired man in the bathrobe rush toward them, openmouthed When he and Fred reach the back of Judy Marshall’s bench, thethe bus to wait for him, and trots forward Jack watches hioing to let this lunatic clier comes to within a foot of Jack’s nose, and the man’s murky eyes search his face The eyes retreat; the mouth snaps shut Instantly, the er still searching out its target

What was that, Jack wonders Wrong bus?

Judy Marshall has notpast her, his rapid breath when he stopped, then his flapping departure, but her back is still straight in the loose green robe, her head still faces forward at the sa around her If her hair ashed, brushed, and combed, if she were conventionally dressed and had a suitcase beside her, she would look exactly like a wo for the hour of departure

So even before Jack sees Judy Marshall’s face, before she speaks a single word, there is about her this sense of leave-taking, of journeys begun and begun again ¡ª this suggestion of travel, this hint of a possible elsewhere

"I’ll tell her we’re here," Fred whispers, and ducks around the end of the bench to kneel in front of his wife The back of her head tilts forward over the erect spine as if to answer the tangled co in her husband’s handsoainst the girlish curve of Judy Marshall’s skull Behind her ear, dozens of varicolored strands clu, sweetie?" Fred softly asks his wife

"I’ to enjoy myself," she says "You know, honey, I should stay here for at least a little while The head nurse is positive I’m absolutely crazy Isn’t that convenient?"

"Jack Sawyer’s here Would you like to see him?"

Judy reaches out and pats his upraised knee "Tell Mr Sawyer to coht here besideforward, his eyes on Judy Marshall’s once again upright head, which does not turn Kneeling, Fred has taken her extended hand in both of his, as if he intends to kiss it He looks like a lovelorn knight before a queen When he presses her hand to his cheek, Jack sees the white gauze wrapped around the tips of her fingers Judy’s cheekbone co mouth; then her entire profile is visible, as sharp as the crack of ice on the first day of spring It is the regal, idealized profile on a caht upward curve of the lips, the crisp, chiseled downstroke of the nose, the sweep of the jawline, every angle in perfect, tender, oddly faers him, this unexpected beauty; for a fraction of a second it slows himentary, not-quite evocation of another’s face Grace Kelly? Catherine Deneuve? No, neither of these; it comes to him that Judy’s profile reminds him of someone he has still to ets to his feet, Judy’s face in three-quarter profile loses its regal quality as she watches her husband sit beside her on the bench, and Jack rejects what has just occurred to him as an absurdity

She does not raise her eyes until he stands before her Her hair is dull andan old blue lace-trihtdress that looked dohen it was new Despite these disadvantages, Judy Marshall claims him for her own at theat his optic nerves seeh his body, and he helplessly concludes that she has to be the ly beautiful woman he has ever seen He fears that the force of his reaction to her will knock him off his feet, then ¡ª even worse! ¡ª that she will see what is going on and think him a fool He desperately does not want to come off as a fool in her eyes Brooke Greer, Claire Evinrude, Iliana Tedesco, gorgeous as each of theirls in Halloween costumes next to her Judy Marshall puts his former beloveds on the shelf; she exposes theo and a hundred crippling insecurities Judy’s beauty is not put on in front of a ht fro: what you see is only the sreater, more comprehensive, radiant, and forreeable, good-hearted Fred Marshall actually had the fantastic luck to reat, how literally marvelous, she is? Jack would le It seems to him that he fell in love with her as soon as he saw the back of her head

But he cannot be in love with her She is Fred Marshall’s wife and the mother of their son, and he will simply have to live without her

She utters a short sentence that passes through hi an apology, and Judy sly offers him a sweep of her hand that invites him to sit before her He folds to the floor and crosses his ankles in front of hi first seen her

Her face fills beautifully with feeling She has seen exactly what just happened to hiht She does not think less of hih he does not knohat the question is to be, he must ask it The nature of the question is unimportant Theat that wondrous face

Before he speaks, one version of reality snaps soundlessly into another, and without transition Judy Marshall becoled hair and sards him steadily from a bench in a locked mental ward It should seem like a restoration of his sanity, but it feels instead like a kind of trick, as though Judy Marshall has done this herself, to make their encounter easier on him

The words that escape hiht be Jack listens to himself say that it is nice to meet her

"It’s nice to meet you, too, Mr Sawyer I’ve heard so n that she acknowledges the enormity of thewar on in here?" he asks, and the balance shifts evenused to, but the people here got lost and couldn’t find their way back, that’s all Soent I’ve had conversations in here that were a lot roup or the PTA Maybe I should have cos"

"Like what?"

"Like there arelost is easier to do than anyone ever admits The people in here can’t hide how they feel, and most of them never found out how to deal with their fear"