That's right, Lincoln. If only you had listened. After her car was repaired, she drove west. Toward evening the next day, her stomach started grumbling and she knew she had to find a bathroom immediately. Luckily there were signs for a rest stop. Speeding up, she got there in the nick of time.

Leaping out of the car, she barely noticed a Chevrolet Corvair parked ten feet down the way. No one was inside. No time to think about it. She ran to the bathroom.

Coming out, she saw the car again and would have ignored it except this time she heard a baby crying inside. Concerned, she started toward it. Way off in the field behind the parking area two people laughed. She looked and barely saw two heads moving up and down just above the gra.s.s out there.

They were laughing, groaning, wrestling around. They were making love! What nerve! They'd felt like doing it, pulled right off the road, and ran into the nearest field. They were so lucky, whoever they were.

She envied them their happiness and their guts. They had everything, she had nothing. Staring into the field unashamed, she wasn't a voyeur; she was looking at happiness. She was drowning in her own life.

A drowning woman looking at land for the last time.

But why was the child crying? It had to be theirs. Inside the Corvair on the back seat, a redfaced baby strapped into a powderblue ba.s.sinet howled so savagely that all its features seemed to have congealed in the middle of its face. It certainly needed somethingfood, a new diaper, a hugbut Mom and Pop were occupied.

Lily looked both ways, saw no one, opened the driver's door, and pushed the seat forward. The child stopped crying a second and glared at her. That meant nothing, but was all she needed. Stepping into the car, she took the baby in her arms and, without once looking back, ran to her Opel and drove off.

One day months later she was in a supermarket and saw that s.h.i.tty newspaper The Truth . The one that talks about alien landings and cancer cures. On the front page was a headline: "The Town Where Babies Disappear." There was a picture of Garamond, which she recognized because right in front was the gas station where they'd fixed her car. She bought the paper and read the article standing outside the market. Two babies in three years had been kidnapped from there, and neither had been found. They gave the names of the families. One was Meier. There were pictures of them and she loved how both of them looked. Wonderful faces. Intelligent in very different ways. They weren't Lincoln's parents. She didn't ever want to know who the real ones were, but the same thing had happened to these people so close to where she had taken him. It was too much of a coincidence. After that, she always envisioned them as his parents. So every once in a great while she'd find ways of checking up on them over the years. I saw the clippings. First she called telephone information in Garamond for the address there. When they moved, she got the forwarding address from the post office. A couple of years later she wrote the newspaper in the new town where they lived and asked if there had been anything writtenabout them. She said she was family and was working on a sc.r.a.pbook for a planned big reunion. She always used a false name when she asked and had stuff sent to a post office box. What difference did it make? Who could connect them to her?

Lincoln could.

If he had torched the Meier house without ever having spoken to them, what would he do to Lily?

Now that Lincoln knew Anwen Meier was not his mother, he would leave her alone. But he wouldn't leave Lily alone, that was sure. One way or another, now or later, Lily and me... And possibly eventhe thought was so horrendous and terrifying my mind almost wouldn't process it: What might he do to his little sister?

I could have stayed and talked to Brendan, but what would it accomplish? Further prove what I already knew? Brendan's story was simply too astonishing not to be believed. He had been kidnapped but was found and returned to his parents years later. How maddeningly unfair and ironic that must have been for Lincoln to hear! I pictured the two boys on the Meier front lawn early that morning. Was it light yet? Two boys with histories no human being deserved. One shirtless, in tattered clothes and a porcupine haircut, the other just out of bed in stillwarm pajamas (such an endearing imagea teenage boy in his pajamas), talking together on the lawn. What did they say? How had their conversation gone? Walking back to my rented car, I went through half a dozen scenarios of what they'd said to each other in the short period before Lincoln, in an enlightened rage, attacked Brendan and kicked him in the groin. That was his stylekick 'em in the b.a.l.l.s, keep a gun behind your dresser, drive off in a stolen Mercedes. Our son. My son.

When he was young and bored, Lincoln would wander into my room with an expectant look on.

Checking to see if I was busy, he'd come over and ask, "So, what's going on, Max?"

"Not much, sport. What's up with you?"

"Nothin'. You wanna do something together? Only if you're free, you know. Only if you have time."

I made time; I loved knowing this little boy liked to hang around with me.

I thought about that, racing out of Somerset for the second time in my life. It made me smile. Many of those good memories came during the ride back to New York, making it even more painful. It reminded me of driving away from a funeral. The fine memories of the times you spent with the dead one.

All gone.

I had decided what to do by the time I reached the turnpike. At the next rest area I would pull off, find a telephone book, and start calling different airlines. When was their next plane to Los Angeles?

What airport did it leave from? I had no doubt Lincoln would go home now. His anger at the Meiers had boomeranged on him in the most shocking, unexpected way. What else could he do but punish Lily a double dose now? First make her tell him who his real parents were so he could try to find them . And then... But Lily didn't know. I was sure of that. Didn't even remember where on the road she'd kidnapped him. That information could have easily been found by contacting the police in the area, but neither of us did it. Why? Because she didn't want to know and neither did I, having decided to keep her secret all those years ago for my own selfish reasons.

I despaired, thinking of how great a head start he had on me. He was probably at an airport now, if not already on a plane heading home. I'd ask the airlines that toohow long ago did your last flight to L.A. leave? Would it be possible to find out if a certain Lincoln Fischer was on board? Would they tell you that over the phone? No.

I had to call Lily too. Call and warn her to get out of our house, our life, take our baby girl, run as fast as she could from our son, who was coming because he knew . And he knew because it was my fault. It was all my fault. Everything bad now I made, I caused. Looking too hard two thousand days ago, I should have left it alone and trusted my love and not my suspicions. My fault. Raising this lovely boy all wrong, not giving him what he needed to grow up a good soul. My fault. Giving him all the wrong directions to the right path. My fault. And taking notes!? Keeping a record of my life as a sinful man?

Why? Why had I done these things? You did what you could. You did what you thought was right. No, you did what you thought would save you and Lily and f.u.c.k the rest of the world. That was the truth,wasn't it? f.u.c.k the rest of the world. My fault.

Pa.s.sing trucks and buses, I sped down the fast lane way over the speed limit, thinking how to phrase this impossible phone call to my wife. Lily, he knows. It's my fault. He knows and he's coming to get you. Maybe Greer too. Blame me. No one else but me.

I looked in the rearview mirror and saw an Audi driving up fast behind. Moving over to let him pa.s.s, I slid right back into the lane and tagged along behind him a couple of miles. Lily, Lincoln found out about the Meiers and flew to New Jersey. He read my diaryAnother car appeared in the rearview. I pulled over again. It pounded by, followed by another right after it. Lily, pack a bag for you and Greer...

I rolled the window down. Pack bags for you and Greer I was phrasing that one out when the sound came up on my left. Did I recognize it? Maybe, maybe some part of me did. A whining and clattering of metal that could only be a car with fatal problems sailing too fast down the road toward blowup land or collapse any minute.

Lily, I kept this diary "Hey!" The car was next to me, inches outside my window. "Hey, f.u.c.khead!"

I snapped a look and there was Lincoln at the wheel of the junker, smiling, pointing a gun at me.

"Remember this?" His gun exploded.

I jammed the wheel to the right and braked. My car slewed wildlytoo many things to do at once.

I tried to correct it, but it wouldn't go. A long overpa.s.s loomed. I skidded under it going much too fast.

Steering wheel still pulled to the right, I smacked into a cement wall and sc.r.a.ped down along it forever.

The evil sound of stone tearing metal on and on. Dark. The dark of a tunnel after the brilliant morning light outside. Scraaaaaaaaaaape!

I stopped. Finally it stopped. The car was still under the overpa.s.s in complete shadow. The smell of damp stone and hot rubber. I was all right. Safe!

Before my head cleared beyond that wonder, Lincoln's face was inches away and yelling. "Get out of the f.u.c.king car, Daddy boy!" He must have opened my door because, still confused and terrified by a moment ago, the next thing I knew I felt myself falling out of the car onto the road. My hands. .h.i.t gravel or gla.s.s. Very sharp and painful, it gouged deep. I tried to stand up. The close sound of traffic in a tunnel.

Whomp. Whomp. Whoooosh.

"C'mere, you f.u.c.king hump!" He took me by the ear and marched me forward toward the light.

The morning sun was blinding. Totally disoriented, I didn't try to free myself from his hold even though he was much shorter than me. He kept pinching my ear and, once we'd left the overpa.s.s, pushed me off the shoulder of the road to the gra.s.s embankment behind. The two of us slidstumbled down it till the road was high above us and we were crouched among sticks and wet earth. The traffic noise was all up there.

"Lincoln"

He had the gun in his hand and I recognized it was like the one at home. He had two guns? What was the name? Clock? Crock? I wanted to know the name. It was important to know the name.

He punched me on the temple. Pain and dizziness splashed my face like water. I couldn't believe he'd done it. No one had ever hit anyone in our family. Never.

"Shut up. Remember that day, a.s.shole? Remember that crazy guy driving up next to you and shooting? Remember telling me that story? I love that story! I loved when you told it to me! I was your son and it was one of my father's great stories!" He hit himself on the chest with his gun. Thump thump thump. After the last, he punched me on the jaw with his other fist. Pain. The whomp of a big truck going by overhead and then an angry long car horn. Lincoln's face up so close.

Through my panic and pain, I realized something for the first time. "But there were bullets in his gun that day, weren't there? And you protected me, didn't you, Lincoln? You stopped it from happening.

You were too young to know what was going on, but you still saved me! My G.o.d! I never knew till now!"

He laughed in my face, his spit hit my cheek. "You're so scared you're f.u.c.king crazy, man! So whacked... Protect you? Save you , criminal? Kidnapper! You and that G.o.dd.a.m.ned Lily! Save you?

Know what I want to do to you both? This, f.u.c.ker, this !" He stuck the gun in the air and shot it three times very fast. The pain in my face was hot and pumping but I had to keep clear because within thismoment was the answer. I needed to wipe snot from my nose and chin, but I was afraid he'd take it wrong and think I was trying something. I had to talk to him, tell him what I understood now; understood after seven wrong years.

"Wipe your face, man. Go ahead, do it, for Christ's sake. I don't care. I'm not going to shoot you, yet."

Hands shaking, I tried wiping but couldn't do it right. Disgusted, he jerked my shirt out of my pants and pushed it up across my face. "Come on, come on, get it off." While I did, he started talking again.

"Listen to me, and listen really good, because what I'm gonna tell you, you're not gonna forget the rest of your life. Look at me."

"I can't"

"Look at me, Max!"

I raised my head from the shirt and sawmyself. No Lincoln, myself. This was because I knew now.

"All along you and Lily playing G.o.d, thinking: It's okay we stole him 'cause we're gonna bring him up so wonderfully that he'll be Superman. King of Kings. The champion of the world. But you were wrong ! You can't take a kid away from his family and think it's going to be okay. There's no way he can be okay. Why didn't you give me back when you knew? When you understood what she'd done!"

His voice was a cry.

My face on him changed back to his face, Lincoln's face. Teenage Lincoln's face, so full of hatred for me. I had to tell him what I knew. Had to tell it to him exactly and well so he'd understand and know why it had all happened the way it had. Why Lily took him, why I had gone along with it, why we'd ended up here... How it was out of all our hands.

"Lincoln, can Ican I talk?"

"What?"

"Lincoln, you are my Guardian Angel. Do you understand? That's why it happened. That's why we're here. Why Lily took you, why I met her in the first place."

"What are you talking about? What the h.e.l.l are you saying? What do you mean, 'Guardian Angel'?"

"That's what you are! Angels can come, but you have to deserve them. But I ruined you by not saying anything to Lily back then. See? I kept you from your real parents because I wanted you and your mother so much. I made you live the lie your whole life. I'm so much worse than her. As soon as I found out what she'd done, I should have fixed it. Taken you back to your real family so you could've lived the life you were supposed to."

His face was dismay and confusion but that line went straight into him. He reared back and stuck the gun in my face. "Yes! You should have taken me home! You should have let me live my real life! Do you know what it was like last night, reading those papers? Suddenly knowing your whole life has been one big f.u.c.king fake? Finding about you two and who I really was all those years. All those years you pretended to be my parents? All thisall this stuff at once. Why did I even have to know? Why couldn't I just have lived and not ever found out? My whole life, all you two thought about were yourselves!"

"Lincoln, you're right. Everything you said is right, but listen to me. Let me explain this. It'll help, I swear.

"Even if you and I had never met, you were born my Guardian Angel. Isn't that beautiful? And it's the truth; there really are angels. If you let them be and don't kill them ! But no, I met Lily and that was my end. Because the moment I discovered what she'd done with you, I was supposed to make it right again. You're rightthat was my test, my trial. I had one chance to truly deserve you, but my greed ruined it. Thou shalt not steal. I knew that. Thou shalt not covet. That's why it's all gone bad. It's my fault. I ruined us all. You were such a terrific little boy before I found out, but once I did and did nothing...

That's how you were supposed to be your whole life. But I poisoned you. All the blood's on my hands."

He looked at me with lightning bolts of pure energy and hate flashing, black, flashing across his eyes...

He swung the gun across and hit me on the nose.

"This is no f.u.c.king cartoon, Max! I'm not f.u.c.king 'Paper Clip'! Stop talking s.h.i.t! That crazyf.u.c.king s.h.i.t! I'm not your cartoon. I'm not an angel! Why don't you say the truth! Why don't you say the truth for once in my life!"

I think I could have stopped his arm the next time, reached out fast and blocked it, but I didn't. He hit me again on the cheek, on the throat, on the top of the head. I wanted to lift my arms to keep him away, keep him off, but there was no strength. He hit me again and again until I blacked out. The last thing I remember was he kept saying "Daddy" as he beat me with all his might.

"There once was a very great magician who, having grown old, decided to work his greatest magic by turning a mouse into a beautiful woman. After he had finished his masterpiece, he felt that because she was so exquisite, he had to find her the most powerful being in the world for a husband. After much thought, he went to the sun and asked him to marry this woman. The sun was touched by the offer, but said no because 'there is someone stronger than methe cloud, who covers me when I shine.' The magician thanked him for his honesty and went to the cloud with the same offer. Much to his surprise, the cloud said no too because there was someone even stronger than himthe mountain, whose ragged peaks stop the cloud's movement across the sky. Shaking his head, the magician went next to the mountain but again heard no. 'There's one stronger than even me,' he said. 'It is the mouse, because he can burrow into my side as often as he pleases and I am powerless to stop him.' So at last the magician went home and sadly turned the beautiful young girl back into a mouse so that she could take another mouse for a husband. All things return to their origin."

Finky Linky sang his crazy goodbye song and the show ended. Lincoln turned to me and squinted a disbelieving eye. "A mouse is not the greatest thing in the world. It's not greater than the sun !"

I could feel a great fatherson moral lesson coming on here. I took a deep breath and was about to begin, but when I opened my mouth nothing came out. I could move my jaws and lips but there was no voice in me, not a peep. I cleared my throat but even that made no sound. I tried again. Nothing.

Rubbing my neck, I nodded at him. He was waiting for an answer but his quizzical expression asked if I was playing a joke on him. He began to smile. I tried harder to talk but couldn't. My silence began to scare me. I pushed him off my lap and sat up straighter. I tried again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. I began to panic.

I woke up.

The dream was a recurring one I had had over the years and it would have gotten worse as it invariably did if the pain hadn't woken me. I was conscious but there was only pain. My eyes were all right. I opened them and was not surprised to see an unknown white room around me. After a time it made sense that this was a hospital room. My face felt huge and hot. When I put a tentative hand up and touched it, pain barked back at me to stay away, leave it alone or it would really get me. I said okay, okay, I'll be careful. But I had to know how bad the damage was. I had to know what was there. This pain became a dog in my mind, growling in a corner of this big white room, ready to attack the moment I did the wrong thing. As gently as possible, I touched my face and felt a battlefield of cuts, bruises, swelling. Once sure that was all, there was no more, I slid the hand down and over as much of my body as I could reach and prayed thanks when I felt no casts or heavy bandages. He'd done my face. That must have been enough for him.

I saw a buzzer for the nurse and shakily got hold of it. I moved my head too fast and suddenly the pain dog growled loud.

"Well, h.e.l.lo, Mr. Fischer! You're back on earth with us, huh? How're you feeling?"

"Happy to still be around. Can you tell me what happened? But please go slow, I'm not really here yet."

"Sure. The police found your car all banged up and went lookin' for you. They found you down an embankment and you were unconscious. We thought you might have a bad concussion or a skull fracture along with those cuts, but they did a scan and didn't find anything. You're sounding pretty good now.

What the heck happened out there?"

I sighed to give myself time, then realized a lie wasn't necessary because most of the truth would do for now. I told her a stranger had forced me off the road and at gunpoint made me go over theembankment with him. Once there, he started hitting me until... I couldn't say more and she didn't press it.

"It's so crazy, so scary these days. Sometimes I get scared just going out of the house to buy some milk. My husband told me" She would have gone on, only a state policeman walked into the room and asked if we might be alone for a while. She took off. Sitting down on the chair next to my bed, he took out a notepad.

I told him the same story, and with a few specific questions here and there, he appeared satisfied.

He was particularly interested in what the a.s.sailant looked like. I described a man in his early thirties, nondescript, but with a surprisingly deep voice. I thought it best to add one memorable characteristic so this fantasy attacker sounded more real. No, I had never seen him before. No idea why he would want to hurt me. I said who I was, and when asked why I was in New Jersey, I said business. The cop was a nice guy, friendly and sympathetic. He shook his head often, as if he couldn't believe what had happened.

When I was finished, he asked me to sign a form and said it wouldn't be necessary to meet again unless I had questions. As he was leaving, I touched his arm and asked how long I had been in the hospital.

Checking his watch, he said ten hours. Ten hours! I could barely keep from shouting. Ten hours! What had Lincoln done in that time? All the possibilities were horrible.

Alone again, I eased myself up to the side of the bed and picked up the telephone. It was difficult but I talked the hospital operator into placing a longdistance call to our home in Los Angeles. What time was it there? It didn't matter. The phone rang and rang. Pick it up. Pick up the d.a.m.ned phone!

"h.e.l.lo?"

"h.e.l.lo, Lily? Lily, it's Max"

"Max, Jesus Christ, where are you? It's Mary."

"Who?" I couldn't understand. Why hadn't Lily picked it up?

"Mary. It's me, Mary Poe . Max, for G.o.d's sake, wherever you are, get home. Lincoln's dead, Max. He hung himself. Lily came in and found him. Max, are you there? Do you hear me? Lincoln is dead ."

My clothes were in the closet. There was a mirror on the inside of the closet door with a small lamp over it. I turned it on and looked at myself for the first time in ten hours. My face was as bad as my fingers had said, but I'd seen worselooking people at bus stops in Los Angeles. The pain dog was bellowing as I slowly dressed. I left three hundred dollars on the table next to the bed, along with a note saying if that wasn't enough to send the bill to me in California.

I opened the door to the room, saw no one in the hall, and walked out. Luckily there was a door that opened onto a large garden. Outside smelled of good fresh things and made me want to cry. It was evening. I walked on cobblestones across the garden and then through some high hedges into the hospital parking lot. A taxi had dropped someone off at the front door and was just pulling away when I flagged it down and got in.

"Hey, you're lucky. I was almost out of here. Where to?" The driver looked in the rearview mirror and his eyes widened. "Holy cow! What happened to you?"

"Car accident. Would you please take me to Newark Airport?"

"You sure you're all right? I mean, it's okay to travel and all?"

"Yes, please just go to the airport."

Hanged himself. It was absolutely the crudest, most brilliant thing he could have done. What had he said back there? "I'm no cartoon." Did he say that? Yes, something like that. But now this and it was so hideously perfect that nothing in the world could have been more effective. I was certain he had done it somewhere in the house where Lily would have been sure to find him. Lily or Greer.