The Trinket Box

 
I
   
Milton Brooks sat with the vintage cigar box on his lap, looking out his tenth floor window at the street below — which is what he liked to do most days, whether he knew it or not. He was just shy of seventy, and decades spent carousing in the bright Florida sunshine had leathered his skin and creased it with a roadmap of deep wrinkles. His pale blue eyes gazed out at a skyline populated by palm trees and power lines. He sat like this for hours sometimes, always with the cigar box held in his frail hands like a gift he was waiting to give someone, if only they would show up to receive it.
   It was a cheap old box made of heavy cardboard. Nothing special. There were baroque designs around the sides, and on the cover, in ornate, curly-cue lettering, the words “Sweet Life” were printed. Beneath that, a picture of a stout-looking fisherman, standing in a rowboat with a stogie hanging out the corner of his mouth, the straw hat on his head tipped back at a sporty angle.
   Milton thumbed open the lid and let it fall softly shut. Over and over he did this.
   Sometimes he would raise the lid all the way and let it fall open on his bony knees, and one-by-one he would take out the items and study them in a quiet and unhurried manner. A gold and ruby brooch shaped like a treble clef. A metal lighter. A souvenir ball-point pen. More things, all jumbled together. He couldn’t for the life of him remember where a single one of them had come from. Each odd trinket was its own little mystery — a menagerie of lost memories that lingered just beyond his mind’s grasp.
   He had found the box about six months ago, tucked back in the bottom drawer of his late wife’s old antique dresser. It was pure happenstance that he even stumbled across it at all. If that bottom drawer hadn’t been cracked open an inch, he might never have gotten curious enough to look inside — but there it was, hidden back beneath a pile of support stockings and out-of-date blouses. He took it into the kitchen and cleaned it with the delicacy of an archaeologist restoring a priceless relic, carefully wiping off the dust and revealing the rustic, Norman Rockwell-style picture of the cigar-chomping fisherman on the cover — the Sweet Life man.
   Since that night, he had spent countless hours pouring over the box and its treasures — whether he was of sound mind or not, it made no difference; the compulsion was the same either way. It gave him something to think about, something to puzzle over during the lonely hours. It wasn’t much of a hobby, but it passed the time. He’d given up crosswords years ago (the clues had gotten too tough), and he only watched the television while he ate his supper. That was one of the few rituals he had preserved from his married days: the nightly news with the nightly meal.
   It had been five tough years since June had passed away — taken in her sleep in the still of night. Milton woke up the next morning to find her cold and stiff, still nestled against his side. Her family had a long history of heart disease, so it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, but that first moment, that first touch of her cold silky skin, had been so full of shock and sadness that Milton could barely eat for weeks afterward.
   It was after June died that his mind had first started to sour. In the early stages it was just little things — Where did I put my wallet? Missed what appointment? Today? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I must’ve written it down wrong. He chalked it up to old age for most of that first year.
   But it worsened, as it often does, and a dreadful voice in the back of his mind warned him against false optimism. When he was younger he had watched his own father turn from a well-spoken man into a confused shell of his former self in less than five years time, and that same dreadful voice told him the blight was coming for him next, and nothing would stop it.
   He started leaving notes for himself around the apartment during his better spells, reminding him to call so-and-so and do such-and-such. He made out a checklist and placed it on the nightstand next to the bed:
   
   Turn off burners
   Lock doors
   Check taps
   Take medicine
   Lights out
   
   It helped him manage the daily affairs, at least.
   For a little while.
   Two events shook him out of that cold complacency (or maybe it was flat-out denial), and forced him to finally accept what was happening to him.
   The first came on a blameless Florida morning. He had dressed in his usual brown slacks and a short-sleeved button up, and then headed down the block to the Corner Café to take his morning dose of black coffee. There were three booths along the front window of the little greasy spoon, and Milton was relieved to see that his favorite one was open and waiting for him. He slid in with a groan and fumbled with the rolled-up silverware tube while he waited for the woman to come take his order.
   “Hiya, Mr. Brooks,” said a bubbly voice, approaching him from behind. “Cuppa black?”
   Milton creaked his neck around and stared dumbly at the college-aged girl standing there with a green pad held at her side. He looked her up and down, then flicked his eyes behind the counter, toward the kitchen. “Where’s Agnes?” he said.
   “Agnes?”
   “She playin’ hooky?” He laughed at his own half-joke, then cocked his elbow up and rested it on the back of the booth. “Didn’t think they gave her any days off around here.”
   The young waitress, BECKY her nametag said, bit her lip and glanced at him cockeyed. “We haven’t got anybody named Agnes, Mr. Brooks. You haven’t been two-timing me at some other coffee shop, have you?”
   “No dear, listen: Agnes. She’s been waiting tables here more years than you’ve been alive. She’s like a piece of furniture in this place. Agnes, dear. Where’s Agnes?”
   “I’m sorry,” Becky said, swallowing a bit nervously. “I’m pretty sure I would’ve met her by now.”
   “Didja just start yesterday or something?”
   Becky put her hands on her hips and said, “Yeah, right. I been here two years. C’mon, you know that.”
   “Puh.”
   She looked at him, confused but with a kindness and patience that made her seem like a much older woman for a moment, and said, “Hey, are you feeling okay, Mr. Brooks? Because you seem…” She stopped herself — or rather, the look on Milton’s face stopped her.
   Just then, a male voice piped up from the side of the lunch counter: “Problem, Becky?”
   Becky turned and saw the line cook standing there, and said, “He’s looking for Agnes?”
   The cook clunked the spatula on the edge of the counter and stepped toward the table, stopping just behind Becky’s shoulder. “We used to have a lady named Agnes. Blond hair. Older lady. Is that who you’re looking for?”
   Milton gave a small nod. He held his eyes rigid, but his lower lip trembled, oh so slightly. The first thin cracks in a proud man’s fragile facade.
   “Oh, man, sir… I’m sorry, but she, uh… she retired a few years back. I think she moved to Boca Raton or something.”
   Milton stopped breathing for a few seconds as the cook’s words reverberated through his mind. He swallowed hard, chancing a look back at the girl with BECKY written on her nametag. Of course it was her. It was Becky. Becky from the University of Miami. Becky who waited tables while she studied to become a nurse practitioner. Becky who had served him coffee and chatted with him cordially three mornings a week for the past two years. A hot flush of embarrassment spread across his sun-weathered face and he said, “Sorry. Sorry. I… I’m sorry.”
   “S’all right. Don’t worry about it.” Becky held up her pad. “How about I bring you your cup of black, huh?”
   At this point Milton’s heart felt like it had been replaced by a sixteen pound bowling ball. He waved her off without even speaking and gripped the edge of the table. Becky stepped back, giving him a wide radius of space, and watched nervously as he scooted to the end of the booth. More than a few eyes were turned in his direction and he could feel every one of their stares burning right through him. With shaky hands he hoisted himself to his feet and lurched down the narrow aisle of the café and exited through the stickered glass door — a door which he would never walk through again for the rest of his days. There was an old coffee maker in the cupboard at home that would do just fine from here on out, he reasoned. No use chancing it.
   The second event — the second omen — came just a few weeks later. This incident was altogether less embarrassing, yet somehow far more terrifying in its implications.
   It was the day he met Ralph, a fresh retiree who had just moved in down the hall. Milton went down to the lobby that morning to retrieve his mail from the wall of brass-plated mailboxes, and he saw a fellow about his age standing outside the glass double doors, struggling with the building’s entrance code. Milton shut his mailbox and locked it, then went over and cracked open the door. “Who’re you here to see?” he asked.
   “Nobody,” Ralph said. “I live here, apartment ten-fourteen, I just can’t remember the goddamn pin number.”
   Milton appraised him for a moment, then held the door open wide. “All right. I think I saw you the other day, taking out your trash.”
   “I’m a trashy guy,” Ralph said.
   Milton laughed pretty hard at this, and boy, it sure felt great to laugh again. He hadn’t done much of that lately. “Code’s three-eight-two-seven.” He rattled off the number effortlessly, without a hitch.
   “Thanks, partner.” Ralph stepped through and offered out his hand. He had a kind face and a full head of stark white hair — hair so brilliant and bone white it looked glowing and unnatural. Televangelist hair. “Ralph Winston,” he said.
   Milton grabbed his hand and pumped it vigorously; he was so excited to meet someone new that he almost forgot to introduce himself in return. “Oh, uh… Milton. Milton Brooks.”
   They struck up a quick conversation right there in the lobby, and within fifteen minutes they were getting along like old friends reuniting after years apart. Ralph delved into his life story, explaining that he’d been a long haul trucker before he decided to call it quits and move to Miami. It was something they both had in common — a life on the road. Milton talked at length about his years as a restaurant supply salesman, trekking up and down Florida and through the South, peddling industrial kitchen equipment, and about how things had dried up pretty quickly once the Internet took over and made guys like him obsolete.
   “It’s a killer,” Ralph said. “Me? I sold my rig six months ago.” He shook his head and gave a resigned shrug. “After forty years of driving fourteen hours a day, my ass felt like a block of cement. It was still tough, though, letting her go. Selling her off like that was like divorcing a woman you still loved — and I should know, because I’ve done that, too.”
   “Oh?”
   “Well, I suppose she divorced me. And I suppose I deserved it. How ‘bout you, Milty? You been married?”
   “Nope.”
   “Smart man,” Ralph said. “Play the field. Hell, that’s why I moved to Florida. I heard the women down here were pickled by the salty air so they stay pretty longer.”
   “Pickled!” Milton laughed. “That’s a good one.”
   “Well, they’re well-preserved, at any rate.”
   “I suppose they are.”
   “We oughtta head out on the town some night, you and me, and see if we can scare us up some tail.” Ralph flashed a grin and winked. “Never too old to tango, eh, bud?”
   Milton’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, I don’t… I don’t now if I’m up for… scaring any tail.”
   “A brewski then, at least. You a drinking man?”
   “Occasionally.”
   “There you have it. A beer, then. On me.”
   Milton gave a resolute nod. “That sounds just fine.”
   They rode the elevator up together and parted ways in the tenth floor corridor, with one more handshake to seal the deal. Milton walked away from the encounter with a big smile on his face, and he didn’t realize the grave error he had made until he was safely back inside his apartment with the door shut and locked. He stood still for a moment, gazing around his living room with the awful feeling that something was amiss, then a single word rose up from the depths of his memory and crossed his lips with painful clarity: “June.”
   He collapsed on the sofa and burst into tears.
   How ‘bout you, Milty? You ever been married?
   And what had Milty said?
   Nope.
   The word clanged through his head like a warning siren. Nope. Nope. Nope. His wife of thirty-nine years. His sweet June. She had flown out of his mind like she had never been there at all. He grabbed a throw pillow from the arm of the sofa — the one June had stitched with her own two hands — and hugged it against his chest like a drowning man would a life preserver. He buried his face in the lacy ruffles and drew in a long breath, trying to smell even a trace of the perfume she once wore, but it only smelled dusty and old. Sorrow gave way to anger and Milton gritted his teeth and cursed himself for remembering that stupid entrance code but not his wife’s name, her face, or the fact that she even existed as a part of his life.
   It was just a blip, a little bobble, but it was huge. It wasn’t his first episode, and it certainly wouldn’t be his last. There would be a lot of strange days after that one. A never-ending circus of them.
   
  II
   
Milton thumbed the lid of the box one more time and finally set it aside with a weary sigh. He supposed he had better clean himself up a bit before Jason arrived. Jason was his caregiver, but Milton always thought of him as more of a parole officer. His good word was the only thing keeping Milton out of the Big House — or, in other words, the assisted living building where they kept a thermometer up your ass 24/7 and fed you baby food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
   Milton stood up out of his chair and glanced at the clock. 10:46 AM. Jason was usually over around 11:30 or so — that gave him forty-five minutes to get the show on the road. He trudged through the bedroom and into the master bath. His eyes looked drawn and tired in the mirror, and he tried to avoid making eye contact with himself.
   His shaving necessities were scattered across the counter, and Milton set himself dimly to the task of removing the whiskers from his face with a straight blade. When that was finished, he leaned over the counter and splashed water through his coarse, salt and pepper hair, then slicked it back with a comb. A dash of Aqua Velva and it was back to the bedroom to get dressed — brown slacks and a button up. The standard attire. Why fix it if it ain’t broke, right?
   A sudden clattering from the living room startled him and he sucked in a quick breath. “Jason?” he said, finishing up the last couple of buttons. Jason had a key, but he rarely used it — he usually knocked, same as everybody else did. Milton padded across the carpet and poked his head into the living room. “Jason, is that y—”
   There was a knock at the door, a sharp double-tap.
   Then, a muffled voice from the hallway outside: “Morning, Milton. It’s me, Jason. Your caregiver.”
   Jason always announced himself like that, with a not-so-subtle reminder of who he was and why he was here. On his good days, Milton found it condescending and irritating. On his bad days, it was like a lighthouse on a dark shore. Some days, he needed the reminder. Today, being of fairly good mind, he simply grumbled under his breath and went over to open the door. Jason stood there with a wide smile, fresh-faced and looking more like a Future Business Leader of America than an errand boy for lonely old men.
   “You’re early,” Milton said. “You got a race you’re trying to win?”
   Jason laughed. “No. I finished up early at my last job. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
   “Oh, I’m very busy,” Milton said, holding the door open and ushering him inside. “Busy doing nothing,” he added. He eyed the paper bag in Jason’s arms and said, “What is this? He comes bearing gifts?”
   “Groceries. Good stuff, this week.”
   “It’s grocery day already? Cripes.”
   “Time flies,” Jason said, and showed himself to the kitchen, where he began unpacking the bag and stowing things away in the cupboards. “How’re you getting along?”
   “Just fine.”
   “Any problems?”
   “Nothing but.”
   Jason laughed again. “Well, you look good. A little tired, maybe. The medication treating you okay?”
   “Treating me fine, and before you say anything…” Milton grabbed a bottle off the kitchen counter and removed one of the pills, held it up for Jason to see, then popped it in his mouth and rinsed it down. “There. Satisfied?”
   Jason shot him a sheepish grin. “Thanks. Gotta do it, you know.”
   “I know.” Milton settled onto a bar stool by the counter and watched him unload the groceries.
   “Hey, check this out—” Jason reached his arm down into the paper bag like he was fixing to pull a rabbit out of a top hat, only instead of a rabbit he removed a slender blue box of Ho-Hos. “Don’t tell the home office, okay? This is strictly between me and you.”
   Milton’s eyes lit up. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
   “I’m touched.”
   Jason started to file the box away in one of the cupboards, and Milton said, “Hold on there, buddy. Pass ‘em here.”
   “You want one now?”
   “Open that sucker up.” Milton pointed his finger at Jason. “You’re gonna have one, too.”
   “I am?” Jason made a face like he’d just been asked to drink strychnine, then quickly replaced it with a smile. “Well… I suppose one Ho-Ho won’t hurt me.”
   “Good Lord. You kids are too damn healthy!”
   Jason gave his eyes a good roll, then cracked open the box and fished out two cellophane-wrapped snack cakes and slid one across the counter toward Milton. “Here you go. Hey, speaking of healthy, you feel like taking a walk around the block today?”
   Milton ignored him and focused on undoing the wrapper. “What’s that you say?”
   “A walk. I asked if you wanted a walk today?”
   Milton tore off a hunk of Ho-Ho and let his eyes fall shut, savoring the too-sweet grit of it on his tongue. When it was chewed and swallowed, he said, “A walk, huh?”
   “Sure. Get a little sunshine and exercise.”
   “Yeah, yeah. All right. I suppose I oughtta.”
   “We’ll make it a quick one, if you want.”
   “Deal.” Truly, a walk didn’t sound half bad. He was starting to liven up a bit. Having company over always gave him a little extra vigor.
   Jason strolled over to the window in the living room. “It’s a nice day to get outside,” he said. “Not too hot, not too humid.”
   Milton wasn’t listening. His attention had been claimed by the cigar box on the table by the window. The trinkets were scattered around it in a circle, and the gold and ruby brooch rested on its lid.
   Milton stopped chewing and stared at it.
   How the hell? I put them away. I put them all away… Then, more soberly, he thought: No. I must have forgot. I must have left them out. That’s all it is. I just forgot it. Just being careless. Just my mind slipping away like the goddamn tides…
   Jason waved his hands and said, “Did you hear me, Milton?”
   “Yeah. I heard you. Nice day for a walk,” he said distantly.
   “Say, are you feeling all right? You look a little queasy all of a sudden. I hope it’s not the, you know… the Ho-Ho.”
   “No. Huh-uh. I’m fine.”
   “Okay,” Jason said, but his skeptical tone suggested he wasn’t convinced. He looked at Milton for a few seconds, then said, “Maybe a little fresh air would do us some good. You want to get your shoes on while I finish up in the kitchen?”
   Milton drew in a heavy breath and let it fall out. “You know, I think I changed my mind. I’m not sure I’m up to a walk right now. Might be best to lie down for a while.”
   “Do you feel a spell coming on? I can stick around, if you like. You can rest for a bit, and then maybe we can hit that walk a little later?”
   Milton waved him off. “No, no. I think you’re right. I think it might have been the sweets after all. Acid’s coming up, that’s all.”
   A guilty look came over Jason’s face immediately, a look that said I knew I shouldn’t have bought him that damn junk food. Milton hated to see that look, because it meant nothing but fruits and vegetables from here on out. But it didn’t matter, at least not right then. Milton felt a sudden need to be alone, and that meant getting Jason to leave.
   “You want me to pick up something for your stomach? I can swing by the drug sto—”
   “I got Tums,” Milton said, cutting him off. “I’ll be in good shape after I take a Tums and lie down.”
   Jason’s eyes lingered on him, appraising the slight pallor that had come over his face, then he said, “All right. Guess I’ll get out of your hair then, let you get some rest.”
   Milton thanked him for the groceries and assured him that an antacid tablet and a short nap were all he needed to feel right again, then showed him to the door. Once their goodbyes were spoken, Milton swept the door closed and turned the deadbolt.
   Then he turned back to the cigar box.
   The gold brooch glittering on its lid looked magical in the early afternoon sun. He rubbed a hand over his mouth and stared at it. “Where did you come from?” he said, under his breath, to the empty apartment.
   A forgotten vacation? he wondered. It had crossed his mind before. Maybe these were the mementos from an old road trip with June, a trip that had gotten lost in the murky fog of decades past. Perhaps it had been a short trip, and not that memorable in the first place. A weekender, maybe. A jaunty little Friday night drive down to the Keys, then back home by Sunday afternoon. They had taken plenty of quick getaways just like that, and a lot of those trips had gotten sort of blurred together over time, and that blurring had already started happening long before the dementia ever reared its ugly head in Milton’s life. It was just a thing that happened with memories. They got jumbled.
   Fortunately, though, June had been a dedicated scrapbooker. She and her Polaroid had documented it all: the wedding itself (of course), their anniversaries, and all of their countless vacations and dinner parties. Milton had thumbed through the pages (five thick books in all) hundreds of times since her death, and that helped unjumble things a bit, break apart the collage of memories and put them back into some semblance of order in his mind.
   Nothing in those books had rung any particular bells regarding the contents of the cigar box, though — but maybe he wasn’t looking hard enough. Maybe he had been thinking about it all wrong from the get-go.
   He paced over to the table and plucked up the treble clef-shaped brooch and studied it. Dozens of tiny rubies glimmered in their gold settings.
   “Maybe she had secrets,” he said to no one in particular. He didn’t believe June had ever kept anything from him, but he didn’t rule it out as a possibility. She must have been awfully lonely, what with him being gone for days and sometimes weeks at a time. And what do women do when they get lonely? he wondered. They go shopping, that’s what. They buy expensive crap that they don’t want their husbands to find out about. A second later he scolded himself for even having that thought. June simply wasn’t that kind of lady. Besides, even if the brooch had been an impulse purchase, that didn’t explain the rest of the contents of the box. The sequined bow-tie? The hula girl lighter? No. Not June. Not in a million years.
   Milton laid the brooch aside and slid his hand along the cigar box’s lid. The virile fisherman gazed out lifelessly, the eternally half-smoked stogie hanging from his mouth. It dawned on him (for the first time, oddly enough) that he had become a man with an obsession.
   He thought about tossing the gold and ruby treble clef back into the box and putting it out of his mind, then retiring back to the bedroom for an afternoon nap. All that talk of naps earlier had made him a bit drowsy. He couldn’t, though; not when his mind was alive. These lucid periods could last for days or weeks, but the forgetting always came back around sooner or later, and going to sleep was too big a risk — there was no telling where his mind might be once he woke back up. Use it or lose it, isn’t that what they always say?
   That settled it.
   Milton put everything back inside the box and headed to the kitchen.
   
  III
   
Three hours later, surrounded by empty Ho-Ho wrappers, Milton huddled over the kitchen table with the trinkets spread out before him in a semi-circle. June’s scrapbooks were stacked off to the side, and the top one lay wide open, showing off neat rows of blurry, faded Polaroid pictures from their vacation to the Grand Canyon, circa 1991. He was hoping to at least narrow down the timeframe, figure out in which era of his life the box had first made its appearance. A photograph featuring one of the items would have been a jackpot, but so far nothing. It was just another nostalgic trip down Shaky-Memory Lane.
   With a worn stub of pencil, he made a list of the box’s contents:
   
   hula girl lighter
   gold & ruby brooch (musical note)
   pen with boat
   keychain pendant
   red bow-tie
   coins and bills
   
   The gold brooch and the money were the only items of any value. Everything else looked like it could have been picked up at a cheap souvenir shop. Hell, that’s probably where theyhad come from; and if so, what difference did it make? Give it a rest, he told himself. Pawn the jewels and toss the rest in the garbage can and be done with it. It’s no use worrying over.
   That was out of the question, though. The box had a grip over him.
   He reached out and touched the pen. Pen with boat, he had written on his list. It was one of those souvenir floating pens. The bottom half was a simple ball-point job. The other half contained a miniature diorama suspended in clear fluid — it showed a seaside village, and a small cut-out of a sailboat slid back and forth depending on which way you tipped the pen. Milton picked it up and watched sullenly as the little vessel sailed from one end of the tiny village to the other.
   Next, he picked up the keychain pendant. Flimsy red plastic with faded white lettering:Tropical Paradise Awaits. He wrote this phrase on his list and circled it several times. It might be a clue, he reasoned. Maybe he’d be able to research the phrase and figure out where it had come from. He scribbled a quick reminder for himself in the margins. Worth a shot, at least.
   He set it back in its place and held up the lighter next. He eyed the flashy brunette, dancing the hula in her grass skirt. He flipped back the lid and thumbed the spark wheel and it lit up on the first strike, and he gazed into the flickering orange flame like an old shaman searching for mystical visions in a ceremonial fire.
   No visions came, though.
   He shut the cover and snuffed the flame, then closed his hand around the metal casing and felt its warmth on his palm. It felt good in his hand, like it belonged there — as if simply holding it was the whole point. The same was true of all the objects. It was as if they craved being held.
   Milton shuddered and dropped the lighter.
   He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his bleary eyes.
   The apartment was silent, save for a soft tapping that came from the living room. It sounded like fingernails drumming on a hard surface. He craned his neck and half-expected to see June sitting on the couch, clacking her press-on nails against the glass top of the coffee table. It was too dark in the living room to see much of anything, though. The late afternoon sun had vanished behind a wall of storm clouds, and fat drops of rain plinked against the windowpane — tap-tap… tap-tap-tap…
   He rose from the kitchen table and went into the living room to turn on the floor lamp. As he turned to walk back, June’s face caught his eye. Her framed portrait hung slightly askew above the TV cabinet. Her hair was done up and fastened, the way Milton always liked it.
   “If you’re up there somewhere,” he said in a low voice, “I could sure use a hand down here, sweetie. This damn thing’s got me in a fit. You’d sort it out, though, wouldn’t you? You always did.”
   He kissed his fingertips, then touched them lightly to the portrait. Moments like this, he swore he could still feel her presence. Five years gone, but she still seemed so terribly close. He slumped his shoulders and walked back into the kitchen.
   “Jesus!” he said, stumbling back a step or two.
   The lighter stood on end. The cover was flipped back, and the orange flame flickered.
   Milton eyed it suspiciously. “I’m losing my goddamn mind.” He reached out and snapped the cover shut, let out a resigned sigh, and thought, No, you dumb old fool, you lost your mind a long time ago.
   
  IV
   
The rain came down good and heavy for the rest of the night. Milton carefully placed his collection of mysteries back in their designated container, the Sweet Life cigar box, then heated up a chicken pot pie and ate it in the living room by the pale glimmer of the television set. The nightly news was on but he barely paid attention to it.
   Part of him wished for the blight to come back, for one of his “spells” to overtake him and make him forget the whole damn business — the box and every wretched thing in it. He had wasted the entire day on it. Actually, he had wasted a lot of days on it. Far too many. It was drinking up his life like a greedy lush, robbing him of his lucid hours.
   When he finished his meal, he trundled back to the bedroom without even bothering to clean up his dishes. His daily checklist rested on the nightstand:
   
   Turn off burners
   Lock doors
   Check taps
   Take medicine
   Lights out
   
   Milton glared at it and said, “To hell with you.”
   He turned off the lamp and crawled right into bed, and within fifteen minutes he fell fast asleep.
   The dreams came almost immediately, whisking him away on a wicked carnival ride of spinning red bow-ties and grinning fishermen and hula girls shimmying and shaking in their long grass skirts. He ran — or tried to — but in the strange way that dreams work, his legs never seemed to carry him very far. It was a slow-motion madcap dash, zigging and zagging, but whichever way he turned the same neon sign always glowed directly in front of him, impossibly bright in the blinding sunshine, and the blinking letters on that looming sign read:TROPICAL PARADISE AWAITS. It shifted across the landscape with each frantic turn he made, and even though Milton couldn’t help but run toward it, he had the dreadful feeling that it was following him, placing itself in his path, blocking his way to freedom.
   Then instantly the neon sign was gone like it had never been there at all, and Milton was alone in the strange carnival, and then there wasn’t any carnival, or any hula girls, or any grinning fishermen, there was only the darkness of his bedroom and the steady drumbeat of his heart as he sat up in bed with the sheets around him soaked with sweat.
   Every trace of the nightmare vanished instantly from his memory, replaced by a cold, sterile confusion.
   Outside his bedroom window, the storm raged.
   
  V
   
First thing in the morning, as the sun rose over the rain-soaked streets of Miami, Milton Brooks wandered through his apartment, searching for his dead wife.
   He paced from room to room, then doubled back again. He was dumbfounded. It wasn’t like June to just up and leave without kissing him goodbye.
   She must’ve gone out to get groceries, he figured. Or maybe she was planning to surprise him with something. Was it his birthday? He wasn’t sure, but he supposed it might have been. Good old June. Always thinking. Always a step ahead.
   Milton stopped in the center of the living room and scratched his chest. Something wasn’t quite right. The television was still on with the volume muted, and there were dirty dishes sitting on the TV tray in front of the sofa. One thing about June: she was meticulous. She always kept the place spotless. She had all kinds of special touches that she added around the house, like placing scented candles at strategic locations, stacking their old magazines and newspapers in separate piles on the end table, all kinds of thoughtful little acts — but as Milton gazed around the apartment, he found these household flourishes curiously absent. In fact, there hardly seemed to be any trace of her at all.
   He shook his head. This was worrisome. She could be in trouble, he thought gravely. He’d give it an hour, he decided, then he would phone the police.
   He paced over to the window and looked down at the sidewalk, hoping to see her walking back home with a grocery sack in her hands. He saw nothing but a sidewalk full of strange faces, and just as his hope began to sink a little, a brilliant new thought struck him: Maybe she left a note!
   He turned on his heels and marched straight into the kitchen, to the wipey board stuck to the refrigerator door. It read: Eggs. Mayonnaise. Cheese slices.
   Next he turned his eyes to the countertops, the corkboard, and finally over to the kitchen table. Yes… there was something there, wasn’t there? A piece of scratch paper sitting next to his old cigar box. Milton picked it up and stared blankly at the list he had written the night before. He knew it was his handwriting, but he didn’t remember making it. The phrase“Tropical Paradise Awaits” had been circled numerous times with a heavy hand, and next to that: ask Jason to web search it.
   “Huh,” Milton said.
   Still, he picked up the box and tucked it in the crook of his arm. The weight of it felt good to hold. Comforting. He ambled back into the living room, cast a long look at the door, pining for June to come bustling through, then settled down on the sofa with the box resting in his lap.
   A framed picture of him and June sat on the end table. They were arm in arm, big smiles on their faces. A red, white and blue banner hung behind them, and they were surrounded by a crowd of people.
   “The American Legion dance,” Milton said wistfully, and reached over and picked it up. “That was a heckuva night.”
   He smiled down at the picture, admiring his wife’s pretty face, her unassuming elegance. She had the sweetest little nose, rounded and petite, and Milton loved to give her quick smooches on the tip of it. It always brought a little blush to her cheeks, and that was a beautiful thing to behold. That’s what he would do the second she walked through the door, he decided: give her a little kiss on the tip of her nose. He was about to place the picture back on the end table when he noticed something sticking to the back of the frame — a piece of masking tape with writing on it. He turned the frame over and read:
   
   THIS IS YOUR WIFE JUNE
   SHE DIED ON MARCH 27, 2009
   YOU LOVED HER VERY MUCH
   
   He stared at the writing for several long minutes, then finally, in a very soft voice, he said, “Oh.”
   
  VI
   
He was still sitting on the sofa with the box and the framed picture in his lap when Jason knocked on his door a little before noon. Milton looked up drearily and willed himself to move. His limbs were still heavy with grief; the incident earlier had been like losing June all over again. It was the unbearable cruelty of the slipping mind — sometimes it brought the happy moments from your past back to life right before your eyes, only to rip them away from you a moment later.
   He shuffled across the living room and opened the door, then turned wordlessly and shuffled right back to his spot on the couch.
   Jason’s cheerful demeanor melted away as he stepped inside and shut the door. The heaviness in the apartment was unmistakable. “Rough day?” he asked.
   Milton nodded.
   Jason didn’t press him any further; he knew better. Sometimes it was best to just sit with a patient and let them know you’re there for them, and that’s exactly what he did. He settled onto the sofa next to Milton and placed a warm hand on his shoulder, then let it slip away.
   “I thought she was coming home,” Milton said, staring straight ahead, straight at the door.
   “June?”
   “Yes. June.” Milton’s face twisted up, and he made a brave but unsuccessful show of fighting off the tears. “I can still feel her, Jason. A part of me knows it’s just the memory thing, but it’s just… it feels so real.”
   “I’m sorry, buddy. I really am.”
   Milton rubbed the sides of the cigar box like a worry stone, drawing some kind of strange fortitude from it. “I’m getting worse,” he said dryly. “Less good days and more bad ones all the time. And the good days aren’t so good anymore. Those are the days when I know what is happening to me. I know it won’t get better.”
   It was true; sometimes, and Milton hated to think this way, but sometimes the fog was better.
   Jason offered nothing; he simply sat with his hands folded in his lap and waited for him to continue.
   After a few labored breaths, Milton spoke again: “Some days I forget her, and some days I think she’s still alive. It’s like somebody’s screwing with me, playing some kind of trick with my head. Is that normal? Is it always like this? Is it this goddamn cruel for everybody?”
   Jason pressed his lips together, looking like a politician about to answer a question about a hot button issue. “There really isn’t any normal here, Milton. It’s different for everybody. Some of your experiences are a bit… outside the ordinary, I guess. As far as memory loss goes, you’re kind of all over the map. But, like I said: there is no normal. Different people are affected in different ways. Nobody’s playing any sinister games with you, though. Trust me, everybody who goes through this feels like they’re sailing uncharted waters, and in a lot of ways, they are.”
   Milton gave a grunt of understanding and glanced down at the grinning fisherman on the box cover.
   “You remind me of Billy Pilgrim,” Jason said.
   “That another one of your patients?”
   Jason allowed himself a quick smirk. “No, he’s a character in a book. Slaughterhouse Five.He comes unstuck in time. Everyday he wakes up in a different period of his life. Sometimes he’s a young soldier fighting in World War II, and some days he’s an old man, and he has no idea what kind of day it’ll be until he opens his eyes to find out.”
   Milton nodded tightly. “Sounds like a terrible affliction.”
   “I suppose so.”
   That was all they spoke of it. Milton dropped the subject, and Jason let him. They batted around some small talk for the next hour — baseball and weather — then Jason watched Milton take his medication and finally said his farewells, with a parting wish for Milton to “get to feeling better” as he walked out the door. Milton was almost sorry to see him go; the company was nice, and today wasn’t a good day to be alone.
   It wasn’t until well after Jason’s departure that Milton wandered into the kitchen and noticed the note again: Tropical Paradise Awaits — ask Jason to web search it.
   He had a vague recollection of having written it, but the memory was like a loose coin clinking around inside a spinning clothes dryer, tumbling from place to place and refusing to stay put. Images of hula girls and red bow-ties and glittering musical notes flashed through his mind in a rapid-fire montage and—
   —of course: The box.
   He’d been holding it all morning, blissfully unaware of the tight grip it had on him. All at once, the remaining wisps of fog broke apart and he remembered the night before clearly: huddled over the kitchen table, pouring over the box and the trinkets while the storm rumbled outside. He’d left the note as a reminder. A lot of good it did.
   “Damn it,” he muttered.
   Milton had never owned a computer — they were for the younger crowd — so he figured he’d have to wait another full day for Jason to come back around before he got any answers. Just as well; it was probably nothing but a wild goose chase anyway.
   He left the scratch paper on the table, then cracked open the fridge and rummaged around for the cold cuts, intent on making himself a sandwich and then going outside for some fresh air.
   Curiosity is a funny bug, though — it kept itching at his brain, dragging his eyes back to the scribbled note on the kitchen table.
   He had Jason’s phone number. He could just give him a call and ask him to look up the phrase, but that might risk setting off Jason’s warning bells. It was, after all, a fairly unusual request.
   No. He wouldn’t call Jason.
   He had a better idea (or a worse one, depending on how you looked at it). There was someone much closer than Jason who had a computer, and Milton strangely remembered this part very well, because the person in question bragged about his proficiency at online dating just about every chance he got. It was someone who lived right down the hall, just a few footsteps away.
   
  VII
   
Ralph answered the door wearing nothing but silk boxers and a maroon bathrobe. Milton was not surprised to see that the straggly hairs on his chest were every bit as ghost-white as the wispy pompadour he sported.
   “Milty! Come on in.” Ralph swept his arm grandly around the apartment, which looked more like it belonged to a college party animal than a sixty-something-year-old man. Crumpled beer cans and dirty laundry littered the floor. A large Anheiser-Busch decorative mirror (that had clearly been pilfered from some ratty truck stop bar) hung above the sofa like a sad parody. “Welcome to the palace, boss.”
   “Thanks.”
   “You look like shit, Milt. You having one of your fuzzy days?”
   “Kind of.”
   “Well, in that case: I’m your long lost son, Dad. You owe me a million bucks!” Ralph then proceeded to belt out a crass, almost maniacal laugh.
   Milton patted the air with his hands and said, “Not that bad, Ralph. Jesus Cripes. Just a little out of sorts, is all.”
   Ralph calmed his laughter and said, “Bad taste. Sorry. You okay, man? What brings you?”
   Milton glanced around at the trash heap that Ralph called home and said, “You’re good with computers, aren’t you?”
   “Ah. I see what this is about.” Ralph tapped his temple. “Feeling a little lonely? Craving some action? Ready to meet some silver-haired beauties on the Sunset Express?”
   “No, uh, not really. I just—”
   “Check this out,” Ralph said, moving over to a cramped desk in the corner that housed a worn-looking Dell computer. He jiggled the mouse and the screen lit up, displaying images of a scantily dressed, gray-haired old woman. She looked like somebody’s grandmother, except for the lace teddy she wore. Ralph tapped the screen and said, “My latest exploit. I know she doesn’t look it, but she can suck the chrome off a—”
   “Ralph!”
   “Sorry, sorry. I got nudies of her, by the way.”
   “Nudies?”
   “You wanna see ‘em?”
   “No. I don’t. That… that isn’t why I’m here,” Milton said, clearly exasperated. He was beginning to have second thoughts about coming over. Ralph was like a puppy with too many toys to play with; he couldn’t stay focused for too long. Also, something about that scandalous old woman on the computer screen made Milton’s heart feel sad. He only had room for one woman in his life, and that woman had died five years ago, on March 27, 2009, according to the picture frame in the living room. He was in no need of a replacement.
   Ralph looked sorely dejected, but he X’ed out the screen and turned to Milton. “Your loss, boss.”
   Milton fished the scratch paper out of his pocket. “I actually had a little favor to ask. Wondered if you could check up on something for me?”
   Ralph snatched the paper out of his hands. “What is this, your Christmas list?”
   “It’s… well, actually, I’m not entirely sure what it is. I was hoping you could help me remember.” Milton reached across and drew his finger around the circled phrase. “Any idea what this means?”
   Ralph held the paper at arm’s length and squinted his eyes. “Tropical… paradise… awaits…” he read. “Sounds like a slogan for some shitty timeshare.”
   “Can we look it up and see?”
   “Sure.” Ralph settled into the swivel chair and worked his fingers on the keyboard and hit ENTER. “There. Told ya. Bunch of shitty timeshares. Key Largo. Guam. You looking to take a vacation, Milty?”
   “I’m not sure,” he said absently. “Is that all there is? Nothing else?”
   Ralph scrolled through the page. “Hell, it all looks the same. I take it this ain’t what you were looking for?”
   “It’s a place of some kind, I’m almost sure of it. It’s somewhere that I’ve been, and I just can’t remember.”
   “I gotcha. Trying to clear the old cobwebs, huh?”
   “Exactly. You were up and down the coast a lot back in the day — have you ever seen anyplace that might fit the bill?”
   Ralph shrugged. “Tropical paradise? This is Florida, Milty. It could be any one of a thousand places around here.”
   Milton slumped his shoulders. “I guess you’re right.”
   “Hey, don’t look so down,” Ralph said, handing back the paper. “You’ve gotta stop living in the past, my man. You’re missing the party.”
   Milton shook his head and said, “I’m too old for the kind of partying you do.”
   “Bull, you’re barely older than me. And trust me, the little blue pill works wonders. Just ask CatLady1947.”
   “I’ll take your word for it.”
   “They don’t call these the golden years for nothing. Plenty of ladies, Milt, ripe for the picking. Ripe.”
   “Not interested.”
   Ralph narrowed his eyes and leveled them on Milton. “Sure you are, bucko. I got a feeling for these things, you know, and you are clearly a man who needs to dip his wick in something nice, am I right?”
   “Excuse me, but I have a wife,” Milton said abruptly. He held up his left hand and waved his wedding band in front of Ralph’s face. “She may be gone, and I may not always remember her the way I want to, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still love her, you understand? And I’m not looking to go alley catting around like a goddamn teenager again, you hear me? It would be disrespectful.”
   Ralph looked taken aback, but only for a second. “Disrespectful?” he said, cocking his head to the side. “Since when do you care about that?”
   Milton chuffed.
   “I mean, you weren’t faithful to her when she was alive, why the hell should it matter now that she’s dead? It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, it ain’t cheating if she’s dead, right?”
   “Watch yourself,” Milton said, the hint of a threat in his voice. “June was everything to me.”
   Ralph just looked at him for a moment or two, then a morbid look of understanding fell over his face. “You really don’t remember that night, do you? Shit, your brain’s more blasted than I thought.”
   Milton froze. That feeling crept in again, that feeling that was like showing up to class without realizing it was final exam day. The hair on his arms spiked out in an icy rush and a shiver of gooseflesh rippled his skin. His throat turned all thick and papery and he said,“Wha… what… don’t I remember?”
   Ralph’s eyes twinkled, and a grin that looked almost sadistic unzippered itself across his face. “That night… we sat on the balcony down the hall… with a bottle of Jim Beam…” he said, speaking with a deliberate, taunting slowness. “You got drunk off your ass and went on and on about some chick named Donna you used to screw behind June’s back, way back in the seventies.”
   Milton gave his head a quick shake, almost a shudder, and said, “Liar. You’re a damn liar.”
   “You sure about that? I’ve known a lot of guys like you in my day — traveling salesman types — and the one thing they all had in common was a taste for road pussy.”
   “Shut your goddamn mouth.”
   “Ooh, touchy,” Ralph said, twiddling his fingers in the air. “Did I strike a nerve? You button-down family types are always the worst offenders.”
   “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
   “Really? I don’t? Christ, Milty, half the time you can’t even remember your wife’s fucking name! Remember the first day we met, for crying out loud? You’re probably in one of your fogs right now and don’t even realize it. I feel for ya, man, I really do, but—”
   And that’s when Milton’s fist connected with Ralph’s white-stubbled chin. It wasn’t a hard punch — sadly, it was almost comical in its weakness — but it was enough to knock Ralph’s bony ass right back into the chair he’d just stood up from and send him crashing back into the computer desk. A stack of circulars slipped off the side and fluttered to the floor.
   Milton staggered back, shocked by what he had just done. He watched, gape-mouthed, as Ralph floundered around in the swivel chair.
   “You get one freebie,” Ralph said, pulling himself back to his feet. “Exactly one. And that’s just because I feel bad about your… condition. But if you ever take a swing at me again, Milty, I’ll put you through the fucking window, you hear me?” He shook himself off like a junkyard dog, then kicked a nearby beer can into the wall, where it ricocheted off with an empty clatter.
   Milton flinched. The room was coming undone around him. Ralph was still spitting a barrage of invectives toward him, but his voice sounded fuzzy and distant and Milton had a hard time focusing on anything besides getting back to his own apartment, and fast. His heart was beating with a steady, loud rhythm in his ear, and it sounded like Don-na… Don-na… Don-na…
   He stepped backward, feeling blindly for the front door.
   “—cause I won’t be this nice the next time you feel like taking a cheap shot! I’ve rolled men half your age, so don’t think I can’t—”
   There! At last — the doorknob. Milton grasped it and turned it and the door wouldn’t budge.
   “—and you may not remember this tomorrow, you shit-brained moron, but I sure as hell will, and I promise you—”
   Milton fumbled to unlock the deadbolt, then went back to the little lock on the doorknob, and finally, with great relief, he opened the door and lurched into the corridor and stumbled toward his apartment, tilting and swaying like a captain fighting his way to the bridge of a storm-tossed ship.
   Once inside, he slammed his front door and sucked in a deep, rattling breath. Ralph’s voice shouted more indecipherable slurs that echoed down the corridor, and Milton clapped his hands over his ears to stifle them out. Half the joints in his body crackled and popped as he hinged over and fell to the floor, gasping and squeezing his eyes shut in a mad effort to drown out the accusatory heartbeat that still thundered in his eardrums…
   Donna-Donna-Donna-Donna-Donna.
   The name spread through his mind like a bad infection. It wasn’t true. Couldn’t be. Ralph was just a sick bastard, that’s all there was to it. It must’ve been his twisted idea of a joke or something. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the wall. June’s face gazed down at him from her portrait above the TV, prim and confident, like a benevolent queen.
   “For you, June,” he said. “Everything I’ve ever done, I did it for you. I never… I would never…” Tears leaked out his eyes and his chest constricted with grief. June just kept on smiling down at him, but her smile seemed to take on a vague, shifting, Mona Lisa quality.
   He racked his brain, trying to recall the night he’d spent drinking with Ralph on the tenth floor balcony, and he barely got a glimpse of it. He must have drank himself into a stupor, or maybe it was just his “condition,” as Ralph had put it. He wished he could go back and pump him for more information — find out what had really been said that night, if anything — but that bridge hadn’t just burned, it had been blown to smithereens.
   He sat up, blinking out the tears that still flowed freely, and turned his attention to the box on the end table. Gripping the arm of the sofa, he got a leg under him and struggled back to his feet. He looked down hatefully at the box, then swung his arm out and back-handed it off the end table. Its flimsy cardboard lid flew open and spilled the contents across the living room floor in a wild scatter. The sequined bow-tie hooked onto the floor lamp and hung there, swinging from the on/off switch like a dazzling red pendulum.
   “Enough,” he told himself. “Get a grip.”
   He left the living room in disarray and headed back to his bedroom, and even though it was early and he hadn’t eaten anything for dinner, he flicked out the lights and collapsed on his bed and pulled the covers over his still-clothed body and tried to fall asleep. He promised himself it would only be a quick nap, but as the exhaustion of the day crept in, Milton allowed it to carry him off into a deep, heavy slumber.
   The dreams that came quickly after were as ruthless as ever, and just like the night before, and many nights before then, he awoke in the early hours without a single memory of them, lying there in a cold sweat with his breath hitching and the unmistakable feeling that he had just been running from something (or maybe toward something).
   
  VIII
   
When he next opened his eyes, the morning sunshine was pouring across his face. He lay still for a moment, taking stock of his situation. Everything, mentally speaking, seemed to be in working order: he knew who he was, where he was, and he knew that his beloved wife June was dead and gone forever. No delusions about that. Not today, at least.
   He felt surprisingly good, considering the terrible night he’d had. His dismal encounter with Ralph tried to weasel its way back into his consciousness, and Milton swatted it away like a swarm of pesky houseflies. He wasn’t going to let that oversexed asshole ruin one of his lucid days. Won’t let the box, either, he decided. He was determined to steer clear of that rabbit hole, at least for one day. Maybe he’d take Jason up on the walk they never got to the other day. Sunshine and exercise: just what the doctor ordered.
   He sat up, yawning, and went to rub the sleep out of his eyes — and something poked him in the cheek.
   “What the—?” He looked down at his hand and realized he was holding something — the souvenir pen. Pen with boat. He shook his head, staring at it. Must’ve picked it up last night,he thought. Picked it up and carried if off to bed with me. He dropped the pen on the nightstand and chuckled at himself, feeling a bit silly for obsessing over it so much.
   He slid over and set his feet on the floor and a light-headed feeling came over him. “Better eat something,” he told himself, remembering that he’d skipped dinner.
   After a quick pit stop in the bathroom, he headed to the kitchen to make breakfast. Halfway through the living room he stopped dead in his tracks. He distinctly remembered knocking that thing to the floor last night, but there it was — the cigar box — perched neatly on the end table.
   Milton took a hesitant step toward it, worrying that his mind wasn’t as sharp this morning as he’d thought.
   He took another step and opened the lid. Everything was inside, all the trinkets that had spilled across the floor. He must have cleaned up the evidence of his little outburst sometime in the night — either that, or an army of invisible gremlins had marched out of the coat closet and picked up everything for him. But that seemed unlikely. Much more probable that he had been up — in the middle of the night — with the trinkets, and that he had no recollection of it. It was a weird thought, but it explained why he woke up holding the souvenir pen, at least.
   Except …
   Milton’s hand shot up and clapped over his mouth. Impossible. Everything else in the room seemed to fade back into the periphery, his eyes zeroing in on the pen that shouldn’t be there, the pen he had just set on the nightstand in the bedroom not five minutes earlier. The little sailboat inside moved of its own accord, sliding back and forth, over and over again, in front of the tiny seaside village.
   Milton backed off warily, keeping his eyes trained on the box, afraid to let it out of his sight. He took one backward step after another, until he stood next to his bedroom door. Then, quickly, he diverted his eyes from the box and turned his head toward the nightstand next to his bed.
   Gone. Just the lamp and his stupid old checklist. No pen.
   Pinpricks of sweat broke out on his forehead.
   He retraced his steps, advancing with caution toward the open cigar box, and peered inside. The objects sat in their neat little arrangement, the pen included — and the tiny sailboat rested on the far side of the village, unmoving.
   “I’m slipping,” Milton told himself. “Slipping further and further every day. Jesus.”
   In all his years, he had never known himself to be a sleepwalker — June certainly would have mentioned it at some point during their marriage. Or maybe this was just another symptom of the blight. Just one more thing it was taking away from him.
   He reached out and flipped the lid shut.
   The hunger pangs in his belly reasserted themselves, and even though he felt a bit nauseous after what had just happened, he figured he had better eat something anyway.
   In the kitchen, he downed a glass of water from the tap, dropped two slices of white bread into the toaster, then went to the fridge to get some strawberry jam.
   For the second time this morning, something stopped Milton cold. His hands fell limp at his sides and he stood stock-still in the center of the kitchen, staring at the refrigerator door. His grocery list had been erased from the wipey board, and fresh writing had taken its place. One simple, very odd phrase:
   
   wear your best suit, milty
   
   “Cripes,” he said softly.
   It wasn’t the words themselves that sent a bolt of anxiety through him. Those words could easily have flowed from one of his strange, dementia-fueled fugues — a troubling possibility, but one that he could accept. It would have been great to chalk it up to that; to tell himself,well, I must have gotten up during one of my spells and thought it was my wedding anniversary, or something silly like that. But he couldn’t. No, it wasn’t the words that troubled him — it was the fact that they were written in June’s handwriting.
   Milton traced his fingertip over the looping scrawl, rendered so perfectly he doubted he could have reproduced it so well himself. It was her. She had done this. She had sent him a message, his sweet June, his dearly departed. She had heard his cries for help from the land beyond, and she had answered them.
   He grabbed a straight chair from the kitchen table and sat down facing the refrigerator. It was inconceivable, but the proof of it was written right in front of him. He wasn’t prone to “woo-woo” magical thinking, but the only explanation he could devise was that her spirit had worked through him somehow; used him, used his own hand to deliver the message.
   “That’s crazy,” he told himself. But he didn’t budge. He just kept staring. “Absolutely crazy.” He looked around the kitchen, listening to the quiet surrounding him, checking to see if any other signs had been left for him. So far as he could tell, there were none.
   He turned back to the refrigerator, to the message written on the dry erase board. Wear your best suit, Milty. If it was the work of his late wife, then he knew exactly what she meant by it. It almost brought a smile to his face. Almost.
   His “best suit” happened to be ugly as sin. Powder blue seersucker with over-sized lapels; basically a leisure suit with slightly less class. Of course, it was the seventies, and most people looked fairly gaudy back then. It had always been a little inside joke between him and June; maybe that’s why she had bagged it and mothballed it and kept it in the far back corner of the closet. Milton was surprised at how quickly he recalled its location; he hadn’t thought about that godforsaken thing in decades. It was a vestige of his road days. His traveling salesman days.
   He supposed he should go back to the closet and dig it out — if his dear wife was trying to tell him something, he would do well to listen.
   His feet carried him toward the back bedroom, to the narrow walk-in closet next to the master bath. He pulled open the louvered door and a whiff of stale air escaped, tickling his nose hairs. All of June’s old dresses hung on the closet rod, drab with age and dust. He slid them aside with the back of his hand, clearing some space at the back of the closet.
   There — looking as hideous as ever, mummified in a clear plastic garment bag — was the suit.
   Milton’s hand trembled as he reached out and took it off the rod. He carried it back into the bedroom and laid it on the bedspread, then ripped the flimsy plastic down the middle and tore it off. The jacket was wrinkled and misshapen from so many years on the hanger, but Milton shook it briskly, then put his left arm through the sleeve and slipped it on. It was tight, but not too tight. He’d lost a lot of weight in the past few years, whittling down the stout frame he had carried through middle age.
   Wear your best suit, Milty.
   “How do I look, June?” He turned and caught his reflection in the mirror. He looked like a sad clown wearing hobo clothes. “Is this what you wanted to see, darling? Your idiot husband in his ratty old suit?”
   He started to peel the jacket off, then paused — there had to be more to it. He patted down the side pockets and found them empty, then slipped his hand into the satin inner pocket and withdrew a little plastic bag containing extra buttons. Next he pulled the pants off the hanger and turned out all the pockets, finding nothing but some wads of lint that had formed back when the Bee Gees were still cranking out tunes.
   “Nothing,” he said, with equal parts disappointment and relief. He regarded himself in the mirror again and his eye caught onto something: the lapel pocket. He wasn’t a man who usually kept things in the lapel pocket of a suit jacket (who was?), but he reached up and dug into it regardless, and struck something right away. He tweezed the object between his fingers and slowly drew it out.
   It was a matchbook from a place called the Golden Shores Resort. In tiny lettering, almost too small to read, was the resort’s address: 1001 Silver Rose Lane.
   A rush of nervous excitement swept over him. This is it, he thought. The place where Tropical Paradise Awaits. The place with all the answers. June had led him to it — he was as certain of that as he had ever been about anything.
   The question was: why?
   She wants me to go, he thought. And she wants me to wear my best suit.
   
  IX
   
When Jason came over at 11:30, Milton was already showered and shaved and smelling strongly of Aqua Velva. They kept their visit short and sweet — Milton said he had a very important evening planned, and couldn’t wait to get to it. He’d made up a phony excuse about attending a Marlin’s game with his neighbor, Ralph, from down the hall (fat chance of that!), and Jason swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
   “You look splendid,” he said, drinking in Milton’s new look. “A total turnaround since yesterday. It’s incredible.”
   “I feel incredible,” Milton replied, gripping the matchbook in his pocket. “As clear-headed as ever.”
   “Well, I hope you have a great time tonight. You gotta squeeze the most out of days like this.”
   “I plan to. Haven’t been to a game in years. Should be a regular old blast.”
   “Don’t let Ralph get you into too much trouble,” Jason told him, with mock concern in his voice.
   Milton cracked an ornery grin and said, “I’ll try my best.”
   As soon as Jason was out the door, Milton fetched his old Road Atlas from the kitchen drawer and searched for Silver Rose Lane. According to the map, the resort was way up north along the coast, a good two or three hours away.
   He picked up the phone and dialed the number for Yellow Cab. He knew the fare would be pricey, but what the hell? How often did he go out for a night on the town? Besides, if this little trip did anything to jog his memory, the fare would be worth it. He hoped just seeing the place would give him the “Ah-ha!” moment he’d been craving for months now.
   Twenty minutes later he stood on the curb outside his apartment building, waiting for the taxi to come pick him up. He had dusted off the powder blue suit jacket and ironed out the wrinkles as best he could, and even though it was obviously outdated, overall, it could have looked a whole lot worse. The pants had been a total bust, so he’d substituted his nice navy blue slacks — the ones he wore on special occasions. Tucked under his arm was the Sweet Life cigar box.
   He didn’t have very long to wait. The canary yellow taxi came trundling down the street and Milton threw his hand up to flag it down, and the next thing he knew he was nestled in the back seat, watching the Miami skyline recede into the distance.
   His driver was a middle-aged man named Lonnie. Lonnie had been highly dubious when Milton told him his destination — it was a long way to go for a one-way ride — but he had agreed to take the fare nonetheless. Maybe it was the excitement in the old man’s face that made it so hard to say no.
   They blazed up I-95, past Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale. Milton sat quietly in the back, thumbing the cigar box lid open and closed.
   “You got family up this way?” Lonnie asked him.
   Milton pondered this. “No, uh… I’m meeting an old friend at a… a special place, so to speak.”
   “You should tell your friend to find a ‘special place’ that’s closer to Miami,” Lonnie said. “This must be awful important to you.”
   “Very,” Milton told him, and left it at that.
   As the miles ticked by, his thoughts turned to June. She was the real reason for this trip, not the box. The box was just a relic, a memento. But a memento was worthless without the memory it belonged to; that’s what gives an object its power, and that’s what Milton was searching for. Part of his life with June was missing, and he had a hunch that she was going to help him find it. She was sort of like a guardian angel, he reckoned. Her presence had felt close ever since this morning, and he was positive it wasn’t just the dementia playing with his head. Milton didn’t have faith in many things, but he had faith in June. She’d set this business straight.
   He turned his attention back to the coast, where the thin strip of Jupiter Island glided by on the right. They were making good time in the light Saturday afternoon traffic. It wasn’t much farther.
   Lonnie steered off the main highway and curved gradually away from the coast, leaving the business and residential areas behind and entering a low woodland area that stretched inland for miles.
   Nervous butterflies swarmed in Milton’s stomach as he felt the taxi slow down to make another turn onto a narrow road with no center-line.
   “It doesn’t look like there’s much out here, my friend,” Lonnie said. “Are you sure this place is near here?”
   “Positive.”
   Lonnie grunted. “They must not get much traffic.”
   “It’s secluded,” Milton said, though he wasn’t entirely sure that was the case.
   “Any landmarks I should keep an eye out for?”
   “I… I don’t know.”
   “You don’t know?” Lonnie said, scrunching up his face. “I thought this place was special to you?”
   “Yes, but it’s… it’s been a long time. A very long time.”
   Lonnie gave him an odd look in the rear view mirror, then turned back to the road, searching for their turn-off. Soon they came to a T-intersection that was so well hidden he almost missed it. The street sign on the corner read: SILVER ROSE LN.
   Lonnie turned right and followed the winding lane for a quarter of a mile or so, then brought the cab to a sudden halt. “One thousand and one,” he said. “This is the address you gave me. One thousand and one.”
   Milton sat forward and peered through the windshield like a kid whose parents had just brought him to Disney World for the first time.
   Directly in front of them stood an ornate trellised archway, covered in jasmine and bougainvillea, with stencil-cut letters arcing across the top: Golden Shores Resort and Hotel. Heavy wrought-iron gates sealed off the rest of the driveway. Up ahead he could just barely glimpse the outline of the resort itself, nestled back in the foliage like a secret hideaway.
   “Wonderful,” Milton said.
   “If you say so,” Lonnie replied, eyeing the gates. “Looks like this is the end of the line.”
   “Yes,” Milton said. “This is fine right here. How much do I owe you?”
   “Two-hundred-seventy dollars, eighty-five cents. You want it on the card, yes?”
   “Yes, all of it. And an extra ten for yourself.”
   Lonnie shot Milton a droll look and handed back the credit card and receipt. “A strange destination for a man your age,” he said. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”
   “I’m old, not dead,” Milton shot back, blanching at the cab driver’s tone. “I’m as entitled to have a good time as anybody else.”
   Lonnie shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
   “I will,” Milton said, and slammed the door. “Thanks for the lift.” He straightened up his suit jacket, tucked the box firmly under his arm, and started walking toward the gates. They must have been connected to a motion sensor, because as Milton drew closer they parted silently before him and opened wide. He heard the taxi idling behind him for a few seconds, then the crunch of gravel as it backed out and drove away.
   
  X
   
Past the archway, the drive curved up and around through the trees. Milton walked under the dense canopy, listening to the birds chirp around him. He arrived at a circular drive leading to the entrance of the main building, a two-story art-deco structure, surrounded by a barricade of stupendously tall palm trees. Swanky lettering above the door announced the “Golden Clubhouse.”
   Maybe it’s a private resort, he thought.
   A small parking lot lay off to the side of the Clubhouse, only half-filled with cars. That was a good sign — it looked like they had vacancies. Milton hadn’t bothered to make a reservation. In fact, he hadn’t even thought about it. He figured he would just drive up, tour around the place for a while, then call another taxi and go home. He didn’t like sleeping in hotel beds anymore. He’d done that for enough years. But as he took in the beautiful grounds, he thought spending the night here might not be such a bad idea after all.
   Beyond the Clubhouse, a lush garden fanned out in all directions. Dozens of tiny bungalows dotted the landscape, and in the distance, he saw the golden glow of sunshine reflecting off a small, marshy lake.
   He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, then headed across the parking lot, toward the tinted glass doors on the front of the Clubhouse.
   “Here goes nothing,” he said, and reached out and grasped the handle and pulled it open.
   He stepped into a cool, air-conditioned lobby with a vaguely tropical theme. Sleepy elevator music filled the air. It may not have been paradise, but it was certainly quaint. Almost reminiscent of some off-the-strip theme hotel in downtown Vegas — a place desperately clinging to the glamorous ambiance it had already lost decades ago.
   Milton drank in the atmosphere for a minute or two. He wasn’t getting any “Ah-ha!”moment, but the place did feel vaguely familiar.
   To his left, a chipped marble sign pointed the way to the reservation desk. To his right, a broad archway opened up on the Silver Rose Night Club and Lounge.
   Milton stood at the crossroads, turning his head side to side, contemplating which direction to turn. Truthfully, a drink didn’t sound half bad. A quick cocktail to soothe the nerves, he decided, then a trip over to the front desk to inquire about lodging for the night.
   Though it was only late afternoon, the lounge marinated in a dusky gloom, accentuated by the thick haze of cigar smoke that wavered through the air. A scattering of patrons sat off in the corners, quietly minding their own business. Milton winded between the high-top tables and potted palms and stepped up to the long, dark-stained bar along the far wall and took a seat on one of the stools. The bartender, a gaunt-looking man with a drooping mustache, crouched down below the counter, restocking his fridge.
   “Afternoon.”
   The bartender looked up and smiled tightly at Milton. “Welcome, sir. What can I get for you?”
   Milton laid a ten dollar bill on the counter and said, “Oh, a scotch and soda, I believe.”
   The bartender mixed the drink and set it on a red napkin, then slid the ten-spot back to Milton. “No charge for members,” he said.
   Damn it, Milton thought, afraid he might get asked for a club card or something. “Oh, uh… how do I become a member?”
   “You already are, sir.”
   “No, I… I don’t think so.”
   “I know so,” said the bartender. “Everyone here is a member.”
   “Oh,” Milton said, glancing around at the weary denizens huddled over their cocktail glasses. “Well, then keep the ten as a tip. I insist.”
   The bartender gave a slight shrug, then took the bill and stuffed it into an empty glass by the register. He didn’t seem very talkative.
   “Lovely little spot,” Milton said, pressing ahead regardless.
   “It has its days.”
   Milton lifted the scotch to his lips and took a sip. It felt good going down. Just like old times.
   At the far end of the bar, a cocktail waitress busied herself with side work. She was brunette, early thirties maybe. She wore a black skirt and a tight-fitting top with a little vest covering it. Around her neck she wore a red sequined bow-tie. She whipped her head around in a blur of brown hair and hustled back across the lounge, tending to a customer.
   Milton followed her with his eyes, a charge of adrenaline shooting through his old body.This is definitely the spot, he thought. He drummed his fingers on the lid of the cigar box, feeling apprehensive all of a sudden.
   “Say,” he said, turning back to the bar, “how long has this place been—”
   —But the bartender was gone; the metal door leading to the kitchen was still swinging on its hinges.
   Milton took a napkin from the bar and dabbed the sweat off his forehead with it.
   “Afternoons are such a drag in this place,” said a breathy female voice from behind him.
   Milton turned and found himself face to face with the pretty cocktail waitress. She stood there with her hip cocked to the side, and from her apron she withdrew a slim pack of cigarettes and removed one and put it between her glossy maroon lips. Milton, without even thinking, reached into his jacket pocket and took out the hula girl lighter and flicked it open. He held the flame up to the waitress’s cigarette, and she took a long drag and blew the smoke from the corner of her mouth.
   “Thanks, hon.”
   “Sure.”
   They stared at one another for a moment or two. Milton worked his jaw, trying to think of something to say to her. He’d had a million questions in his mind on the drive up here, but they all seemed to have flown out the window.
   “We don’t get much action during the off season,” she said, blowing another plume of smoke. “What brings you?”
   “Just visiting.”
   “Business or pleasure?”
   “Neither, really.”
   The waitress stepped back and studied him, running her eyes up and down his stooped frame. “Honey, I can smell bullshit a mile away. You came here looking for something.Everybody who comes here is looking for something. What is it? Girls? Wait, no, no… Gambling? I’ll bet that’s it. You look like a poker player if I ever saw one.”
   “No, no. God, no,” Milton said. “Little bit of solitaire, I suppose, but—”
   The waitress burst out laughing. “You are too cute, you know that? Absolutely adorable.”
   Milton reddened in the face and said, “Thanks. I guess.”
   A coy little smirk turned up the corner of her mouth. “Maybe you’re here for something else, then? You know, I saw you watching me earlier. Are you lonely, mister? Is that it? Looking for a little company?”
   “I… I just wanted a drink,” Milton said, holding up his scotch as if it were Exhibit A. “I don’t think I’d be interested in what you’re selling.”
   “Who said I’m selling anything?” she said, putting on a pouty face. “Maybe I just wanted a little company myself…”
   Milton just shook his head. This was way too bizarre. He flicked his eyes around the lounge, certain that everyone must be staring at him. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, then. I’m at least twice your age.”
   “Are you sure about that?”
   Milton narrowed his eyes on her. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I’m not interested. I think I’d best be on my way. Is there a phone around here where I can call a cab?”
   “It’s too early to leave,” said the waitress. “The night is still young.” She reached across the bar and picked up a matchbook from a little dish next to the ashtray, then unfolded it on the bar and scribbled something inside. “In case you change your mind,” she said, sliding the matchbook across the counter.
   Milton pulled it to him and read the note inside:
   
   #19
   
   “I don’t underst—” he started to say, but as he looked up he realized she had already left. He glanced over toward the far wall of the lounge and watched as she slipped through a side door, with one last look over her shoulder before she vanished.
   “Damned craziest thing,” he muttered to himself. A slew of questions toppled through his mind (the red bow-tie!), all the things he should have asked her, but didn’t because of how flummoxed he’d gotten. Are you lonely, mister? She was crazy, this place was crazy, and hewas crazy for coming here. There was no trace of June here. There was no trove of fond memories to be found here. It was just a sad, seedy, second-rate resort whose best days were long behind it. Case closed. Time to call a cab and get the hell back to Miami.
   Milton tipped back another slug of scotch and spun around toward the bar, and what he saw there brought the liquor right back up his throat.
   “No—” he said, wiping away the scotch that had dribbled down his chin.
   Her pen.
   She had left her pen behind on the counter.
   Milton watched with a mounting sense of dread as the little sailboat inside glided back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…
   
  XI
   
His knees almost gave out as he lurched to his feet and wheeled around toward the side door. “Wait! Come back!” he shouted, and the patrons of the lounge paid him no mind. He left his half-finished drink on the bar and took off, lumbering through the joint as fast as his aching legs would allow, desperate to catch up with her. She knows something, he thought, anger flaring up inside him. She’s hiding something…
   He swung the side door open so hard it crashed back into the wall, then he veered left down the long corridor that led away from the lobby. There was no sign of her, but this was the way she had gone. An arrow on the wall pointed toward the rear entrance, toward the gardens, and Milton followed it.
   Halfway down he passed by a little cigar shop, nothing more than a niche set back into the wall, and his heart just about burst out of his chest when he saw the Sweet Life banner hanging across the top of the display shelves. The grinning fisherman stood in his skiff like the boatman on the river Styx.
   “Oh, Jesus,” Milton said, side-stepping away from it.
   He stumbled the rest of the way down the corridor, waves of anxiety prickling his skin, and when he reached the end he pushed open the door and burst out into the cool, clear night. Confusion fell over him as he gazed up at the pitch black sky. Have I really been inside that long? It didn’t seem possible. He’d only just arrived a few minutes ago.
   He spun wildly around, searching for the waitress, but she was nowhere to be found. The paved walkway led him further away from the Clubhouse, deeper into the vast courtyard, where it eventually branched off into a tangle of pathways that curved away in all directions. Milton followed one, and then another, and then another, and within sixty seconds he was disoriented and lost.
   “Damn it,” he said, realizing that he had left the cigar box sitting on the bar inside.
   He turned slowly, intent on retracing his steps and finding his way back to the lounge, but all the branching pathways looked identical. He couldn’t even see the Clubhouse anymore. Everything was hidden behind a veil of foliage and palm blades.
   He wandered aimlessly forward through the network of pathways, peering into each bungalow as he walked past. All the windows were dark. The entire courtyard was dark. Nobody seemed to be home… or else they were all sleeping.
   Milton shuffled over to the nearest bungalow and banged on the door. The hollow thud rang through the air and seemed to quiet the night sounds.
   No movement inside, no answer.
   He pounded his fist harder this time and yelled, “Help! Somebody help me!”
   Dread rose up like black bile in his throat and he pressed his back against the bungalow door and buried his face in his hands, realizing that he had made a horrible, horrible mistake by coming here. He choked out a sob and whispered his wife’s name, praying for his beautiful angel to come and rescue him.
   A light-hearted giggle cut through the night and Milton froze.
   He swiveled his head, looking up and down the walkway. The cocktail waitress from the lounge appeared around the bend, stumbling drunkenly, arm-in-arm with a young man in a light blue suit, a cigar smoldering in the corner of his mouth.
   Milton stepped forward, on the verge of calling out to them — but he stopped himself when he saw the young man’s face. The man kept the brim of his hat pulled down, but the features were still recognizable. It was him — Milton — only forty years younger. And even though his first thought was that this must be a dream, he still did not speak or move for fear of being seen. He shimmied across the facade of the bungalow and hid himself around the corner as they traipsed by, laughing and whispering to one another.
   When they were safely past, Milton crept out onto the walkway and followed them at a distance. If it was a dream, then by God he was going to take control of it.
   Deeper into the garden they walked, until they reached a faraway bungalow at the very edge of the grounds. Milton sidled up behind a palm trunk and peeked his head around, watching them.
   The younger Milton keyed the locked and opened the door for the waitress, then he ducked in behind her and shut the door. The light came on inside, spilling out through the crack between the drawn curtains in a long, thin line of brightness — the only illumination in the entire courtyard save for the rising moon.
   That sliver of light beckoned him and he felt his feet slipping across the concrete pathway, leading him closer and closer to what he knew was bungalow 19. He stood outside in the darkness, his feet crushing into the flower bed, and looked through the crack between the draperies. The thin sliver of light from the bedroom sliced straight down the side of his face, gleaming like a golden hair across his dilated pupil.
   He watched his younger self recline on the bed with his tie undone; then he leaned to the right, shifting his perspective through the curtains, and saw the waitress standing at the foot of the bed, undressing herself. Her cheeks were pink, and she laughed in a delightful sort of way at something young Milty had said to her. She removed her little red bow-tie, then unfastened the brooch pinned to her vest — Milton couldn’t get too close of a look, but he somehow knew that it was in the shape of a treble clef, gold and ruby, and he had a creeping suspicion that it had been a gift from him — and she set both objects inside a very familiar looking box that rested at the edge of the dresser. Her odds and ends box. The Sweet Life cigar box.
   With a playful growl, Milty reached out and snatched her by the wrist and pull her to him. She collapsed on top of him and they rolled sideways on the bed, their lips locked together, their hands frantic and groping.
   Milton’s heart broke into a million pieces as the truth played out in front of him like a private booth show at the adult cinema, and this one didn’t even take a quarter. This was what June had wanted him to see — what a lousy sonuvabitch of a husband he had been.
   It was revolting to watch.
   Every deep kiss, every feverish grope, every squeeze, every squeal, every moan drove another railroad spike of guilt into his chest. His entire life with June, thirty-nine beautiful years of marriage and five long years without her, suddenly felt like a disgusting sham.
   He had betrayed her trust, and, somehow, she knew it. She had led him here, after all. As the full devastation of that fact crept into his bones, he saw a wicked replay of all the different ways in which June had been a wonderful wife to him.
   He wondered if she had always known, or if the truth had only presented itself to her upon her passing, from the all-seeing, all-knowing vista of the afterlife? He guessed the latter. If she had known what a bastard he had been during all those years of marriage, she had certainly kept it well-hidden.
   Milton pressed his hands to the glass, feeling sick to his stomach as he watched them rollick around on the bed, basking in the afterglow.
   The waitress — Donna, of course — straddled young Milty on the bed and whispered into his ear, and in that moment, like a lightning bolt shooting off in his brain, Milton remembered.
   It came to him unformed, an embryonic memory that gestated quickly, expanding itself with dismal clarity in his mind.
   He remembered what she had whispered to him.
   He remembered the whole sordid affair.
   This wasn’t the first time they had seen each other; no, no, it had been going on for more than a year. Always sneaking away during his travels, holing up in one of these seedy little bungalows or some dive motel like teenagers hiding from their parents. She worked the lounge and the backroom poker games. That’s where he’d met her. She had shacked up here during the slow season, hiding from her own demons. She had a jealous ex-boyfriend and Milton had a wife, but the whole cloak-and-dagger routine was just another part of the rush — knowing how wrong it was made it so much more exciting.
   But this night…
   Milton remembered this night.
   It was the night she told him she was pregnant, the night she threatened to go to June and bust the whole affair wide open and ruin everything good in his life. Soul mates, she told him.That’s what we are, and you know it. You feel it. We deserve this, we deserve each other.
   From outside the window, Milton watched the visage of his younger self darken as Donna whispered in his ear... can’t go on forever, you know that, you do. You said it, you told me you’ve never been this happy. Right? So why go home? Why go to her when I’m right here, right here with your baby inside me... waiting, Milty, waiting for you to come to your senses...
   A black cloud of anger formed in that younger Milton’s eyes as she explained that his marriage with June was over, that she would put an end to it once and for all. I’ll tell her, Milty. I’ll tell June. I’ll tell everyone I know. You know I will. I’m so tired of this... so tired of keeping us a secret.
   Milton screamed and battered his fists against the window frame, but the couple inside carried on regardless. They were screaming and yelling at each other pretty heavily by now; their quiet whispers giving way to an all-out verbal slug-fest. Milton stumbled over to the door and turned the knob, desperate to get inside and stop what was about to happen, but the door was shut solid.
   “Don’t!” he cried, lunging back to the window, almost losing his balance and toppling over. He gripped the windowsill and smashed his fist against the glass, but he didn’t even put so much as a crack in it.
   Young Milty’s face went slack, staring up at the ceiling, a thunderstorm of dark thoughts brooding inside of him. Donna sobbed and pounded on his chest with all the angry passion of a jilted mistress, screaming through her tears that she would tell June everything, that June was a controlling bitch, that June didn’t deserve him—
   —and then it happened; with brutal quickness, Donna was on her back and Milty had her pinned to the mattress, digging his fingers into her throat and bearing down with the full weight of his body.
   Milton pounded the glass, sobbing, choking, desperate to act, yet unable to do anything but watch helplessly as his younger self, in a blind, drunken fury, choked the life out of a young cocktail waitress named Donna.
   The moment seemed to elongate, stretching itself out, playing through in slow-motion, Donna’s face darkening and darkening until it turned the color of a ripe plum.
   When she lay mercifully silent and still, young Milty collapsed on the bed beside her, his eyes manic and bewildered. Milton looked into the desperate, deranged face of that young man, the man he had been forty years ago, and he felt nothing but raw contempt for himself.
   This is it, he thought, my “Ah-ha!” moment.
   His knees buckled and he slid to the ground, sobbing into his hands.
   “For you, June,” he said, and his younger self spoke in synchrony with him, their voices intertwined. “I did it for you, June. I am so, so sorry…”
   
  XII
   
When he lifted his tear-wet face from his hands, he startled at the scenery that surrounded him. Everything had changed completely. The lush courtyard was nothing but an abandoned lot full of overgrown weeds and vines. The bungalow that stood before him no longer appeared quaint and tidy — its walls were black with mold and webbed with ivy, covered with a funhouse array of weird graffiti. The front door had been knocked off its hinges years ago and now leaned crookedly against the inner wall.
   Milton sat up, jolted by the sight of it.
   Through the warped doorway, he could see into the dank interior of the bungalow. Garbage littered the floors — empty beer bottles, crumpled newspapers, discarded cans of spray paint. The whole place looked like it had become a den for hoodlums and homeless people.
   No wonder the cab driver had been skittish about dropping him off out here. Strange destination for a man your age…
   Yes, Milton thought, it certainly is.
   He steadied himself to his feet, delirious from the rush of images that kept flooding into his head, and stepped toward the cock-eyed front door. A dour, musty odor punched him in the nostrils right as he reached the threshold. Broken pieces of furniture and a cemetery of tiny bird bones lay scattered across the sagging plywood floor.
   He stepped inside, kicking empty food containers out of his way as he staggered through the moonlit wreckage. This is where I did it… killed her… this is where I killed Donna… her name was Donna… Donna Lockwood… Donna Donna DONNA! The memories were living things now, slithering inside his veins, swimming through his consciousness of their own free will, and he knew, at that moment, that whatever else the blight of dementia might steal from him in the coming years, this memory would always remain. It wasn’t going anywhere ever again. It was more vivid than any scrapbook memory or retold story could ever be. It was alivein his mind… and it wasn’t finished just yet.
   The bathroom doorway stood up ahead, dark and tilting, framed only by rotted wood beams and a few scraps of drywall. Milton approached it with a drawn look on his face.
   Inside, it was a fetid mess.
   He stared into the cracked, rusted bathtub, wincing as the worst of the memories settled themselves in his mind like so many lock pins clicking into place. His gorge started to rise and he fought back the urge to throw up. This… this is where…
   Yes.
   It was all coming back to him now.
   Because young Milty had to get the body out of here without anybody catching him in the act. She wouldn’t fit into the suitcase, and he couldn’t just carry her out the door and through the courtyard — no, that wouldn’t do. Someone might see. So he’d gotten something from the trunk of his car, hadn’t he? Something from his industrial kitchen supplies sales case, in fact. Something very sharp.
   In the gloom of the decayed bathroom, a shadow moved; angular and misshapen, limned by reflected moonlight.
   Donna.
   Her ruined body stepped forward through the darkness. There were jagged crimson slashes across her neck, her shoulders, and the tops of her thighs — all the places where Milty had gone to work on her, dismantling her, cutting her body down to a manageable enough size to fit her inside the suitcase and chuck her into the gator-infested waters of the Loxahatchee River.
   She lumbered forward like a ragdoll whose pieces were barely stitched together. Her dead eyes opened, milk-white, and in a wretched, swamp-clogged voice she said, “I told her, Milty. I told her everything!”
   Milton screamed and drew back into the bedroom, terrified of her, of this monster he had created with his own murderous hands. He banged his knee on an overturned dresser and stumbled into the wall, then righted himself and careened headlong toward the doorway.
   He collapsed onto the ground outside, pain sprouting from every joint in his body, and backpedaled away from the decrepit bungalow. The weight of exhaustion slowed his escape and he had to stop and catch his breath, his chest rattling like a lawnmower engine that wouldn’t start up.
   He brought his arms up to shield his face, wincing and cringing, expecting to see the specter of Donna come tearing through the doorway and maul him to pieces.
   Seconds passed and nothing happened.
   Everything remained silent, except for the slight rasping of leaves in the surrounding trees.
   Milton slowly lowered his arms.
   There was no sign of anything inside, no motion whatsoever, and a cold sort of relief washed over him. Seeing things, he thought. Donna wasn’t just gone, he realized — she had never been there at all. She had been nothing more than a fevered hallucination produced by a guilt-ridden mind; the twisted manifestation of a forty-year-old repressed memory, just like everything else had been.
   He exhaled a deep, uneasy sigh and looked up at the bungalow. An utter shambles. It looked like it had been boarded up for decades and left to rot out here in the sticks. His eyes grazed over the collage of graffiti, an odd mix-match of gang symbols and lovers’ initials, and came to rest on one tag that had been written over the top of it all, directly above the crooked doorway. It was fresh, the red spray paint still glistening in the moonlight…
   
   I KiLLed DonNa LocKwoOD
   
   This wasn’t June’s handwriting. It was his own. He brought his hand up to his face and saw his fingertips coated in red. “Dear God,” he said, looking from his fingertips to the graffiti and back again. My own hand, he thought. On the ground, he saw the rusty spray can he must’ve used, probably discarded months ago by some local teenager.
   The courtyard went still around him and he sat back in the wet grass, replaying the events over again in his mind, with a new clarity that had been missing for four long decades. While the shock and horror of what he had done was all very hard to absorb, there was one aspect that still made no logical sense whatsoever. One puzzle piece that didn’t quite seem to fit. He thought of the countless hours he had spent holding the cigar box, delicately picking up each trinket, turning them in his hands, feeling the power they possessed inside of them. It made no sense, because it was all clear now, that horrible night, and he remembered it through to the very end: When he had disposed of Donna Lockwood’s body, he had also burned all of her possessions, and he now vividly remembered watching that goddamned cigar box go up in flames, burning until there was nothing left of it but ashes and embers.
   “Sweet life…” he said, his voice barely a scrape.
   He looked up to the sky, at the moon hanging above the silhouetted palm trees. It must have been at least five hours since the taxi had dropped him off. Five hours of hallucinations and “missing” time. It was all too much to comprehend. He was tired. His bones hurt. Whatever retribution needed facing, and he was sure there was a lot of it, he vowed to face it tomorrow. Right now, he only wanted to go home.
   He let out a groan and tried to stand up, but his shaky legs gave out immediately and he plopped right back down in the weeds. I might have to spend the night out here after all, he thought, and that gave him a morbid shiver.
   He leaned forward and wiped the tears out of his eyes, his heartbeat steadily decelerating, his adrenaline coasting back to neutral, and that’s when he felt the warm, silky hands slide up his spine and linger at the nape of his neck. He would have known that touch anywhere. She had been dead for five years but he still remembered those smooth hands and that soft caress.
   “June…” he said.
   He felt her hands close around his throat, ever so gently, and her lips tickled his ear as she whispered, “Hello, Milty.”