But there's this other part of me, the part that's shed the block of hate, the part that decided not to kill Yorgo - the part that wants to go further in life. I have to let it be known that I existed. I was real. I had a name. I know there must have been a point to my being here; there must have been a point.

Everyone I meet eventually says, "Jason, you saved so many lives back in 1988." Yeah sure, but it wrecked my family, and there are still more people than not who believe I'm implicated in the massacre. Last year I was in the library researching blackouts, and somebody hissed at me - I'm not supposed to notice these things? Cheryl fluked into martyrdom, and Jeremy Kyriakis scammed his way onto Santa's list of redeemed little girls and boys, but me? Redemption exists, but only for others. I believe, and yet I lack faith. I tried building a private world free of hypocrisy, but all I ended up with was a sour little bubble as insular and exclusive as my father's.

I can feel the little black sun's rays zeroing in on me -burning, burning, burning, like a magnifying glass burning an ant ... At the count of three, Jason Klaasen, tell the people who you were . . . What do you want your clone to know about you?

Dear Clone,

My favorite song was "Suzanne," by Leonard Cohen. I was a courteous driver and I took good care of Joyce. I loved my mama. My favorite color was cornflower blue. If I walked past a shop window and saw a vase or something that was cornflower blue, I would be hypnotized and would stand there for minutes, just feeling the blueness pump into my eyes. What else? What else? I laughed a lot. I never once drove drunk, or even slightly drunk. I'm proud of that. I don't know about the blackouts, but when I was conscious, never.

But, okay, mostly I've been here on Earth for nearly thirty years, and I don't think there is even one person who ever really knew me, which is a private disgrace. Cheryl didn't know me properly as an adult, but at least she assumed there was a soul inside my body that merited being known.

Okay then, my nephews, it's lunchtime and this little autobiography is nearly over except . . . except there's just this one other not-so-little thing remaining to be said, but I'm going to have to mull exactly how I tell you about it. I'm going to go pick up Joyce and head to the beach, and maybe by then my burning brain will have cooled down and I can finally say what I've been avoiding all along.

I'm at the beach, on the same log as before, and I may as well hop right to it.

Just over a year ago, when your mother phoned me to tell me Kent was dead, I drove to her house down in Horseshoe Bay. To get there I had to pass the scene of the accident; highway traffic was closed down to a single lane, and there were shards of glass, strips of chrome, fragments of black plastic fenders and pools of oil on the road. A tow truck was just then hauling the remains of Kent's Taurus onto a flatbed. It was crumpled like picnic trash, and its beige vinyl seats were thick with broken glass. It was a hot afternoon.

I stopped and spoke with a cop at the scene who knew me, and he gave me technical details of the crash - quick and painless. This information still gives me comfort. I suppose that if I hadn't seen the wreck, Kent's death would have been far harder to deal with. But when you see that big chunk of chewed-up scrap metal, the truth is the truth, and the shock passes more quickly.

There was also the pressing need to go down to Barb's -your mother's - house right away. My cell phone's battery had died and there'd been no way to contact my own mother or anybody else. As well, the traffic line-ups for the ferries to Vancouver Island and up the coast were huge and clogging the roads, and I took the wrong exit and ended up being detoured for a few frustrating miles, my temples booming like kettle drums.

When I got to your house, your mother was at the front door talking with the cops. Her eyes were red and wet, and I could tell the police didn't feel good having to leave her like this. When they saw me, they hit the road.

I held Barb tight, and then asked her who in the family she'd called.

She gave me a look that I wasn't expecting - not exactly guilty, and somehow conspiratorial. "Nobody. Did you?"

"No. My battery died."

"Jesus, thank God."

"Barb, what are you talking about - you didn't call anyone?"

"No. Just you."

I was confused. I headed for the phone inside. "I'm going to call my mother."

Barb lunged at me and wrested the cordless from my hand. She slammed it down. This was strange, but then people react to grief in so many ways. "We're not phoning anybody. Not yet."

"Barb, we have to call people. Kent's mother. Your mother, for God's sake. It's crazy. We can't not phone them. Think about it."

"Jason, there's something you have to help me with first."

"Of course. What can I do?"

"Jason, I need to have a baby, and I have to get pregnant right now."

"You have to what?"

"You heard me."

"Have a baby."

"Don't be so stupid. Yes."

"Barb, make some sense, okay?"

"Sit down." She motioned to the living room. "Sit on the couch." She grabbed a bottle of Glenfiddich, my Christmas present to Kent, from the sideboard. She poured two glasses and offered me one. "Drink it."

We drank. "I need to have a kid, Jason, and I need to start right now."

"Are you asking me what I think you're asking?"

"Don't be so clueless. Yes, I am. Kent and I have been trying for years, but he shoots blanks mostly. I'm at the peak of my cycle right now, and I have a one-day window to conceive."

"Barb, I don't think - "

"Shut up. Just shut up, okay? Genetically, you and Kent are pretty much the same thing. A child by you will look just like a child by Kent. In nine months I want a kid. And I want this kid to look like Kent, and there's only one way that is going to happen."

"Barb, look, I know you're screwed up by - "

"Dammit, shut up, Jason. This is my one chance. It's not like I can do this again in twenty-eight days. I'm not having a baby ten months after Kent's dead. Do some math. Kent was all I had, and unless I do this, there's no way I'll be connected to him. As long as I live. I can't go through life knowing that I at least had this one chance to get it right, even if it means humiliating myself in front of you right now. Like this."

There was a kind of logic to what Barb was saying. The request didn't feel cheap or sleazy. It felt like - and this sounds so bad - the one way to honor my brother. Barb saw this in my eyes. "You'll do it. I can tell. You will."

And this is where I surprised myself. Without fully understanding the impulse, I said, "Okay. I will. But only if we're married."

"What?"

"You heard me. We have to be married."

"You're kidding."

"No. I'm not."

Barb looked at me as if I were a mugger about to swipe her purse. And then her face relaxed. She closed her eyes, made a counting-to-ten face, then opened her eyes and looked at me. "We can't get married right now. City hall is closed."

"We'll go to Las Vegas. We can get married in a chapel on the Strip."

Barb stared at me. "Did you take every cocktail waitress on this side of the harbor to Las Vegas, too?"

I'm stubborn. "Those are my terms. Take them or leave them. We get married first."

"You're nuts."

"No, I'm not nuts. I simply know what I want."

She looked at me. "But I'm already married."

"No you're not. You're a widow."

Barb looked at me for a good half minute. "Okay. Fair enough. Let's drive to the airport."

"Are you - "

"Jason, shut up. Let's drive to the airport now. We'll catch a nonstop or hub through Los Angeles, and that'll be it."

Within five minutes we were back on the highway, passing the final crash cleanup occurring on the other side of the median. Barb was in tears and asked me not to slow down. I thought this was cold, but she said, "Jason, I will have to drive past there at least four times a day the rest of my life. There's plenty of time for me to look then."