False Memory

By late spring, Skeet was finished with physical rehabilitation and fleshed out as he had not been in years. The lady in pink, at her instigation and without threat of suit, settled upon Skeet the sum of one and three-quarter-million dollars, after taxes, and with his health restored, he decided to take a few months off from housepainting to travel and consider his options.

Together, Skeet and Fig Newton had planned an itinerary that would take them first to Roswell, New Mexico, and thereafter to other points of interest on the UFO trail. Now that Skeet’s driving privileges had been restored, he and Fig would be able to spell each other at the wheel of Skeet’s new motor home.

Because the pink lady contended that she had been brainwashed by Mark Ahriman and subjected to sexual depravities, she resorted to a plea of self-defense. Skeet, she claimed, had unfortunately gotten in the way of her first shot. After furious debate and tumult in the district attorney’s office, she was charged with manslaughter and released on bail. By summer, the smart money was betting that she would never stand trial. If indeed she were hauled into court, what jury of her peers would ever find her guilty after her moving appearance on the talks how of all talk shows, at the end of which Oprah had embraced her and said, “You are an inspiration, girl,” while an entire audience had wept uncontrollably.

Derek Lampton, the younger, was a hero for a week and appeared on the national news, giving archery demonstrations. When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, Junior said, “An astronaut,” which seemed not in the least childish, for he was a straight 4.0 student with a flair for the sciences and already a student pilot.

By midsummer, the Bellon-Tockland Institute in Santa Fe had been cleared of any involvement with Mark Ahriman’s bizarre experiments in mind control. The belief that he had worked at the institute or had been associated with it in any way was disproved beyond contention. “He was a sociopath,” noted the institute’s director, “and a pathetic narcissist, a pop-psych lightweight who wanted to legitimize himself by claiming to be involved with this prestigious institution and its great work for world peace.” Although the nature of the institute’s research was described in various ways by the media, no reportage from that in The New York Times to that in the National Enquirer could make it comprehensible.

Martie canceled her contract to design a new video game based on The Lord of the Rings. She still loved Tolkien, but she felt the need to do something real. Dusty offered her a job painting houses, and she took him up on it for a while. The work was real enough to leave a delicious ache in her muscles, and it gave her time to think.

The surgery on the president’s nose was successful.

Ned Motherwell sold three haiku to a literary magazine.

The two lottery tickets were losers.

From time to time during the summer, Martie and Dusty visited three cemeteries, where Valet loved to explore among the stones. In the first, they brought flowers to Smilin’ Bob. In the second, they brought flowers to Susan and Eric Jagger. In the third, they brought flowers to Dominique, the half sister whom Dusty had never known.

Claudette claimed to have lost the only picture ever taken of her infant daughter. Perhaps that was true. Or perhaps she didn’t want Dusty to have it.

Each time that Dusty described Dominique’s sweet, gentle face as he recalled it from that photograph, Martie wondered if that baby, allowed to live, might have redeemed Claudette. By providing care and protection for one so innocent, perhaps Claudette would have found herself transformed, taught the meaning of compassion and humility. Though it was difficult to imagine that a Down’s child, conceived by the unholy union of Ahriman and Dusty’s mother, could be a blessing in disguise, the universe was full of even stranger patterns that seemed, when considered in detail, to have meaning.

In late July, in its one hundredth week on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list, Learn to Love Yourself was still riding high at the number five position.

In early August, Skeet and Fig called from Oregon, where they had taken a photograph of Big Foot, which they were sending along by express mail.

The photo was blurry but intriguing.