“Did I hire you as my conscience? No? Then maybe you should stop trying to be one.” There was no turning back now, anyway, and I failed to see what telling Adam the truth would solve. I hurried up the steps, the smell of the cedarwood stairs thick in my nostrils, and turned the hatch lock. At first, all I could see was the moon half hidden by a cloud, like it was wearing a dirty sock. Then the silhouette of a girl cut a dark notch into the already dark sky. “I came as fast as I could,” she said.
“Did you park on the side road?” I asked, and eyed my mom’s station wagon out in the drive. Through the curtains I could see the soft blue glow of the television set.
She nodded. “Can I come in?” It felt too late to say no.
All the words I possessed were colliding in my head, so when I moved aside, it was without saying one of them. I felt the end of something drawing near, and I wasn’t sure that I was ready to let go or that I would be ready for what it meant to hold on. She stepped gingerly onto the first creaking step. I wondered what kind of girl went willingly into the basement of strangers.
The kind of girl, I supposed, who was a boy’s last word.
She cupped her elbows, holding her arms tightly to her body. She wore the same white tank top that she’d been wearing earlier this afternoon. With her back to me, I noticed a raised scar like a cigarette burn on the back of her arm.
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. For a second Adam appeared invisible to her. Her hand found the railing, and she leaned on it for support. “What is this place?” She took in the bowing shelves, shriveled specimens, mason jars full of viscous pea-green liquid, tubes that attached to crusted Florence flasks, life-sized skeleton, preserved rats, and rusty claw-foot tub.
“This is my laboratory,” I said, squeezing past her. “This … well … this is where I saved him.”
“Saved?” Her pitch shot up.
“Do you know her, Victoria?” Adam’s shoulders were as hunched and tense as those of a guard dog.
Meg let out a soft cry. “John?” Her hands flew to her mouth. “It’s you. Oh my God, it’s really you.”
I waited, expecting him to remember something. And wanting to take it as some kind of sign if he didn’t.
“Who is John?” Adam rose to his feet. He retreated back a few steps.
“What are you doing—I mean, how?” She pressed her lips together and pushed back her hair. Meg wasn’t beautiful. She was a girl who looked as if she were still trying to grow out of her tomboy years. She had thin lips, a straight waist, and mosquito-bitten ankles. The whole of her looked like it’d been scraped together with not enough material. She wasn’t a Cassidy. She wasn’t the type who automatically went with an Adam. But based on the way she was looking at him, I knew that somehow she did.
Owen cleared his throat. “Perhaps you should introduce them.”
Meg’s mouth fell open. “What do you mean introduce us? This is John. My John.”
I blinked, coming back to attention. Swallowed what felt like a thorn stuck in my throat. “Adam.” I cut her off. “This is Meg, she’s, well, I think she knew you before.”
He extended his hand to meet her. “Hi, I’m Adam. I’m from Elgin, Illinois.”
She left his hand hanging in midair. “Adam?” She glanced between us like we were playing a trick on her. “This isn’t Adam. His name’s John. John Wheeler. John, tell her she’s mistaken.”
“Victoria, why is she calling me the wrong name?”
I sighed. “Adam is his name … here,” I said. “He doesn’t remember anything. Including any recollection of John.” Her eyes widened. “It’s a long story. Way, way too long for what we have time for now. Trust me. But I found Adam late one night.” I avoided Owen’s look. “He’d gotten into a car accident,” I said slowly, remembering the story I’d told Cassidy. “He was in bad shape. Dying. I didn’t have time to take him to the hospital, but I was able to jump-start his heart. So to speak, anyway. I’d been working with animal anatomy previously and was able to transfer the findings over to him. Only, since then, he’s had no memory of before.”
Meg took slow steps over to where Adam stood. The dark, cold look still lingered in his eyes. Her hand trembled as she raised it haltingly and touched his forehead, his cheekbones, the ridge of his nose, his chin. Adam’s face relaxed under her touch. His eyes warmed. “You saved him?” Meg’s voice was breathless. “But … he doesn’t remember me.” I heard the heartbreak in her voice. I saw her knees quivering like she might collapse.