“Yes,” he says. “I think I do.”
I reach for his hand, and together we walk.
Epilogue
Five Years Later
This house is not my house.It’s smaller, much smaller, and the kitchen is all wrong.
“Are you sure?” I say. “That we’re in the right place?”
The producer told me her name a few minutes ago, but I forget it now. Something harmless, I think, like Lucy. “I’m sure,” she says, and guides me to the kitchen table, which is similar to my kitchen table, but definitely not my kitchen table.
She pulls out a chair and helps me sit. It’s hard to keep balance with the ankle cuffs, especially the way I keep looking around, getting distracted by the details. The production crew members are rushing past, setting up lights and screens. I’ve been told we’re running behind schedule.
“A flower vase makes no sense here,” I say. “And these muffins—who chose these?”
A young man dressed in black and standing a few feet away looks at me, then the muffins, suddenly nervous. “I did so much research,” he says, to everyone in the room. “In the pioneer days, they made this exact recipe, so I just figured—”
Quietly, Lucy says, “They never had a historically accurate household, John. I told you that in last week’s email.”
He looks truly panicked now. “No one told me not to make the muffins!”
“We never made muffins,” I say loudly. “We madebiscuits.And this isn’t the right house, I’m telling you, this layout is all wrong!”
Lucy sends the boy away with a sharp look, and then she turns back to me. “Natalie, can I ask you a question? When we were driving up to the house, did you look out the window?”
I hesitate, then say, “Yes.”
“So you saw when we turned onto your old dirt road?”
I’ve always hated games, and this feels like a game. “Yes.”
“And you saw the mountains and the big red barn?”
“Yes.”
“So help me understand: How could thisnotbe your house?”
I open my mouth and close it. Suddenly I feel unmoored.
“Do you see how I might be confused, Natalie?”
“Well, yes,” I say. “But—”
Then I am saved by a commotion: Reena Magliotti walks through the front door in a flurry of earth tones and clacking heels, a cashmere coat shrugging off into the arms of an assistant, revealing a silk blouse that has, I notice approvingly, not a single wrinkle to be found. I watch her as she speaks to a series of crew members, her gaze carrying wondrously around until finally it lands on me. “Natalie,” she says. “My God.” She looks—yes. Gobsmacked.
Suddenly I am nineteen years old again, pregnant with my first child, and Reena is hungover, standing before me with that same astonished look on her face. Then I blink again, and I am fifty-five years old, covered in worldly shackles. A few literal ones too.
“Reena,” I say. Instinctually, like the raising of a moat to shore up for battle, the corners of my lips lift.
She’s a regional anchorwoman now, after years of climbing slowly up the media ladder. She lives in Chicago. She is far from a household name.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” she says. “I can’t believe I’m here.” She looks around again, taking in the muffins, the cameras, the lights; the flower stems strewn across the cutting board, the jar of sourdough starter placedjust soby the window. “I think this might be the strangest day of my life,” she says.
“Not me,” I say happily. “I’ve had much stranger days. But Reena, we have a problem.”
Her eyes flit back to me. “What’s that?”
