Cold, cold, such cold poured across my heart and froze me. Taking his bent sheet of paper, I forced myself to look. But for long seconds I honestly couldn’t focus on what was there. My life was in my hands and that is the final danger.

When the anxiety settled some and I saw the drawing, it was with the most horrid relief that I realized it wasn’t my boy! The eyes were wrong, the round cheeks, a chin that was soft when it should have been unusually prominent. This wasn’t Lincoln. For a moment I felt absolved. There’s no way Brendan Meier is Lincoln Aaron. Hooray! Thank God. Amen. Then came the most perverse synapse, for I felt a terrible urge to say, “He doesn’t look like this. The eyes are much deeper. He has Lily’s wide mouth. His hair—” And I didn’t know if I was meaning their boy or our boy or the same boy. My heart was the first to know. This was the moment to tell the truth, but my heart went both secret and dead to them. I was almost sure of Lily’s crime against this couple but could almost physically feel my whole self, starting with my heart, turning away. There’s a proverb that says a person has a chance at the splendor of God twice in his life—once in early adolescence and again when he is forty-five or fifty. Conversely, I could literally feel myself embracing evil then. Perhaps I would come back later and tell them the truth, or go to Lily and confront her, but now I handed their picture back, made a small apologetic smile, and said no, sorry. What was worse, seeing the pain on Gregory’s face as he took it and looked at the drawing for the millionth time or Anwen’s glance of pity at her husband? Or was it even the drawing itself, this bad counterfeit of a boy’s face that was so much handsomer and full of character in real life.

Driving away, I watched them in the rearview mirror until I passed over a small crest and they were gone. Only then did I become aware of the pressure in my bladder. It felt like I’d explode if I didn’t piss immediately. There were no houses around or cars coming down the road, so I stopped, jumped out, undid my pants, and barely wrestled it free in time before the stuff blew out of me in a fury.

Despite all of the terrible matters flying around in my head, it was bliss to pee. All the complicated, perverse, and dangerous things that had happened and were sure to come, none was more important than this dumb little function I did ten times a day.

“Winner and still champeen, the cock!” I announced to the New Jersey countryside. Which reminded me of Lily’s sweet curiosity about my penis. One of the first times we went to bed, afterward she held it in her hand and inspected, jiggled, poked it until I raised my head from the pillow and asked if she was conducting a science project. No, she’d just never had the nerve to look at one so closely.

“Never? You didn’t even look at Rick’s?”

“Naa, I was always too shy. I always felt self-conscious, you know?” She looked up from her position across my thighs and beamed. Partners in crime. Such a happy, comfortable moment. So adult and childlike at once, like playing Doctor. It was around that time I began thinking how deeply I loved this woman.

I had two options—fight or flight. I doubt if many people ever seriously consider running away from their lives altogether. It is either childish or desperate, and luckily few of us behave like that or experience such dark extremes. I knew one woman who was beaten very badly by her husband. An hour after he left the house for work, she packed a small bag and took a taxi to the airport. Charging a ticket to New York on his credit card (wanting him to think she’d gone there), she paid cash for a ticket to London. The ploy worked, and by the time he found her months later, she was safe and well protected.

In comparison, that seemed so cut-and-dried. Her life was threatened and she ran. My situation, “my danger,” was more complex and tricky. Yet in this era of quick relationships, when people go from A to Z at the speed of light and then separate, I could have gotten away with saying to Lily: I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to work, bye-bye. The easy, despicable way out, but given the alternative… Plus what was the alternative? I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I have to tell the police about you.

Sometimes the solution to a problem comes so quickly and resolutely that it leaves no trace of doubt about what must be done.

While I was driving back up the turnpike toward New York, my mind was fidgeting wildly about what to do. Traffic was busy but not enough to heed. The radio was on loud, tuned to a rock station; my companion for the trip.

There were so damned many Lilys in this. The Lily I knew. The Lily I thought I knew. Lily the kidnapper. Lily—

“Hey!”

In a far part of my mind I had heard the sound of a very loud car rattling up behind on the left. But turnpikes are full of clanging clunkers you ignore and just hope they don’t strangle you with their exhaust.

“Hey, fuckhead!”

In the middle of my muddle I looked quickly toward the shout. Right out my window, a man was pointing a gun at me. He wore a huge grin and every few seconds kept yelling, “Hey! Hey! Hey!” Then he laughed a screech and, before I could move, pulled the trigger and the gun exploded.

I pitched the car to the right. Because I was in the slow lane, I hit no one. Screech and his driver both howled with delight and, clanking louder, their car sped up and away.

Braking, I pulled further over onto the shoulder of the road. Why wasn’t I dead? He must have fired a blank. Why would he do that? Why hadn’t I panicked and crashed? Luck. Or blessed. Why had he shot at me? Because. Life gives no explanations or excuses. We’re the ones who think them up.

Sitting there trembling and cursing, thanking God Almighty for this break, I felt the moment slowly unwind and pass. Adrenaline stopped pumping terror and relief through me and shakily my own life with its present and future returned.

Lily returned too, and what filled my mind once the scared-to-death feeling passed was immense love for her. Love no matter what. Death one moment, Lily Aaron the next. I had survived and, returning to life, thought first of her. It was clear she was all that mattered. Cars rammed and rummed by on the left, night was purpling the sky. I would go back to her. I had to find a way to bring our love and a new life together through this wall, this world of fire we now faced.

I rang the doorbell but no one answered. After waiting a while longer I used my key. It was three in the afternoon. Lincoln would still be in school, Lily at the restaurant. Dropping my bag on the floor, I smelled the familiar bouquet of home—scented candles, dog, cigarette smoke, Lily’s Grey Flannel cologne. As I walked slowly through the place, it struck me as a kind of museum now—a museum of our life as it had been. Everything the same, everything different. This is where we played Scrabble together, that is where I spilled chili sauce on the carpet. A comic book of Lincoln’s was on the table. I picked it up and riffled through the pages.

Lincoln. This new world centered on him now, and the contradiction, if that was the word, was that he was one terrific kid. Smart and well adjusted, he often had a sense of humor and insight that made him a real pleasure to live with. Who knows how much we’re born with and how much is a result of upbringing and education. From living with the Aarons and watching the way the two interacted, I believed Lily was a great mother and had had a profoundly positive effect on the boy. That was part of the problem: she was so good for him.

Cobb was lying on his big bed in the kitchen. When he saw me, his long tail whacked the floor a couple of times. I waved hello and that was enough for him. He groaned contentedly and closed his eyes.