For all the schisms in my upbringing, the most savage scars didn't come from pain. Pain has belief in it. Pain is required, Patti likes to say; suffering is optional. What used to hurt was the vast and wondering doubt that could spread inside me like a desert, the niggling suspicion that none of the hard parts even happened. So the characters that so vividly inhabited me were phantasms, any residual hurt my own warped concoction.

Remember back when I was in school, I finally say into the putty-colored receiver, how you bought all those lunches and theater tickets for me, when I asked how I'd ever pay you back? Remember what you said?

He's too breathless to respond.

You said, It's not that linear. You're gonna go on to help somebody else. Well, I got a chance to help my assistant out of a pinch. And she asked how she'd pay me back, and I told her the story. I'd never have done that without you.

He's struggling to say something, barely audible his voice is, a plume of air, the smoke trail a voice leaves behind. He says, Tell her to thank me.

And she says, I don't know why I'm still here.